Parenting Blog

My Aha Parenting moment this week came during a dinner party.  A conversation about the recent furor in the New York TImes and on NPR about Alfie Kohn and timeouts led to a discussion of discipline methods, including spankings. I felt compelled to point out that both timeouts and spanking are punishments, not discipline.  Discipline means “to guide” and there are more effective ways to guide kids than punishment.  As always in these social conversations where no one has hired me as their parenting expert, I tried to walk the line between saying what I think --  punishment gets in the way of raising cooperative kids -- and making other parents wrong.  I do understand, after all, how a parent can feel at the end of her rope and use a timeout.  READ POST

My Aha Parenting moment this week came when a talk I was scheduled to give about parenting was canceled.  Apparently one of the decision-makers saw on my website that I suggest parents use positive discipline, rather than punishment.  As is evident on my website, I see timeouts as just another form of punishment – a mild one, maybe, and certainly better than hitting or screaming at kids, but punishment nonetheless.  And since I think punishment gets in the way of raising wonderful kids, I advise against it.  Long story short, my talk was canceled.

I’m not alone in coming under attack for my views.  Alfie Kohn, who is a very well known expert on education and the author of 11 books, made a well-reasoned case against timeouts in last week’s New York Times, citing several recent research studies.  Not surprisingly, this evoked a tremendous furor from parents.  Kohn was interviewed on Takeaway, a morning radio show, where the hosts and the other guest ganged up on him.  I know Mr. Kohn can take care of himself, but I want to thank him publicly for shaking up our assumptions.  In fact, he's agreed to join us on my radio show on November 11.

Why the furor?  Parenting is tough.  Risky, because the stakes are so high, and what if your technique turns out to be ill-informed -- and your kid to be a mess?  Truthfully, there are no guarantees, no proven answers.  Unless you’re a statistician, it’s hard to make sense of the research and know if the evidence really supports a particular theory.  

But as I watched all the outraged comments from parents, I realized that part of what’s getting in our way is nothing but our conditioning.  We believe that children will behave badly unless we enforce punishments.  Why?  Our parents believed it, our society believes it, it's part of our view of the world -- almost invisible because we take it for granted.

This is an ancient view.  One hundred years ago, most children were routinely whipped, even for minor infractions, because we assumed that’s how children learned. For some parents, physical punishments is still essential to teach kids right from wrong.  Other folks wouldn’t dream of spanking their child but use milder punishments when the child misbehaves, like “consequences” and timeouts.

If this is the only weapon in our toolkit, the idea of losing it can be very threatening.  What will we do to get compliance?  

There, are however, many parents like me, who have never given a timeout or any punishment at all, and whose children have grown into wonderful teenagers.  They’ve never needed to be threatened into compliance.  Why?  Because they WANT to make good choices, the choices we've guided them towards over the years.  That’s who they are.  READ POST

Webster’s dictionary defines Quality as “excellence”.  So when we talk about quality time with our child, what is it that is excellent?   READ POST

My Aha Parenting Moment this week was saying goodbye to my son, who is headed off to college for the first time. I’ve already done some crying and grieving this summer as I looked ahead to this moment, so I’m happy to say that I didn’t burst into tears.  I want him to head into his future whole-heartedly, loving me and knowing I’m always there for him, but not thinking he has to take care of me, or that somehow his pursuit of happiness compromises mine.

I did hug him fiercely.  “My little baby!” I said.  “Look how great you grew up!”
“Too fast.” He said.
I had to agree.  Way too fast.

I spoke to a friend, who dropped her son off at college last week.  “He was so present and loving and sad to say goodbye” she said.  “But now when I call him, he’ll barely give me the time of day.”

And that’s part of the dance of independence too, right?   Our kids NEED to believe in their ability to make it on their own.  They don’t WANT to connect with parents too much when they’re away from us, or it awakens the feelings of neediness and dependency they’re trying hard to overcome.  That’s also why teenagers don’t want to take our advice.  They need to feel like they can run their  own lives.  So when we “over-parent” our teens, we may see them making better choices, but it can cost them in self-esteem, the confidence that they can find their own way through life’s challenges.  

It’s not really so different from the stage all parents of toddlers are familiar with:  “I’ll do it myself!”  Who cares if they do it exactly right, if they get the satisfaction and the practice of moving toward independence?  Of course, the stakes are higher with the choices teens are making.  Which gives us all the more reason to start letting them practice when they're toddlers.

This is the first time it really hit me that parenting is Planned Obsolesence, where we do ourselves out of a job.  Realizing your 18 year old is beginning his new life separate from his parents makes it a pretty profound Aha! Moment.  We give birth to these utterly dependent creatures.  Our job is to meet their needs in each developmental phase so they can progress to the next phase.  If we do our job right, they start meeting their own needs by interacting with the world, without us at their side.  AND, as my son said, it happens WAY too fast.      READ POST

My Aha! Parenting moment this week started with a radio show I heard – a replay of Ira Glass’s This American Life, about the Harlem Children’s Zone and its Baby College.  The founder, Geoffrey Canada, reported on research about the biggest difference between childhood development in families with “professional parents” vs. those with “welfare parents. ” Do you think it was social-economic position? Nope. Race? No. Geographic locale? Uh-uh.  Canada says the biggest difference is the number of words spoken to the child between the ages of 0 and 3.

Kids with professional parents hear approximately 20-million more words than those whose parents are on welfare before they’re three years old.

Canada and his team at baby college teach parents to talk to their kids, and read them books, in an effort to improve their eventual school performance.  So far, it’s working.

But what’s also interesting is that the kind of language the children hear can have a HUGE impact as well.

In families with professional parents, the children typically hear 500,000 encouraging words between the ages of 0 and 3. And they only hear 80,000 discouraging words.

On the flip side, families with welfare parents typically hear only 80,000 encouraging words and more than 200,000 discouraging words.

So the Baby college folks are trying to change parents’ behavior with their kids to help them be more encouraging, as well.  But these moms haven’t, of course, been raised this way, and expressing encouragement and respect to their kids doesn’t come naturally.  On the radio report, most of the moms interviewed said they believe kids need to be “popped” to make them behave. Hopefully, their experience with baby college is changing that.

This week, my friend Melanie is visiting me with her 15 month old son, Ilan.  Melanie came to live with us when she was 18, to be our aupair and take care of our then six month old baby.  She was supposed to stay for eight months, but she stayed three years with us, then moved out on her own to continue college.  Now, more than ten years later,  she’s a special ed teacher with a resource room and a baby of her own.

Listening to Melanie with Ilan is like being at Baby College.  We’re at the beach, and he’s dumping sand on my dog, Taffy.  Melanie shows Ilan that the dog doesn’t like having sand thrown at her.  Ilan, at 18 months, has more curiosity and exuberance than he doess empathy.  He persists.  But then he misses, and the sand goes next to the dog.  “That’s great, Ilan! Thanks for putting the sand NEXT to Taffy!  She likes that!”

When I listen to Melanie, I can see how parents can convert those discouraging words into encouraging words, adding up to 500,000 by the time they’re three.  I think Ilan may have heard that many encouraging words this week.  “Thank you, Ilan, for helping me clean up”  when he picks up one block.  “Good job, Ilan!” when he cooperates in putting his pants on.

But you know what?  I know lots of 15 month olds who are already oppositional and tantrumming. Not Ilan.  He’s still totally cooperative. Even distractible, happily waving bye to breakable objects when his mom moves him away.   It’s pretty clear that Ilan’s parents would never consider “popping” him to make him behave. It’s also clear they won’t ever need to.

I realized that Melanie, Geoffrey Canada at BabyCollege, and the guest on my radio show today, Sandy Blackard, have a lot in common.  They all have the answer to these questions:

1. How can I get my kid to behave?
2. How can I build a close relationship with my child?
3. How can I insure my kid will have good self-esteem?
4. How can I increase my child's intelligence?
5. How can I teach my kids to get along with each other and solve their own problems?

Because there is a parenting strategy that works for ALL of these questions.  Geoffrey Canada calls it encouraging words.  Melanie calls it good parenting. Sandy Blackard, our guest today,  calls it “Say what you see.”  As in,

"You're choosing to do your homework right away before you play. Great choice, I'm impressed."
"Oooh.  The water is cold on your feet!"
"You're using lots of blue that painting."
"You pushed the button and the light came on!"
“I love when you help me by putting the groceries in the cart like that”
"Two kids want the seat.  How can you two work this out?"

Why does this simple strategy work?  Our child feels seen, heard, understood, recognized, empowered, valued.  Positive choices are rewarded with attention. We connect.  Sometimes, that's all it takes.    READ POST

My Aha! Parenting moment this week happened on the beach.  I live in New York City.  I'm not a city person, but that’s where my husband’s work is, so that’s where we live.  The whole year long I wait for August, when I’m lucky enough to spend the month on an island off the coast of NY.  I write, my husband comes out on weekends, and the kids work as counselors at the summer camp where they were once campers. 

Every morning I get up, get the kids fed, and take the dog to the beach.  I do some of my best thinking on these daily walks, and I always come back happy, feeling completely blessed.  I also take a plastic shopping bag, which I fill with the trash I come across on our walk.  Most of this is plastic balloons, plastic water bottles, plastic bags, or other plastic that washes in with the tide, so I shudder to think how much plastic there is in the ocean.  I never find beach glass anymore, just beach plastic.

So why is this an Aha! parenting moment?

Well, I was thinking about why I do this.  The beach is pretty empty, so no one really notices what I'm doing, and those who do may well assume I'm a bit nuts.  My little bag of trash every day is hardly going to cleanse the ocean.  So does it really matter?  Why bother?

What I realized is that I do this for my kids.  Yes, so they’ll have a cleaner ocean to swim in.  But also as an act of faith.  An example that our every action matters.  That even when a positive action seems invisible, seems hopeless, it always matters to do the right thing. I want my kids to know that.  READ POST

My Aha! Parenting moment this week came when my almost 14 year old daughter had some friends over for a sleepover.  Now, this was the second night in a row of sleepovers, which is not something we normally do.  I agreed reluctantly, after extracting several promises from my daughter, including her reassurance that the girls would have the lights off and actually try to go to sleep at 11pm. Not only did they have to get up for summer camp at 7:30am, but I personally wanted to be in bed at 11!  I knew one of the girls likes to stay up late at her own house, so I made a big deal about this, pointing out that if they wanted to stay up late, I would recommend they sleep at their own houses.

The next day, my daughter shared with me that the other two girls had wanted to wait until I went to bed and then get up and sneak outside.  My daughter nixed it, pointing out that she had an agreement with me.  One of the other girls -- and by the way, these girls spend a lot of time at my house, and I had made the agreement clear to them as well -- said "You won't do it just because your Mom said No?  Who cares what she wants? Why would you just do what your parents want?"  Alice answered "Because I want to!"

And that was the Aha Moment.  Plenty of kids DON'T want to do what their parents want them to, particularly by the time they're 14.  And of course Alice has plenty of times when she wants something different than I do, which can lead to long discussions about why she should be allowed to do something I'm reluctant to permit.  This sleepover, in fact, is a good example of a time when I decided to allow it -- but only after we agreed on certain terms.

Of course Alice wanted to keep those terms.  She knows our whole relationship is based on trust, and our relationship is one of the most important things in her life.  If she had broken our agreement, and I had found out, I would have been terribly wounded, and she knew that.  At core, Alice keeps her agreements with me for the same reason I keep mine with her -- we would never intentionally hurt each other.  We tend our relationship, we nurture it and make repairs when it frays, and we would no more betray each other than we'd set fire to our house.

The interesting thing to me is that the girl in question has told Alice she and her mother have a terrible relationship.  Clearly, she wouldn't think twice about violating an agreement with her mom.  And yet says that Alice is so lucky to have "the best Mom in the world."  She clearly can' even imagine the kind of relationship Alice has with me, and the fact that it isn't about having a great mom, but about working together to have a great relationship.    READ POST