Parenting Blog

"Do you run through each day on the fly?  When you ask "How are you?" do you hear the reply?
When the day is done do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head?
You'd better slow down. Don't dance so fast. Time is short. The music won't last.

Ever told your child, "We'll do it tomorrow"  and in your haste, not see his sorrow?
When you run so fast to get somewhere, you miss half the fun of getting there
When you worry and hurry through your day, it’s like an unopened gift...Thrown away.
Life is not a race.  Do take it slower.
Hear the music
Before the song is over."
-- Dr. David L. Weatherford

Most people with grown children say they wish they'd been closer to their kids.  Most parents of teens say they wish they'd had more "important" conversations with their kids when they were younger and more willing to listen to their parents' views.

It's never too late to repair and rejuvenate your relationship with your child.  And it's never too early to start building the kind of relationship with your child that you'll both treasure for the rest of your lives.

How?

1. Place a premium on relationships in your family.  Make it an inviolate rule to turn off your cell phone when you're with your kids.  I promise the world will not fall apart and you can check your messages later.  Have dinner at the table where you can talk with each other rather than in front of the TV.  Make Friday night into Family Game night and have fun together instead of sitting in a darkened living room or movie theater watching a screen.

2. Every child needs "connection time" with each parent, each and every day.  With toddlers, connection time is floortime, when you get down on the floor with them, in their space and in sync with their energy level, and connect in their world, whether it's building a train track or playing pretend.  When they're ten, connection time will probably take the form of snuggling with them at bedtime while you chat about their day at school or their favorite song.  The point is to give each child at least fifteen minutes of unstructured, non-directive time to connect physically and share what's on their mind, every single day. (Those nice things you do with them like bake cookies or help with homework are structured time, so they're great but don't count toward connection time.)

3. Remember the 5 to 1 ratio.  Try as we might, all of us sometimes have less than optimal interactions with our children. Research shows that each interaction that leaves anyone feeling bad requires five positive interactions to restore a positive valence to the relationship. These can be little – a warm smile or a pat on the shoulder – as long as you make sure they have a positive impact.   READ POST

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

"No amount of 'parenting skills' can make up for the lack of a close parent-child relationship. Kids accept our guidance because of who we are to them. Without that relationship, it’s very hard to parent. A close bond not only makes our kids want to please us, it gives us access to our natural parenting know-how. Welcome to the work of parenting.  But it's where the rewards are, too." -- Dr. Laura Markham  READ POST

"The truth is that so many of the parenting techniques we have used or that were used on us as children are actually based in fear, not love.  They are fear-based techniques disguised as love.  Motivating children to behave or to respond appropriately to parental requests using sticker charts, point systems, consequences, or removal of privileges is about fear, not love."  -- Heather T. Forbes

We usually justify fear-based parenting practices by saying that kids need to learn lessons.  But kids already know what the right thing to do is.  If they don't, then teaching is in order, not punishment. 

If your child knows what's right but doesn't choose to do it, then what's stopping him?  Often, disconnection.  When kids feel connected to their parents, they find it easier to regulate themselves. What's more, they WANT to choose what will please the parent. They feel good, and they make choices that will keep them feeling good.

That's why fear-based parenting techniques don't work.  They make kids feel worse about themselves, and more disconnected from us.

When in doubt, take a deep breath and connect.  Later, when everyone's calm, there will be plenty of time to teach.  READ POST

"You will always be your child's favorite toy."  -- Vicki Lansky

Anyone at your house a bit bored this summer?  I hope so.  If not, your kids may be over-scheduled or spending too much time being entertained by electronics.  All kids deserve the experience of a lazy summer afternoon empty of obligation and full of possibility. 

But if your kids just can't seem to find a way to occupy themselves without resorting to technology, consider offering them an hour with the guaranteed favorite toy of any child under the age of 12:  A parent. 

The fun, attentive presence of a parent always fills kids' deeper hungers.  Often you can use that time to get your child interested in a project that will occupy them for hours.  But even if you just use that hour to read in a hammock or play in the sprinkler, you'll find your child is a lot happier and able to engage himself for the rest of the day.    READ POST

"If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much." -- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Daily life blurs by so fast that sometimes it's only when we step outside it for a vacation that we realize just how fast our children are growing up.  That happened for me last week on a family bike trip.  Our son, now 18 and leaving for college in the fall, was our leader and navigator.  Our daughter, who celebrated her 14th birthday on the trip, proved a more capable rider than I was.  At dinner, I would listen to their spirited conversation and somehow see their three year old selves twinkling inside the funny, good-natured teens they've become. How did this happen?

It's a cliche because it's true: Children grow up fast.  Here we are, just trying to get dinner on the table and buy another pair of shoes to replace the ones they've outgrown, and our kids are rapidly becoming who they'll be for the rest of their lives.

The worst part is that our job is basically done by the time they're teens. It's never too late to improve things with our kids, but who they are and how much influence we have on them depends mostly on how we've related to them in the first decade of their lives, and primarily the first five years.

I wish someone had told me when my toddlers were being difficult that everything I did, every word I said, was helping shape them... and how short that opportunity was. I would have done some things differently.

And you? Anything you want to do differently before your child gets any older?  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