Parenting Blog

Guest Blog
by Jill Starishevsky 
My Body Belongs to Me

Listen to Jill Starishevsky live on Dr. Laura Markham's radio show!
Wednesday February 17
MyExpertSolution.com/audio (scroll down to click on "Listen live to our experts")
(9amPT/10amMT/11amCT/NoonET)

Check out Jill Starishevsky's video on Utube.



Sexual abuse is a risk for every child.  One out of four girls and one out of six boys are sexually abused before age 18.  Here are some tips parents can use to educate their kids to prevent sexual abuse. 

1. Use a story as a tool to begin a conversation with your child.
Address the topic periodically to reinforce the message.

2. Teach children the correct terms for their body parts.  Enable them to
use language that will make them comfortable talking to you.

3.  Ask the child:  "What would you do if someone touched you on your
_______? ...Who would you tell? ... Why is it important to tell? ...What would you
do if the person said it was “our secret”?"  Encourage the child to say
they would tell a parent or a teacher right away because it’s their body.

4. Discuss the importance of the rule “no secrets.”  Put this rule into
practice : If someone, even a grandparent, says something to your child
like, “I’ll get you an ice cream later, but it will be our secret,” firmly
but politely say, “We don’t do secrets in our family.”  Then turn to your
child and repeat,  “We don’t do secrets.  We can tell each other
everything.”

5.  Keep in mind, especially when reading the book in a group setting, that
you may be reading to a child who has already been touched in some way and
is keeping it a secret.  Be sensitive and avoid making the child feel
guilty for not having told right away.  Convey that it is OK for the child
to tell someone even if he or she has been keeping it a secret for a long
time.

6.  Encourage your children to tell you about things that happen to them
that make them feel scared, sad or uncomfortable.  If children have an
open line of communication, they will be more inclined to alert you to
something inappropriate early on.

7. Encourage your children to trust their feelings – if something doesn’t
feel right, they should get away as soon as possible and tell you about
it.

_________________________________________________________________
Jill Starishevsky is an Assistant District Attorney in New York City,
thepoemlady.com, where she pens personalized pieces. Her mission to protect children, along with her penchant for poetry, inspired My Body Belongs to Me (www.MyBodyBelongstoMe.com), a book to teach children if someone touches them inappropriately, to tell a parent or teacher right away.  A mother of two, Jill is also founder of HowsMyNanny.com, a service that enables parents to purchase a license plate for their child's stroller so the public can report positive or negative nanny observations.  Through her book and her work at HowsMyNanny.com, Jill is working to open the lines of communication in order to keep children safe.

Guest Blog by Laurie A. Couture
author of
Instead of Medicating and Punishing

Listen live to Laurie A. Couture on Dr. Laura Markham's radio show!
Wednesday February 3
MyExpertSolution.com
(9amPT/10amMT/11amCT/NoonET)

Healing Our Families in an Industrialized Society through Attachment Parenting and Natural Education

Our culture has moved far away from nature’s intended way for us to parent and care for our children. Unfortunately, over many centuries, as the world has become increasingly more industrialized, people have lost touch with their natural parenting instincts. Each generation is parented in a way that causes distress, pain, depression and anger. This in turn causes each new generation to pass down harmful ways of parenting that reflect their hurt, distress and resentment.

Nature has built alarm signals into every animal to alert parents, companions and predators that the animal is experiencing or sensing a need, a threat or a danger. In nature, animal parents instinctively respond immediately to the alarms of their young. A human infant’s alarm signal is crying, which is intended to alert parents to a need. As children grow older, their alarm signals become more sophisticated when their needs aren’t met and often include behaviors that parents find disturbing.

Some of the alarms of children:

• Directly telling us they have a need
• Asking us to help them meet a need
• Asking nicely
• Asking rudely
• Crying
• Whining
• Yelling
• Screaming
• Outbursting
• Pouting
• Tantruming
• Swearing
• Withdrawing
• Clinging
• Defensiveness
• Sarcasm
• Hyperactivity
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Raging
• Distractibility
• Fidgeting
• Squirming
• Oppositionality
• Harassing
• Defiance
• Refusing
• Disrespect
• Threatening
• Aggression and violence towards people and animals (verbal, physical, sexual)
• Destructiveness (vandalism, breaking things, stealing, etc.)
• Self destructiveness (self mutilation, substance use, sexual promiscuity, bad relationships, suicidal gestures, etc.)
• Challenging
• Passive compliance

The distress cries and acting-out behaviors of youth, like the cries of an infant and the behavioral cues of animals, are nature-based alarm signals. Their alarm signals warn us that something in the child’s body, immediate circumstance, life or environment is distressing to them physically or emotionally and is threatening harm to their optimal development.

When we fully understand that concerning behaviors are the natural alarm signals of children, we will be less likely to, in good conscience, punish, medicate or force children into compliance with distressing, unnatural circumstances. We will begin to realize more and more as we look around our society, that from the hyperactive toddler to the rageful 17 year old, punishment, force, bribes, manipulation and medication do not make distressed children happy, cooperative or compassionate; nor do those reactions fill the voids and satiate the needs children are trying to alert us to with their alarm signals.

The recipe for a happy child: Secure parent-child attachment through meeting our children’s needs

Children of all ages require a secure parent-child attachment in order to thrive. A secure-parent child attachment is vital to a child’s optimal functioning in all areas of their development. It is the blueprint and foundation of a child’s life long physical, emotional, social, intellectual, sexual, spiritual and moral functioning. It is the blueprint and foundation of a child’s lifelong happiness and ability to cope with life and relationships.

A secure parent-child attachment develops as the result of parents meeting children’s basic physical and emotional needs, and then higher level needs, from infancy until young adulthood. This natural function of parenting is part of the human attachment cycle:

The child feels a physical or emotional need;

The child expresses the need using a signal such as crying, showing, asking or telling;

The parent meets the child’s need as soon as possible;

Every time the child’s needs are met, the child feels calm, satiated, homeostasis, joy and trust in the parent.

As a result of this unbroken cycle, secure attachment builds and develops.

If parents usually do not meet their child’s needs or usually delay in doing so, their child will feel distress, rage, grief, anxiety and distrust in the parents. Every unmet need builds and builds and an insecure or disrupted attachment develops. When a child suffers a disrupted attachment, emotional and/or behavioral problems may show up immediately or may slowly begin to surface over a period of years.

Parenting and educating the way nature intended

People in peaceful tribal cultures and non-human mammals are the natural models that can teach us how nature intended us to parent. In tribal cultures where violence is very low and mental illness is reportedly a rarity, people are found to parent in line with the rest of our closest mammal relatives. The most critical features of natural parenting are:

• Constant skin-to-skin contact and non-stop carrying of the infant for the first 12 months of life;
• Breastfeeding for at least two and a half years and optimally, up to four and ½ years;
• Co-sleeping with infants and young children;
• Responding to the physical and emotional needs of children all through childhood;
• High levels of physical affection, emotional connection and cuddling through out childhood;
• Nonviolent, democratic discipline and guidance;
• Strong family and community relationships
• Strong family and community modeling of respectful, compassionate, interdependent (everyone doing their part for the benefit of the whole) behavior;
• Natural education through play, exploration, imitation, self-directed learning, physical activity and being an active part of the community; and
• Allowing children the freedom to develop, learn and mature at their own pace.

Many of our mammal relatives show similar ways of parenting, especially mammals that carry their young or have frequent physical contact with them, such as bonobos, gorillas, elephants and dolphins.

As children grow through life, they face certain developmental tasks at each phase of their life. A secure parent-child attachment and natural education helps them resolve and complete their developmental tasks to an optimal level, without being rushed or forced.

School and day care harms secure parent-child attachment

One of the most life-changing disruptions to the parent-child relationship is when children are placed in day care, preschool and grade school. The conditions of traditional schools are often harmful:

To the parent-child attachment relationship,
To democracy,
To a child’s natural development,
To intellectual development and creativity,
To the child’s body and health,
To social development, and
To emotional and behavioral stability.

Day care and preschool separates children from mothers at the age when it is critical to brain development that young children are with their families. Older children, through late adolescence are often unhappy, bored, frustrated and mentally exhausted in school. They have little time for the high-energy physical activity, exploration, inventiveness and play that they need for optimal brain development. Homework further takes children’s time away from their own interests and from family and friends. Additionally, many children are negatively influenced by their school peers and pull away from their parents at younger and younger ages.

But isn’t school good for children?

Almost everything about the “one size fits all” environment of traditional school is opposite to what nature intended for a child’s development. Some of the reasons why traditional school is harmful to children’s natural development are:

Traditional schools are based on controlling large groups of people so they all do the same thing;
Traditional school’s structure and curriculum are not in line with children’s developmental or learning needs at any age;
Public schools are cutting the very means by which children learn and find joy: Play, recess, art, music, drama, fun events, field trips and hands-on activities;
Traditional schools do not take into consideration that children’s primary way of learning is through play and exploration. Schools primarily focus on forcing children to sit and listen;

• Traditional school does not allow children to direct their own learning based on interests, talents, passions and abilities;
• Traditional school labels children who cannot conform as "learning disabled" or "behavioral problems";
• Traditional school is responsible for thousands of children being prescribed drugs for their exuberance, boredom or a developmentally inappropriate learning environment;
• Traditional school regiments children's basic physical needs (food, water, elimination, physical activity and rest) and fails to allow children to respond to their own needs;
• Almost half of the states in the USA still permit teachers to legally assault children with paddles in public school;
• Traditional school isolates children from their families and communities;
• Children are forced to do homework after being confined for six or more hours in school;
• Homework further isolates children from family time, play time, social time and time for pursuing one’s own interests;
• Standardized exams are designed to measure how well a child tests and how well a child can recall isolated facts. This does not demonstrate a child’s knowledge, intellect, experience, creativity or moral development;
• Learning is considered to be about "getting the right answer" rather than about the process of how to ask questions and where to find answers;
• Traditional school allows children no power, causing children to isolate themselves into exclusive groups or cliques in order to establish a false sense of power;
• Traditional school’s control-based practices offer little opportunity for children’s wants, wishes, ideas and needs to be expressed, leading some to rage, rebellion and revenge;
• Traditional school is an outdated institution based on the factory work ethic of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s; and
• Traditional school has refused to evolve to meet the creative and intellectual needs of children.

There are many joyful alternatives to traditional school which often inspire children to reach learning potentials and excellence far in excess of most traditionally schooled peers. Alternatives include:

Unschooling (child-led curriculum),
Homeschooling,
Democratic schools (which are run as democracies),
Montessori schools,
Waldorf schools,
Private schools that respect play, outdoor time, children’s natural development and joy in learning,
Public charter schools (that focus on the arts and play)
Virtual (online) public or private schools,
Independent study or apprenticeships,
Early college

Our everyday life causes emotional and behavioral problems

Constantly, parents are conditioned to accept and live with so many beliefs, trends, habits, routines and practices that seem harmless but are actually harmful to children’s natural development. These include:

• The way children are seen as property and as less-than-human by our culture compared to how adults are seen;
  
• The way parents and schools teach and model violence, domination and inequality to children by punishing them, speaking to them disrespectfully, using control tactics with them and dictating what they will do, where they will be, how they must act and what they must think for their entire childhoods;
• The self-centered, materialistic, academic-obsessed, work-obsessed, sex-obsessed, money-obsessed, media-obsessed and violence-accepting values parents and the culture model for children about how to live; and
• The way parents substitute themselves with all types of distractions that don’t fill children’s needs, such as day care, school, school sports teams, TV, video games, cell phones, the Internet, designer clothing and putting peers and material objects ahead of family.

These beliefs, trends and practices also include forcing youth to grow up in ways that are not appropriate to their development and failing to allow youth to develop and grow naturally.

Child trauma and PTSD

Many children in our culture suffer symptoms of trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from distressing and frightening treatment such as physical punishment, and severe abuse and neglect. Trauma affects all areas of a child’s development and actually rewires the child’s brain, causing emotional problems that may be misdiagnosed. Trauma is believed to be stored in parts of the brain that prevent therapy, maturity, learning and insight from healing it, causing symptoms to last for decades. A special kind of therapy, called EMDR, can help heal trauma.

Examples of trauma:

• Difficult birth
• Infant left to scream in incubator after birth
• Circumcision
• Parents failing to respond to their infant’s cries immediately
• Crib sleeping
• Child left alone at night
• Having basic needs ignored or denied
• Physical abuse, including “spanking”, “smacking”, “paddling” or rough handling of a child
• Sexual abuse
• Emotional abuse
• Neglect of physical and emotional needs
• Abandonment
• Being left in day care
• Being forced to go to school
• Lack of support in upsetting situation, injury, illness or other trauma
• Out-of-home placement (foster care, group home, juvenile boot camp or detention center)
• Loss of parent or loved one
• Death of parent or loved one
• Witnessing domestic violence
• Witnessing any type of violence or attack on a person or animal
• Peer harassment
• Being the victim of racist or derogatory remarks about one’s nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation or appearance
• Pain or illness
• Born substance addicted
• Hospitalization
• Homelessness
• Seeing frightening, violent or sexualized TV shows, movies, games or websites

Extreme breaks in attachment: Foster care, institutional facilities and adoption

Children who have been adopted or who live in orphanages, foster homes, institutions and programs have suffered extreme attachment disruption and often have severe emotional and behavioral problems as a result. These are the children who our culture has failed the most, as they are some of the most damaged and hurting people in our societies.

Our children do not have brain disorders— Our culture is disordered!

Most children in our culture who act out their distress are misdiagnosed with mental illnesses and brain disorders such as ADHD, learning disabilities, bipolar disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. They are often forced to take powerful, mind-altering drugs once they are diagnosed. However, most of the symptoms that these children are expressing are actually symptoms of a disrupted attachment, a developmentally inappropriate educational environment and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Although our culture views these children as “brain disordered”, it is actually our culture that is disordered. Diagnosing and medicating children does not heal the causes of their distress. The symptoms that children show are actually natural responses to an unnatural and intolerable life circumstances!

Repairing attachment and healing trauma

It is possible for parents to repair attachment and heal trauma with children of all ages! Basic principles of healing, such as physical affection, empathizing and showing compassion to our children, plus getting help for ourselves, are necessary parts of repairing attachment and trauma. Other necessities include:

• Attachment parenting (Meeting a child's holistic needs when the child expresses them);
• Instilling family principles, self discipline and responsibility through respectful guidance and strong modeling;
• Learning nonviolent forms of emotional expression and communication with children such as Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (NVC) model or Naomi Aldort’s S.A.L.V.E. formula;
• Finding alternatives to traditional schooling such as unschooling, homeschooling, democratic schools, Montessori schools, Waldorf schools, early college or private schools that respect play, children’s development and joy in learning;
• EMDR treatment to heal trauma;
• Neurofeedback to retrain the brain;
• Natural attachment therapy to help repair insecure attachment;
• Holistic and body-centered treatments to heal imbalances (EFT, homeopathy, etc.); and
• Learning about the dangers of diagnosing and medicating children’s behavior.
• Re-parenting children with severe attachment disruption.

Even children who have been adopted or children who suffer from severe attachment disruption or Reactive Attachment Disorder can heal and grow to attach strongly to their parents! Parents must make a permanent commitment to their children, secure a support system for themselves and find an attachment specialist, to start this very challenging process.

Parents must be willing to provide their children with re-parenting experiences that meet their children’s unmet early developmental needs, including intense physical affection. Parents must have a strong set of family principles in place, and an understanding of how to use consequences and restitution so that they are not punishing their children. In order to help their children develop emotional stability, tools for nonviolent emotional expression can be learned and practiced by every family member. Adoptive parents and parents of children with severe attachment disruption should expect severe testing behaviors and relapse cycles as children grow to deeper and deeper levels of attachment.

Healing our culture now

Our culture is the collective entity of the beliefs and actions of generations of human beings, including ourselves, who have diverged from natural ways of living and parenting. Our culture is truly mentally ill and “brain” disordered! However, a giant bottle of Adderoll, Celexa or Risperdol isn’t what our culture needs.

Our culture is saturated by violence and anger, leading to disrespect for other human beings, disrespect for other living creatures and disrespect for our own natural environment. Our culture is consumed with shame about sexuality and the human body, leading to rigid, uptight bans on sexuality on one hand and a relentless obsession and adolescent-like mockery of it on the other hand. Each generation passes this sickness of violence, shame and rage onto the next generation, creating materialism, self-obsession, money obsession, work obsession, academic obsession, substance obsession, media obsession and war obsession. More programs, prisons, schools, rules, medications, laws and punishments will not stop it. We must start by raising human beings to think and feel differently.

In order for our culture to heal itself, parents, professionals and law makers must prioritize healing our children and our young adults rather than labeling, punishing, medicating, confining and incarcerating them. As citizens, we all have a responsibility to take part in demanding that mental health professionals, social workers, doctors, scientists, our state’s human service agencies and our state legislators prioritize:

1. Meeting all children’s needs now;
2. Healing the damage already done to children; and
3. Helping and mentoring young adults with trauma histories in order to prevent damage to the next generation.

By Laurie A. Couture © 2008, 2009

Guest Blog by Dr. Lawrence Cohen
Author of
Playful Parenting

Listen live to Larry Cohen on Dr. Laura Markham's radio show!

Wednesday January 20
MyExpertSolution.com
(9amPT/10amMT/11amCT/NoonET)

Emma, my thirteen-year-old daughter, told me about a father and daughter she observed at the park the other day. The girl, around five years old, was curled up in a corner, crying and fussing. The dad came over and asked her what was wrong. She told him to go away and leave her alone. So he left, but the girl immediately whined for him to come back. Frustrated, he came back, and asked her again what was the matter, more forcefully this time. She pushed him away again, he left, and once more she wailed for him to come back. This went on for some time. Emma told me she wasn't sure what the dad should have done instead, but she said she wished she had a copy of Playful Parenting in her backpack to give him!

That story reminds me that we always need to reconnect when there is a disconnection--like when that little girl was so upset at the park. But we can't force children to restore that connection exactly the way we'd like. This dad wanted to talk to his daughter and help her with her upset feelings. So far so good. Why then did she push him away? Because he came over with an agenda, a specific idea for how to interact with her. He insisted that she tell him, in words, exactly what was the matter. She had a different idea.

It would have been lovely if she had said, "I don't want to talk about it in words quite yet, could you just hold me or sit nearby while I cry about it, then I'll tell you what happened when I am ready to?" But alas, this was a real kid, not a wild fantasy. So instead, his questioning agitated her, and her agitation frustrated him.

Why did she wail for him to come back? Because she still wanted a connection, but her way, not his way. That might not be fair, but after all, she was the one upset, and she is the young child, so I think it's important for us adults to bend a bit and let children decide how these reconnections ought to go.

What did she want? Probably just for him to sit quietly nearby and stop asking all those nosy questions, while she let out all her upset feelings. Quite often, children express these feelings first through tears, and only later, after the tears are done, can they tell the story of what happened. They may hear our "helpful" questions as an interruption, and just want us nearby, listening. They might also worry that if their story isn't "good enough," then they will be told to quit crying and get over it. (Adults often do say silly things like that).

I laughed when Emma suggested that what this dad needed was a copy of Playful Parenting, because I can remember countless times when I made the same mistake--with her and with other kids. I would rush over to comfort a distressed child, but my idea of comfort would not be what they had in mind. Instead of pausing to see what they needed from me, I would get all huffy, like this dad, about being rejected. I'd feel, like he seemed to, that nothing I did was right, since I got pushed away for coming close and screamed at for leaving.
Eventually, I learned a few rules that have helped me in situations like this.

First, I try to keep my mouth shut as much as I can, to listen more than I talk when a child is upset.

Second, if they tell me to go away, I take a few steps back and ask, "Is this far enough?" It sounds like a joke but I say this in all seriousness--I really want to know how close they want me to be in order for them to feel comforted but not intruded on.

Third, I try to remember that tears and tantrums follow their own timetable, not mine. Kids are relieved and rejuvenated when they get to release a big pile of feelings, even if they are crying about "nothing."

Finally, I try to take a broad view of what counts as a connection--it isn't always a deep conversation. It might be a handshake, a hug, a long look in each other's eyes, a high-five.

It might be, as with a young boy named Pete, having his action figure shake hands with my action figure. After Pete did this, I pointed out to his mom, who had described him as "unable to connect," how creative he actually was in making contact. He couldn't handle too much emotional intensity, but he found a way to shake hands with me his way--a playful way.

She said wistfully, "You mean he isn't going to sit and tell me every detail of his day and every nuance of his feelings, like my girlfriends and I do?" Sorry. Happily, she was able to start recognizing that Pete's ways of interacting--like pillow fights and bumping his head into her side--are just as meaningful and full of connection as a deep conversation.

Guest Blog by Patty Wipfler
Founder & Director of
Hand in Hand

Listen live to Patty Wipfler on Dr. Laura Markham's radio show!

Wednesday January 20
MyExpertSolution.com
(9amPT/10amMT/11amCT/NoonET)

It's a big part of parenting

A big part of our experience as parents has to do with developing ways to address the deeply felt wants and needs of our children. We deal with wants and needs from our babies' earliest moments through their entry into young adulthood. We have to figure out what our children's real needs are, and what to do when they want things they don't need, or can't have. And we have to deal with our own feelings of sadness, frustration, or anger about how much they need and want. We are dedicated to making life as good as possible for them, but sooner or later we find it hard to be generous when our own needs for rest, reassurance, and resource aren't well met.

Whole books are written about the developmental needs of young children, so this little article won't try to point out the difference between needs and wants at a particular age or stage. Suffice it to say here that children need lots of undivided, warm attention from their parents and others around them. They need to be treated with respect. They need play, lots of room to experiment, and lots of positive response to who they are and what interesting experiments they do. They need information about what's going on around them, from the very beginning: their minds work beautifully, and from birth they fully understand the emotional import of every interaction with us. They also understand far more language than we realize. Even when we meet their needs well, there are moments every single day when our children long for attention or for things we can't give them the moment they feel the need. When Mommy and Daddy can handle these moments of intense longing gently and with understanding, it makes a huge difference in a child's life.

Feelings of need can persist after the needy moment has passed

Children acquire feelings of neediness—need for attention, need for food, need for physical closeness, need for reassurance that everything is all right—during moments when they are frightened or sad. These moments occur in every child's life, no matter how attentive the parents may be. An example of such a moment might be a baby who is feeling pain from teething, and is hungry. He takes the breast or bottle, only to find that it hurts, so our efforts to help him with his hunger can't rectify the entire situation. He nurses and cries, nurses and cries, and we feel sad or frustrated, wishing we had a magic answer. Even after he’s done with teething, his emotional memory may retain those feelings.

Sometimes children experience a big need that isn't filled—the need to feel safe and close and cherished in the days right after birth, for example. When a baby has to be medically treated or separated from his parents for other reasons, he has feelings of need and fear that aren't addressed by the not-so-personal care of the hospital staff. When baby finally gets back to his parents’ arms, his present needs are being met at last, but the feelings of need from that scary earlier time may linger and make him jumpy, restless, unable to sleep well, or given to long crying spells for no apparent reason. Sometimes a child acquires a collection of feelings from incidents we adults consider uneventful, such as Daddy going to work in the morning, or Mommy abruptly leaving him to answer the phone or help with the older children's homework. In any case, these big and little experiences of need leave packets of feelings that a child then carries along with him until he can heal from the hurt, large or small.

"I need my Mommy" or "I want attention" or "I'm afraid to be more than an arm's length away from my Daddy" feelings can keep a child from exploring confidently, from making friends, and from noticing that he's safe with trusted relatives or caregivers. Sometimes such feelings hinder a child only under certain circumstances—when he's tired, or when lots of people are around, or when the parents are affectionate with each other. Sometimes such feelings operate most of the time, making it seem like the child is "shy" or "timid" or "selfish." The "feelings of need" signals can become so persistent that they govern the child's personality.

Children try to shed these leftover feelings

Somewhere deep inside themselves, children know that these feelings need to be addressed. It is not yet commonly understood that children will instinctively set up situations in which it's impossible for you to meet their stated "needs." They do this so that they can feel the need fully, show you how they hurt, cry or tantrum about it, and thus eliminate the hold the feeling has on them. Then they can function more logically and boldly, and feel much better about themselves. This is why your toddler may throw down a toy from his high chair, whine to get it back, and when you give it back, look unhappy and throw it down again. He's trying to "work on" wanting! Children's instincts on how to set up a good cry, to unload the outdated feelings of want that don't really fit the present situation, are remarkable.

For instance, one three-year-old girl I know was being weaned from her bottle, to which she was very attached. Her Mom knew that holding her and loving her well while she cried about wanting her bottle (she would refuse the cup of milk her mother offered) was a good way to help her daughter work through this attachment without feeling abandoned or neglected. Gradually, with several cries about desperately needing her bottle, she was spending more time playing without her bottle hanging from her mouth, and her general confidence was growing. One day, she gave her Mommy her bottle, and asked her to put it high up on a shelf across the room. Mystified, her Mom did what she asked, and returned to her daughter, who climbed into her mother's lap and began to cry heartily about wanting her bottle. She had set up her own time to cry about wanting her bottle!

Often, children will squabble over who gets a desired toy, or who gets to sit on Daddy's lap, or who got the most ice cream in their bowl. These squabbles can expose deep feelings of need, all wrapped around issues that are not, in the big picture, vital to the child. If a child is trying to work through his feelings of need, you will notice that although you try to fix things to make them "fair" or "equal," your child can't relax and enjoy the improved situation. He becomes defensive, runs away with the toy or hoards it, or remains otherwise isolated or unhappy although the situation appears to be fixed. The feelings of need are still operating strongly, and they will continue to make your child unreasonable.

Your attention is a powerful balm

To address these feelings of need, a good long-range policy for squabbles is to move in and offer love and attention to the child whose turn it isn't, or who can't have what or who he wants. Move in and make gentle contact. Let him know that this time, he needs to wait, or that he simply can't have what he longs for right now. Stay, listen to his feelings, and keep letting him know that he will get a turn, or that some other day, he can sit in the chair next to Daddy, or have more ice cream. "I'll help you wait" is a good reassurance to give, or "Sally will be finished with it sometime. I don't know when. But I'll help you wait." We call this kind of listening “Staylistening.”

A child can use wanting a turn or wanting more of something as a valve to let out lots of stored, outdated longings that keep him from feeling fully pleased with you and with life. You can give warm eye contact and loving touch, knowing that you and your love are pouring into some needy places in his experience. His feelings will be strong, in fact, the sweeter you sound, the bigger his cry will become. The healing process is full-throated when it's going well!

When children are feeling needy, you are the balm that they need. Your attention is by far the most powerful remedy, and if they can cry or tantrum with your attention surrounding them, you can be sure that they are getting what they need most in the world. When you can't be there, and it's you they are longing for, any adult who can listen and love them while they cry will soon be seen as their very best friend and confidant. Listening and love are what we need when we're aching for someone or something. It's great to get the person or thing you want, but when that's not possible, it's great to have someone who opens their arms to you, listens, and lets crying do its healing work.

With the "I'll help you wait, and listen to your feelings" policy, every child in the family (or in the play group or nursery school) will have a chance to be helped with their leftover feelings of wanting as time goes by. Every child will have the chance to dissolve outdated feelings of need that create defensiveness or aggression. Several good cries with a loving adult can help each child move toward playing flexibly and showing generosity to other children.

It's not easy to listen to children's longings

When you begin allowing your child a good cry or tantrum, you'll have lots of feelings of your own to cope with, too. We parents tend to swing back and forth between feeling sad that our child doesn't have what he wants, and mad that we have to listen to such a fuss. We can also become deeply miffed by other children who, because feelings of wanting have infected their behavior, "hog" the toy our child wants for what seems like ages! Our feelings are important too. They lead us to emotional debris from situations we faced many times as children, usually without someone to hold us and reassure us that all would be well. We need chances to talk about our own experiences as parents, and our memories of childhood, to begin to heal the tensions that build up when our children, or other people's children, are feeling heartbroken.

Listening to longings is a much-needed skill

Our world will become a very different place when we parents have spread the word about staying close and affectionate while our children cry and tantrum about the things they can’t immediately have. Children will have the chance to grow up with permission to unload bad feelings, and then to absorb our deeply satisfying attention. The empty and frightened spots inside them will have a chance to heal. We are citizens of a world full of people whose feelings of desperation need to be heard and healed, while justice is built. Offering love and listening to children while they wait for what they want is an important step in an excellent direction. And, fortunately, children with parents who set reasonable limits and then Staylisten to their feelings grow up to be thoughtful, responsible, and considerate adults.

Here's how it works

Here's a story that illustrates how helping a child work on wanting (and not wanting) can help her dissolve feelings about the bigger difficulties of her life.

My daughter is three, and she's going to pre-school now. My husband and I have recently separated. Ella loves school. She talks about it enthusiastically when she's at home, and she likes being there, but has a very difficult time when I leave her there. She wraps herself around me, clings tightly, and won't let me get out the door. This has been going on for awhile.

Yesterday, after we got home from school, she was feisty and cranky. I was fixing her a snack, and I could tell that bad feelings were close to the surface. The last straw for her was that the chair I had set out for her was in the "wrong" place. I knew that this was an opportunity to help her with how she felt, so I didn't fix it. She ran across the room, upset about the chair. I went over to sit next to her. She was trying to cry, but wasn't crying yet—it was a kind of "fake" crying. I sat with her, and told her as gently as I could, "That chair is just in the wrong place," trying to help her feel her upset fully. She said, "I don't need you!" and ran away from me. I moved to about four feet away from her again, and said, "I'm going to stay nearby, I don't want to leave you right now." She kept moving away from me, across the room or into another room, and I kept moving near her again. Each time she became more upset and getting closer to a real cry. Finally, as I moved in towards her she didn't run away. Instead she lay on the floor kicking and repeating, "I don't need you!" Then, I said, "I'm sorry I can't stay with you in the morning at school, but I just can't." She began to cry hard. I asked, "Does it make you mad?" She nodded no. I asked, "Does it make you sad?" She nodded no, then she nodded yes, and began to cry really hard. I told her again that I was sorry I couldn't stay with her in the mornings at school. She kept crying hard, and began to say, "I want Mommy! I want Mommy!" She was sobbing, and she came and curled into my arms and cried hard for awhile. It was lovely to hold her and help her with these feelings. At some point, she just stopped, as though we'd been having a conversation and the subject had changed. That was all.

The next morning, when it was time for me to leave her at school, she ran up to me, gave me a big hug and a kiss, and said, "Bye, Mommy!" and then ran off to play. What a change! I have to tell you that the morning after that, she was feeling things again, and clung to me—I think because our life has been unsettled at home, she isn't finished with this yet. But it was great to see what a good cry could do for her.  — A mother in San Francisco, California

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Patty Wipfler is the founder and director of Hand in Hand, a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering close, responsive relationships between parents and children.

Hand in hand’s approach is based on the principles of respect, listening, leadership development and the importance of interpersonal connections. The organization helps parents and professionals face the challenges that arise in parenting and gives parents the tools they need to build stronger connections within their families.

Patty Wipfler has been teaching basic listening, parenting, and leadership skills to parents for over 30 years. Before Hand in Hand, she directed a parent co-operative preschool and a Neighborhood Infant Toddler Center in Palo Alto, California. She has led over 370 residential weekend workshops for families throughout the world, written 12 booklets and produced videotapes and audiotapes (available here), and has written numerous articles on parenting.  You can find her at www.handinhandparenting.org, which offers numerous free articles and an e-newsletter.  Patty is also the mother of two sons.

Themed Gifts That Span a Lifetime

     Many parents and grandparents give ornaments every year as a themed gift, an inexpensive but personal gift that accumulates into a collection and is treasured for a lifetime. One child gets an angel ornament each year, for another it's always a bell or a polar bear.
     There are so many ways to make this special: one reader says her grandmother made ornaments by hand each year, and her grandfather wrote a poem to go along with each one. Michele Isaacson figured out what to do with a weathered old quilt that had belonged to her late grandmother: she cut out the least worn sections and sewed them into stuffed heart and star ornaments for everyone in her extended family.

Spreading Out the Gift All Year Long

I always struggled trying to find a fitting present for my father, but the gift he loved the most was something I gave him for many years called the “Meg Cox Large Print Every-Other-Month Book Club.” Six times a year, I sent him a large-print book, wrapped in Christmas paper. Gifts like that are great because they spread both the expense and the joy of receiving across many months: you could do the same for a family member who loves movies, candy, flowers, wine, coffee, or other treats.

Give A Family the Gift of Ritual

One of my regular readers said that she plans to decorate a pretty basket for a family she knows, and turn it into a “Family Dinner Conversation Basket” one of the everyday rituals from The Book of New Family Traditions. She'll fill the basket with the 50 questions I created, and add blank papers for the family to add more. Why didn't I think of this great gift idea? If you want to do this, e-mail me at meg@megcox.com for the list of 50 questions. I can also send a one-page handout about how to use the basket. Feel free to add some questions that you know will be especially suitable for the family.

New Strategy for Charitable Gifts

A few years back, Emily Sagor's extended family got bored with the practice of drawing names from a hat and giving a token gift to that aunt or this cousin. “It was somewhat unfulfilling, because you would ask what they wanted, and then buy that thing,” says Emily.  The new practice is much more popular: in September or October, nominations are collected for charities about which family members feel passionate. Each person who nominates a charity explains what it does and why they care. Then the family votes and the winning charity is announced. Checks flow to Emily's aunt, who writes one big check to the organization in the name of the whole family.  Emily says the “winning” charities have included a hospice that sent a volunteer “to help with my grandmother's last few months of life.” This new holiday gift-giving strategy has produced some unexpected rewards: “Each year, we end up not only learning about organizations that are worth our attention, but we also learn more about each other and what matters to each of us,” explains Emily.

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Meg Cox is a journalist, author, mother and stepmother who has researched contemporary family traditions for more than a decade. A former staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal, she has written two books on the topic, including The Book of New Family Traditions: How to Create Great Rituals for Holidays & Everyday. Meg has lectured widely, worked as a spokesperson on tradition for such companies as Pillsbury and Hallmark, and written articles on ritual for many national magazines. She has also been a frequent guest on the NPR show, The Parent's Journal with Bobbi Conner. Meg is also a passionate quilter and president of the nonprofit Alliance for American Quilts. Her most recent book is The Quilter's Catalog: A Comprehensive Resource Guide. You can learn more at her website, www.megcox.com.