What Dads Need to Know: Overabundant Gushing

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Family Man

By Laura Diamond

It was a Sunday, filled with the promise of flaky warm croissants and bursting red strawberries. We walked toward the Farmer’s market in town, my younger son Emmett concentrating mightily on bouncing a ball. New and delicate stuff, this dribbling. The ball got away quickly; two or three bounces then he’s chasing it into the bushes. But he had decided that he liked basketball, and he was determined to figure this out.

I watched him retrieve the ball from the neighbors’ newly-planted pansies, and my every cell vibrated with the effort not to scoop him up, squeeze him and tell him he’s scrumptious. But I controlled myself.

I wish I had controlled the next impulse, which was to innocently bestow encouragement and praise: “You’ve really improved in basketball!” 

At once his face darkened and his spirit shriveled. He stopped walking, dropped the ball, crossed his arms, stared daggers at me and said through red teary eyes: “You hurt my feelings.” He resumed walking, but without the bounce and joy from before. “I wish you weren’t my mom. I wish you weren’t alive.” His words didn’t cut me nearly as much as knowing the depth of the hurt I’d caused him. 

Parenthood is too powerful; it’s so easy to screw up. With one well-intentioned sentence, you can shift a morning, change the hue of a day, sear an indelible memory. When I was a teenager, my dad used to joke whenever he’d do something odd or possibly irritating, “This isn’t going to send you to the psychiatrist’s couch years from now, is it?” I can still see his impish smile and hear his voice as he asked the question. Only now, through the lens of parenthood, I think I hear a pleading behind the laughter: “Please say I haven’t messed up too badly; please say you’ll weather my mistakes.”

When I was a new mother, with one fragile infant in my charge, I attended a weekly parenting class with religious devotion. Between sessions I’d collect my questions and concerns, desperate to have wise Tandy Parks weigh in. I still carry her advice with me, most of it embedded deeply in the whirls of my brain. But one piece of wisdom resides in the accessible upper reaches of gray matter. It is this: Children don’t need perfect parents; they need “good enough.” She was letting us off the hook for the mistakes we’d all make.

As for Emmett, there was nothing I could do or say to take back my unintentional wound. Only the sight of his older brother Aaron waving croissants from across the street lured him from his melancholy. Sampling the strawberries and oranges on the farmers’ tables took his mind off our sorrowful walk. By the time we headed home, arms laden with fresh goodies, I hoped he had forgotten. 

His face was calm as we neared our house. And then we got to the fateful square of sidewalk, next to the pansies, and he was reminded of what was said there an hour earlier. He stopped walking, his face fell, crushed anew by the memory of my words. Then he spoke, his voice a quiet mix of understanding and regret. “It’s okay that you said that, Mom.” 

I don’t know in what sense he meant it was okay. Okay, he forgave me? Okay, he’d still let me play with him, read him books, kiss and hug him as much as possible? Okay, he’s willing to overlook my flaws? Willing to accept his own? I knew better than to push for an explanation. I was just glad that he was talking to me again. 

A week later, walking home from school, he heard me tell the mother of two little girls racing past us in matching sparkly sneakers that they were “so cool.” His steady voice down by my hip said, so quietly that I had to ask him to repeat it, “How come you never say that me and Aaron are cool?” 

This can’t be. I am an effusive mom! I am, aren’t I? 

“I don’t?” I leaned down and asked him. 

“No.” 

He needed me to lay it on thick. “Well, I think you’re the coolest ever. Amazing and awesome and cool and wonderful. And I love you so much.”

And so he reminded me, again and again, that the little moments that constitute our days—the ones we don’t think twice about—are rich with meaning. Tonight at bedtime, after stories and kisses and hugs, I wished them sweet dreams and asked, “Did I tell you enough times today that I love you?” They sighed and rolled their eyes, but I saw the glimmer of contentedness on their faces as they relaxed into their pillows. I give thanks for the child who told me he needed more than I was giving. I give thanks for the teacher who said it is okay to make mistakes. I give thanks for parents who worried about the effects of their own mistakes. And I am a convert to the religion of overabundant gushing; I’m praying that too much will be enough.

Laura Diamond is the editor of Deliver Me: True Confessions of Motherhood, a collection of true stories about motherhood “that enlightens and inspires, evoking tears, laughter and, most of all, the YES of recognition.” More of Laura’s essays can be read at Laura Diamond Writes On…

Posted in Featured Moms & Dads, Parenting Stress, What Dads Need to Know | Leave a comment

What Dads Need to Know: Teaching Kids Respect

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Family Man

By Anne Leedom

There is a big question making the rounds among the parents at my daughter’s class. Should the kids refer to the parents’ friends as “Mr. Jones” or “Mrs. Smith”, rather than using their first names? I was quite shocked, having come from a home where it would have been unheard of to refer to one of my parent’s friends by their first name. This was reserved for only the closest of family friends and relatives, and even they always had “Aunt” or “Uncle” in front of their name.

Respect is something that is earned and commanded. Unlike many of the other virtues we try to nurture in our kids that are mostly present from birth, respect is a bit more complicated. Respect is not only necessary when dealing well with others, but the virtue of self-respect is critical for kids to succeed and feel good about themselves and their choices throughout their lives.

There are several factors that can have a big impact on kids and their ability to be respectful. The first one to consider is manners. Calling adults by their surnames, setting proper examples during sporting events and while driving, and how we talk to each other in our homes all can have a tremendous affect on a child’s concept of respect and how important it is. Many of these seemingly trivial ideas have become almost outdated, but one should seriously consider the value of these ideas before casting them aside. It is easy to become unconscious about these behaviors. Try to keep track of how often your child is subjected to this kind of disrespect.

The media, as you may have guessed, plays a large part in the increase in disrespect. The Parents Television Council, according to Dr. Michele Borba, looked at four weeks of programming during the 1999 fall season in the 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. time slot and tallied up to 1,173 vulgarities—nearly five times that of 1989. Movies are equally to blame, with a PG movie often containing an abundant amount of crude and profane language.

These factors and others all contribute to an alarming increase in disrespect in society. If we don’t step in and change the course, we will find living in a morally respectful culture unlikely. This process can be greatly impacted for the better by treating our kids as though they are the most important person in the world, in reference to the level of respect we give them. Show them unconditional love and listen with your whole attention. Let your kids feel your love through your hugs, your words and your encouragement. Spend time together interacting. Eliminate disrespect by immediately calling attention to it, and if need be, have behaviors in place to discourage it further. Dr. Borba recommends refusing to engage when kids are being disrespectful.

Fine kids for swearing. Use time outs for younger kids. Don’t allow kids to socialize with family if they can’t be respectful. Take away phone privileges or ground them. Younger kids need more immediate consequences in order to fully understand the impact of their behavior. Above all, the same rule applies. Reinforce your kids’ positive and respectful behavior and be clear about negating disrespect. Kids take their cues from all adults, so be sure you are setting the best possible standards.

In the case of extreme disrespect, consider getting help to cope and modify behaviors.

Anne Leedom is the Founder of www.TeenPalz.com, a website providing virtual monitoring and activities for teens. She lives in Northern California.

Posted in Ethics, Featured Moms & Dads, What Dads Need to Know | 1 Comment

What Dads Need to Know: Ten Tips to Raise an Emotionally Intelligent Child

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Family Man

By Dr. Jenn Berman

Intelligence experts estimate that only 20% of a person’s success is attributed to IQ but that as much as the entire remaining 80 percent may be a direct result of what has become known as EQ, or emotional intelligence. Psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer who are believed to have first coined the term “emotional intelligence,” define it as “a subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others, feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” People who have a high EQ exhibit the following:

– Impulse control

– Problem solving skills

– Empathy

– The ability to self-soothe

– The ability to delay gratification

– Self motivation

– Read other people’s emotional cues

– Self esteem

– Adaptability

– Resilience

– The ability to identify, express and understand feelings

The Dumbing Down of America?

While children have gotten intellectually smarter over the years, emotional intelligence has not risen accordingly. Scientists have noted the “Flynn Effect”, apparent since the advent of IQ testing a century ago, that in every industrialized nation each successive generation has scored higher than the previous generation. American IQs, for example, have consistently risen by an average of 8 points per generation. EQ, on the other hand, appears to have plummeted. Out of control violence, mental illness, risky sexual behavior, poor impulse control and school drop out rates are indicators of this problematic trend.

The Benefits of High EQ

According to Lawrence Shapiro, PhD, the author of How to Raise a Child With a High EQ, “having a high EQ may be more important to success in life than a high IQ as measured by a standardized test of verbal and nonverbal cognitive intelligence.” Children who have high EQs achieve better academically, have fewer temper tantrums, are better problem solvers, are less impulsive, have better attention spans, are more motivated, physically healthier and are more well-liked by their peers. The great news about EQ is that parents are the greatest influencers of high EQ scores. Children learn most of their emotional lessons from their parents and so there is a lot that parents can do if they are interested in increase their children’s EQ.

10 Things Parents Can Do to Increase EQ

1. Pay attention to your child’s cues, starting from birth.

Studies show that infants whose caretakers don’t pay attention to their cues have difficulty developing the ability to regulate their own emotions. If, for example, a mother with post-partum depression is too depressed to respond to her child’s cues, that baby might give up on crying as a means of communication and become passive and disengaged. Without his mother’s help learning how to calm himself down, he may not learn effective calming skills.

2. Teach self calming skills.

An anxious baby cannot recognize social cues from those around him and an anxious child cannot learn in school or make friends. Children look to their parents to gain these soothing skills. An easy way for parents to help is to hold, rock, talk to and sing to their children to help them calm down. As children get older, their skills become more complex. When my daughter Quincy was 18 months old she went through a period when she was waking up during the night and having trouble calming herself back to sleep. Every night before she went to sleep I would talk to her about “The Plan.” I told her that when she had trouble sleeping that she should put her pacifier in her mouth, hug her piggy (a stuffed animal) and snuggle with her blanket. I made these suggestions based on my own observations of what had worked for her previously. The plan became so ingrained that sometimes she would start to cry and remind herself out loud, “paci, piggy, blanket.”

3. Help children understand and identify their emotions.

For young children, intense emotions can be scary and overwhelming. Identifying and labeling their emotions can normalize those emotions and allow kids to identify the responses in others which ultimately helps them to develop empathy. Believe it or not, studies show that the act of labeling an emotion can have a soothing effect on the nervous system which allows kids to recover more quickly from upsetting events. According to John Gottman, PhD, author of Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, “This doesn’t mean telling kids how they ought to feel. It simply means helping them develop a vocabulary with which to express their emotions.”

4. Reduce television viewing.

The average child spends 38 hours each week watching television. According to Shapiro, “it is passive time spent in front of the TV that stunts the growth of EQ skills.” Studies show that children who watch a lot of TV are more fearful, anxious, and aggressive as well as desensitized to the pain and suffering of others than that of their peers who watch less television. Experts have found that children who are frequently exposed to inappropriate images and situations are 11 times more likely to be disruptive, fight with family members, hit other kids and destroy property. To make that statistic stand out even more, those same researchers claim that children who watched a lot of TV when they were eight years old are more likely to be arrested and prosecuted for criminal acts as adults than their peers who did not watch as much TV. To add insult to injury, all that tube time is time not spent interacting with peers, developing social skills, or problem-solving.

5. Give accurate praise.

Give accurate, honest praise that reflects back to your child an accurate mirror of her accomplishments. Excessive and lavish praise prevents children from seeing you as an accurate judge of her abilities and prevents her from getting to know her own strengths and weaknesses.

6. Teach problem solving.

The ability to solve problems is developed primarily from experience. Sometimes it is easier for parents to solve their child’s problem rather than teach them how to do it on their own. Children start to learn to problem solve in infancy. When my daughter Mendez was 9 months old we were sitting together while she played with a ball. The ball slipped out of her hands and rolled away from her, just outside of her reach. My first instinct was to solve the problem for her and hand her the ball, but I held back and allowed her to solve the problem for herself. She ultimately crawled over to the ball stretching in a way she never had before and proudly showed me the ball. As children become more verbal, they tend to need their parents to brainstorm problem solving ideas with them. The keys for parents is sending the message that every problem has a solution and having the patience to help children find their own age-appropriate resolutions.

7. Model empathy.

Empathy, which usually develops within the first six years of life, is the ability to understand the perspective of another person and on a deeper level to feel what another person is feeling. When parents can demonstrate empathy to their children it makes those children feel supported and allows them to see their parents as allies. According to Gottman, “If we can communicate this kind of intimate emotional understanding to our children, we give credence to their experience and help them learn to soothe themselves.” Empathetic children have a much better time making and keeping friends.

8. Set clear limits and enforce them consistently.

Giving your children clear and consistent rules shows them you care about their well-being and makes them feel safe. Imagine driving your car in a world with no rules or regulations to aid drivers; it would be chaotic and scary. A home without consistent rules for a child is the same as a lawless road. Children need boundaries to feel contained and cared about. Without rules to live by and the ability to follow the “laws” of the family, children grow up anxious and disrespectful. They believe it is permissible to behave however they choose because no one has taught them otherwise. This creates narcissistic children who lack empathy and emotional intelligence.

9. Allow your children to suffer the consequences of their actions.

Helping children understand at an early age that they are responsible for the choices they make as well as for the consequences of their actions promotes a sense of mastery and self confidence. One of the most difficult tasks for parents to master is allowing their kids to suffer the consequences of their choices and actions. But in order for children to grow up to become responsible, high EQ adults, this is a crucial developmental step for them to take.

10. Don’t protect your kids from all of life’s stresses, pains and difficulties.

Coping with stress and pain is the best way to learn coping skills. While children should not be exposed to material that is beyond their comprehension or development, they should be exposed to day to day stress and difficulties. When Carol and James started to notice that Buster, the elderly family dog, was nearing the end, Carol started to talk about death with four-year-old Stella. When Buster passed away they allowed Stella to see them cry and talked to her about their grief. This helped her to understand her own grieving process, develop empathy and normalize her own feelings.

Dr. Jenn Berman is a Marriage, Family and Child Therapist in private practice in Los Angeles. She has appeared as a psychological expert on hundreds of television shows including The Oprah Winfrey Show and is a regular on The Today Show, The Early Show, and CNN. She hosts a live daily call-in advice show called “The Love and Sex Show with Dr. Jenn” on Sirius/XM’s Cosmo Radio 5-7 pm PST (heard five hours a day seven days a week). She is the author of the LA Times best selling books SuperBaby: 12 Ways to Give Your Child a Head Start in the First 3 Years, The A to Z Guide to Raising Happy Confident Kids, and the children’s book Rockin’ Babies. Dr. Jenn is also on the Board of Advisors for Parents Magazine. In addition, Dr. Jenn has an eco-friendly clothing line for adults and children called Retail Therapy . All the tees have positive “feel good” messages and are made of organic and recycled materials. Dr. Jenn lives in Los Angeles with her husband and twin daughters. For more information on go to www.DoctorJenn.com or follow her on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/drjennberman and www.Facebook.com/DrJennBerman.

Posted in Child Development, Featured Moms & Dads, What Dads Need to Know | Leave a comment