Category Archives: Everyday Parenting

Have You Accepted the Child You’ve Got?

raise the child you've got Acceptance of your child is the single most important factor in insuring your child’s self-confidence and strength of will to resist the negative influences we spend so much time worrying about. Acceptance is often a hard concept for parents to get because it sounds as if we’re supposed to accept everything our child does—and that’s just not good parenting.

It’s easiest to think about acceptance through your own experience. Did you feel accepted for who you are or did you think that your parents would love you more or be prouder of you if you were different, more like your brother, got better grades, excelled at sports—just simply someone else? Did you feel accepted or approved of only when you behaved a certain way, felt a certain way? And did feelings of rejection (unintended on your parent’s part yet perceived on your part) cause you to pull back or try to be different? You probably can’t answer this because these changes are very subtle and slow to adapt.

“People stop showing the parts of themselves that have been rejected, trying Read more…

How We Say It Makes or Breaks Connection

Communication is the core of the parent/child relationship. Communication makes or breaks connection. It’s not so much what we say but how we say it that conveys meaning to our children. We may intend to teach a lesson or get a point across but our tone of voice and body language determine whether our child hears what we intend or an entirely different message.

“What is it you want?” can be said with genuine curiosity and encouragement or with criticism and judgment. One reading tells the child, What you want is important to me. A different reading says, You are an annoyance and an inconvenience. Leave me alone.

Good communication requires knowing when to ask questions and when to make statements. There are times for each. Usually we pick exactly the wrong time.

Imagine your child is clearly upset, which may show up directly in her emotions or in acting out behavior. This is the time when we want to know what is going on and so we typically ask:

What’s wrong?
Why are you so angry?
Why

Building Resilience from the Ground Up

When little children fall and skin their knees, drop things that break, get pushed around by other kids, run outside without a coat, don’t eat a thing when it’s put in front of them—our “mother bear” instinct comes out and we do everything we can to protect them. Of course, our job as parent is to make sure they are warm and fed and unharmed. But do we do too much?

Is our job to be protector? To a certain extent. We can’t protect them forever so we must raise them to be well prepared for protecting themselves long before that day arrives. We have gotten more and more careful and are asking our children to be more and more careful. Are we unintentionally creating children who are afraid and anxious? Aren’t we asking them to tend to our fears instead of finding out for themselves what life has in store?

It used to be that children were pretty much on their own, except when at school. They knew the neighborhood kids and their parents and what to do if Read more…

The Reasons I am a Connective Parent

I choose to be a connective parent because flexibility and self-direction are the two top competencies needed to succeed in the 21^st Century.

I choose to empathize with my child because understanding another’s point of view is paramount in establishing good relationships.

I don’t engage in power struggles with my child because a win/lose model never wins.

I don’t use time out because I don’t think it’s right to isolate a child who is having a problem.

I don’t spank or hit because I don’t want to teach my child that using physical force is a way to get what you want.

I don’t take away privileges because I don’t think that intentionally provoking my child’s anger or resentment is the way to gain cooperation.

I don’t ground my child or take away access to what is important to him because it won’t seem fair or logical, and he will assume that I don’t understand him.

I choose to problem solve with my children instead of punish or dole out consequences because it is important for them to express Read more…

How to be a Less Distracted Parent

Everything about our lives today distract us from what is really important—connecting with our inner cores so we can better connect with others, especially our children. A less distracted parent is a better model for calmer more focused children. When parents are rushed and anxious, children feel stressed and resistant.

Here are a few thoughts to get you grounded:

1 – Be more, teach less. Don’t try to teach your children lessons all the time. That only leads to franticness and worry. Children learn best from modeling and in those precious moments when they feel connected to their parents, which happens during “just being” time.

2 – Accept the child you have. “If only…”, “Why me?”, and “He never…” can fill your days and keep you disconnected from your children—and your lives. Pay attention to who your child is and what she is attempting to say instead of wishing she were different.

3 – Practice mindfulness. You don’t have to sit and meditate to be in the moment. Simply focus on the dish you are washing, the floor you are Read more…

Who Can We Blame?

As a follow-up to my recent blog about the amazing personal journey of Gayle Kirschenbaum and her mother that will be available to all of us in her upcoming movie, “Look at Us Now, Mother”, I wanted to post this personal question I got from a parent a long time ago.

Q. I am currently reading your book, “When Your Kids Push Your Buttons” and have a question on something I read. The section called Parent-Blame didn’t sink in with me and I’m hoping you can clarify. It says, “Your parents did the best they could given the knowledge and circumstances they had at the time.” It sounds like we should hold blameless those parents who just don’t do right by their children. On a more personal level, what if my mother had thought to herself as she was parenting that there must be a better way to do this, but, dammit, I have 7 children and it’s just too hard, or, this is the way my mother raised me, so therefore, this is how I am going to raise Read more…

Eat Your Peas or No Dessert! Establishing Healthy Eating Habits.

Do you have a picky eater? Are you worried your child will never get any nutrition and will eat only white food for the rest of her life? Or is p, b, and j your son’s only staple?

Keeping our children healthy and well fed tops the list of any parent’s job description. Every trick in the book seems fair game when a worried parent attempts to get food down a resistant child’s throat. The problem is that with sleeping, toileting, and eating, children have ultimate control and they know it. It’s rare that a parent doesn’t have a struggle in one of these areas. We have to learn to respect that control yet encourage healthy habits.

First and foremost is the parent’s perception of the problem. When a child is not eating what we think they should, we tend to panic. But he’s got to get a vegetable in at least once in awhile. She’ll never grow if she eats like a bird. I’m not a short-order cook! Why do we have to go through this at every meal? Read more…

Our Living Legacies or Baggage We Can Drop

We live our lives, choose our experiences and relationships, believe in ourselves, and raise our children according to how we were raised. Many do not connect the dots to form the connection. Many swear they are nothing like their parents and would never make the same choices. Yet even in our resistance or rejection, we resist and reject in ways provoked by these experiences—unconsciously. Until we recognize the connections and change our consciousness.

As small children, we are receptors of what is in our experience and environment. We do not yet have the cognitive ability to deconstruct what someone says to us and decipher its meaning. Not until seven or eight do our brains develop enough to take in an experience and think, Dad didn’t really mean that, he’s just having a bad day. Or, Mom is being funny with her sarcastic remark. She’s just pretending to be mad at me. Or, That’s his problem. Before then, a young child’s psyche is just forming. Yelling, criticism, and blame is absorbed and processed as the truth. So when Mom gets Read more…

The Rooster Under the Table

I recently saw an exhibit of Art Spiegelman’s many years of brilliant comic work at The Jewish Museum in NYC. One comic strip caught my attention as brilliant parenting advice. I share it here.

The comic was Spiegelman’s fairy tale of a Prince who told his father, the King that he thought he was a rooster. His father laughed it off but the Prince kept up his belief. His father, of course getting concerned for his son’s mental health, dismissed and belittled his son’s fantasy. The more the Prince seemed convinced, the more his father rebuked him and the more the prince regressed into his roosterdom until he eventually spent all his time naked under a table crowing.

The King called for help from his kingdom and soon long lines stretched from the castle door for miles. But no one could cure the prince. Finally an old man with a long beard and no credentials arrived claiming he could help. The King was at the end of his rope and hopelessly sent the old man to his son.

The old Read more…