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Q: My 13-year-old son
is a straight A student and well-liked at school, but lately, his reasoning has
become more irrational. He’ll say he’s cleaning his room, but I’ll find him
organizing his DVDs while wet towels and dirty clothes are on the floor. He’ll
also lie about brushing his teeth and has started to take really long showers.
I know I’m probably controlling more than I should but how do I give freedom
when I don’t trust his judgment?
A: I’m a bit amazed that it’s taken you 13 years to figure
out that children are illogical beings. The way their brain works is unlike our
adult ones, and therefore they do weird stuff for strange reasons. A budding
teen is no different in that regard, and you shouldn’t expect him to suddenly develop
a logical thought process.
But you’re right in that you need to start taking steps away
from micromanaging to a more mentor-type relationship. You start by stop
checking up on his teeth brushing—isn’t he old enough to know he needs to brush
his teeth? He’ll suffer the consequences of bad breath and dingy teeth, which
will probably mean he’ll start brushing with a vengeance to be more attractive
to his peers.
You also outline clearly, if you haven’t already, what you
mean by a clean room and other chores. Put a time limit on when chores need to
be completed to your satisfaction, such as the lawn has to be mowed each Saturday
by noon. That eliminates the need for
you to ride herd on him as he does the task—either it’s finished as expected or
it’s not. If he wants to spend six hours organizing his DVDs, let him—as long
as the rest of the room is neat and clean when you expect it.
For more on making this vital transition during the teen
years, I highly recommend John Rosemond’s Teen Proofing, which provides a very
good outline of how to stop micromanaging and start shifting to a mentor stage
with your teen.
Email Sarah if you have a parenting
question you would like to see answered on this blog.
If there's one thing that's been drilled into my children from
school safety lessons is that talking to strangers is about the worst possible
thing they can do. In our quest to make our children "safer," we've
essentially cut off our nose to spite our face with this bit of nonsense.
Telling our kids not to talk to strangers
can make them afraid of everyone they meet--and instill in them that the world
is indeed a scary place. It turns our children into unfriendly people who daren’t
say hello to a grownup they don’t know. I’ve had to remind my children in all
kinds of places that to reply to a compliment or comment from an unknown adult
is okay, that it doesn’t hurt anyone to talk, especially when I’m standing
right beside them.
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Image courtesy of fotographic1980/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Talking never hurt anyone, and I think our fear of our kids
talking to strangers stems from the fact that we think a conversation will draw
our children into a situation that isn’t safe. So to stop that potential
scenario from happening, we decide to nix all talking to people they don’t
know.
But that can backfire because the fact of the matter is, most
strangers are perfectly fine and nice people, willing to lend a hand if needed
and definitely not about to do something mean or dangerous to our children.
Instead of telling our children not to talk to strangers, we should
instead tell them the following info:
1.
Your
father and I would never send a stranger to pick you up, no exceptions ever.
Designate a few grownups that you would send, such as relatives or close
friends. Tell your kids who those people would be. For example, someone from
our church that our kids know well is on the school emergency call list. I
remind my children each school year that she has my permission to pick them up
from school in case of an emergency.
2.
You
are never to go anywhere, even down the street, with a stranger or other
grownup, without our permission. If an adult asks—even a neighbor or family
friend—make sure your child knows to come ask you first.
3.
You should
never get into any vehicle with a stranger or grownup without our permission.
4.
If a
stranger or other adult tries to grab you, you should scream as loud as you can
and run away. That is not the time to worry about appearances—instill in your
kids that you want them to yell and run in that situation.
5.
If
they feel uncomfortable, it’s okay for them to simply leave the grownup’s
presence and tell us immediately what happened. Yes, we want our children to be
polite, but we also want them to learn to heed their instinct when it comes to
their comfort level.
6.
Have
them memorize their phone number and address. Review that info with them
regularly.
Role play these various scenarios with your children until they
are comfortable with those situations. Remind your children that the chances of
something bad happening to them are very slim, but it’s good to be prepared.
Also remind them that most grownups, even strangers, are nice people with no
intention of harming them.
This type of preparation will help your children be better
prepared to face life’s unexpected circumstances while also empowering them
with the tools they need to interact with the world in general. Let’s stop
telling our children that everyone we don’t know is a potential danger, and
instead start equipping them with how to meet real danger if they encounter it.
Until next time,
Sarah
Q: My 7-year-old daughter
and 5-year-old son constantly argue and pick at each other. This has been going
on for several months now! I do my best to leave them alone to work it out
themselves, but the constant bickering is driving me crazy. What can I do to
stop the sniping?
A: Read my book on sibling rivalry! Sorry, couldn’t resist a
shameless plug (Ending Sibling Rivalry
comes out in October).
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| Image courtesy of Liz Noffsinger/FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
Now on to your question. When you have sibling conflict in
your house, it can feel nonstop at times. With school out, it might be a matter
of too much togetherness. There’s a reason the old adage, “Familiarity breeds
contempt,” is true.
Give your kids some time apart and that should help to alleviate
the discord. Set time during the morning and afternoon when the children play
separately for a half hour or so. Set a timer if you have to, but make sure
they are in different areas of the house, or one inside, one outside.
Bickering has probably become a habit, so they might still do
a lot of it when together, even if they’re not really fighting. Try the Ticket
system to cut down on this. Give them three tickets together each day. Every
time they bicker (and define clearly what you mean), they lose a ticket. When
all tickets are gone, they spend the rest of the day in their rooms and go to
bed directly after supper. It takes two to snipe, so both should receive the
same punishment.
The combination of separating the kids and implementing a
joint ticket system should lower the bickering in your household. You won’t eliminate
it entirely because kids aren’t perfect, but you should be able to help them
break the habit of the way they intereact.
Email Sarah if you have a parenting
question you would like to see answered on this blog.
One of the outcomes of an overprotective parenting style is
that we keep our kids in an infantile state for longer and longer. Don’t
believe me? Consider these examples.
- In the
late 1950s, nearly every child (92%) were potty trained by the age of 18
months. Today, a mere 4% of 2-year-olds are toilet trained and 60% of
3-year-olds are not in diapers.
- Last
century, mothers tossed the pacifiers around age 1. Now, it’s not uncommon
to see toddlers walking around with binkies stuck in their mouths.
- The
rise of sippy cups have delayed the time when toddlers learned to drink
from an open cup. Mothers used to transition their babies from bottle to
cup around a year or so. Today, it’s not unusual to see preschoolers
touting around sippy cups.
- Children
ride in strollers a lot longer, too.
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Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici/
FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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These are just some ways in which we parents are conspiring
to keep our children as baby-like as possible. We also underestimate how much
our children are capable of doing on their own. Chores are a great example of
this. A few years ago, when I posted on this blog a list of chores my kids did,
the responses ranged from disbelief to amazement.
The thing we tend to forget is that our children aren’t
going to walk as far as we do, drink from an open cup without spilling
sometimes, or console themselves perfectly. Children are not miniature
adults—they are unformed adults. As they are in the process of becoming adults,
they are going to make mistakes and have to learn how to do things, from
feeding themselves to tying their shoes to washing clothes.
What we need to remember is that they can do a lot more than
we think—and to give them the chance to make mistakes while they acquire the
skills needed as adults. It’s much better to expect too much of our children
than to expect too little.
I’m often pleasantly surprised at what my kids can do for
themselves. It’s usually more than I thought. Sure, things might get messy, but
nobody promised you a pristine house or perfect children.
So let’s all work together to stop babying our kids. You can
start by upping their chores and responsibilities. I think you’ll be amazed at
what your kids can do—and how grownup they’ll feel when they do it on their
own.
Until next time,
Sarah
Q: Our 27-month-old son
is a late talker, only saying a few words. His hearing appears to be fine (and
he’s never had any ear infections). His lack of speech has me more concerned.
Should I worry or wait it out?
A. Most children develop speech in one of three ways: by
babbling, by babbling and thinking, and by thinking. The babblers make all
their grammatical and speech “mistakes” out in the open. You hear every new
sound and word all the time, from wrong pronunciations to grammar mishaps.
Babblers let their language development all hang out, so to speak.
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Image courtesy of photostock/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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The middle ground group does a mixture of babbling and
pondering what the grammar rules are before speaking. Sometimes, this group
will try out new sounds out loud, while other times, these kids will figure it
out in their heads before saying a word.
The quiet ones in the last group are the kids that most
parents find somewhat troubling in that they rarely talk at all until suddenly
they’re using full sentences. These are the kids who want to know all the rules
about language that they can before uttering more than a few words—and thus
scaring their parents half to death with their quietness.
By around age 5, all three groups usual arrive at the same
level of proficiency in their native tongues. Or, as the Introduction to Language textbook put it, “Five-year-old children
are almost as proficient at speaking and understanding as are their parents.”
It sounds like you might have a “thinker” who wants to
figure out the rules before speaking too much. As long as he seems to follow
instructions, understand what you're saying, and communicates what he needs,
you probably have nothing to worry about.
Email Sarah if you have a parenting
question you would like to see answered on this blog.
During a recent trip to the dentist, the hygienist said that
one of my sons needed to brush his teeth a bit more. No big surprise there, as
I have my suspicions as to his (along with his siblings’) brushing habits. But the
way she phrased the comment words showed, once again, society’s expectations of
parental involvement: “You (as in me, the parent) need to make sure he brushes his
teeth, especially the two in the front.”
Now, whose teeth did she refer? My son’s. In whose mouth do
those teeth reside? Again, my son’s. So who should have the care of those
teeth? You guess it! My son. And who will suffer the consequences of not
brushing? My son.
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Image courtesy of photostock/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Therefore, why is it suddenly my responsibility to make sure
my son brushes his teeth when he is perfectly capable of doing so? My mother
certainly didn’t brush my teeth at his age, no matter what the dentist might
have told her.
I brushed my teeth probably as well as the next kid, and
possibly a little bit better, given my terror of having a cavity. (Should I
admit I’m still terrified of having a cavity filled? Should I also admit that
it’s mainly because I’ve never had a cavity? Probably not. Would just invoke
tooth envy….)
Somehow most of us survived into adulthood with our teeth
intact and in fairly good shape from our irregular brushing habits as children.
Our parents may have reminded us from time to time to brush our teeth, but I
seriously doubt any of them stood in the bathroom doorway and watched us brush—or
taken the toothbrush from our sticky hands and did it for us.
But what if he gets a cavity because he didn’t do a good
enough job? Well, then, he’ll face the natural consequences of his decision to
blow off brushing or he’ll end up with more cavities.
Some parents would find that line of thinking appalling—that
I would let my child suffer the pain and agony of a cavity because I didn’t
brush his teeth or stand over him to ensure he did a good job of it himself. To
those people, I say, where does it end? When do I step back as a parent and let
the child do things for himself? To fail or succeed on his own two feet?
We don’t want our children to fail, whether it’s a cavity or
a test. Others, from teachers to dental hygienists, have picked up on that and
now talk directly to parents about the parental role should be.
The only way to change this climate of collusion is for
parents to stop asking what they can do and to stop doing for their children
things that should be their children’s responsibility.
And if you’re wondering whether I’m overseeing my son’s
teeth brushing, the answer is no. I reminded him of what the dentist said and
then left him alone in the bathroom with his toothbrush.
Until next time,
Sarah
Q: Our 5-year-old son
has been very defiant of late, and has taken to hitting, punching or kicking
his siblings or us whenever he’s upset or angry. We’ve tried time-outs in his
room, but he’s so angry that he has destroyed toys and other things in his
room. He’s our middle child (three year old and eight year old). Now he’s
started yelling that he hates us. What can we do to get our kind little boy
back?
A. Ah, welcome to the world of defiance! One of my children
(who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) went through a similar phase
around that age. However, that doesn’t mean his behavior isn’t unacceptable or
that he can’t control himself. At this point, however, he doesn’t WANT to
control himself because it’s much more satisfying for him to throw the
household into chaos with his rants. Remember, too, that his words are not
necessarily his real feelings, as I’m sure your reaction to him saying he hates
you is partially fueling repeats of that particular phrase. So don’t take his
rantings personally.
To help him change his behavior, I recommend a two-fold
approach. First, institute Tickets. Give him four or five tickets per day that
will be lost if he does one of up to three targeted behaviors (just focus on
the top two or three misbehaviors for now). Then when he does one of the
targeted behaviors, simply say in a calm voice, "That's a ticket,"
remove one ticket and go on with your day. When he loses all tickets, he’s
confined to his room (with his toys removed) and put to bed directly after an
early supper.
Second, spend one-on-one time with all of your children on
as regular a basis as fits with your family. For example, in our family, my
husband and I take turns taking one child out to breakfast every other week.
The schedule is posted on the fridge and each child knows when his or her turn
is coming up. This has helped calm things in our household and gives Mom and
Dad a chance to connect with each child
without the distractions of the others.
Email Sarah if you have a parenting
question you would like to see answered on this blog.
Many of us had quite different childhoods than the ones we’re
giving our children—and that’s not entirely a good thing. Yes, the world has
changed but not as much as we might think. Sure, my kids will never have a
paper route like I did as a 12-year-old because newspapers have enlarged routes
to cover areas no kid could tackle without a vehicle.
As the summer begins to wind down (shh! Don’t tell the kids
that school is only a mere four weeks away!), ask fellow parents about their
fondest or happiest childhood memory. Listen as they say things like…
- “We
rode our bikes all over the neighborhood for hours unsupervised by adults.”
- “We
played pickup games of baseball or soccer in the vacant lot down the
street without adult supervision.”
- “We
built a fort in our backyard with wood scrounged from the woods by
ourselves.”
- “We
had a lemonade stand just for fun on the corner, making the signs and
handling everything by ourselves.”
- “We
walked to the neighborhood park and played for hours alone.”
Do you see a common theme? We as parents did things by
ourselves, without direct parental supervision, that most of us would not let
our children do today. I get that it’s hard to be the Rambo parent, the one who
bucks the current trends of hovering over our children, of supervising their
every move. But someone’s got to do it or we’re going to have a bunch of kids
who can’t take a step without adult assistance or at least watchful eyes.
But start with baby steps, if you’re really anxious about
this. Start by kicking your kids outside while you stay inside away from the
windows and doors. Tell them where they can go (such as around the block,
etc.). Then don’t check on them for at least half an hour. Stretch that to
forty-five minutes, then an hour. By that time, you should be enjoying the
peaceful house and not worrying about the children.
Until next time,
Sarah
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