Parenting Basics: The Look

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

I well remember “The Look” my mother would give when one of us was not behaving ourselves as we should. It’s hard to describe, but once you saw it, you knew trouble would follow unless you straightened up.

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Have you cultivated such a look? I think that many of today’s parents can’t summon such a look anymore than their children would obey it. A few reasons why come to mind.

First, many of today’s parents are too busy trying to keep up with everything to notice when a child’s behavior is about to veer into misbehaving territory. That’s really what The Look is all about—assessing the near-danger and correcting it.

Second, many parents have chucked such old fashioned parenting skills as The Look in favor of more kid-friendly, warm-and-fuzzy methods that often involve more concern about a child’s feelings than is good for the child. To them, The Look belongs in a museum along with other parental advice relicts discussed in my Parenting Basics blogs.

Third, many parents haven’t laid the proper foundation of saying what they mean and meaning what they say, so having a Look won’t do them any good—the children simply wouldn’t obey anyway.

But from personal experience, having The Look comes in handy in so many ways. It allows you to not interrupt your conversation with grownups to address a potential dustup with your child. Just shoot Joy The Look when she’s about to start turning cartwheels in the middle of the living room, and nine times out of 10, you’ve nipped misbehavior in the bud.

The Look gives you another “weapon” in your parenting arsenal. (I use “weapon” tongue in cheek!) I’ve found The Look to be an effective means of body checking a child when words probably wouldn’t be as effective.

The Look also provides a child with the means to correct his behavior before it edges into consequence territory. It’s actually more compassionate to develop The Look because of its ability to curb misbehavior in its infancy. The Look also eliminates the need for speech, thus cutting down on others overhearing your admonishments.

I encourage you to develop your own Look. One cautionary note: The Look only works when your children know that you will follow up with appropriate discipline if it’s not heeded. Otherwise, it will only become a funny face Mom makes.

Until next time,

Sarah

Parenting Basics: “My House, My Rules.”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

More and more, parents are forgetting that their homes are, well, theirs. They are allowing children to dictate what state the child’s room can be kept and how much time said child spends in that room alone. Especially in the teen years, parents seem to be at a loss on how to respond to blatant disregard to curfew and other house rules.

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Used to be, Mom and Dad calmly and collectively informed wayward children that they were living in their house and therefore must follow their rules, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Parents should be the ones to establish authority in the home, not the children. This means the home revolves around the parents, not the children.

Nowadays, parents are flummoxed by children who say they can keep their room how they want because its theirs, by kids who want to drive completely how the family operates and by teens who say parents can have no say in their personal lives. But parents of another generation knew that having a parent/marriage centered house was best for children, and that meant following the “My house, my rules” expression.

“My house, my rules” doesn’t lord over children a parent’s authority, rather it puts the child’s desires and wants into their proper perspective. Let’s tackle one of the most prominent problems that crop up in households that don’t adopt this adage: who “owns” the child’s bedroom.

A child doesn’t pay the rent or mortgage. A child doesn’t buy groceries or the majority of things he needs (clothes, shoes, school supplies, etc.). Therefore, a child isn’t entitled to “own” his bedroom. We as parents graciously allow our children to occupy rooms in our home. But that doesn’t mean our children can do as they wish with their possessions in a room that we, technically, own.

Especially during the teen years, parents seem unable to counter arguments that posit a teen has sole possession of said room, and therefore can keep it as slovenly as he wants. Or that a teen can slink into his room and stay there hidden from the family and a parent has no right to enter the inner sanctum.

Au contraire! We have every right to expect our children to keep their rooms cleaned to our satisfaction and to allow us entrance into their rooms on any given day or hour. That’s not to say we don’t allow them privacy, but there’s a vast difference between privacy and antisocial behavior.

We also have every right to expect our children to adhere to our curfew conditions. As our teens age, we should be giving them more and more leeway in setting their own curfews—as long as they come in when they say they will. That means, if an older teen, who has proven herself faithful in meeting your curfews, should be able to say, “Mom, I’d like my curfew for Friday to be 1 a.m.” You could certainly grant her that privilege, with the understanding that if she comes in at 1:01 a.m., she’s broken her own imposed curfew and that consequences will be levied as a result. (For more on curfews, read John Rosemond’s excellent Teen Proofing.)

That’s two examples for how “My House, My Rules” works in a family. How does it work in yours?

Until next time,

Sarah

Parenting Basics: “I’m Only Going to Say This Once.”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

“I’m only going to say this once.” How many of us actually follow this stellar piece of advice? In my personal experience, not many. At the park, I’ve watched parents tell a child, “It’s time to go” multiple times, their voices growing increasingly shrill and strident with each repetition.

We’ve come to expect that children can’t hear as well as they used to when parents of previous generations said it once and that was enough. Somehow, kids today have collectively developed “listener’s ear,” in which they will only listen when they want to, not when Mom or Dad speaks. We read articles and books about how we need to relate to children on their own level so that they will want to hear what we have to say.

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But the fact of the matter is parents today endlessly repeat instructions because their children haven’t been properly trained to listen—and obey—them. Kids must be taught how to listen to instructions the first time. And the secret to that is so simple, you’re going to wonder why you didn’t think of it yourself.

The secret to kids listening the first time is to only say it once. It’s really that simple. Oh, wait, I can hear your question, “What about when they don’t listen and do what’s being asked once?”

That’s when you levy consequences. When my kids don’t listen the first time, it’s rare that I repeat myself (hey, I’m only human!). I’ve been consistent with discipline when they fail to heed my words and that means “I’m only going to say this once” works in our house—and it can in yours, too.

So stop sounding like a broken record (or iPod stuck on repeat?), and start saying something once, then keeping your mouth shut. Follow through with appropriate consequences, and you’ll find your kids suddenly develop good listening skills and you are no longer repeating yourself all the time.

Until next time,

Sarah

Parenting Basics: Hold Your Horses

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

Being horse-crazy as a child, I often had a visual image of what the phrase “Hold your horses” meant. Anyone who’s ever ridden a horse knows that you have to keep a firm grip on the reigns to avoid having the horse run away with you. That’s the same sentiment behind “Hold your horses,” which literally means to keep your horses still.

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The phrase dates back to Homer, and means you need to slow down, to be more careful and to exercise patience in the situation. When said to children, it generally means to stop whining and be patient. But I rarely hear it nowadays, as it’s usually the parents who are expected to be patient and wait for their children, not the other way around.

Parents have ceased expecting that their children can—or even should—wait for something, whether it’s ice cream, a new toy or their parents to stop talking and leave the party. Patience isn’t so much a virtue as it is an inconvenience these days.

How can you help your child develop more patience and learn to hold his horses? By giving him lots of opportunities for practice.

For a toddler, instead of having dessert directly after supper, try doing the dishes first and then having the sweet treat. Rather than leaving as soon as your child expresses the desire to go, try having him wait five more minutes while you wrap up a conversation. For older children, you can help them develop patience by practicing delayed gratification for hours and days for a whole host of things.

This advice to deliberately make a child wait for something might seem mean at first glance, but used properly—within the context of a loving and generous relationship with your child—it can help him reap the wonderful reward that patience brings.

So go on and add “Hold your horses” into your parenting phrase repertoire—you might find it a welcome addition!

Until next time,

Sarah  

Parenting Basics: “You can do that yourself”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

How many times have you done something for your children that they can do for themselves? Most of us do way too much for our seemingly helpless kids. The phrase “You can do that yourself” has not gotten much of a workout these days.

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It’s hard to watch our kids struggle with a task, whether it’s learning to tie their own shoes or figuring out the fingering on a piano piece or finishing a particularly tricky bit of math homework. But what we fail to realize is that by jumping in and doing the task for the child—or significantly helping a child with the project—we are actually enabling her to not learn to do it herself. 

Many parents have forgotten how to say to their children, “You can do that yourself.” Instead, enabling has taken over modern parenting. Enabling is evident whenever a parent does something for the child that the child is perfectly capable of doing for himself. Many parents fail to figure the cost of enabling and how it affects the child—and themselves. The cost of enabling to the child is increased dependence on parents, which increases the anxiety of the mother.

The child feels inadequate and helpless, lacks problem-solving and competency skills, and lacks appreciation for his personal strengths and weaknesses. In turn, that fuels the mother’s increased frustration at having to teach the same things constantly to the child.

Enabling also lowers the child’s academic performance, triggering in the mother a tendency to personalize her child’s school performance, as she ties his school performance with her worth/performance as a mom. 

To break the enabling cycle, we as parents need to stop doing so much for our kids. Start by taking counting to ten and repeating to yourself, “She can do it herself” whenever you see your child struggling or getting frustrated with a task. Turn away and focus on something else when your child is attempting to figure something out, such as homework, so that you won’t be tempted to jump in too soon.

Sure it's hard to watch your child fall down while learning to ride a bike and skin her knee. But only by testing her limits will she learn the sweet taste of doing it by herself. Give your child the breathing room to fail—and you will be surprised at how often she succeeds.

In October, Sarah will be giving a series of talks on The Well-Behaved Child: Discipline that Really Works through the City of Fairfax Parks and Recreation Department. Also in October, Sarah and Mary Elizabeth Peritti will speak on Parenting With Love & Leadership in a four-part webinar series. Contact Sarah through her website for more information.

Parenting Basics: “Wait Until Your Father Gets Home”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

What role does Dad have in your family’s life? Is he regulated to a supporting role, a parenting aide to Mom? Does he share in the discipline? Is he merely a buddy, someone to clown around with while Mom does the heavy lifting?

Part of the confusion today over the role of a father has its roots in the idealized view of the 1950s nuclear family. Dad brought home the bacon, Mom fried it up in a pan, and the kids were pretty much seen but not heard. As part of the backlash against what many saw as a distant, cold father figure, Dads have move out of the background and into the foreground—but not exactly into a co-parenting role.

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Most husbands and wives, when they become Mother and Father, move into a lopsided arrangement whereas the wives/mothers become the head of the child-rearing department and the husbands/fathers float into a buddy/pal relationship with the child. If today’s typical mother were to tell her kids, “Wait until your father gets home!,” in response to misbehavior, most kids would not worry one iota. In fact, they would look forward to Dad coming home to play with them.

This shift into turning Dad into a mere play-pal hasn’t done any favors to the average American marriage, either. Most parents forget that they should be spending more time in the role of husband and wife instead of mother/father. Our job is to help our spouse see his or her role is not to be the world’s greatest dad or mom, but to be the world’s greatest husband or wife.

By concentrating more on the marriage relationship, you will actually be a better mother and father. Might sound counterintuitive, but numerous studies have shown that children are happier and feel more secure when they know their parents’ marriage is strong. Instead of encouraging your husband or wife to be the world’s greatest dad or mom, say you want him or her to be the world’s greatest husband or wife.

Once you make that change—a more focus on husband/wife than mom/dad roles—moving Dad from the fringes of parenting should be easier. A father shouldn’t be a mere parenting aide, but a full participant in parenting decisions and discipline. A good rule of thumb is that the parent with the most hands-on interaction with the children should be the primary discipliner. But that doesn’t mean the Dad (in most cases) can’t mete out consequences when needed or to back up Mom by delivering punishments when requested by Mom.

In October, Sarah will be giving a series of talks on The Well-Behaved Child: Discipline that Really Works through the City of Fairfax Parks and Recreation Department. Coming in early 2014, Sarah and Mary Elizabeth Peritti will speak on Parenting With Love & Leadership in a four-part webinar series. Contact Sarah through her website for more information.

Parenting Basics: “Stew in Your Own Juices”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

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This golden oldie of parenting yesteryear is a must-have for every parent’s repertoire. Basically, stewing in your own juices--or lying in a bed you made-- means facing the consequences of your actions. So many times, we as parents want to shield our children from “bad” consequences brought on by our children’s poor decisions or plain, old bad behavior.

This is one of my favorite phrases, mostly because I love to say “stew in your own juices”—it just sounds rather delicious, don’t you think? To help children want to solve their own problems—and thus not stew in their own juices—parents have to become mean parents, that is parents who mean what they say and say what they mean. Sure, their children might call them Big Meanies, but that’s just because their kids can’t get away with things in their house.

Big Meanies allow children to “stew in their own juices” and “lie in their own beds”, i.e., experience the full consequences of their own misbehavior. This puts the monkey on the back of the only one who can solve the problem—the child.

As long as you step in and try to solve the problem that your child created, the more your child will not solve the problem himself. And the more stress and strife you will create in your home.

The more you step back and let the child solve—or not solve, as the case may be—his own problems, then the more your child will be able to solve his own problems. When your child doesn’t want to, then you leave him alone to suffer the results of his own silly actions, without offering any assistance.

By allowing your child to stew in his own juices, you will be giving him the time to think about what went wrong and how to change things the next time around. Parents who jump in and solve the problem for the child are not providing him with that opportunity—and are thus not letting him learn from his mistakes and to do better the next time.

So mix it up by letting your child stew in his own juices—or lie in his own bed, if you prefer that phrasing—the next time he misbehaves or fails to follow through on something. You might be labeled a Big Meanie, but your child will be the better for it.

Coming in early 2014, Sarah and Mary Elizabeth Peritti will speak on Parenting With Love & Leadership in a four-part webinar series. Contact Sarah through her website for more information.

Parenting Basics: “You Need to Stand on Your Own Two Feet”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

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A recent Wall Street Journal article asked, “Should You Bring Mom and Dad to the Office?” The story focused on the growing trend of Millenials—the generation born between the 1981 and the early 2000s—who are arriving at job interviews with a resume and their parents. This group of twentysomethings and thirtysomethings “are much closer to their parents than previous generations, and they have gained a reputation for being coddled by so-called helicopter parents.”

Some employers, who once balked at the practice, have slowly begun to embrace the presence of parents at the interview stage—and beyond. For example, the Wall Street Journal article quoted a Northwestern Mutual executive who “does everything it can to accommodate the parents of college-aged interns, including regularly inviting them to the office for open houses. … Some Northwestern Mutual managers call or send notes to parents when interns achieve their sales goals and let parents come along to interviews and hear details of job offers. They may even visit parents at home.”

Apparently, some parents have forgotten to employ the phrase, “You need to stand on your own two feet,” to any great effect with their offspring. My mother would say this whenever I started to ask her for help with my homework—worksheets, I might add, that I was perfectly capable of doing myself but was too lazy to extend the brain effort required.

Telling a child to stand on his own two feet is another way of encouraging him that he can do the task at hand, that within himself are the necessary skills and abilities to finish, start, complete or tackle whatever mountain is standing before him. Homework, learning to ride a bike, putting together a puzzle—those are some of the things that kids sometimes ask for assistance when they can do it themselves.

Parents of yesteryear knew that a child usually asked for help as the first resort, not after the child has wrestled with something for an extended period of time and still couldn’t figure it out. A child will always try to take the path of least resistance, and that’s when parents need to pull out the phrase, “You need to stand on your own two feet” to prod the child to work more towards his independence.

Grown children who allow mom and dad to accompany them on job interviews haven’t learned how to stand on their own two feet. They are missing out on a key component to success in life: learning how to lead a life of independence. That dependence on parents starts when a child is young, too young to realize his own need to try and fail, to fall and get back up, which is really what teaching a child to stand on his own two feet is all about. Having that skill is much better than dragging Mom and Dad along to a job interview—and one that will produce an independent and successful adult in the process.

This month, Sarah will be giving a series of talks on The Well-Behaved Child: Discipline that Really Works through the City of Fairfax Parks and Recreation Department. Also in October, Sarah and Mary Elizabeth Peritti will speak on Parenting With Love & Leadership in a four-part webinar series. Contact Sarah through her website for more information.

Parenting Basics: What Do Britches Have to do With Anything?

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

To those who think britches, an old-fashioned word for pants, has nothing to do with child-rearing, I say read on! The phrase “You’re acting too big for your britches” is one that should be employed by every parent, if not in actual word, at least in sentiment.

Someone who’s too big for their pants is one who is too arrogant. The origin of the phrase, “You’re too big for your britches” has its roots in the 1830s and means one who  thinks too highly of himself than he ought to. In the middle of the last century, the phrase was often said in conjunction with “If you don’t size yourself to your britches, I’ll do it for you.”

A similar phrase used in previous generations of parents is “You need to be taken down a peg or two,” which has its origin in the ancient practice of ranking people on a vertical peg board, with one’s name represented by a peg. The higher on the peg, the higher in society you ranked. Thus to be taken down a notch or peg meant that you had gotten above your station in life and needed to be reminded of your proper place.

Today, with many parents buying into the notion that families are a democracy (that’s a discussion for another blog), the notion that a child could in fact be acting above where she ought might smack of classism. But nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to children. Parents nowadays routinely allow their children to grow inflated egos, to think themselves much more important than they should be.

In our quest for equality, we’ve forgotten what the parents of yesteryear understood intuitively: that youngsters had no problem thinking too highly of themselves and need to be taught otherwise. Basically, the phrase “you’re too big for your britches” is an antidote to high self-esteem. A child with high self-esteem, as I’ve talked about on this blog before, is one who puts herself above all others, who focuses more on what her needs are than on the needs of others, and who wants her needs attended to above all others.

A child who is too big for his britches is a child who wants his way in everything. A child who is too big for his britches is one who ignores his parents, his teachers and whoever else is standing in his way. A child who is too big for his britches has an ego the size of Texas and has no qualms about asserting his will in all things.

In other words, a child who’s too big for his britches is one who is a big brat.

Now, if you don’t want a bratty child—and, seriously, who does?—then you’d better start sizing your children to their proper size britches. All that means is that when you see their little egos start to inflate, you gently—you don’t have to be harsh about it to get the point across—take then down a notch. This means, you teach them to put others first. This means, you make them wait their turn. This means, you show them how to treat others with respect and courtesy—and demand that same treatment from them towards you.

“You’re getting too big for your britches” is a golden oldie when it comes to parenting phrases. Dust it off and give it a good workout—even if you have to tell your kids what “britches” are.

Until next time,

Sarah

In October, Sarah will be giving a series of talks on The Well-Behaved Child: Discipline that Really Works through the City of Fairfax Parks and Recreation Department. Also in October, Sarah and Mary Elizabeth Peritti will speak on Parenting With Love & Leadership in a four-part webinar series. Contact Sarah through her website for more information.

Parenting Basics: “Don’t Get Me Involved”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs (posted on Tuesdays) will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

Sixty years or so ago, mothers had a life of their own. They weren’t waiting around for their children to “need” them—they were out having cocktails with the neighbors, chairing committees and whipping up Jello-molds with one hand tied behind their backs. Involved in their children’s lives? Not on your life.

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Fast-forward to today: most mothers are over-involved in the minutia that is their children’s lives. No detail is too small to be overlooked or commented on, or scrapebooked. To say you didn’t want to get involved in your children’s lives is tantamount to saying you don’t love your kids.

Which is why the phrase, “Don’t get me involved,” has fallen way out of usage. Some of you reading this blog are wincing, wondering why any decent, loving mother would want to say that to their child. Shouldn’t good mothers be involved?

In a word, no. It all comes down to whose life is it anyway. Is it your child’s life or yours? If your child’s life is yours, then you should be involved. But your child’s life isn’t yours to live—it is your child’s and your child’s alone. Or to put it another way: back off and let your child live her own life.

That’s where “Don’t get me involved” comes into play. Parents of yesteryear used this phrase to encourage their children to solve their own problems, whether with school, siblings, friends, etc. Parents used to know that the only person capable of solving the problem was the person involved with the problem. In other words, when a child has a problem, the child is the only person responsible for solving the problem.

The parent shouldn’t step in just because the child doesn’t want to solve the problem. The parent shouldn’t shoulder the responsibility of solving the problem because the child doesn’t want to or says he can’t solve the problem. The only person capable of solving the child’ problem is the child.

That’s the beauty of “Don’t get me involved.” Telling your child when he comes to you with a problem, “Don’t get me involved,” reminds the child that it’s his problem, not yours, and that your involvement will not solve the problem, but instead will create more of an uncomfortable situation with the child. This works especially well with sibling conflict. The only ones who can solve sibling conflict are the siblings involved in the conflict. Telling said siblings, “Don’t get me involved,” gives them more incentive to come to a conclusion that satisfies all involved.

I encourage you to brush off the old chestnut “Don’t get me involved,” and use it freely with your children. You might find that you can join a book club, have a glass of wine by the fireplace or take up yoga with all the free time you’ll have by not being overly involved in your children’s lives.

In October, Sarah will be giving a series of talks on The Well-Behaved Child: Discipline that Really Works through the City of Fairfax Parks and Recreation Department. Also in October, Sarah and Mary Elizabeth Peritti will speak on Parenting With Love & Leadership in a four-part webinar series. Contact Sarah through her website for more information.