Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me? December 23, 2008

1. Children learn and develop according to a very strict schedule: their own.

2. There are no 16 year olds who are not toilet trained.

3. Any parenting lesson you painstakingly learn with your first child will be completely inapplicable to your second child.

4. The key to great parenting is a ton of love, support and acceptance. Make sure you’re getting enough.

5. Children are not as smart as those parenting books make them out to be. They’re way, way smarter.

6. With dedication and hard work, there will come a point when you know exactly how to handle any stage of your child’s development. Generally, this will occur when he’s halfway through the next 0ne.

7. When you find yourself, at 8am on a saturday, waist deep and shivering in your community pool trying to coax a screaming two year old off thedeck, what you need to remember is this: No election was ever won or lost on the basis of which candidate was prepared to put his face in the water.

8. There is only one thing that ever kept me from being a perfectly organized, perfectly patient, perfectly wise parent: being human

9. There is only one foolproofway to keep your children from whining in the grocery checkout line: leave them at home.

10. Raising children is confusing, challenging and over far too soon. And sometimes the wisest thing to do is just sit back and enjoy it.

(Excerpted from Today’s Parent April 2006 issue.. page 146)

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Lesson 4: Stand Firm Against Spoiling June 23, 2008

Spoil-proof Your Kids: How to Raise a Child of Character: Lesson 4

by Dr. Dan Kindlon

(http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsbehavior/0,,fmb4,00.html)

If there is one word that is associated with indulgent child rearing, it is spoiled. We’ve all seen kids who are spoiled. There’s a greediness about them. They throw tantrums in toy stores when their parents won’t buy them what they want. They always seem to want more and expect to get their own way. They have trouble sharing. The needs of family, friends, and the wider world recede like the earth in the rearview mirror of a starship.

We see the spoiled child as tainted and devalued. He has been overindulged and over-praised. He has not had to earn what he has: it has been given to him. An essential part of what we talk about when we talk about character is missing in him. He lacks integrity, fortitude, and a moral center. And it’s not just adults who notice bratty behavior. One 17-year-old girl I interviewed said: “About half the kids I know are really spoiled and they know it. They can get away with anything. It doesn’t matter what they do, their parents are like, ‘Oh, it’s okay, honey.’”

What exactly does it mean to be spoiled? Here are some examples: Spoiled kids expect to get away with everything. They expect special favors from friends and teachers (an extension on an assignment, for example). They get an allowance without having to do chores. They don’t have to obey rules at home, such as having to be home at a certain hour. And in general, they get too much leniency from their parents.

While America has changed a lot over the past year, we still live in relative affluence. The sense of entitlement so many of our kids developed before the economy began to weaken will not simply fade away just because the household income may have decreased. How many of us have watched our kids ripping into their presents on Christmas or Hanukah and then just tossing them aside? The getting, not the having, is what matters to them.

“Enough is enough!” we want to say to our kids. But how many of us, as parents, live our lives that way? For example, a friend of mine took her kids to the Washington monument. When she grew tired of waiting in the long line, she used a connection she had to get to the front of it. The next week she happened to be at her son’s school, and she saw him cut to the front of a line of kids waiting for the water fountain. She was immediately stricken by guilt at the part she had played in moderating this kind of behavior.

Let me stress that being spoiled is not just a rich kid’s disease. Although having money often makes it easier to externalize both problems and cures (buying material goods extravagantly, paying for the best psychologists, schools, and rehab treatments), parents without a lot of money can do the same thing. By not requiring their children to take sufficient responsibility for their actions or giving in easily to their demands, one can spoil children without spending a dime.

The kids I’ve talked to often made this distinction: spoiled was not necessarily a surfeit of money or material possessions; it was an attitude of not helping, not participating, not chipping in – of doing only what we want to, when we want to. And, perhaps surprisingly, kids even admitted that getting an allowance without having to do chores was related to being spoiled.

How can you as a parent combat these attitudes? Some parents know that if kids spend money that they’ve earned themselves, they will learn the difference between what they want and what they need. Since kids can be very label-conscious, you can demonstrate the difference between wanting and needing by having your child pay for status brands herself. Alternatively, she can make up the difference in cost between a reasonably priced item and the typically over-priced status item. For example, if a shirt costs $20 at the department store and $40 at Abercrombie and Fitch, your child can contribute $20 for the pricier shirt.

Perhaps the most important finding to come out of my research on the spoiled syndrome was that kids recognize that their parents are often too soft on them. They know that we are letting them get away with more than they should. Yet they also know that in order to be strong, to face the challenges of life, to become the people they want to become, they need our help in building character; in fighting against the atmosphere of indulgence that comes part and parcel with living in the richest society the world has ever known.

Stopping the Spoiling Syndrome
At the beginning of this workshop, you tested yourself to determine how indulgent a parent you really are. Let’s revisit this idea by taking some time to explore whether your child is spoiled and how you may be contributing to the behavior. Here’s a simple checklist to help you get started:

How many of the following scenarios are true for you?

• Your child frequently whines (children who whine a lot usually have found that it is a useful strategy for getting what they want)
• You find yourself doing work around the house while your child is watching TV
• You can’t think of a present for her birthday because she already has so much
• When your child complains about the food that you just served for dinner, you make something else
• You give your child an allowance without asking her to do any chores in return
• You jump in to help with homework at the first sign of trouble
• You grant your child’s every wish without skipping a beat

Now ask yourself these questions:
• Do you know other children whom you consider spoiled?
• Do you recognize their behavior in your own children?
• Do you think an outsider would consider your child spoiled? If yes, why?

As difficult a task as it is to find fault in your child and in yourself, identifying whether your child is indeed spoiled and the situations where you may be supporting this behavior is a necessary step toward ending the cycle. Once you recognize these areas, you can begin to change your own behavior, which will ultimately affect your child’s actions and attitude. For example, if your child is a picky eater – a common problem among parents – do not automatically offer to prepare alternative meals. Instead, attempt to get her interested in trying new foods by letting her help you plan the meals. If that doesn’t work, offer to make something else only after your child has tasted what the rest of the family is eating. If your child is old enough, she can make her own simple substitutions, like a peanut butter sandwich, but nothing that is going to require more mess for you to clean up.

When creating kids of character, much of it comes down to how we act as parents every day. By completing this Spoil-Proof Your Child workshop, you have taken an important step in helping to change your child’s behavior by developing an awareness of your own motivations – why you act the way you do with your kids. With an increased understanding of yourself, and consistent T.L.C. (time, limits and caring) for your children, you now have the tools to raise kids with character: that unshakable sense of self that sees us through life’s vicissitudes and is the foundation of all meaningful relationships.

Lesson 3: Getting rid of the Gotta Have its June 23, 2008

Getting Rid of the “Gotta-Have-Its”

Spoil-proof Your Kids: How to Raise a Child of Character: Lesson 3 (http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsbehavior/0,,ch5h-p,00.html)

by Dr. Dan Kindlon

In Lesson Two you explored why you may be indulging your kids, and practiced setting some real limits by modifying one of your child’s behaviors. This week, you’ll discover how to help your children learn self-control through delaying gratification.

There are few of us who don’t know someone for whom self-control is a big problem, who has put his health and happiness at risk because of his inability to resist temptation. This is one of the reasons why the government agency entrusted to keeping us healthy, the Centers of Disease Control, places so much emphasis on trying to help teenagers develop self-control. Research clearly shows that without adequate self-control, teenagers place themselves at greater risk for problems later on because healthy habits are established in childhood and adolescence.

Self-control Leads to Better SAT Scores
Self-control affects more than our child’s physical health. Self-control is often vital if we want our kids to excel academically as well. Astounding as it may seem, scientists can predict what a preschooler’s SAT scores will be when she is seventeen based on early self-control. Psychologist Walter Mischel has researched what he and his colleagues call “delay of gratification.” They constructed experiments that gave children a simple choice: something small, not all that desirable right now; or, if they wait and resist temptation of the immediate payoff, a bigger reward. Mischel found that he could predict how well a four-year-old would do on his SATs by how long he was able to resist, say, some M&Ms, knowing that if he did resist and wait, he would be given several treats, not just the M&Ms. A child who could only delay gratification for five seconds had an overall SAT score that was about sixty points lower than the child who was able to wait five minutes. When the choice was between one marshmallow immediately or two marshmallows after an unspecified waiting period, the kid who was able to wait twenty minutes for the two marshmallows had a combined SAT score that was 210 higher than the kid who was unwilling to wait. Not only did the children who were able to delay gratification have higher SAT scores, but they were also rated by their parents as better able to cope with stress, effectively pursue goals, and resist temptation.

Some children are simply born with a predisposition to impulsivity while some are born with greater ability to resist temptation. But scientists still say that self-control can be altered by our experiences, which places much of the burden onto us parents. If we want our children to develop self-control, we must stop overindulging them and, instead, make them learn to wait their turn, delay gratification, and resist temptation. Likewise, we must exhibit self-control ourselves. If we can patiently wait in a 45-minute line at Disney World, keep our cool in traffic jams, and keep calm while we struggle to assemble a 4,000-piece Lego set, our children will tend to imitate this behavior in similar circumstances.

Teaching Frustration Tolerance
Closely linked to the importance of learning to delay gratification is a child’s ability to tolerate frustration. One of the hallmarks of what we call emotional maturity is the ability not to be fazed by setbacks; to roll with the punches and persevere in the face of difficulties. Kids today can press a few keys on their computer and download music or order movie tickets. They can instant message half a dozen friends at the same time. So much comes to them so easily; they rarely need to wait for anything. So it’s no wonder that kids whine when you’re busy and they want your attention, rant when you make them wait for a ride to the mall, or throw a fit because you refuse to buy them the hip sneakers they don’t need. It’s up to us parents to teach them how to wait and not get frustrated, to develop skills such as frustration tolerance, and more generally, how to cope with stress.

I think it’s paramount to talk to your kids about the importance of delaying gratification and frustration tolerance. If they’re old enough, you may even want to give them the SATs/M&Ms example. It is also necessary to put these concepts into practice by putting firm rules and structures in place for children to follow – to insist, for example, that they clean their rooms or finish their homework before watching TV. As painful as it may be for a child to experience stress and frustration, and for us as parents to watch, this strategy will reinforce the fact that self-control is important and pushes kids to build up their frustration tolerance level.

Play the Delaying Gratification Game
Here’s a way to put these strategies to the test. Start by making a list of three areas where your child can practice delaying gratification and building up her tolerance to frustration. Here are some common examples:

• Finishing homework without an extended break
• Being completely quiet while you are on the telephone
• Brushing teeth before hearing a bedtime story
• Cleaning dinner dishes before playing on the computer
• Finishing dinner before eating dessert
• Not eating breakfast until bed is made
• Not buying sneakers until they are on sale or they really need a new pair

Sit down and talk with your child about this exercise and what you expect of her. If your child is too young to understand, skip the talk and simply insist on the new behavior at appropriate times. If it helps, go ahead and make a game of the exercise. For example, use a timer and see how long can she work on homework without a TV break. If all goes well, the time will increase substantially by the end of the week, and you can reward her by cooking her favorite dinner or taking her to the movies.

Take the time to also examine your own level of self-control. Select three areas where you need to practice delayed gratification and frustration tolerance, such as waiting in long lines or sitting in a traffic jam. As you find yourself in these settings, be conscious of how patient you are or are not being. By developing your own self-control, you will be setting a better example for your children.

Lesson 2: Loving ways to set limits June 23, 2008

Loving Ways to Set Limits

Spoil-proof Your Kids: How to Raise a Child of Character: Lesson 2

by Dr. Dan Kindlon

(http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsbehavior/0,,bwvg,00.html)

 

In Lesson One you learned about ways in which you might be overindulging your children in your every day life. In this step, we’re going to discuss TLC, which stands for Time, Limits and Caring – what I call the holy trinity of childcare. You’ll learn the importance of limits, and start to get comfortable with making rules and being strict with your children when necessary.

It’s impossible to raise children well unless we spend time with them. And spending simple time together has wonderful results. For example, my research shows that children in families that eat dinner together at least a few times per week tend to be less depressed, have less permissive attitudes toward sex, are less likely to use drugs, and are more likely to work to their intellectual potential in school. Caring is equally important – taking an active interest in our children’s lives, being willing to listen to what’s on their minds and participate in their activities.

For most parents, the trickiest part of TLC is setting limits for our kids. We believe setting limits-saying “no” for example- will destroy the closeness we have with our children and take all the fun out of parenting. But it is only by setting limits that we can help kids develop character and avoid some of the dangers of adolescence, including eating disorders, risky sexual behavior and underachievement.

The Importance of Limits
We all need limits, adults and children alike. Yet some parents believe that setting limits is inconsistent with our desire to have a relationship with our child that is based on mutual respect. Trust and mutual respect are a crucial part of the parent-child relationship, but I strongly disagree with the philosophy that says it is always bad to assert power over your children. You can try to discuss situations in which you and your child disagree – she wants to attend a rock concert, for example, and you feel she is too young to go with a group of friends to such an event – but in the end you may need to assert authority and simply refuse permission to let her go.

So when a child tries to get your okay to do something they’re not ready for by saying, “Don’t you trust me?” I recommend responding, “No, and I wouldn’t have trusted myself at your age either. Part of my job as a parent is to protect you from risky situations.”

Responses like this may anger your child, but your firmness also sends them the message that you care enough about them to hold the line, risk their displeasure, and create conflict and friction. They know it would be easier for you to give in. They are testing you.

Understanding Our Fear of Limits
In addition to obvious reasons, such as fear that our children won’t love us anymore, there is a more subtle level of “why” we as parents have trouble setting limits. A good place to start looking for these deeper whys is in the past, to the interactions you had as a child or teenager with your parents or anyone else who was intimately involved in your upbringing. We can’t avoid the influence of the people who raised us in the way we parent our kids – for better or worse.

Each of us carries idealized images of good parents and bad parents inside of us, what I call our “inner parent.” They influence our feelings and can have enormous power. When we remember the good version (the mother who always got up to cook us a hot breakfast, or the father who patiently helped us with our homework), we may try to live up to these visions – to emulate and please them. And so, in many instances, our good inner parents inspire us to be good parents. But our good inner parents can also influence us to be overly generous or overprotective – in general, over indulgent with our children. Trying to please a good inner parent can blind us to our children’s real needs for limits.

Ironically, we can also indulge our children because we want to avoid any resemblance to our bad inner parent. If we had a mother or father who was never involved, we may vow to be as involved as possible in our children’s lives, bending over backwards to fulfill their needs while we neglect our own. Thus, it’s important to be able to distinguish between when we are parenting our kids and when we are reparenting ourselves as children. Fortunately, it is possible to remodel these inner parents, or, at least, to reduce their power over us. Just getting to know them, by simply being conscious of them, we diminish their influence.

Know Your Inner Parent
Take a moment to visit your inner parents on their home turf, inside your head. Start with the good inner parent. Begin by thinking about an experience with your mother that brings back positive feelings. (If you can’t think of one, don’t worry – you’re not alone. Instead, pick another relative – your father or grandparent, for instance.) Try to remember as many details about the experience as you can. It makes no different whether your mom (or other relative) is as saintly as you remember her. What’s important is that you believe she was. For an introduction to your bad inner parent, simply do the opposite of the first exercise. Recall a painful or traumatic experience with one of your parents, an incident in which you felt furious, abandoned or betrayed. As uncomfortable as this experience may be, try to remember that it is a necessary step toward changing your parenting style for the better.

Choosing Proper Punishment
Now that you have explored some of the reasons why you may have trouble setting limits, you are ready to change your behavior. Once you’ve decided to establish real rules at home, it’s important to be consistent about enforcing them and it’s usually necessary to have some kind of punishment in place. Rules are usually more effective if there are real consequences to breaking them, and it’s important that the consequences are spelled out in advance.

“Time out” is usually effective for younger kids as a consequence. As kids get older, their rooms are generally where they want to be, so this becomes less effective. I stopped using Time Outs as punishment when my kids turned seven.

Other options include having your kids do tasks that aren’t a normal part of their responsibilities, such as sweeping out the garage or washing windows. Grounding is popular among parents; the loss of phone privileges can be effective. But be cautious about setting penalties that are too severe. For one thing, it limits your ability to punish for anything else. Once I worked with a set of parents who, in response to various infractions, removed nearly everything from their son’s room – stereo, television, computer, phone – until they no longer had any disciplinary leverage.

Changing One Behavior at a Time
Remember, setting limits doesn’t only need to be about punishment. You can be proactive about setting positive limits for your child, and you can start now. Choose one behavior you want to change or develop in your child (e.g. cleaning room, doing dishes). It may help you to think back to the Step One exercise. No doubt, there’s a connection between the behavior you give in on and the behavior you wish most to change.

To change the behavior, you need to map out a plan. Your plan should include:

1) How you will talk to your child about the new policy
This should include the reasons why you think it is important (e.g. I need the help around the house). Be sure that you explain your reasons without lecturing or placing blame. Your discussion will be more effective if your child perceives that you are asking for help rather than demanding it. Here’s how I would approach this conversation with my own son:

“John, I need to talk to you about something. Can we take 5 minutes now? I’ve been thinking lately about the kinds of chores I have to do around the house and to tell you the truth I could really use your help. So I’m asking you to take over the responsibility for putting your laundry in the hamper. I know you can do a good job.”

By stating your needs and posing your request in a non-threatening manner, your child will not only be more likely to agree to this new policy, but he will also feel like an integral and valued member of your family. You will also be reinforcing the importance of cooperation and responsibility.

2) The consequences andor rewards that will accompany the change
For example, you may decide to deduct 50 cents from your child’s allowance for every piece of laundry left on the floor. Be sure to explain this plan to your child. If you have previously just given an allowance without an incentive, your child may need some time to adjust to this new policy.

In order for your plan to succeed, you have to make sure you have chosen something about which you can be completely consistent. This can be the most challenging part of the exercise.

In Lesson Three, say good-bye to “gimmes” and “gotta have its”, and find out how to help your kids learn self-control.

Dr. Dan Kindlonis the author of Too Much of a Good Thing.

Lesson 1: Why parents indulge June 23, 2008

Why Parents Indulge

Spoil-proof Your Kids: How to Raise a Child of Character: Lesson 1

by Dr. Dan Kindlon

(http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsbehavior/0,,bw24,00.html)

Today’s parents are doing a great job. Compared to earlier generations, we are emotionally closer to our kids, they confide in us more, we have more fun with them, and we know more about the science of child development. But we are also too indulgent. We give our kids too much and expect too little of them. Why? Because we want our children to be happy.

In our eagerness to spare our children pain, we often fail to realize that their happiness as adults is largely dependent on the tools we give them – tools that will allow them to develop emotional maturity, to be honest with themselves, to be empathetic, to take initiatives, to delay gratification, to learn from failure and move on, to accept their flaws, and to face the consequences when they’ve done something wrong. We need to prepare our kids for the time when they will be responsible for themselves, by helping them develop the healthy attitudes and good habits that are character’s foundation. And to do that, we must stop over indulging them both materialistically and emotionally.

This four-step workshop will not only teach you how to raise children of character, it will help you gain back control of your family and your home. You’ll discover why you may be indulging your child, and learn you how to make important and significant changes in your parenting behavior – set limits without feeling guilty, teach your children self-control and fight back against greediness.

But don’t get the wrong idea: this workshop is not meant as a morality lesson. Rather, the goal of this workshop is to help you learn to combine the best of both worlds – emotional closeness with our kids and the ability to set limits.

What’s Wrong With Indulging Kids?
By protecting our children from failure, adversity, and pain, we deprive them of the opportunity to develop a realistic sense of their strengths and limitations, and to learn important coping skills. Indulged children are often less able to cope with stress, for example, because their parents have created an atmosphere where their whims are indulged, and where they have always assumed that life should be a bed of roses. The body cannot learn to adapt to stress unless it experiences it.

Indulged children can also be at risk of being self-centered, angry, depressed, spoiled, envious, overly competitive and driven or, on the flip side, unmotivated. They may lack self-control, and thus be more likely to get into trouble with drugs, alcohol and risky sex.

Understanding Why We Indulge
For today’s parents, mostly Baby Boomers, our children are at the core of what gives meaning to our lives. We are the generation who didn’t get married to have sex. Many of us waited to have children. After losing faith in our leaders, we came up with the bumper sticker “Question Authority”. As a result, when we became parents, we were often uncomfortable setting strict limits and exerting authority over our children.

In addition, families tend to be smaller now than in the past, making each child all the more precious. And so we may be overprotective to a fault, denying our children the growing experience a little pain can bring. Also, we indulge our children at least partially because we can afford to. We want to share the good things in life with our kids; and we know that money can protect us from at least some of life’s problems. But money can’t protect our kids from the discomforts of maturation, and it can’t buy them character.

We indulge our children in non-materialistic ways, too. Too many of us seem to be seeking our children’s approval, an affirmation of ourselves and our worth. Rather than impose authoritarian punishments when our children misbehave, we want to talk things out with them, reason with them. We want open and honest communication, not dictatorial rule. We want to be emotionally close to our kids, to have fun with them, to be, to some extent, their friends. This blurring of the line between being a friend and being a parent is one of the most significant trends in parenting today, and it most often results in confusion for us and for our kids. The good news is that parents can set limits and still have fun with the kids. I’ve heard from kids who said their moms or dads were “pretty strict” or “too strict” who also said that they had fun with their parents most or all of the time.

With the skills you learn in these four steps, you’ll be able to have the best of both worlds. You’ll be able to do what’s right for your children by setting necessary limits, without sacrificing the close bond that is one of the great strengths of parent-child relationships today.

Stopping the Spoil-Cycle
Now take some time to think more specifically about how you may overindulge your children by asking yourself how often you “give in” and do something for your child that is her responsibility as well as how often you let your child have something that she hasn’t earned or shouldn’t have in the first place? If making lists helps you organize your thoughts, be sure to write your examples down. Over the next four weeks, you will learn how to stop yourself from this behavior – and gain back control of your household.

Here are some common examples:
• Picking up used bath towels off the floor
• Putting away toys/straightening room
• Feeding/walking pet
• Cleaning up after dinner
• Coming in past curfew
• Going out without finishing homework
• Staying up past bedtime

Consider your list and think about the reasons why you give in. Common reasons include the following:
• Too tired/easier to do yourself
• Don’t want to start a fight
• Don’t want to interrupt child’s activity (playing with friend, watching favorite TV show)
• Feel guilty about something (yelling at child, being away from home too much)
• Only want your child to be happy

Think about your motivations for giving in and ask yourself whether they are justified. However you indulge your children, and whatever your reasons are, it’s guaranteed you’re not alone. Move on to Step Two to learn loving ways to set firm limits with your kids. Making a real change is easier than you think!

Court Overturns father’s grounding of 12 year old June 19, 2008

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080618/canada/canada_child_court_offbeat

OTTAWA (AFP) – A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl’s grounding, overturning her father’s punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the Internet, his lawyer said Wednesday.

 

The girl had taken her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on websites he tried to block, and then posting “inappropriate” pictures of herself online using a friend’s computer.

 

The father’s lawyer Kim Beaudoin said the disciplinary measures were for the girl’s “own protection” and is appealing the ruling.

 

“She’s a child,” Beaudoin told AFP. “At her age, children test their limits and it’s up to their parents to set boundaries.”

 

“I started an appeal of the decision today to reestablish parental authority, and to ensure that this case doesn’t set a precedent,” she said. Otherwise, said Beaudoin, “parents are going to be walking on egg shells from now on.”

 

“I think most children respect their parents and would never go so far as to take them to court, but it’s clear that some would and we have to ask ourselves how far this will go.”

 

According to court documents, the girl’s Internet transgression was just the latest in a string of broken house rules. Even so, Justice Suzanne Tessier found her punishment too severe.

 

Beaudoin noted the girl used a court-appointed lawyer in her parents’ 10-year custody dispute to launch her landmark case against dear old dad.