Secrets to Being a Great Parent

By Naomi Freundlich

We asked our top child-development experts what children need most from their moms and dads. Their answers may surprise you.

Create Family Rituals:

Having special little customs gives you and your child an opportunity to connect, no matter what else is going on.

Cooking a simple meal together, reading a story every night, planting a garden, playing a favorite board game -- these are the kinds of rituals that kids love. Be creative: One father I know got into the habit of "shaving" with his 5-year-old son every morning, giving him foam and a toy razor. Another gets up early every Friday to take his daughter out to breakfast before they head off to work and school.

It doesn't really matter what your ritual is, as long as it's something you and your child both enjoy. It's important that you continue doing it, even when you're frustrated with your child. This isn't a privilege that you take away as a punishment. It's something sacred that you do, every night or every week or every month, as a way to connect.

The Pressured Child

Know Your Child's Personality:

The essence of being a great mom or dad is to really know your child's temperament and to tailor your parenting style to take that into account. Every kid is different -- even in the same family. If you understand each child's individual personality, and deal with that child in the way that suits him best, you'll minimize conflict.

Two simple examples: If you have a very active child, you should avoid roughhousing with him in the evenings, which makes bedtime difficult. Instead, have him do a quiet activity to help him calm down. Or maybe you have a child who has a difficult time with transitions. If so, you need to understand that giving her an advance warning when it's time to leave the playground will make the shift easier for her. The better you adapt to your child, the less conflict there will be.

^{*Stanley Turecki, M.D., psychiatrist and author of The Difficult Child}

Be A Good Role Model:

Every night, parents should ask themselves, "If my child had only my behavior to learn from today, what would I have taught him?" Probably the most common mistake moms and dads make is that we say one thing and do another. We give our children lectures on self-control and patience, and then explode when we get caught in traffic. We tell them not to gossip, and then turn around and do just that. We urge them to be honest, then let an 11-year-old order from a menu for kids under 10.

That's not to say parents have to be perfect. But when we fall down on the job, we need kids to learn from our mistakes. If you lash out at your child when you're feeling stressed out, for example, you should go back later and say, "I was wrong for yelling at you that way. I should have stayed calmer. I'm sorry." By doing so, you're teaching your child the importance of respect and forgiveness. If you're dealing with a challenging situation, you need to let your child see you're doing your best to cope. When you acknowledge the difficulty ("We're all worried because Daddy has lost his job, but everything will be okay"), you're showing your child that you can manage tough times -- and that will help him learn to do the same.

^{*Michele Borba, Ed.D., author of Don't Give Me That Attitude!}

Encourage Exploration:

Kids love to explore; it's an essential part of how they learn. When parents constantly say "Don't do that" or "Stay away from this," children learn to be timid and fearful of the unknown. Children who get lots of positive feedback from their parents as they explore new things will go on to grab life by the horns.

The most important thing you can do is to make sure your child's world is conducive to exploration. First, childproof your home so that she can roam around without getting hurt. Then you need to pay attention to your daily routine, and make sure there's always new stuff for her to explore. Let her bang pots and spoons in the kitchen, and play with blankets made of different fabrics in the linen closet. Introduce her to a variety of foods. Take her to libraries, parks, zoos, and art museums. If you encourage your child to be an active explorer as a baby and toddler, she will embrace learning throughout life.

^{*Craig T. Ramey, Ph.D., director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education and coauthor of Right From Birth: Building Your Child's Foundation for Life}

Set Clear Limits:

Children thrive when they grow up in a home that has structure, limits, and rules. But many parents make the mistake of projecting their own feelings about rules onto their kids. As adults, we don't like people telling us what to do, and we think our children will react negatively to rules. But kids need parents who can impose limits -- and not back down from them.

I'm not saying to make rules just to prove you're the boss. It's important to set limits for a good reason and to explain them to your kids in a loving and caring way. But studies show that having rules and structure makes a child feel safe and secure and teaches self-control and self-reliance.

^{*Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D., author of The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting}

Be Your Child's Biggest Booster:

The single most important thing you can do for your children is to let them know you're absolutely crazy about them. Tell them often that they are terrific. Say, "You are the best thing in my life." Research shows that these kinds of messages make kids resilient and help them deal with disappointment, rejection, and the other unpleasant stuff that life routinely hands out. Surprisingly, a lot of children don't know how much their moms and dads appreciate them, and that's because parents aren't getting the message across. Make a conscious effort to be positive -- even when you're setting limits. Instead of criticizing a kid for fighting with a sibling, for example, say something like, "I know that's not your best effort. I'm sure you love your brother a lot more than you're showing him now." That lets your child know you have faith in him, that you believe in him -- and what can beat that?

^{*Kyle D. Pruett, M.D., clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center and School of Medicine, and author of Me, Myself, and I: How Children Build Their Sense of Self}

Make Family Time a Priority:

In recent years, there has been a lot of emphasis on keeping kids challenged -- and busy. When children are as young as 3 or 4, we sign them up for gym classes, music lessons, sports teams, and more. We're afraid that our children will fall behind if they don't participate in what everyone else is doing. So we've become servants to our kids -- driving them here and there, scheduling our lives around their activities.

I think it's far more important to make family time your biggest priority than to cater to everybody's individual activities all the time. Eat dinner as a family, even if it means your child won't be able to make a soccer practice. Kids should carve out time for grandparents and other relatives too. Children also need lots of downtime when you can all just relax and be together as a family. Family bonds are an anchor for kids: Their activities will come and go, but family relationships will last a lifetime.

^{*William J. Doherty, Ph.D., professor of family and social science at the University of Minnesota, in St. Paul, and author of Take Back Your Kids}

Making your life easier

Juggling work, childcare and quality time with your baby can be difficult, but if you plan ahead you can take some of the strain out of your new routine.

Time management

Being reliable and on time shows respect for your child's carer, so make every effort to be there when you say you will.

Always let the carer know if there's going to be a change to your agreed arrangements. And remember, some nurseries will fine you if you're late picking up your child.

Once you're back at work, explain your childcare arrangements to your employer and make it clear that you'll need to leave at a particular time to pick up your child.

You may want to arrange for your partner to collect your child a certain number of times each week, to give you more flexibility.

Get organised:

• Make food such as bolognese sauce or casseroles in bulk and freeze portions so you don't have to cook every night.
• Lay out everything you'll need the night before to save time in the morning. Don't get dressed until the last minute or you'll risk being daubed with breakfast cereal or milk.
• Don't waste time at the supermarket, order online instead.
• Aim to do a load of washing every day. Little and often is better than facing a huge mountain at the weekend.

Your feelings

Parents often feel guilty about leaving their child with someone else. To help you cope with this, ask yourself the following questions:

• Is your child being cared for by someone you trust?
• After two weeks, does your child seem settled with the carer?
• Are you able to concentrate on your work while you're there?
• Is your job necessary, either because you need the money or because you want to be doing it?

If you can answer yes to these questions, the chances are your arrangement is working well. So concentrate on making the most of the time you have with your child at the beginning and end of the day, and during your time off. (BBCNews)

Working mothers find child care a bore

by Sherrill Nixon

TIME-CRUNCHED working parents - especially women - find caring for their children the most stressful, frustrating or boring activity in their daily lives.

A study of parents' moods as they go about their days has found child care is the only activity that mothers dislike significantly more than fathers do.

In contrast, women feel more positively about their jobs than men, although for both sexes paid work ran second to child care as the most negative activity of the week. Working parents are at their happiest when engaged in socialising, community activities, voluntary work or care, education and recreation, the study found.

The academic behind the study, Peter Brown, of Griffith University's Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, is intrigued by the counter-intuitive finding that women feel more negative about child care, and more positive about paid work, than men.

"The conventional stereotypes of men being breadwinners and women being the carers, in terms of positive effect, it's the reverse of what you would expect," he said. "Maybe it's that familiarity breeds contempt."

He said the results suggest Australian parents should pursue a third dimension to their work/family balancing act, with more "me-time" and leisure activities.

"The fact that much leisure is played out in a social context, the importance of contact with others, that's the stuff that makes us happy and healthy," Professor Brown said.

He presented his research to the Australian and New Zealand Association for Leisure Studies conference in Melbourne this week, where a theme was parents' leisure, particularly men's.

For Professor Brown's study, 173 parents who worked part-time or full-time carried a personal digital assistant with them for seven days. Ten times a day at random times, the device would beep and the parents would record what they were doing, who they were with, where they were and how they felt about the activity.

The parents, particularly the women, in the younger age group (25-30 years) felt more time-pressured than those in the older group (52-57 years).

Overall, the older parents scored more highly on the positive scale but the mood scores showed all participants felt reasonably happy about their time use. Not surprisingly, younger parents with dependent children spent more time on child care, while the older group spent more time in paid work and social activities.

Professor Brown intends to expand his research to determine how much it costs Australian business, for example, through absenteeism and loss of productivity, if parents are unable to maintain a work/family balance.

Feeling Stressed Out? Top Five Tips To Reduce "Mom" Stress

By: Cinda Serafin

What is exactly is mom stress, and why does it differ from other types of stress one may encounter? It could well be described as the loss of
ability to cope with the repetitive routine and mundane course of daily
child rearing for a specifically isolated period of time. Most moms will
suffer at least some form of mom stress before their children are grown. Moms may feel as if they can no longer handle the fighting, the crying, the tantrums and overall lack of adult interaction. Moms should not feel ashamed for identifying with any of the above, this just means they could use a simple change in your daily routine.

Here are five easy to implement ways to avoid mom stress. Take heed, that all five of these involve taking time for yourself each and every day. Your
special time could be something as simple as giving yourself a soothing foot soak first thing in the morning before the children and husband are awake. Gather your favorite foot spa products and relax. You can find many great spa products made specifically for new moms such as the Earth Mama Angel Baby specialty line of products. Be sure to post a do not disturb sign on the door and strictly prosecute anyone that dares to enter!

Your special time should also include some form of slow paced exercise such as early morning stretching or a 30 minute relaxation video. The slow yet invigorating pace of the exercise will begin to release your feel good hormones thus lending a more relaxed tone to the rest of the day.

What type of things did you enjoy before you became a mother? Your special time should encompass some sort of creative activity to remind you of your personal interests. If you enjoy photography why not start a scrapbook where you can catalog your photos as well as do some creative journaling? This would be a good time to do some positive thinking about your children by showcasing the special qualities of each child in the scrapbook.

Remember your long lost friends? Your special time should contain at least some kind of daily interaction with another adult beside your spouse. Make
arrangements for a play date with another mom and have coffee while your
children play. Be sure to keep your diaper bag stuffed with items your children may need so they do not interupt your friendly conversation. Thinking ahead can make your visit much more enjoyable. Keep the conversation positive! Don't spoil your "You Time" by discussing negative subjects that will probably leave you feeling emotionally drained.
Finally, the most important step before beginning your new routine is
to get your husband on board. You will need his support to make sure
you are not disturbed while taking time for yourself. Surprisingly, most
husbands would like to see their wives relax a little more and are
willing to help make that happen.

You shouldn't feel that you have to keep a strict "You Time" schedule.
Keep it relaxed by spreading your activities out through the week. One
special "You Time" activity a day should be enough to put you in the
right frame of mind.

Taking time for yourself should not be viewed as a selfish endeavor.
This will only leave you feeling more refreshed and ready to be a better
parent and wife. We all need that little something to look forward to
each day and this can only help us to enjoy life with our family all
the more. Source: http://www.parentingarticlelibrary.com

Cinda Serafin is a contributing writer at the Parenting Resource Center at Brown Eyed Baby Boutique. This Baby Gifts Boutique specializes in diaper bags for new moms. If you wish to learn more about parenting issues, visit our resource center and receive free shipping on all diaper bags.

Is My Child Too Busy?

Boys Town Pediatrics

It’s pretty common to hear parents talk about racing their child from one club sport, to the next—or to an academic debate, school club or other roster of activities. For some children, adding extra-curricular activities may be due to the pressure of building a resume to get into a good college, while others feel peer pressure to hang out with a group of friends. Some parents might feel their child is “missing out” if he isn’t constantly occupied. There are various reasons, but it all adds up to overload.

How Can Parents Tell if Their Child is Too Busy?

Boys Town Pediatrics helps parents look for signs of being over-loaded, such as:

• Feeling tired, exhausted or depressed
• Not enjoying the activity they once loved
• Lower grades in school
• Complaining of headaches or body aches, which may be due to stress or lack of sleep
• Having stomach pain, which may be due to missed meals or stress

An active schedule can wear on a child’s social and family life. When a child is too busy to play with friends, his friendships my suffer—as does the family structure if one parent is busy running one child to baseball practice while the other parent is at a dance recital. Not to mention, it can be extremely tiresome for everyone involved.

If you feel your child is too busy, Boys Town Pediatrics offers tips to help you get back on track:

• Schedule activities in moderation. Start slow and add an additional activity when you feel your child is ready to multi-task.
• Make sure the activity is developmentally appropriate for the age of your child.
• Keep a family calendar to stay organized. Place the calendar in a place where everyone can see it and can add their activities.
• Mark off a day on the calendar as a family day. Do not schedule any individual activities on that day and do something together as a family.
• Parents may need to say “No”. If adding one more activity is going to overload your child, you can talk to her about dropping an activity to add the new one.

Take a moment and carefully examine your child’s schedule. If you feel there are too many activities scheduled, talk with your child and together decide where you can cut back. Keeping a structured active schedule can play a role in the health and well-being of your child.

Allergies or Just a Cold?

By: Nicki Nair, M.D.
Boys Town Allergy and Asthma

Stuffy nose, congestion, sneezes…how can you tell if your child has allergies or if it’s just a cold?

Allergies and the common cold can have many similar symptoms, including runny nose, watery eyes, cough and congestion, so it can be difficult for parents to know whether their child has an allergic reaction or is battling a virus.

A cold is a virus that must run its course. Over-the-counter medications, approved by your child’s physician, may help with some symptoms, but the cold will generally stick around for 7-10 days. Allergies, on the other hand, will continue as long as the child is in contact with the substance causing the allergic reaction.

Boys Town Asthma and Allergy provides a checklist to help determine if your child has allergies or just a cold:

• Have your child’s cold symptoms lingered for more than 2 weeks?
• Does your child have a chronic (continual) cough?
• Is the mucus clear (not yellow or green)?
• Does your child have a stuffy nose or breathe through his/her mouth?
• Are his/her eyes red and itchy?
• Does your child have dark circles under his/her eyes?

If your child has one or more of the above symptoms, it is a possible your child has an allergy. Common allergens include food, medications, pet dander, mold, dust and pollen. Depending on the type of allergy, your child may experience respiratory symptoms, skin irritations or digestive problems. Nasal allergies can make your child more susceptible to ear and sinus infections and asthma.

If parents cannot determine the source of the allergy, an allergist can perform a battery of skin tests to determine the offending allergens. It is important for parents to remember that the sensitivity to an allergen can change with time.

If your child does have an allergy, your physician will discuss how you can decrease your child’s exposure to the allergen. Boys Town Asthma and Allergy offers the following tips to reduce allergens in your home:

• Vacuum your home at least once a week and consider purchasing a HEPA vacuum.
• Wash bedding in hot water to remove dust and kill bacteria.
• Replace furnace and air filters every 1-2 months during peak allergy seasons.
• Have pets bathed regularly to keep pet dander at a minimum.
• Wash blankets, stuffed animals and other toys regularly to remove dust and bacteria.

If your child seems to be suffering from cold symptoms that just do not seem to go away, contact your child’s physician. (parentingorg)

Financing Parenting

by Nancy Rankin

A chapter from her forthcoming book, Taking Parenting Public: The Case
for a New Social Movement (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD). Reproduced
with permission from the National Parenting Association.

Ask parents and many of them will tell you they would like to be able to take some time out from their jobs so they can devote more attention and energy to their kids. A recent study by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan public policy research organization, reports that most parents (68 percent) "would prefer to stay home with their children when they are young." Among parents with children under five, 80 percent of mothers say this and 52 percent of fathers.1 Public Agenda's report set off a predictable outcry - especially among child-care advocates and some feminists. But before rushing to refute it, maybe it's time we listened carefully to what parents are actually saying.

Parents are not arguing that mothers shouldn't work - of course, they should be able to - or that we don't need higher quality, more affordable child care. Of course, we do. But more and better child care is just part of the solution. We also need to re-engineer our work lives to create more time for parenting. Public Agenda's report confirms what the National Parenting Association has found in our own polls.2 Parents don't define their biggest struggle as finding child care, they see it as balancing work and family. Even more striking is the finding that both mothers and fathers3 say that balancing job and family responsibilities is their toughest daily challenge. And almost half of full-time working mothers surveyed said they don't have enough time for their kids. Research by both Public Agenda and the National Parenting Association shows that given a choice of public policies, parents would much prefer to see tax breaks that make it easier for parents to cut back on job hours and incentives for businesses to adopt flexible work policies, than massive new subsidies for a national child-care system.

We are fed up with either-or choices of uninterrupted work from graduation to grave versus jettisoning hard-earned degrees and years of job experience if we choose to spend more time at home for a few years raising our kids. For lower-income and single parents the choice is even starker: the income to support your children versus the time to care for them in the way you deem best. It's time for a new paradigm that allows us to take a chunk of time out from our lives of paid work to give the unpaid, but no less important, work of parenting the attention it deserves.

If so many parents are yearning to stay home with their children during their earliest years, what stops them? One factor is certainly well-founded anxieties about returning to the labor market and visions of lifetime career setbacks. Some want the continued rewards of work, but with scaled-down hours. For many parents, though, the biggest barrier is practical: they can't afford to.

Here's a proposal to help them. Why not allow working parents to draw social security benefits for up to three years during their prime child-rearing years? This would give moms and dads a real choice about how much time to spend working and how much time to spend with their kids. Some parents would decide to stay at home or cut back to part-time work so they do not become entirely disconnected from the labor market. To help cover the costs, those who elected to "borrow on their social security" could repay the system, at least in part. For example, benefit-takers could increase the employee's share of the payroll taxes they pay in when they return to work, they could defer their age of retirement with full social security benefits on a year-for-year basis, or they could accept a reduced monthly benefit, as those who opt for early retirement do now.

Any of these options would still involve some subsidy; otherwise the required payback would take too steep a cut out of future paychecks or retirement benefits to make it an affordable choice. Given our "pay-as-you-go" system of financing senior benefits out of tax contributions from current workers, you can argue this is fair. Without parents devoting time and resources to raising children, there will not be productive employees in the future whose earnings will be taxed to pay the bill for the older generation. And that is, in fact, exactly the argument made in a recent decision by Germany's Constitutional Court. It ruled that workers with children should pay a lower premium for the country's compulsory long-term nursing care insurance plan than childless ones on the grounds that future beneficiaries will depend on the premiums paid by coming generations of workers. "Those people who have not helped to maintain the number of future contributors - i.e., the childless - are getting an unfair financial advantage, says the court. So they should pay more."4

How much of a difference would the ability to draw social security make for parents trying to make ends meet? Plenty, it turns out. Taxes and child-care costs take such a big bite out of parents' incomes that even modest benefits could largely replace the net income from an average job.5 For example, a parent earning a second salary of $30,000 (assuming the spouse also makes $30,000) would net only about $10,065 after taxes, child care, and work expenses (see box). That works out to about the same as the average annual social security income for retirees of $10,140 in 2001. It's enough to make a real difference for American families.

Net Income After Taxes, Child Care and Work Expenses Example: A two-earner couple where each parent makes $30,000 The second salary: $30,000 Subtract: Social security and Medicare taxes 2,295 Additional state/local taxes (@ estimated rate of 5%) 1,500 Estimated additional federal income tax 6,180 Additional child care (estimated at $120/week)* 6,240 Commuting costs ($25/week times 50) 1,250 Cost of work clothing and dry cleaning 870 Cost of restaurant meals on work days ($25/week times 50) 1,250 Other (non-reimbursed expenses, paid help, meals out, etc.) 350 Net income $10,065 *Based on US Census figures for weekly total child care costs per family (for families including a preschooler) adjusted for inflation. Source: What Does It Cost to Mind Our Preschoolers, US Census, 1995. Calculations used in this example are adapted from a model appearing online in offspringmag.com on April 13, 2000. Estimates are based on federal tax rates at that time.

.
Among mothers or fathers taking advantage of this option, most would probably stay at home during their children's earliest years. But we know that kids' needs don't magically disappear at age three. A struggling third-grader or a troubled teen can be just as demanding of parental attention. This proposal would let parents decide what makes sense for them and their families.

One issue that would need to be addressed is overcoming barriers to workforce reentry. It is unrealistic to expect that employers be asked to guarantee someone's job after a leave of a year or more. Fears of getting back on track are justified. The career highway is easy to exit, but difficult to get back on. We need to create more "on-ramps" - opportunities and recruitment strategies that give workers a path to accelerate back up to speed and full productivity. For example, employees on an extended parenting time-out could maintain an alumni-like status with their former employer, kept in the loop with regular contacts and invitations to participate in training and staff development. They would become a prime candidate pool for rehires. Incentives could be created to encourage professional associations, unions and local colleges to offer transition training to update skills and place returnees.6 More fundamentally, we need messages to change the national mindset, so that nurturing children is seen as a respectable addition to lifetime accomplishments, not discounted as a brain cell diminishing résumé gap.

Continuation of health insurance would also need to be addressed, although for married workers with a covered spouse this would not be a problem. Others could buy into their former employees' group plan or perhaps into Medicare.

Thinking of social security as a kind of savings' account that parents could tap into is a natural offshoot of the current policy debate. Some companies offer employees 401(k) thrift plans that they can borrow against to make major purchases. But many working families don't have this benefit. It's hard for young parents to save early on during the stage of life when they are having children and also trying to buy their first home, pay back education loans or start businesses. Indeed, economists have long recognized that young families are vulnerable to a type of "market failure." Banks are not likely to lend them money based on a hypothetical future earnings stream - but the social security trust fund could. It makes sense to think of our retirement system as a means to promote social investment - truly our national social security. Looking at it this way, we could also consider allowing Americans to draw social security benefits for limited periods for other valued social investments in addition to parenting, such as caring for an aging relative or midcareer retooling to obtain new job skills.

Even as medical science is creating time in our later years, we are increasingly starved for time during mid-life. True, the growing availability of work-life practices, like flextime and telecommuting, helps some workers balance job and family. But lower-income and younger workers, who need these policies the most, are the least likely to work for firms that offer such benefits. The National Parenting Association survey found that only 6 percent of parents in families earning under $20,000 a year worked for family-friendly firms, compared to 30 percent of parents with annual incomes over $60,000.7 Employer flexibility is enormously important, but it is unlikely to sufficiently ease the time famine facing working parents and others trying to meet pressing personal responsibilities. If the problem is the need to "borrow time," one solution is to use our social security system as a "time bank." It is an idea worth serious consideration.

Adjusting the social security system we designed in 1935 to fit present-day needs of working people is not as radical as it first sounds. In fact, during the 2000 presidential campaign Al Gore proposed changing the way social security benefits are calculated to help offset what he called the current "motherhood penalty." When a parent, most often mom, takes time out of the paid labor force to stay home raising the children, she not only loses the income she would have earned then, but will have lower social security benefits in the future. Gore proposed crediting stay-at-home parents with $16,500 in income for up to five years. By his calculations that would give an average of $600 a year more in benefits to as many as eight million retirees.8

Gore's idea recognized the importance of parenting by acknowledging the contribution parents make to society through the unpaid work of nurturing children. And it offered modest financial benefits, primarily to older women. But the bolder proposal offered here - allowing parents to actually draw social security at two points in their lives - would offer real relief from the time crunch to the millions of Americans struggling to meet the dual demands of job and family every day. As Bryn Mawr economist Richard B. Du Boff explains, "The function of Social Security is one of social insurance. We pool our resources, and make transfer payments to ourselves at appropriate stages of the life cycle."9 In the last century we addressed old age, when too many Americans suffered from impoverishment. Today, compelling needs have emerged earlier in our lives when we are raising our families. A transformed labor force faces policies that have not adequately changed to compensate for the massive entry of women into paid work. Our Social Security system has long been thought of as providing a measure of financial security in return for a lifetime of work. What work is a more vital contribution to the future of our country than raising children well?

ENDNOTES

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¹ Steve Farkas, Ann Duffett and Jean Johnson, Necessary Compromises, (New York: Public Agenda, 2000), p. 13.

² Ruth Wooden and Nancy Rankin, What Will Parents Vote For? (New York: National Parenting Association, 2000), pp. 2-3. What Will Parents Vote For In New York?, the poll conducted by Charney Research for the National Parenting Association in June 2001 found views similar to the national survey. In the state poll 31% of mothers and fathers surveyed said "balancing work and family" was their biggest daily challenge compared to 22% each for "their child's education" and "instilling moral values," the next most often mentioned concerns.

³ Public Agenda's 2000 survey found that if they had to choose, "Twice as many parents of children 5 or under say policy makers should concentrate on making it easier and more affordable for one parent to be home during a child's first few years (62%) rather than on improving the quality and affordability of outside-the-home child care (30%). For a fuller discussion see Farkas, Duffett and Johnson, Necessary Compromises, p.28.

Among the policies which drew the highest levels of support in national surveys of parents conducted for the National Parenting Association in 1996 and 2000 were proposals to ease work-family pressures by decreasing work hours.

Proposal	Percent strongly/ somewhat favor
	2000 Survey	1996 Survey
Tax incentives to encourage family-friendly policies by employers, such as benefits for part-time workers and flexible working hours	90	90
A law to ensure 24 hours or three days paid leave annually for family needs	84	87
Letting workers take time off instead of extra pay for overtime	78	79

⁴ "No German children? Then pay up," The Economist, April 7, 2001, p.54.

⁵ Median earnings of full-time, year-round U.S. workers in 1999 were $36,476 for men and $26,324 for women according to the U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey.

⁶ New York City's Teaching Fellows program, created in 2000 to draw young professionals from other fields into teaching, is a prime example of an "on-ramps" concept. The program gives recruits accelerated, intensive pre-service training.

⁷ Wooden and Rankin, p. 3.

⁸ James Dao, "Gore Proposes New Benefits For Parents and Widows," New York Times, April 5, 2000, p. A19.

⁹ Richard B. Du Boff, in a letter to the editor, New York Times, August 19, 2001, p.WK12.

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*Nancy Rankin is past Executive Director of the National Parenting Association and former Director of Research and Programs.

Fathers Are Primary Parents!

by Patty Wipfler

Children love their Daddies! Your children love to hear your voice, to see you come in the door, to be next to you at the table, to play with you as long as you can possibly play! One father I know told me that his 15 month old climbed up on his and his wife's bed at 6 a.m. one morning, crawled over, peered in his face, and gently put her finger up his nostril! Your children want contact with you--all of you!

Dads get a raw deal, however. The pressure to earn a living often has a desperate thread woven through it: there's a sense that if you don't provide, dire things will happen to your family! We live in a society in which the lack of any safety net for families translates to a feeling of "life and death" for Dads around work issues. And when work must be pursued in a worrisome way, exhaustion is not far behind. Long hours, worry, heavy expectations, an ever more uncertain working environment, and the threat of poverty all make it harder to enjoy our children. It's also hard to think independently about ourselves as Dads and as men: what do we want to do with our lives, how do we really want to live, what's important to us?

Listening to each other, hearing other Dads talk about parenting and about what's important to them is a first step to climbing out of living under obligation. Just hearing how life is for other Dads can help bring a sense of perspective to our lives: the oppression of parents jams us all in similar ways. Getting a chance to say what your highest hopes are for your relationship with your children and your partner can help lift a trudging spirit. And seeing how good other Dads are, how valiantly we struggle to be our best and to care deeply, lets us go easier on ourselves.

One point that's important to clarify is that fathers are absolutely primary parents. Children want, need, and love their Daddies. Some children grow up without the benefit of a Dad, and they manage well, but you need to know that, whatever your parenting circumstance, your child wants you close!

Children often look like they favor their Moms, and that when the chips are down, it's Mom they want to stroke their forehead or kiss their hurt or listen to the tale of their hard day. But this is usually just the result of cultural circumstance: Mom is nearby more often when the chips are down, because in our culture, Dad usually spends more time at work. (In families in which the Dad stays home, the children gravitate to him in hard times, and it's the Mom who has to work to keep from living on the emotional outskirts of the family.) You don't have to remain on the emotional outskirts of your children's lives!

What helps children grow close are simple things any Dad can do, if he has been clued in to the secret!

• Your children love play, especially physical play. So you can get down on the floor and pillow fight, or wrestle, or be a horsy, or play hide and seek. If you are careful to always lose (maybe not by much--children love a good contest), to let them have the final victory, and if you are careful not to overwhelm them with your strength in play, they will laugh and find all kinds of ways to "get" you. The more they laugh, the closer they'll feel to you. Joy and love are built in playtimes like these.
  
  
• Your children want you to listen to their feelings, not to correct them. When children have played all-out, they feel safe enough to bring up heavy emotions. This is a golden opportunity. They are falling apart over some seemingly small issue: you said that play is over now, or you said they have to put their seat belt on, or they don't like what's being served for dinner. What you need to remember, in order to build closeness with your child, is that she wants you to listen while she cries! If you can love her, touch her gently, say little, and stand by whatever limit you have set ("I'm sorry, but you do have to put on your seatbelt"), she will get the bad feelings out, and will notice that you simply loved her even while she was feeling desperate or mad or sad. It's this kind of listening that helps children feel like you are on their side forever. This kind of listening puts love in right at the most crucial time--when your child feels undone and vulnerable. All you have to do is to be kind and patient. Your child will show you more closeness and trust when she has finished her cry or her tantrum.
  
  
• Your children want your life to be good. You working too hard and having no one to talk with about what matters to you keeps you remote from your child. Children often say they want the latest expensive toy or clothing, or feel like when the TV breaks, it has to be fixed right away. But saying no to some material things (and hearing your child's full cry about how life can't be lived without the latest "thing") so that you can be in your family's life more is a huge gift to your child and yourself. Go ahead and set limits that you think make sense, limits that allow your life to be good, too.

You belong in the center of your family, close and warmly loved! And we need to work together to see to it that fathers win more time, more security of mind, and more connection to other parents*, so that we can relax and enjoy the people closest to us.

* Take a look at the book, The War On Parents, by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Cornel West. It's a good outline of parents oppression in the U.S., and what can be done about it.

Saying "I Love You"

by Jane Bluestein, Ph.D

"I love you". Can any words possibly sound sweeter or offer greater comfort? Is any statement more natural--or necessary--between a parent and child? In many families, these words come easily. But if you grew up never hearing them, saying "I love you" may feel somewhat unnatural to you. Or if members of your family used loving statements to control or manipulate, you may be very uncomfortable using them with your own children.

Many families either don't communicate loving feelings very often or they communicate them in destructive ways. A counselor friend once told me she was appalled to discover that some of her clients had never heard the words, "I love you" from their parents: "I couldn't imagine parents who couldn't say 'I love you' to their children, probably because I grew up hearing it all the time. But in the middle of my shock and self-righteousness, I realized that in my family, that statement was always loaded with expectations for me to do something. Most of the time when my parents said 'I love you' they would stand there and wait for us to say 'I love you, too'. So that statement always came off as a solicitation, rather than an expression of how they really felt about us."

If either of these extremes describe your upbringing, chances are, you aren't using loving statements as often--or as "cleanly"--as you might. A few simple guidelines can help.

Let's hear it! We all need to hear loving statements from people we care about. It may be easy to assume that your kids know you love them. After all, you do love them and you probably do a lot of loving things for them. That's important.

But feeling love for someone is not the same as expressing it. Nor is doing loving things. Loving feelings and loving behaviors are not loving words--and those are important, too.

If you find it hard to get the words out of your mouth, either from lack of familiarity or fear of rejection, start slowly. A parent in one of my workshops confessed to practicing on the dog for a few days before she could get up the nerve to try it out on her kids! Another started by writing love notes to her children, sneaking them into their lunch bags or under their pillows. Both reported such a strong, positive response from their children, that saying "I love you" came much more easily after that.

Let's hear it some more. None of this "I-told-you-I-love-you-in-1985" stuff, OK? This isn't like going to the dentist twice a year. So maybe it's still not easy to say, even with the practice and little successes. Maybe hearing "I love you" even gives your kids the creeps (this is more age specific than anything else and less likely to happen if you don't say it in front of his entire 5th grade class). Say it anyhow. As a gift to yourself, communicate your love daily. At least.

Keep it simple! "I love you" is a complete sentence. We don't need to tie our feelings for a person to the person's behavior. In fact, whenever we connect it to something the other person has done, "I love you" becomes a statement of conditional caring.

"I love you when you make your bed", or "I love you when you make the honor roll", suggest that you love your child because of his behavior or accomplishment. It also suggests that the love wouldn't be there--or be quite the same--if the child hadn't made the bed or the grades. (Don't you love your kid in either case?) You can still be excited and happy about the behavior, but avoid communicating that your loving feelings for your child exist because he's doing what pleases you.

"I love you". Period.

No "buts" about it! By the same token, watch the tendency to use "I love you" as a lead-in to a confrontation about something your child has done that you find disturbing. If you need to address the child's behavior or set a boundary, by all means do so. But deal with the behavior--not the worth of the child, or your feelings for him or her.

If the child needs to clean her room or miss the movie because her chores were not done, deal with the situation, not your feelings. You don't need to say, "I love you but..." to soften the blow. Your feelings are not an issue here.

Besides, because of the way the brain processes the words we hear, whatever you say before the word "but” automatically gets canceled out anyhow. (In other words, if you say, "I love you, but your room is a mess," all the child ends up hearing is, "Your room is a mess.")

Using "but" in the same sentence as "I love you" is confusing and manipulative. As in the previous example, this type of statement suggests that the child is only lovable conditionally. Cut to the chase. Avoid tying the feelings you express to the way the child is acting--good or bad.

No expectations. Say "I love you" because you want to say "I love you." Say it because you feel love toward the person you're talking to. Say it because it feels good to say it.

"I love you" is a powerful statement and lots of times it will evoke a loving response from the recipient. But attaching an expectation for a response to the statement is a set-up--both for you and the other person. If the expectation is there, your child will know it. If he does respond, it will probably be to avoid guilt or conflict rather than genuine, spontaneous caring. Is that what you really want?

If your children haven't learned how to say "I love you" yet, it's OK to tell them that you need to hear those three little words sometimes, too. Then give them some space to risk, practice and learn. By far their best lessons will come from your own unconditional modeling.

Turn the love inward. Next to unconditional love, the best gift you can give another person is the love you give yourself! In fact the ability to love, appreciate and care for yourself is essential to healthy, loving relationships with others.

So, look in the mirror. Look into your eyes. Say "I love you." No "buts." No qualifiers. Say it out loud. Say it often. Mean it.

What better way to affirm how worthwhile and lovable you are. And what better way to practice one of the most basic, most precious and important parenting skills there is.

When your children aren't very loving...

"I HATE YOU, MOMMY!"

OK. You're really working hard on your boundaries and recognize that sometimes responsible parenting means saying "no" to your child's request for Milk Duds for dinner or a plea for a 4 a.m. curfew. If your child is doing her job, you can count on her to occasionally resist you efforts at setting even reasonable limits. And sometimes that means she is going to fight dirty, especially if it's worked in the past.

"I HATE YOU, MOMMY!"

Nothing will trigger anger, shame, shock and a sense of inadequacy faster than this statement. It's hard to hear someone you love tell you that he hates you and not take it rather personally. Children know this. They figure out, often at a very early age, that this is a short-cut to a lot of attention (negative attention though it may be) and often to getting their own way.

So, how do you respond?

It's actually pretty simple--at least on paper. First of all, resist the temptation to talk about how this statement "really hurts me and brings up all my abandonment and inadequacy issues." Sure, tell your therapist or your sponsor, but don't dump on your 4-year-old. (Even if your children happen to have degrees in psychiatry, do you really want to make them responsible for your feelings? They're not, you know, and the burden can be overwhelming even for healthy, well-adjusted adults with excellent personal boundaries!)

Instead, acknowledge the feelings behind the statement: "You sound pretty angry," "You're upset about that'" or even "I understand."

Disengage--especially if you find yourself getting upset. Watch out for the temptation to hurt back. Saying "I hate you too, sometimes!" may be exactly what you are feeling at the moment, but it won't help you, your child or your relationship for you to become a 4-year-old who is acting out. If you need some support, encouragement, reassurance or understanding, call on your adult resources.

And leave the door open for further discussions with your child at a later, and calmer, time: "Let's talk about this in a little bit."

If you are able to stay "unhooked" and refuse to change your mind because your child has said that she hates you, she's far less likely to continue using this statement to manipulate your feelings and behaviors. Plus, you'll be able to hang onto the idea that you're still a wonderful and lovable person--no matter what your kids say!

*Yes this works on Daddies, too.

A dynamic and entertaining speaker, Dr. Bluestein has worked with thousands of educators, counselors, administrators, health-care providers, criminal justice personnel and parents. Her down-to earth speaking style, practicality, sense of humor, and numerous examples make her ideas clear and accessible to her audiences.

Ten Keys to Successful Parenting

It is important that we discipline in a way that teaches responsibility by motivating our children internally, to build their self-esteem and make them feel loved. If our children are disciplined in this respect, they will not have a need to turn to gangs, drugs, or sex to feel powerful or belong.

The following ten keys will help parents use methods that have been proven to provide children with a sense of well-being and security.

1 - Use Genuine Encounter Moments (GEMS)

Your child's self-esteem is greatly influenced by the quality of time you spend with him-not the amount of time that you spend. With our busy lives, we are often thinking about the next thing that we have to do, instead of putting 100% focused attention on what our child is saying to us. We often pretend to listen or ignore our child's attempts to communicate with us. If we don't give our child GEMS throughout the day, he will often start to misbehave. Negative attention in a child's mind is better than being ignored.

It is also important to recognize that feelings are neither right nor wrong. They just are. So when your child says to you, "Mommy, you never spend time with me" (even though you just played with her) she is expressing what she feels. It is best at these times just to validate her feelings by saying, "Yeah, I bet it does feel like a long time since we spent time together."

2 - Use Action, Not Words

Statistics say that we give our children over 2000 compliance requests a day! No wonder our children become "parent deaf!" Instead of nagging or yelling, ask yourself, "What action could I take?" For example, if you have nagged your child about unrolling his socks when he takes them off, then only wash socks that are unrolled. Action speaks louder than words.

3 - Give Children Appropriate Ways to Feel Powerful

If you don't, they will find inappropriate ways to feel their power. Ways to help them feel powerful and valuable are to ask their advice, give them choices, let them help you balance your check book, cook all our part of a meal, or help you shop. A two-year-old can wash plastic dishes, wash vegetables, or put silverware away. Often we do the job for them because we can do it with less hassle, but the result is they feel unimportant.

4 - Use Natural Consequences

Ask yourself what would happen if I didn't interfere in this situation? If we interfere when we don't need to, we rob children of the chance to learn from the consequences of their actions. By allowing consequences to do the talking, we avoid disturbing our relationships by nagging or reminding too much. For example, if your child forgets her lunch, you don't bring it to her. Allow her to find a solution and learn the importance of remembering.

5 - Use Logical Consequences

Often the consequences are too far in the future to practically use a natural consequence. When that is the case, logical consequences are effective. A consequence for the child must be logically related to the behavior in order for it to work. For example, if your child forgets to return his video and you ground him for a week, that punishment will only create resentment within your child. However, if you return the video for him and either deduct the amount from his allowance or allow him to work off the money owed, then your child can see the logic to your discipline.

6 - Withdraw from Conflict

If your child is testing you through a temper tantrum, or being angry or speaking disrespectfully to you, it is best if you leave the room or tell the child you will be in the next room if he wants to "Try again." Do not leave in anger or defeat.

7 - Seperate the Deed from the Doer

Never tell a child that he is bad. That tears at his self-esteem. Help your child recognize that it isn't that you don't like him, but it is his behavior that you are unwilling to tolerate. In order for a child to have healthy self-esteem, he must know that he is loved unconditionally no matter what he does. Do not motivate your child by withdrawing your love from him. When in doubt, ask yourself, did my discipline build my child's self-esteem?

8 - Be Kind and Firm at the Same Time

Suppose you have told your five-year-old child that if she isn't dressed by the time the timer goes off, you will pick her up and take her to the car. She has been told she can either get dressed either in the car or at school. Make sure that you are loving when you pick her up, yet firm by picking her up as soon as the timer goes off without any more nagging. If in doubt, ask yourself, did I motivate through love or fear?

9 - Parent with the End in Mind

Most of us parent with the mindset to get the situation under control as soon as possible. We are looking for the expedient solution. This often results in children who feel overpowered. But if we parent in a way that keeps in mind how we want our child to be as an adult, we will be more thoughtful in the way we parent. For example, if we spank our child, he will learn to use acts of aggression to get what he wants when he grows up.

10 - Be Consistent, Follow Through

If you have made an agreement that your child cannot buy candy when she gets to the store, do not give in to her pleas, tears, demands or pouting. Your child will learn to respect you more if you mean what you say.

This document is produced by the International Network for Children and Families and the 350 instructors of the "Redirecting Children's Behavior" course. (positive parenting)