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A Dozen Ideas for Dad-Daughter and Mom-Son Activities

May 11, 12 12:04 PM

Many of we parent-lunatics want to create special moments with our kids amidst the madness of our hectic lives. This entry offers ideas themed around potential dad-daughter activities and mom-son activities. (Please be sure to read the four caveats at the end.)

Dads: 12 Things You Can Do with Your Daughter

  1. Spend one hour a week doing nothing but paying attention to her and reflecting positive, specific and truthful messages.
  2. Let her paint your nails or apply makeup
  3. Take her for a trip to buy clothes or jewelry
  4. Brush her hair (at least 100 strokes)
  5. Go for a jog together
  6. Take her to a trip to the city to see some sights and a show
  7. Go for a long walk in nature, stopping along the way to study interesting flora and fauna
  8. Take her bowling
  9. Take her to get her nails done
  10. Sing karaoke
  11. Let her see you doing special things for her mom
  12. Model to her that real men are affectionate, attentive, gentle and prioritize family life

Moms: 12 Things You can Do with Your Sons

  1. Take him fishing
  2. Play catch
  3. Play an interactive video game with him
  4. Spend one hour a week doing nothing but paying attention to him and reflecting positive, specific and truthful messages.
  5. Find a pond where you can try to find frogs or other small creatures
  6. Take him to see his favorite sports team play
  7. Take a trip to the library and show him all the cool books that are there on topics he loves
  8. Teach him how to do resistance training
  9. Let him see you doing special things for his dad
  10. Take a trip to a museum of natural history and afterwards ask him to make a drawing memorializing the trip.
  11. Model to him that real women are not subservient to men, are faithful and value their minds at least as much as their bodies.
  12. As you prioritize your family life, make sure he sees that you have outside interests and goals.

Some caveats:

• The organization of these ideas by sex is to be taken lightly, at best (e.g., maybe your son has the interest in fashion or your daughter in the sports team). So, think of these as 24 potential ideas for any parent-child relationship.

• The appropriateness of some of these activities will vary as a function of age (e.g., resistance training).

• Don’t worry about the ideas involving money if they aren’t practical. Required elements are creativity and commitment, not cash.

• Some of these ideas won’t apply to how your family is structured (e.g., single parent households). But the spirit behind each idea, with a pinches of creativity and commitment, can be extrapolated to other ideas.

Do you have other ideas you’d be willing to share?

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The 10 Most Common Mistakes Good Parents Make

Apr 21, 12 10:23 AM

What follows I find, in my professional and personal dealings, to be the most common mistakes we parents make. At the end of each of them I’ve listed the chapter in my parent book Working Parents, Thriving Families: 10 Strategies That Make a Difference (WPTF) that offers an expanded discussion and specific strategies for dealing with each problem as well links to related blog posts.

#1: Imagining that there will be more time for the family next week.

One of the most important exercises I ask parents to do in my practice is “special time.” This activity, which is different from quality time, takes one hour a week. So, so many parents believe that it will be easy to “make” this time (there is no “finding” the time, only making it) each week only to learn that it is extremely difficult to do so consistently, an insight that is instructive.

When parents describe a week when they did not complete special time they stress how unusually busy it was. While there certainly can be exceptionally busy weeks, most of the time the only thing that rotates is what is causing the extreme busyness, not the extreme busyness itself.

See Chapter One, Complete One Hour of Special Time Each Week With Your Child in WPTF for more.

Related blog posts:

• The Value of Unplugging

• Conversation Starters for You and Your Teenager

#2: Parenting from a cross.

The research makes it clear that our collective parental self-care is often quite poor and that this causes significant stress on not only on us, but also on our partners and our kids. My experience is that the number one reason we good parents fall into this trap is because we are consumed by work and family duties. An image comes to mind: the oxygen masks having dropped in an emergency situation on an airplane and a woozy parent, who is not wearing an oxygen mask, is consumed by securing a child’s mask

See Chapter Seven, Take Care of Yourself and Your Relationship With Your Significant Other, in WPTF for more.

Related blog posts:

• Six Tips for When You Lose It With Your Kid

• 51 Truths (As I See Things Anyway)

• Effective Romance Helps Effective Parenting

• Lions and Tigers and Vows, Oh My! 10 Tips for Taking Your New Year’s Resolutions from Oz to Kansas

#3: Praising poor performance.

The pervasiveness of this leaves me feeling confident that you could go to any youth baseball game in your community this weekend and likely hear examples of parents praising their kids for striking out, or making errors or for other kinds of poor performance. We know that facilitating our kids’ self-esteem is important. But our compressed and crazy-busy lifestyles sometimes cause us to use techniques that are either not helpful or that facilitate negative outcomes (e.g., self-entitlement).

See Chapter Two, Discover, Promote and Celebrate Your Child’s Competenites, in WPTF for more.

Related blog post:

• Five Questions for Effectively Parenting Kids in Sports

#4: Trying to undo a kid’s pain.

One of my favorite quotes is by Kahlil Gibran in his great, little book The Prophet: “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” We good parents hurt worse when our kids hurt. So, we try to take it all away; if we are successful we limit our kids’ wisdom.

See Chapter Six, Promote Health Decision Making, Independence and Adaptive Thinking, in WPTF for more.

Related blog post:

•  Failure: An Important Part of  Psychologically Healthy Childhood.

#5: Missing the middle ground on discipline.

 It’s amazing how often the word “discipline” is equated with butt kicking. Actually, the root of the word is “to teach.” I would argue that the top outcome effective discipline promotes is our child’s capacity to do things well when he or she doesn’t feel like it. This is the psychological muscle group that best predicts success in our culture.

It is easy to wrap ineffective discipline strategies in truisms. The parent who is soul weary and disengages from discipline might say “you can’t make all their decisions for them. Kids have got to learn to make their own mistakes and to figure things out for themselves!” Likewise the harsh and unyielding parent (it takes less time to parent in this way than to discipline effectively), might say “kids have to learn respect and to do as they are told!”

To discipline well is one of the most challenging and time consuming aspects of effective parenting. As we are so, so tired and so, so overextended, it’s easy to miss the boat.

See Chapter Five, Practice Sound Discipline, in WPTF for more.

Related blog posts:

• Six Reasons to Avoid Spanking

• Seven Tips for When Your Child Refuses to do a Chore.

• Top 11 Tips for Parenting Teens

#6: Enabling sleep deprivation.

There is an epidemic of sleep deprivation among our youth. The more researchers examine the consequences of this, the more we learn how impairing a lack of sleep can be across all the major domains of a child’s or teen’s life. Again, it is much, much easier to let this go than it is to ensure that our kids get enough sleep.

See Chapter Eight, Emphasize a Healthy Lifestyle, in WPTF for more.

Related blog posts:

• Is Your Kid Getting Enough Sleep?

• A Chronic Health Problems in Teens: A Lack of Sleep

• Helping Your Child Get a Good Night’s Sleep

#7: Warring with other adults in a kid’s life.

My read of the scientific literature on divorce adjustment suggests that the two best predictors of child and teen adjustment to divorce are the number of changes that he or she endures (with fewer being better) and how well the parents get along. And, don’t even get me started on how important it is to a child’s education for parents and teachers to partner effectively. However, we parent-lunatics, often go to war with these other adults. The banners we fly as we march to battle usually articulate very important issues; however, we often don’t let ourselves be fully aware of the shrapnel our kids are taking.

See Chapter Nine, Establish Collaborative Relationships With Other Important Adults, in WPTF for more.

Related blog post:

• 11 Important Tips When You Meet With a Teacher

#8: Enabling excessive use of sedentary electronic pleasures.

Let’s face it, if our kids are plugged in they leave us the hell alone (and that’s good as we’ve got TONS to do) and they certainly seem to enjoy themselves. However, if a kid is doing this for more than two hours a day, it is very likely that she or he is missing out on important developmental outcomes (e.g., being physically active, developing skills for face-to-face interactions, learning academic material).

See Chapter Eight, Emphasize a Healthy Lifestyle, in WPTF for more.

Related blog posts:

• Can Parents Trust Movie, Television and Gaming Ratings?

• 10 Tips for Parenting Your Progeny’s Online Life

• 10 Strategies if Your Child is Addicted to World of Warcraft

#9: Enabling a poptart-pizza-pasta diet and lifestyle.

Unfortunately, it’s cheaper and easier (e.g., more convenient, less hassles from progeny) to eat poorly than it is to eat well. I was at a restaurant recently with my eldest doing special time. As I was paying the check at the entry area an array of sumptuous bakery items was on display, to which I said “They look really good. But you might just as well inject a vile of glucose in your butt.” To which my eldest said “you say that all the time.” (My second eldest recently had a wittier retort: “but that wouldn’t taste as good.”) My saying this “all the time” to my kids is my way of howling at the moon as I find the marketing of unhealthy foods in our culture to be incessant.

Of course, it takes time and effort to ensure that our kids sweat and breath hard for an hour at least five days a week, even if the activity is fun (the guideline is actually for seven days a week, but I’m trying to be Dr. Flexible).

See Chapter Eight, Emphasize a Healthy Lifestyle, in WPTF for more.

Related blog post:

• Kids’ Physical Activity: 7 Thinking Traps

#10: Excessive self-reproach, worry and lunacy.

At the end of the day we parents are shepherds, not sculptors. We often oversubscribe our kids’ outcomes to what we do and don’t do, to what we say and what we don’t say. While our efforts matter and make a big difference, so much of what happens in our kids’ lives is outside of our control (i.e., as they grow older the stakes rise and our control diminishes). Moreover, we are the best intentioned humans on the planet who work our butts off. And, every single one of us screws up on a pretty consistent basis. So, let’s cut ourselves some slack and have our self-talk be what we would have our kids’ self talk be, in the future, should they end up having kids…we can only hope that we can be there to see it, especially if we can simultaneously kick up our feet and enjoy a tasty beverage.

See the Introduction and Epilogue in WPTF for more.

Related blog post

• We Parents are Lunatics

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Nine Questions to Consider if Your Adult Child Wants to Live With You

Mar 25, 12 11:59 AM

Our adult children (i.e., 18 or older) can feel paralyzed, overwhelmed or unprepared when it comes time to transition to the next phase of their lives, whether that is to attend college or graduate school or to hold down a full time job. For this reason, many petition to live at home, or to return home. This post is designed to address some key questions and issues for you to consider in these circumstances.

Parent question: Is there a priority I should keep in mind?

Answer: Yes. The key question is: Does your adult child have a viable vocational plan that stands a reasonable chance of accomplishing effective independence?  If yes, count your blessings and try to keep the other issues in perspective. If no, that is the place to start. There are multiple methods that may be used to create such a plan. For instance, vocational counselors  offer questionnaires that can be useful in narrowing down career choices (e.g., the Strong Interest Inventory). Moreover, if your adult child graduated from college, his or her university likely has a career services center that can help. Former teachers, guidance counselors, professors and mentors can also be invaluable resources.

Parent question: What if my adult child is completely clueless about what she or he wants to do for a vocation. Where is a good place to start?

Answer: Don’t worry if this is the case, as there are millions of adults in the same position, across the lifespan. A key first question is: What are your adult child’s top strengths? The premise is that all humans, barring significant brain dysfunction, have top strengths, or things that they can do in a superior fashion. Resources like the Signature Strengths Survey (www.authentichappiness.com)  or Tom Rath’s book Strength Finder 2.0 can be of help in generating theories regarding your adult child’s top strengths. Once the top strengths have been identified the next question is : What vocation will allow my adult child to execute those top strengths in service to others? Those who effectively realize the answers to these two questions tend not only to have a viable vocation, but also tend to experience great meaning and purpose in their work lives.

Parent question: Okay, let’s say my adult child has a viable vocational plan that requires her or him to live with me for a while. Should I set some rules about chores?

Answer: Most families find it important to have a collaborative discussion about these practicalities, which, of course, is different from a parent unilaterally deciding what the chores should be. You might start things off by creating the circumstance to have an extended discussion (e.g., going out to a restaurant, going for a walk, etc.). Then you can begin by affirming your adult child for the things in her or his life that you appreciate and value. You might then segue into the topic of dividing up tasks as follows: “Of course, whenever adults live together they share the household labor. What do you think would be a fair way for us to divide things up?”

Parent question: Should I charge rent? And, if yes, how should I calculate it?

Answer: There is no answer that can apply equally well across families. However, the more your adult child is working at a viable vocational plan, and the more she or he is scraping by financially, the more I might let this go. On the other hand, the more your adult child doesn’t seem invested in accomplishing independence, or the more she or he has a decent income, the more I might consider charging rent. Of course, how much you charge, and whether you charge at all, will also depend on your own financial health.

Parent question: Should I set a curfew?

Answer: I would not initiate a discussion about this unless a problem has emerged or is emerging. However, if your adult child is coming home at an hour that interferes with your getting a good night’s sleep or if your adult child seems to be developing self-destructive habits, then I would suggest initiating a discussion using the same strategy that I reviewed above regarding chores.

Parent question: What if my adult child does things like leave a dirty dish in the family room or a dirty towel in the bathroom, should I ask her or him to clean it up?

Answer: These sorts of dynamics happen whenever adults live together, no matter what the relationships are. In this context, I would probably try to keep the key issue in mind. That is, if she or he is working a viable vocational plan, and assuming I don’t feel too taken advantage of by cleaning up after someone, I might keep this agitation to myself. However, if you decide it is worth mentioning, I would do so by asking your adult child how she or he would suggest that you handle these situations.

Parent question: Do you have any other guidelines for communicating?

Answer: Remember that for a lecture to change human behavior two conditions must be met. First, the person must not already possess the information. Second, the person must want to receive the information. Hence, when lectures are used to try to change someone’s behavior in a family it is like a carpenter trying to drive a nail into a piece of wood with a screwdriver. There is nothing inherently wrong with the tool, it is just not designed for that particular job. Methods that are much more effective for modifying behavior include expressing empathy, asking questions (i.e., a method used by the best teachers), affirming what you like and partnering in decision-making.

Parent question: Is there anything I should avoid doing?

Answer: Yes, letting your adult child live with you without him or her having a viable vocational plan. I’ve seen many instances of adult children maintaining a vampire sleep schedule while filling their lives with some combination of electronic media, socializing and avoidance of responsibility. These sorts of “secondary gains” make it harder, not easier, for an adult child to experience the riches life has to offer.

Parent question: What should I do if my adult child and I are getting into regular and heated conflicts about these things?

Answer: I’d seek out a mental health professional competent in doing family therapy. It can be a remarkable and rewarding experience to have a well-trained and objective professional help to ease or completely resolve long standing family conflicts. For a referral in your community, click here.

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Top 11 Tips for Parenting Teens

Mar 18, 12 7:31 PM

Why waste your time with a preamble? Just the tips, kip:

#1 Make an hour of one-on-one time each week to do nothing with your teen but (a) listen to what his on his or her mind, (b) affirm the positive things you think about him or her and (c) reflect back that which value regarding what you are hearing or seeing. During this hour avoid teaching, correcting or directing.

#2 Always know and approve of where he or she is, what he or she is doing and what responsible adult is in charge of monitoring, if only from a distance.

#3 If your teen wants to do something you’re inclined to forbid, ask yourself if that thing he or she wishes to do is physically dangerous, psychologically harmful or unduly taxing of your resources. If the answer to all three questions is “no” it may be important to let him or her do it, no matter how much it might drive you crazy. This strategy promotes adaptive decision making and independence.

#4 Always ask what her or she thinks first before sharing your opinion, even when asked. Then value aspects of what you agree with before stating alternative perspectives. And, when sharing those alternative perspectives, remember that your teen’s learning is facilitated when your sentences end with question marks–and are truly inquisitive and not declarative–instead of periods.

#5 Avoid getting in the business of trying to control who he or she has a crush on. You can and should control your son or daughter being in safe situations (tip #2) but trying to control his or her crushes will often cause the exact opposite result of what you wish for. Also, try to have discussions about sex, and sexuality, as often as you can (one of the world’s best teachers was Socrates, who always did the heavy lifting of his teaching by asking questions).

#6 Don’t let him or her sleep with technology in the bedroom. Charge it the kitchen instead. This will help to increase the odds that a proper night’s sleep is accomplished (i.e., 8.25 to 9.5 hours).

#7 Do what you can to promote an hour of sweating and breathing hard five to seven days a week. And, limit sedentary electronic pleasures to 2 hours a day.

#8 Try to have as few processed carbohydrates in your home as possible and model healthy eating. Our walk does more good than our talk, though both are helpful.

#9 Listen to your teen’s arguments for changing a decision or rule. Making a change, when your teen makes a good and reasonable argument, reduces his or her odds of lying to you at other times.

#10 Support and/or grow your teen’s capacity to do things whenever she or he doesn’t feel like it. Few things better predict a person’s success in our culture than this capacity. As this is complicated you may benefit from reading the strategies for pulling this off in my parenting book; while I wrote it for parents of younger children, you will get a lot of what you need there.

#11 Savor these years by keeping in mind that in a few precious years she or he will most likely not be living with you. Yes, teens can be aggravating as hell (and I have 2.0 of them living with me now). But, when we are at the end of our life, looking back, we’d probably give a lot to come back and live just one day as we do today.

Related blog posts:

Communicating with your Teens about STDs

Recent Research: Teens Need Parents to Monitor Them

A Chronic Health Problem in Teens: a Lack of Sleep

Is Your Kid Getting Enough Sleep?

Kids’ Physical Activity: 7 Thinking Traps

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Strategies if Your Child or Teen is Being Bullied

Nov 7, 11 12:40 PM

Your child reporting that he or she is being bullied can be very upsetting. According to the Center for Disease Control, 19% of kids are victims of bulling on school grounds. Bullying can include physical and/or verbal confrontation, social exclusion and spreading harsh rumors; it can also occur through electronic and online technologies. Available evidence suggests that those who experience a pattern of being bullied experience significant mental health challenges (the same is often true among those who engage in a pattern of bullying). Among the children who are bullied low self-esteem and under socialization are common. In the animal kingdom predators prey on vulnerable members of the herd who can be found on the fringes or in isolation. This is often the case for children who are repeatedly bullied as well. If your child is experiencing a pattern of being bullied, or if any incidents of bullying are causing him or her distress, consider the following:

  1. Get expert assistance. An evaluation by a well qualified child mental health professional is usually a good idea, even if you are able to get the bullying to stop by other means. It is much better to understand any contributing problems, and to develop a plan for managing or fixing them, than it is to let a child or teen languish. To find a qualified professional near you click here.
  2. Consult with the school about the bullying. I’ve never met a teacher or school administrator who is willing to tolerate bullying. It is ideal to have this consultation with a child mental health professional at your side. The consultation can be used to reach a clear understanding about what has happened and to develop a plan for fixing things.
  3. Encourage your child or teen to travel with at least one friend as she or he travels from one location to another at school. As I implied above, bullying is much more likely to occur when a child or teen iis traveling solo. This step might involve inviting prospective friends over to your house in order to develop or to create friendships. If your child or teen cannot, or will not, name friend candidates her or his teacher(s) may be willing to do so.
  4. If your child or teen is a victim of cyber bullying consider first whether his or her online life is adaptive (please see my blog entries that cover monitoring online activity and internet addiction to help in this determination).
  5. If you know the parents of the alleged bully, and you have no clear reason to believe that they would be hostile, consider arranging to have them over to your home to discuss what everyone can to do garner wellness and peace. (In many instances it may be better to do #1 before this one so that a qualified mental health professional can help you to think through the issues, including how you want to manage the meeting.)
  6. If your child has not discovered things that he or she is good at, or does not have regular access to activities that put such talents on display, I would make changing this a top priority. Please see Chapter Two of my book Working Parents, Thriving Families, to read about specific strategies for pulling this off.

Here also are three strategies that often are not advisable. Keep in mind that even a broken clock is right twice a day. So, just about any strategy has some chance of working. But, I am suggesting that the odds of the following working, independent of significant negative side effects, are probably low:

  1. Encouraging a child to be physically aggressive. Yes, there is reason to believe that assaulting a bully might cause him or her to retreat. But this teaches all sorts of unsavory lessons, risks school disciplinary action and can be excruciatingly difficulty for a child or teen to pull off.
  2. Succumbing to your child’s or teen’s plea for you to do nothing. If your child told you that mold was growing in his or her locker at school and you could tell that this was making him or her sick, would you adhere to his or her begging to not take action? Keep in mind that any number of different kinds of action may be in order (see above). What I believe is generally more advisable is to find out what your child or teen reasonably fears could happen if you initiated a plan for fixing the problem (e.g., retaliation by the bully, someone finding out that he or she is in counseling). You might then take steps to make the odds of such happening remote. (A consultation with a mental health professional is especially advisable if your child is insistent along these lines.)
  3. To view the problem as completely resolved if the only change the occurs is that a pattern of bullying stops. I think it is very important to a child’s or teen’s wellness to take steps to understand and to resolve the underlying issues that caused such a painful cycle to begin.
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Mental Health Concerns Are Nearly Universal By Age 21

Oct 28, 11 7:09 PM

Earlier this year a landmark study on the prevalence of psychological disorders in youth was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Examining youth living in 11 counties in the southeastern US, it is the first to track kids’ mental health status from ages as young as 9 through age 21 (a total sample size of 1,420). The authors–Drs. William Copeland, Lilly Shanahan and E. Jane Costello and Ms. Adrian Angold–note some key findings in their report:

• Assuming that there was no incident of psychiatric disorders among the missing cases (an unlikely event), 70% of the sample met criteria for a mental health disorder, at some point, by age 21. (This is referred to as the unimputed number.)

• If one were to assume that the rates of psychiatric disturbance are the same among the missing cases, the frequency of a mental health disorder by age 21 rose to 82.5%. (This is referred to as the imputed number.)

• Child participants entered the study at one of three different ages: 9, 11 and 13. Among the youngest cohort (i.e., entered the study at age 9), the rates of having a diagnosable mental health problem by age 21 was “higher than 90%.” The authors note “This suggests that the experience of psychiatric illness is not merely common but nearly universal.”

• When examining the imputed analyses, these were the most common disorders: substance abuse–42%, behavioral disorders (e.g., ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder)–23.5%, anxiety disorders–20.9% and mood disorders–14.8%.

While all research studies have their flaws, and this one is no exception (e.g., an under representation of African-American and Hispanic children), this study numbers among those contributing to the notion that mental health disorders and physical disorders, as they manifest in youth, have many similar characteristics:

• The odds of having at least one by adulthood are nearly universal.

• Most are not chronic or severe.

• Most can be cured or effectively managed through evidence-based interventions.

• Most will either worsen, or promote needless suffering, when they go unrecognized or untreated.

However, there is a key way that mental health and physical disorders in youth are substantively different. As the authors indicate: “Only about one in three individuals with a well-specified psychiatric disorder received any treatment at all, and even when treatment was obtained, it rarely conformed to best practice recommendations.” I find myself wondering when we will grow weary and intolerant of this needless suffering that our babies endure.

If you, as parent or caregiver, would like to find an ally in your neighborhood to help you to understand whether a child or teen under your charge could use help along these lines, click here. To read a consumer guide for child mental health services, see Chapter 10 in my book Working Parents, Thriving Families: 10 Strategies That Make a Difference.

You may also find value in reviewing posts I’ve written on related topics:

• Affording Mental Health Care

• Signs that a Kid Needs Mental Health Services

• Seven Common Myths About Counseling

• Millions of Teens are Suffering Needlessly

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Should I Let My Teen Daughter Wear a Sexy Halloween Outfit?

Oct 20, 11 9:23 PM

The title of this entry is a common question this time of year. I will first offer three guiding questions and then address the issue specifically.

Whenever a minor you’re in charge of wants to do something that you’re inclined to disallow, I would ask yourself three questions. This thing that your child or teen wants to do:

Is it physically harmful?

Is it psychologically harmful?

Does it unduly tax your resources (e.g., time and money)?

If the answer to all three questions is “no” it is often advisable to allow your child or teen to do that thing, even if it drives you crazy. So often we parents say to our kids “learn to think.” But, what we really mean is “figure out what I think and parrot that back.” Following these guidelines promotes the development of effective decision making skills and discourages dishonesty and excessive dependency.

Let me now turn my attention to the title question. In this instance we’re probably not talking about a risk of physical harm or unduly taxing parental resources, at least most of the time. It’s most likely that we are talking about potential psychological harm. Regarding the latter, a primary question to consider is as follows: Does my daughter generally want to present herself in a sexually alluring manner?  Of course, there are always exceptions to any general principle, but often girls who typically wish to present themselves in a sexually provocative manner are suffering from significant insecurity about their value in other areas. It’s sort of like (and not necessarily on a conscious level) this: “people won’t find my personality or my skills appealing, so I need to draw them in with my sexuality.” If this is true of a girl she will often attract those inclined to value her primarily for this attribute, and likewise be less appealing to those peers who are operating at a higher level.

But what about a girl who wants to wear a provocative Halloween outfit who doesn’t generally lead with her sexuality, and who will be well monitored during the festivities? For such a girl there may not be much risk of psychological harm in dressing this way on one night. That said, and at the risk of sounding like I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth, it’s been my experience that girls who are secure within themselves often don’t wish to dress in this way to begin with.

Let me try to read your mind regarding two additional questions:

How do I decide if an outfit is sexually provocative?

This brings to mind what Justice Potter Stewart said after he admitted that he could not offer a good definition of pornography: “…but, I know it when I see it.” That said, if you’re a dad you may have a stronger inclination to over-react to even adaptive manifestations of your teen daughter’s femininity (I know my tolerance starts being challenged once one of my daughters’ outfits travels above the knee). So, if you’re a dad it may be a good idea to defer to the determination of a woman with good judgment and a healthy self-esteem (hopefully mom).

What should I do if my daughter is someone who wants to lead with her sexuality?

I would consult with a qualified mental health professional to figure out if her self-esteem is fragile or in need of repair. If it is, there are a number of interventions that can be tried to strengthen her sense of efficacy and value. To find someone by you click here. In closing let me also note that I offer numerous specific and time-efficient strategies for promoting self-esteem, effective decision making and adaptive monitoring in my parenting book Working Parents, Thriving Families: 10 Strategies That Make a Difference. For now I hope you can have fun with your progeny this Hallowee. Afterall, they will all be living away from us soon enough.


 

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10 Tips for Parenting Your Progeny’s Online Life

Oct 7, 11 12:56 PM

When considered from the lens of parenting, I liken Facebook, and services of its ilk, to dust mites. It’d be awesome if I could eradicate them, but that’s not realistic. Instead, I try to look upon online services that are available to my kids as offering opportunities to further realize my parenting agenda. This post offers my top 10 tips for tapping this opportunity.

#1. Maintain a weekly dialogue with your child. Having weekly one-on-one time to discuss how your child’s life is going is an essential foundation for just about any parenting agenda. “What are the best thing and the worst things that happened today, even if they were minor?” “Who are your top three friends these days and what do you like about them?” “What’s it like to be in 7th grade these days?” (Click here for a blog entry that lists other potential conversation starters. Please also see Chapter One in my parenting book Working Parents, Thriving Families, for detailed coverage.)

#2. Limit sedentary electronic pleasures to two hours a day. This is the recommendation of several authoritative bodies. If a kid is plugged in more than this he may be missing out on other important activities (e.g., being physically active, doing academic work, engaging in extracurriculars, socializing face-to-face).

#3. Use the social networking mediums that your kid is using and link to your child. If your child uses Twitter discover what it can do for you and be sure to follow each other. If your child uses Facebook use it as well and friend each other.  You also want to make sure your child doesn’t have two social networking accounts: the one you’re connected to and the one on which he goes rogue.

#4. Monitor your kid’s computer use. We want to strive for the middle ground. Over monitoring a successful and responsible child dampens the development of independence and can unduly tax a parent-child relationship. Under monitoring a child who is struggling, or who is putting herself into harmful situations, is obviously not a good idea either. This is where your world’s leading expertise of your child is essential to inform your steps. Regardless of the dosage of monitoring that you decide is advisable, programs that allow you to track your child’s computer use can be very helpful (e.g., www.spector.com/spectorpro.html, www.webwatchernow.com).

#5. Network with other parents and use parenting resources. Whenever you’re hanging out with other parents (e.g., on the sidelines of games, before a parent meeting starts) ask them what strategies they use. While you may hear from parents who seem misguided in their approach (e.g., washing their hands of a monitoring responsibility), others may have clever insights and ideas to share. There are also an abundance of online resources available for parents. (e.g. www.wiredkids.org, www.familyinternet.about.com, www.familysafemedia.com).

#6. Set up rules. Here are some I’d suggest:

√ No swearing.

√ No discussions of sexual or illegal activity.

√ No threatening others.

√ No “friending” people above the age of              (i.e., your 11 year old child’s 19 year old cousin may be super nice to her and a great person, but friending her on Facebook may afford your child access to inappropriate adult material, either on her cousin’s page or on the page of someone in her cousin’s network).

√ Under the “How You Connect” portion under “Privacy Settings,” make sure they are all set to “Friends.”

√ Public searches should be disabled on Facebook. This means that people cannot find your child’s page through internet searches. Under “Privacy Settings” click on “Apps and Websites,” then click on “Edit Settings”  that is next to “Public Search.” Then uncheck the “Enable Public Search” box.

√ You must get others’ permission before posting his or her picture online. Depending on the age and maturity of your child you may also decide that you must also approve all pictures before they are posted; this would also allow you to determine if your child’s friend’s parents’ approval should be garnered.

#7. Role-play scenarios. This is an excerpt from a 2008 national study of the online experiences of kids aged 10-15, authored by Drs. Michele Ybarra and Kimberly Mitchell, that appeared in Pediatrics: “Fifteen percent of all of the youth reported an unwanted sexual solicitation online in the last year; 4% reported an incident on a social networking site specifically. Thirty-three percent reported an online harassment in the last year; 9% reported an incident on a social networking site specifically. Among targeted youth, solicitations were more commonly reported via instant messaging (43%) and in chat rooms (32%), and harassment was more commonly reported in instant messaging (55%) than through social networking sites (27% and 28%, respectively).” Given how common such experiences are we do well to train our kids how to respond. “Hunter what would you do if someone put on their Facebook page a hurtful lie about you?” “Aiden what would you say if someone asked you for your address?”

#8. Set up parental controls on computers that your child uses. This would include things like using browsers designed to block explicit content from kids (e.g., bumpercar,  www.cybersitter.com), not allowing your child to covertly install software (i.e., through settings within the system software), and making sure that there are sufficient parental controls on your child’s other gear that can go online (e.g., cell phone, video game console, portable gaming unit). After you set up your controls offer a tech savvy 20-something person a gift card if he can try to circumvent your controls; offer a higher value gift card if he is successful and can show you how to install effective countermeasures.

#9. Make sure your child understands the limits of privacy on the internet. Colleges search Facebook pages for information, as do employers, volunteer organizations and other people who might be a gatekeeper for some experience, membership or standing that your child may desire in the future (e.g., I recently heard of a coach of a travel baseball team who rejected a kids application to play on the team because of what he found at that kids Facebook page). A good rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t want the world to see it, think four times about posting it.

#10. Consider what you might do to promote the privacy of your family’s online experience. Each computer has an IP address that tells internet sites you visit where you’re located. However, there are services available that make it more challenging to do this (e.g., www.hidemyass.com, www.anonymizer.com). As a start you might read up on IPs and privacy (e.g., http://www.livinginternet.com/i/iw_ip.htm). Moreover, many websites will, without you knowing it, collect information from your computer. However, there is software available that allows you to approve or disapprove this activity (e.g., for Macs: www.littlesnitch.com; for Windows: www.zonealarm.com).  Keep in mind that some have argued that Facebook’s true customers are not its users but the corporations to which it sells information about its users.

For other websites and resources please also see the “Further Reading and Viewing section of Chapter Three in Working Parents, Thriving Families, or the Chapter Three section at www.resilientyouth.com. You may also enjoy reading 10 Strategies If Your Child is Addicted to World of Warcraft (WOW).

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Six Tips For When You Lose It With Your Kid

Sep 10, 11 3:24 PM

All of we parents say and do things with our kids that we regret. These are not knowledge deficits (i.e., we know we’ve erred) but are performance deficits, the causes of which are as varied as the number of stars in the sky. (Most of the time these lapses would not cause the staff at a state’s welfare department to become alarmed, and this entry is not meant to address such instances.) These are moments when our personal reservoir of resources has been depleted by stress and we snap, issuing forth with harsh invectives. This post is meant to give you some strategies to try once you’re back on your game and parenting with intention.

#1: Be kind with yourself in how you think about your lapse. Such moments are as universal to family life as dust mites. Sure, it’d be nice to be rid of them, and we strive for that as best as we can but, at the end of the day, we’re only human. Moreover, research suggests that our kids, assuming our family life is generally healthy, make less of these skirmishes than we do.

#2: Do a psychological autopsy with your child after you both have calmed down. In other words, have a calm discussion about what happened. During this conversation own your lapse without qualification. “John, it was wrong of me to call you lazy and slow witted. Neither of those things are true. I was having a bad day and over reacted to your complaints about doing your homework. That was wrong of me and I apologize son.” Let your kid respond and reinforce that with which you agree. Then, if your child misbehaved in some fashion, try to raise his or her awareness. This is done independent of the apology. That is, I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to place responsibility for my behavior onto my child. “John, thinking more about this, is there anyway you can think of that you could have acted better?” If your child comes up with a reasonable answer you can salute his or her growing maturity. If not, you can suggest what you have in mind. “Well, I think it would have been better for you to do your homework, without complaint, after being warned that I had had enough complaining for one day.”

#3: Consider what you can do to keep yourself from turning this type of intermittent lapse into a regular pattern. Some useful questions to consider: is your self-care sound (e.g., getting sufficient doses of sleep, healthy foods, physical activity, fun, interpersonal connections, and calm)? Is there a pressing stress on you that may need more focused attention? Could you use more help or support and, if yes, how might you get it?

#4: Assuming your child’s behavior prior to your lapse was problematic, consider what you can do to keep such from becoming a dysfunctional pattern. Some questions to consider: could the behavior your child is demonstrating be signally the presence of an underlying problem that needs attention? Are your child’s health habits in need of adjustment? (As much as we adults can be adversely affected by poor health habits, this is even more the case with our kids.) Does your child have any insights into what might be driving the behavior?

#5: Spend one hour a week one-on-one with your child doing nothing but paying attention to him or her and offering positive thoughts and feelings. (Please note that this is different from quality time–a valuable activity to be sure– but which usually involves my dividing my attention with the thing we are doing together.). This dosage of weekly attention is to a child psychologist what an apple a day is to a pediatrician.

#6: If the trigger for your lapse is your child resisting doing a chore or some other obligation, consider setting up a behavioral contract to make it in your child’s best interest, as he or she looks at things, to comply. This switch can turn you from acting like a harsh warden to a benevolent bystander. Click here to read a blog post that covers this method a bit more. Click here to learn more about my book, which covers all the issues in this post in depth.

In closing remember that there is a small army of highly trained mental health professionals available that is willing and able to be of help. To access one data base of such mean-lean-healing machines, click here.

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Seven Tips for When Your Child First Leaves Home for College

Aug 9, 11 10:35 AM

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.   Khalil Gibran

The first transition from home to college is huge. Double that statement if the child in question is the eldest. Please consider these seven tips for getting the most out of the experience.

1. Carve out one-on-one time with your departing child and savor those moments. As the wheel turns new and exciting opportunities become available in our relationships with our children. However, we also say goodbye to phases that we will never experience again. Your baby will never again live under your roof as a child. This deserves shared time and reflection.

2. Share the positive thoughts and feelings you are having with your child, including those regarding your impression of the man or woman he or she is becoming. Don’t stop any tears that might well up (plus you probably won’t be the only one)

3. Write a letter to your child that expresses what you are thinking and feeling. Then leave it among her or his belongings to be discovered later.

4. If your child agrees, and it is within your means, set up a method for video conferencing.  Even if you don’t use it much, it can be a comfort to you and/or your child to have it set up. (If you both have iPads or iPhones this can be done through the application FaceTime. Another relatively straight forward choice is offered by www.skype.com.) Also keep in mind that many retailers of computer hardware and software offer discounts to students, though you may need to ask about it to get it.

5. Encourage any siblings your departing child may have to come to terms with what they are thinking and feeling about the departure, and to communicate the positive aspects of such to their departing sister or brother. It can also be mutually meaningful and beneficial for them to author letters, drawings and symbols that commemorate their relationship.

6. Agree on when and where each person in the family will say goodbye. No one wants to be stuck with the sense of having missed an opportunity. Also, if you decide to say goodbye on campus, keep in mind that your child is not likely to want much drama on display for others.

7. Give yourself a huge pat on the back (and maybe even a treat). Your shepherding has been effective enough to land your child in college. Way to go!!

(By the way, if your child is experiencing, or starts to experience, psychological symptoms keep in mind that most universities have a counseling center that offers free or low fee services. If the university has a graduate program in the mental health professions they may also have a training clinic on campus that offers outpatient care.)

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