Julie Ross M.A. - Parenting Horizons

The Language Of Play

Sarah's three year old son, Jason, had suddenly become aggressive. She could understand that sometimes he was frustrated and would strike out in anger, for example when another child took his toy. What she was bewildered and angry about, however, was why, in the middle of a playgroup, he would sometimes dash across the room and violently squeeze or push another child with a look of glee on his face, even though the other child had done nothing to provoke him.

In order to help young children overcome their impulsive and aggressive misbehaviors, it's...

For Dad's Eyes Only

In talking with the men who attend my parenting groups the theme of disciplining children arises again and again. Interestingly, many of the men I speak with are reluctant to discipline. I just don't get to see her very much because of my work hours, one dad explained, when I do see her, I want it to be fun. Another dad commented, I don't want to be the bad guy. I had a bad relationship with my dad, and I want my son to like me.

It's true that many fathers see less of their children than mothers do. In fact, Stephen Covey in his book The 7 Habits of...

Values And Sports - Part II: Learning To Lose

Although many coaches emphasize "good sportsmanship" sometimes the competitive nature of sports overcomes what could be a valuable lesson for children about how to lose as well as how to win. One mother said to me "My son is such a sore loser when his team doesn't win. I understand that it's partially developmental, but I'm tired of it. It takes all the fun out of playing for him, and all the fun out of watching for me." Competitiveness -- the desire to win or be the "best" -- is indeed developmental, and most parents begin to notice it in their children by three...

The Most Powerful Tool You Have to Raise a Happy, Healthy Child

In the decade and a half that I’ve been teaching, I’ve had an opportunity to think deeply about the tools and techniques that parents need to raise happy, healthy children. Some of the tools are instinctive, and need no teaching: humor, play, hugs. Others are less intuitive and must be sought out: how to discipline, be a good listener, teach values consistently. Generally speaking, all of the tools are important, and parents must learn to balance instinct with learned skills. But if I were pressed...

When Young Children Experiment With Bad Words

When four year olds begin finding "bathroom talk" funny, parents usually dismiss the "you're a poo poo head" with a shrug of the shoulders. "It's just a phase," parents will say. And indeed, this type of "humor" does seem to pass by the time a child is around five or six years of age. Yet when those same children begin experimenting with four letter words, very few parents will dismiss it with "it's just a phase." Indeed, children's initial experimentation with four letter words often shocks and inflames parents. Some parents respond with moral imperatives: "We do...

Building The Foundation for An Ethical Life - Part III

In the past two articles we've been talking about promoting honesty. We've discussed setting yourself and your child up for success and we've discussed what most parents consider the most ingenuous of lie-telling: fanciful storytelling. In this issue, we'll discuss lies of a more serious nature.

When a child tells her parents an "untruth" -- that is she says something that's untrue when she knows it's untrue, it is the parents' job to determine why the child is lying. Is the child afraid of punishment because she's been punished severely before? Or is...

A New Year's Resolution For The Family

The New Year is here. It's the final year of the decade and the doorway to the new millennium. It's a wonderful time to make resolutions, especially resolutions that have to do with your most valuable gift -- your family. Here are some suggestions that will infuse your family with health and send it into the millennium with joy:

* Spend time together. We live in a very busy world. Sometimes it's easy to bypass the things that are important to us and that we should be spending the most time on - like our family. After all, when we're done getting...

Improving Parent-Teacher Communication

When teachers and parents work together towards the well being of their children in the school environment, the benefit to the children is enormous. Children experience faster adjustment to school, establish a more trusting relationship with the teacher, and derive a sense of safety and security which allows them to be more open as learners among other things.

Sometimes, though, it seems as though parents work directly AGAINST teachers rather than with them. This creates, at best, a frustrating situation and at worst a power struggle that...

Soothing Sibling Conflict - Part I

"My 20 month old daughter started to cry and when I went in, there was my 5 year old son standing there. She had a red welt on her forehead and I was convinced he'd hit her, but he denied it. I began interrogating him, and wound up accusing him of hitting her. I found out later that she'd hit her head going under a table. I felt so guilty!"

"I walked into my infant son's room where he was lying in his playpen. My 3 year old son had taken every item of clothing out of the dresser drawers and piled it on top of my four month old. I was horrified!"...

The Three "C's" of Diminishing Household Chaos

Stephanie thought she was going to lose her mind. She just couldn't seem to keep things under control with her 5 year old twin boys and 8 year old daughter. From the moment they got up on the morning until they went to sleep at night it was one argument after another: who got to choose where to sit at breakfast, which TV show they were going to watch, who would be first in the bathroom, and so on. Just when she'd get one argument sorted out, another would erupt.

This kind of in-fighting is common in households with multiple children. In a bid for mom...

Sustaining Summer

We're moving from the bright greens of summer to the brilliant colors of fall. Our children are making the transition from summer to school, and from flexible schedules to structure. How, during this time of transition and in the school year beyond, can we maintain a sense of the fun that summer brings? Fun that binds our children to us in a way that nothing else can? When children and parents have fun together: playing, laughing and relaxing, the underlying structure of the relationship is strengthened. And it is that underlying strength that sustains both...

Teaching Compassion

Every day we and our children walk by the homeless on the street. When our children are very young we feel especially protective because their instinct is towards empathy: they ask us why that person doesn't have a home, where does that person sleep, and can't we give them some money? And we teach our children from an early age, when these questions first arise, to be careful and make a wide berth in case the person is dangerous. By the time our children reach elementary school, this has probably become an automatic habit, and if the children were asked, they...

JEALOUSY!

Jealousy, that "green eyed monster", has been written about for centuries. It has been called "cruel as the grave" and a "jaundice of the soul." Perhaps, then, it is no wonder that many parents feel so alarmed when their children exhibit this much-despised feeling. Especially when children seem to feel jealous so easily, and over such "trivial" things: a toy belonging to another child; a parent's attention, a high test score earned by a friend. Confronted with a child's jealousy most parents work to eliminate it, to explain why the child shouldn't feel jealous and...

Children Of Today And Their Struggle For Power - Part III

Children of today struggle for power in their families in ways that no one would have thought of even ten years ago. For this reason, parents can find themselves exasperated, exhausted, and overwhelmed when trying to stick with decisions that they've made which are based on their values. Yet children's tactics fall into some fairly predicable patterns. Knowing how to handle your child's struggle for power by recognizing what tactic your child is using can be helpful when trying to uphold your values. One common way that some children get their parents to "give in...

Breaking A Pattern Of Yelling

TV Or Not TV ... That Is The Question

During the summer months it's likely that our children will spend at least slightly more time in front of the television. In recent years, the debate about television has raged - how much television is too much? How does the violence effect our children? Is television educational or the ultimate evil? Parents have responded to the debate about television in a variety of ways, from banning television in their homes completely to only allowing videos, to giving their children complete freedom to watch whenever and whatever they choose. But what way is the right way...

Piercing: Can parents prevent it?

My fifteen-year-old daughter had some friends over not too long ago, one of whom she'd known since Kindergarten. They, and we, were sitting in our living room, talking. The long-time friend of my daughter interrupted the chat suddenly, squealing, "Ooooo, I forgot to show you my belly-button pierce!" She proceeded to lift her shirt, and sure enough, a small turtle dangled over her navel. The other girls oohed and aahed: "Wow, how cool." "Awesome." Then wistful sighs all around, and in unison: "I want a belly button pierce." My daughter turned to me, "Isn't it cool...

When Children Feel Misunderstood

Nine year old Sarah wanted to go to a friend's house to spend the night, but her parents said "no." She pleaded and begged, and finally ended up sulking in her room for most of the weekend. Three year old Jack asked his mother for juice while she was working on the computer. She nodded her head and said "o.k." As she went to save the file she was working on before getting up, Jack flew into a tantrum, screaming "Juice! Juice!" as he flailed around on the floor.

What do these children have in common? Neither one feels understood or listened to by their...

Building The Foundation for An Ethical Life - Part II

In Part I we talked about being a good role model for honesty as part of setting yourself up for success. Today we'll talk about the other ways that we can set ourselves up for success in this area, before moving on and talking about specific ways we should respond to dishonesty in order to facilitate more honest behavior in the future.

1) Talk to your child about the value of honesty --

* You feel better about yourself when you tell the truth

* It maintains personal integrity

* People trust you when you're honest...

Your Teen And Peer Influence

"I'm at a loss with my son. Now that he's a teenager, I'm really seeing that he's swayed by what his friends think. Some of the things I can manage my way through - like when he wants a new pair of roller blades because all his friends have that kind, or when he wants to wear that new style of pants that slinks down around his hips. But I'm not sure what to do about other things - like when he wants to go away to his friend's parents' house, and this is a friend that I really don't approve of, I think he's a terrible influence."

One of the scariest...

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