Today we remember and honor Martin Luther King. In his famous “I Have a Dream” address King stated one of the dreams he had for his children, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He lived his life working to bring that dream to reality.
Being a parent can inspire us to be our best possible selves for the sake of our children. As Barack Obama prepares to become President of the United States, he wrote a letter to his young daughters describing why he decided to run for this office. In his letter he explains “And I realized that my own life wouldn't count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours.” He is working hard to ensure his daughters have those opportunities.
What hopes and dreams do you have for your children? When our children inspire us to dream big, we can often find unrealized strength and persistence to work towards fulfilling those dreams.
Practice Makes Better
I much prefer the saying “practice makes better” to “practice makes perfect” especially when it comes to parenting. There are no perfect parents and trying to achieve some type of perfection often leads to feeling insufficient as a parent. However, we can all improve our parenting by practicing skills that have been proven to work well in raising responsible, respectful children.
Developing great parenting habits takes plenty of practice … and your kids are ready to give you just the practice you need! How can you learn these parenting skills? Taking the Priceless Parenting class is one great way to discover these proven techniques and the homework at the end of every lesson provides many practice opportunities! Practicing these effective parenting skills will help those skills become a solid part of your parenting habits.
Developing great parenting habits takes plenty of practice … and your kids are ready to give you just the practice you need! How can you learn these parenting skills? Taking the Priceless Parenting class is one great way to discover these proven techniques and the homework at the end of every lesson provides many practice opportunities! Practicing these effective parenting skills will help those skills become a solid part of your parenting habits.
Making and Breaking Promises
“But you promised!” It’s easy to misinterpret a statement as a promise when no promise was intended. Being intentional about what is a promise and what is not can be helpful in avoiding misunderstandings. When you make a promise, it is important to follow through with what you promised.
I attended a seminar recently where the leader asked us to think back to a situation from our childhood where someone broke a promise to us. Each of us was able to vividly remember a situation; it was amazing how much emotion was still attached to these incidents so many years later.
I remembered being promised by my friend’s aunt to be driven up to a lake cabin where my friend was spending a couple weeks in the summer. The aunt cancelled going the day before we were supposed to leave; I was crushed.
One 50-year-old woman recalled being at a pool and being afraid of going down the slide. Her dad was in the water and promised her that he would catch her. However, when she came sliding down, he didn’t catch her. She popped right up after being under water and reasoned that her dad probably just wanted her to learn that she could do it. She clearly remembers that broken promise and her feelings of being deceived.
How do we feel when promises are broken? We often feel betrayed and let down. A broken promise affects our ability to trust that person in the future. Given the significance of promises, it is really important that we only make promises to our children that we are confident we can keep.
I attended a seminar recently where the leader asked us to think back to a situation from our childhood where someone broke a promise to us. Each of us was able to vividly remember a situation; it was amazing how much emotion was still attached to these incidents so many years later.
I remembered being promised by my friend’s aunt to be driven up to a lake cabin where my friend was spending a couple weeks in the summer. The aunt cancelled going the day before we were supposed to leave; I was crushed.
One 50-year-old woman recalled being at a pool and being afraid of going down the slide. Her dad was in the water and promised her that he would catch her. However, when she came sliding down, he didn’t catch her. She popped right up after being under water and reasoned that her dad probably just wanted her to learn that she could do it. She clearly remembers that broken promise and her feelings of being deceived.
How do we feel when promises are broken? We often feel betrayed and let down. A broken promise affects our ability to trust that person in the future. Given the significance of promises, it is really important that we only make promises to our children that we are confident we can keep.
Unhappy teens from privileged families
I recently read The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids by Madeline Levine. Levine is a clinical psychologist who has spent the past 25 years working with many teens from upper-middle-class families. Although these teens are often smart and talented, meeting their parent’s academic and athletic expectations, they are also often feeling depressed, anxious and empty.
Levine writes that researchers have found that “children of privilege are exhibiting unexpectedly high rates of emotional problems beginning in junior high school and accelerating through adolescence.” She reports “… two factors repeatedly emerge as contributing to their high levels of emotional problems. The first is achievement pressure and the second is isolation from parents. While achievement pressure and isolation from parents appear to be mutually exclusive (somebody has to be putting the pressure on), they are not. In fact, achievement pressure often comes from parents who are overinvolved in how well their children perform and inadequately involved in monitoring these same children in other areas.”
Pulling information from both research and her own clinical cases, Levine does an excellent job supporting her points with real life examples. The Price of Privilege book provides insight and guidance for parents from any economic status who want to support their children in developing into emotionally healthy adults.
Levine writes that researchers have found that “children of privilege are exhibiting unexpectedly high rates of emotional problems beginning in junior high school and accelerating through adolescence.” She reports “… two factors repeatedly emerge as contributing to their high levels of emotional problems. The first is achievement pressure and the second is isolation from parents. While achievement pressure and isolation from parents appear to be mutually exclusive (somebody has to be putting the pressure on), they are not. In fact, achievement pressure often comes from parents who are overinvolved in how well their children perform and inadequately involved in monitoring these same children in other areas.”
Pulling information from both research and her own clinical cases, Levine does an excellent job supporting her points with real life examples. The Price of Privilege book provides insight and guidance for parents from any economic status who want to support their children in developing into emotionally healthy adults.
Children Shooting Guns
Children and guns are a dangerous combination. On Tuesday an angry 4-year-old Ohio boy got a gun out of a closet and shot his baby sitter. Luckily the baby sitter will recover. What is especially disturbing about this story is that it wasn’t an accident. This preschooler knew both the location of the gun and how to use it.
Another gun tragedy involving a 4-year-old occurred last June when a South Carolina girl shot herself in the chest. This occurred when she took a gun out of her grandmother’s purse during a shopping trip at Sam’s Club.
In November an 8-year-old Arizona boy killed his father and another man using a .22-caliber rifle. His father had taught him how to shoot a gun to kill prairie dogs. Apparently the boy kept a tally of his spankings and had decided that the 1,000th spanking would be the last.
Clearly this 8-year-old boy learned to shoot a gun quite well. While parents can certainly teach their children to shoot guns at a young age, their brains are not sufficiently developed to handle decisions around appropriately using guns.
While most parents would agree that teaching preschoolers to shoot guns is too young, when can a child safely learn to shoot a gun? Recent research has shown that it takes about 25 years for a person’s brain to fully develop. The part of the brain that controls reasoning and impulses is the last to develop. We know teenagers and young adults can have difficulty controlling their emotions and impulsive behaviors. Unfortunately, upset teens with access to guns may lead to deadly results.
Many U.S. children have access to guns since about 35% of U.S. households have guns. Guns in the hands of children and young adults put all our children at risk. It’s time to figure out a better way to handle guns so that these types of tragedies stop.
Another gun tragedy involving a 4-year-old occurred last June when a South Carolina girl shot herself in the chest. This occurred when she took a gun out of her grandmother’s purse during a shopping trip at Sam’s Club.
In November an 8-year-old Arizona boy killed his father and another man using a .22-caliber rifle. His father had taught him how to shoot a gun to kill prairie dogs. Apparently the boy kept a tally of his spankings and had decided that the 1,000th spanking would be the last.
Clearly this 8-year-old boy learned to shoot a gun quite well. While parents can certainly teach their children to shoot guns at a young age, their brains are not sufficiently developed to handle decisions around appropriately using guns.
While most parents would agree that teaching preschoolers to shoot guns is too young, when can a child safely learn to shoot a gun? Recent research has shown that it takes about 25 years for a person’s brain to fully develop. The part of the brain that controls reasoning and impulses is the last to develop. We know teenagers and young adults can have difficulty controlling their emotions and impulsive behaviors. Unfortunately, upset teens with access to guns may lead to deadly results.
Many U.S. children have access to guns since about 35% of U.S. households have guns. Guns in the hands of children and young adults put all our children at risk. It’s time to figure out a better way to handle guns so that these types of tragedies stop.
Spending time together
Being able to spend fun times together with our children is part of what makes being a parent so rewarding. We just returned from a six day trip to Leavenworth, a Bavarian town in the mountains a couple hours from Seattle. Our trip was extended an extra day when we were snowed in because all the mountain passes were closed due to avalanche danger. We’ve had a lot of snow this year!
We’ve been going on this yearly trip for the past 12 years with another family. It’s a special time we spend together cross country skiing, sledding, hot tubbing, playing games and of course eating. My children are now 16 and 13; they happily anticipate spending New Year’s Eve in Leavenworth each year. After being home for a day, my 16-year-old daughter wistfully said she already missed being together as a family in Leavenworth.
Although we don’t have a large home, upon arriving home we each quickly go our separate ways for much of the day … busily putting away gear, washing clothes and taking care of many other tasks. When we’re in Leavenworth, the time is magical because we focus completely on doing fun things together. There are no chores, no school work and very few worries. Being able to spend special time together as a family is truly priceless!
We’ve been going on this yearly trip for the past 12 years with another family. It’s a special time we spend together cross country skiing, sledding, hot tubbing, playing games and of course eating. My children are now 16 and 13; they happily anticipate spending New Year’s Eve in Leavenworth each year. After being home for a day, my 16-year-old daughter wistfully said she already missed being together as a family in Leavenworth.
Although we don’t have a large home, upon arriving home we each quickly go our separate ways for much of the day … busily putting away gear, washing clothes and taking care of many other tasks. When we’re in Leavenworth, the time is magical because we focus completely on doing fun things together. There are no chores, no school work and very few worries. Being able to spend special time together as a family is truly priceless!
Monsters under the bed
Night time fears are common in young children. Children may have trouble calming down at bedtime due to fears like finding a monster under the bed. Although these fears may seem ridiculous to adults, they can be very real to young children.
If your child expresses a fear like this, it’s important to acknowledge the fear by saying something like “I can see that you are really worried about this.” Instead of overreacting and spending a lot of time discussing the monster, find ways to solve the problem:
If your child expresses a fear like this, it’s important to acknowledge the fear by saying something like “I can see that you are really worried about this.” Instead of overreacting and spending a lot of time discussing the monster, find ways to solve the problem:
- Leaving a nightlight on
- Using "monster spray" (pretend bottle or a real one filled with water)
- Checking under the bed
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