I’ve been writing quite a bit lately about little ones: babies and toddlers…for me it feels like yesterday when I had a baby and a toddler, but it’s quite a few years ago.  The joy of having been present for so many special little moments with my child is burned into my brain and I enjoy remembering them. I’m at a different stage in parenting now. It’s another precious stage (as they all have been….) My son is a senior in High School.  Our full time mother-son relationship is in its last few months so sometimes our time together feels particularly poignant.

Today I came home, looked through the mail, and there was an envelope from a University that clearly stated on the outside that he had been accepted and the school was welcoming him. He has already accepted someplace else but it was still wonderful to see his hard work pay off.  So far he has heard from 4 schools he applied to and he has made all 4.  I called his cell phone. He was with friends.  He paused in his time with them and we shared a few congratulatory and fun thoughts about him making this school.  Then it was time to let him to go back to his friends and continue with my evening…  The nicest part was, we had connected.  It can be those important few moments of true connection – talking, sharing, listening to each other, and respecting each others limits that make life worthwhile if you ask me.

Someone recently asked me to talk about when one parent wants a toddler to be able to explore around the house freely and the other wants the baby confined to a play pen more… So, here goes: Toddlers are such “heady creatures.”  They are so excited about the world. They want to learn. They see something and it sparks their imagination. It is a time their brains are firing off connections at an incredible rate.  To optimize your child’s development you want to encourage social interactions, your baby’s creativity, and your baby’s desires to learn and explore. The key is the environment needs to be safe, so you need to make sure your home is “child-proofed” so your child can’t get into things that could hurt her. You also need to make sure you have the energy to follow her and interact with her explaining things her feet take her to. There can be a balance of quieter exploration with toys in a smaller environment and exploring around the house in a safe way at other times.  You want to nurture your child’s natural curiosity so your child’s brain can develop to its fullest capacity.  Did you notice I didn’t say who was right and therefore who was wrong? That is not a useful paradigm here. Talk with your spouse about his ideas and yours, read this answer together and see how you two can use your creativity to come up with a solution that works for both of you.

Sometimes when a baby cries a lot parents can be scared that’s there’s something wrong.  Perhaps there is something wrong, I can’t be sure. What I can tell you is that a baby’s cries are her form of language and communication. There is so much new stimuli coming at a baby, sometimes they cry when it (life around your baby) feels too scary and your arms become a safe haven and cut the outside stimuli to an acceptable level.  Sometimes your baby is hungry and needs to eat.  Sometimes your baby is tired and needs some help falling asleep.  Sometimes your baby has a dirty diaper and needs changing. When you pick up your crying baby find out what that cry is for and respond to your baby’s basic needs. By doing that you’ll be helping your baby develop into a young child with a positive self esteem who can trust the world around her.  If you can’t seem to comfort your baby and your baby isn’t hungry, tired, having a dirty diaper, needing to be held, tired, then you need to look at the level of tension in the baby’s environment, in your arms as you hold her; babies thrive best in a calm or relatively calm environment   And then there are just some “high need” babies that do cry a lot and seem inconsolable at times. It usually is a phase they go through and if you continue to respond lovingly and calmly it will pass.  If you are still wondering or worried, definitely see your pediatrician who can check out the situation and make sure there is not something else affecting your baby.

When your mother-in-law tells you you’ll spoil the baby if you keep picking him up when he cries. I don’t agree.  In this particular case, I’d say the “words of experience” are outweighed by contemporary child development research. A few decades ago parents believed that if you held a child too much you’d “spoil the baby.”  We now know that just is not true.  Babies need to be held, nurtured, and comforted to feel secure and safe.  When you hold your baby when he cries you’re teaching him he is worthwhile, someone is there for him, he can trust the world, and he is safe.

New parents often go through a disappointing time after the initial glow post birth passes.  This is actually more common than you might think.  When each parent wants to be “right” and “know the answer,” with a new baby, there can be power struggles between them. It helps if you both take a deep breath, remember that you love and respect each other, and then sit down, when neither one of you is exhausted and talk about what each of you thinks and why. Listen with the intent of learning from each other and sharing information not with the intent of winning and being right.  Have some favorite parenting books you both read or one reads key paragraphs to the other. Discuss the author’s insights.  Come up with a parenting philosophy that you can both live with and that respects both your positions.  Got the Baby Where’s the Manual?!? has a chapter on making this transition from couple to family and the pitfalls to avoid.  The key is getting off your “position,” both of you, and being willing to really listen and try each other’s ideas and see how they affect your baby.

             I can’t believe the holidays are over.  Although I must say, it doesn’t quite feel like they are all over because my son is still home from school.  We have one more week of “vacation,” but he and I are still both working this week.            I seem to have followed my own advice about prioritizing and enjoying rather than enduring the holidays.  We had some relatives in form out of town which was such fun and they were here over my birthday which made it even sweeter.  This is an exciting time in our family’s life.  My son is a senior in High School and has already heard from 2 of the colleges he applied to that he was accepted.  Now we begin the difficult task of deciding which is right for him.  And that’s one of those things that I want to keep my hands largely out of. It’s difficult to take the back seat sometimes, but so necessary so he feels like it’s his decision, which it is. It’s his life and where he wants to start the next four years should be his choosing.  He may not stay at the school of his choosing but it needs to be his decision based on what he wants to learn, where he wants to be, and what we can all afford…            I can remember when he was an infant and we’d be in grocery store.  At that point five-year-olds looked like giants to me. Now he’s at least 6 feet tall and about to leave home in a few months.  He’s already doing that wonderful emotional dress rehearsal for leaving home – you know the - I don’t really need you anymore – I want to be treated like an adult stage - as they get ready to launch.  I remember the - I want my independence stage well - although it was quite a few moons ago it can feel like it was yesterday and I was pushing my parents away, needing room to launch.  It’s funny to be on the receiving side of it. Funny and wonderful because he is ready and he has a great head on his shoulders.  I have to remember of course he’ll make some mistakes along the way, don’t we all, even today. It’s how human beings learn – make mistakes and the hope is at least you learn from them.            I think just as a kid’s task in late adolescence is to “launch successfully” our task as parents is to “let go successfully” and that means different things to different people. I wonder what it means to you?If we can have faith that we’ve raised them well, we’ve taught them what we want them to learn, we’ve helped them develop good decision making skills, they can assess a situation and make a wise choice or at least what seems like a wise choice and if necessary they can re-think it and try again, then it’s easier to let go. Sometimes I still need reminders from him and then I apologize and say, “It’s just cause I love you and I’m being a mom – I want you to listen to what I’m saying and then make your own decision.”  We both smile and we move on…What’s that expression, “Love makes you do crazy things?”  Sometimes love as a parent makes you hang on too tightly and sometime too loosely – we’ve got to juggle our parental love and find the balance…           

I’ve been doing a lot of radio shows this week commenting about and being interviewed about the shootings in the last week – 2 churches in Colorado, the school bus, etc - It’s supposed to be holiday shopping not holiday shootings.  Why now? There seem to be so many reasons:1) Perhaps first and foremost I think is people crying out for help and slipping between the cracks – people with mental health problems who need help, treatment, medication and not getting it.  With “privacy” being such an issue in this country it’s difficult to get someone help if they don’t want to cooperate.  In “the old days” there used to be state mental hospitals that took care of a lot of folks who needed to be monitored if they were taking their drugs, they housed people who would be a danger to themselves or others – today – it is commonly thought that if you give people medicine, they can live in the community and for sure there are many who can, but there are those few who stop taking their medicine and others who need more than medicine, who also need talk therapy with a really good therapist and they are not getting it  Their pain is too much to bear and occasionally  they do something horrendous.2) Along with the need for therapy we need to look at who can afford it – and how many insurance companies will pay for more than 4-6 crisis sessions.  Many times people need more than what I call a 6 –session wonder – they really need a lot of help learning how to cope with life, how to relate to people, what to do with their personal pain, how to start life again3) We are a more violent society in general – kids see so much more violence on TV in movies, video games – it’s like violence is “normalized” in some part of some kids brain (only a select few)4) How we are parenting - how we are treated by parents, what do we learn at home in terms of how to cope with difficult feelings – and more importantly – are your parents aware of problem you are having and how much trouble or pain you are in.5)There are true mental illnesses involving an imbalance in the brain – these kinds of mental illnesses can be treated with a combination of specific medication and talk therapy.  They need to be treated – but sometimes kids are ignored, parents hope their kids will “grow out of it”  or parents are just hoping one day they’ll leave home at 18 and everything will be okay then.  We need to stop ignoring young adults who “don’t fit in,” who are different emotionally, we need to a take a risk and tell them life doesn’t have to be this painful, there is help for you.In the spirit of the season, if we get out of our comfort zone and help someone in emotional trouble, the world may be a more peaceful place.  We need to push ourselves as neighbors, friends and family members to make those tough calls and voice our concern, compare notes with others, and really try to get people the help they need.

The (parental) buck stops with you.  Ultimately, you’re the “responsible party” here, so make sure you agree with what you say and you can live with the consequences you decide. Also try to say it in a way your child can hear and be will be more willing to agree.  When you really look at why you’re saying what you’re saying, for example, “I want you home by 11:30 PM.” you may be abel to share your reasons and that may make it easier for your child to agree.  For instance, the simple sentence, I want you home by 11:30″ or “You better be home by 11:30″ may really mean, “I want you home before I go to sleep so I know you’re safe and I can sleep well.  When you get in at 11:30 and get to bed soon after that you’re delightful to be around the next day because you’ve had enough sleep.  So part of the reason I want you home at 11:30 is because I don’t want to deal with a grumpy kid in the morning.  Please be home by 11:30 so you can have a good time wherever you’re going, I can have a good night’s sleep and we can both enjoy each other tomorrow.  Thanks so much for cooperating in all this.”  Which one do you think your child would rather hear?

             I know the social “climate” is changing in this country and different regions look at things differently, but maybe when we’re looking at the pros and cons of corporal punishment we need to look a bit deeper in terms of: a) what is the job of a parent, b) what do we now know about child development, c) what happens when the needs of children to be raised with respect, with a high self-esteem, and with knowledge and skills to make wise choices are met, d) how do children learn from their mistakes, and e) how does a young child grow up into a young adult who can live independently in a complex world?  Do you want to correct a child or provide your child with opportunities to learn so next time a situation like the one perturbing you arises, your child has a better chance of making a decision you can respect.  Do you provide your child with alternatives and options for how to deal with anger, fear, or hurt?  Or do you tell your child by your own actions as a parent – ‘when you’re hurt, sad, fearful and angry take out the old “Shield of Anger” and make sure your “opponent” know you’re really angry!’  What does that truly teach your child?            If you see the role of parent as the one who “keeps a child in line” and the line you’re keeping for your child is the one you want “enforced” then corporal punishment will probably make sense. But, if you see your role as parent to be a guide, a role model of respect, the one who teaches your child to communicate, then you will face more challenges to your creativity as a parent and you will raise a child who knows how to deal with his/her emotions, life’s challenges and knows how to learn from his/her mistakes and can make wise choices. So, which would you rather be: a) a creative parent who accepts that a child’s life tasks, especially in adolescence, is to explore the world, find his place in it, test the limits, see what happens with consequences, and learn how to live independently; or b) a parent who sets strict rigid limits and punishes a child for testing or going over the limits.If you chose “B” – please know that your child is likely to grow into an adult who will either be controlling of others or will choose a life partner who controls him/her because that’s what your child will be used to. That will feel “normal” to your child because that’s how you’ve always treated your child.  But being controlling or controlled are not often happy states for people to be in. It can lead to domestic violence.   When a person can stand, independently and know how to be a team player and how to listen and respond respectfully to others around him/her, now that is a person who will probably go through life in an easier, more comfortable and happier state.I think the issue of corporal punishment is bigger than hitting or not or spanking or not. I think it’s about time we looked at a paradigm shift in parenting from the old style parenting most of us were raised with where the parent was a know-it-all adult and you were the dumb, naive child who had to listen to the all knowing parent to parenting in a way that maximizes a child’s cognitive, social and emotional development. In order to maximize a child’s development , a child needs to be talked to in great detail from a very early age, his opinions need to be seriously considered and he needs to feel respected, loved, and appreciated.  Parenting in this respectful ways also involves setting limits, consequences, and boundaries – but in a  respectful way.  The question becomes – are you willing to do what it takes to maximize your child’s potential in this lifetime or are you going to take the easier way, parent as you were parented, set those rigid boundaries, enforce them with corporal punishment, and raise a child who has not realized his/her full potential. Or will you challenge yourself as a parent to read about child development, try out new parenting ideas, do not rely on spankings, make them a non-option, and see how you set respectful limits without them. It’s not a matter of which way is the wind blowing. It’s a matter of taking the current brain science research, learning from past generations mistakes, making a parenting paradigm shift,  and becoming a respectful parent today.Another aspect of the “corporal punishment” debate has to do with government involvement – should the government regulate “spankings?”  The question. “Shouldn’t I be able to do what I want in my own home?” Is important to address here.  The answer is, “Yes and No.”  Sometimes people make unsafe choices in the face of privacy – and someone needs to protect children from abuse.  So, yes, the government does have to make rules to protect the innocent, just as parents need to come up with guidelines for their family. It is unfortunate that some parents each year, in the name of giving a justified, “Spanking” in advertently get a surge of anger and beat their child to the point of endangering and even killing a child. Nobody sets out to do it, yet each year it is done. So does the government need to oversee this possibility?  I’d say, as long as there is uncontrollable anger and rage in this world – Yes. Dr. Joanne Baum has a Service Mark on Respectful Parenting. She developed it over the last 30+ years of working with individuals, families and children.  Dr. Baum’s new book, Got the Baby Where’s the Manual?!? won the 2007 IPPY Gold Medal Award in Parenting.  For more information, please go to her web-site is www.respectfulparenting.com. 

Some kids are born with this “thing” - they won’t do anything unless they think they can do it really really well or close to if not perfectly. It stops them from doing a lot of things in life and more importantly it stops them from enjoying life because they are putting themselves under a lot of stress. It’s one thing to want to do things well, it’ s another to strive so hard you’re always putting yourself under unnecessary pressure. Some kids seem to naturally strive so hard they are avoiding activities that they do not have a natural talent for. You can help.

1) Sit your child down.

2) Share with your child the importance of working at something without the pressure of learning a new activity “perfectly.”

3) Let your child know you are concerned about the unnecessary pressure - of the “striving for perfection” you are seeing. Compliment your child on striving and wanting to do well, and explain that by working sooooo hard, it can take the joy out of the experience itself. Let your child know you don’t want him to miss out on that joy and enjoyment he could be having.

4) Explain how the process of trying and the process of learning can feel good and joyful when you allow yourself to make mistakes, to welcome mistakes as opportunities to learn, and that when you accept progress not perfection - it end up being a more gentle approach to life.

5) Talk about the concept of joy - how it feels in your tummy, your heart, your head - that life can be enjoyed as you learn. That you can appreciate your own progress, even your own shortcomings. We’re all good at some things and not at others but we can still enjoy those things we do not excel at. And the more your child can learn to relax and enjoy the process, the more your child will find enjoyment in life. Like if bike riding for distance is difficult, stop and look at the beautiful scenery around you, appreciate that you got on the bike and you’re trying, appreciate how far you did go…. If golf is difficult, enjoy the fresh air and the walking you’re doing. If skiing is difficult and you can’t make it to the Black Diamond runs, enjoy the Green runs or the Blue runs. They’ re lovely in their own way.

6) When your child can accept less than perfection and less than incredible skill, he can have more compassion for people who can’t do things as well as he can. He’ll understand the learning process and understand not all bodies and brains work the same.

7) When you’re going to introduce an activity that you know your child stresses about, sit down first. Talk about realistic hopes for this time, remind your child about the positive feelings he can get when he’s enjoying an experience, appreciating his efforts, and looking for progress, even if it’s facing a fear and doing it anyways a little bit. That is a great beginning….

8) Make sure your child knows how to talk to himself using positive messages and encouraging non-judgmental self-talk rather than criticism and judgment. Watch how you talk to your child and try to avoid criticism and negative judgment by using helpful guiding questions and encouragement. For instance, “I can see you’re really trying there and something is hanging you up. Let’s take a look and see what’s making this difficult for you.” Rather than, “What’s the matter with you, why aren’t you trying harder?”

9) Ask him if he’d like to try on the possibility that he could enjoy the experience that day and look at the positives. Tell him you’ll both share your individual enjoyment with each other during the activity and afterwards by talking to each other in an encouraging way.

These tips will go along way to helping your child let in another possibility besides being perfect.