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In today’s world, we guard and protect our children like never before, much to their own detriment.  There are many things they need to know how to do and how to handle by the time they leave home.  If you don’t teach them, they will not know.

Here is what your child needs to know and how to teach them:

  1. How to manage money.  Get your teen a debit-type credit card, and put a certain amount of money on it weekly or monthly.  Talk to your teen about how to budget and manage money, and then watch them figure it out.  They won’t get it right away, as they will likely spend it all quickly.  But, over time, they will figure it out.  Don’t wait until they leave home to start teaching this.
  2. How to solve a problem with a teacher.  Don’t step in and rescue your teen every time he has an issue with a teacher.  You can give advice, and then let him take your advice or not, and learn on his own how to stand up for himself, and be proactive in communicating with his teachers.
  3. How to deal with his emotions.  All of them.  Even pain and anger.  Don’t try to distract your teen from experiencing his own pain and anger.  It is necessary to be allowed to feel your feelings, and to learn how to cope and express yourself appropriately.  That is where you can help.  Just listen and be supportive, and tell your child if he’s being inappropriate.
  4. How to clean up and do laundry.  Stop cleaning up after your teen.  He is old enough to make his own bed, hang up his towel, and put his clothes in the hamper.  Teach him how to do laundry and how to put it away.  Make him clean up after himself in the kitchen, and even do all the dishes sometimes.  Nobody will be there to do if for him when he leaves home.
  5. How to cook some basic meals.  Don’t wait another day.  Start teaching now.  Otherwise, your teen will eat fast food for every meal when they leave home.
  6. Lastly, and most importantly, your teen needs to know how and when to ask for help.  Whether he needs help academically, socially, financially or emotionally, your teen needs to know whom to call and when.  He needs to know that there is no shame in asking for help; rather it is a sign of maturity to recognize when you need help.

Fostering independence and functionality are necessary gifts that you can bestow upon your teen before they leave home.  Don’t forget how crucial this is to their overall success.

It’s right around the corner… that glorious time for staying up late, kicking back, and doing nothing at all. Make certain your children get all the summer that’s coming to them by including some of these ideas, even just once.

1. Have at least one real picnic. You know, the kind where you spread a blanket on the grass and eat food with your fingers. It doesn’t have to be fancy – in fact, the best picnics are not fancy at all. The best picnics are casual, fun affairs. Be sure to have at least one this summer.

2. Watch fireworks at least once. Maybe it will be on the Fourth of July, maybe sometime else. But make sure you and your kids watch one professional fireworks display sometime this summer. Yes, I know, it makes the kids stay up late and, yes, I know, these events are crowded and buggy. But take a blanket to claim your space and some bug lotion and have a great time.

3. Get back to nature at least once. Take a walk on the seashore, row across the lake, explore the woods, or hike up a mountain. You don’t have to go far – with small children you might not get very far at all. But take time to really look at things, especially things down at your child’s level. Bring along a baggie for the pretty rocks and interesting sticks that will need to come home with you.

4. Enjoy outdoor entertainment at least once. Maybe it’s a ball game or outdoor concert. Maybe it’s a drive-in movie or a Renaissance fair. Sometime this summer, get out with the crowds and have a good time. Many of these events are free or low cost if you check around for what’s happening in your community.

5. Take at least one road trip. Go by car, by bus or even by bicycle, but get out on the open road and travel from here to there. Use a map to plot your route and be sure to stop at historical markers and roadside lemonade stands. Remember it’s not the destination that matters but the getting there.

6. Camp out at least once. Even if it’s just in the backyard, sleep outside (or let your children sleep outside) sometime this summer. If you can have a campfire and roast hot dogs and marshmallows, even better! If you can stay up long enough to see the stars, double-good! Listen to the night noises and enjoy the peacefulness of the dark.

7. Play in water at least once. Go swimming, run through the lawn sprinkler, toss water balloons or shoot squirt guns. Be ready for the first really hot day of the year with whatever you need for water play.

8. Just once, do something you’ve never done before. Maybe you’ll go panning for gold or gems. Maybe you’ll visit an archeological dig. Maybe you’ll watch a demolition derby or a horse race or a dog show. Find out what’s happening in your area and do something new-to-you.

Anchor your family’s summer activities with just one simple event every week. Don’t be too busy or too sophisticated for downhome summer fun. The more you do, the more fun you’ll have and the more memories you’ll make.

Good summers are full of good memories.


Imagine a huge hole in the ground with Man A stuck at the bottom unable to escape. Man B walks nearby and hears Man A calling for help. Man B sees Man A at the bottom of the hole. He is so upset that he jumps in the hole with Man A. Now both are upset and both are stuck at the bottom of the hole. Man C walks by and hears both A and B calling for help. Man C tells them he will be back soon. Later, Man C arrives with a ladder.

There is a fine line between sympathy and empathy but learning the difference can make huge changes in your relationship with your child.

My favorite definition: Empathy is understanding the shoes someone else is walking in; sympathy is putting them on as if they belong to you.

Sympathy has its place but is more about the feelings of the sympathizer than the one being sympathized with. Empathy allows a certain detachment from the feelings so the empathizer is better able to help. Man B’s emotions got him stuck in the hole. Man C’s compassion left him able to see what was needed.

My mother was a professional sympathizer. Whenever I expressed having a problem, she responded, “Oh my poor dear. That’s so awful. You don’t really have to do that, do you?” Her sympathy was not helpful. As a matter of fact, I stopped sharing my problems with her, because I never got that she understood and then I had her feelings to deal with as well as my own problem.

When we sympathize with our children, we often cross a boundary and become enmeshed with our child’s problem. We may become overly protective and involved and try hard to fix or take away our child’s problem.

Let’s say my child is having a problem with a classmate calling him names. When I sympathize, I get upset, resentful, or angry toward the name-caller and can lose sight of what my child needs. I then might make it my problem and call the teacher or offending child’s parent, getting angry and demanding restitution.

If I empathize with my child’s problem, I understand why he is upset, yet I am somewhat disengaged from the problem. I may be upset about the situation but more important is letting my child know that I understand his upset, so his feelings are normalized (empathy). “It’s got to be so hard when you hear that name. It must feel as if he’s putting you down.” Then it’s about my child-he can agree with my assumption or correct it. Conversation typically follows empathy, not so much with sympathy.

When I get equally upset about the problem (sympathy), I take responsibility and am more likely to tell him what to do about it-it’s more about me and my “rightness”, my idea of what he should do. “You need to tell him that you don’t like to be talked to like that. Ask him how he would feel if he got called that. Tell him you won’t invite him to your party if he’s going to treat you like that.” It’s me projecting myself into the situation and telling my child to fix it like I would.

When I empathize, I understand it is my child’s problem, and when I don’t try to fix it, I am much better able to help him figure out what he wants to do about it. Once he trusts that I know how he feels (empathy), I can then ask questions and offer suggestions that help him take charge of his problem the way he thinks best.

“What would you like to do about it?”

“Is there something you wish you could say to him?”

“What is it you want him to know?”

“How might you do that?”

Having good boundaries with your children means helping them take responsibility for their problems and find good solutions that work for them, not you. When I jump in the hole with my child because I feel his pain, I am not in the best position to help. I now expect my child to appreciate the sacrifice I have made to jump in the hole with him. When I leave my child with his pain to get the ladder, I bring him a tool to help him solve his own problem–with my support.

With summer approaching, your child may ask to host a sleepover. This is usually not much of a problem for the under-10 set, who do eventually wind down and fall asleep. A movie, some popcorn or ice cream, and space for sleeping bags and usually everyone’s snoring by midnight, including you!

But if your child is a preteen or older, sleepovers may be a bit more complicated. If you’re planning on hosting a sleepover this summer, here are some tips to make the evening and the middle of the night go more smoothly.

Invite the right number. Sure your child has lots of friends and no one wants to be left out. But better to host several sleepovers with one or two other children than to host one sleepover and invite 10 kids. What is the most children you care to have responsibility for? Fewer is better than more.

Plan the right activities. The first word here is “plan,” and that’s a good place to start. Even if your child and her friends are fine without your planning, having a couple ideas ready will smooth things over if people get bored. But make certain what you have ready are “right activities.” You don’t want anything that’s too juvenile but you also don’t want anything that’s too adult or too dangerous.

Set the ground rules. Be nice about it but make your expectations clear right from the start and make gentle reminders throughout the night:

Good rules for children, yes, but there are also a few rules for you:

If your child is not the sleepover host but a sleepover guest some night soon, review with him ahead of time what your expectations are for his behavior in someone else’s house. Let him know that you will always come pick him up, no matter what the time, no questions asked, if he feels uncomfortable with what’s going on. Make certain the adults are responsible and plan to be on hand – which means you’ve got to ask them how the party will go. A too-casual attitude on their part should be a red flag. Don’t let your child fall into a situation that gets out of hand.

Sleepovers are fun but they take some thinking through. Imagine what can go wrong and take steps to head it off ahead of time.

 

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Here’s a quiz. Which of these do you care about most with regards to your middle school or high school child?

Certainly each of these is important, but you can only pick one. Which one do you want most for your kid right now?

Got your answer? Well, no matter what you chose, here’s what 10,000 teens from 33 different middle and high schools around the U.S. think their parents care about the least: caring for others. Fully 80% of teens think their parents care most about kids’ achievement or kids’ happiness. Only 20% think their parents, first and foremost, want them to be caring people.

In addition, that same 80% of teens mirror what they think their parents want: they also care most about achievement or being happy. Few teens care most about being compassionate and helpful to others.

Harvard researcher Rick Weissbourd believes that parents send mixed messages. They may talk a good game when it comes to community service, volunteering, and participation in religious and charitable efforts but what they really reward are good grades and school honors. What parents bend over backwards to do is ensure their children’s happiness. One student said that his parents permitted him to give up helping out at a local soup kitchen when it cut into his studying. The priorities were clear.

College admissions forms ask about community service and many high school students volunteer in the community in order to have something that is worthy of note from admissions officers. By and large, college admissions, especially to select schools, depends on grades, courses taken, academic honors, and maybe athletic or other extracurricular achievements far more than on evidence a prospective student is a good and caring person.

Despite the emphasis in many schools on character education, being a person of good character often means only that a teen doesn’t have a police record. Parents, schools and colleges alike really don’t pay much attention to caring, compassion, and public service.

If it matters to you that your child grow into a helpful, responsible person – and I hope it does! – then here are some tips for making your interest in raising caring kids more clear to the people that matter – your children themselves.

One word of caution. To raise a really caring child, it’s important your child get to choose her cause. While having a family cause, one that everyone in the household supports and volunteers in together, seems like a nice idea, it doesn’t do much to inspire compassion in children. Like most other aspects of family and parent opinion, teens are likely to flee from a family cause at the first opportunity and not look back. Instead of imposing a family interest, encourage your teen’s sense of justice and moral outrage at the need he sees around him and let him choose to care.

Choosing to care. It’s important. Make sure your children know it’s important to you.

 

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

How do you deal with a tween or teen who
you know is acting badly because of puberty mood-swings? For that matter, how do you even talk to a puberty-crazed teen? They usually don’t make any sense.

So how do you deal with a puberty-crazed teen?  Very, very carefully.  ;^)  Well, I’m joking there, but it’s a good serious answer, too.  Here are some thoughts to keep in mind when thinking about or interacting with your teenager or pre-teen:

  1. Teenagers do NOT have a fully developed brain yet!  I’m specifically talking about the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that has the best abilities to control impulses, make wise decisions, predict consequences/outcomes, etc.  You are NOT dealing with a little adult.  They may be big and smart, but their brains simply don’t have the abilities that yours do, yet. Try to remind, then, to be more patient and forgiving of their mistakes and missteps.
  2. Do more listening than talking.  It’s pretty common that we as parents talk too much, anyway.  There’s a famous saying about how we have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason…  Teens are sensitive to criticism and control, so saying 10% less than you usually would will likely make a significant difference to them.  You’ll still make your opinions known, of course, but just try to listen more than talk.
  3. When teens get upset, they need a parent who doesn’t get upset right along with them.  The more peaceful you are, the better things are going to turn out.
  4. Is your teen being rude to you?  Consider making your response be less about punishment, and more about how it makes you feel when they are rude.  “Honey, it hurts my feelings a little when you roll your eyes when I talk to you.”  It’s an honest response, and is supportive of the parent-child relationship.
  5. Sometimes taking a time-out allows both parent and child to physiologically calm down.  Just agree to disagree for a while, if you can, and take a break.  Go for a walk, drink a glass of water, call a friend for some empathy and support.  Come back to the discussion later, when both of you are more peaceful and see if that doesn’t help things go more smoothly.
  6. Take care of your body, and try to help your teens take care of theirs.  Sleep, sleep, and more sleep, plus healthy nutrition and daily exercise will all go a very long way towards moderating those crazy teen mood swings (and in helping you to deal with them better yourself.)

Finally, remember that the developmental job of a teenager is to gain independence, and the path they take to that independence is often full of mistakes, and executed in a messy way.  Try not to get distracted by the missteps, and instead focus on the healthy process of becoming more independent.  They won’t be crazy forever.  ;^)

You’ve probably heard about the summer slide. Children tend to score lower at the end of the summer on achievement tests than they scored at the beginning of the summer on the same tests. This means students start school in the fall less capable than they ended the school year in the spring. But the slide is steeper in math.

Studies have found that students lose the most ground – more than two months of learning – in math. Two months of loss means that children returning to school in September have lost the math they learned in April and May. In comparison, some students return to school with similar (but smaller) losses in reading but middle class students typically return with small gains. What this seems to indicate is that moms and dads pay attention to summer reading. We enroll them in library reading challenges and set weekly reading goals. But math? Math gets ignored. And math gets forgotten.

So helping your child avoid the summer slide takes more than a stack of good books to read. It takes math and it takes a good attitude towards math. That’s where you start.

Whoever is home with the kids this summer and whoever decides how the kids will spend their time has to include math activities in the everyday plan and has to communicate that this is enjoyable. If you are not comfortable with math yourself, look on this summer as a chance to change that. This is the summer you and your child will learn math together.

Start with math books, since books are already what you’re likely thinking of for your child this summer. Books like I Hate Mathematics! and Math For Smarty-Pants are fun to read and include math tricks, puzzles and impressive ideas. Picture books by Mitsumasa Anno (like Anno’s Counting Book) are intriguing for younger children and older kids too. Find books of math puzzles and make working on these part of the daily routine.

Also, your Southwestern Advantage books have thousands of step-by-step math examples – and the online version SWadvantage.com has video tutorials on white boards.

Then, do math activities. Measure things, divide things up, add things. When you and your child go shopping this summer, ask her to keep track of the bill, rounding the cost of each item and guessing what the total will be. See how close she can get to the actual amount and see how she gets better at this over the summer. Ask your child to estimate the sales tax for purchases. Calculate baseball batting averages. Hold a backyard Olympics and measure long jumps and time sprints. Even Sudoku, card games and Monopoly can add math skills.

The key here is to keep math front-and-center this summer and avoid the summer slide. Let math add to the fun and it will add to your child’s achievement in the fall.

© 2012, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved.

Here are simple, low-cost or no-cost things your children can do over the summer. These activities have universal appeal and will be fun for kids from preschool through the elementary school years. Be sure to try these early in the summer, since most of them provide enjoyment over and over.

Play hide and seek using a stuffed toy as the hidden object.   Hide and seek is good fun but if you’re afraid your kids will get into places you’d rather they not go, have them hide a stuffed toy instead of themselves. Follow the same rules as in real hide-and-seek, with the seekers hiding their eyes or leaving the room while the hider places the toy. You can set up ground rules (confined to this room only, not hidden inside something, etc.) to suit the ages of your children.

Make play dough.  Here’s an easy stove-top recipe for adults to cook up for their kids. I like this better than the uncooked kind of homemade clay.

Mix 1 cup of flour, ½ cup of salt, 2 Tablespoons of cream of tartar (find this in the spice aisle of any grocery) in a medium saucepan. Then add in 1 cup of water with maybe some food coloring added in (quite a bit of food coloring – it takes a lot to color the dough).

Cook this over medium heat on the stove for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring until it comes together into a globby mess. Turn it out and knead it a little bit.

Let it cool off before giving it to the kids (it will be hot!). Let them model things with it or roll it out and cut it with cookie cutters.

Wrap it up in a baggie to keep it for a long time.

Make a hideout using a table and blankets.  This is always fun. Drape blankets or sheets over a table or between dining chairs and let your kids crawl under to hang out, read, eat a snack or play house. A flashlight and some cushions make the hideout more homey. You may need to weight the blankets down with books to keep them from sliding off the tabletop.

Also… do position this out of the way. It’s likely to stay up a long time.

Write a book.  Fold sheets of copy paper to make a book and staple them together along the folded edge or stitch down the fold to make a book with a needle and doubled thread.

Give kids some ideas of what to write about. Good topics are the story of your life, how you got your pet and the adventures of your favorite stuffed animal.

Then turn your kids free to create a book. Pictures, words, or words and pictures together all work. All you need are crayons or markers and a pencil.

Make and fly paper airplanes.  Check out a simple paper airplane book from the library or get directions online (if you’ve forgotten how to fold an airplane or if you want to try different designs, here is a great site: http://www.10paperairplanes.com/).

Enjoy flying them, seeing who can hit the ceiling with his airplane, who can fly an airplane the farthest, and who can get her plane to fly in a swooping path.

Make a ramp and race cars (or balls or canned goods or anything else that rolls).  A board (from a shelf?) and anything that will roll make good fun in racing two items or in seeing how far they go.

Prop one end of the board on a chair seat or a stack of books and roll down it whatever is handy. This works best on carpeting, to keep the board from slipping forward. You might need to set up cushions a distance away for things to roll up against, so you don’t have to chase them all over the house.

Rearrange a room.  Older kids can do this themselves, with some help with the large and heavy furniture. The room has to be clean first, so that might be an afternoon all in itself.

Then plot out where the bed could go – measure things and make a sketch – and move stuff around. You are guaranteed that the room will be played in more following the rearrangement.

 

Have a fun summer!

© 2012, Patricia Nan Anderson.  All rights reserved.

Famed Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl was asked recently how to get a middle-grades child to read. The child’s parent said she’d tried requiring a set amount of reading time in order to earn video game privileges but that her child wasn’t reading with any pleasure. Instead, he was reading in a mechanical way, as if he was being forced to eat his vegetables. What, the mother asked, was she doing wrong? And, more importantly, what could she do right?

Before I get to Nancy Pearl’s suggestion of what to do, let’s look at why what this mother did wasn’t working. The problem is economic. The child was having to pay for something he wanted by doing something it was assumed he didn’t want to do. Just as requiring vegetables to get to dessert sends the message that the parent agrees that ice cream is more desirable than broccoli, requiring reading to get to video games sends the message that reading is a chore, like making the bed, that has to be dispatched before being allowed to go out to play.

Setting up these if-then contingencies creates a value system. The activity of greater value is what must be bought by a less-valued activity. In the parent’s scenario, reading can never be fun for her child, since she’s already designated it as much less-fun than video games.

  1. The first step in the solution to this problem is to uncouple video game play and reading. Instead of insisting that reading be done before games can be played, just limit the amount of video game play per day and require a certain amount of reading each day. No activity –reading or video games – should dominate the child’s time. Every child should get outside, should make things, and should play with friends, as well as reading and enjoying screen time.
  2. At the same time, act as if what the child is reading is interesting. Ask him about the plot, about the characters, what he likes or doesn’t like about the way the author writes, and so on. Let him read aloud to you a passage he thinks is funny. Value his reading, not just as a ticket to something else, but as something interesting all on its own.
  3. And then, as Nancy Pearl suggests, get the right books in front of your child. Perl suggests concentrating on funny books, even if these aren’t always books of literary merit. In addition, books of amazing feats, weird science, and strange facts are usually interesting to middle school kids, despite their sometimes lack of reliability. All reading is good reading. Let your child read what he wants.

What if your child is required by his school to read a list of books over the summer? And what if he thinks these books are deadly dull? Again, separate this task from his own reading for pleasure. And because it’s separate, do it differently. Read these books together, working together to get them all read by the start of the school year. Your child will get more out of the experience than if he plodded through these on his own, because he’ll be able to talk with you about the story and you’ll be able to add your own insights. Just don’t let this sort of reading be confused with his own fun reading. Let him feel a sense of accomplishment for completing this homework task and a sense of fun in doing his own reading of what he likes.

Most of all, try not to tie reading to rewards or punishment. Make some reading every day a requirement but also put books in front of your child that he wants to read.

 

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Developmentally Appropriate Parenting, at your favorite bookstore.