Books for Babies & Toddlers: Mommy is Going Away...And Coming Back!

Below is one of the books that I made for my son Jackson. This one was designed to help him understand (as best as a 23 month old can) that Mommy was going to be going to Boston for a few days without him. Since I stay home with him, I was concerned that he was going to have some serious difficulty with this. Rather than just worry, I created this story to try to demonstrate the flow of things for him. Hopefully the images will be readable when I post it, but because blogger has a really awful preview mode, I'll transcribe in text what each page says.

Book Title: "Mommy is going away...and coming back!"

This is my family. [I used the first person, so that it would be as though it were Jackson telling the story. This was a little awkward, as it turned out, when we were reading it to him.]

This is my Mommy. She is going away for while. [I don't wear skirts all that often, but I did such a mediocre job conveying myself in the photo, I guess I tried to make up for it by adding some feminine apparel.]

She is going to ride an airplane. [This was one of Jackson's 2 favorite pages. I was really glad that the windows were there because until I added them, the airplane looked very much like a shark with a misplaced dorsal fin.]

While Mommy is gone, I get lots more play time with Daddy! [I think I overstretched my drawing bone here, but at least it's identifiable what's going on in the image...I hope. It was at this stage in my trip that Jackson apparently got confused and when the real time came for me to fly out of town, he completely forgot about this and the next page.]

I'll sleep for naps and bedtimes for a few days. [Apparently this page was so poorly drawn that it never really was attended by Jackson in the process of reading the book. He was always so anxious to get to the next airplane page.]

Then Mommy will come home on an airplane again. [After my plane took off, Jackson and my husband Andrew were going to go home in the car. Jackson apparently was confused and upset when my plane didn't fly right back again with me in it.]

Daddy and I will give her Big Hugs! [Jackson loves big hugs, especially family hugs where we sandwich him between us and pretend to squish him. It's rare that Andrew and I can get a hug with just the two of us while Jackson is awake and we are in view of him.]

Mommy is very happy to be home again. [I really wanted to put a lot of emphasis on the notion that, while I was going away, I was most going to enjoy getting to come home again. I preferred to keep the story upbeat in the hopes that Jackson would allow himself to feel more upbeat, with his emotions upon my return informed by the dialog in the story. This seemed to work.]
I am very happy that Mommy is home again, too! [It couldn't hurt to hope that he would internalize this rather than holding a grudge against me for going away for 4 days. This was a realistic possibility, too, considering how much time it took for Jackson to get over all of the traveling, overtime, and schoolwork away from home Andrew had been doing in recent months.]

Hooray! [I apparently got really tired by the end of writing this story. Besides, it's fun ending a book with a big Hooray!]

[The End.]

Overall, I would say that this book was a great help in getting Jackson to have some concept of what was going on when I left town. We were careful to send communications between Andrew and me via text messages and email so that I did not call and disturb the calm he was trying to maintain with Jackson. Remembering that children experience time as event-based rather than duration-based, I figured that Jackson would handle it better with little or no communication from me. The third night I was gone he broke down crying and wanted me home. He was so distraught on the phone after making Daddy call me that I could hardly make out what he was saying. I caught some concerned words about his toy school bus (his constant companion since it had been bought a few weeks prior, which even enjoyed a special place in his arms at bedtimes). The bawling and shrieking into the phone abruptly ended, and I got to hear all about "My school bus!"

Despite knowing there was a blizzard (Blizzard 2009) heading straight for us and that we had fought all day to get my ticket moved up as early as possible to avoid "stranding me" in Boston, I still found myself promising my crying toddler that I would see him in the morning. Luck was on my side, and I made it home to Florida the next morning, as promised. Jackson was indeed happy to see me and gave me big hugs.

What I did not expect, however, was that he was fairly nervous for a few days about both Andrew and myself being out of view. His concern had extended to being abandoned for long durations at any time by either parent. Unfortunately, while I was gone, Andrew was afraid to abide by the usual limitations I set on Jackson. He allowed (and perhaps even encouraged) Jackson to bring his blanky, Husky (stuffed dog that sleeps with him), and paci with him anywhere they went while I was gone, as well as his school bus. A week and a half later, we're still trying to get him back on the old system which had strict policies on what was allowed to go with us when leaving home. This was exacerbated by a trip to see my in-laws for several days shortly after I returned from Boston.

All in all, the book was a success. He had something tangible that told him how things were going to happen and our individual roles to play in the process. He had been assured that Mommy was going to be back and that she would give him a hug and be happy to be home when she returned. I expect to write many more of these over the next few years--and maybe when Jackson is older, he'll write some of his own!

This book was the second one I had made for him, and we had it bound for only a few dollars at a local print shop. Next time I'll see if I can disassemble and scan the potty training book I drew for him, which I had bound using a hole punch and some thin rope. No promises, but there WILL be another post in 2 weeks. (ish. Don't give me that look!)

Also, I'd just like to give a shout-out to my awesome little boy because today he turned 2 years old! Congratulations, Jackson! You're 2 fingers!

Books for Babies & Toddlers

I'm a control freak. I know this. I've accepted it. My husband Andrew is a control freak. The good part of this is that we are controlling of the same things in the same way a vast majority of the time. Some things I can just let slide, because not everything needs to be controlled. But when it matters, it really matters.

What does this have to do with "Books for Babies & Toddlers"?, you ask.

Simply, the issue is that there are a LOT of AWFUL books out there for young children. The same is true for older children as well, but since my current focus is on books for the younger years, due to my small person being in that age bracket, my controlling nature is being unleashed upon the awful books for toddlers and babies.

Some books I absolutely love. For example, a classic book from my own childhood that Jackson adores is Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton. I have less than charitable feelings for a great many other books I've perused at the local bookstores, as well as others I've heard read aloud at various story time sessions held for children.

Typically the issue I take with most books I find unacceptable is that the lessons taught by the story are not ones I want my child to adopt. For example, I am quite content with Found You, Little Wombat by Angela McAllister and illustrated by Charles Fuge. The lesson taught (however implicitly) in that book about staying put when lost is a good one. On the other hand, when the illustrator of this book branched off to do Where To, Little Wombat?, I found Mr. Fuge's writing sub-par. The young wombat is whiny, willful, and irritating to his mother, so she tells him to see if he can find somewhere better to live, since he's "bored of living in burrows." He proceeds to effectively run away with permission and gets constantly abused by his environment, only to come home like the prodigal son with the house all clean now (thanks to his mother) and be rewarded by having a sleepover. Say what? According to one product review I found, Little Wombat's "search and final discovery that his own home is ideal with resonate with readers." I'm sure some people would find this book completely acceptable. But to a toddler who has never been bored, I'm loathe to introduce the notion of ennui into his life, let alone the idea that it's okay to try to run away and live on a lily pad with his frog friend.

I admit that I've been too quick to judge some books that we have. One book we have (It's Raining, It's Pouring, by Kin Eagle) still chafes at my nerves when I get to the line, "With ants in their pants, they started to dance, and ended up doing the Lindy." Exactly how these people accidentally managed to perform a dance I've never managed successfully (despite a fair bit of trying) escapes me. I know that it's meant to be silly. But it irritates me every time I read it, so for a long while I refused to do so. And I can only imagine what my son will think when he's old enough to think of other connotations for the line, "He ate so much one day for lunch, every part of him was showing." How does this stuff ever make it to print?

When I read a book of fiction for myself, I expect a certain level of quality. I prefer to have some semblance of realism so that I can buy into the story but without going out the other side into the realm of cliche. Believability is high ranking just as much as the intent of the story. If I cannot keep from saying, "No one would DO that!" then I'm disinclined to continue reading. So why should my standards for what I read to my child be held to any less of a degree of scrutiny?

By now you may be thinking, "Man, she's being all whiny. Why doesn't she do something about it instead of complaining?" I will have you know that i have been doing just that. Lately I've been trying to learn how to draw at least well enough that my not-quite-2 year old son Jackson will be able to interpret. (Luckily for me, he's pretty sharp at identifying things in poorly crafted drawings.) So, to finish out the year, the next couple of posts I make will be scans of the two books I have created so far.

The general idea behind posting them isn't so much that I enjoy embarrassing myself by demonstrating my mediocrity as an artist. The real goal is to show that it's fairly simple to write a children's book that is geared specifically toward introducing a particular idea to your child in a way that is best suited to your own family. The two that I have created thus far (and yes, I do intend to write/draw more) are informational stories. The first one I did was on the subject of toilet training, which has really seemed to help clarify what's expected in the bathroom for Jackson. The second one I recently completed is to help Jackson to understand what will occur next week when I fly out of town for a few days to visit some friends. He's never had a day without Mommy, so to help quell my over nervousness over the matter, I drafted and bound the book to read to him. So far, he's mainly focused on the pictures I drew of airplanes--but I can't really blame him, because airplanes are pretty awesome.

{Also, apologies for those of you who showed up looking for a post last week. I have been reading MLIA way too much lately and lost track of the time.}

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Summary

Over the past few months, I've been sharing some ideas on parenting that my husband and I use on a regular basis. Many of you have told me that you have found this information very valuable, which makes me quite pleased. What is especially pleasing is that a large percentage of my readership for this series on Parenting Philosophy are not yet parents or even necessarily in a relationship.

I'd like to take a moment to commend those of you in the non-parent-as-yet category for taking the time to read on this subject. Very few people are fully prepared to become parents. In the United States, it is becoming a standard that first time parents decide to take a class on how to be a parent. If you have not yet had children of your own, it may be difficult to visualize some of the points I have been referencing, but you have an advantage now in that you have exposure to some ideas that have been designed to prod the mind into thinking about the process of parenting. You have been given an opportunity to receive insight from at least one parent (two actually, as Andrew helps me edit all my posts) with the hopes that your future work as the guidance counselor for your own progeny with have some basic foundations--that you will THINK about the kind of parent you want to be for your child.

Those of you who already are parents and who are reading this blog, bless you! Too often many of us get to a point where we feel we know what we are doing and no longer bother to read up on ways to improve our parenting skills. I feel this is folly. There is always room to improve; quality professionals call it kaizen, which means continuous improvement. This is not just applicable to manufacturing but to everyday life as well. Maybe you agree with the points I've highlighted in this series, and maybe you do not. But at least you have taken the time to consider them, so kudos to you for caring enough about your role as a parent to want to do it as best as possible!

And to make life a little easier for us all, I am posting a list of the gist of each of the 10 points of the series as well as linking the list items to the corresponding posts. I could have added others, but I really wanted to focus on the core concepts to start.

1. Babies cry for a reason.
2. Babies (and children) are emotional, not rational, beings.
3. Parenting is a full-time job.
4. Life will never be the same again.
5. Children, even very young babies, LOVE a predictable schedule.
6. Cooperation is essential between parents; there must be agreement.
7. Raise the child(ren) you have.
8. Be creative.
9. What lesson is my child learning from this?
10. It takes a village to raise a child.

A part of me especially wanted to add an 11th element to the Parenting Philosophy Toolbox under the heading Be Respectful. I feel that it should be obvious if someone reads and follows the other 10 ideas, but it may need to be explicitly made its own tool in the kit for some parents. I still may do this because I feel it is a very important consideration for a parent: that children deserve respect and need to learn how to be respectful through example.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this series. If in the process of reading this you have some idea(s) you would like to share to expand on or refute a concept I've outlined, please feel free to place a comment below or on the comments section for the post in particular. I read every comment made on and about my blog and greatly value feedback.

Thank you to all of you who have been regular faithful readers. I've been stalking you with Google Analytics, so I have a pretty good idea who has been reading and who has not.

I'll be starting a new project with the blog soon. It's still in the early development stages, so bear with me. Also, if there is anything in particular that you would like to see discussed or elaborated in the blog, let me know!

~Jessica Adams

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 10

10. It takes a village to raise a child. You cannot and should not attempt parenting without a support network. This portion of the series I hope you will read as a call to arms. By that, I mean you should embrace all those around you, literally or figuratively.

Do not push people away for their lack of social graces: perhaps you could help them learn--and in the process learn some things for yourself. Do not reject offers of assistance just because you are afraid of being seen as weak. Accept help that is offered, even if you suspect it may not have been wholly offered in earnest. Thank those who help you and invite them to do so again--and offer your own services in return. Do not be afraid to ask for help where you need it.

The Nuclear Family: Aptly Named
Somewhere along the line, some idiots thought that the best configuration for a family was simply a mother, a father, and their offspring. Now, after many years of struggling to make that nuclear family a reality, people are waking up to the idea that it's just a fantasy. We have to work so much harder to hold this notion true (and to a large extent, I count myself among the guilty here), to uphold the lie that we can do it all without help. Some countries have done better than others at avoiding the pitfalls of the nuclear family. However the United States seems to be crumbling under the weight of its own high demands.

And do NOT allow yourself to look down on those who have the courage to ask for help. We live in a society that considers any inability a weakness. I know so very many mothers (and fathers!) who stay home with their children and struggle to be the one to do all the household chores, myself included. I almost feel obligated to leave heaping messes about when company arrives so that I do not present a false picture of what is standard. Yet I've had moms of younger babies ask me how I keep my place so clean. What they don't see is that sometimes I hide dirty dishes in the oven when I'm expecting company. They aren't looking closely enough at the filth that has congealed on the tile and the broken bits of chips, crackers, and (of course) Cheerios that are ubiquitous in our carpeting. They obviously haven't seen the hard water stains that are practically permanent in our toilet bowls. All these women can see is that my place looks cleaner than theirs. What they do not see, in essence, is the failure of the nuclear family to provide a sufficient structure to accomplish all the goals it sets.

Knowing this, I strive not to envy others whose homes shine with cleanliness because I know at what cost it must come. To accomplish what minimal chores I do manage around the house, I have to surrender quality time with Jackson. In order to have a home that glitters and gleams, I would need to sacrifice a great deal more quality time with him (and possibly my husband as well). The value of the sparklingly clean home does not offset the loss of time spent focusing on my child. Given that he's my priority, my main responsibility, it seems ridiculous that quality time with him should get rejected because someone else might notice it's been a couple of weeks since I last vacuumed.

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When I made the decision to move away from family to be with Andrew, it was initially under the assumption that we were not imminently going to have children. That assumption turned out to be waaay wrong. Having no family nearby, we have no easy place to turn when we need a spare hand or some time off just to breathe for an hour or to get things done that require both loud noises and two sets of hands. Instead we have had to construct a new network to take the place of a familial tribe.

As it stands now, we are in a much better position than when I first moved to town as a newly pregnant, very sick (iron poisoning which subsided as morning sickness began), and physically injured woman (disc-herniation in my neck; no fun). I joined a playgroup as soon as possible after Jackson's birth. I take every available opportunity to befriend other moms who I feel are people I could respect--and who may one day be someone I could call in an emergency to help me with my child. And I have continued going to the gym, partly as my "time off for good behavior," as the gym offers free child care for up to 2 hours a day for members. On particularly exhausting days, I will drop Jackson off at the gym's daycare so he can get playtime in with other children while I relax in the spa and try to recoup some energy.

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The cliche of elderly people complaining about "kids these days" is somewhat ironic. The genetics and the environment handed down to the "kids these days" is given to them by the elderly and aging. As the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, non-child-bearing adults, and any other person whose life impacts children in any way (which is EVERYONE), we have a responsibility to teach our children in word and action. We also have a responsibility to protect them. No longer is the world comprised of isolated tribes. We are all interconnected and the lines between borders of countries are diminished; the barriers between cultures are blurred, and slowly but surely we are becoming a world of one tribe.

People are social creatures. We function better together than we do apart. Sadly much of our modern culture serves to emphasize our individuality to such an extreme that we all feel isolated from one another. A worldwide culture of lonely people who are forgetting their origins. Luckily we have the power to change that negative trend.

We need to quit comparing and start sharing. If many hands make light work, then why aren't we dining in groups more often and sharing the workload of the cooking and clean-up? Why aren't more parents helping watch their friends' children while they clean house? Let's make it happen. Let's build our networks of friends and families in a genuine way. Let's acknowledge that being a parent is a difficult and worthy challenge that does NOT have to be borne alone.

It takes a village to raise a child. Let's all do our parts to see children raised well: happy, healthy, loved, and cherished by all.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 9

(This is part 9 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

9. What lesson is my child learning from this? This question should continually play in the background of your mind with everything you do. Ultimately the decisions that you make in life regarding your behavior (as perceived by your child) should be guided by the answers you derive from this constant line of questioning.

When you do something and then tell your child that it is forbidden for him to do the same, you send a mixed message. When you allow the television to be the child's best friend and babysitter and then complain that he or she is poorly behaved or having nightmares from watching scary images or has limited or vulgarity-filled speech, it's time to take a step back and wonder how those behaviors came about.

When you cave into a demand that your child makes after crying and begging for that demand for several minutes, what lesson has the child learned? "Hey, I may have to whine for 5 minutes and listen to Daddy say 'no cookie' over and over again, but eventually I always get a cookie anyway!" "Hmm, Mommy wants me to do this, but I know that she gives me chocolate chips if I hold out for them, so I'll wait and see if I can get some candy!"

I've heard all kinds of stories where parents neglected to consider the lesson(s) the child would learn by certain behaviors. I know of more than one father who has had a toddler girl awaken and have difficulty falling back asleep during the night and has plopped down in front of her favorite movie at 2AM. Guess what happened the next night? And the next? The daughter learned that she could get up for 2AM movies every night, and so the negative behavior was reinforced, rather than extinguished. The inconsistent behavior by these fathers led the children to ignore the notion that when they awaken during the night they should return to sleep.

A few months ago I was faced with a dilemma: the sprinklers were still spraying the lawn when I took my son to our neighborhood playground one morning, and some tempting puddles had formed on the sidewalk. Another mom was there with her two children who kept trying to convince her that it wasn't a problem for them to get wet. I had to consider the issue: would it be acceptable for my son to play in puddles in the future? How much of a problem would it be for him to jump now and expect the same opportunity down the road? In the end all 3 children had a soggy morning romp in the water and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Jackson got soaking wet, with pruned skin, and while he has had some puddle exploration opportunities since, we haven't had any problematic issues as a result. (Of course, having typed this now, that is sure to change!)

In the above situation, I analyzed the issue before acting. I recognized that puddle jumping was something I was willing to allow to become a consistent game for Jackson. However sometimes I forget to ask myself what lesson my son is learning, and much corrective action later becomes necessary. One issue I have struggled with adjusting is table standing. Traditionally, I have disallowed standing on tables indoors. However in my own mind, I found that outdoor tables are distinct in many ways and generally less of a threat of danger for standing. My son, on the other hand, merely became confused by this distinction which was not as clear to him as it was to me. Sometimes standing on tables was okay, perhaps even encouraged; sometimes he got yelled at for doing it. How confusing! Who is to blame for him standing on indoor tables then? Certainly not Jackson. He was merely applying his preferred of two states of table standing rules: the one in which he got to be on the table!

Unfortunately, there are other situations of a sadder nature that need to be addressed here. Some parents have been raised under the impression that hitting a child (or even an adult) will be educational. I'm no neuroscientist, but to me it makes little sense to spank a child for peeing on the floor or for hitting another child, etc. The part of the brain that reacts to violence would be our more primitive side, our hindbrain, which has very little capacity for reasoning. Expecting that a child will learn the correct lesson from hitting is very strange indeed, particularly in the example of a child being violent. "Wait, Mommy says 'no hitting, hitting is bad', but then she hit me!" It's a very confusing statement to make to a child. It also does not correct the behavior, as with peeing on the floor. Children instead learn to hide the unwanted behavior (or lie about it) if they perceive they will receive punishment, rather than to learn the lesson not to perform the unwanted behavior in the first place. Kids whose parents have often resorted to physical punishment are prone to lying, hiding evidence of soiled underpants, blaming others for knocking over plants, and in one particularly memorable case I experienced recently, a child was unable to locate the garbage can in my bathroom and hid poopy paper behind my toilet so she would not get "in trouble" for making a mess.

The above instances are all ones I have pulled from personal experiences I have had with children, and it takes considerable time and retraining to correct for the behavior of children who learned the wrong lessons from their errors. Rather than trying to help kids gain an understanding of the reason to do or not to do something, many parents and caregivers resort to authoritarian commands that dictate rather than guide or suggest. As a result, these children may behave better, but they are not developing their own reasoning skills. Some recent articles explain this phenomenon in more detail, demonstrating that slightly wilder, less well-behaved children may actually have a scholastic advantage if their parents are prone more to reasoning with kids than to issuing a series of mandates.

After all, if a child runs out into the street without looking, and he is struck by and yelled at by his father, what lesson is he learning from that experience? "I run into the street, and Daddy hits me and yells at me! Ouch! I thought Daddy liked me?" However, if a child is consistently helped with reasoning skills, he can (like my 21 month old son) learn that crossing the street is something to be done with care. Jackson understands that cars are dangerous because they are big, fast, and heavy. When he comes to a street, even if he's been running ahead of me, he waits, holds my hand, looks both ways, and crosses the street when no cars are coming. Since he could walk, street-crossing skills have been practiced and discussed, so that he knows how to be safe. Of course, on occasion he will get distracted by an airplane flying overhead and need a reminder not to stop in the street. That's part of being a kid. But being abused by the people you love and trust more than anyone, being taught that making mistakes is worthy of being hit, the only lesson that is learned is that mistakes and problems must be kept a secret from parents--which is hardly what I think these parents are hoping their children will learn.

So, while keeping the notion in your mind, "What is my child learning from this experience?" you should also consider the correlate question: "What lesson should I be learning from this experience?" It is largely through asking ourselves these two questions that Andrew and I have developed the ideas I've been presenting in this Parenting Philosophy Toolbox. If you take nothing else away from reading this series of concepts, please take this one! When we make time to consider the effects of our behavior on our children and ourselves, our self-reflection helps us to become better parents and more thoughtful people.

Please come back for the next installment in this series in 2 weeks!

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 8

(This is part 8 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

8. Be creative. This is often a challenge for parents. We spend so much time becoming "grown-ups" and giving up on childish pleasures. We work hard to get organized and maintain regular schedules. We emphasize intellectualism and crave reason.

Then we have children--and we are totally at a loss for how to deal with them! We wonder why they do things that make no sense. We simply get to a point, somewhere along the line, in which we can no longer sympathize with the joy of riding a merry-go-round. Seriously, I used to love those things, but since my son started enjoying them, I have discovered that my adoration of the merry-go-round has been replaced by discomfort when I feel the loss of control and head-spinning craziness that whirling about in circles induces. Kids LOVE that stuff. Adults...not so much.

In order to get in tune with how children experience the world, we have to go back and try to remember what it was like being young. With more and more people waiting longer to have children, this only becomes more challenging. The boring adult rut is tough to bust out of, but to truly relate to a child, we have to walk a mile in shoes that are way too small for us now. Which just looks ridiculous--yet that's actually part of what we need to do. We need to embrace a level of silly that helps us connect with our children.

I didn't know I had lost my touch. I had retained it for a long time, even up until about halfway through my 20s. But by the time my son Jackson became a toddler, something was very different in me, and I felt I had to relearn old ways of relating to children. Thankfully he has developed some small level of patience and understanding that sometimes Mommy and Daddy are a little dense about certain "obvious" concepts.

For example, when Jackson was 12 months old, he began behaving very strangely in relation to food. He would be quite clearly hungry, but lacking verbal skills, he simply could not articulate to us why it was that he was refusing to eat food that he obviously wanted to ingest. Out of desperation, we began to try to discover what would appease him. Andrew and I learned a LOT about toddlers from this sort of behavior. Why didn't Jackson eat his food? He was learning about lids. He wanted to take the lid off his baby food and put it back on. Between EVERY bite. EVERY time. For MONTHS.

Sure, we could have argued. We could have tried to tell him he was being ridiculous. But truly, had we forced him to get upset over something so trivial and easily accommodated as covering and uncovering his food between bites, who is the more ridiculous? He was asserting power in his largely powerless life. He was developing fine motor skills. He was learning about his environment. And more than that, he was eating without a fight.

Being creative with your interactions with your child can help in numerous ways. Say your child is hungry. You're on your way home to get food but have run out of food with you in the car. She's upset because she wants food and keeps asking for it, but no matter how much sense you try to use to reassure her that you understand she is hungry and that you are making strides toward acquiring sustenance, all she can focus on is the sensation in her belly. Crack the window. Talk about the wind. Sing a silly song. Point out words that she's been learning: "Look! Trees! Bicycle! Running! Ambulance! School bus!" The important part of this, of course, is that you first acknowledge the desires expressed by your child and reassure her that you are actively working to resolve the sensations in her belly--then you can try a distractionary technique.

Kid won't eat something you call broccoli? Call it a little tree. Want your child to learn about road safety as a pedestrian? Teach him about the Road Fairy/Ferry who has to be with him to help make sure there aren't any cars coming. He asks for a banana and refuses to eat it? Get him into a silly place and call it the Banana Zone.

It's okay for kids to splash in puddles once in a while. It's okay for them to treat curbs as balance beams. It's okay for them to do silly things and for you to join them. But remember: if you do it once, they will expect you to do it again. And again. And again. Begging may be involved. Whining as well, if you do not bend sufficiently to allow the game to happen again. So whatever you allow, whatever silliness or creative game you decide to play, consider whether or not it's one you'd be willing to do with any sort of regularity. If it's any kind of success, your child will want to repeat the fun time with Mommy and/or Daddy.

Also if your child has some issues that need resolving, be they significant (traumatic event) or minor (afraid of monsters under the bed), you may want to consider flipping through a copy of Dr. Lawrence Cohen's book Playful Parenting. I acknowledge that his writing could be better organized than it is, but for those looking for some ideas on where to start, it's a place to go. Dr. Cohen is a child psychologist who uses play as a form of therapy to help children recover from incidents ranging from violent behaviors to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to a fear of riding on swings. He describes play as many researchers today do, which is the main form of learning for children, particularly through about age 7. Play is how they study the world around them, how they make sense of what they perceive, and therefore play is the most critical aspect of childhood as well as the most educational.

The main thing for you as a parent is that you connect with your child. So you have to get down on the child's level. Get on the floor and roll around. Pretend to be a train or an elephant. Make silly noises and encourage your child to copy them or make up his own for you to repeat. Discuss ridiculous hypothetical situations with your older child (e.g. What would happen if you launched a water balloon into space? Whose house would it land on?). Life can be fun if we allow it to be so. Be creative, and enjoy more of life as a parent.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 7

(This is part 7 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

7. Raise the child(ren) you have. Every child is unique, so parent to that child, and trust your instincts. Some children are petite and perpetually "too small"; some are too tall and heavy before they can take full advantage of playthings designed for kids in their age group. Some develop social skills faster; others focus on expanding physical development first. Some children follow growth charts precisely, and others continually yo-yo above and below the expected growth curve projections.

Some children are rambunctious and excited about life. Others are more sedate and prefer calmer activities. Some have great propensities for focusing attention while their peers are incapable of focusing seemingly at all. Some children have developmental abnormalities that prevent them from following the normal growth schemes they might otherwise have managed.

There are very few things that we can unequivocally state apply to all children other than that they are young. Even siblings, even so-called "identical" siblings, can be radically different from one another in temperament, personal preferences, physical talents, and viewpoints on the world. One child may be mild-mannered and inclined to follow the directions provided by a parent or other caregiver; another child may be wild and rebellious, prefer to lead rather than follow, and prone to violence when a parent or caregiver does not bend accordingly to the child's mandates. These two disparate children may be reared in the same home, by the same parents, and yet demonstrate wildly different characters.

Often, however, what you will find is that each child has a blending of personalities within him, sparring at any given moment for which shall be expressed. Is today the day he will be complacent? Or is today the day to tantrum like a wild beast when mommy leaves him at daycare? Will he cheerfully agree to consume what is offered for lunch? Or will he demand something other than what was prepared for him and refuse to eat unless his "request" is satisfied.

So, when I say that you need to parent to the child you have, I don't mean even just the child you prefer to have when she is well-behaved--I mean the child you have in the moment. We've already covered that children are in constant flux, ever-changing. Once you can accept that she is a developing individual, you can then focus on the individual she is being and your role in parenting her.

Tune into your child. Is he standing on the table wanting you to yell at him to get down? (Yes, this is a game my son occasionally initiates.) Consider what he would be feeling in order to ask you to "get him in trouble." Typically, children want our attention. They want to know that we recognize things that are important to them. They want our validation, our love, and our play. When we (for example) do not take enough time to focus on him, the child will often try to enforce his need for attention by getting it any way he can. Cue the toddler standing on the table shouting happily, "Get down!" He knows he will get into trouble for it (thus parroting our usual admonishment for the action) and may even understand that it's because Mommy and Daddy fear he will fall and become injured. What he wants may be to demonstrate his prowess in table-standing; but what it also shows, when I have the presence of mind to recognize it with Jackson, is that he is feeling neglected. Sure, I can be feeding him, providing toys for him, but if I'm not engaged, if he does not feel that he has my full attention and eye contact, we get games like "Get down!"

Being in the same room is not enough. Children need to feel special. They need to know that when they need some emotional fuel, they can fill up at the parental station. Dr. Harvey Karp refers to this as Feeding the Meter. Dr. Lawrence Cohen calls it Filling the Cup. Either way, it amounts to the same thing: your child needs a piece of you to feel whole. When interpersonal connections are continually denied to her, eventually she will turn elsewhere to try to refuel her emotional lows--and it may be a path you'd prefer she doesn't follow.

One thing you need to recognize is that your child is effectively the same as a child born 200 or 2,000 or perhaps even 10,000 years ago. So just because you, as an adult, understand certain realities of the world, you cannot expect your child to instantaneously grasp all the developments of technology and societal interaction that have come into play throughout the entire history of humanity. You need to recognize that you are raising a savage.

Dr. Harvey Karp talks in his book, The Happiest Toddler on the Block (which I highly recommend), about how toddlers are effectively primitive people. When you watch your child with the idea in mind that you are raising a caveman or cavewoman, suddenly many things that were puzzling or aggravating before can become easier to comprehend. Why does your young child act so feral? Well, because...she is! It takes a long time to civilize a human being. I believe it is for this reason that we do not grant people rights as adults, who are theoretically capable of making informed and rational decisions, until a certain age is achieved. We have a lot of mistake-making and learning to do before we can comprehend the rules in place in the world around us.

So, when you feel like your child is pushing you, testing your limits, that's exactly what he's doing. And it's his job to do it. It's your job as a parent to let him know what those limits are.

It's also your job to recognize that your child is an individual, not a statistical normal distribution of data points. Maybe you see your daughter speaking a little later than her friends. Maybe your son takes seemingly forever to potty train. Maybe your older child struggles to learn spelling and how to sit still in school. These are developmental milestones that cannot be forced and that every child (excepting those with specific developmental disorders) will learn in time.

The phrase, "Why can't you be more like _____?" comes to your lips. And there it should be swallowed, choked back, and maybe a glass of water drunk to dilute it in your stomach. Do not allow yourself or your partner to constantly compare your child to other children. Growing up is not a competition, though sometimes (particularly in the first 3 years) it can seem like it in our culture that obsesses over intellect and ability. After all, your child needs to grow and develop as an individual before intellect and ability have any usefulness in life--so treat her as the individual she is and cherish her for it.

Therefore, if your child needs nap time at noon and his friends nap at 2, then give him his nap at noon. If he wants to eat his banana in the specially designated Banana Zone, then let him, and enjoy his assertiveness and willingness to engage you in a game of his own making--as well as a chance for him to still feel powerful despite eating healthy food. Do not concern yourself with the opinions of others when you know best how to treat your child. If he's too young to hold still for an hour while you go out to eat, then let him have some time to roam so that when the meal is there, he can use his calmness reserves to eat before dashing off on some new adventure. Do not allow the (perceived or imagined) negative judgments by others to stop you from doing right by your child.

I'm giving you permission to be the parent your child needs you to be. I grant you permission to let loose with laughter. I absolve you of any indignity that rolling around on the floor with your child may provide you. If your hair is not perfectly coiffed, if your clothes are often covered in baby spit up or fresh smears of snot or cheese stains, if you wear comfy house clothes to the grocery store, you are not a lesser person. You're a parent with your priorities in order. And being a parent, you are making what we all hope to be a valuable contribution to the future, so any efforts you make on behalf of your children, we all appreciate.

Raise the children that you have. Take care of yourself, but remember what's most important: family. Your child's happiness is more important than the smirk the bagger boy gets on his face because he saw you yesterday in the same outfit. Whose smile deserves more attention? Your daughter who wears her princess costume to the grocery store with you; that's who.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 6

(This is part 6 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

6. Cooperation is essential between parents; there must be agreement. If I haven't drilled it enough yet, it's time to do so. You as a parent are responsible for helping your child develop a certain and defined sense of the world. However, if Daddy says one thing, Mommy says another, (and any other caregiver says yet another), then the system falls apart.

As an example, most parents have cell phones these days. And most babies and toddlers are fascinated by anything with buttons, lights, colors, motion, sounds, etc. As such, there will often be times in which a baby or toddler will come into contact with a parent's cell phone. There are many parents who are dead-set against their children biting on, drooling on, or otherwise manipulating their phones. Many other parents are more lackadaisical with regard to how their children treat their phones. Conflicting messages occur when these two distinct types are parents of the same children.

That's not to say that things don't change. This is where communication becomes very important. When the kid goes to bed, it's time for parents to talk. (Adjust for plurals accordingly for parents of multiple children.) Discussions need to occur about behaviors the child is exhibiting. What new developments are in progress? Is the child showing signs of illness? Teething pain? Growth spurts? Emotional or mental spurts? Is the child practicing a new skill that may soon radically alter his regular behavior?

Important at this time, too, is that both parents get time to vent. Frustrations they have at work or around the house need to be expressed and resolved, preferably on a daily basis, so that maximum peace and happiness can be maintained. If one parent feels that the other just "doesn't understand" what she's going through, odds are good that there's a communication breakdown somewhere. Ideally speaking the venting of frustrations should be enacted out of hearing of the child. Babies, toddlers, and even older children often cannot distinguish between someone speaking heatedly about an argument or difficulty from earlier in the day and a presently occurring disagreement.

This can be challenging to ensure but valuable to pursue. One thing I have noticed is that men, on average, are very poor at multi-tasking. Much as I love my husband, I need to acknowledge this aspect of his character and remember that while I may often act like the queen of ADD, his ability to focus is dramatically greater than my own. The challenging aspect of this is when he comes home from work after a particularly nerve-rending day. He often immediately wants to divest himself of the weight of the thoughts he's been carrying throughout the day by sharing his aggravations with me. Typically this will happen while I am washing dishes or making dinner in the kitchen, which is sectioned apart by a baby gate from the foyer/living/dining space. Meanwhile, Jackson sees "Daddy!" and lovingly runs to him, glomping onto his leg and begging for attention. Andrew will be so focused on relating his tales and making eye contact with me that he will be oblivious to the wailing, sobbing, shouting, or otherwise attention-seeking behavior Jackson attempts to shift Daddy's gaze downward. With my own self being rather easily distracted (and deeply entrenched in my role as primary caregiver of our son), I often feel torn between being an active listener and participant in conversation with my husband--whose feelings and thoughts I value highly--and my darling little boy who just wants some love from his father whom he hasn't seen in 9 hours or more.

Because of situations like this, I often find myself in a position to tell Andrew what to do. Luckily he is willing and able to observe Jackson's needs when I remind him in cases like the one described above. Often one of the main pieces of information I have to convey to my husband is how our son's day developed. Kids change so quickly, and the events of a single day have significant impact. Andrew relies on me to keep him up to date on Jackson's latest abilities. For example, when he learned to drink from a cup or suddenly demonstrated greater skill at using a fork. These are important things to share so that Andrew knows what to expect when he's doing his part as a parent, since he's not as lucky as me in getting to spend all day with Jackson. I'm also the little man's interpreter so that he can be better understood. Any new vocabulary or signs that Jackson develops I relate to Andrew because when our toddler stands at the window shouting "Ah eh! Ah eh!" it's not really all that obvious that he is hoping to see an airplane.

Raising children is a long and complicated process. While young children are generally fairly good at making their needs known, the ability to express confusion or distress when parents disagree is not always there. A child's egocentric world cannot fathom that Mommy doesn't know Daddy taught him a new word or that Daddy doesn't know Mommy showed her little girl how to throw away trash. Communication between parents (and other caregivers) facilitates the knowledge of a particular child, helping that child to be better understood, which in turn can help the child to feel more secure and joyful as she goes about her job of being young.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 5

(This is part 5 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

5. Children, even very young babies, LOVE a predictable schedule. Be consistent 95% of the time with the schedule, with only minor deviations, and you'll be golden. Andrew and I fought this at first. Oh, no, it won't work with our son yet, we thought. He's too young for it to matter, so we'll go out late anyway. Well, I can't vouch for the first 5 or 6 months, since we resisted a schedule, but I can say this: as soon as we started being consistent with our habits, Jackson became a much more consistent child--and a much better sleeper!

People in general do better when they follow a daily pattern that coincides with the cycle of the sun. Babies and young children instinctively rise around the same time each morning regardless of the time they go to bed. My niece (who is 7 and a half years old) awakens at 7:30AM all throughout the summer months despite lacking the regulation that the weekdaily school schedule provides, no matter the amount of rest received. In order for her (and all other children) to get sufficient sleep, a bedtime must be set that allows for the child to catch enough Zs before her natural morning alertness.

Just about every parenting book these days discusses the importance of a bedtime routine. I've often heard it simplified to the alliterative phrase: Bath, Book, Bed. The general idea is that you provide a quiet, calming atmosphere for at least half an hour before sending your child to bed. No television, no roughhousing, no energetic or wild antics. As part of this, your darling dear would likely follow the 3B method of bathing, reading a book on your lap, then going to bed with a "transitional object" (which you might recognize as a favorite blanket, doll, stuffed animal, or other lovey). And as I said above, I resisted the truth of this for a long time. Like many other parents I know, I was convinced that I could reregulate my child's inner clock so that he'd sleep from, say, 9PM to 9AM, rather than 7PM to 7AM. To some extent, this is possible, but only if you make use of a significant amount of artificial light and curtains. It takes years of fighting our natural alertness cycles for adults to lose their innate sleep/wake programming, but for children the Circadian rhythm is still the ruler.

However sleep isn't the only aspect affected by the regularity of a routine. Your child's behavior is highly influenced by the level of predictability in his day. Babies, toddlers, young children, and older children all like to be included in knowing what is going to happen to them. Having a sense of order and chronology helps the younger portion of the population feel more secure and confident. Something that I continually hear parents say is that they never realized just how aware babies are and just how much they really apprehend of what is said and done around them. Even if a baby or toddler is too young to verbally express her knowledge, she may still have far more mental capacity than her parent credits her.

An example of my own naivete in this was discovered while we were moving to a new apartment when Jackson was just 9 months old. I had noted at our old place that Jackson very often got upset at the traffic light for our street whenever we were coming home from an outing. I used to work very hard to soothe him and assure him that we would be home soon, knowing that he highly disliked being in his car safety seat. What I hadn't recognized, however, was that that particular irritable reaction to the traffic light was because he did not want to be home. Even though the drive time was the same to the new apartment, he never complained when we were bringing belongings to the new place. However each time we neared the old apartment, he was upset that we were going there, ostensibly afraid that we would be going back to staying there again. I knew he loved our new home, but it had completely failed to catch my notice that he was aware of our driving patterns at such a young age that at just 9 months (and probably for a month or two beforehand at least) my baby was able to derive that we were heading to the old apartment. At 12 months old, Jackson led Andrew and I on a walk, which turned out to be a very well-directed journey the quarter of a mile to the playground here at our complex, which cannot be seen from our apartment. We soon learned that he clearly knew several different routes to take to the same location without needing to spy the playground itself to guide him there--as though he had a map in his head of all the local landmarks and could identify them from any angle.

As it happens, children are very prone to noticing patterns (such as common paths parents take when walking and driving). This is because their brains are working in overdrive to learn, and the easiest way to learn what is important and what is not seems to be by paying attention to things that occur with frequency. For this reason, it is of the utmost importance to be consistent in parenting so that your child infers the correct rules from your authoritative personage.

Another way in which a daily routine helps your child is by having a planned schedule so that everyone gets happy. If you are a work-at-home parent, you may recognize the essential nature of a predictable day fairly early. For example, if your little one requires a nap around mid-day, you know that you need to accomplish breakfast, morning activities, and lunch and be home in time for a nap. Then afternoon activities and snack and dinner, followed by the bedtime routine will fairly well absorb the rest of the day. Considering that play is the single most important thing for a young child (through about age 7) to do outside of basic biological functions, a large amount of time must be delegated every day to allowing children to play. If you plan your day in advance this is easily accomplished. Playdates can be planned with other children; fun activities to do around town are typically abundant, even in smaller cities; and fall-back activities to do at home are all part of the play regime. A good mix of playdates, parks, indoor activity places, and home time will help keep things diversified enough to be interesting to your child--and allow him to burn sufficient energy to take a solid nap. He will also need a certain amount of "face time" with both parents each day, which involves nothing but Mommy/Daddy and the little dear snuggling, roughhousing, stacking blocks together, or some activity that necessitates participation by both parties--done without distractions such as television or phone conversations, and with the focus put solely on the child.

If your rugrat gets plenty of time to be queen of the castle, she will be far more willing to be toted along with you to the grocery store once in a while. But the important part here is that you understand that this isn't just a matter of appeasing the angry god your child becomes when she doesn't get her way: it's an issue of treating your progeny as a person worthy of respect.

Consider the following hypothetical scenario, if you will: You have had a stroke that has affected your ability to speak properly and which has perhaps impaired some of your faculties for interpreting the speech of others. In addition, your motor skills are simply not as functional as they once were. However you still have emotions. You still have desires and preferences. Yet your ability to express them is inhibited by the effects of your stroke. More than anything you just want some control in your life, some say in what to do.

This is how your child feels. People tend to ignore babies, believing a large part of their behavior to be irrelevant. And yet there are moms and dads out there who do pay very close attention to their children and are able to communicate so much earlier that even children too young to support their own heads can signal an impending bowel movement with the intention of letting their parents know.

So, what am I saying, you should hold your kid over a sink every half an hour and make pissing noises? No. What I am saying, however, is that babies aren't just little roly polies with googly eyes. They aren't dolls, puppets, stuffed animals, or pets. Their methods of communication are significantly limited, but what they do understand, what they respond very well to, is being treated with respect. This can be as simple as maintaining a regular schedule so that your child can predict what happens next. It can be as minimally challenging as informing your child of your destination each time you go to leave the house or each time you bring him to the diaper changing table.

The point is that by keeping a predictable atmosphere, you can provide your child with a host of benefits. From sleep regulation to educational inferences to self-confidence, routines help children (and parents) to form an alliance that works in everyone's favor.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 4

(This is part 4 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

4. Life will never be the same again. Heraclitus said that you never step in the same river twice. This analogy is so true when applied to childrearing. Once you become a parent, you will always be so (even if you outlive your child). The lifestyle you experience before having children will change and never fully revert to the same it once was. There is a constant forward march that keeps your offspring moving through the stages of growth and development, and to truly be a wise parent, one must recognize this universal truth about living.

The life you have before becoming a parent is not the same life you have after the baby hatches. It never will be again. The sooner parents can acknowledge and deal with this reality, the better. Fighting it does not help and is more likely, in fact, to make matters worse. Accepting that life will never have the same level of potential spontaneity that it once did (and implementing a regular schedule for yourself) will go a long way toward easing a new parent into the new regime.

This lesson was a struggle for Andrew and I to incorporate into our own toolbox. We fought the idea that life would never be the same. In the meantime, we gave ourselves a lot of trouble trying to make the old regime (two adults, no kids) mesh with the new regime (two adults, one newborn). Even habits that we had adopted during the 9 months before we were "officially" parents were tough to break, such as staying up late watching rented DVDs or going out at night to play trivia at the local pizza place. Our attempts to combine two paradigms into one were leaving us strained to an unsustainable level.

We had to change; we had to adapt to the circumstances that were unavoidable all around us. We had to accept our new roles as parents, for one. I had believed I would work from home and spent over 4 months trying to get 10 hours a week done--and rarely succeeding. I had to accept that my body was not going to be the same shape after gaining 50lbs, giving birth, and losing a total of 50lbs again. I had to accept that I was at the beck and call of a small, helpless creature for whenever it needed nourishment. I had to try to sleep as often as possible because the sleep that I was getting was minimal and only for short durations.

Life changed for Andrew as well. He had to understand that my anatomy was altered, and that another person now had first dibs on my time and attention. Not having even held a baby until having one of his own, the newborn phase was very difficult for Andrew. He had to learn a whole new set of behaviors and eschew others that were highly ingrained in him.

But then slowly, gradually, babies grow into toddlers. Then the rules change. Every step of the way, things change. The home that was safe for a newborn is suddenly not safe for the crawler. The home that was safe for the cruiser is no longer well-suited for the new-walker. The new-walker is suddenly a climber, and then before you know it, your child is defeating all your baby-proofing.

The newborn nurses when upset and it's calming. But by 6 months, food is insufficient to calm the child and he will often rebel if provided breastmilk when he's hurt or scared or sad. After all, he's trying to tell you there's a problem, and you're telling him to shut up, that you don't want to hear about it, rather than letting him know that you understand his problem.

Nursing babies eventually start on mushy solids. Then tiny bites of solids fed by hand. Then they feed themselves, on their terms. The rules keep changing.

Down the road, perhaps another child comes along, and everything is different with her. Her personality may be a complete 180 of the first child. Different sleep habits, different behaviors, different preferences all present variations of their own. And life just keeps changing, always flowing, never the same.

The important part to remember at any point along the way is that it's just a phase. While some phases may last longer than others, nothing stays completely static because we cannot stop time. Children grow up, parents grow old. Children are not children forever, so we must accept this and do what we can to appreciate each stage along the way. If a child is currently in a period that is aggravating to the parent (i.e. incapable of verbal communication), this will not last an eternity--though it may seem it at the time. Kids eventually develop skills and minds of their own that are capable of making decisions. However, it takes a lifetime to become a fully developed individual.

With each new phase we have to learn to adapt. If your child is ready to move out of the crib or feed herself, you as the parent need to acknowledge that and make it possible. If your child is not ready to potty train, you as the parent need to be patient and wait until your child is ready. If your "baby" is 12 years old, then he needs to know how to do laundry and dishes and receive lessons in cooking. Your 16 year old daughter needs to learn how to use jumper cables and replace a tire if you are going to let her drive.

A parent's job is not simply to babysit children until they are 18 and assume legal responsibility for their own actions. We have a responsibility to the future (including our own) to see that the kids we raise develop the skills they will need to survive on their own. They will need to learn critical thinking techniques and decision making processes. They will need to know that they are allowed to make mistakes--but that they have also been given the tools they will need to succeed.

The specifics of parenting necessarily change at every level. Your interactions with your progeny must allow for your burgeoning little one to grow as a person. Life is always in flux, and it will never be the same again. This is a good thing! No one wants to spend 60 years changing diapers. In time your child(ren) will become the people their genetics and life experiences have helped them to be. And as a parent our job is to help, not hinder, and sit back to watch the show as the life we created metamorphoses into someone truly unique--and always changing.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 3

(This is part 3 of a series. To start from the beginning, click here.)

3. Parenting is a full-time job. And by full-time, I don't mean just 40 hours a week--I mean 24/7/365.25. There is no time off for good behavior. Even if you hire a babysitter, you are still the primary caregiver of your child. Going to work is great (someone has to pay the bills, after all), but parenting still needs to be done when you get home. Ultimately and primarily, as the parent(s) you have to make all the decisions regarding your child. It's expensive. It's time-consuming. It's emotionally and physically draining work, both for a parent who stays with the child throughout the day and for the parent who works outside of the home. No one has it easy. And just because you're having a bad day or not feeling well, just because your back hurts or you're mad at your boss, just because you're exhausted from not getting much sleep the night before because a certain someone kept waking you--none of that excuses you from your duty to be a good parent.

Just because you go to work to earn a living, it doesn't mean that all you are expected to do when you get home is to vegetate in front of the TV or the computer. (Alternatively, just because you've been home with your child all day, you're not off the hook just because your partner is home from work.)

Furthermore, if you and your spouse/sig-oth separate, the time the other parent is due to have custody of the children is not "ruined" if they cancel and you learn that you will have the child(ren) with you after all. TOO BAD. I feel a need to include this because I have known people in this situation who will complain about their ex not being able to take their scheduled time with the kids. What they forget is that for the rest of us who are still together or who are families with only one parent at all, we do not have disposable children. They are ours year round. They are a challenge, and at times they may feel burdensome, but they are a fact. Making your kids feel unwanted by whining about how you missed your chance for some freedom from them is no way to foster a positive conception of relationships in your progeny.

What is more: you only get one chance to raise your children. After that, they are grown and your job is done, regardless of the level of parenting they received. Do it right the first time. Take the time to appreciate each phase of your child's life. Give your baby face time instead of sitting together watching Baby Einstein or Sesame Street. Interact with your child. Teach them by example how you expect them to behave. The old saying about practicing what you preach is very key here because despite what we'd like to believe, children are not so good at listening to what we tell them to do--but they are very good at copying what we do. In my own experience, I've found that my son Jackson has been far better at saying "thank you" than a lot of other children whose parents are continually telling them to say it. The difference? He pays attention to what Andrew and I do, which is to be polite when he hands things to us by saying "thank you" to him. He knows it's what we do so he does it, too.

This same concept is true even in the behaviors we don't want children to mimic. If you don't want your children to use foul language, don't use it yourself. If you don't want them to smoke/drink alcohol/use drugs/become a lawyer, don't do it yourself. If you don't want your children to be violent or promiscuous or slovenly, don't do it yourself--and what's more, provide them with the tools they will need to succeed.

Teach your child about your decision-making processes. Talk to him/her about financial sense and the importance of saving for retirement (but don't go overboard and scare/bore the kid). Show your offspring how to develop systems of organization so that they can succeed at having an orderly room when you bellow for them to clean it--and provide the physical framework to make it possible. Let your children see that there is more to a relationship than bodies grinding together; demonstrate your positive relations with your partner through word and action.

By being a proactive parent rather than a reactive parent, you will find that you will achieve far better results, regardless of the age of your child. Plan ahead for things that you can regularly expect to occur (like meals and bedtime). Communicate with each other and your child. Be consistent in your parenting and in your exemplification of what it is to be an adult. Your children are relying on you ALL THE TIME for this. Do it right the first time--because there IS no second time.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 2

This is Part 2 of a series on Parenting Philosophy elements to be used in an overall toolbox of ideas. By having a mental framework in place for how you believe situations should be handled, raising children becomes a much more attainable goal. To start at the beginning of this series, click here.)

***

2. Babies (and children) are emotional, not rational, beings. Yes, babies will cry for rational purposes. If hungry, thirsty, wet, soiled, tired, cold, hot, etc., they will let you know in the only way they know that works. They will also cry at loud noises or because they miss you. They will cry because they don't understand that you are preparing the food, just that they want it now and it's not in the belly, which by the way, is very unhappy and wants fooooooooooooood!

Some are more sensitive than others. Jackson's friend Corinne would often cry if he looked at her or just said anything while she was around. Jackson, on the other hand, would cry if he was on the floor while I was standing. It's not something changeable about babies, so it's something that has to be accepted and treated accordingly. Again, by validating Jackson's emotions, rather than by making him feel that he is wrong for having them, he has developed a very strong sense of independence and is a highly secure child for his age. This is a good thing!

This same element was particularly evident with Jackson when it came to applying consequences to his behaviors. As babies begin their toddler stage, they test their boundaries. Sometimes Jackson would misbehave (i.e. play roughly with the vertical blinds) and so we would scold him. But he didn't respond to just saying no, and eventually we tried giving him time out. That worked very briefly, but we found that what was actually causing him to play with the blinds was that he felt in that moment that he wasn't getting enough attention. He knew that playing with the blinds would work. He would get yelled at, then go right back at it, be put into time out, even cry and protest wordlessly that he didn't want to be in time out. But then as soon as he was free again, he would run right back to the blinds, full well knowing that another time out was to follow.

Dr. Harvey Karp addresses this sort of phenomena in his book The Happiest Toddler on the Block. (I highly recommend you read this book, even if your child is no longer a toddler!) He stresses that the biggest key to avoiding behavioral problems is to give your child plenty of face time. In the above scenario, I applied that idea, and it's largely worked. So long as Jackson receives sufficient time with Mommy and Daddy every so many minutes of play time, he's happy and far less likely to get into trouble.

The general gist is this: while you may think your baby is overreacting or being irrational, and you're probably right, to him or her it's important that you respond. Moreover, it's important that you as a parent respond in a way that acknowledges and validates (or at least appears to) your child's feelings. Responding quickly and sincerely, and giving your child plenty of your love and attention on his terms will make for a much happier household all around. Let's face it, if the baby ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

This is also an important consideration for children who are no longer babies or toddlers. Around the time of puberty a person's reasoning functions start to really kick into gear. Until then children are still primarily emotionally-charged individuals. They will do things without knowing the purpose (if any), even if some part of them is at least vaguely aware that they could get into trouble for doing them. In preschool, my sister and I felt a sincere need to utilize an entire box of Band-Aids as stickers. We were so excited by the fun of the experience that getting yelled at for it was just some distant thought that hadn't really occurred until it was too late.

My nephew Gage had not spent much time outside of school with kids his age, so he spent as much of his time at school as possible socializing with other children instead of doing his classwork. He knew that Mommy would be furious with him for doing poorly in school, but he couldn't help himself. His emotions took over and demanded to be appeased. When asked in front of about a dozen family members why he was doing so poorly in school, then-8-year-old Gage could only crawl into his Auntie's lap and snuggle up to me in defense. He could not explain his actions in words. He could not justify his behavior because he did not have the vocabulary and the reasoning skills to recognize that it was an emotional need he was attempting to fulfill.

Meet the emotional needs as well as the physical, and trust that, in time, reason will grace your child with its presence! It's a long, arduous process that cannot be forced. You cannot yell your way into making a kid more rational. But you can love and respect him so that he will willingly learn from your example--rather than be repelled by it.

Stay tuned next week for the next installment of the parenting philosophy toolbox!

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 1

Childrearing is tough. In case no one has yet informed you, I'm telling you now: It's TOUGH. Andrew and I were diligent about reading books on parenting in the first year because we had some idea that it might be at least somewhat challenging. The problem with most of the relevant books available on the market is that everything in them is fairly situation-specific: books on nursing, books on sleep training, books on survival gear, etc.

Somehow in all of that literature a cohesive, explicit philosophy of parenting is sorely lacking.

Over the past few years, we have distilled a lot of our parenting ideology to a dynamic set of principles which we use to guide our decision-making processes. Life would have been so much simpler in the early days had we already had a solidified groundwork of parenting tools. Much as we had discussed during the prenatal months how we would deal with difficult situations, the problems we had envisioned were mostly ones of older children. And we really did not know what sort of real world problems we would encounter, so most of the work of forming this toolbox was done on the fly.

A lot of time and thought, however, was put into our decision to continue with all of these essential guides. Some of them challenged beliefs I had had before being a parent because, as it turned out, once I had a child of my own my feelings toward certain parenting issues evolved. My ideas about what was reasonable or ethical or sensible--even humane--were in flux for a while as Andrew and I moved toward a settled feeling of "this is how we do what we do."

This series of posts is going to focus on generalities rather than specifics. The concepts are ones that I suggest others include in their own parenting philosophy toolboxes, to use as guideposts for making decisions about how to be a parent. This first element to include in the philosophical toolbox is one that Andrew and I recognized early on, because it was highly relevant early in the childrearing process:

1. Babies cry for a reason. This seems like a very obvious statement on the surface, but I assure you it is not. One of the biggest things Andrew and I have focused on since having Jackson is trying to resolve what the reason is when Jackson gets upset. We haven't always been successful, but we've tried--and there's always a reason. Sometimes the solution would come to us well after the fact, and we'd realize: "Oh, he was cold!" or "Oh, his teeth were hurting!" or "Oh, he can't sleep because he has a poopy diaper!" Particularly during his first year, we were often asked, "Is he always this happy?" whenever we would take Jackson places. (Another mom even went so far as to instruct her infant to take lessons in cheerfulness from Jackson.) Most of that radiant happiness I attribute to a feeling of safety and reassurance that he'd received from having parents who recognized and validated his concerns. (Most of the time. Let's be honest: nobody's perfect!)

The really weird thing about this item, and part of why I put it at the very top of the list, is that this is a surprisingly controversial point. Many parents and grandparents are of the opinion that babies cry and that that's just the way it is. Statistically speaking, young babies cry an average of 3 hours per day total. Jackson, on the other hand, cried an average of about half an hour a day for the first several months. Why? Because he had responsive parents who didn't ignore his attempts at communication. It's not because he had a lack of complaints--far from it! He was upset by the same things and just as often, if not more often, than other babies in his age group. The primary distinction is the response he received to the complaints that he made.

For example, he hated being in his car seat to the point of screaming and crying. The main difference between him and other babies I've known with the same issue is in the reaction he received from us as his parents. First of all, I never took him on long trips when I was the one driving because I recognized that he was the least pleased when he felt alone/abandoned. (Keep in mind, he was in a rear-facing car seat.) When Andrew and I went anywhere together, I rode in the back seat with Jackson, or occasionally Andrew would, though he barely fit in the back being the giant that he is. We would talk to him, entertain him with toys, and sing to him. If we were traveling to visit family, we stopped frequently to let him out while I nursed him to sleep, then carried on again. On the other end of the spectrum, I have known moms with children under 6 months of age who refused to stop or even acknowledge the crying and continued driving. Perhaps they turned the volume up on the radio to drown out the sound, but often the end result was a very unhappy child who had screeched displeasure to the point of vomiting.

Are these moms necessarily bad people? No. Are they bad mothers in other regards? No. It's simply as I stated, that many parents just believe that crying is a fact of life. But it doesn't have to be.

Resolve the issue. Your only method of modifying your child's behavior is to modify your own. If the child is complaining, deal with the problem directly. Don't wait. If a child thinks that it takes a lot of crying to get a parent to respond to anything, they tend to cry MORE often and for longer because they have learned that that's what it takes. Children also form a stronger bond and have greater trust in parents who respond to their needs. You cannot spoil a baby through giving your attention and love.

Beyond babyhood this is still an important aspect to being a parent who is focused on the emotional health of a child. Studies have shown that children whose parents are responsive to their questions and desires (even if just to acknowledge them) are less prone to nagging, whining, tantrums, etc. Children whose parents do not acknowledge them in a reasonably brief period of time are far more likely to develop irritating habits in order to gain attention--because that's what they know works.

Make your child's happiness a priority early on in the parenting experience. You will reap the benefits for a long time to come! Who knows? Maybe they'll even put you in a nursing home with TWO shuffleboard courts!

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This is a continuing series, so the next couple of months will see more entries like this one. Feedback would be very much appreciated from any and all readers, either in the comments section below or by emailing me at random(dot)adams(at)gmail(dot)com.