The Parenting Coach

My mother just celebrated her 80th birthday. My sisters and I drove to her home to celebrate with her. She lives 500 miles north of us. For the most part we all get along well and can call each other friends. We share the same sense of humour and like a lot of the same music.

It’s been a few years since the three of us were together with my parents in their home. The last time was to attend my father’s funeral, four years ago. What is interesting to me is how we all immediately assume the same roles we had when were were all living together as a family. One day Mom was announcing to my sister and I what she was planning to do next and then asked: “What are you kids going to be doing?” Her mind is still very sharp so it’s not like she suddenly slipped into dimentia and forgot that her children are now all in their 50’s. My sister replied: “You kids???” She laughed and realized what she had just said.

I’m the middle of three girls and am a classic “peacekeeper”. When I was growing up, if tensions were flaring I did whatever was expected of me and tried to making everything right. I recognized in myself on this recent trip how I jumped into that same role whenever there was a bit of friction between my two sisters or between Mom and one of my sisters. I took on that role for so many years. I’ve had to work hard at being comfortable with some conflict and standing up for what I know is right. It’s great being close to our parents as long as we can assume a separate identity. It takes work sometimes.

Do you have a child who whines? It’s one of those behaviors that comes close to the top of the list of irritants. Most parents will say they can’t stand it.

Children will whine as a way to get our attention. If they’re frustrated, upset or disappointed about something and whine about it, it usually gets a response from us. When we respond to their pleas while they’re using a whiny voice, we’ve reinforced it and will likely get more of the same. Usually the reason we respond is because we’ll do anything if we think it will stop the whining.

There are a couple of ways to deal with whining and one is to simply say: “When you can talk to me in a nice voice I’d be happy to help you.” Or you can say: “Sure, I’ll get you a cookie as soon as you stop whining.” You’re more likely to get co-operation if you use a normal tone of voice. If you get more whining, just continue to repeat your request. It’s not effective to punish a child for whining. They’ll then go from whining to crying and everything will escalate.

Another way to handle whining is to notice your child when he’s asking for something, or telling you something in an appropriate way. You can say something like: “I’d be happy to get that for you and I love that you asked me without whining.” Or you can say, “I see that you’re upset about that and you know what else I notice? You’re upset but you’re not whining. Good for you!”

I was reminded recently how much our kids need attention from us. I have a client who has two children; one can be described as “high maintenance” and the other “very low maintenance.” Of course the low maintenance child gets a lot of positive attention because he co-operates and seldom needs reminding. This of course makes his brother jealous so he devises his own way of getting noticed. He often behaves badly. It works well to get exactly what he wants.

When parents describe situations to me around sibling rivalry they will also report that one on one those same children are a joy to be around. My suggestion to my client was to create opportunities where she and her older child can be together without his sibling and out of the house. We both knew she would have to do the same for her younger child but that was fine. She said it was something she knew she could easily do because childcare was not an issue. What we want to do is give her high maintenance child the attention he is seeking but in a positive way. We also want to build up the “emotional bank account” because right now the majority of the interaction with him is negative and she wants badly to change that.

This summer I will be presenting a workshop called: “Nurturing Independence In Your Child” for parents of deaf children. It’s very easy when raising a child with a disability, to stifle independence. No one does it consciously; we mostly do it to protect.

While I’m addressing this particular group of parents I will point out that parents of typical children often don’t encourage independence although we all say we want our kids to grow up and become independent. Sometimes we send mixed messages. For example who doesn’t want their child to be financially independent yet how many of us bail our older kids out of a bind? We want them to be independent thinkers yet we tend to want them to think like us.

When our young children are learning to do certain tasks we have a hard time watching them struggle so we finish off the job or do the whole thing for them. We zip up their zippers and button their buttons and tie their shoes.

Are we doing all we can as parents to nurture independence?

I helped raise my husband’s twin sons. When one of them was around 15 he decided he wanted blue hair. At least I think it was blue that he wanted the first time. For the next two years he experimented with every colour of the rainbow. Both my husband and I were fine with it because we know once he became an adult he unlikely would want to be walking around with green or blue hair. It wasn’t going to be permanent so, so what. There were far worse things he could be doing.

I have a close friend whose 17 year old daughter has a style that can be described as “alternative”. She loves spiky, green hair and multi-coloured vintage clothing . She chose black, shiny platformed boots to wear with her graduation dress. She’s often seen wearing striped tights with short skirts. That is who she is right now and my friend is as easy-going about it as we were with the blue hair. Her daughter happens to be an outstanding flute player and an excellent student so her choice of dress isn’t having any kind of adverse affect on her performance at school or in any other part of her life. She also designs and sews her own clothes.

I admire my friend’s attitude and know her daughter will look back and appreciate her mother’s light hearted approach to her current style. She supports her talents and doesn’t try to make her into something she isn’t. There are far worse things to worry about with teenagers than unusual clothes , purple hair or a pierced lip. This is all part of finding out who they are.

When my son was younger he played video games for hours. I struggled with this apparent obsession worrying about the impact many of the violent games were having on him. I worked hard to limit the amount of time he was spending with a controller in his hand waiting for someone to die. I often tried to engage in a dialogue with him around the violence and aggression he was witnessing on the screen.

Thankfully his love of video games passed and he moved on to other things. When I look at him at 16, soon to be 17 I can’t see that he suffered from playing the games. He’s always been a physically active boy so his involvement in sports has always kept him fit.

I recently read an interesting article in our local newspaper titled: “Boys exhibit high literacy skills with video games.” The headline caught my eye. The article outlined the results of research done at the University of Victoria in British Columbia that concluded that “even though girls consistently outscore boys on school standardized tests for reading and writing, the boys exhibited high level literacy skills while engaged in a leisure activity often blamed for instilling negative values.”

The article went on to say that although it may appear to a non -video player that staring at a video game screen may seem to be without purpose, designing and playing the games actually “helps to develop sophisticated operation, cultural and critical literacy skills.”

The article does point out as well that excessive participation in video games is contributing to childhood obesity and parents need to be aware of the violent and sexist messages they send.

I work with a lot of parents who carry around guilt for any number of things. I have to say that mostly its mothers. The dialogue that goes on their head is something like this: “I should be spending more time with my kids. I should spend more time helping out at school. I should be working instead of playing with my kids. I should bake more. ” Does that sound like you?

Before kids most of us had an image of what life would be like or the way we wanted it to be and so we made the necessary adjustments to make that happen. Sometimes the outcome of the decisions we make is not what we expected. Sometimes the personal fulfillment we anticipated just doesn’t happen.

When I was growing up virtually every mom was a stay-at-home mom. Who would have ever thought we would even be using such a term? Now many women have a choice to stay at home or not and there are others who don’t have the choice. It’s an economic necessity to work outside of the home.

Does working outside the home make you less of a mother than one who stays home? What is your definition of a good mother? I have come across many mothers who stay home because that is their choice. Some love it but others feel unfulfilled and become easily irritated by the many mundane demands of parenting. Can you be the best parent you can be if you’re staying home out of guilt when you would rather be working outside the home? Can you be the best parent you can be if you’re irritable most of the time? Don’t your children deserve to see the best of you even if they might have less of you? For some, working outside the home makes them a better parent. What’s wrong with that?

What do you need in your life to bring out the best of who you are? It might be that staying home with your children is the best thing for you. It may be that working even part-time outside the home is what you need to be your best. We only get one chance at this job of raising kids. Don’t they deserve to see the great person you really are, most of the time? If you’ve chosen to be a stay-at-home mom but finding it’s bringing out the worst in you, think again if your decision is really the best one for everyone.