News at Proactive Parent

It’s Thanksgiving time again—I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready!

This nation has just lived through a very emotional and intense election cycle, an economic bailout and now we need to cook “the big meal”!?

I don’t know about you but I don’t have the emotionally energy to begin the Thanksgiving process, yet!
Do you? Are your kids ready? Some of you may be thinking after reading the last question, “What do you mean are the kids ready?”

Many parents report that the holidays are one of the times during the year when they feel judged. They tell me that they feel as if their child and their manners, their parenting style, and the way they correct behavior are all up for display and comments.

Let’s be real. When taking a toddler or a preschooler to a big family dinner most parents are just hoping to get through the evening without a tantrum, a fight of some kind, a fart joke or several fingers up the nose!

When I was growing up in the 50’s how you behaved around others was more important than anything else. There were real rules about how to treat others. (That’s why I love including entries from the Mother’s Encyclopedia. Those entries show you just how rigid the rules of raising children were back then. This month is no exception!)

The problem with the “rules”, from my perspective, is they never included feelings, or ways to introduce the rules at the age appropriate level.

As an educator when I hear how some parents enforce rules it sounds like the information being passed to the child comes as a second thought, after they’ve already used a correction or a form of punishment. Things are said like, “you know better”.  But do they really know better, or do they just know that what they did made their parent really mad?

As a child I was forced and punished into behaving. I wasn’t given any information about how to accomplish better behavior; it was assumed that being told to “behave right now” was all the information that was needed.
This generation of parents has changed the words to “that’s not appropriate” and most still uses those words in the same way “behave right now” was used in the 50’s.

When I was little no adult understood that my behavior was my immature way of reaching out to try and understand more about how to behave better. I became classified as a child who didn’t listen. I used my immature thinking and figured that the adults in my life knew more than I did, so I must not be a good listener, so that’s what I became, a bad listener. How funny is that considering that my career depends on my ability to listen very carefully?

When I had children I began to realize that part of my “parental job description” was to teach my children manners and ways to be socially acceptable. I realized I didn’t want my children to be made fun of or thought of as unruly. I knew I had a job to do regardless of how I resented the way I was taught about social behavior when I was growing up.

I realized I had two choices. I could teach my children in the same way I was taught. I could insist that they behave or reap the rewards of not listening (read: being punished big time) or I could introduce the rules of polite behavior and ask that they be used when appropriate. I would tell the children “we don’t live this formally in our home but there are places where we need to behave this way. And if you choose not to behave this way you will be asked to leave the table or the room and welcomed to re-join us as soon as you’re willing to follow these rules, it’s up to you.” I chose the later.

This month’s newsletter will share some great age appropriate ways to teach your toddler or preschooler the rules of being socially polite and acceptable, just in time for the holidays. Enjoy these and send me an email telling me what worked best for you.

Do a ProActive project
Create a “practice” place mat for the Thanksgiving table. Set the table in the standard way most adults set a Thanksgiving table. Then bring out a blank piece of 11x14 paper and some crayons. Draw the table setting and have a chat about what utensil you’re supposed to use with what food. Most children won’t have to use the “correct fork” but still need to know that you use a fork and not your fingers. Treat it like a fun game so you can teach this information without pressure or perfection. Then practice as often as needed by having your child set the dinner table while discussing what’s on the place mat and which  utensils to use with which foods.

It will take a while before this becomes second nature, but if practiced through out the years, by the time they need this information, like when dating, it will be second nature. No parent wants to hear that the date didn’t go well because your child ate with his hands.

Show children there’s a difference in the way we behave on special occasions    
Children realize there’s a difference between the way you behave at school and the way you behave at home or at church. Showing a child that you behave differently in different places will help them accept the focus being placed on needing to behave differently during the holidays.

Practice
Since preschoolers learn a little bit more with each exposure to a topic, practicing before an event increases their exposure to the behavior you want them to use very quickly so they can learn it and master it before the event occurs.

Handshakes are a great example. This can be tricky for little ones. Teach them what they’re supposed to do when an adult extends a hand to them. Teach them that the extended hand is their clue that it’s their turn to do something. See how breaking it down to the preschool level reduces the chances for misunderstandings. 

Teaching a child how to shake a hand: Pull out a pair of mittens. If you only use words to teach this skill it may be way over a child’s head. Think about how you’d describe this to a toddler or a preschooler. You’d have to say, “see how your hand moves as one when shaking, your four fingers are extended outward and your thumb remains on the side as you shake a hand” those words are not age appropriate.

But when you put a mitten on a child’s hand it gives the child a physical example of four fingers extended in one direction etc. and now it makes all the sense in the world!  Don’t forget to teach them the proper amount of times to shake and the firmness needed when shaking someone’s hand. Tell them, “you go up and down two times and then let go.” See how preschool level instructions make all the difference. Then dad can practice with the child each day when he comes home from work.

For girls: teach them a kiss on the cheek is appropriate when greeting strangers or relative you don’t see very often. And teach them how to slightly turn their head to avoid the lips; it’s oh so chic! No need to teach the child to kiss both cheeks, that’s only in Europe or if you’re very trendy.

Teaching the “real” manners
Teaching please, thank you, yes sir / no sir, and napkins are to be placed on your lap before you take your first bite can not only become a full time job during dinner, but can also turn you into a helicopter parent or the manners police. Modeling the behavior you want to see is the easiest way not to fall into that trap.

Several weeks ahead of the “big” event begin making sure you’re saying please, thank you, and you’re welcome. Sooner rather than later your child will return the behavior. You can say, “What are the magic words?” but saying that repeatedly can easily be translated by the toddler or preschooler as the place to apply a power struggle by refusing to say those words, and no one wants that.

Also, being the “manners police” is not something that everyone at the table wants to hear being repeated every few minutes. Try removing the child and going into another room to respectfully make the correction. Saving face is not just a Japanese custom; it’s a respectful way to make corrections. Being that respectful when you correct a child teaches them that respect is a given in this family. A child comes to realize that my parents treat me with respect and I need to be respectful in return. Modeling respect this way creates “true” respect versus demanding that a child respect you, which will explode into resentment during the tween and teen years, again no one wants that.

Also, decide between these next two suggestions.

• Tell your child what will cause them to be asked to leave the table too. Things like talking with a mouth full of food, eating with fingers not utensils. Some children need to know all the details of what will happen if they don’t behave, in order to behave.
  
• In other families sharing what will happen if you do something is just the fuel the child needs to misbehave at the table.

As your child’s parent, you’re the only one who knows which way will work best for your child. 

Someone worked very hard on this meal
There are so many new foods children are exposed to during the holidays. Sometimes the food smells yucky and sometimes it tastes yucky. And since most of the time whatever is in a child’s head is most likely going to come right out of their mouths it may be helpful to introduce the following.
   
A thank you bite is a nice way to say I tried it and I appreciate that you went to the trouble of making it, but I don’t like it. Or teach them, thank you, but no thank you.

What if we practice and they forget
Try changing the way you inform your child about his manners. Try saying, “what are you supposed to do before you put food in your mouth?” Framing it that way gives the child the opportunity to  remember, “Oh I’m supposed to put my napkin on my lap first.” Saying it that way also increases self-esteem and reduces the possibility of the child thinking he’s being picked on.

When a child says, “why do I have to do it that way at Grandma’s?” doesn’t need to cause you stress. Simply respond as if this is a fact of life and say, “we do things differently at grandmas than we do at home, and when we’re at her house we honor and respect her by doing things they way she likes it.”

Don’t expect more than a child at this age can do
It’s very important to understand how to share the rules in an age appropriate way and to realize that a child will learn more about social behavior as they progress in their development.
   
A 3 year old can say hello to Mrs. Smith, but she won’t be comfortable looking Mrs. Smith in the eye as she says hello until she is 5 or 6. 

As Soon as Thanksgiving is over the Christmas Wish List begins

1.  I was walking through the store the other day and heard a parent say, “put it down or there will be no Christmas gifts for you!
News flash, that threat will do one of two things. It will either cause a hysterical meltdown in the store as the child tries to protect the possibility of getting the cool truck for Christmas. Or, if the child has heard this threat before but still received Christmas gifts, the child will learn that his parent’s lie to get him to behave, and no good can come of that!

2.  We all know this will be a tight year with regard to gifts. So instead of needing to make finances clear each and every time you go into a store, try creating a wish list.

Get a small notebook and pen and keep it with you at all times.
Each time your child says, “I want this for Christmas” ask him, “do you want this truck enough for me to put it on your wish list?”

If he says yes, then record the item in the notebook. Now he can relax because he feels as if he’s placed his wish for the truck somewhere that will be remembered and he’ll be much more willing to let it go. Other wise he’ll assume that his wish for the truck won’t be remembered and he’ll decide the best way to make sure he gets the truck is to constantly remind you.

3.  About 1 week before you/Santa go shopping for gifts, try this:

• Place as many envelopes as there are family members on the refrigerator.
• Announce how many requests for toys they’re allowed to put in the envelope.
• Tell them they can take out a toy choice and change their minds as many times as they like between now and next Sunday when the list will be sent to Santa, or however you do it in your home.
• This empowers them and helps stop the constant whining for “I want this toy, NO I want that toy”.
• Reduce TV time because commercials are aimed at your children during this time of year!

That should help get you through Thanksgiving.

Here are a couple of other things I wanted to mention before the end of the year, I can’t believe I just said that!

1.  Most of the marketing I do for ProActive Parenting is on the web these days, and I keep seeing announcements for “nominate your favorite website” or “nominate your favorite newsletter”, or “nominate your favorite service” etc.

Winning one of those awards or being mentioned on one of those sites can really help a website get noticed so more families can benefit from the services offered. If you’ve enjoyed Proactive Parenting’s advice, tips and tools AND you’re a person who reads blogs or surfs the web AND you’re so inclined, please feel free to nominate ProActive Parenting. We would be very grateful!

2.  There will be no newsletter in the month of January, that’s my month off.
 
Happy Turkey Day and enjoy the rest of the newsletter.
       

From a Parents Perspective—By Janet Gonzales-Mena

            Thanksgiving Should Mean Change, Not just Tradition

I’m starting to gear up for turkey day. As I shop, clean and cook, I’m thinking about what Thanksgiving means to me and what I want it to mean to my children. I’m going to get preachy, but you can take it if I only that way on the holiday—right?

Part of the meaning Thanksgiving holds for me is the family closeness of the occasion. We’re drawn together. Since little else is available on Thanksgiving Day, kids are forced to spend the day with their parents. Although that can get complicated with more than one se of parents to be drawn to, I still like this aspect of the occasion.

I like the sense of history the occasion brings. One Thanksgiving I did a little research on food and made a point of serving what the Europeans didn’t have until they mixed wit the Native American peoples of North and South America. Potatoes, tomatoes, beans, corn, pumpkins, squash, and turkey were the non-European foods on my menu that year. It was a good science and social studies lesson. (I do like these special occasions to be educational as well as meaningful!)

Last year stereotyping became the educational focus of my Thanksgiving. Have you ever thought what it does to children to see so many pictures of little Indians dressed in feathers? They get a false idea of Native Americans. Instead of understanding Native Americans are real people, they see them as cheerful little Disney-like helpers. Or, if they have been influenced by the movies they translate the cute cartoon characters into wild and vicious savages running around clobbering people with tomahawks. Nothing about either of these images says that Native Americans are a diverse group with many varied cultures. The stereotype blurs the fact that the ancestors of those first Thanksgiving feasters are real people living today with a legacy of genocide, bias, and discrimination to contend with.
(Living in the southwest has given me the rare experience of seeing how very diverse each tribe really is. I hope as a nation we can finally put aside surface differences and begin seeing individuals for who they really are. We just did it in our choice of president; let’s hope we can carry this through into the next generation by how we expose our children to different people and cultures. SS)

What do your children know about modern Native Americans—who they are and how they live? Do they know that some have moved, and been moved, from tribal lands and government reservations to the inner cities? Do they know that many Native Americans today are poverty-stricken citizens?

The media on Thanksgiving Day remind us of the fact that America has many hungry and homeless of all kinds—including Native Americans. The news cameras focusing on crowds eating at the inner city missions and rescue centers many put a damper on the occasion for you as you sit in your family room in front of the TV with a full stomach and the remains of the turkey in the refrigerator.

I think it is important to recognize that the significance of Thanksgiving is mixed. I certainly want to experience the joyful meaning of the occasion; the notion of harvest, the spirit of plenty, and the pleasures of feasting. Being thankful is part of the celebration.

But to me being thankful implies a further message. That message is: It’s time for some changes. It’s time we work together to create an America where homelessness, poverty, and starvation are no longer reality but rather mere shadows of history.

This article was written around 1988-1990, so when I read the words, It’s time for some changes, I connected that message to the Obama campaign message and I was struck by the fact that we still have these same issues and more. Hopefully we’re now making choices as a nation to stop poverty, racial divides and all of our other social missteps.

I believe this nations choice of President-Elect Obama helps us usher in a new day. I hope a new time in our history has arrived where we treat each other with empathy and compassion no matter what the color of our skin is or what our place in society is.

I don’t usually announce my personal beliefs, except when it comes to children, but this week and this article have inspired me to announce the bottom line attitude that I base all of my work regarding raising children on.

My personal credo is: we are all one people; more alike than different. Our experiences are what make us different, we all come in different colors and come from different cultures but each and everyone of us needs to keep breathing so the human heart can keep beating, once you look past the obvious, we are more alike than different. 
Hopefully if we raise our children with that basic understanding their generation will never have many of the issues we need to begin healing now.

Mother's Encyclopedia—Written in 1951

Manners Don’t forget this was written many, many years ago.

Social Training, A Source of Antagonism
Among children brought to a behavior clinic one frequently finds deep-seated antagonism between children and parents. One mother said of her seven-year-old daughter, “I seem constantly to antagonize her. She resents my telling her what she must do.” It was discovered that one of the chief sources of antagonism between this mother and daughter was the mother’s well-meaning but undesirable insistence on many nonessentials.

These antagonisms often lead to definite difficulties in children. Usually the cause of the development of these habits is to be found not in the child, but in the parents.

The parents make constant demands on the child. He is expected to be considerate, mannerly and brilliant in intellectual performances. He is admonished about these things—often with impatience. Emotional attitudes develop in both the child and the parents and the child may find outlet for his tensions in undesirable behavior.

Let children Learn by Imitation
What, then, is a sensible solution of the problem of teaching manners to young children? My belief is they should not be taught in any direct way. After all, the forms are unimportant and will be acquired as social pressures provide adequate motives for learning. They are not worth the irritations and antagonism they often cause. What we surely want most of our children is for them to develop social attitudes of interest in and consideration for other people of all classes and races. In other words, we want them to become social minded. How are we going to bring this about? In the first place, give a child practice in getting along with other children. In the second place, give the child a proper model, which he may imitate. This is a homely truth, but it is the sine qua non of child training (I looked this term up, it means “(a condition) without which it could not be”. Using a term like this shows you just how differently therapists spoke to their clients way back then!)  The home in which the various adults speak pleasantly to one another and to the children and show a genuine consideration for the interests and activities of each member of the family, is giving the children the best possible chance to acquire proper social attitudes. It isn’t the saying of  “please” or “thank you” that is important, but the tone of voice or the accompanying smile. Speaking to our children pleasantly and giving them a good model to inmate are more important than insistence on social forms.
By J. Allan Hicks, Ph. D.

There isn’t an It Isn’t Easy Being Green this month. I think we’ve all had as much as we can take on the subject for a month or so. What I am putting in its place is:

Look What I Found

It can get boring for little ones as you’re getting ready for “the big meal” How about a trip to skyguy.com.
This site is for older kids, but your little one may enjoy this too. They describe their site in this way, “It’s a series of short fun video’s bringing the excitement of Astronomy to kids.” Check them out at www.skyguy.com

Since birthdays happen even during the holidays I wanted to share some sites that can help you manage all the fuss. The following sites will do most of the work for you!

Invitations: www.tinyprints.com

Themes: www.birthdayinabox.com

Favors: www.celebrateexpress.com

Recording memories: www.lifeonrecord.com

Happy Thanksgiving–see you next month!