Category: Present Parenting

Physical Connection Matters!

I have a friend, Ann, who has taught children with special needs for 16 years. I have been in her classroom, and she is terrific. But this year, she retired, and her kids miss her.

We were talking recently about her retirement. 2020 was tough because they could not touch the kids because of Covid. Remember that these are special needs kids, and there was no hugging, no touching, no patting backs, or rubbing shoulders. No sitting by the kids, no connection. WOW! She said that by mid-year, her class was chaos. There were more tantrums, arguments, and problems than she had experienced in her fifteen previous years.

Then she made an executive decision. She decided that she would touch the kids. She would wear a mask, but she would physically connect. Guess what happened? Within two weeks, the chaos and problems were 95% better.

Did you catch that number, a 95% reduction in tantrums and chaos? We all need a physical connection. It doesn’t matter if we are special needs, spouses, friends, neighbors; it doesn’t matter. We need a physical connection with our world and the people in it. I have known for years, and I have taught that parents need to touch their kids more often, and it can be done without adding time to your day. I call it RANDOM TOUCH.

Currently, I am getting some re-education in this powerful concept myself. My mom has Alzheimer’s and lives with me. Recently her dog, Little Girl, died after being mom’s companion for seventeen years. Mom was in a funk. In talking with a friend, I was reminded about random touch and that it might be a valuable tool in helping my mom. So, I have been testing it out. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the outcome.

I love my mom, and she loves me, but she isn’t a touchy-feely person, and neither am I. I don’t recall being hugged or snuggled as a kid. As a parent, I had to remind myself constantly to touch my kids. I wasn’t always successful. In fact, I still must remind myself to hug my kids, grands, and friends. But I know how much it matters, and I am better at it.

I can see that my mom is responding to the increased touching. My mother is calmer; we have better conversations; she gets dressed earlier and turns on her light. Hugging my mom more has softened me; I am more tender. Does that sound like something that might be useful with any of your kids?

I want to emphasize that touching your children matters when they’re small; it matters, even more, when they’re a youth, and it will continue to matter when they’re adults.

Random touch – what is it, and what does it look like

Random touches are just that, random. They don’t require any reason for the touch or hug. They happen whenever you’re close to your child.

Here are a few examples of what a random touch looks like in real life:
• If you see your child sitting on the couch, at the table, on their bed, or anywhere, stop, sit close to them, stay for 20–30 seconds, squeeze a knee or give a quick hug, and go on your way. No need to say a word.
• When you go into your child’s room to wake them up, hug them. Don’t stand in the hall and yell, “Get up.” Instead, go in; give a gentle shake to the shoulder and a hug. Say, “Hey, buddy. It’s time to get up.” It will take a few more seconds than yelling from the hall but remember to stay out of management mode and build your relationship instead.
• As you walk through a room or down the hall and see one of your children, look them in the eye and smile. Touch them on their back, arm, or shoulder as they pass by. Don’t say anything; just give a squeeze or a pat. You can do this a dozen times a day and use up only a few minutes.
• When you’re moving from one room to another (as you go through your day) and see one of your children, make a slight detour. Grab your child and tickle them for a few moments, just long enough to get a little tussle going. Then gently punch a shoulder or tousle a head and move on.
• Hold your child’s hand when you’re walking together or keep your hand on their back or shoulder for a few moments at a time.
• Rub your child’s back while sitting in church, in the doctor’s waiting room, and so on.

Random touches are an effective tool for connecting in astounding ways with your children. Random touch helps reduce the need for discipline, opens pathways to short conversations, melts stony hearts, and bonds children to parents. I want you to understand how powerful this one skill can be in changing the dynamics of your family. It’s easy to do, takes only moments, and practically shouts “You matter” to your child. It was shouting that to my mom, and it shouted ‘you matter’ to my friend’s classroom of special needs kids.

Respect their boundaries if you have a child or youth who doesn’t like to be touched. Remember that I was a bit touch adverse, but I still wanted to connect in meaningful ways, and so do your children. Experiment to find out what is acceptable to your child. For example, a teen may not want to be hugged but may allow you to rub their back.

Experiment with random touch and I know you will be

amazed at the result!

I Hit My Daughter. WHAT!!

A while back, I began thinking I needed to tackle the tough things I learned as a mom. But I have put it off. How do you talk about the tough stuff? I have given it a lot of thought. I know this is a direction I should go. I have wondered why. Maybe because times are hard right now, and I feel sure some struggling parents out there need to know that even very imperfect people can and do raise beautiful and successful families. So I will give it a go, and if I survive and you survive, I will know it was the correct move. : )

At one time, we had one child just out of high school, three younger teens, and one pre-teen. That is a lot of hormones! Some of those kids were struggling in school and life. We weren’t getting much support from the school, community, or our church family. In fact, a couple of my children were shunned by families at church whose children they had played with for years. I guess our struggles were too scary for some of the parents we had spent a few decades with.

All that put me on edge. I felt like a failure, and I was mad. I wanted my family to look and feel like it had just a few years earlier and like my friends’ families looked. It was challenging to stay up until all the kids were back in the house and then get up in the morning and function. It was tough when a child didn’t come home, and I searched for them late into the night. It didn’t help that my sweet and worried husband was on the road five days a week for some of those years. Man, some days, I felt like I carried the weight of the world.

One afternoon one of my younger teens was mouthing off. I tried reasoning with her. She began hollering and talking very rudely. The tirade went on for a while, and finally, I hit her in the shoulder with my fist. WHAT!!! What kind of mother does that? Well, the kind I just described in the paragraph above. My daughter ran to her room and slammed the door. I fell to my knees and wept.

While I was weeping, I began to pray. I plead with my Heavenly Father to forgive me for not managing myself like an adult, for not being more long-suffering and loving. In my heart, I knew that I could never fix this. I had done irreparable damage to this important relationship.

But WAIT! Into my mind came this thought, “Go and put lotion on her feet.” You’re kidding, right? I had NEVER done that before. But it was a clear thought, and I have had many experiences calling on a power greater than myself. I knew what it felt like to get a response, and this was a response from that power.

I got up and walked down the hall. I felt as if I had lead weights on my ankles. That was the longest walk of my life! I was afraid because I didn’t want to be yelled at or rejected or pushed to the edge again. I couldn’t see how this could work. Not in a million years. I had just socked my fourteen-year-old daughter with my fist.

I have to be honest; I stood at that door, petrified to knock for over five minutes with a bottle of lotion in my hand. But I did knock. “Who is it?” “It’s mom. Can I come in?” “Yes.” I opened the door and sat on the bed. My daughter was sitting with her back against the wall, and her feet were stretched across the bed. I reached out, took one of her feet into my hands, and began to rub lotion on it. I rubbed that foot for at least three minutes. Then my daughter moved that foot away and gave me her other foot. I began lotioning that foot. We sat like this, with me rubbing her feet and she leaning against the wall, watching me.

Finally, she pulled her foot away. I looked at her and said, “Marie, I am so sorry I hit you. It was wrong, and I am sorry.” She said, “That’s OK.” Then she began talking, and before I knew it, all her anger, sadness, fears, and worries were spilling out. She was accusing Don and me of things, describing things in a way that was not how they happened. I wanted to defend us, her parents. I wanted her to understand what she didn’t see clearly, but in truth, my tongue was tied. I couldn’t utter a sound, and after a few minutes, I no longer wanted to. I wanted this sweet child to be able to say whatever she needed to say, right or wrong. I wanted her to know that she was safe with me. The tirade went on for at least fifteen minutes.

Then it stopped, just stopped. Marie looked at me, and I took her into my arms and said, “Marie, I am sorry. I love you.” And I was sorry. I was sad that I had not remained in control of my emotions, that she had angry feelings. I was sorry that she had stored so much emotion. I was sorrowful that my sweet daughter was struggling. She leaned into me, and I held her for a long time. Then we parted. I got up, touched her cheek, said “I love you” again, and left the room.

You would never have known I had hit her or that she had dumped on me for fifteen minutes. The energy was different for the rest of the evening. We smiled. It felt good. Oh, life didn’t get easier for our family or this child for a good while. But for that day and a few after, we were tied heart to heart.

This experience taught me two critical lessons

1. You can repair relationships. I saw firsthand that you can heal a relationship when you are invested and are willing to seek counsel outside of your own. For me, it was asking God. Others ask a counselor or therapist. When we want to heal a relationship with a child, and we are willing to seek a way, solutions come.

2. You must listen. Even if you want to defend yourself or feel it’s not true, you must be quiet and let your child know that you heard. More than rubbing Marie’s feet, I think it was the safety I gave her to say what was burdening her heart, true or not, that made all the difference. Despite my socking her, she saw and felt that I was a safe place for her. I know this is true because Marie would come to me for counsel, help, and hugs during the hard years.

One day, while she was still struggling herself, and we had other struggling children, I found a note. Marie had written it because she knew how hard it was for me, Don, and our family. She wanted to do for me what I had done for her on that long-ago day when I reached out to heal a relationship. She wanted to help me feel better.

An excerpt from that beautiful letter:

“You’re doing everything you can to try and make our home and family what it should be. I wanted to let you in on a secret of mine. Our house is a temple. I love my home. I come here for protection and solace. This place is a haven, a place for love and spiritual replenishment. When times are the worst, I long to be home where there’s peace for my soul. No mother. Your efforts are far from in vain! I wanted you to know how much I love you and how much I love my home.”

No matter what is happening in your family, if you stay the course, ask for help from divine and earthly sources and believe that meaningful relationships can be healed, it will be enough no matter how bumpy the road is.

It will be enough!

What Makes a Memory That Matters?

What Makes a Great Memory

My adult children stay very connected via a video chat app. They talk about all kinds of things, health, work, kids, weather, holidays, etc. But, just this week, they were discussing a topic that blew me away – a jar of buttons and books of stickers. This conversation blew me away because I had no knowledge that these two items from our home had such a significant impact on all of them, from the oldest to the youngest.

When I was a young mom, stickers became a thing. You could buy stickers in the store that depicted animals, cartoon characters, flowers, etc. Before that, it was primarily stickers to use on charts in school, for chores, and garage sales.

I was fascinated with the stickers and created a couple of sticker books over the next few years. My kids would look at them for hours. However, when I moved, all the kids had gone from home except Kate, so I let them go. Some years later, Seth asked me if he could have them because he had enjoyed them so much. But alas, they were gone. I didn’t know until this sibling conversation that Seth has been collecting stickers ever since, and some are well over 20 years old.

What began the conversation was Kate, my youngest, telling me that my granddaughter, Tessa, is into stickers. Kate was hoping that I still had the books and that Tessa could have them. Marie, my middle daughter, reminded me that she had also asked for the books some years ago.

WHAT! Who would have thought that something as simple as sticker books created by me and shared by my children would have touched the hearts of all my kids enough that three of them asked if they could have them?

Then someone mentioned the gallon of buttons that we had. They all said that they loved dumping them out on the carpet and sorting the buttons. I can recall Kate and Barry pouring over the pile as they worked together. Who has a gallon of buttons anyway? Well, I did because my grandmother had one, and I loved sorting the buttons. But, unfortunately, that went during our move to Utah too.

A couple of years ago, Marie told me that Matilda loved buttons and hoped I still had that gallon jar of them. I didn’t, so I created her a jar, but a gallon of buttons is hard to find, so it was a quart. Then, her older brother, Parker, fell in love with buttons, and I made him a quart.

WHAT MAKES A GREAT MEMORY?

The world is filled with things we can buy for our kids—toys, technology, clothes, and gadgets. There are many places that we can take them—theme parks, water parks, grand vacations. We live in a world influenced by media, which says that good parents give their kids ___________.

There isn’t anything wrong with taking our children on cool trips or buying them a special toy or piece of clothing, but in the final analysis, no matter what we think, it won’t be any of those things that our children will remember with the most fondness. Instead, it will be the simple, family things.

When I was writing my book, Becoming a Present Parent: Connecting with your children in five minutes or less, I did some unscientific research on this very thing. I asked my adult children and their spouses what their fondest memories were from childhood. Here are a few shortened responses:

Jenny—“Playing with the big jar of buttons!”
Marie—“I remember loving to look at your sticker books.
Barry—“I loved sitting in the dark with the Christmas lights on in the living room.”
Seth—“I loved New Year’s Eve and the cheese and meat tray that we ate while sitting on the floor watching a movie.
Jodie—“My most cherished memories are of the Thanksgiving and Christmas season. I loved all the little traditions we had, from the way we decorated to making gingerbread houses to what we ate.”
Kate—“I remember when you stood up, not saying a word when I fell during a cheer contest. I knew you were silently saying, ‘Get up. You can do it.’”
Andrew—“I remember working with Dad in the crawl space. I don’t think either of us actually liked going down there, but we did like working together.”

I also put the question of fond memories to my daughter-in-law, siblings, cousins, nieces, and nephews. Here are a few of their responses:

Cindy (a sister)—“I remember mom reading us a chapter each night from Old Yeller. I loved the inflections in her voice, that undivided time with her, and the comfort of our warm bed.”
Deidra (a niece)—“My mom used to sell Avon, and she would keep all the big boxes her orders came in. We used the boxes to make houses to play in. It was so fun!”
Nanette (a sister)—“Mom helped me sew a dress for 4H. It was so cool and had pom poms on the hem. I was constantly breaking the sewing machine, and she would always get it working again. I won 1st place and went to state. To this day, I sew because she taught me.”

Are you getting the picture? It’s interesting to note that most of these happy and pleasant memories are of events that happened in the course of daily living. Not one respondent mentioned a fancy toy, a fancy vacation to a memorable place, name-brand clothes, a cool car the family had, the size of their home, or where their home was. No one mentioned the great lessons or classes they took. No one said Little League or other teams they played on. Not one.

Memories Come from simple Things at Home

It isn’t just little kids who love being at home whose memories and happiness hinge on simple everyday things. In a study of thirteen to twenty-four-year-olds conducted by the Associated Press and MTV, more than 100 questions were asked of 1,280 young people. The questions were all centered on determining what made these youth happy. Can you guess the number one answer? Spending time with family! Yup, that’s right, spending time with family. These kids and young adults were ages thirteen to twenty-four ((Associated Press, “Youth Happiness Study,” 2).

My favorite response to my question about memories that mattered came from my sweet daughter-in-law, Kendra. She said, “Something I’ll always cherish from my childhood was the time my parents spent with me outdoors, going to the beach, hiking, fishing, swimming, and letting me be a kid. It was something we often did because it didn’t cost much, but to me, it was the greatest thing ever. In fact, one time, my dad took me to Disneyland, and I asked him if we could leave and go to the beach. I look back on that now and think that must have both surprised him and probably made him wish he had saved all that money.”

A Gallon of Buttons and Sticker Books. Amazingly enough, these things said ‘family’ to my children. They said, “You are part of something bigger than yourself, and you belong here.”

Tips for Lasting Memories

If you want your kids to have wonderful and lasting memories that they will talk about decades from now:

- Stay home more
- Spend less money
- Be on screens less
- Keep life simpler

All these items are a challenge in today’s world but will be worth the effort in the long run and will bless your children and their children.

Let your friends know that memories come from the simple things

we do in our family.

Experiments to Improve Family Relationships

A few years ago, I mentored a mom who has four children. I had known this woman for a while, and we were friends. She is a great mom and a wonderful person. At one of our sessions, we talked about her relationship with her 17-year-old daughter.

My friend was answering some thoughtful questions about “how” she is when she is with her daughter. She realized that she was often too critical and that their conversations were usually about chores and schoolwork even though her daughter has things she wants to share. The seventeen-year-old wanted to talk with her mom but she didn’t seem to know when the time was right. She chose to share when her mom was working, getting ready to go somewhere, or helping another child. They wanted to spend more time together, but they were both often tired and on edge. To avoid blow-ups they avoided each other.

Experimenting With Making a Change

When mentoring I often ask my client to pick one or two things that they would most like to see changed in the relationship with someone that matters to them. Then I ask them to come up with an experiment to see what might happen to the relationship.

I love experiments because they are just that, experiments. They are designed for the purpose of seeing if you can get a certain result by doing something new or different. Sometimes the experiment is successful and sometimes it isn’t. When you don’t get the desired result, you just design a new experiment. No failure here.

This mom came up with an experiment to increase the time she and her daughter spent talking and to decrease the time they feel tired and at odds with one another.

I want you to remember that this girl is 17, almost 18 years old. I work mostly with children from infancy to 12 or 13. Nevertheless, the mom tried using a connection technique that I teach all the time to use with children. For one week she was going to give her daughter as many random touches as she could remember.

A random touch looks like this:

• As you walk past the child you reach out and touch them in a friendly way while smiling. No conversation is necessary.
• If you see a child sitting on the couch, a bed, or any place like that, you plop down by them, lean back, and rest for 10 to 30 seconds. Then you squeeze a knee or pat a shoulder and go on your way. No conversation is necessary.

The Result of the Experiment

Here is what came out of the experiment. The relationship felt better. They spent more time together even when tired. Mom was more aware. The daughter talked and mom listened more. My friend and client said that looking at the relationship and asking questions about it helped her to be more conscientious about the fact that the relationship was more important than the management part of parenting. She also said she felt more purposeful in the relationship. She was keenly aware of what she wanted the relationship with her daughter to look and feel like.

After a few weeks of the experiment, she and her daughter had four weeks left of life as they had known it. Her daughter was graduating and moving into a new phase of life. She was leaving home to work for the summer. She and her mom decided to go to lunch once a week for the final four weeks. They were really looking forward to it despite being at odds just a few weeks earlier.

In a family, relationships trump just about everything else. How we see people matters. Our stories about them and their behavior impact how we, as adults, treat them. It doesn’t take much to “shift” a relationship into calmer and more peaceful waters. I like to remember that it isn’t the big things that make relationships firm and comfortable. It is the small and simple things we do on a consistent basis.

Questions To Ask About Your Relationship with Your Child

Here are a few questions that you can ask yourself about the relationship you have with each of your children:

• What is the primary conversation you have with the child? What are you talking about?
• What is the energy/mood between the two of you most of the time?
• What assets does the child bring to the relationship?
• Are there behaviors that block the relationship?
• What are you tolerating in the relationship? A toleration is anything that is draining your energy.

Now design an experiment to try something new. Remember that it is an experiment. You don’t know how it will turn out and that is OK. If you don’t get the result you want, design a new experiment. Like any good scientist, you will eventually find what works!

Share this exciting information with those you care about. Not everyone knows they can experiment.

Encouraging Creativity and Creative Thinking in Children

“When art teacher Kandy Dea recently assigned fourth graders in her Walnut, Iowa, classroom to create a board game to play with a friend, she was shocked by one little boy’s response: He froze. “While his classmates let their imaginations run wild making up colorful characters and fantasy worlds, the little boy repeatedly said, “I can’t think of anything,” Ms. Dea says. Although she reassured him that nothing he did would be judged “wrong,” he tried to copy another student’s game, then asked if he could make a worksheet instead. She finally permitted him to make flashcards with right-and-wrong answers.

“Americans’ scores on a commonly used creativity test fell steadily from 1990 to 2008, especially in the kindergarten through sixth-grade age group, says Kyung Hee Kim, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. The finding is based on a study of 300,000 Americans’ scores from 1966 to 2008 on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, a standardized test that’s considered a benchmark for creative thinking.”

The above story and test results came from an article in the Wall Street Journal on December 15, 2010, A Box? Or A Spaceship? What Makes Kids Creative. I am not particularly interested in test results, and I don’t place a lot of credence on tests themselves. However, as a mom, grandmother, and teacher, I have certainly seen this trend. Some children seem to have more difficulty being creative now than when I was a kid.

Some researchers feel that the growing amount of time children spend on screens has decreased their ability to be creative and to enjoy playtime. Others think that children today have as much creativity as ever but that public schools get a D in encouraging it. The belief is that schools are doing an inferior job of encouraging and supporting creativity in children.

As parents, it would be good to have some ideas about supporting and encouraging our children’s creative thinking. Right? I have to laugh at that. In my day, what our parents did to encourage and support our creativity, was to send us outside and say “go play,” and we did. We had a lot of creative play. We made up games, invented terrific machines, made mud cakes, ran and skipped and hopped and created jump rope games, etc. That is how my parents did it. But today is a new day, a new time, so here are some ways you can encourage creative thinking.

Five Tips to Encourage Creativity

Tip 1 – Solving problems is a way to practice and encourage creativity.
Have family councils. Let your children in on problems that need to be solved. Allow them to voice their ideas. Listen to them with respect. Avoid the tendency to decide that their answers are wrong or silly, or naive. On the contrary, you may be surprised at what great ideas they come up with. I might also add that when answers to problems come from the children in the family, they are much more on board with putting the ideas into practice.

Maybe in your family council, you mention that your elderly neighbor is sick and needs help. What can you do to help her? Your children might volunteer to shovel her walks, water her yard, or sit with her and read; things they might not be willing to do if the idea came from you.

In your council, you might mention that you aren’t sure that you can save enough money for the annual trip to the family reunion, and you wonder what ideas they have to solve the problem. Some may suggest jobs they can do for neighbors, allowance money they can save and donate to the cause, or heaven forbid, they might even be willing to cut off cable for a while. LOL

Tip 2 – Thinking, discussing, and voicing an opinion are ways to encourage creative thought.
Have “mini-conversations” with your children about current events, historical events, books that you are reading. Don’t dumb it down for your children. Make your open-ended questions and comments age-appropriate but dare to talk to your children about things that matter. Even four-year-olds have a viewpoint on what happens in their world.

Tip 3 – Listening to your children’s ideas and valuing them as worthwhile is a great way to encourage creativity in your children. It gives them the courage to keep on thinking.

Refrain from judging your kids’ ideas. I think about Connor, the science-loving kid who started Connors Kits for Kids, an online company that makes kid-friendly science kits for kids. When all he was interested in was science, his parents didn’t freak out. They didn’t think, “Oh my gosh, he has to learn math and reading.” Instead, they came on board with his interest, and he and they bought a lot of science kits. Then, when Connor decided that most kits were not worth the money and wanted to find a way to provide great kits for kids that worked, his parents listened and helped him figure out how to do it. He was in fourth grade!

Tip 4 – Children are naturally creative in their play. Let them play, and amazing results happen.
I loved this example of encouraging children’s creativity from the Wall Street Journal article. “When Maureen Dougherty’s three kids were small, she and her husband Brian encouraged them to make up their own lyrics and dances to nursery rhymes, says Ms. Dougherty, of Stephens City, Va. Hearing Mr. Dougherty and the kids laughing one night, years ago, Ms. Dougherty opened the door to find them stumbling around with their eyes closed, singing original lyrics to ‘The Three Blind Mice.’

“After inventing spontaneous lyrics for years, their children, now 14, 18, and 20, enjoy public speaking and can think of things to say right off the cuff,” Ms. Dougherty says.

Tip 5 – Don’t focus on the outcome.
Adults tend to be outcome-driven, but for children, it is the process that counts. Creativity is in the process of doing. If it fails, then they will try something else if you don’t fall apart. Permit them to fail, and in the long run, they will succeed.

It is helpful to realize that if you raise creative children, they may not always behave like other children. They will feel free to talk, express their ideas; they will be bolder, more courageous. But, unfortunately, this way of being can land them and you in trouble. You will have to be brave and face up to what you have raised. Like me, you may get a pink slip from school stating that you’re 6-year-old is insubordinate. That experience made me laugh. Imagine six and insubordinate. And my grandson, Ben, is not your ordinary 9-year-old. He talks a lot about all the things he is learning. It annoys some adults.

I end with this delightful story from one of my own creative children, the insubordinate six-year-old, Jenny.

In the mid-’80s, flannel shirts were in. I sewed quite a few of them in my size. My six-year-old daughter Jenny loved my shirts and started wearing them to school. Of course, they were way too big for her, actually like a short dress. She solved her problem by pinning them at the neck with a large safety pin. Yikes, she looked like a street urchin; and yes, I had made some in just her size! I just said, “Oh well.” She had solved the problem to her liking and was happy with the result. She wore one of my shirts to school every day.

It wasn’t too many days later that I was called into the school to visit the teacher. She wanted to know if everything was OK at our home; was our money situation OK. (This was a small school, in a tiny town!) I got what was up right away and explained to her what Jenny was doing. The teacher was worried that the pin might pop open during playtime and that Jenny might get stuck. “Well, if that happens, I suspect she will change her wardrobe,” I responded. Jenny wore those ridiculous shirts for a few more weeks. Then she decided that they hampered her ability to play ball and other games, and her wardrobe did change. P.S. That fire dancer in the meme above is that insubordinate six-year-old who wore her mother’s flannel shirts. : )

Raising creative children is an adventure worth having.

Let other moms and dads know that kids who are not run of the mill grow into great adults.

Does Play Matter? More Than You Know!!

The POWER of Play

Parents and children’s brains don’t work the same. That statement won’t surprise any parent. Here is a story you will all relate to. Ted, aged two, hits Sally, age nine months. Sally begins to cry. You hear Sally and come running because lately, Ted has been hitting her more often. Hitting his sister is not ok, and you feel angry. You grab Ted by the shoulders, sit him in a chair, and for the 50th time yell at him that it’s not ok to hit his sister. Then, of course, Ted begins to cry.

In your mind, it’s evident that your grabbing and yelling are connected to Ted hitting his sister. You are wondering why Ted isn’t learning the lesson. You are angry and want this behavior to stop. That’s the message you intend to send. It might not be the best method, but it’s a reasonable message.

This is how Ted’s brain works, “Mommy’s angry, so she yells and hurts me.” Despite your well-intended message, the message Ted’s brain gets is that we yell and strike out when we’re angry. Unfortunately, there’s no connection between your yelling and the hitting of Sally, although, in your mind, it should be obvious.

My point with this example is not to discuss discipline issues but to show that children’s minds don’t process or see the same as our adult minds do. This is especially true in the arena of learning. Children and adult brains see or process learning differently. Children learn through play, which may look to adults like pointless, directionless, frivolous time-wasting.

“Many scientists believe play is hard-wired; a central part of neurological growth and development — one important way that children build complex, skilled, responsive, socially adept and cognitively flexible brains. NYT: Taking Play Seriously 2/17/08

Psychiatrist Stuart Brown, president of the National Institute for Play, created in 1996, said, “If you look at what produces learning and memory and well-being, play is as fundamental as any other aspect of life, including sleep and dreams.” NYT: Taking Play Seriously 2/17/08

“Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits. Alarming headlines about U.S. students falling behind other countries in science and math, combined with the ever-more-intense competition to get kids into college, make parents rush to sign up their children for piano lessons and test-prep courses instead of just leaving them to improvise on their own; playtime versus résumé building.” NYT: Taking Play Seriously 2/17/08

Decades of research have shown that play is crucial to physical, intellectual, and social-emotional development at all ages. This is especially true of the purest form of play: the unstructured, self-motivated, imaginative, independent kind, where children initiate their own games and even invent their own rules.

“Play is motivated by pleasure. It is instinctive and part of the maturational process. We cannot prevent children from self-initiated play; they will engage in it whenever they can. The problem is that we have curtailed the time and opportunities for such play.” David Elkind, Ph.D., The Power of Play: Learning That Comes Naturally.

The temptation we have as adults, especially if we care about our children’s education, is to interfere with our children’s play, trying to make it more structured, directed, with meaningful outcomes—all with good intentions to enhance their learning experience. But remember, children’s brains don’t process the same as adults. Managed, directed, structured play ultimately becomes something other than play, and it’s play that our children’s brains really need.

“For most of human history, children played by roaming near or far in packs, large and small. Younger children were supervised by older children and engaged in freewheeling imaginative play. They were pirates and princesses, aristocrats, and heroes. But, while all that play might have looked a lot like time spent doing nothing much at all, it actually helped build a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of elements, such as working memory and cognitive flexibility. But perhaps the most important is self-regulation— the ability for kids to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline. Executive function — and its self-regulation element — is important.

“Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use, and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child’s IQ. Unfortunately, play has changed dramatically during the past half-century, and according to many psychological researchers, the play that kids engage in today does not help them build executive function skills. Kids spend more time in front of televisions and video games. When they aren’t in front of a screen, they often spend their time in leagues and lessons — activities parents invest in because they believe that they will help their children to excel and achieve. And while it’s true that leagues and lessons are helpful to children in many ways, (researcher Deborah Leong says), they have one unfortunate drawback…when kids are in leagues and lessons, they are usually being regulated by adults. That means they are not able to practice regulating themselves. As a result, (Leong says,) kids aren’t developing the self-regulation skills that they used to.” Creative Play Makes for Kids in Control by Alix Spiegel

Please do not misunderstand me. I am NOT saying that we should allow our children to run feral, although more feral activities would probably do our children some good. I am also NOT saying that we don’t have a role in bringing some direction and structure to our children’s activities. Instead, I AM saying that we would do well, or more accurately, our children would do better if we resisted the temptation to manage their play, trying to make it more meaningful and directed so that we could feel better about their learning outcomes.

I hope you begin to have a mental shift about what’s happening in your children’s brains as they engage in play. Rather than feeling desperate or discouraged about their play and seeming lack of interest in academics, walk with your children as their brains and learning naturally develop and mature. As you walk hand in hand together, prepare appropriately to open doors along the way and do the work necessary to effectively invite and inspire your children to walk through. And by the way, it’s fine if they don’t. The door isn’t closed forever.

One other thing. A BIG distraction to play is technology. I mentioned it briefly above, but I want to repeat it. Kids will stay on screens for hours if we let them. The older they get, the less we can manage their screen time. But your younger children will do better if you have screen-free times during each day.

Here are possibilities to consider:

No phones at mealtime
No screens 30 minutes before bed
No screens for one hour after school time
No screens before school time
For young children, have set screen time, an hour or two a day

This Friday there was no school. My grands were on their screens the minute they woke up. But as the morning wore on, a friend came over, and the screens were discarded for spray bottles and an ensuing water fight. There was a bunch of laughing, running, noise, and commotion. It was fantastic to hear.

If we manage screen time, even if our kids say they are bored, they will find a way to play if we don’t bail them out. Give them time and ignore the pleas of “I’m bored.”

A reminder of why we want our kids to play and the long term value of strong executive function:

They will have a good working memory
They will have stronger cognitive flexibility
They will be able to control their emotions better
They will manage their behavior well
They will have better impulse control. Ever known any adults without this skill?
They will exert more self-control
They will have stronger self-discipline
A more well-developed sense of well-being
More sustained success in school

These skills help children grow into adults who manage well in the world. So, let’s make sure there is time and opportunity for unregulated and imaginative play.

Let’s let other parents know about the POWER of play!

What Use is a Good Imagination?

Jack, Mary, and Ben using the really cool horns they invented.

What use is a good imagination?

It might surprise you to know that when child development experts talk about “critical thinking skills” and “creative problem-solving abilities,” they refer to the imagination. That is what our imagination helps us to do. For human beings to have well-developed imaginations, you provide children with opportunities to exercise their imaginations. This practice happens best when children PLAY. In fact, some child development experts believe it is the only place that it happens. Play is also the place where executive functioning is developed in children. Executive functioning is a must to become a fully developed, successful adult.

A good question you, as parents, might ask yourselves is, “Are you providing your children enough opportunities for this type of play.” It is a good question because organized sports, music lessons, dance lessons, karate lessons don’t count. Playing board games with the family doesn’t count and doing just about anything on the computer doesn’t count. TV doesn’t count and playing video games doesn’t count. These things don’t count because, in the case of organized sports or lessons, etc., children are not free to use their imaginations and creativity. In the rest, they are watching someone else’s creativity and imagination.

In my mentoring, this comes up because it is a problem for parents. They don’t want their kids to waste time. They don’t want wasted materials. They don’t want messes. But these are the things that go into imaginative play, playing with paints, play dough, costumes, glue, and crayons—making a mess. Exploring the woods, splashing in a puddle, wondering how a caterpillar inches by, or pretending to be a tiger, stalking in the jungle are ways to increase a child’s imagination. These types of play use time, resources and often create a mess.

Homemade guns. Notice that Benny’s is a play drill and Mary’s is an umbrella.

In today’s world, there is a push to make sure that our children are prepared for life, go to college, get a good job. Often parents think that if they give their children too much free time, they are wasting their opportunities to prepare. Even though this thought comes from the best of intentions, it is not helpful for children. Children need time and space to develop their creative imaginations free from adult agendas. So even if your children complain, “I’m bored! There’s nothing to do!” please trust that if you leave them to figure it out for themselves, how to fill their time, their innate creativity will kick in, and their imaginations will soar!

When I was a child, my parents were not involved in managing our days. We had our chores to do and possibly homework, but when they were finished, we were free, and frankly, we made the most of it. We acted out all the fairy tales we knew. I served as a soldier, nurse, or bad guy in every war I had ever learned about. We made mud cakes and decorated them; we hand-stitched doll clothes; we painted and used clay. We made houses out of fall leaves, and we built innumerable forts out of snow. We had plenty of time for play.

This type of play is a challenge today because our children are growing up in a digital world. They will carry that world in their pockets. But with your help, they can be taught while small, to play and use their imaginations. The first five years of a child’s life are the most suitable time. Here are five tips to help you help your young child use their imagination.

Five Tips to Strengthen Imagination

1. Help your child to activate their imagination. Engage in their play. If they bring you something they have drawn or made, ask them about it, pretend-play with them.
2. Ask thoughtful questions. I especially like this at mealtimes. I wonder what would… What if…
3. Make time for imaginative thinking and play. Make sure there is plenty of free and unstructured time to think, explore and pursue interests and ideas. There is evidence that playing outdoors and in nature stimulates imagination and learning. In addition, some quiet time alone can help children to plan and work through an idea.
4. Encourage different experiences. Read together. Make up stories in the car or at dinner. Visit museums, botanical gardens, parks, etc.
5. Show your playful side and imagination. I have written about this a lot. What you model for your kids is what they will copy. So even if play isn’t your thing, choose to be silly, to pretend on occasion, and to let your hair down.

Jack’s Darth Vader mask (the lid to the pop corn popper)

If your children are older than five, all is not lost. Have you seen the car commercial where the parents look back at their children and ask, “Do you still have bars?” while they are using their phones. At some point, the kids reply, “No, nothing.” And there it is. Get your kids away from all that is digital. Go camping, boating, have screen-free time in your day, put phones away during meals, and ask questions or make up a story with each person taking a turn to add to the plot. With some thought, you can help your older children to imagine.

I recall a family meeting my daughter had with her older kids. All the phones were turned off. The tv was off. No one called on Alexa for anything. They each had poster paper and a stack of old magazines and photos printed off the computer. They talked about what they would like to have happen in their family in the next three years. Where would they like to go, who would they like to see, what did they want to do. Then they used markers, scissors, and glue to create what that would look like for them. They had a great evening, and it used their imaginations.

If you want your children to go to college, have a good job, be successful and happy adults, then encourage them to play and use their imagination!

Let’s help kids use their imaginations and share the value of doing so with others!

Technology is a Two-edged Sword

Technology has been a boon in so many ways. I am amazed at how well versed my nine-year-old grandson is in the use of technology. I watch other kids, and I am equally impressed. But technology, for kids, also has downsides. Here is one that I regularly see with the children that I interact with often; they have a more challenging time filling their time when technology isn’t available.

Because her kids are still relatively small, one of my daughters has some very consistent technology rules. Her kids must fill many hours of their day with ordinary play. This need to play is valuable because when kids play without adults, they develop their executive function skills, which are vital to becoming successful adults.

But children who have access to technology for many hours a day have a more challenging time engaging in inventive play with other kids. And this doesn’t just impact small children. I remember watching a group of teens sitting on the steps by my apartment. They were all together, but they were talking to each other on their phones. For over ten minutes, not a single word was spoken. No one looked up from their phones to even look at each other.

I watch my grands play video games with their friends. They aren’t in the same house. They are yelling and laughing with each other, but they cannot see each other’s body language and reactions in real-time. The way many kids play and interact with other kids has changed.

However, if we are wise, we will manage the technology use of our younger children. Of course, as they move into their teens, the time does come when you must let go more, but you can help them practice managing this two-edged sword for a while.

There are some good reasons for managing your childrens technology as well as your own:

1. Technology makes you grouchy – A study done by the Boston Medical Center revealed that parents who get absorbed by email, games, or other apps have more negative interactions with their children.

The Boston Medical Center study was conducted by Dr. Jenny Radesky, a fellow in developmental and behavioral pediatrics. Because she’s an expert on children’s behavior, she was curious as to how the allure of smartphones might affect the quality of time parents and their children spend together. What did they find? Radesky and her team reported there were “a lot of instances where there was very little interaction, harsh interaction or negative interaction” between the adults and the children.

2. Technology contributes to losing the ability to relate to others – remember those teens I observed? Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson of Seattle Children’s Hospital commented, “My concern is that if the device use becomes really excessive, and it replaces our day-to-day interactions, then kids won’t get much practice with having conversations, reading social cues, and responding sensitively to something that the other person expresses.” (“Don’t Text While Parenting—It Will Make You Cranky”).

A Wall Street Journal article describes “silent fluency” as “the ability to read cues like tone, body language, and facial expressions. Email and texts don’t convey empathy, tone, or subtext the way face-to-face or phone conversations do. We have to learn those things by interacting with real people.” (Bauerlein, “Why Gen-Y Johnny Can’t Read Nonverbal Cues”).

Larry Rosen, a well-known psychologist who has studied the psychology of Facebook interaction, wrote, “Our study showed that real-world empathy is more important for feeling as though you have solid social support.” (Larry Rosen, “Why Would Kids Who Spend More Time On Facebook Display More Empathy Online and In Real Life?”).

Isn’t that what we want in our families? Don’t we want our children to feel solidly supported? Don’t we want them to be able to support each other? Of course, we do. Most of us want this feeling in our family culture, but we won’t move as efficiently or effectively in the correct direction unless we model interactions between real people more often than we model interactions with technology.

3. Technology creates emotional distance and loneliness – Steiner-Adair interviewed 1,000 children between the ages of 4 and 18 to learn about their parents’ use of their mobile devices and how the kids felt about it. The words they used over and over again were “sad, mad, angry and lonely.” (Neighmond, “For the Children’s Sake, Put Down That Smartphone”).

In short, kids and parents begin to experience an emotional disconnect. This can prove problematic as children grow and experience more challenging things because who can they talk to? It won’t be those with whom they feel little connection or trust. There’s a sense of isolation and loneliness when technology is too prevalent in a home.

Turning away from technology and getting Present with your children will pay huge dividends when they become youth and young adults. It will impact your long-term adult relationship as well.

4. Technology gives the illusion of naughty children and makes for weary parents – Technology can make kids act out. Review #1 above. It can make kids cranky, and if you are too involved in your tech, they will act out to get your attention.

There are many books out there on how technology can affect your children’s brains for good and ill. There are also a ton of books on how to help not just your kids, but your family manage technology. Here is the thing that I think will help you the most – remember your summers. Those lazy days were filled with running and jumping and laughing and playing. And when you remember, you will want that a bit more of that for your kids.

So how do you manage technology?

As I said, there are lots of books on the subject but here are three tips to get you started:

1. Have set times when you and your children will use technology. I know a mom
who realized checking her computer first thing in the morning was messing up her day. She decided to turn the computer off each night before bed and leave it off until afternoon the next day. It’s made a world of difference

2. Try unplugging. Have a day, a few times a week, each month, or each year when you completely unplug. A few years ago, I shared how one family goes screen-free once a month each year. Yup, a whole month! Unplugging gives your mind a break. It re-energizes you. It puts you back in control.

Sunday is my day to unplug. I don’t scroll through social media, look things up online, write or answer emails, send texts, etc. Instead, I use my phone to visit with friends in real, live conversations. It is refreshing and rejuvenates my spirit.

3. Decide on technology-free times for your family. Which regular family activities will be technology-free? During those times, turn off all technology, including landline phones as well as cell phones. There are many possibilities—mealtime, family reading time, car time, bedtime, and family meeting/activity nights, to name a few.

When we take control of our use of technology and help our family members learn to control theirs, it is easier to feel connected and supported as a family; it is easier to create a family culture of Presence.

Take the time to make a technology plan for your family. Then share it with your friends.

Sparks Bring Learning to Life!

What Are Sparks?

I have talked about children’s ‘SPARKS’ in numerous articles and in my book, Becoming A Present Parent. In fact, the issue of Sparks came up in last week’s comments – Can Children LOVE Learning? What’s a Spark, you may ask? Well, a Spark is anything that a child says or does that lets you know they’re interested in something right now. Sparks are valuable regardless of how you choose to educate your children.

My daughter Kate is not a homeschooling mom. However, last year, due to Covid, she became one. It isn’t something she plans to continue doing. But she, like most moms, is interested in teaching her children about life, core values, people, events, and other worthwhile topics. This type of learning occurs well in the family and home. Recently, Kate shared a person of interest with her children, Tessa and Elliott – Lily Hevesh, @hevesh5 a well-known domino artist. Elliott and Tessa have been in love with dominos for years. Tessa and Elliott were intrigued by this woman artist and what she had accomplished. For well over an hour, they worked on their own domino creations. My daughter sent me photos and included these words – ‘Light a spark and watch it burn!’ I loved it because those are my words. I didn’t even know she was paying attention to them. : )

If we keep our eyes open, we will notice what interests our children. We will see what is ‘sparking ‘them right now. That is the thing to hone in on and help your children with, whether it is getting materials they need, teaching them about a famous person who also has that Spark, or giving them space to experiment and create a mess.

HOW TO SEE SPARKS

A. Be Present. Do you want to know the number one way to see and hear your child’s Sparks? BE PRESENT. When we’re Present in all the mundane moments of a family’s day, we will see and hear what we may have missed up until now.

It’s hard to see Sparks if your head is filled with your schedule or if you’re engrossed in your technology. It’s hard to ‘see’ if you’re trying to avoid becoming involved or prevent a mess. You can’t see if you’re so busy working that the Spark appears to be an irritation or problem.

B. Ask good questions. You can jump-start your ability to see your children’s Sparks by asking yourself questions:
• What activity do you have to make them stop doing to get them to eat or go to sleep?
• What activity are they doing when they seem most engaged and alive?
• When they get to choose what to do on a free afternoon, what activity do they choose?
• What did they love to do when they were three years old? Five years old?
• What are they currently doing that bugs you?
• What do they do that’s making a mess?
• What do they collect?

C. Have mini-conversations.
• Share your Sparks, and they may share theirs
• Say “You’re very good at this”
• Say “You seem interested in this”
• Say, “This appears to make you happy/excited.”
• Ask, “Have you ever thought of . . . .”
• Say, “I had a great day today.”
• At dinner, ask “What was the best part of your day?” and have each person share

Pay attention to what keeps coming up over and over again in their answers and their conversations.

When we are in tune with what interests our children now, we can watch them experience joy just as Kate watched it happen for her children. Let others know how to do it too. : )

Can Children LOVE Learning?

For many families, school has begun in earnest. Whether you are using the public system, a private system, or homeschooling, September usually means we are deep into it. Some years back, I wrote an article about how to help children remain lifelong learners, to become lovers of learning.

As I reread it, I was reminded of the value of helping our children love learning new things, to not be intimidated by what they do not already know. We don’t have total control if we use the public system or a private system to educate our kids. However, we always have control over what happens in our homes and between our children and us.

Homeschool parents are not immune to things that can take away a child’s love of learning. So often, there is the pressure to make sure our kids are up to par because parents may feel the need to prove they aren’t ‘ruining’ their kids. I have homeschooled, and I know that pressure!

I feel the information is as pertinent today as it was when I first wrote it. I hope you enjoy the read and that it gives you an idea or two that you can institute into your home to help your kids become lifelong learners by choice.

“But I must again repeat it, that the great secret of education lies in finding out the proper means of making young minds fall in love with useful researches…”
-George Turnbull, Observations upon Liberal Education, written in 1742

This is an interesting premise. If we can discern how to help children fall in love with learning, they can receive an excellent education because they want to.

I believe this love of learning comes naturally to children. I’m sure you have observed how children learn. Just watch a baby learning to use their hands. They are not discouraged by how long it takes to gain mastery over the hand. They just keep working at it. No one tries to help a baby learn to use their hands. We just watch them and encourage them and let them work it out. The same goes for learning to hold a spoon, walking, putting on a shirt, etc. We provide the spoon and the shirt and support and encouragement, but basically, let them work it out.

Watch an eight-year-old building a fort. They are dogged when it comes to a project like this and, if left to their own devices, will figure it out and enjoy every bit of the process. The finished product may leave a bit to be desired in our adult minds, but the child will be thrilled with his effort.

Herein lies part of the problem of maintaining a love of learning. The parent might comment on the unsafe condition of the floor or walls; how many nails they used, what of this or that could be better, the pile of accumulated debris. Then the comment, “Here, let me help you with this.” Both teachers and parents must be careful not to damage a child’s confidence in their efforts to help. They also need to be cautious about sending the ‘you didn’t really do a good job’ message.

Sometimes parents have a fear that their child might be left behind, in some way found wanting, or not be able to compete in the adult world effectively. Often, if children march to a different drummer, it makes us nervous. Occasionally a child doesn’t fit on the usual timeline for learning something, such as reading or math.

Our eagerness to help them can sometimes do more harm than good. If we are too energetic in our efforts, we can even cause a ‘hate of learning.’ We often fall into this trap regarding the ‘academic’ subjects or things that cause us inconvenience. School teachers are not immune to these same errors. Pushing too hard and criticism make loving a new skill or topic difficult for kids.

Ten Ways to Foster a Love of Learning

So, what are some ways that we can encourage learning in any subject, even academics, without squashing the child’s own natural desire to learn?

1. Provide a safe and loving atmosphere for learning, more support, less pressure. Safer support would have helped me when it came to math. I loved math, but I was terrible at it. The harder the adults pushed, the more challenging it was to learn. It seemed to slow down my brain. Later, as an adult, I realized that I had a learning difficulty. I wish I had felt supported and safe when it came to math but I, instead, felt judged.

2. Provide inspiring materials. Expose children to inspiring music, great art, good books, etc. When I was of middle school age and into high school, I was teased by my friends because I read all the wrong stuff. That is because my dad had so many great books. I couldn’t help myself. What my friends were reading seemed lame. : )

My mother sang beautifully. She didn’t sing opera, but she played it, and she sang songs from Broadway. I didn’t listen to the same music as my peers. Yes, they did think I was a bit odd, but I had been exposed to the beauty of literature, art, and music. It changed how I saw the world.

If you want help exposing your kids to great art and literature, check out this excellent website. The Well Educated Heart (aka Libraries of Hope) is a restoration of stories from the golden age of children’s literature. Marlene Peterson has reconnected the modern generation of parents and children to the classic but forgotten stories that have instilled virtue and character in the hearts of generations past.

3. Read as a family on a regular, consistent basis. Reading as a family has great benefits. Even now, when my family consists of three people over seventy, I have written about the huge impact our family reading has had. This one thing will make a difference in your family and your children’s love of learning.

4. Inspire curiosity and then leave them to the wonder of experimentation and self-discovery. My grandson, Ben, loves this! Let them, experiment, fail, make a mess, etc. It leads to learning.

5. Leave plenty of time for thinking, playing, and being with family. Avoid too many lessons, clubs, and classes that adults manage. I have often written of the value of being at home, together, talking, reading, and playing. It takes effort to make this happen in our busy world of technology, but you will be well rewarded for the effort. Gotta put away the phone for at least a couple of hours each week. It takes dedication on a parent’s part, but you can do it. I’ve seen it.

6. Remember that play is the work of children. Encourage your kids to go outside and be in nature. Let them work stuff out together without adult supervision. Experiment with time off from technology. Organized sports and clubs don’t count. When kids are free to play and use their imagination, it does a body good.

7. Be patient with the learning process. I know I would have had a better outcome with math if those who taught me and those at home who felt responsible for my learning, would have been more patient with my timeline. I had a learning difficulty. Back in those days, we didn’t even know what that was. But there was such a push to move me along with everyone else that it became harder and harder to learn.

8. Learn to recognize and respond to Sparks. Sparks tell you what your child is interested in right now and may develop a passion for later. They are usually the things that bug you or make a mess. However, if you follow your child’s lead, you can both have a remarkable learning opportunity together.

9. Enjoy learning yourself. I read because my dad read and made books available. My mom read to us. She played all kinds of music and sang for us. My mom and dad taught themselves to run several brick-and-mortar businesses. They were always learning something new. It helped me be brave and willing to learn new things This example has served me well! Right now, at 71, I am learning Spanish!

10. Share what you are learning with your children. I would have loved to have more conversations with my mom and dad about what they were doing, reading, and learning. I know it would have helped me, but their example was all they could give at the time. So, give your children a bit more. Let them know what you are learning about.

When we safeguard this natural love of learning, we set the child on the road to success when they are ready for deeper levels of knowledge. They will be prepared to flourish in high school and college studies. They will do as George Turnbull suggests; they will seek out an excellent education.