Healthy eating is on my mind after a rather long string of delicious meals during our two-week trip to Croatia and the holidays. Plus, there is just something about NOW–as in Tracy Chapman’s song, If Not Now, Then When? I practically cry when I hear that song for the things I am not doing in my life that I know would lead to happiness, connection, and longevity.
With healthy eating, old habits die hard. And I pass those old habits on to those I love who eat with me. If “you are what you eat,” what is the impact I have on my kids after 18+ years of three meals per day. If I want to be alive and healthy with my grandkids at 70 and 80, what am I doing now in service of that? If I want my CHILDREN to be alive and healthy with THEIR grandkids at 70 and 80, what am I doing now in service of THAT? Back to “If Not Now, Then When?”
My colleague Cynthia Gulick, DO, a Portland family practitioner, has seen such an increase in obesity and diabetes that she founded Oregon Medical Weight Loss & Wellness. Her interventions have reversed diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, fatty liver, sleep apnea and depression for many people. She focuses on prevention and especially loves to help families with weight-challenged kids step up to a level of energy, of thriving, that isn’t just surviving. She feels strongly that weight-challenged families need to stop blaming themselves, or their kids, for medical forces that often are a factor but are usually hidden–especially because they CAN be treated effectively.
To help you help your kids on to a healthy lifestyle, I’ve asked Dr. Gulick to share her thoughts with you.
From guest author Dr. Cythnia Gulick
Picture this: You’re hosting a “baseball” birthday party for your nine-year-old. Like a pack of puppies, all the kids have careened outside to the front yard, engrossed with a game. Plates of birthday cake with melting puddles of ice cream lie abandoned for the lure of the outdoors, for the compelling draw of playing together outside in a manic, festive, boyish romp. Except. . . . there’s one, maybe two kids, for whom the lure of play is overridden by what must clearly be compelling, physical, internal cues of hunger.
I’ve raised four kids, and the three boys were teenagers at the same time. In my peripheral vision, I was often aware of how hungry some members of their gang always were. It’s those kids who cycle back through the kitchen foraging for more chips, or more birthday cake, or more soda, even when the birthday games are in full swing.
We’ve all seen this, or something like it. When we think of these children, it’s easier to see that hunger is truly a BIOLOGICALLY loaded internal cue. These kids do not have “weak wills”; they are not lacking in moral fortitude! The whole burden of blame that we tend to lay on ourselves as adults for our weight challenges seems more transparently absurd when we think about it in the context of kids.
Overweight kids are hungry, period. They’re driven by strong internal cues, of which they’re completely unaware, that are both discoverable and modifiable. In fact, many of these kids have high levels of insulin resistance from an unfortunate combination of a genetic predisposition (to diabetes) and a “carboholic” environment, in which not just soda and fast food but fruit juice, fruit products, and packaged food laden with high fructose corn syrup have become so much the norm that we don’t even “see” it as abnormal anymore. (For more information by Dr. Gulick on insulin resistance, check out this additional article, “Helping Overweight Kids: Could the Culprit be Insulin Resistance?”
But What to Do!?
The bottom line is, we need to get kids to eat food that’s good for them. Parents often tell me, with respect to even their smallest children, they just can’t get them to eat vegetables and they can’t stand the amount of whining, pressuring and pestering they get to buy the junk food, fast food, and soda. In response to this, there’s a marvelous story to tell about a study done with pigeons.
Pigeons are quite easily trained to peck an orange circle on the floor of their cage if they’re rewarded with a grain of rice each time they do so. On the other hand, if the researcher stops rewarding them, they continue to peck in expectation of the grain of rice, for approximately 19 more times. After that, they give up. It’s quite predictable. They can and do learn that it’s futile to peck any more: 19 pecks, plus or minus and it’s over.
On the other hand, if that pigeon is given a grain on the 19th peck, then the pigeon will go 90 more times pecking on the orange circle in an attempt to gain the grain again. Intermittent rewards are the most reinforcing. The gambling industry has studied this carefully and makes huge profits off this essential animal behavioral characteristic. Witness the ubiquitous slot machines.
How to apply this to parenting? If you’re going to have SOME candy in your child’s life, make a ritual of it, make it fun, have it be your “special day,” but have it be predictable, foreseeable, anticipatable. The child then learns there is no candy on any other days–just on Halloween or on birthdays, Christmas and Valentine’s, or whatever you decide. Pick your rituals, make your boundaries, and then stick to them. If you stick to your guns, the pecking and whining will exhaust itself much sooner than if you give in intermittently. Relenting occasionally is the worst-case scenario. It leads to parental “death by pecking” from the child’s whining that’s been reinforced occasionally. The child will play you–just like a slot machine.
What If My Child HATES Vegetables!?
With respect to the ubiquitous complaint that children just despise vegetables no matter how they are served, Sarah Fragoso, who wrote the cookbook Everyday Paleo, has a great suggestion: namely that you involve your kids in the game or the craft, the PROJECT of preparing or even picking a vegetable from the market. “When your kids sit on the counter with you, and you give them a job and make them feel important, and don’t focus on the fact that you’re prepping broccoli and chicken—if you have them choose the spices and stir it and make a big fuss over what they’ve accomplished. . . well, it’s amazing what kids will do if you let them help you,” Fragoso says.
Use your imagination with respect to how you can make your vegetable “project” more akin to a craft project that you will build or create together. Once kids are involved with vegetables from the picking of them at the store or off your porch window box, they are much more invested in embracing the outcome of their culinary explorations.
Get Healthy! A Few Tips from Dr. Gulick:
So, what is clear through all my experience and research is this:
- Eat more protein for breakfast. It keeps you satisfied longer. Simple carbs (like most breakfast cereals) stimulate hunger. Hard-boiled eggs can be eaten in the car, too, if necessary.
- Less, or better yet, NO soda or fruit juices. Drink water, water, water! Try zero-low calorie flavored waters. Some even taste like soda!
- Have healthy snacks READY. String cheese, veggies, plain yogurt sweetened with berries and a little honey or Stevia, etc. Try Veggie Cars! (Celery sticks with peanut butter, sliced carrots for wheels and a few raisins for the passengers!) Now there’s an irresistible veggie craft project!
Dr. Kathy, back here with you! Many thanks to Dr. Gulick for her comments. I would like to add one last tip: Exercise, exercise, exercise! There is NO excuse. Start with 10-minute walks, three times a day. Make the walks family time. Do it until it doesn’t feel right NOT to do it. It doesn’t take long. Or get your family hooked on hiking, biking, rafting, skiing, whatever.
Also, if you feel you need a little boost to get started on your path to healthy eating, get empowered with “Personal Power” as outlined in our January emPower Monthly. If you remember from that issue, intention is everything! Set your intention. Commit for 21 days. Then see the change become reality.
Here’s to your healthy family!
Dr. Kathy
P.S. The topic of healthy eating is near and dear to my heart. So much so, that I’m offering a free phone chat to talk more about it. See the details under “Webinars” at www.family-empower.com and join me on February 9th at noon!
Personal power is simply this: believing you have the power to make choices that influence what happens in your life. Imagine if your child believed this about him/herself!
Personal power is one of the 40 Developmental Assets identified by the Search Institute as being indicators of how well a child thrives. According to this research-based organization, a child has Asset #37 (personal power) when “the child feels he or she has some influence over things that happen in his or her life.”
Personal power starts early and grows slowly–from her simply crawling away in glee from a caregiver, to his outright “no” at two, to eventual self-management skills–depending somewhat on how much practice he/she gets with age-appropriate responsibilities. Of course, children who feel loved and supported unconditionally are more apt to feel secure enough to take appropriate risks and learn so they can grow up confident, competent, and thriving.
As with so, so many things we want for our children, their personal power begins with us. Yes, it is another lecture on modeling! As a new year begins, ask yourself what you could do to maximize your own belief that you have control over what happens to you. How can you model setting goals and achieving them? How can you demonstrate coping skills and healthy ways to deal with frustration and challenges? How can you show your children that you have control of your own life?
Here are some tools to help you with your own personal power while nurturing that of your child(ren):
1. CHOICE THEORY
William Glasser, author of Choice Theory, summarizes personal power in a few key concepts:
- No one can control you.
- You can’t control anyone else. (All you can do is share information with others.)
- If you are not happy and content with your life, what are you doing about it?
Ultimately, what choices you make in this moment on this day will lead to the life you want. William Glasser helped me to rid my life of the word “should” and the baggage that comes with it. Now, if I want X outcome, I think: “I must do 1.2.3. to get there.” This is what life coaching is all about: defining clear goals and exploring steps to get there.
Parents struggling with their teens find this approach invaluable. Switching from “telling” adolescents what to do to “asking” them about their choices gets teens thinking about why they do what they do and the steps things take. This is an approach we focus on in our “Connect by Coaching Your Kid” class starting next month. Occasionally, you may have the shocking experience of hearing your words come out of their mouths. More often, as you give them more responsibility and choice, they will “fall down” from a poor decision and need to learn how to get back up. No one develops personal power muscle unless he/she gets a chance to practice.
2. LEARNED OPTIMISM
A fascinating glimpse behind personal power is to look at the opposite: learned helplessness. At 13, Martin Seligman watched his father go from being a successful lawyer to a depressed, wheelchair-bound invalid after a stroke. Later, in his psychology training, Seligman did research with dogs that were “taught” helplessness. Dogs heard a tone followed by an inescapable shock. Eventually, most of the dogs “learned” that nothing they did made a difference, so, even when they were placed in a new chamber they could easily escape, most of them responded to the tone alone by curling up and whimpering. Seligman related this sense of helplessness to the despair he had seen in his dad. But his research uncovered something else: Approximately one in three of the dogs refused to give in to helplessness. That exact same ratio showed up in follow-up research with cockroaches, rats, goldfish, and even humans.
In search of how individuals can defy the odds and refuse to be helpless, Seligman focused on how people explain good and bad events in their lives. He determined that people with an optimistic explanation of events spring back from set-backs, whereas a pessimistic style of brutal honesty can lead to a life of despair. According to his research, which has been confirmed with hundreds of studies, optimists take good events and globalize them; and they contain bad events. This is what we should want for our children. We don’t want to teach them “helplessness” by never allowing them to use their personal power, even starting at a very early age. Rather, we want them to be optimistic about their future and believe they have the personal power to defy any odds.
Consider some inspiring examples of personal power despite set-backs. Thomas Edison’s teachers, for example, said he was “too stupid to learn anything,” and Albert Einstein’s parents thought he was “sub-normal.”
Providing our kids with the modeling and practice for personal power is not about puffing up self esteem. Rather, it’s about raising children with optimism and skill mastery. Seligman’s book, The Optimistic Child: A Revolutionary Program That Safeguards Children Against Depression and Builds Lifelong Resilience, is a must-read. You will find in the booka quiz on optimism. You might also want to check out Seligman’s Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life as well as his website, where you’ll find many other questionnaires on hope and happiness.
3. INTENTION
Wanting to have personal power and to be optimistic-–and wanting our children to have personal power and to be optimistic–is all about intention. Life is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy. If you want a good life, you must be clear about what you want–whether the “good” relates to health, happiness, fun, love, or close connection. Then you must believe to the depths of your soul that what you intend is already true. Lastly, let go. When you align your feelings, actions, thoughts, “the good” happens. (Jim Carrey agrees that “intention is everything.”)
Granted, young kids do not have the abstract brain for intention-setting, but it is possible during the teen years. For the younger ones, hearing and seeing us model intention is paramount. Treat them as optimistic beings with personal power and they will know themselves as such. For teens, we should have set the stage for them during their young years and then provide opportunities for them to set intentions and exercise their fulfillment strategies on their own. And then let them fly!
4. CHANGE YOUR MIND AND YOU CHANGE YOUR BRAIN
Personal power and all its benefits become second nature only with practice, practice, practice. The more you practice doing something differently, the stronger the new neural pathways become in your brain. The saying is, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” Science says it differently: “Neurons that wire together, fire together.” This means that, when I am hungry and long for a chocolate bar but I choose to put an apple in my mouth, I am laying down new neural pathways between hunger alert and “apple” that get stronger every time I practice.
This is the origin of the idea that it takes 21 days to change a habit. In 21 days, new neural pathways have begun to replace the old pathways. I am saying out loud to all of you that I am starting a new habit this month. I am getting up early to meditate at least 20 minutes for the next 21 days. And I really, really want this habit to stick. By the February emPower Monthly, it will be well ingrained. Then I plan to start drinking vegetable juice every morning. I have the power to make this happen.
What habit are you willing to commit to right now? No yelling, walking 20 minutes daily, paying bills efficiently, taking vitamins…? How will you learn optimism and practice it? How will you help your child to build personal power to set him/her on a course toward a life of health and happiness? Believe it, practice it, and it will be so!
With inspiration for all you do,
Dr Kathy
P.S. If the idea of interpersonal neurobiology intrigues you and you want more, get a group of friends together to read The Brain That Changes Itself, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom, and Rick Hanson’s articles on family.
If you are fascinated by optimism and positive psychology, click on this link, or check out work-related optimism questionnaires here.
Lastly, for those of you who have been interested enough to read to the very end, we could not leave out this every interesting quote by Martin Seligman that explains optimism and pessimism. In an Omni interview entitled “How to make friends and win presidential elections: Try a little optimism,” Seligman says, “Optimists, it turns out, have a lopsided view of the universe that makes them resistant to defeat. If something good happens, optimists think they did it (personalization); the positive effects will affect everything else they try (permanence); the goodness will last forever (persistence). If something bad happens, they’re not to blame; the failure won’t affect anything else they try; the negative effects will be fleeting. Optimists have exactly the opposite explanations of good and bad events. Pessimists are more logically consistent, applying the same view of causality to good and bad events . . . which is probably the reason they are more vulnerable to feelings of helplessness and depression.”
Ah, the holidays! I hope the commencement of this season brings you joy and anticipation of sharing, caring and connection—rather than thoughts of gift lists, over-commitment and stress. The choice is yours. As long as you are intentional about what you truly want for the holidays, you can make that magic happen.
For me, I make sure the holidays are a time of intergenerational connection, not only with my younger and older family members, but also with those in my congregation, my neighborhood, my city. One strong Christmas memory is drinking sweet tea with my Grammy while we roll out her thick, delicious shortbread cookies . . . a feeling there is no where else I would rather be. Unconditional love, stories of about raising her family in Alaska, funny things my dad did as a boy. And I am reminded that such intergenerational connection does not just have to happen over the holidays. We should be pro-active about spending time with people of other ages throughout the year and throughout our lives.
Grand-parenting is a natural relationship for connecting old and young. I so admire my friends who are grandparents. One has a magical forest where the grandkids search for fairies. Another created “Grandma Camp,” with morning walks and learning babysitting with a baby cousin. A new friend I met at the Indianapolis School Counselors Conference set up a very intentional, respectful relationship with her grandsons. They call her Ancient, as in “wise elder.” Ancient and Grandpa create contracts detailing the projects their grandsons will do during their annual summer visits. The boys love these contracts. One time they explored a profession they were interested in–with the corresponding salary, and what housing and lifestyle they could afford with it. Another time, after taking a cooking class, the boys played “food critics,” writing up reviews of every restaurant they visited.
But the call to blend young and old goes beyond the joys of grand-parenting to the very wellbeing of each of us. Consider the Search Institute’s Developmental Assets. Among the 40 assets this venerable institution has identified as instrumental in helping young people grow up to be healthy, caring and responsible is having support from 1) three or more non-parent adults and 2) caring neighbors. The point is that connection with the older generation—whether adult neighbors, aunts, uncles, scout leaders, pastors, rabbis, teachers, grandparents or great-grandparents–significantly enhances the lives of the young.
Both age groups, however, benefit. In our featured book, The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy Families, David Niven warns, “Never lose sight of the fact that time spent with children does you as much good as it does the child.” He supports his comments with a 2003 study by J. Williamson showing that “more than eight out of ten relatives who have close contact with a child have strongly positive feeling about the experience.” In another chapter of his book, a retirement home resident had this to say about a visit from young people: “It was like a jolt of energy for everyone here.”
Today, youth under 15 still outnumber elders over 65 by about 1.5 to 1, but that is expected to change for the first time in history. Before 2050 in the United States, elders will outnumber youth. In a society that worships youth and institutionalizes age-segregation (schools and retirement homes), distrust and suspicion can brew between the different ages. Niven notes that, despite generational differences in ideas, views and perceptions, everyone, regardless of age, “has a desire to share a connection with people.” Making that connection happen and preventing barriers from brewing begins with us. We must be pro-active about intergenerational connection.
Mary Pipher, author of Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, says: “The more we love and respect our elders, the more we teach our children to love and respect us.” In her book, Mary shares insights into getting old, going to a place none of us has ever been (thus “Another Country”). Mary “maps out strategies that help bridge the gaps that separate us from our elders. She offers us new ways of supporting each other–new ways of sharing our time, our energy, and our love.” This can be very helpful for today’s parents taking care of their own parents, too.
It is ironic that the people with the most time on their hands, the elderly and youth, both want more time from us in-betweens who have the least time to spare. Very little is being put in place to bring these two groups together, to not only understand each other, but to support each other.
A place that close relationships among all generations can happen is at places of worship. For example, every year at my congregation we have an Un-birthday party for everyone. We divide up by birthday months. It is incredibly exciting to meet someone who has my same birthday. We work on an art project, talk about what we love about our May birthday, and eat cake together. Simple and fun.
Another touching example of bringing the generations together happens at All Seasons Pre-School in Inver Grove Heights, MN. This preschool has taken a bold step toward combining young and old. Their 3-5 year olds spend their days in a senior living community. All Seasons says, “The research to support intergenerational programming is strong and consistent. Young children need the wisdom and patience of the older generation, and old people need the innocence and vitality that only a young child can offer. Long-term studies show lasting benefits to young and old living and working together. Children who spend a significant amount of time with senior adults demonstrate improved vocabulary and advanced social skills, particularly in the areas of inclusiveness and empathy. In the older population, boredom, loneliness, and helplessness are alleviated.” The best evidence of the success of this unique model is in the joyful faces of All Seasons’ young and old.
Relationships across generations make us feel connected–not only to each other but also to something bigger: to the flow of life, to the past and to the future. In this hectic, high-tech world, we need this sense of connection. In fact, we crave it. It helps us to understand where we’ve come from, who we are, where we’re going, and why we’re going there
Take advantage of the natural flow of the holiday season and have fun engaging with people of all ages.
Happy holidays to you and yours,
Dr. Kathy
P.S. You can start your intergenerational journey with the help of Vital Aging Network which offers programs and ideas to engage young and old. Across Generations has kits and free activities for families, schools, senior centers and community groups. One example is the Grandparents Day Kit, inspired by the children’s book, Something to Remember Me By: A Story about Love and Legacies.
This is not your usual, “How to Help Your Kids to Sleep” article, although it started out that way. When our kids are sleep deprived, parents get to experience/notice that extra challenge of conflict around everything: school activities, homework, chores, piano practice. Lucky us. But as I explored this topic, one thing stood out: We’re not modeling good sleep routines.
Granted, most of us know the numbers: Babies need anywhere from 10.5-18 hours of sleep; pre-schoolers, anywhere from 11-15 hours; 6-9 year-olds, from 10-11 hours; and adolescents, from 8.5-9.5 hours. We tend to safeguard the sleep time of our younger kids, but what about our teens?
Teens have struggled with getting enough sleep for decades. Their natural circadian rhythm is like having an internal clock of 25 hours. Every night, their drive is to stay up an hour later, exacerbated by insane school demands and the screen time so rampant in their lives. What is different today is that teens have no role models for sleep. Their parents are as sleep-deprived as they are.
Case study: Me. As a student and then intern, I practiced staying up all night. Now, I can get by on little sleep for a stretch, and so I do. When I have a lot on my plate, which I seem to “choose” often, I love getting in the groove of being productive and getting projects done into the late night hours. Until I don’t. Stress starts first, and I wake up worried at 4:00 am, getting even less sleep. (I even woke up at 4:30 am this morning, worrying about this very article that needed to be written yesterday). Then I get crabby, exhausted, discouraged, and a strong desire sets in to just hop on my bike for a one-way road trip. When this happens, I FINALLY slow down to rest. Then I do it all over again. Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I think down deep I believe, if I sleep less, I will get more living in.
I had a major wake-up call when I read Martha Beck’s article on burnout called “Stay Cool” (Oprah, November, 2011). Her “Chill Principle 2: Sleep As If Your Life Depends on It” struck a chord. She says, “Some people feel superior when they work around the clock. This is like proudly pouring Tabasco sauce in your eyes. Sleep makes you smarter, better-looking, and more creative. It can add years to your life. It does more to improve long-term quality of life than money, fancy vacations, or hot sex. Not giving high priority to sleep is frankly, insane.” She goes on to say, “Ignore these minimums [of 8 hours/night plus as needed naps/rests] and eventually your body will eventually end up lying still anyway–in your bed, a hospital, or the morgue. You choose.” Whoa. Ok! I am listening now.
We live in a culture moving faster than the “speed of life.” Even slowing down isn’t slow enough. Sleep is the first to go and the last to come back. It gives us that buffer to fit it all in, especially after we finally get those little darlin’s to bed. If you need more proof of the impact of sleep deprivation on poor driving, reduced immunity, poor performance and poor learning on you and your kids, check out Sleep for Science. For a lighthearted look at how sleep affects our happiness, read Gretchen Rubin’s blog, “A Fundamental Secret to Happiness? Get Enough Sleep.”
Two other tips that really speak to me come from the rhythm guru, Kim John Payne. In his book, Simplicity Parenting, Payne reiterates the importance of sleep in our lives: “Sleep is the ultimate rhythm. Everything your child does and who they will be are affected by their sleep or lack of it. Sleep is the required rhythm to a strong ‘I am’ sense of self. . . . Because a child’s brain is still developing, and so much of that neural growth and pruning happens while they’re sleeping, a deprivation of even one hour can have behavioral and intellectual consequences.” A study at Tel Aviv University confirms this assertion, proving a performance gap with even one hour less sleep.
Payne also talks about going to bed as a trust process in “letting go of your day” and says the process of letting go begins during the day with “pressure valves.” “When we let go during the day, we can more easily let go into sleep. Pressure valves allow your child to release emotional steam. . . . Each opportunity for release and calm is very small and insignificant, yet they add up.” For babies (and my husband), a pressure valve can be nap time. For older kids, it may be a foot rub with those deep, sharing talks at bedtime. It might be a moment of silence at dinnertime as a candle is lit. Or the “square breathing” that my third-grade teacher friend does several times a day: Deep breath in 1-2, hold 3-4, breath out 5-6, hold 7-8 for one minute.
Your sure-fire test if you or your kids are getting enough sleep is how you all get out of bed in the morning. If it is a knock-down, frantic fight with your kids, check out my “AM Northwest” talk and notes on “Take Your Morning Routine from Frantic to Happy.” For the extra challenge our teens give regarding sleep, you might need this emPower Monthly’s feature book, Snooze or Lose: 10 “No War” Ways to Improve Your Teen’s Sleep Habits by Dr. Helene Emsellem.
The very best gift we can give our families is our full, wonderful selves. When we get enough sleep, we are rested and resourceful and can handle whatever crabbiness the world throws at us. Then, we just might have the reserves to support our kids to get the sleep they need and have time for a little self-care, too. I am finally committed.
Wishing you and yours deep sleep and beautiful dreams,
Dr. Kathy
P.S. For some specific sleeping tips, check out my “Tips for Sleep at Any Age.” For a recently released “Green Time for Sleep Time” report from the National Wildlife Federation, detailing how time spent outdoors improves sleep, visit www.nwf.org.
Think of some of your mistakes while you were growing up. Now think of the reception you got from your parents/teachers about those mistakes. I imagine it involved disapproval, disappointment, shame, beratement. The outcome is that you may have felt stupid, like a failure, bad, self-loathing or maybe angry at the unfairness of it. Did you then give up with low self-esteem or become an approval junkie, a sneak or even an outright rebel? Is this what you as a parent want to see? Are these the reactions that promote growth and resiliency in your kids?
What if your parents would have said, “Oh, goodie! You made another mistake. Now you get to learn and grow new skills.” What if your parent programming became a response of love, acceptance, calmness and an attitude that said, “Now, let’s get down to the business of how I can support you to figure out what you learned, how to make it right, what you can do next time.”
Chances are, despite all you have learned and experienced in the world, that you are not yet perfect. Why is it that we expect perfectionism anyway?
Glenda Montgomery, a Portland-based instructor in Positive Discipline (see her upcoming trainings/classes) says, “Our kids are going to spend a lot more time being imperfect than being perfect. It is up to us to teach them to learn and grow from times of imperfection.” According to Glenda, it is through our children’s mistakes that we have opportunities to teach the skills and traits we want our kids to learn. She notes that “without practicing ‘getting ourselves out of a mess,’ it is hard to develop critical-thinking skills.” In short, if they don’t have problems and conflicts, how else can our kids develop problem-solving and conflict-resolution skills?
We as parents also have to model that mistakes are opportunities. Parents who deny mistakes or are defensive can expect the same from their kids. Parents who admit their mistakes and model the steps involved in “making it right” will have kids who learn resiliency and coping skills. Glenda says, “When we shame kids for making mistakes, the emotional confusion gets in the way of any positive learning that could come out of the situation.”
Our featured book this month is one of our top-ten favorites, Positive Discipline, by Jane Nelsen. Each page offers concrete steps for loving kindness and firm parenting, also taught in Glenda Montgomery’s local classes. Positive Discipline’s “Three R’s of Recovery from Mistakes” offer guidelines that we, as parents, can model when WE make mistakes–in order to show what we want our kids to do when THEY blow it (see page 41 in the book):
• Recognize – “Wow! I made a mistake.”
• Reconcile – “I apologize.” (In Compassionate Communication language, I would say, “I regret what happened. I wish I had done it differently.”)
• Resolve – “Let’s work on a solution together.”
So, I warrant that “failing right” starts with parents. If we are to embrace our kids’ mistakes and help them to accept and learn from them, we must figure out how we can learn to deal with our own conflicts and accept ourselves as we are—with all our imperfections. A favorite quote I grew up with is, “Be who you is, because, if you be who you ain’t, then you ain’t who you is.”
I believe it is a life-long challenge to accept ourselves unconditionally. One of the most powerful approaches for me in acknowledging my wrong-doings and ineptness and being able to correct my mistakes is by using the tool of Compassionate Communication. A basic Compassionate Communication premise is that every one of our behaviors is an attempt to meet needs or values. In every behavior I do, the biggest need wins. Even with behaviors that don’t turn out so well, there is a “beautiful underlying need” driving it.
If I screamed at my kids to PICK UP THAT WET TOWEL NOW, I may have met my needs to be heard and to have ease by venting loudly. Whether this screaming results in the towel getting picked up in that moment or not, my needs for respect, connection, willing cooperation, peace, calmness, even the well-being of my kids, are probably not being met. So what is a way I could have dealt with the wet towel that would have resulted in all of these needs being met? Next time, I will try something different rather than doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I’ve learned something by “recognizing” what didn’t work, “reconciling” my needs, and “resolving” to do things differently next time.
Our current methods of both shaming and buffering our kids from uncomfortable, difficult experiences has resulted in a crop of college kids now labeled “teacups,” because they crack at the slightest stress. They can’t handle their young adult lives. They have no coping skills for everyday life. How tragic is that? How can we prevent this from happening to the current generation of kids?
I want to share a final concept from Compassionate Communication that might be powerfully helpful: No one has ever made a mistake! The idea behind this is that, in the midst of our unmet needs in any given moment in time, we choose the best behavior or strategy that we can come up. If we could have come up with a better strategy at that time, we would have used it. But in that moment with those unmet needs, we chose X. Own it. Learn from it. And move on.
Truly, our parenting can be more helpful if we shift our response to our kids’ mistakes. Let’s make our internal dialogue a quick “oh, darn,” then a deep breath, then, “Oh, good. You had a conflict today. Now how can I support you to learn from it?”
Wishing you and yours glorious mistakes/opportunities,
Dr. Kathy
