Have a New Kid by Friday

by Kevin Leman

  But if you want to teach your kids diligence, insist that they stick out their lessons for at least a semester, no matter how much they hate it (this is true with sports too, by the way). If you start to feel sorry for your child, keep in mind that she is the one who said she wanted those lessons. If you were the one who insisted on the child getting lessons, the same principle of sticking it out for a semester holds true. You just have to battle the guilt and disappointment that all parents have when they discover that little Buford is not going to become Franz Liszt.

  What about the child who really has talent, who has taken 4 years of violin and wants to quit? To that child I would say, “Listen, honey, I understand what you’re saying. But I’ve talked to your teacher, and she says you really have a gift for playing the violin. She says what you’re doing at this stage of your life on that instrument is highly unusual. We’ve invested 4 years in this instrument and all your lessons, and we’re not going to quit now. You deserve more. Your talents deserve to be fine-tuned. So we’re going to continue your lessons until the end of the school year, then review all this again.”

  Waiting until the end of the year gives you a chance to investigate getting your child involved in some group of like-minded students (i.e., a Suzuki group, a jazz ensemble for piano, a local youth orchestra) to see if having friends who like doing the same thing will help extend your child’s interest.

  Many children who are talented decide, between ages 10 and 13, that they no longer want to pursue their instrument. Often the reason is because their friends aren’t interested. Ashley had played flute for 7 years. She had won multiple awards for solo work through state music festivals. But when she turned 13, all her friends started getting interested in soccer. Going to support Ashley in concerts by listening to her play songs by Handel and Bach wasn’t big on their priority scale anymore. Her practice hours started to dwindle, and finally she told her dad she wanted to quit.

  Ashley had a wise father. He encouraged her to hang in there, attended all of her events, and came up with special father/daughter surprises after every performance. Behind the scenes, he did a lot of research on music opportunities for flutists. That summer, instead of quitting, Ashley got involved with a new jazz group—all junior and senior high students—in a nearby town. They played at a lot of summer festivals, and Ashley’s interest in music expanded. At the last performance of the summer, the group played an unusual piece of music, featuring Ashley as the soloist. It was a piece that Ashley had written herself, then adapted for the other jazz musicians who played with her.

  Guess who had the biggest smile and clapped the loudest in the crowd? Ashley’s dad.

  MySpace.com/IM-ing

  Every teen on the planet loves IM-ing, if given the chance. It’s instant contact with a friend. And MySpace.com is built to attract kids. To give them a forum to talk about what they love, what bugs them, how rotten their parents are, etc. Since these things are a fact of life, check them out for yourself. Sign up on MySpace.com as a member. It’s a great way to quietly get access to your child’s friends and to look at what they post. My son-in-law Dennis, a middle school principal, was amazed at what he found. He looked for children who were sixth graders, keyed in their names, and was stunned how many times the children used their real name (a no-no in computer land).

  Looking at the topics posted and what kids say is an eye-opener for any parent. If you want to enter your child’s world, MySpace.com gives you such a window. And chances are, you won’t like it. But it will give you a gritty look at what your child is up against every day she’s at school.

  Remember when you used to call your friends at night and jabber on the phone, and your parents rolled their eyes? Then they looked at the phone bill and restricted your minutes? Internet usage has made it even easier for your children, at no cost to them, to contact their friends in private (no one overhears a typed conversation), as well as to make new friends (who may not be who they say they are—for more on that, see “Internet Use”). That’s why it’s so important to have the computer in a central location in your house, where you and others can walk by at any moment and see messages that are typed. Does this mean you hover protectively over your child? No. No child would like you intruding on her friendships. Would you? But let’s just say that a child will be less likely to get on an objectionable topic if she knows that a parent could walk by at any moment.

  Then again, every computer has that history button. Smart parents will use it to protect their children.

  Name-Calling

  “The playground monitor called me at home because my third grade son called another boy ‘fatso’ and made him cry. I was so embarrassed I didn’t know what to say. Why would Luke say that? Luke’s no skinny kid either!”

  “I spent my entire childhood with kids in the neighborhood who called me names because I was a different race than everyone else. So it really got to me when my daughter went to kindergarten and came home saying, ‘Mommy, what’s a spik? Some kid called me a spik.”

  Why do kids call each other names?

  People who label others do so to feel better about themselves. Name-callers may look big and bossy, but underneath, they’re insecure. Still, they can do a lot of damage to other children unless they’re stopped.

  If your child calls another child a name, you can’t afford to let that behavior slide. You need to bring your child to a screeching stop.

  “Do you feel bad about yourself?” you need to ask.

  “What are you talking about?” the kid sputters.

  “You just put your brother down. You called him a _–––––––. People who do that don’t feel good about themselves. It bothers me that you apparently don’t feel good about yourself.”

  Kinda takes the fun away from the kid’s name-calling, don’t you think? All of a sudden it registers in the child’s mind, If I put my brother down, I’m telling people I don’t feel good about myself? Huh?

  Children in general are blunt. They will sometimes say things that hurt others out of ignorance or naïveté. But any parent knows the difference in honestly speaking out of turn just because you’re curious (“Mommy, why is that woman’s face and body all black? Is she black on her belly too, or white, like mine?”) and choosing to name-call and hurt another person. It’s all in the attitude.

  Kids can be especially hurtful when it comes to race, ethnicities, and physical characteristics. One little girl was told she couldn’t play with her classmates because she didn’t have blond hair like them. Another boy was told that his ears were “funny,” and he spent the next 3 years begging his parents for surgery on his ears so that he could look normal.

  When I was a kid, there was a girl in my class whose nose closely resembled a pig’s. Everyone called her “pig face.” Can you imagine? That poor girl! I cringe today when I think about what she went through. What her classmates said in jest must have driven her to despair. Kids can be downright cruel. Don’t allow your child to be! And if he is a name-caller, you have to address it now. Don’t wait and let your child prey on someone else.

  If your child is the one on the receiving end of the name-calling, encourage her. “Honey, I know that what she said had to hurt, but I’m proud of the way you handled that situation. What you chose to say and the story you told that girl really painted a wonderful picture of what friendship should be like.” Saying that you are proud of the way your child responded will outweigh the hurt of the name-calling and does more to restore your child’s self-concept than anything else you can do as a parent (as much as you want to stomp over to the other child’s house and let her have it).

  By doing so, you’re teaching your child that, yes, sometimes people will mistreat you. But it’s how you react to that situation that makes you different. If you take the high road, you’ll win out in the long run.

  Not Getting Up in the Morning

  This is the biggest mountain of all in the life of a family. It’s a Mount Saint Helens, ready to blow your fam
ily sky-high. Everyone who is part of the family has responsibilities. You’re living in a home, not a hotel with wake-up service. Children have responsibilities to get themselves up.

  My daughter Lauren is now 15. In all the time she’s been growing up, I can remember only one time when she didn’t get up for school. She had forgotten to set her alarm clock. I woke up at 8 a.m. and was startled to see she wasn’t yet up. For Lauren, that was a big surprise, since she always set her alarm and got herself out the door on time. So did I make a big deal of it? Of course not. It was a onetime event. I just drove her to school.

  In many families, however, it’s a battle to get the kids up and out the door in the morning. Parents cajole, bribe, threaten, and yell, and children go running out the door without breakfast to get to the bus—just as it pulls away. And what do the parents do? They drive the children to school and risk getting a traffic ticket to make up the time the children lost by not getting up earlier. Now that’s crazy!

  And how do you as the parent feel when it’s all over? You’re breathless from running around, and you feel like a lousy parent because you spent the morning yelling at your children.

  If you want to see this end in your family, try this. Don’t be your child’s alarm clock. Let the child sleep in tomorrow morning. She’s going to wake up at 10:00 very unhappy because she overslept.

  But that’s not your fault. You’re not the one who overslept.

  The good news is that your child will require a note in order to return to school. And you get to write the note.

  Dear So-and-so,

  Sally has no reason to be late. She simply chose to sleep in. Do whatever you do with children who are tardy.

  Many thanks,

  Mrs. Anderson

  Young children hate to go to the office. They fear the pink or blue slips. Older kids don’t fear the slips as much, but they fear the embarrassment of the peer pressure when they’re noticeably late. If you have to drive them to school because they missed the bus, they might try to pick a fight the whole way.

  Your response should be this: “I’m tired of what we do every morning, so you’re going to have to figure out mornings.”

  Your calm words, the child’s fear of going to the principal’s office, and the child’s embarrassment of being late in front of peers—all these will help you turn around the situation.

  Nursing a Child

  Every woman and expert you talk to will have a different opinion on this one. But in this book, I’m sharing my opinions. You don’t have to agree.

  I encourage moms to nurse their babies. A mom who nurses her child builds in all kinds of positive health safeguards. (La Leche League has a lot of great information about this that is worth checking out. When my little grandson was born 3 years ago, Krissy received a fact sheet and immunity sheet from them.) So when you have a choice, I encourage breastfeeding. Even some adoptive moms have tried breastfeeding, with help from La Leche League. Is breastfeeding natural? Yes, but lots of moms struggle with nursing in the beginning because both the new baby and Mom have to learn how to do it. (That’s why there are lactation consultants in hospitals.)

  My rule of thumb has always been to nurse a child for one year. This arbitrary year came from the suggestions of many pediatrician friends I have—a consensus of the medical community.

  Some of you, just hearing that, are ready to go for my throat. Since a lot of mother’s needs (psychological and emotional) are met through nursing, it’s not uncommon to see children nursing at the ages of 3, 4, or even 5. But I think, when a child can say to you, “I’m ready,” he’s too old to be nursing. A year is plenty!

  Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

  When I was in Atlanta for a seminar recently, a lady came up to me afterward and told me that she’d diagnosed her son as OCD, an anxiety disorder in which a person must go through certain rituals in order to curb their panic or irrational fear. She told me about all the procedures that have to be performed before he does something. Like the fact that she has to use an imaginary eraser in the bathtub to go through all the motions of cleaning the bathtub before he’ll get in. And that she has to fold his blanket a certain way when he’s tucked in at night. He certainly sounded like a perfectionistic child. But all people have their quirks. And children are lovers of routine. They insist that certain procedures in the home are followed (most notably, the bedtime routine). So what made her think her child was OCD? Because she’d read a book about it, and her neighbor had confirmed her thinking over coffee.

  If you’re concerned that your child may have OCD, get an evaluation from a professional in the field. Far too many children have been misdiagnosed with OCD when they are simply powerful children who want you to approach them in a certain way. What is the purposive nature of the behavior? To get your attention. To control their world. To dominate and control others.

  And they will do a very good job because they are doggedly perfectionistic. However, the important thing with these children is helping them understand why they have to have rituals. Is it because of a deep, underlying fear that things will change? That you will go away?

  Before you put a label on your child or accept a label about your child from anyone else, why not come to understand the purposive nature of the behavior, then work toward changing the behavior?

  Overeating

  Take a look around, and you will see a lot of overweight children in America.

  I watched poolside at a hotel as a family of four ate lunch. Their son, who looked to be about 10 years old, was grossly overweight. His belly hung way over the waist of his swim trunks. Long after the other 3 family members had left the table and started swimming, he remained in his chair, shoveling all the leftovers from others’ plates into his mouth. What was on the table? Hot dogs, chips, and brownies. No sign of veggies anywhere, unless you count the pickles on the hot dogs.

  Finally the father seemed to notice his son wasn’t swimming. “Leave it!” he ordered, then went back to soaking in the hot tub. When the son ignored the dad’s orders and ate some more chips off his sister’s plate, the father got out of the hot tub, marched over to the table, and grabbed his son’s arm.

  “I said, leave it! And since you can’t seem to listen,” the father said, clearly angry and red-faced, “you can walk around the pool 20 times.”

  Each time the boy did a lap, he noticeably began to breathe harder when he got close to his dad in the hot tub. After the boy had done 3 loops around the pool, his father said, “Okay, now that you’ve cooled off, you can stop.” (I had to wonder, Which of the two needed to cool off?)

  What did the boy do? He smirked, sat back down at the table, and proceeded to eat 3 more brownies off the serving plate.

  I couldn’t help but think, How dumb is that dad anyway?

  What did the boy really learn? A lot more than his father, that’s for sure. Hey, if I just pay attention to Dad and do what he says for a minute, he’ll let me do what I want.

  Sometimes we parents are dumber than mud.

  When children struggle with weight and overeating, junk food is the #1 cause. I know parents who actually have big straps around the refrigerator to keep their children away from nighttime raids. But the real answer is having smaller, well-balanced meals and no junk food, including sodas. Weight that is lost gradually is weight that can be kept off long term. Most important is a change of lifestyle, not diet plans or fasting.

  If a child eats a well-balanced meal for dinner, he may still overeat. But the extra food won’t do terrible damage because what the child is getting is complex carbohydrates and proteins.

  The real trouble is the junk food—overeating on sweets. And who brings the junk home? Usually the parents! Part of the problem is that fewer and fewer families are eating dinners at home anymore. Everyone’s in a hurry, so food has to be fast—but very little “fast food” is healthy. So many families eat on the go, but there’s a lot more fat content in that food. Packaged lunches may be quick and easy, but th
ey are mainly fat and sodium.

  To prevent overeating and to provide balanced meals for your children, get back to family dinners. Serve healthy, nonfried food, and downsize the amount of food you prepare for dinner. Then, after dinner, close the kitchen to snacks and nighttime raids.

  In the mornings before school, make sure that your child has a healthy breakfast. Often children dash out the door without breakfast because the bus or carpool is waiting. Or they grab anything junky that’s easy to take on the road. Then what happens? They get to school, they’re hungry, and they find the vending machines and fill up on Oreo cookies! Add to that the fact that phys ed classes are often being removed from the school curriculum (they’re the first thing to go when there are budget cuts) and that little attention is paid to physical fitness, and you’ve got a weight problem in today’s youth. Even 18-month-old children sit at a table and eat breakfast with a DVD propped in front of them to keep them from tossing food and throwing a fit. Do they really know what—and how much—they are eating? Are we priming our kids to overeat, even from a young age?

  To change a child’s overeating habits, you need to change your lifestyle. Sit down for dinner together as a family (this often requires the biggest change in the parents’ schedule). There’s nothing like a home-cooked meal for satisfaction, for lower fat content, and for bonding conversation. So don’t miss out.

  There’s another aspect of overeating: bulimia. Ninety percent of the children who struggle with bulimia (overeating, then throwing up to purge the food from their system) are teenage girls. The underlying, driving reason is perfectionism. Teen girls see “perfect” bodies all around them on television, on billboards, in movies, and even within the “popular girls” group. In order to be accepted, they assume they have to be stick thin. If these girls don’t feel supported by their parents, they may find another way to control their world—by binge eating a whole pan of brownies, then gagging themselves in the bathroom so they throw it up. If you suspect or discover this is happening with your child, please get help immediately from a professional. Bulimia is a serious condition that needs to be addressed by health-care providers because of the long-term impact it can have on your child’s overall health—physically, mentally, and emotionally.