Have a New Kid by Friday

by Kevin Leman

  Then don’t make a mountain out of a very tiny molehill. If your child is still sucking her thumb in kindergarten, just let a little peer pressure take over. The minute she’s called a baby for doing so, her thumb sucking might just stop by itself (at least at school).

  Undereating

  There’s a big difference between the way young men eat and the way young women eat. It’s not uncommon for a 14-year-old boy to come home from school, take a serving bowl (not a cereal bowl), fill it with half a box of cereal, cut up 2 bananas on it, and chow down the whole thing. In 2 hours he’s ready to eat a big dinner. It’s that time of life where he’s growing by leaps and bounds and expending a lot of energy, so no wonder he comes home hungry.

  Young women are much more mindful of what they put in their mouth. It’s not uncommon today for 8- to 11-year-old girls to tell their parents, “I’m too fat” or “I don’t like my body.” If you are hearing such words from your child, that’s a sign your daughter might be headed in the wrong direction because she’s becoming preoccupied with how she looks.

  Take a look at billboards, movies, and magazines, and you’ll see in a second that those of us in America put a premium on how people look at a very early age.

  Years ago, Charlie Gibson, Joan Lunden, and I did a Good Morning America show on Barbie dolls. They asked me to comment on them. “Notice how perfect and thin they are,” I said, then proceeded to talk about the pull of anorexia, a disease that strikes young women primarily in their teen years (90 percent of the time), when looks are becoming so important. When young women who are perfectionists see how perfectly thin all the models are on television, in magazines, on billboards, and in the movies, they want to be like them. That drive tobe perfect begins a downward spiral into anorexia (undereating or not eating) and/ or bulimia (binge eating, then throwing up to purge the system).

  Anorexics believe that, in order to be accepted by others, they must be stick thin. Oftentimes they don’t feel supported by their parents in their ventures, so they feel alone. Feeling out of control, they secretly find a way to control their world—by not eating or eating very little. By doing so, they feel they will be able to reach perfection, and everyone will like them.

  If you suspect or discover that this is happening with your child, get professional help immediately. Some symptoms include sneaking into the bathroom immediately after eating to purge the food she has eaten, claiming “I’m not hungry” meal after meal, excusing herself from the table and saying she doesn’t feel well, and losing weight unnaturally quickly. Both anorexia and bulimia are serious conditions that need to be addressed by health-care providers because of the long-term impact they can have on your child’s growth patterns, overall health, teeth, stomach, mind, and emotions.

  If your child talks a lot about her body and not liking it, show your own imperfections. (Children rarely realize just how airbrushed the photos of models are.) I like to pull my sweater up and show people a side view of my gut—now there’s perfection! And then I tell them the story of how I ate a whole pumpkin pie, slice by slice, out of the refrigerator; then I had to hide the pie plate from my wife so she wouldn’t know I’d gotten a 2-for-1 deal at the pie shop and eaten a whole pie by myself. Children love to hear stories about you and how you fell short. It gives them the freedom to also be imperfect.

  So tell your children (especially your girls) how you fell short. About the time you got a bad grade. When you got into trouble with your parents for lying. When you did something really stupid. Believe it or not, children still see parents as model-like. To children, parents can do no wrong. Explaining that you have done some dumb-as-mud things shows your child that everyone does goofy things sometimes. No one’s body is perfect. By showing your imperfections, you give your children the courage to be imperfect in an imperfect world. That’s why I applaud the cover model who insisted, “Don’t airbrush my wrinkles out. I’ve earned every one of them. They’re a part of me.”

  Let your imperfection show. Even flaunt it at times. It will give your child the freedom she needs to be imperfect—and healthy.

  Unkindness

  Children, by their nature, are very unkind. They’re all about “me, me, me” and “gimme.” Unless they are taught by their parents to be kind, they’re not going to do so on their own.

  When your child speaks or acts unkindly right in front of your eyes, the best thing to do is pull her aside and say, “That was a very unkind thing to say. Is that really what you meant to say? Did you mean to be unkind?”

  After the child has a chance to respond, then say, “That made me feel [used, taken for granted, etc.]. Is that what you wanted to communicate?”

  Such wording brings the situation to an immediate head so the child realizes that what she said was unkind. It also sets up the possible response, “Mom, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  If you get that kind of positive reaction, life goes on. If you don’t get that kind of reaction, then lifedoesn’t go on for long. Remember, “B doesn’t happen until A is completed.” And A demands an apology and a removal of privileges until the point is made. Then life can go on.

  If you’re a person of faith, you are bound by the command in Ephesians 4:31–32 to be kind to one another. How is your family doing in that aspect of life?

  I guarantee that, as you go through lifeas a parent, you’ll have hassles. If you are truthful, you’ll lock horns with some people. Jill, the mom of a kindergarten daughter, had to confront continual unkindness in another kindergartener by talking to that girl’s mother. “Oh, no, my child would never say that,” the defensive mom claimed. “Your daughter must be lying.”

  “I can understand your initial response,” Jill said, “because I would have done the same thing—defended my daughter—if someone told me that. But I want you to know that I heard your daughter’s remark with my own ears. Your daughter did say that, and my daughter was greatly hurt by it.”

  All Jill could do was state her case. Then it was up to the other adult to continue to live in La-La Land (thinking her perfect daughter could never do such a thing, or hiding from Jill so she didn’t have to meet Jill’s eyes after that point) or to confront the behavior in her daughter. If she chose to pretend the event never happened, she would continue being a weak parent. And her daughter would someday make a statement even less kind in an audience that might react more vociferously.

  The wise parent addresses the behavior when it happens—no excuses. And life doesn’t go on until a heartfelt apology is made.

  Should you always fight your child’s battles for her? Certainly not. But sometimes, as in this case, the stakes are high. Jill was defending her child against a racial slur that was deeply hurtful—even more so because Jill’s child was the only ethnic child in that class.

  Some children are mean without knowing it, and some are mean because they want to be mean. Everyone will say dumb things sometimes. But whether it was meant or not, if your child says hurtful words to someone else, she deserves to know the truth about how she hurt that person. And life cannot go on until the apology is delivered to the injured party.

  No exceptions.

  Wardrobe Issues (Clothes, Hair, Makeup)

  Did you know that children wear costumes every day? They may look like clothes, but they’re actually carefully thought-out costumes. The way your child walks, talks, and acts is all part of her persona. Each time she switches clothes, she’s trying on a new personality. No wonder she spends so much time in front of the mirror!

  From day 1, children will always express themselves differently than the main culture (their “parentals”). When I was dean of students at the University of Arizona during the Vietnam War, a Marine Corps colonel asked me how to get his teenage son to cut his hair and stop wearing T-shirts that said, “We don’t want your freakin’ war.”

  “Well, sir,” I told him, “the hair part is easy. Just grow your hair long and he’ll cut his. As for the wardrobe . . . give it a couple months past
graduation.”

  Every child wants to be different from his parents. Interestingly, when that colonel’s son started to get job interviews, the antiwar T-shirt got packed away, his hair was clipped stylishly short, and out came wingtip shoes and a fine business suit. Within months after graduation, that young man was absorbed into adult culture as he began earning his first check in corporateas he began earning America.

  Children will go through different stages, and most of them will be fairly harmless. The important thing is to stay tuned to the inner workings of your child. What’s going on in your child’s heart? Is she compassionate and kind? Is he responsible? These are the things that will endure, not the wardrobe.

  Fashions change. Just look at the history of any young society in America and you’ll see that young people have always distinguished themselves from older people by the way they dress. So why are we parents making mountains out of molehills? Did your parents always like what you wore? I noticed recently, when I was at a college basketball game, how baggy the shorts are today—going way below the knees. I figure if I just wait a few years, the regular shorts I always wear will be back in style.

  So what if your 14-year-old son wears baggy pants that two people could fit into? Just make sure he’s got a serviceable belt so no one de-pants him, I say. But if all of a sudden your child is dressing only in all black, wearing Goth makeup and leather, then clothing is becoming a mountain. Why? Because with that clothing, your child is trying on a persona that could take her into dangerous territory.

  As the parent, you have every right to exercise vitamin N (No) in your child’s life, and those decisions need to be based on your belief system. However, I urge you not to make the small things a battle. If your child feels she needs a $60 pair of jeans to fit in with her peers, let her spend the money from her allowance for them. Or give her a certain budget for school clothes every year and let her spend it as she wishes. That means she may buy 2 designer-label shirts, 1 pair of jeans, and 1 jacket instead of a whole wardrobe from Old Navy, but who cares in the long run? That’s the small stuff . . . she’s the one who will have the diminished wardrobe and will have to keep up with the laundry to have those precious items clean for school.

  It’s no sweat off your back, and you don’t have to wear the clothes, so why not let your child be a little creative and learn from the experience?

  When Life Isn’t Fair

  Whoever said life would be fair was lying.

  When your child gets bullied, picked on, or put down, the best salve is to say to your child, “You know, honey, that really must have hurt. But as your mom/dad, I noticed how you handled that, and you handled it really well. You didn’t strikeback, and you didn’t call him names, even though he was thoughtless and mean-spirited. There are a lot of people like that in life, unfortunately. I’m proud of how you handled the situation.”

  If you say such things to your child, you’ll be giving him the inoculation that says, “I can weather this thing. My parent believes in me.”

  With any bully, what goes around eventually comes around. Even if you aren’t around to see it.

  And sometimes it comes around creatively.

  Karyn, a first grader, was continually bullied by Tyler, another first grader. Day after day he’d get in her face, and they’d go at it verbally. One day her mom asked, “What do you think he’d do if you didn’t fight back?”

  Karyn decided to try that. Three days later, she came running to her mom’s car after school. “Guess what? Tyler says he wants to be my friend now. He says I’m no fun to pick on anymore because I don’t fight back.”

  It takes two people to fight. Fighting truly is an act of cooperation. When one quits the fight, the other often does too.

  Whining

  “But, Da-ad . . .”

  “Mommy, he saaaaaaid . . .”

  My favorite one-liner on this topic is: when you get too much whine, you need to build a whine cellar.

  The truth of the matter is, there are whiners in this world for sure. I’ve seen far too many of them, andthey’re not pleasant people. The whiner only continues because whining has paid off in the past. Whiners know that whining keeps Mom or Dad over the proverbial barrel and the child in charge. And we parents are dumb enough to fall for it. As soon as we give in to the child’s demand, we’ve added fuel to the fire of the whining. It’ll ramp up the next time.

  Children are addicted to routine. So don’t start a habit with them that you don’t want to continue. Never ever pay off whining with any kind of reward. A whine fest always starts meekly, then crescendos into a “But, Mom . . . !”

  The smart mom or dad will pick up the child and say, “If you want to whine, whine outside. I don’t want to hear it.”

  What’s the purposive nature of the child’s behavior? To get your attention and to get what he wants. When both purposes are removed, as well as the audience (you), whining isn’t fun anymore.

  Youth Activities/Church Youth Activities

  “We go to one church, but my son wants to go to youth group at another church. How should we handle that?”

  Lots of children (especially teens) want to go to youth activities at another church. Usually there are good reasons for that. Some churches have really cool youth groups;others are stodgy and old-fashioned and plain uninteresting. Or just maybe there’s some cute girl or guy who seems awfully interesting at the other church’s group.

  Parent, if you are going to pick a fight because your child wants to go to someone else’s church, there’s a clinical term to describe you: nuts! Be glad your child at least wants to go to church! Would an alternative—sitting on the corner smoking crack cocaine—be better?

  Encourage your child to do that kind of thing, if he’s interested. It might mean an extra drive, but happily agree to get your child there. Ask him if his buddy’s family could get him home so you could get his younger siblings to bed on time. That way there is some give and take in the relationship, and you’re not the one doing all the running.

  Part of developing good Attitude, Behavior, and Character in your child is for him to associate with other children who think along the same lines—children who aren’t clones of each other but whose families have an interest in the spiritual side of life. Some children who go to youth groups will have a personal relationship with our Creator; others go just for the fun time.

  Just because it isn’t your church doesn’t mean it’s not a good church—and a welcoming place for your child to be with peers of like mind.

  Epilogue

  You’re now equipped with the Have a New Kid by Friday strategies and ready to tackle those things about your children and your relationship that drive you crazy. In fact, you’re just sitting back, relaxed, waiting with a smile on your face for your kids’ next move. You now know why they do what they do, and what the volume and continuation of their war whoops has to do with you and the kind of parent you’ve been. And that little secret puts you front and center to win big on your home turf.

  Also, you’re smart (a lot smarter than your kids give you credit for). You’re more convinced than ever that Attitude, Behavior, and Character are the three most important things your children need not only to learn but to carry with them for the remainder of their lives. You, of all people on the planet, are in a unique role to teach those aspects—because you’re continually on display in front of your kids. It’s like the bumper sticker I once saw and chuckled about: “Being a parent is like being under a microscope 24-7.” And that’s the truth. Values are caught rather than taught. No matter Fun Day the age and stage—from tiny toddler to exasperating preadolescent to rambunctious middle teen to questioning young adult—your kids are learning how to live life by watching you.

  How you cope with anger, sadness, and disappointments.

  How you acknowledge accomplishments and celebrate joys.

  How you prioritize.

  How you treat others and yourself.

  A little intimidating at
times, isn’t it? But it can be stimulating too, if you know how to use that natural human tendency to watch others. Okay, let’s call it what it is. We’re all just plain snoopy. And you can use that to your best advantage with your children.

  You’ve also had the eye-opening opportunity to view a neighbor’s or co-worker’s experience and decided you don’t want to be in their shoes down the road. You’re more determined than ever that now is the time for a change.

  For some of you, sparking that change using the Have a New Kid by Friday game plan may be fairly easy. Five days in the saddle and your children will be so bamboozled by the change in you that their jaws are agape. Why doesn’t that work anymore? they’ll wonder. It always used to get me what I want. . . .

  For others of you, Have a New Kid by Friday will set the stage for how your family will now be run, but your child may be more resistant, more set in his ways. The younger the child, the easier it is to mold that wet cement, as we discussed earlier. Usually the older the child, the more difficult it is to shape him because some of the prints of Attitude, Behavior, and Character have already begun to harden.

  Parent, as you’ve read this book, some of you have had great successes. Your son or daughter is now mostly grown or out of the home. You’ve seen the tremendous power you can have as a parent in creating the kind of environment that encourages your child to reach his or her true potential.

  Others of you have battled difficult situations with a child who was extremely rebellious and gave you all kinds of worries and sleepless nights. At last your child has turned the corner. Let me issue you a few words of caution. Don’t get smug or think you have all of life’s answers in your back pocket. Don’t be a bone digger. Don’t rub your child’s nose in her mistakes. Just be thankful that both you and your daughter have a new grasp on life.