Parent Education Book Discussion

Parent Education Book Discussion

April 1, 2011

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee By Dr. Wendy Mogel, Ph.D.

NurtureShock By Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman

About the authors…

Dr. Wendy Mogel is an internationally known author, clinical psychologist, parent educator, and keynote speaker for AMS and NAIS.

She is a graduate of Middlebury College and completed her post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Her second book, The Blessing of a B Minus, is “a treasury of common sense” for parents of teenagers. -- Rabbi Harold Krushner Author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People

About the authors…

Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman’s New York magazine articles on the science of parenting won the magazine journalism award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a Clarion Award.

Bronson, father of two, has authored five books, including the New York Times bestseller, What Should Do With My Life?

Merryman’s journalism has appeared in the Washington Post & the National Catholic Reporter. She lives in Los Angeles, where she runs a church-based tutoring program for inner-city children.

Presentation Overview Part I

 Teaching respect for adults  Avoiding over-scheduling and over- indulgence  Understanding your child’s temperament  Guardianship against the erosion of family values  Preservation of time and space in a harried world

Presentation Overview

Part II

 TV’s negative effects on child development

 The power of play

 Sleep deprivation: how it affects intellectual/emotional well-being

  Sibling relationships

This book is not a formula for foolproof parenting.

It is a lens, a way to look at the world, your life, and

your family.

The Blessing of A Skinned Knee

Happy Family

Mogel infuses contemporary child psychology with Judaism, using (3) guiding principles as a framework for the great task of parenting:

(1) Moderation��� (2) Celebration��� (3) Sanctification���

Moderation

��� ���

Passionately embrace the

material world while

exercising self-discipline.

Celebration

��� ���

Be on guard for opportunities to celebrate the richness of our world, whatever form that may take: major and minor holidays, family rituals and traditions, and vacations.

Sanctification

��� ���

Sanctification is the process of acknowledging the holiness in our everyday actions and events; the way we treat our children, our spouses, and our household help.

A Blueprint for �Effective Parenting

 Accept that your children are both unique and ordinary.

 Teach them to honor their parents and respect others.

 Teach them to be resilient, self-reliant, and courageous.

 Teach them to be grateful for their blessings.

 Teach them the value of work.

A Blueprint for �Effective Parenting

 Teach them to approach their food with an attitude of moderation, celebration, & sanctification.

 Teach them to accept rules and exercise self-control.

 Teach them the preciousness of the present moment.

 Teach them about God.

THE FRAGILE FAMILY According to Dr. Robert Evans, the American family has undergone profound changes in recent decades: marriage, family, and childrearing have suffered sharp and sustained declines. Among the sobering statistics:

 Americans marry less and later, divorce sooner and more often, and are raising children in different configurations than they used to.

 More than 40% of American children do not live with their biological fathers.

 In the 1950s, 75% of school-aged children had a parent at home full-time; in 1970, 57% did, and today, less than 25% do.

 Only 34% of American families eat dinner together on a regular basis. Family Matters, by Dr. Robert Evans

Childhood Innocence �versus �

Competence�

The landscape of childhood has

changed dramatically; ours is a work

-driven culture, fueled by the anxieties

of two-career families.

Childhood Innocence �versus �

Competence� In the 1950’s, childhood was a

time of innocence and exploration.

Today, we stress competence, not innocence.

We look for early evidence of aptitude and

skill in both academic and nonacademic areas.

Economic & Cultural Factors�Affecting How Children are Parented

A massive shift of time & energy toward the workplace, leaving less time for family life.

An exaggerated emphasis on self-fulfillment and personal freedom, causing adults to have a “me first” mentality.

A relentless work-and-spend mentality that keeps us wanting more no matter how much we have.

Family Matters, by Dr. Robert Evans

Parent Success vs. Career Success  Evans points out that there is a sharp difference between the traits that breed success in the workplace and those vital to successful childrearing.

 The more one cultivates the career qualities on the right, the harder it tends to be to shift modes at the end of the day or on the weekend, to express in a natural way the parent qualities on the left.

Parent Success Qualities Career Success Qualities

Stability Mobility Tolerance for Disorder Efficiency Spontaneity Planning Present Focus Future Focus Acceptance Drive Relationship Orientation Task & Product Orientation

Honoring Mother & Father���

Thoughtfulness

Dignity

Compassion

for those who brought us into

the world is a divine mandate.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T Honoring Mother & Father���

Your children will only

accept your guidance

and heed your advice if

they respect you. hand outs

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

 Establish and enforce the core values that guide your children’s behavior.

 Be as clear as possible about the “non-negotiables” and consistently emphasize them.

 It is impossible for parents to set firm limits with children without causing periodic bad feelings and friction.

 Children naturally feel disappointment and resentment at times; this is OK!

What’s Your Style?

According to Dr. Diana Baumrind, a research psychologist at Berkeley, most American mothers and fathers categorize themselves into three parenting styles:

(1)  Authoritarian

(2) Permissive

(3) Authoritative

What’s Your Style?

Parents tend to be controlling of children’s behavior and their expression of feeling.

Authoritarian parents rank low on nurture and high on structure �and firmness.

Children may end up being very timid or very rebellious.

Authoritarian

What’s Your Style? Permissive

This parenting style is high on nurture and low on structure.

Permissive parents are focused on keeping their children happy.

Relationships between adults and children are almost peer-like.

“Your child doesn’t need two more tall friends.”

What’s Your Style?

Authoritative

Authoritative parents are nurturing but also firm.

They emphasize caring and responsibility; they want their children to be happy, but also hard-working and self-governing.

Maintaining a Balance Are we trying to do too much?

��� ���

Too many worthy activities?

Too many valuable things?

Too many interesting people?

Staying Balanced

��� ���

Take time to examine your choices.

What are the things that you most love to do? Are you doing them?

Which activities complicate your life; which truly enhance it?

BUSY ALL THE TIME �

British psychologist D.W. Winnicott posits that our incessant drive to keep busy is an unconscious reaction to our existential anxiety.

Without a schedule packed with activity and distraction, we may have to confront feelings of disappointment, frustration, helplessness, and fear.

Staying Balanced

��� ���

Is much of the structure that

we impose on our children’s

lives really intended to make

our own lives easier?

“DOWN” TIME: A LOST ART?

��� ���

Are our busy, well-entertained children at risk of not knowing how to amuse themselves? Have inventiveness and self-reliance been scheduled right out of them?

TIME

��� ���

A child’s sense of time and

purpose bears no relation to

our own.

Time Well Spent

A sufficient amount of time --

freely given,

not frantically squeezed --

helps a child feel loved and cared for.

Time Well Spent

Once each day, at the very least, stop whatever it is you are doing,

get down to your child’s eye level and listen.

Find the most precious trait of your child and let him/her know

how much you cherish it.

AVOID OVER-SCHEDULING

 What used to be children’s play time is now an overloaded schedule of activities ranging from sports, music/ dance lessons, to

tutoring.

 Growing up overscheduled makes it hard for children to learn how to amuse themselves and how to fill time that isn’t externally organized.

Protecting the Province of�Childhood

LET SEVEN BE SEVEN!

Part of our job as parents is to enforce seven-year oldness in seven year olds – to demand it and to protect it.

If a seven year old has all the information, privileges, and responsibilities of a ten-year old, seven will be lost to him.

Avoiding OVER-INDULGENCE

Teach your child to have an

attitude of gratitude.���

Avoiding OVER-INDULGENCE

Establish��� a family ritual for expressing gratitude.���

Avoiding OVER-INDULGENCE

We live in a consumer society that revolves around instant gratification. ���

We shop for recreation and buy things we really don’t need. ���

Avoid OVER-INDULGENCE

Children who get most of their desires satisfied right away never learn the value of their possessions. The sooner your child gets what he/she wants, the sooner he/she will use it up and move onto the next desire. ���

This makes your child more acquisitive and less appreciative.

TEACH CHILDREN THE VALUE OF WORK

Mogel recommends that children as young as age four and five have household chores including:

Putting toys/belongings away Making the bed Setting/ clearing the table Making a sandwich/ pouring a drink Loading/ unloading the dishwasher Folding towels Windexing the windows E’s chart

Accepting�Your Child’s Temperament

Your child’s temperament is a God-given

blueprint for his personality;

he couldn’t change it even if he wanted to.

Understanding Your Child’s � Temperament

In a landmark study of temperament, researchers Stella Chess & Alexander Thomas found a wide

range of normal variations in children’s natures. Consider your child’s: Emotional intensity

Persistence Flexibility Sensitivity

Energy Mood

Sociability

Accept Your Child’s �Temperament

Rather than accepting our children’s temperament, we have a tendency to

expect them to be like us, only better, smarter, and

more ambitious.

“Your child is not your opus.”

Accept Your Child’s �Temperament

One of the most precious gifts you can give

your child is to study her temperament,

and once you’ve learned it,

work to accept it.

Accept Your Child’s �Temperament

Think of your child’s worst trait: anything from a

little annoying habit to a big problem that has teachers deeply concerned.

Then reframe it— think of this trait as your child’s greatest

strength.

What are the good aspects of the trait? How might it benefit your child now

and in adulthood?

Accept Your Child’s Temperament�Try to see those irksome traits�

as the seeds of your child’s greatness!

Try thinking of:

your stubborn or whining child as persistent. your complaining child as discerning.

your overeating child as lusty. your argumentative child as forthright.

your loud child as exuberant. your shy child as cautious and modest.

your reckless child as daring and adventurous. your bossy child as authoritative.

your picky, nervous child as serious and detail-oriented.

  You are a parent and role model, not a friend.   Protect and honor the province of childhood.   Insist on respect; for you, for others, for rules.   Be fully present for your child; stop and listen.   Avoid over-indulging your child.   Let your children make their own mistakes.   Give them responsibilities and household chores.   Don’t give them everything they want.   Relax and have FUN with your children!

In Summary…

Presentation Overview Part II

 TV’s negative effects on child development

 The power of play

 Sleep deprivation: how it affects intellectual/emotional well-being

 Sibling relationships

TV/Screen time: Less IS more! Most TV programs targeted to school-aged

children are nothing short of chaotic sensory bombardment,

both auditory and visual.

It’s no wonder children have become wired and incapable of self-control.

Quote p.41 Montessori Life

Taming TV Talk The youth in sitcoms often:

talk back to adults,

make incessant wisecracks, and

rarely converse with their parents

in a civilized way.

Negative Influence of the Media

Children and adolescents have access to large amounts of information not filtered by adults.

Technology’s emphasis on speed risks creating a loss of concentration and patience in children.

Negative Influence of the Media

The media’s negative impact, in terms of the

violence, sex, inappropriate language, and noise

it imposes on children, has been

confirmed in numerous studies, yet one half of

children over the age of five have a T.V. in their

room; by the sixth grade, three quarters do. Family Matters, by Dr. Robert Evans

Negative Influence of the Media

The media’s negative impact, in terms of the

violence, sex, inappropriate language, and noise

it imposes on children, has been

confirmed in numerous studies, yet one half of

children over the age of five have a T.V. in their

room; by the sixth grade, three quarters do. Family Matters, by Dr. Robert Evans

So How Much Media is Too Much?

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends the following guidelines for media exposure:

Children under age two should not have any media time.

Children ages three and up: 1-2 hours per day

CASE STUDY: IS AGGRESSION

LINKED TO TV VIEWING?

Dr. Douglas Gentile’s & Dr. Jamie Ostrov’s study:

Children, ages 2.5 – 5 years, who watched an average of 11 hrs. of media per/wk., were observed in their affluent Minnesota preschools for acts of: (1) physical aggression (2) relational aggression (3) verbal aggression

CASE STUDY: IS AGGRESSION

LINKED TO TV VIEWING?

The findings:

The more educational media the children watched, the more

relationally aggressive (bossy, controlling, manipulative) they were!

CASE STUDY: CONTENT OF

CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS

Under the guidance of Dr. Cynthia Scheibe, Ithaca undergrads watched and studied

470 half-hour popular children’s TV shows to record the frequency of insults, put-downs, and name-calling offered by

the characters.

CASE STUDY: CONTENT OF

CHILDREN’S PROGRAMS The findings:

96% of all children’s

programming includes verbal insults and put-downs,

averaging 7.7 per half hour episode!

“How do you sleep at night knowing you’re a complete failure?” from a SpongeBob SquarePants episode handout

LESS TV/SCREEN TIME MEANS…

more time for reading more time for art more time for music more time to play more time for each other!

THE POWER OF PLAY

  “Tools of the Mind”curriculum   “Socratic consciousness”   Executive Functioning

THE POWER OF PLAY

When children play they:

  test their developing ideas   develop concepts & skills together   do things they are interested in which increases motivation

  learn from each other = “distributed cognition” (ideas shared across a network)

THE POWER OF PLAY

The motivated brain releases dopamine so it literally operates better, signals faster, so children learn more!

SLEEP: THE LOST HOUR Sleep scientists report that

an hour sleep loss in children not only impacts academic

performance and emotional well- being, but is also linked to deficits in executive functioning, to ADHD, and

obesity.

SIBLING RIVALRY

Observational studies show that siblings between the ages of three and seven clash 3.5 times per/hr., = ten minutes of every hour.

SIBLING RIVALRY Dr. Laurie Kramer debunks the theory that sibling resentment primarily stems from a loss of parental attention when the younger child is born.

SIBLING RIVALRY Kramer’s study reveals that one of the

best predictors of how well two siblings

get along is the quality of the older child’s

relationship with his best friend.

CONFLICT PREVENTION VS. CONFLICT RESOLUTION

According to Dr. Laurie Kramer, who

piloted the program, “More Fun with Sisters & Brothers”, children need to be explicitly taught the proactive skills of initiating play on terms both siblings can enjoy.

SO WHY DO SIBLINGS FIGHT SO MUCH?

“Sibship is a relationship in which the boundaries of social interaction can be pushed to the limit.

Rage and irritation need not be supressed, while politeness and toleration can be neglected.” --- Scottish researcher Dr. Samatha Punch

SIBLING RIVALRY “Siblings are prisoners, genetically

sentenced to live together, with no time off for good behavior.”

Dr. Samantha Punch

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. -- St. Augustine