Threats you can't or won't follow through with.
Something I learned as a teacher and have tried to carry on through my parenting is to not threaten with taking away something that I don't want to give up myself or that is impossible to take away.
Some things are just not possible to follow through with. Parents say "we're never coming back" or "you're never going to get to do this again." Generally, I think it is best to keep never or always out of any conversation with kids. If you say you are never going to bring them to the park again, you better be ready to keep them away from all parks. Not following through speaks loudly to our children. You may think that you are punishing them in the moment, but in the long run, when you end up back at a park after promising never to return, you loose the power of your promises.
Other things we don't want to give up. Weekends with Grandma or playdates where we get some time to ourselves or time with other moms are things that benefit us. If these become threats for discipline, then you are punishing yourself too. There are times when these things can be leveraged but if you do it all the time, you are not really encouraging your child to behave. Once they have lost something they were looking forward to, the behavior can become worse because now they have nothing to loose.
The key is to think before you threat. Is this even possible? Do I really want to give up my weekend without kids? Threats never work if you don't follow through.
June 4, 2008
June 2, 2008
Water Bottles and Baby Bottles Poisoning us and our Children?
A few weeks ago I was watching Martha Stewart and was shocked to find out that I have been poisoning myself and my children for years now. Of course I was doing so out of ignorance. I guess that hoped that someone would be looking out for me and not allow such a thing to occur.
How have I been poisoning myself and my children? Water bottles/baby bottles. According to the guest on Martha's show, who was an environmental activist, bottles with the #7 recycle designation can leach endocrine altering chemicals into your water. It was so bad that she said Canada has declared the bottles dangerous and is taking steps to ban the #7 bottles altogether. So I rushed to my cabinet to find in horror that I had several #7 type bottles and that some of these were my absolute favorite. They were the Nalgene type bottles that I have had for years. And though I can't check because I threw away the baby bottles when my youngest grew out of the bottle stage, I am pretty sure that the baby bottles we used for both girls were the same plastic. I was concerned that maybe the information I had was not completely unbiased. So I did a little research on the internet and though I did find a lot of potentially biased environmentally concerned sites, I did find a medical site that convinced me that this is a pretty serious situation. The bottles are leaching BPA which can mimic estrogen and cause problems for men and early puberty for young girls, among other things. For the article click on the link below this entry.
Now the problem I have is that I want to get water bottles for our up-coming vacation and I cannot seem to find non-#7 bottles. The #7's are everywhere. I even accidentally bought a couple of bottles at Target that I thought were #1 but when I got home I realized they were #7s and so I promptly returned them. Again I turned to the internet and found that camelback has a new BPA free bottle (though I have looked at the bottom of many camelbacks in the last few weeks that have #7 on the bottom). Not sure If I will be able to find it in the stores or if I will have to buy it on the internet. At any rate, I hope that soon companies will do the responsible thing and stop selling the poison bottles.
Click Here for the Medical Article
Click Here for the Camelback website
How have I been poisoning myself and my children? Water bottles/baby bottles. According to the guest on Martha's show, who was an environmental activist, bottles with the #7 recycle designation can leach endocrine altering chemicals into your water. It was so bad that she said Canada has declared the bottles dangerous and is taking steps to ban the #7 bottles altogether. So I rushed to my cabinet to find in horror that I had several #7 type bottles and that some of these were my absolute favorite. They were the Nalgene type bottles that I have had for years. And though I can't check because I threw away the baby bottles when my youngest grew out of the bottle stage, I am pretty sure that the baby bottles we used for both girls were the same plastic. I was concerned that maybe the information I had was not completely unbiased. So I did a little research on the internet and though I did find a lot of potentially biased environmentally concerned sites, I did find a medical site that convinced me that this is a pretty serious situation. The bottles are leaching BPA which can mimic estrogen and cause problems for men and early puberty for young girls, among other things. For the article click on the link below this entry.
Now the problem I have is that I want to get water bottles for our up-coming vacation and I cannot seem to find non-#7 bottles. The #7's are everywhere. I even accidentally bought a couple of bottles at Target that I thought were #1 but when I got home I realized they were #7s and so I promptly returned them. Again I turned to the internet and found that camelback has a new BPA free bottle (though I have looked at the bottom of many camelbacks in the last few weeks that have #7 on the bottom). Not sure If I will be able to find it in the stores or if I will have to buy it on the internet. At any rate, I hope that soon companies will do the responsible thing and stop selling the poison bottles.
Click Here for the Medical Article
Click Here for the Camelback website
May 29, 2008
Parenting Pet Peeve #2
Car Seat Laws are not optional!
I have to say that I had no idea that people were not following the car seat laws until I worked at the Drive-thru at Starbucks. I was blown away by the number of young toddlers who were strapped into the car by only a seatbelt. Now, I know that I was a young toddler who did not have a car seat or a booster seat and I lived to tell the tale. Seat belts were even optional when I was a kid. But in this day and age when we have laws and ad campaigns that are meant to keep our children as safe as they can, how can people make the choice to neglect their children's safety? The laws are not frivolous or meant to make anyone any money (though I am sure that the car seat people don't mind) they are meant to protect our children from injury.
So seat up people! :-)
I have to say that I had no idea that people were not following the car seat laws until I worked at the Drive-thru at Starbucks. I was blown away by the number of young toddlers who were strapped into the car by only a seatbelt. Now, I know that I was a young toddler who did not have a car seat or a booster seat and I lived to tell the tale. Seat belts were even optional when I was a kid. But in this day and age when we have laws and ad campaigns that are meant to keep our children as safe as they can, how can people make the choice to neglect their children's safety? The laws are not frivolous or meant to make anyone any money (though I am sure that the car seat people don't mind) they are meant to protect our children from injury.
So seat up people! :-)
May 23, 2008
Parenting Pet Peeves
Now, I want to start off by saying, I know I don't have all the answers and that I am far from a perfect parent. But there are times when I see parents making huge mistakes with their children and I want to scream, "Do you know what you are doing to your child??!!!" I honestly hope that no one has ever thought that about me, but chances are we've all made a mistake or two. And with 15-20 more years left in parenting, I am sure to make a few if I haven't already.
Before being a stay at home mom, I was a Junior High teacher. I had plenty of lessons in how not to be a good parent. Kids who were screaming for attention in negative ways, watching things well above their maturity level, allowed to get away with anything because their parents thought they were perfect and infallible, girls searching for acceptance through boyfriends and false love, boys searching for respect through conquests. All of these things, I believe, could have been prevented by parents thinking about how their actions, words and choices might affect their children for years and decades to come. So I thought I would start writing about some of my Parenting Pet Peeves over the next few weeks.
Parenting Pet Peeve #1 - Verbal put-downs
Think about what you say and how it might effect the self esteem of your child.
"You screwed it up again"
"why can't you do it like your brother?"
"Get it right this time"
"Your never going to get it right"
How can anyone say these things to their children and expect them to become better? I always think that in this day with all the information we have about being good parents, it is common sense. But then I see well educated, well rounded people saying things that they probably heard from their parents and for some reason can not recognize that they are doing the same thing to their own children.
Before being a stay at home mom, I was a Junior High teacher. I had plenty of lessons in how not to be a good parent. Kids who were screaming for attention in negative ways, watching things well above their maturity level, allowed to get away with anything because their parents thought they were perfect and infallible, girls searching for acceptance through boyfriends and false love, boys searching for respect through conquests. All of these things, I believe, could have been prevented by parents thinking about how their actions, words and choices might affect their children for years and decades to come. So I thought I would start writing about some of my Parenting Pet Peeves over the next few weeks.
Parenting Pet Peeve #1 - Verbal put-downs
Think about what you say and how it might effect the self esteem of your child.
"You screwed it up again"
"why can't you do it like your brother?"
"Get it right this time"
"Your never going to get it right"
How can anyone say these things to their children and expect them to become better? I always think that in this day with all the information we have about being good parents, it is common sense. But then I see well educated, well rounded people saying things that they probably heard from their parents and for some reason can not recognize that they are doing the same thing to their own children.
May 16, 2008
It doesn't really matter, does it?
"It all matches mom," says my four year old as I am trying to hide my horror over what she has chosen to wear for the day, in public!
It is a challenge that has come up for us only fairly recently. I guess that I have been pretty controlling over what my girls where. Now, my independent little girl want to choose her own clothes and dress herself. I didn't know what a challenge this would be for me. Not that she would be choosing her clothes but that I would have to find a way to be OK with what she chooses. I decided that this was important after a recent incident.
A few weeks ago, she dressed herself in all things that had pink in them. Sounds good? Not so. She had a pink and purple shirt, a pink and red skirt and pink and green socks. All very mismatched. I did little to hide my dislike. I tried to suggest changing her shirt or socks to match the skirt. No go. I told her that it didn't look nice but she insisted on wearing the mismatched items. My real annoyance began when we had to go to the supermarket and to dinner and be seen in public with this completely out of fashion child. I begged her to change but she did not understand and I didn't want to fight over clothes. So we went. The entire time I worried about what kind of mom I must have looked like to allow my child to be in public like this. Later that night. My sweet little mismatched girl mentioned that mommy didn't like her clothes. And my heart sank.
What is so important about making sure my girls look cute at all times in their complete matching outfits?? That everyone sees that I am a good mom for having perfectly adorned children. (Since moving to Texas I have had to fight bow-guilt too) It's more likely that everyone else is too worried about their children to notice that mine have mismatched clothes or no bows to speak of. In reality, instead of impressing anyone with my perfectly dressed children, I am communicating the wrong thing to my girls. That is, "what you put on your outside is more important than who you are on the inside." I can really drive this point home by being noticeably disappointed by my daughter's clothing choices.
So, in an effort to avoid raising another Paris Hilton, I am fighting every urge to control what it is that my daughter chooses to wear. I still select outfits, but she can choose to wear what she wants as long as it is weather appropriate and fits. Because, after all, isn't that what clothes are for? Not to define who we are, but to keep us warm and appropriately covered?
It is a challenge that has come up for us only fairly recently. I guess that I have been pretty controlling over what my girls where. Now, my independent little girl want to choose her own clothes and dress herself. I didn't know what a challenge this would be for me. Not that she would be choosing her clothes but that I would have to find a way to be OK with what she chooses. I decided that this was important after a recent incident.
A few weeks ago, she dressed herself in all things that had pink in them. Sounds good? Not so. She had a pink and purple shirt, a pink and red skirt and pink and green socks. All very mismatched. I did little to hide my dislike. I tried to suggest changing her shirt or socks to match the skirt. No go. I told her that it didn't look nice but she insisted on wearing the mismatched items. My real annoyance began when we had to go to the supermarket and to dinner and be seen in public with this completely out of fashion child. I begged her to change but she did not understand and I didn't want to fight over clothes. So we went. The entire time I worried about what kind of mom I must have looked like to allow my child to be in public like this. Later that night. My sweet little mismatched girl mentioned that mommy didn't like her clothes. And my heart sank.
What is so important about making sure my girls look cute at all times in their complete matching outfits?? That everyone sees that I am a good mom for having perfectly adorned children. (Since moving to Texas I have had to fight bow-guilt too) It's more likely that everyone else is too worried about their children to notice that mine have mismatched clothes or no bows to speak of. In reality, instead of impressing anyone with my perfectly dressed children, I am communicating the wrong thing to my girls. That is, "what you put on your outside is more important than who you are on the inside." I can really drive this point home by being noticeably disappointed by my daughter's clothing choices.
So, in an effort to avoid raising another Paris Hilton, I am fighting every urge to control what it is that my daughter chooses to wear. I still select outfits, but she can choose to wear what she wants as long as it is weather appropriate and fits. Because, after all, isn't that what clothes are for? Not to define who we are, but to keep us warm and appropriately covered?
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