The Importance of Dads - A letter to fathers

Dear Dads,

You are so important in your child's life!

I am sad that there is a belief out there that you are only good for working hard and "providing" for your family. I'm sad that you may have been lead to believe that you could never be as good at parenting your children as their mother and certainly not as nurturing. I'm sad that many women believe this. Because it flat out isn't true.

Research proves that you are so important. Kids who have dads that are hands-on involved in their lives have higher self-esteem, do better in school, and are socially more adjusted than kids whose fathers leave the majority of the child care to the mom. This is because you bring to the table qualities that most women don't. Not because you're better but because you're different, and kids need what you both have to offer.

A girl's sense of beauty and self-worth is largely influenced by you. When you are involved in your daughter's life, letting her know that she is precious and beautiful in your eyes, she is more likely to be confident in who she is and less likely to go seeking love and fulfillment in other ways and from other people. She learns what type of man to marry someday. She learns how men should treat her. What a great gift you can give to her!

Your son will learn from you what it means to be a man in this world. He'll learn how to treat women. He'll learn how to treat other people. He'll learn how to be a dad. Little boys want to be just like their dads. You have so much to teach them and an opportunity like none other to make a difference in this little life, and I believe that difference makes a difference in this world.

Moms need dads. It is difficult to raise children on your own. Some moms falsely believe that only they know best. Some even send the message that dads could never care for their kids as well as they can. But when dads work as a team with mom, family magic happens.

As a mom whose husband is deeply involved in my kids' life, I can't tell you how much deeper in love I am with him because of the great relationship he has with my kids. I can't begin to tell you how much it means to me to know that I have a partner in raising my kids. And I know that my kids are as great as they are because they get from my husband qualities and knowledge that I can't give to them. I feel so blessed to have an amazing husband who is an amazing dad!

Maybe you didn't have a great dad when you were a kid. Maybe you don't know what it looks like to be an involved, caring, nurturing parent. Maybe you only know how to be the "bad guy" or how to only be the "playmate". Most likely this is because that is what you were taught. It's not because that's how it has to be. You can learn to be so much more and it's so worth it!

But maybe you are one of those dads that is involved. You do parent your kids with love and grace and patience. You work as a united front with your child's mother. You take your responsibility as a dad to heart and see it as one of the most important jobs of your life. I want you to know that you are valued! Thank you for being the example to other fathers for what is possible. My hope is that what you contribute to your family doesn't get taken for granted and that you enjoy the thrill of raising your kids. Children bring so much joy to our lives!

Perhaps you've heard this all before. I'm sorry if this is the first time. Either way, you need to hear this. And you need to hear it again and again and again.

Blessings to you, Dads.

Tara

Teaching Kids to Be Good Sports

I'm going to just be honest here. My little family of mine is made up of some very competitive individuals. I know that my husband and I lead the way on this. We enjoy healthy competition. We regularly play competitive games and we do keep score. I particularly love playing cards and strategy games with my husband because they are one of the few kinds of games I actually have a chance at beating him at. And Oh! how I love to beat my husband! Because my husband loves to win, too and he's really good at games of all kinds. He is not one of those "I'll ease up to let you have a chance" kind of individuals. And so when you beat him at a game, you feel a sense of accomplishment and want to bask in the moment.



When we first got our Wii, my daughter, then six, had this amazing natural ability with the Wii sports games, especially tennis. The first day, my daughter won almost every single game she played against her dad, complete with these killer serves that resulted in ace after ace. Like me, my daughter seized the opportunity to relish in the fact that she had "dominated" her daddy. True to his nature, my husband stayed up past midnight playing Wii tennis over and over so he would be sure not to be so "dominated" by his six-year-old the next morning. When my daughter discovered that Daddy had gained some skills overnight, she was driven to practice practice practice so as not to lose her ability to hold her own with her dad.


There was recently this wide-spread trend in childhood education circles that we should shelter our children from competition. No longer were there winners and losers. Everyone got rewarded with ribbons for effort. Soccer games were about the joy of playing soccer and no score was officially kept. The problem was, it didn't work. In fact, in some ways it had a negative impact on children. Psychologist and sociologists witnessed children who lost motivation to really put their full effort into activities. After all, what's the point if we're all going to get praised just for showing up? And kids really weren't being fooled by the new game playing strategy set by adults. While there was no official score kept, most of the kids on the soccer team knew how many goals each team had scored and who really was the winner. Kids were left wondering why adults were lying to them and were suspicious of the motivations for why games were being played if not to see who would win.


The truth that most human development experts have known for some time is that competition is an important part of human development. It drives the survival of the species. It encourages goal setting. It motivates learning. And it teaches an undeniable aspect of life, that it is full of experiences of competition. We compete against our peers for the next promotion at our jobs. We compete against other bidders for that house on the corner we want. We compete against thousands of other fans to claim the limited number of tickets available for the U2 concert. And sometimes we win. And lots of times we lose.


All this aside, playing games is fun. Yes, losing is disappointing. We all would prefer to win. But for most of us who have learned to play games for the enjoyment of the game know that it's worth the risk of losing for the sake of having fun and bonding with our friends and family. This is ultimately what we need to help our children learn as well.


Instead of sheltering our children from competition, parents should embrace it as an opportunity to help their children appropriately deal with winning and losing. I think most parents would agree that they desire for their child to be a humble winner and a gracious loser. Why? Because we hope that we would behave this way in similar situations, and we certainly hope that others would, too. After all, if we're going to go through life regularly involved in various competitions it would be nice if others would be humble winners when we lose and gracious to us when we win. Right?

So how do we help our children become good sports? Here's some quick tips to help teach your kids how to have fun competing and win and lose with dignity:

1. 
   Do not tolerate behavior that is inappropriate regardless of whether or not it's taunting or excessive celebration in times of winning or pouting and tantrums in times of losing. Clearly let your child know that you are not impressed with this behavior and will stop the activity, leave, etc. Follow through with this so your child learns that attention gets removed when they try to bring attention to themselves inappropriately.


2. Let your children lose. Be careful not to always let your child win. You don't want your child to expect to win all the time. Life does not work this way. And your child will be in for a shock when his peers don't let him win at the games they play together. Use losing in the "safe" environment of your home as an easy way to practice losing gracefully. Play games with them that they can reasonably win on their own but that it's possible they could also loose.


3. Help your child take the focus off them in winning and losing by asking them to think about what the other person or team did well. Encourage them to share their observations with the other players.


4. Before your child starts a game, remind them that we will cheer for whoever wins. This is the rule in order to play the game. Make it fun to celebrate whoever wins.


5. Watch sports games and other competitions with your child and talk about what both teams are doing well and what each could be doing better. Discuss how the winners are feeling and how the losers are feeling. Point out examples of good sportsmanship and help your child recognize when someone is not being a good sport.


6. When your child loses, help them try to process why. Was it a game of chance? If so, approach the game as something exciting. Who will win this time? Was it a game of skill? Is there something they could have done differently? Is there something they could practice or keep learning? Empower your child to learn from their experience instead of feeling helpless in their loss.


7. When your child wins, of course celebrate and be happy with your child. Talk about what your child did that contributed to their win. And if they are playing on a team, make sure your child recognizes what others contributed to the win. But remember to teach that winning isn't everything. Make sure that you are giving praise and attention outside of games and competition so that your child doesn't feel like they've let you down as well as themselves if they lose, or that they gain your approval only when they win at something.


8. Make sure that you are modeling good sportsmanship yourself. Be aware of the messages you send when you are watching sports games, other competitive shows, even political elections.
   

We have fun with our kids. We tease each other and playfully "smack talk". But I love that when my daughter wins the board game my son says, "Good job, Isabella!" and gives her a high five. I love that when my daughter's best friend won the Super Citizen Award at her school, Isabella started crying, not because she was so disappointed that she didn't win it but because she was so happy that her best friend did. I love that my kids get to witness their dad shaking the hands of the other soccer team he just played telling them, "good game" and reliving some of the great plays of the game with them even though his team just lost.

It is true that some parents do not teach their children well about about how to be a good sport. Unfortunately, experiences with these families give us all a bad taste about competition. Don't let these few bad apples spoil it for your child. With your guidance your child can be a great winner and loser and enjoy the competitions life has in store.

My Child Knows the "F" Word

"Mom, sometimes I get so mad at my friends that I want to say the "S" word."

I about spit out my dinner. The statement seemed to come out of nowhere and was not something I expected to hear from my little girl. But I tried to remain calm.

"What do you know about the 'S' word?" I inquired.

Isabella hesitated. I could tell she was carefully thinking about whether she could say it to me or not. Eventually, she decided it was safe enough to say the forbidden "S" word aloud. "Stupid," she blurted out. "Sometimes I just want to use that word, Mom."

My heart started beating again. I let out a deep sigh of relief that my child still held onto some of her innocence. Stupid. Of course that's the "S' word. Of course that's a word you shouldn't use with your friends, even when you're mad at them. Isabella agreed, relieved that I wasn't mad at her for saying the dreaded word.

We talked for awhile about friendships and how they can be challenging sometimes. We brainstormed some other things we could say to our friends when we get so mad that we want to say the "S" word. It was a great conversation, really. And just when I thought we were wrapping it up, and I was feeling good about how well I handled that whole interaction, Isabella says, "And I won't say the 'F'' word either. That's a bad word, too. Right, Mom?"

My head raced. "F" word? What harmless first-grade put down is the "F" word? I cautiously asked, "What do you know about the 'F'' word?"

Isabella was confident this time. She didn't hesitate since she had been able to safely say the "S" word without getting in trouble. So she just matter-of-factly said it. Only it was the "F" word. The true "F-Bomb".

I couldn't believe I was hearing the word coming out of my sweet little girl's mouth. Where did she hear it? I was absolutely positive she never heard it from me or my husband. I am not much of a swearer myself and my husband is great about not using foul language at home. I couldn't hide some of my shock on this one. "Isabella. That is a word we never say. That is a very bad word. Where did you hear that word?"

"At school," she replied. "But my teacher said it was a bad word and we shouldn't say it." Right. School. Quickly I reminded myself of all the positive reasons why I send my children to school and of the words Tim Kimmel says in his book Grace Based Parenting...that we can't protect our kids from everything in this world. I try to remember it's better to let kids encounter things and feel safe to talk about them with their parents than to hide the world from them so they won't know how to interact with it appropriately when it's eventually revealed to them anyway.

Learning the "F' word was going to happen sooner or later, and I shouldn't be surprised that it happened at school. I was just hoping it would have been introduced a little later. Yet here was my daughter wanting to know what the word meant and why you can't say it.

How do you explain the "F" word without opening a whole bunch of topics that my 6 1/2-year-old wasn't quite ready for? So, I told her that it basically means "disrespecting some one's body." Not a perfect answer, I know. But it was enough to satisfy her since she knows it is a big deal to disrespect someone. We then talked about how words are just words but that there are some words people have decided are more hurtful and powerful than others. The "F" word was one of these words. It is one of the worst words you can say. And it's a yucky word. Some people think they look cooler or tougher when they use it. But we don't need that word to be cool or tough. We have other words we can use that don't hurt others and aren't yucky to say. Fortunately, Isabella was satisfied.

You might be interested in hearing how the word actually came up at Isabella's school. Apparently, they were learning a new word family one day. It was the "UCK" family. Isabella's teacher asked the class to come up with all the words they could think of that ended in "UCK". If you've ever been around a new reader, you know that they just take the ending given and start working their way through the alphabet. Buck. Cuck. Duck. You get the idea. After laughing hard at the image of Isabella's teacher panicking over 22 kindergartners stumbling on the "UCK" word that starts with "F", I again breathed a smaller sigh, but a sigh all the same, of relief that there was still some innocence left in my daughter.

Please Stop Talking - A Need for Some Silence

I love that my kids love to talk. They always seem to have so much to say and billions of questions to ask. Working with parents for a living, I know that getting their kids to really talk to them is a challenge to some parents. I must say, that has never been a problem for me. From the time my kids were old enough to start signing words I've always encouraged them to communicate with me. I've listened to their stories and ideas. I've involved them in adult conversations reinforcing with them that they are welcome to contribute to our conversations as long as it relates to what we're talking about. I share my thoughts and ideas with them on a regular basis so that I model for them how to do the same for me.

When I ask them, "What did you do at school today?" I don't want to hear, "Nothing," in return. So, I make of point of telling them as many details as I can about my day in order to model for them the kind of feedback I'd like from them about THEIR day. And it works. My kids tell me a lot. And sometimes I wish I hadn't worked so hard to get my kids to become talkers.

My preschool-age son right now is the worst. Overall, I would not describe Nate as a an extrovert. He likes to spend time by himself. And between him and his sister, I'd say he is the more passive of the two. But stick him in a car with you and the kid will not shut up.

He talks and talks and talks. Half the time I'm not even sure HE knows what he's talking about. What's worse is that you can't really tune him out and let him keep going, because if you don't give any "l'm listening cues" like an occasional "um hmm" or a "that's interesting" he'll call you out on it with a "Mom! MOMMMM!!!" and repeat it over and over louder and louder until you give the appropriate response. (Remind me again why I try to teach good listening and communication skills to my kids, and why those skills that I expect from them they also should expect from me?)

When Nate isn't rambling about some toy he has or his favorite scene in Star Wars, he's bombarding me with a never ending list of questions. "Mom, what's that building?" "What's it for?" "Who works there?" "How do you spell 'candy?'" "What does this spell, 'B-U-R-G-E-R?'" "Are we still in Colorado?" Followed by, " Mom. MOM! MOMMMMMM!"

Then we move into Nate the 4-year-old questioning MY driving. "Mom, the light is green. Why aren't you turning?" "Mom, why did you turn on your blinker?" "Mom, you didn't turn right. This is not how we get home."

Seriously, I want to pull the car over, take him out, and drive away sometimes, and the odds of me feeling this way usually go up after a very long day. I'm tired. I'm hungry. And I could really use just some silence for awhile.

But you know what? That's OK. Because, while I want my kids to feel heard and valued, they also need to respect that sometimes people - ALL people... even moms - need a break from talking. And it's OK to tell people you don't want to talk right now. It's not that I don't love you. It's not that I don't want you to never talk to me again. It's that I just don't have it in me right now to hear you talk anymore. My kids need to also learn to respect other people's feelings and needs, not just expect that people respect theirs.

And so I say, "Nate. I really need you to stop talking to me for a while, Bud. I'm not going to talk to you anymore for the rest of the way home. You are welcome to talk to yourself, but I'm not going to answer any more questions or listen any more to you in the car. I'm just going to listen to the radio." Nate doesn't usually like this and he'll often try to still continue what he was saying or asking. I'll just reply back, "Save it for when we get home, Bud.I'm not talking right now."

And almost always that time of silence is good for all of us.

To comment on: Which is harder for you: To tell your kids to stop talking when you need a break or to get your kids talking in the first place? What makes this hard?

Teaching Social Skills or Hey! Cut That Out!

I recently had a great conversation with a good friend of mine who is a teacher at a local middle school. She made a great comment. She said, "The popular kids get teased and put down just as much as the unpopular kids. Just the popular kids know how to stick up for themselves and not be affected by it."

In he mid-80's, Gardner came out with this theory of multiple intelligences. Basically, the premise is that someone can have intelligence in a variety of areas, not just what gets tested on an I.Q. test. All of us have strengths and weaknesses in these areas ranging from linguistic to intrapersonal (self-smarts). One of these areas that Gardner proposes is Interpersonal Intelligence, or in layman's terms, "good social skills".

What this means is, just like we all are born with varying degrees of athletic, musical or linguistic abilities, we're also born with varying degrees of social abilities. This doesn't mean that in any of these areas that we're seemingly "weaker" in, they can't be made stronger. It just means that we're not a natural in that area. While we're not all born Mozarts, most of us can learn how to play the piano with practice and effort and eventually be able to play one of his songs.

Why am I bringing all this up and where's the personal application to my own parenting? Well, I bring it up because I have to remember as a parent that just like I teach my kids proper manners at the dinner table, and their number awareness, and how to clean the bathroom the "right" way... Just like I send my awkward daughter to gymnastics to improve her body awareness and my son to preschool to better prepare him for elementary school...I need to also be intentional about teaching them good social skills that will help them be a good friend but also keep and maintain friendships with others. Because while my kids aren't totally socially lost, I would not say that they have a high natural ability in this area. Most kids don't.

Last Wednesday, my daughter came home from school very sad because a group of her friends stopped playing with her and ran off without her. It's really easy for my "momma bear" instincts to kick in when my daughter's sadness is caused by the actions of someone else. What I want to do is protect her from those bad feelings letting her know that friends can be mean sometimes and it's not fair. I want to wrap her in hugs and tell her I think she's wonderful and that I would play with her if I was a 6-year-old at her school. And I want to try to brush it off by reassuring her that tomorrow will be different. That's my initial impulse. But that is not helpful to my daughter. It would make her feel better, but it would also reinforce her letting her friends run off, feeling sad every time they do that, and then shrinking back to mommy at the end of the day for attention and comfort. So instead I tried to process the series of events with her. What were they all playing? What did you say? What did you do? When they did leave you, what did you do next? This gives me the information I need so we can take it step by step and see where in the process Isabella could have used better social skills.

I couldn't get all the details out of Isabella about what led up to her friends leaving her behind. But I did get from her that after they left she just went off and played by herself and was sad. So, here I took the opportunity to teach her that instead of pouting she needs to stick up for herself. When her friends leave her, she needs to go after them and say, "Hey! What's the deal? Why did you leave me?" Her friends may then give her the feedback she needs regarding what behavior SHE was doing that made them leave, so she can fix it. But it will also send the message of "I'm not a wimp and treat me with some respect." It also teaches Isabella that she is important enough to stick up for herself.

When Nate is getting picked on by his sister and truly has tried to nicely say, "please stop", and his sister isn't listening, instead of always coming to the rescue and disciplining Isabella, I tell Nate to look his sister strait in the face and say loud and firm, "Cut it out!"

When Isabella tells me about a boy in her class that was teasing her about her picture, I have her practice with me so that next time he does that she can look up at him calmly, but firmly, and say something like, "I didn't ask for your opinion," or ask "Why are you suddenly so interested in my picture?" It's not about being rude or disrespectful. Anyone who knows me and my kids know that respect and kindness ALWAYS comes first. But it IS about self-confidence and knowing how to stay strong in situations and not get walked over or beat down.

For the majority of kids, good social skills, from how to make friends, to how to solve problems, to how to stand up for yourself, have to be taught. I can't forget as a parent that these are important skills that I have to regularly teach to my kids just like I teach them other life skills. Social skills are such a huge part of our lives and I want to help set my kids up for success in this area, too.

There are many other simple activities that can be done with kids that help them learn and practice good social skills....Games you can play at the dinner table or do while driving to school. I won't fill this day's entry any more with further examples. You've read long enough. But if you'd like more of these ideas to help your child develop better social skills, just let me know! =) Thanks for reading!