Momsmode.com Blogs

As a good post feminist-era mom, I certainly didn’t push my son toward trucks and my daughter toward tutus. If anything, I went out of my way to avoid giving them gender-stereotyped toys, offering glittery finger paint to my son and trains to my daughter. But it didn’t matter: My son turned his doll’s crib into a race car and my daughter was obsessed with shoes.

Even though I’m a psychologist who specializes in early education, it took having kids to make me realize that sex differences aren’t just the stuff of Brady Bunch reruns. In fact, one study found that when 18-month-old boys and girls were shown pictures of a doll and a vehicle, for example, most of the girls opted for the doll, while the majority of the boys chose the vehicle. And while 18 months is old enough to have been influenced by stereotyped gifts, research suggests that many of the differences we see are evident from birth, and may even be hardwired. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gender research. To see what else I unearthed, read on. Do you recognize your little XY or XX babe in what the science says?

It’s a Boy!
If you’ve got a James or Brian at home, you’ve probably already learned that boys love action — watching it and being a part of it (hint: stock up on Band-Aids!). But they’re also more emotional than the stereotypes give them credit for. Here, some of the milestones and traits you can look forward to as your little man grows:

They like motion. According to psychologists at the University of Cambridge in England, boys prefer to watch mechanical motion over human motion. When they gave 12-month-old boys the choice of looking at people talking or windshield wipers moving, you can guess which the tots picked. And it turns out that baby boys are more adept at keeping track of moving objects; recent research shows that boys are about two months ahead of girls when it comes to figuring out the laws of motion (that if you roll a ball under a couch, say, it will take a few seconds to pop out on the other side).

They’ve got the moves. You know that old saying, “Girls are talkers, boys are walkers”? Well, it’s only half true. Girls do talk first, but boys are likely to start walking — and hit all the major motor milestones — around the same time as girls. It’s easy to see how this misconception arose: Boys squirm, kick, and wiggle more than their female counterparts. To wit, according to new research, infant boys are more likely to end up in the ER for injuries. But all that activity does not pay off in meeting early-childhood milestones any sooner. (Boys’ gross motor skills do take off, however, during the preschool years, at which point they outpace their female peers in most measures of physical ability.)

They’re more emotional than you think. There is some evidence that boys tend to be more easily agitated than girls and have a harder time self-soothing. According to one study, even when 6-month-old boys appeared as calm as the girls in the face of frustration, measures of heart rate and breathing suggested that they were actually experiencing greater distress.

They love a crowd. Boys prefer looking at groups of faces (future teammates, perhaps?) rather than individual ones. In fact, given the choice, newborn boys would rather look at a mobile than a single face.

They’re (comparatively) fearless. Boys express fear later than girls, and less often. According to a recent survey, the parents of boys ages 3 to 12 months were much less likely than the parents of girls the same age to report that their child startles in response to loud noises or stimuli. Another study revealed that when moms made a fearful face as their 12-month-olds approached a toy, the boys disregarded the mom and went for the plaything anyway. Girls slowed their approach.

It’s a Girl!
Raising a little lady? Then prepare to gab with your girl. Whether they’re trying to maintain eye contact with you as newborns (research shows they excel at this more than infant boys) or saying their first words sooner, girls thrive on communicating with you. You can expect all or some of those characteristics to blossom in your baby girl:

They’re made to mimic. As early as three hours of age, girls excel at imitation, a precursor to back-and-forth interaction. In a study conducted last year, newborn girls did better than boys in trying to copy finger movements. As toddlers, girls zoom ahead of boys on imitative behaviors such as pretending to take care of a baby but, interestingly, are no different from little guys when it comes to pretending to drive a car or water the plants, actions that are much less about human interaction.

They’re good with their hands. Infant girls exceed boys when it comes to fine motor tasks, a head start that will stick with them until preschool. They’re faster to manipulate toys; they use eating utensils sooner; and they write sooner (and more neatly), too.

They may be better listeners. Recent research shows that girls are more attuned to the sound of human voices and seem to actually prefer the sound to other sounds. Shake a rattle and you’ll see no difference between newborn girls and boys, but when you talk, the girls will be more likely to become engaged.
They like face time. Girls are more likely to establish and maintain eye contact, and are attracted to individual faces — especially women’s. They’re also more skilled at reading emotional expressions; if shown a frightening face, for example, they’ll look at Mom or get distressed, but they’ll be fine if they see a happy one. Boys take longer to notice the difference, according to a meta-analysis of 26 studies on kids’ capacity to recognize facial expressions.

They talk sooner. All that watching and listening pays off: Girls start using gestures like pointing or waving bye-bye earlier than their brothers, and they play games like patty-cake and So Big sooner, according to a study of children ages 8 to 30 months. Girls understand what you’re saying before boys do, start speaking earlier (at around 12 months versus 13 to 14 months for boys), and will continue to talk more through the toddler years. At 16 months, they produce as many as 100 words, while the average boy utters closer to 30. Although girls remain somewhat ahead through toddlerhood, the gap does begin to narrow, and at 2 ½, both boys and girls have 500 words, more or less.

Speaking of words, my daughter’s first was “shiz” (as in “shoes,” lots of them). But despite her obsession with fashion, she always surprises me with a confidence that often makes her tougher than her brothers. And my boys can be incredibly sensitive when I least expect it. The truth is, gender is only a part of what makes them who they are. If only science could study, and I could understand, the rest of them so well!

When my daughter Lily was 11 months old, she grabbed our cats by the tail, flung CDs from their shelves, and crowed like Little Richard on helium. She seemed to have enough confidence for both of us. While some babies are hardwired to be more confident throughout life, experts say that parents can,

and should, boost their baby’s budding ego from day one. Luckily, the steps are pretty straightforward — though some may surprise you.

MYTH Your newborn will turn out to be a wimp if you pick her up every time she cries.

TRUTH When an infant promptly gets what she craves — a hug, a bottle, a clean diaper—she develops a sense of order and predictability that’s the foundation of confidence, says Neil Boris, M.D., a founding member of the Tulane Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health in New Orleans. She also grows “securely attached” to you, and studies suggest that securely attached babies and toddlers are more likely to become confident preschoolers and grade-schoolers.

That doesn’t mean you’re Joan Crawford if you can’t always immediately meet your baby’s needs (good news for those of us who like to rinse the shampoo from our hair before exiting the shower). On the other hand, try not to make a baby under 6 months wait more than a few minutes when she’s upset, says child-development specialist Stefanie Powers of Zero to Three, a Washington, DC–based nonprofit. You can go a bit longer with an older baby.

MYTH To raise a confident baby, you have to let her do pretty much whatever she wants.

TRUTH Setting limits doesn’t quash confidence; in fact, it helps a baby feel more secure — “Mom and Dad are looking out for me!” — which actually bolsters confidence. Some limits, such as stair gates and cabinet locks, are key to your baby’s safety. Others, such as not allowing her to rip up your new copy of People, are key to your sanity. Just avoid too many of the latter because your baby can’t become confident if she never tests herself by exploring her world. Ideas for encouraging her inner Marco Polo: Stock a low shelf or basket with sturdy stuff — old Tupperware, measuring cups — and let her fill and empty it at will. Keep coffee tables and the like clear of precious objects. (To cope with Lily’s CD-hurling urges, we emptied our rack of the ones we cared about. If she scratched The Simpsons Sing the Blues, so be it.)

If your baby defies the limits you’ve set, use consistent, age-appropriate consequences. When your child sinks her claws into a tabby, experts say to give a brief and clear admonishment (“No grabbing — ouch!”), move her away from the cat, and distract her with a toy.If she does the same thing at 18 months, make your explanation a bit more detailed and try a brief time-out. One consequence that — to the cat’s likely disappointment — is never okay: physical punishment. Not only can it damage the sense of security that underlies a baby’s confidence, but “it could also make her feel unloved,” says Joan Luby, M.D., an associate professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

MYTH If you help your baby do everything, he’ll never gain confidence.

TRUTH There’s a big difference between nudging your little learner along as he tries to eat with a spoon or find a toy behind the couch and stepping in to do it for him. Take falling asleep: While he should figure out, eventually, how to soothe himself to sleep, he will not turn into a wuss if you rock, pat, or otherwise ease him toward slumber. (This advice is a radical departure from some experts’ advice a generation ago.)
At bedtime, for example, you obviously don’t want to just throw him in the crib, close the door, and let him scream for half an hour, says Dr. Luby. To help him learn to fall asleep on his own, go in stages, starting when your baby is at least 4 months old, suggests Dr. Luby. At first, rub his back or hold his hand to help him doze off. After a few days or weeks, you can let him do more of the work — and come back to his room at longer intervals (one minute, then five) to soothe him if he’s crying.

Take a similar approach with other new-to-your-baby skills. “If you make a challenge manageable for your baby’s age or stage, he can master it — and it’s the mastering that’s going to build his confidence,” Powers says. Let’s say your 10-month-old is struggling to pull himself up to standing. Offer your arm for “just enough support that he can feel like he’s doing it himself.” Over the following days or weeks, gradually move your arm away until—ta-da! — he’s standing like a pro and feeling oh, so confident.

MYTH You can’t dampen your baby’s confidence by the things you say; he doesn’t understand you yet.

TRUTH “Babies may not understand the words, but if your facial expression is disapproving, if there’s a tone of voice that’s somehow ridiculing or otherwise negative, I think they’ll pick up on that,” Powers says. The same goes for other signs of disapproval. So while you needn’t go crazy in the parental-praise department (“Oh, what a fabulous poop!”), it’s good to treat your baby with respect and enthusiasm. Instead of always yakking on the phone during his meals, try yakking to him instead. When your baby learns a skill — rolling over, waving bye-bye — cheer and hug him with abandon. “The more you delight in a baby’s activities,” says Powers, “the more you send a powerful message that he really matters and what he’s doing is important.”

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Summer is almost over, that means the kids are ready to go back to school. That means it’s time to start packing lunches again. The most important thing here is variety, so you can make their lunches fun and also healthy.

You can use a lunchbox or brown bags, to put their lunches in. Let them pick out a lunchbox or if they prefer brown bags. Let them decorate them. This can be done with stickers, stamps or markers/crayons.

Now, what should you pack?? First of all, get input from your kids let them help with the preparations. Furthermore, it’s always less stressful if you get the lunch ready the night before. You can pack them left-overs, or if you must pack them sandwiches, use wheat-bread, pita-bread or even tortillas, to make them a yummy wrap.

Healthy deli-meats like turkey or chicken can be used on the sandwiches, plus cheese and put some mustard or ketchup in a little plastic container, so your kids can put it on the sandwich when they get ready to eat it, so it doesn’t get soggy. Furthermore, you can use a cookie cutter to cut the bread into smaller, easier to eat pieces. Pack precut vegetables, like carrots and celery with delicious dipes. Also, you can pack finger fruits like grapes or sliced apples or even watermelon.

You can also whip up a tuna or other vegetable salad. If you pack a home salad, dress it with low-fat dressing. Furthermore, in the winter you can pack them different kinds of kids’ soups, ravioli or spagettios, but make sure you put them in a thermos.
Plus, you can put granola bars into the lunchbox, but make sure it includes a lot of grains and its low fat. If your children, like pizza and you have left-over pizza you can pack it but just watch the portions, if it’s veggie pizza it’s even better.

Pretzels, or Smart food popcorn are also another delicious and healthy choice. Pack them yogurt or pudding, and if they insist on taking dessert, like cookies, give them like two or three, not four or five. What should you pack for a drink? Well, you shouldn’t pack soda. Pack Water, skim milk or healthy fruit juices, watch out for the sugar. In the winter time or even summer you can pack chocolate milk if you really must.

As parent, make sure you keep the foods that are suppose to stay cold, stay cold and the ones that are suppose to stay hot, stay hot.  You can do this by freezing the items or by putting them into in a thermos, if they are suppose to stay hot. Wrap them into a plastic bag, so they stay cool and the items won’t get soggy in the process. Furthermore, put some wet wipes into a ziploc bag or wet towelettes into the lunchbox as well, so your kids can clean their hands and face.

Before you prepare your kids next  day lunch and put it into their lunchbox, clean it with a clorox solution, so you keep your children healthy and safe. Wipe it out and make sure you dry it out, or even use clorox or lysol disinfecting wipes.

After all is said and done, remember it isn’t going to help you if you pack a lunch and your kid won’t eat it. So, make compromises about items, like if they want to take left-over pizza, put some precut fruit or veggies in it as well, but make sure your kids like it.

“Zachary, time for bed.” “NO!” Two year old Zachary responds, running toward the playroom. Mother follows close behind, pleading, “It’s time for bed, honey. C’mon, now.”

“No, Mommy, no!” squeals Zachary as Mother swoops down to pick him up. Zachary’s body stiffens, his back arches, and he begins kicking his feet in order to free himself of her tightening grip. Wildly, Zachary kicks his Mother as he struggles to get loose.

“Stop it! You’re going to bed, NOW!” Mother declares, not to be outdone by her child’s resistant behavior. Zachary begins to cry loudly as Mother, somewhat beaten and greatly exasperated, pulls off his clothes for his impending bath. This emotional and physical power struggle continues through Zachary’s bath, pajamas, tooth brushing, and abruptly ends with a token kiss.

Exhausted and frustrated, Mother proceeds down the stairs hopeful for some solitude, only to hear, “Mommmmy, I want a drink. Me go potty!” Feeling guilty and yet, still angry, Mother hurriedly responds with the requested water and a brisk trip to the bathroom. Mother sets him on the bed and says evenly, “Don’t let me hear another word. Good night!” Mother stomps down the stairs after slamming his door. Zachary is left huddled on his bed, crying into his pillow and Mother feels guilty and frustrated in front of the television.

Now, look at this same scene through the eyes of the child – in this case Zachary. We parents get accustomed to looking at this scene through our “adult eyes” and miss the opportunity to understand from our child’s perspective.

Imagine that you are in the middle of a good book and your spouse says, “It’s time for bed.” In spite of your response, “No, I’m not ready just yet,” you are helped unwillingly up the stairs, your clothes are removed and you are forced into taking a bath. Consider how you are feeling. Are you feeling disrespected, violated, angry, devalued or controlled? You may be thinking, “Yes, but a two-year-old doesn’t feel this way – it’s not the same, he’s not an adult, besides, I’m the parent.”

True, the child is not yet an adult. However he IS a person, has feelings and is at an important growth stage of wanting independence and experimenting with how to have his choices be known and honored. This is the beginning of his being an individual – he is establishing his separateness from his parents and is exploring his competence and capabilities.

Many times going to bed is not the issue, he may be tired and ready. Yet the command of being told what to do and when to do it brings up a feeling of being controlled. Isn’t it true that this is often our reaction as adults when we are “commanded” in the same way? The issue becomes one of wanting control over ourselves and what happens to us. In this scene with Zachary and Mother, Zachary does not feel understood and it causes the struggle to escalate. Also, as Mother continues to overpower Zachary, he feels unloved and rejected and Mother is left feeling pretty much the same way.

Bedtime can be a special time between children and parents as it is natural for us to desire closeness or connectedness before going to sleep. Often times, however, parents have over-burdened themselves during the day and so they are eager to get the child in bed as soon as possible so they can have some quiet time for themselves. This can cause the child to feel that his parents are trying to “get rid of him.” In our bedtime struggle story, Zachary’s desire for more closeness is expressed through wanting a drink and “going potty” which results in more tension between he and his mom and both feeling hurt and rejected.

So, consider these questions: What did Zachary want in our story? More importantly, what does your child want?

• To declare his independence or sense of self.
• To feel close or connected with his parent.
• To feel a sense of control over what happens to him.
• To feel respected and heard.

How can you, as a parent, give your child what he wants and needs and still have him go to bed in a timely manner?

1. Respect your needs. Take care of yourself during the day so you are not feeling hassled and frazzled at your child’s bedtime. Set your child’s bedtime at an hour that allows you some solitude and/or “couple time”with your partner after your child goes to bed.
2. Whenever possible, have both parents be a part of the bedtime ritual. Bedtime is more fun and less of a burden when both parents participate.
3. Start your bedtime ritual forty-five minutes to one hour before your child’s actual bedtime hour to avoid unnecessary stress and struggle. This process should be a winding down time, in other words, eliminate activities that would excite the child such as rough-housing or tickling.
4. Respect his sense of time by telling him that bedtime is in 15 minutes, allowing him to complete a particular activity before his actual bedtime hour.
5. Offer choices instead of orders. Your child will have a feeling of control over what happens to him when given choices. For example, you might say, “Do you want your dad to help you with your bath or me?” Or “Do you want to wear your red pajamas or your blue ones?” Or “Do you want to sleep with your gorilla or your kitty?”
6. Create a bedtime ritual with your child’s help and advice. For example, read a story, snuggle, give three stuffed animals to kiss, give a hug and two kisses and leave the room singing a song. Routine is particularly important from at least 12 months of age through age two. The routine needs to have a quality of sameness or routine — the same order or the same song — to provide a sense of security.
7. Create a bedtime ritual with your child’s help and advice. For example, read a story, snuggle, give three stuffed animals to kiss, give a hug and two kisses and leave the room singing a song. Routine is particularly important from at least 12 months of age through age two. The routine needs to have a quality of sameness or routine — the same order or the same song — to provide a sense of security.
   • Talk about “Remember When,” such as “Remember when we went camping and that raccoon got into our food?” Or “I remember when you were a baby and loved to have your tummy rubbed.”
   • Listen to your child’s feeling about the day.
   • Say three things that you love about eachother. Start each statement with, “What I love about you is…” and complete it with a specific thing that you love. For instance, “What I love about you is the way you helped put your books away today,” or “What I love about you is the way your singing can lift my spirits.”
8. Ask the following questions that allow your child to share more about himself:
   • “What was the best thing that happened to you today?”
   • “What was the worst thing that happened to you today?”
   • “What was the silliest thing that happened to you today?”
9. Some children may talk more freely with the lights out. Try to discover what is most encouraging to your child in enhancing your communication together.
10. After you have completed your bedtime routine, leave your child’s room. Explain to to your child ONCE when you start this new routine, “If you come out of the room for any reason other than emergency, I will lovingly guide or carry you back to your room.” “I will not talk to you after saying goodnight and closing the bedroom door.”

It is essential that you do not talk to your child after the bedtime routine is complete. Your child will pay more attention to your actions than your words. Further, if you continue to talk to your child, you are more likely to get into a verbal power struggle about going to bed. If you discover yourself saying, “Didn’t you hear what I said? I told you to go to bed and I wasn’t going to talk anymore!” Stop talking and take loving action by guiding your child back to bed. You may have to guide your child back to his room several times, particularly at the beginning because children will test their parents. However, as the week progresses, bedtime will become more pleasant for both you and your child.

You can make bedtime a time of nurturing, closeness, shared communication and fun. By involving your children in the decision-making process and spending this special time with them, they will feel valued and respected. By setting limits, you will gain the respect of your children and build their self-esteem.

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Family Meetings can be a very successful method of enhancing family cooperation and closeness. Here are some ideas for the format of a family meeting.

Hold the meeting once a week at a time when everyone in the family can attend. Keep this time sacred — don’t keep changing it at everyone’s convenience. Mark the time on a calendar and make it as important as a business meeting.

Take the phone off the hook so there are no interruptions. This helps your children see how valuable the meetings are to you also.

Decisions should be made by family consensus, not majority vote. If an agreement cannot be reached after a discussion, table the decision until the next meeting.

Elect a new leader and secretary at each meeting. The leader runs the meeting and calls on members. The leadership should rotate every meeting. Other members should be encouraged to support the leader. The secretary can take notes on what was discussed and what decisions were reached.

Begin the meetings with compliments to each family member. Use words like, “I love you because…,” or, “I’m grateful for you because…,” Teach children to say thank you after they receive a compliment.

Keep an “agenda” list on the refrigerator and discuss it at each family meeting time. As problems come up during the week, write them down to be discussed at family meetings.

Go on to problem solving. Does anyone have a problem they would like to bring up? Teach your children that if she complains, it is helpful to think of a solution. A person who is not part of the solution is part of the problem. Coordinate everyone’s calendar for the next week and plan some activities together as a family.

For more productive meetings, sit at a cleared table and chairs versus the family sitting room. Don’t have this meeting during a mealtime.

Always end the meeting by allowing the leader to pick a fun way to close it. Suggestions are choosing a bedtime snack for everyone, delaying dessert until after the meeting, playing a game, etc.

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As a dietitian, one of the most common concerns I hear from parents is that their child simply will not eat his or her vegetables. My first response is: “Don’t fret over it.” Many children don’t like vegetables (many adults as well), and many children simply refuse to eat them. This is something that usually changes over time, and it is not something you should lose much sleep over. Of course, parents want their children to eat healthy, and they would prefer their children start eating healthy earlier in life rather than later. To that end, I provide these concerned parents with some simple tips to help them get their children to eat vegetables. To save you a trip to the family doctor or nearest nutritionist, I am listing eight of those simple tips here for you, my new friends at Associated Content. Here are my eight simple tips to get your child to eat vegetables.

1. Always set a good example. If your child sees you eating vegetables, he or she will be much more likely to want to eat vegetables, too. In fact, make sure your spouse eats vegetables in front of your child as well. Older siblings, too.

2. Always plate the veggies. Present vegetables with your child’s meal, even if you doubt he or she will eat them. The more your child sees vegetables on the plate, the more likely he or she will get used to them, or at least want to try them.

Do you want to create something new for yourself as a parent and for your children in 2009? If so, it is important to pay attention to your thoughts. Perhaps 2009 is the time to discard some of those old, dysfunctional thoughts and turn them in for new, more helpful ones. Consider the following suggestions.

3. Encourage your child to eat vegetables, and provide positive reinforcement. If your child finishes the vegetables on the plate, treat your child to a favorite dessert or even a small toy.

4. Make a game out of eating vegetables. “Let’s find the best-tasting veggies by sampling them!”

5. Use a system such as a star calendar that rewards your child with a star when the child eats all the vegetables on the plate. When your child reaches a certain number of stars at the end of the month, reward him or her with something fun, like a night at the movies or a dinner at his or her favorite restaurant.

6. Allow your child to help prepare the vegetables. For instance, have your child wash the lettuce or scoop the peas. Take your child to the supermarket and let the child choose which vegetables the family will eat on a given night.

7. Cut the vegetables into fun shapes. It takes a little work, but a vegetable shaped like a star is a lot more fun for your child to eat than a vegetable shaped like a…vegetable.

8. Don’t give up. Your child’s taste buds are different from an adult’s, and eventually, your child will adjust and enjoy vegetables as much as you do. Have patience. Good eating habits are not learned overnight. I hope you enjoyed reading my eight simple tips to get your child to eat vegetables.

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Many of our thoughts about parenting are outdated. Used by our parents and others who have come before us, they have been passed on as worn out hand-me downs that no longer fit the time, the place, or us as uncommon parents.

We recently met a man on an airplane who proudly informed us, “Spanking worked for my grandparents, was used on me by my parents, and I am upholding the family tradition. What worked for them will work for me.”

What this young parent doesn’t grasp is that spanking did not work for any of the generations he mentioned. It failed miserably to show children a model other than “might makes right.” It failed to produce grownups who felt no need to hit their own children. It failed to create adults who were skilled enough at parenting not to have to resort to physical punishment. In each generation, spanking failed to help children grow into the type of parent this world so desperately needs—one that models a respect for human dignity even in the midst of holding children accountable for their actions. It failed to break the chain of unskilled parenting.

Do you want to create something new for yourself as a parent and for your children in 2009? If so, it is important to pay attention to your thoughts. Perhaps 2009 is the time to discard some of those old, dysfunctional thoughts and turn them in for new, more helpful ones. Consider the following suggestions.

• If you have been thinking your job is to insist that children follow an outside authority and learn to obey, consider changing your thoughts to thinking your job is to help children develop their own inner-authority.
• Do you think the most important part of what just happened with your children is what you do about what just happened with your children? If so, why not alter that thought? Think instead that the most important part of what just happened with your children is how you choose to be in response to what just happened.
• Do you think judgmental thoughts about mistakes your children make, seeing mistakes as bad and as behavior to be avoided? If so, 2009 could become the year to think of mistakes as learning experiences and opportunities for teaching.
• If your thoughts reveal a demand that your children think, feel, and act the way you do, rethink that traditional parenting position. Take an uncommon parenting approach by thinking thoughts that recognize that your children are different from you and encourage them to become their own person.
• A thought system that continually looks for your children to improve can be altered to one that helps you look inward to examine your own beliefs, skills, and attitudes about parenting. In that way, you can come to believe that in order to raise children who grow up to be like no one else, you have to raise yourself first by working to raise your consciousness so you can parent like no one else.
• Do you think it is your job as a parent to fill your children up with goodness? Think instead, in 2009, that your real job is to find the goodness in your children that already exists and allow it to emerge.

The important change you are looking for in 2009 may well be a change emanating from deep within yourself. Remember, you can think whatever thoughts you want about the sacred role of parenting. And you can believe whatever you want to believe. Choose carefully because whatever you think and believe, you will create as true for yourself.

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You’ve heard the advice. “Take some time for yourselves. Create a date night. Hire a babysitter and spend quality quiet time together.” Your friends have told you that. So have your closest relatives. Perhaps a counselor has recommended the same thing.

So you’re convinced and ready to proceed. Get out the phone book and call a sitter. But wait! It’s not that easy. Finding a babysitter who has a similar parenting style to your own is no easy task. More and more parents are finding this out and struggling to find a compatible, reputable babysitter, even if it’s for a few hours a month. Some, aware of the recent news stories about incompetent child care, are consumed with fear and anxiety around leaving their children in the hands of a complete stranger.

If concern about quality babysitting is on your heart and mind, the following tips can help you in your search as well as relieve anxiety while you’re out:

• Do your homework. Take your time in this important search. Ask neighbors, friends, coworkers for recommendations. Check and double check their back ground and reputation. Find out if the person you are considering has taken child care classes, infant CPR certification, or training of any kind. There is no need to rush into finding a babysitter. Take your time.
• Look outside your immediate family. Resist the temptation to let an aunt or cousin watch your children without giving the same scrutiny to them as you would a stranger. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who baby sit have all been known to molest children. Being a dear relative does not exempt someone from incompetence, a poor attitude, or consuming self-interest.
• Consider hiring a younger babysitter that you can train. Begin by hiring a “mother’s helper” to come to your home to play with your child while you are home. You can observe the young person’s interaction with your child, offer suggestions when situations arise, and model how you want the care of your child to take place. You can then extend the length and breadth of the young sitter’s role as her experience increases.
• Clarify the babysitter’s role. Be specific and direct about your expectations for her. Remind your babysitter that safety is your primary concern while your child is in her care. You do not want her focus scattered on other responsibilities. You may have to tell your babysitter that your child must be in view at all times. Point our specific dangers, such as where the poison chemicals are kept in your home, the steep back steps, or the closeness of the road to where some neighborhood children play ball, etc. Leave the number for the poison control center by the phone, both upstairs and downstairs. Show the babysitter where you keep the ipecac syrup in case vomiting needs to be induced. Remember safety first.
• Instruct the babysitter to ignore the phone and television. These are obvious distracters. It only takes a few seconds for a child to enter into a dangerous situation. Remind the sitter that you are hiring her to interact with your child and be the adult present in their life while you are gone. One cannot be fully present while watching TV or talking on the phone.
• Leave your babysitter a list of fun activities that your children like to do. Set it up so that your children enjoy the babysitter coming over to play with them. Make it an event to remember with fun games and activities. If the babysitter doesn’t want to get down on the ground and play with your kids, get a different sitter.
• When you find a good babysitter—keep her happy! Find out their favorite snacks/food and have them available. Write a thank you card to your babysitters a couple of times a year. When you can, give them a bonus, extra money, holiday or birthday gift. Do what you can to show your appreciation.
• Consider positioning your babysitter as a valued member of your family. She can be an integral part in helping you raise your children. The steps you take to find that person can give you a much needed parenting break, ease your anxiety, and create fun for your children, too.

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Everyone’s talking green these days. But have you thought about how you can “Green up” your family’s menu—and your kitchen as well? We associate “green” with ecology. Believe it or not, how we eat contributes tons of waste each year!

Let’s take a look at the typical American diet. We eat a huge amount of convenience foods. All of them require transportation to get their ingredients to the factory, more transportation to get them to your local store and a lot of plastic to make them ready for the microwave or lunchbox. For example, consider a popular lunchbox item that is marketed to your school-age child: some cold cuts, cheese, crackers or a small sandwich wrap and a plastic container of gelatin. These are all placed on a little plastic tray with a plastic wrap and then placed in a coated cardboard box, all of which is discarded at the end of lunch.

Instead, consider cold cuts, cheese, crackers and a piece of fresh fruit, placed in a reusable container and carried in an awesome lunchbox. Less trash, same meal and much cheaper! After a few weeks of making it yourself, you may discover that convenience foods aren’t all that convenient, after all!

We need to begin to change our way of doing things if we are to contribute to the preservation of our planet. Here are some other examples of how we can all do our part:

1. If you are pregnant or planning to have a baby, breastfeed. Not only is it the healthiest way to feed your infant, but formula processing, packaging and shipping requires enormous amounts of energy. Discarding the used formula containers adds tons to our landfills. Breast milk is always ready and does not create any waste. You can’t get any greener than that!

2. Avoid individual packets of instant oatmeal by buying a large box of instant oats and adding your own fruit. This eliminates those little envelopes and is less expensive. The same goes for frozen pancakes, waffles and toaster pastries. Make your own—it’s easy to make from a mix and costs a fraction of the frozen items. Waffles and pancakes can be made in advance and frozen for later use. Just pop them in the microwave. Toaster pastries should be removed from your diet anyway, unless it’s only fat and sugar you are looking for.

3. If you buy meats in quantity, portion and wrap in freezer paper instead of plastic wrap, freezer bags or foil. Plastic never breaks down, and foil is not usually recycled.

4. Avoid soups, ramen and anything else that might be packaged in Styrofoam. They may be great for heating and eating, but the foam container is disastrous in a landfill.

5. If you eat out frequently, ask to take any leftovers home. Uneaten food in American restaurants must be discarded, even if it was a side dish brought to your table that you didn’t touch. Use it for lunch the following day or plan a potpourri meal of leftovers at the end of the week.

6. Use leftovers to make a sustainable soup. Begin with a simple broth and add leftover veggies and meat. Avoid putting pasta into the broth because it will become mushy, but you can reheat pasta in a bowl and add the soup to it. You can actually keep a soup going for a few days before you start over. Every time you add something new, you change the taste! It’s a great starter to any meal during cold winter months.

7. Start a compost pile of all peelings, foods that look tired in the refrigerator and vegetables your kids refused to eat. Composted materials are returned to the soil as fertilizer for next year’s garden. For great information on simple composting, go to ecologue.com, ciwmb.ca.gov (go to “home composting”) or sustainable.tamu.edu/slidesets (go to “composting for kids”). If you live in an apartment, consider starting a community compost pile and perhaps even a community garden. Composting is so “in” these days that it’s even better than designer purses! And everyone can afford it—in fact, we can’t afford not to do it!

8. Use local produce when possible. It’s fresher because it’s picked when ripe and not before. What’s more, it eliminates both packaging and transportation costs. Plan your meals around seasonal fruits and vegetables. It’s a terrific way to support your own local economy.

9. When cleaning up in the kitchen, or anywhere in your home, consider a vegetable-based concentrate that you add with water in a reusable spray bottle, or simply a vinegar and water combination. Any container that has a warning label or a “proper disposal” label is not ecologically favorable nor is it something you want to be spraying on your cooking surfaces. Frequent cleaning with soap and water will destroy most of the nasty germs in your kitchen.

10. Another way to green up your kitchen is to limit the use of paper towels and turn to washable dishcloths and microfiber cloths. Both can be tossed in the laundry at the end of the day, keeping your paper waste to a minimum.

For more information on ecological responsibility in your house, search the web using the keywords “ecology,” “recycling” and “green environment.”

As for your family’s meals, keep it simple, basic and fresh!

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Are you aware that the most under used, wasted natural resource in this country is not the elderly, or parents, or any minority group. It is our children. So many great ideas, so much energy, so much boundless idealism. So much limitless potential. Why don’t we enlist our children’s help more often?

Much of the answer lies in some old beliefs we have about children that we haven’t let go of yet. Beliefs like children should be seen and not heard. Beliefs that say that kids are just lumps of clay that we need to mold, inferring that they don’t have a spirit and a purpose of their own. Beliefs whereby parents say that there is only one way to do things in this world, and that’s the right way, which is naturally my way! It wasn’t really until the late 60’s and early 70’s that professionals like Dr. T. Berry Brazelton convinced us that infants could not only see and hear but also actively elicit responses in their parents. So our limited and limiting understanding of children’s emotions and capabilities is, in a sense, in it’s infancy.

So many times our kids are the last person we turn to for help, information, or support. For instance, a friend of mine called me last year from Detroit for some advice. At her son’s high school there had been some fights between white and Africa-American students, creating some fairly intense racial tension. This friend wanted some help in creating a retreat for the teens that would bring both sides together to do some conflict resolution and community building. My first question to her was, “How have you involved the teens in creating this retreat?” There was a pause from the other end, then a guilt-ridden “we haven’t at all, yet.” Well, after our conversation, she created a team comprised mostly of students to organize and brainstorm this retreat, which turned out to be incredibly successful. But just think of the opportunity for growth for the students that would have been so carelessly missed for the simple reason that we don’t value our children’s input and contributions. And, therefore, from a child’s perspective, we don’t value them.

Several years ago a 13 year old baby-sitter, Melody, who was an only child living with older parents used to hang around our house a lot. One day my wife, Anne, asked her if she could help balance our checkbook. Well, you would have thought she had been given a million dollars. Anne showed her how and for the next year Melody would come up to our house once a month and tackle the Jordan’s checkbook. And the look on her face when she left our house was worth a thousand words. Happy, proud, valuable, responsible. Something as simple as balancing a checkbook can bring a tremendous sense of satisfaction and a sense of “I’m contributing something worthwhile” to a child.

So become aware of all the endless ways that kids could be valuable to us and their community. Volunteering at a preschool; serving meals at a homeless shelter; picking up litter in your neighborhood; saving up money together as a family for some philanthropic purpose; doing some yard work for grandma and grandpa; asking their ideas or opinion about a problem you are working on. There are large and small opportunities everyday to give kids a chance to be valuable, contributing members of society. And not only does the family and community benefit, but the kids benefit tenfold as well. There is no better way to support kids in feeling good about themselves than to help them be of service to others. Someone once said that you reap what you sow. If kids are getting out of themselves and sowing love and service, then they will reap feelings of love and peace and fullness. In this day and age of so many questions about teen anger, teen violence, teen pregnancies, and teen suicides, perhaps the best answers lie with the kids and teens themselves. Let’s give kids a chance!

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