“Be a room parent!” my son said. “I’ll get to see you, Mommy!”
With a nerf gun to my head, I took on the responsibility.
I figured this would help me keep an ear to the ground as they say. First of all, I could learn which of the teachers wanted to cut and run mid-year and I could support them every way I could. Second, I could spy on my son and see exactly how he was behaving at school!
But what did this job entail?
I had no idea.
As it turns out, it entailed countless meetings that could have been emails. And also having to send out countless emails that could have been skipped altogether.
Additionally, I had to attend all the grade level events.
And don’t get me wrong, seeing my son at his school interacting with his peers has been amazing.
But since August (when the school year started) I’ve had to chaperone several field trips. On one they gave me five kids to keep track of, and two of them had the same name. Why would they do that, you ask? Well why not? At least, I had one less name to memorize.
Afterwards, I took the extra step of texting all the parents pictures of their children on the field trip.
And throughout my time as room parent I’ve gotten to know the other students in my son’s class, met some parents, and regularly shown my support for the teachers. I’ve also volunteered at lunch a number of times.
Long before I became a parent I dreamed of participating in my future children’s school. And this fulfilled that dream. And, as a result of my involvement, my face has become more familiar around the school. The children and staff know me. An added bonus has been being able to infuse a little diversity into the mostly homogenous place we send our son to school.
Then, finally, the school year was three quarters over and the annual field day was upon us. Of course, room parents were required to be there. But I didn’t plan ahead and couldn’t make it. However, I was able to cajole my husband into going in my place.
For context, let me just say it was February and my son had been in this class since August and this would be the FIRST time my husband would be in our son’s classroom.
But back to field day – my husband went, he took on the role of getting the students from activity to activity, something he is far better at than I would have been. And in each of their events he encouraged the kids and assisted the teachers. When the two hour stint was over he and I met for a nice lunch.
That afternoon our son excitedly came home from school. His backpack was strangely full. And when I looked inside, what did I find? Not one but twenty-seven HANDWRITTEN NOTES, LETTERS AND PICTURES from his classmates. Each and every one thanking my husband for volunteering.
You would have thought he had given each child a pony.
I am willing to wager that despite my having been in that classroom or on those field trips or at lunch at least eight times this year, most of the students in the class don’t know my name.
But in each and every letter, my husband is addressed as “Dr. Misra”. He isn’t referred to as my son’s “dad” or as “Mr. Amit” – but “Doctor”. And the funny part is that my husband likes to tell people he’s a “water meter reader” instead of a physician…but we couldn’t expect our son to keep up the same pretenses.
And one of the handwritten notes included animation!!
All had ten dollar vocabulary words like “encouragement” and “persevere.”
Meanwhile, as of today?
I haven’t received so much as a thank you post-it.
**********
Tejal Misra resides in Arizona with her family. She has recently authored and published a children’s book that offers a unique perspective on the festival of Diwali through the eyes of Sita. If you’re interested in acquiring a copy of the book, see the link below:
Part of this post is excerpted from my forthcoming book, How Children Grieve: What Adults Miss and What They Can Do to Help
Previously in this series I talked about the little losses of everyday life, about ambiguous loss and about how to talk to children about death. But eventually, most children suffer an actual loss when a loved one dies.
This is just so painful – both for the child – and for the adults who love the child and want to understand what she is feeling.
And there is so much to understand.
Behind childhood grief is a world of feelings and beliefs, shaped and colored by the child’s age and stage of development but also by the child’s personality, the degree of closeness she had with the person who died, her particular family circumstances, her culture AND by the way her parents feel about this loss in particular and about loss in general.
The problem in understanding what your child feels about her loss is that it is often difficult for her to put this into words. And lacking an explanation, adults who try to help a grieving child often look at the child’s behavior – and when they look at the child’s behavior, they form ideas of what the child is feeling and how they are affected based just on external impressions.
And in doing so, they can miss a lot.
They can miss what is going on in the child’s inner world; they can miss what the child truly feels about the loss; they can miss what the child understands about the loss; they can miss the child’s misconceptions about death and loss in general; they can miss the child’s fantasies about this loss in particular and what role the child believes she played in causing the loss to happen.
And it is important not to miss these things.
When a child loses someone they love, the child doesn’t stop loving that person. The child may not even really believe that person is gone. The child may start searching for them everywhere they go, and each night they may see their lost loved one in their dreams.
When a child loses a beloved person, their love for that person becomes a one-sided equation. It is an unreciprocated, lonely kind of love that involves powerful feelings of missing their lost loved one.
All this missing can feel different for each child. It can feel like pain. Or it can feel like confusion. It can feel like an ongoing emptiness. It can feel like an ache in the pit of the stomach or a headache that never ends. Some children stop eating. Some start eating too much to fill that emptiness.
Most children can’t bear the feeling for long, and they take breaks from it by returning to play and school activities. This could make it seem like the child is no longer grieving. But, in fact, it does not mean the pain, the emptiness, the yearning, or most of all, the loving has stopped.
For example, Chloe was four years old when her grandmother died. She had been close to her grandmother, seeing her at least once almost every week of her life. After being told that her grandmother had died, Chloe went off to the family room. Her parents observed her playing quietly with her dolls, and they were relieved. They felt that she had taken the news very well and saw her as returning to her normal activities.
Several weeks later, when Chloe began to have trouble at bedtime, refusing to go to sleep without one parent or the other lying down with her, they did not link this to her experience of her grandmother’s death. They felt that she was being “clingy” without good reason.
What the parents missed was that her behavior at bedtime was a communication to them.
The truth was that Chloe was very frightened. She had been told that her Nana had “gone to sleep forever and was now with God in Heaven,” so she was afraid to go to sleep, fearing that she would never wake up and that she would go to be with God in Heaven.
When Chloe went to play with her dolls after being told the news of her grandmother’s death, she had played a game of putting her dolls to bed and having them go to sleep and then go to Heaven. She played this over and over, trying to work out both how someone could sleep forever and where Heaven was.
In addition to becoming frightened to go to sleep for fear that she too would sleep forever, Chloe was feeling more fearful of separations in general. She began to have tantrums each morning when it was time to go to preschool and when either her mother or her father left the house. She also had powerful feelings of missing her Nana and didn’t understand why she couldn’t still go to Nana’s house to visit. AND she was worried that others in her life might go away and not come back. Of course, her solution to this was to not let anyone she loved out of her sight!
Chloe’s parents had not thought to wonder how Chloe would understand the words they said to her about her grandmother’s death. They had four children altogether, and Chloe was the third. They were happy with Chloe’s adaptation to the news of her grandmother’s death and very caught up with their own grief, the reactions of their other three children and the funeral arrangements.
Chloe’s story is just one example of how a child might react to loss.
In How Children Grieve, I tell many other stories about children’s grief. And I take an in-depth look at the internal world of the child in order to help caregivers better understand the nuances of feeling and fantasy a child may experience when confronted by loss. I discuss how unique each child’s understanding and reaction to loss are and how strongly they are shaped by her personality, family circumstance, age, stage of development, and culture. I talk about losses of all kinds, including losses due to death, abandonment, deployment, divorce, and immigration.
Following a loss, adults sometimes forget that young children who have never lost a loved one before may not know what death really is. For example, one little boy I saw in therapy lost his father when he was three. His grandfather told him that his daddy had gone “up there” and the grandfather pointed to the sky.
This little boy, who I will call Teddy, accepted this explanation — but then he started to regress. He became fearful of separations, he would not take a bath and his speech became babyish.
His grandmother brought him in to see me and in the first session, Teddy sat down in front of my doll house, took the daddy doll out and threw him behind the house. When I asked, “what happened to the daddy?”, he retrieved the doll and said, “The daddy’s on the roof”.
This is what he had understood when his grandfather had told him that “Daddy’s up there”.
He thought daddy now lived on the roof of their house.
Young children know so little about the world. Everything is new — and this includes the concept of death. It is common for them to believe that when someone dies, they have just gone to live somewhere else and that they can come back.
Older children may understand that death is permanent, but they often believe that if a death occurs, it is someone’s fault. This can lead them to blame others -or themselves – if someone they love dies or leaves permanently.
One little boy I saw in treatment was convinced that his parents had gotten a divorce and his father had gone to live abroad because he was not lovable enough. He told me in no uncertain terms that if only he had been better at soccer and a few other things, his father would have stayed.
When someone dies, children under the age five or six need frequent reminders about what has really happened. They need to be told that the person who died cannot come back, even if they might have wanted to. Fantasy is so powerful at this age that it can quickly replace a reality that is poorly understood (as well as being unwanted).
Children under the age of five or six need death to be explained to them in a concrete way, including the facts that when a person or animal dies, it cannot see or hear or breathe or feel anymore.
And when a child between the ages of six and ten loses someone, they need a slightly more nuanced explanation of what has happened. They need to know the truth and they need to be told face to face, soon after the loss has occurred. They need to be told some details about the sort of illness or the event that caused the death. They also need to be reminded that the death was no one’s fault (if this is true).
Teenagers may seem like they don’t need much help following a loss. After all, they understand what death is, and they manage a great many feelings on their own already.
But whatever age a child is — from infancy through young adulthood, support is needed following a loss due to death.
When a teenager retreats to her room following a loss, when she looks at her phone when you try to talk to her about her feelings or about what is going on in the family, this is NOT an indication that she does not need your help.
Like kids of all ages, teenagers may feel uncomfortable talking about their feelings and they may feel awkward when feelings are talked about with them.
But don’t give up. Keep asking how your teen is doing, keep checking in on how they are feeling and keep letting them know how you are doing and feeling.
There is a great deal to understand about children’s understanding of death and their feelings following the loss of a loved one. If you are interested in learning more, check out my new book:
For children of all ages, there will be grief and there will be mourning if they were close to the person who died.
But this grief may not take the form that adults expect.
Some children will show signs of sadness, much like an adult would. But others may not.
Some children may express their feelings readily and ask lots of questions. Others may not show many feelings and the adults around them may wonder whether they are grieving or not.
All children will pop in and out of grief — sometimes seeming sad or angry or irritable and other times going about their usual activities including playing and seeming completely unphased.
But whatever the child’s age, clinical experience and research show that a strong relational environment is one of the most important factors in helping the child to process their grief, tolerate their sad, confused, or angry feelings, and come out the other side.
Adults can help a grieving child by understanding the many forms the child’s grief may take, by tolerating their child’s feelings and by talking about how the child feels, whatever those feelings may be.
This task is complicated, however, because often, when a child is in mourning, the parent will also be in mourning. If a grandparent has died, the parent is grieving the loss of their parent or their parent-in-law. If a sibling has died, the parent will be in mourning for their child. And even if it is a close family friend who has died, the parent will also be affected.
This makes it more difficult for a parent to be available to a child. They may need to bring in help for a brief period of time — and have others provide the support their child needs.
Death is hard to accept for all of us. We all need a great deal of help and support when we lose someone we love — and this is all the more true for children and teenagers.
Everywhere you look, someone is either writing or podcasting about how you should be raising your children. You should be more gentle; you should be less gentle. Your children need to develop an understanding of feelings; your children are overprotected and unprepared. Whether you are reading Sarah Ockwell-Smith or Johthan Haidt, you will find that you are doing it all wrong.
What’s a parent to do?
Well, if you ask me, it’s not one or the other. Sometimes children need limits and sometimes they need help understanding their own feelings and the feelings of others.
We don’t want to over protect our children so they are unprepared for what life is really like nor do we want to overexpose them to disappointment and difficulty.
So, again, what’s a parent to do?
Well, I would like to start with just one subject. And that is the subject of loss.
Children – all children – experience losses and disappointments in their lives and we do not need to protect them from these or from the feelings that result from these.
But we do need to prepare them and to help them when these losses happen.
We need to prepare them for both the little losses and the big losses so that as they mature, they will be able to handle what comes their way.
We don’t like to think about it, but children suffer losses all the time. And they need to be able to manage when these losses occur.
A friend doesn’t show up at school because she’s sick. Another friend moves away over the summer. A beloved stuffed animal is left behind on a trip. A promised adventure to the amusement park is cancelled due to rain.
These are small losses, but losses all the same.
So, do we go out and buy a new stuffed animal right away? Do we call the teacher and tell her how sad our child is that her friend is out sick? Do we try to introduce our sad child to other kids as soon as we find out her friend is moving? Do we substitute a trip to an indoor trampoline park instead of the amusement park?
You might be tempted to do one of these things.
But how about holding off?
Our job, as parents, is not to protect our children from experiencing loss, nor from the feelings accompanying loss.
What we need to do is to help our children with their losses, whether big or small, and we need to start early.
We need to convey that yes, it is sad to lose a stuffed animal or to miss a friend or to lose a much hoped for day at the amusement park – but we also need to convey that these losses can be survived.
Little losses are the best place to begin – because they lay the groundwork for dealing with bigger losses which will certainly come along at some point.
We should try to avoid giving our children the impression that life is always good.
Because it isn’t.
And we want our children to be able to feel what they feel when life isn’t good, and to be able to talk about it (if they want), and eventually to be able to move on.
The problem is that often these small losses are not spoken about.
For the obvious ones like the loss of the stuffed animal, parents are often tempted to make the sadness go away by replacing the lost toy.
But why not let your child feel sad for a while?
Part of the problem with this is that for parents, it can be hard to tolerate a child’s sad feelings. It is painful for us.
But try to take a moment. This is our job – we just have to try to allow the sadness and to show that WE can survive it ourselves.
If we can tolerate our child’s sadness, this will help them to tolerate their own sadness.
And a missed friend or a missed day of fun?
Let’s also let them be sad. Let’s try not to “make it all better”. Let’s talk about how sad and hard these things are. Let’s share times when we suffered in the same way. And let’s tolerate our children’s sadness and disappointment – and let them know that these things will happen from time to time in their lives.
And what about less obvious losses? The ones that we might not notice but which children are suffering with?
They are what Pauline Boss calls “ambiguous losses” and I will talk about these in Part 2 of this series.
Dr. Corinne Masur (Be sure to leave a comment below if you have something to say about screen time!)
In our parenting group on Friday one mother said, “at our house it’s always a battle about electronics”.
I think she speaks for 98% of all parents in the US.
Once kids get on Youtube or once they are playing a game, they don’t want to stop. And in fact, it’s really hard to stop.
So there’s either a battle – or there are frustrated parents shying away from a battle.
Parents are genuinely afraid to say no. Parents want to avoid a meltdown.
And this is doubly true in public. In our group, parents admitted to being afraid that if they say no when they are outside of the house, there will be a scene, a tantrum, yelling and screaming – and everyone will see it.
And then they will feel ashamed.
The parents talked all about this. They admitted that sometimes they don’t set limits because they are afraid the ensuing battle will take away everyone else’s good time.
What if they are at a restaurant? Out with friends? Or on a trip with other families?
No one wants to be the parent who caused the meltdown that makes everyone else uncomfortable.
One mom said “I don’t think it’s healthy but that’s the way it is”.
Another parent said, “but if you let things go, it’s hard to make a change.”
This IS hard.
If you don’t set limits early and often, kids are used to getting 10 more minutes…or an extra half hour. They persist at asking for more because they know sometimes they get it.
Parents are confused about what to do. Set a limit? Don’t set a limit? Give in to your child’s desire to stay on screen and give yourself another half an hour to look at your own phone? Or do the laundry?
This is a conflict. Parents want and need more time for themselves. At the same time they want their kids to listen when they say, “It’s time to get off your screen”.
Is it better to make a few rules? Ones that are just for your family – which don’t have to be like anyone else’s rules?
Or is it better to keep the peace?
Giving in sometimes and having established rules are not necessarily compatible. As we all learned in Intro to Psychology, the most reinforcing thing in the world is intermittent reinforcement. It’s better than all positive reinforcement and it’s better than all negative reinforcement – that is, if you want that behavior to persist, whatever that behavior is, rewarding it SOME of the time is the thing that will make it persist. In other words, if you give in sometimes, your child is even more likely to ask for more time on screen than if you say yes every time. Hard to believe – but true.
So what is a parent to do? You have a rule: 2 hours of screen time on Saturdays. But this particular Saturday you are sick and need a nap or you’ve been busy and you need time to catch up on work.
It’s easier to give some extra screen time than to insist that your child find other things to do; it’s easier to give some extra screen time than to set up a playdate; it’s easier to give extra screen time than doing almost anything else!
We discussed all this in the group and in the end, the consensus seemed to be that it was important – to these particular parents – to figure out what worked for each of their own families. And then to try to be consistent. Some of them wanted to have no screens at meals at all. One mother wanted her kids to have no phones at all until age 13. But she was willing to let her 9 year old have an iwatch that couldn’t make calls. Two parents said phones at meals were OK as long as the kids ate their food before looking at the phone.
They all said they struggle with these questions – but they all also want more of a feeling of control in their homes.
Of course, you can’t entirely control your children. They are going to do some things and spend their time in some ways that aren’t your preference. But for their sake, and for your own, do you want to decide whether you WANT phones at meals or how many hours a day YOU want your children on devices?
You might find it worthwhile.
And you might want to stick by what you decide.
It’s hard to set limits, it’s hard to make rules and stick to them, it’s hard to say no and suffer the resulting melt downs – especially in public. But it is also important to think about whether it’s worth it. For you. And especially, in the long term, for your children.
All children have meltdowns sometimes. If you can tolerate your child’s meltdowns, and if you can allow them to happen because you’ve said no – you might actually find out that there will be fewer of them – and your child might – just might – get off her screen when it’s time. It’s not a guarantee. But there’s a chance.
There is a theory in economics which says that benefits for the wealthy trickle down to everyone else. Whether you agree with this or not, don’t worry, because I am not going to be talking about economics here.
What I am going to talk about is the idea that one mother brought up in our parents’ group today.
She said that she thought her daughter was affected by a term she invented: “trickle down anxiety”.
And what she meant is that she thinks her own anxiety and that of her husband are affecting their daughter – and possibly even their infant son.
Just an hour earlier she had been talking about how unsafe the world feels right now with the wars and with the divisiveness in this country, including – especially – on several of our nearby campuses here in Philadelphia where there have been demonstrations and evidence of hate speech over the last several days.
Another mother brought up how all of us lost our sense of safety during Covid and how now that we might just be getting back on our feet, we are facing new sources of anxiety – and even danger.
What are parents to do?
These ARE anxious times.
Well, there is no perfect answer to this question.
But there ARE some things that could be helpful:
– First, just check in with yourself: Are you feeling anxious? Are you worried about the war in Israel and Gaza? Or the one in the Ukraine? Are you worried about the political situation in this country? Or the safety of your neighborhood? Are you worried about your child’s safety and well-being? Does this hit you in ways that overwhelm you? And is this beyond how you imagined you would feel as a parent?
– Second, if you find that you ARE feeling anxious, take note of how this affects you: Does it make you more irritable? Does it make it hard for you to get to sleep or stay asleep at night? Are you interacting with your children or partner in a way that demonstrates your anxiety and/or irritability and/or tiredness? Are you getting in more arguments? Are you finding yourself disagreeing over small things? Or are you showing that you are anxious in other ways – do you look worried? Are you eating less? Or more? Are you checking your newsfeed more frequently than you used to?
For most of us, the answers to some or even all of these questions is probably yes.
And if this is the case, acknowledge it: acknowledge it with yourself and then acknowledge this with you partner and children.
Even young children, three or over, can understand it if you say, “Mommy/Daddy has been more worried (or more tired) today, I’m sorry I was cranky with you”.
– Third, ask yourself whether your children are more anxious these days. Do you think they could be experiencing your anxiety and then feeling anxious themselves? Are they having trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep? Are they more irritable than usual? Are they asking you any questions about whether you’re OK?
And finally, is there anything to do about all this?
Let’s me ask just a few more questions:
What do you need for YOUR anxiety?
Because if you can get what you need, there might be less trickle down from you to your children.
Do you need more support from your partner or friends? Do you need a place to talk about your anxiety? Would talking for a bit after the children go to sleep (whether with your partner or with someone on the phone) help? Or might you consider cutting back on the amount of news you consume? Do you need to protect yourself from the media onslaught more than you are currently doing? Or does all of this sound insufficient and might you need to consult with a professional about your anxiety?
Think about it.
Our anxiety DOES affect our children. They feel it. It DOES trickle down And when the trickle reaches them they feel more anxious without even knowing why.
Once you have gotten some of your anxiety taken care of, talk to your children about how you’ve been feeling. See if they volunteer anything about how they’ve been feeling. Reassure them that even when you have worries, they are safe.
Repeat this as often as necessary.
The world is scary right now. But we can do some things to help ourselves and to reassure our children.
Our world feels particularly frightening right now – two major wars, several smaller armed conflicts (Sudan, Ethiopia, The Sahel, the Mexican and Central American drug and gang wars) and so many natural disasters.
Do we talk with our children about these things?
And if so, how?
And more specifically, for those of us personally affected by the latest war in Israel and Gaza, how do we handle our own feelings and those of our children simultaneously?
I cannot pretend to have definitive answers.
The attack on Israel came as a shock to all of us.
The war there is just days old. And we are all trying to absorb and process the magnitude of the horror.
We may be filled with anxiety – or sadness – or anger. We may be feeling all of these emotions in succession and combination.
When we hear what’s happening and see the images of beautiful young people who have been kidnapped or killed or the videos of devastation, we may feel physically ill.
So how do we deal with our own emotions? And then how do we address the situation with our children?
I have some suggestions.
For those of us who are directly affected because we have family and friends in Israel or Gaza, the situation is the hardest. We have the competing interests of trying to track our loved ones while also wanting to protect our children from being overwhelmed by the events in Israel and by our own fear and horror.
We need to be free to experience our own feelings – while also needing to be in control for our children. Because we know that in order for our children to feel cared for and safe, they need to know that we are still able to be in control and in charge.
This is an extremely difficult dillemma.
And for others of us, not so directly affected, we are still full of emotion – outrage, fear, terrible sadness.
It is tempting for many of us to keep the news on all day, to check our newsfeeds on our phones and computers constantly, to read the newspaper and to talk about the war at home, on the phone and together with friends and family.
But is this the best thing to be doing – for ourselves? Or for our children?
Let me share my thoughts on this.
If you have children under the age of eight, for their sake, and for your own, try the following:
– Turn off the TV news and keep it off. Repeated exposure to violence, even on the television or phone, can be traumatizing – for adults as well as children.
– Even when the terrible events we see are not happening directly to us, we can be traumatized just by the act of seeing them or hearlng about them. This is called vicarious traumatization.
– If you must check the news on your phone, do so in private – if you have to take a bathroom break to do so, then do that – and do so only a few times per day, if possible.
– Talk to friends and relatives about the war out of earshot of your children.
– Don’t think you can be in the same room with your children and talk in a low voice about the war – when you do this children often understand that there is something being said that they aren’t supposed to hear – and they will try very hard indeed to hear what it is.
– If you go to a restaurant with your children and they have the news on the TV over the bar, either go to a different restaurant or ask the waiter privately (ie, not in front of your children) if they would be willing to change the channel.
– Over the next few weeks, if your child is going on a play date at a friend’s house, ask the parents of the child your child is going to play with what they do in their home about having the TV on or talking about the war – before you child goes over.
– But also, be proactive. Talk to your children (starting with those around age 3 and up) directly about what is happening.
– Tell them the facts in simplified form. For example, “A group called Hamas started a fight with Israel on Saturday. Now Hamas and Israel are fighting and it is very hard for the people there.” You can add a few specific details about your friends and relatives – but not too many, and none that are graphic. And you can say, “Daddy and I are very worried about this”.
– Answer your children’s questions – and they will have many.
– But keep it simple – and leave out the disturbing details.
-Use very simple language. Children this age do not know where the Middle East is or what a terrorist is. Leave out the facts about children and families being killed or taken hostage. These details are too frightening for young children.
– When they ask if your friends or relatives will be safe, again, answer honestly.
You can say, “They are doing everything they can to stay safe” or “They are trying hard to stay safe, but right now we don’t know what will happen. War is scary for everybody”.
– If they ask, reassure your children that the war is far away and that they are safe in your home.
And if you have children over the age of eight, you can try these:
– Turn the TV news off and keep it off – again, for your own sake and for theirs.
– Keep adult conversations about the war either out of earshot of your children or limited to what you feel they can hear without becoming overwhelmed with fear.
– Address the situation directly with your children.
– Ask your children what they know about the war.
– Ask them what they think about the war.
– Ask them what their friends are saying about the war.
– Ask them what their friends have seen on social media about the war (sometimes it’s better to ask what friends are doing rather than asking your shile what he/she/they are doing).
– And If they ask, tell them what you think about the war. But try to stay as steady as you can during these conversations. This may be very hard. But, again, the most frightening thing for children of all ages is seeing their parents feeling overwhelmed or out of control.
– This can lead to a wider discussion about war in general. Or about the history of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. Or about the development of Hamas. These discussions can add much needed context for what is happening right now.
– If you are sad about the war, do not be afraid to share this. Even crying in front of your children is fine. It shows them one way to express the scared and upset feelings both you and they may have.
-If your children have their own cell phones, suggest that they check the news infrequently, if at all.
– If they are teenagers and/or if they are particularly interested in what is going on in Israel and Gaza, encourage them to look at the reliable news sites and to stay away from the sensationalized news – including stories and images on social media – and tell them why you don’t think it will be helpful for them to look at these sites. You can tell them openly that you feel these images are just too horrific and too upsetting for anyone of any age to look at. You can also say, that looking at the images plays into the terrorist’s desire to terrorize people. However, be prepared for the possibility that you will have limited influence with your teenagers’ viewing decisions.
– Check for signs of your older children overwhelming themselves with painful media. Try to be aware of whether they seem particularly anxious or overwhelmed. And if they do, sit down and talk about what they – and you – are feeling. Try not to argue over social media use and this sort of thing at this time.
– And try to take care of yourself. Try not to overwhelm yourself with information or with constant vigilance and discussion – if this is at all possible for you.
Today in our parenting group one Mom brought up the fact that her son had asked if all girls have to have babies.
And another Mother told the story of her daughter asking how gay men have sex – while sitting at a holiday dinner with all the relatives.
So…we talked about when and how to talk to kids about sex.
As it turned out, the girl who asked about how gay men have sex was sitting across the table from her uncle and his male partner.
This could have been awkward…
But, interestingly, it wasn’t.
The Mom in question answered her daughter’s question and the uncles confirmed the answer.
This kind of openness is not possible in all families – but it was in this one because both the Mom and the uncles consider themselves sex positive and are fine talking about sex.
In some families, maybe even most families, there CAN be awkwardness. Some parents avoid the discussion. Some let school provide the forum for discussion. Some get books and use them to lead the discussion.
Like the other Mother, the one whose son asked if girls have to have babies did not have a problem answering. Or perhaps this was an easier question.
But in our group this Mom did tell us the story of her own parents’ struggle with talking to her about sex. Her parents were immigrants and let’s just say the talk was extremely short and a pamphlet was involved.
There really is no one right way to talk with your children about sex. But it is important to do it.
Let’s break this down to make it easier:
If one of your goals is to help your children to not feel embarrassed or awkward about the subject, then you might want to try thinking about how you are going to approach the questions before they come up.
You may want to look at some books aimed at children your childrens’ ages – before your children (or you) need them.
You may want to talk with your partner about what you want to say when the questions come up.
And you may want to reflect on your own feelings about talking about sex, sexuality and bodies before you talk with your children.
If you feel embarrassed or awkward, maybe you can try to reflect on why this might be. And perhaps you can think about what might make you feel less embarrassed or awkward.
But remember – the first time your child asks about their own anatomy or yours, about sex or about having babies, you do not have to make it into a big deal – you do not have to have what used to be called, “the talk”.
Just answer the question at hand.
There can be many discussions about bodies and sex and sexuality over the course of your children’s childhoods.
And if using a book is helpful to you in talking to your children, if this will make you feel more confident about the discussion, I have some suggestions (below).
But also remember:
– Your child will ask about their body, other people’s bodies and sex when they are ready to know. You do not have to initiate the discussion.
– But the first questions usually come early. Two and three year olds want to know about bodies. Children are observant and curious at this age. And at this point, they are not usually asking about sex. They just want to know why you look one way and they look another. They may want to know why you have breasts and they do not. Or why Daddy’s penis is bigger than theirs. Reassuring answers such as “we all have something – boys (or people assigned as male at birth if you prefer) have a penis and girls (or people assigned as female at birth) have a vulva and a vagina” or “you will have a big penis like daddy’s when you grow up” (for people assigned male at birth) are best.
– As the questions pop up, just answer the specific questions your child is asking. Don’t feel pressure to say more until they ask further questions.
– Make your answers appropriate to your child’s age and in accordance with the culture of your family. For little kids, a simple, factual answer is best. For older kids you can add more detail.
– Use the correct names for the various body parts.
– As children get older, don’t be afraid to talk to them about the feelings around liking another person. Help them to distinguish between liking someone as a friend, liking someone for romantic reasons and liking someone because you are attracted to them. And when doing this, mostly just listen.
– If your child “likes” someone for the first time, just ask them to tell you more about it. Ask them what it feels like to like someone.
– Once your child gets to be ten or eleven, you will probably have had numerous conversations about bodies and sex and sexuality. But if they haven’t asked, or if, for one reason or another, you have not explained very much to them, make sure your child, no matter their gender, knows about what happens with bodies as they mature. In this case, you can bring up the subject if they have not. Make sure they know about how breasts and penises grow and about when menstruation and ejaculation start to happen and why they happen. And after you talk about these things, feel free to leave a couple of books in obvious places around the house so that they can find out more if they don’t want to ask again. But hopefully, they WILL ask – again, and again, and again.
– By twelve, or thirteen (and you are the best judge of when to do this) if you have not already talked about how sex works, it’s time to do so. Or, if you have only explained it in the simplest of terms, it is time to go into more detail. Again, you can bring this up. At the same time, you can start to introduce the idea of consent into the conversation. The book by Al Vernaccio, listed below, will help you with how to present some of the ideas you may want to convey about various sexual possibilities and about consent.
– And most importantly, make sure you tell your children that you are glad they asked the questions they asked and you are glad they were willing to listen to what you had to say – so that they will feel welcome to ask again in the future when they want to know more.
Helpful Books:
The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls
The Girl’s Body Book: Everything Girls Need to Know for Growing Up, Kelli Dunham
The Body Book for Older Girls, Cara Natterson
The Boy’s Body Book, Kelli Dunham
The Boy’s Body Book: Everything You Need To Know for Growing Up
For Goodness Sex: A sex positive book about raising healthy, empowered teens, Al Vernaccio
“Spending the majority of your day with fragmented attention can permanently affect your ability to sustain concentration.”
This is something that Cal Newport, Associate Professor at Georgetown University, said in a Ted Talk about why he has never had a social media account and why he turns off his notifications while he’s working on a project.
He talks and writes about the impact that social media and multiple sources of information have on our work habits, productivity and ability to concentrate. His premise is that jumping from email to Facebook to Slack feed, whether at work or at home, impairs our ability to actually do what we need to do in an efficient way as well as affecting our overall ability to sustain attention.
He calls shifting from doing a task at work to looking at an email a “context shift”. And in an interview in the New York Times Magazine last Sunday (1/29/23), he said that “even minor context shifts are poison” – by which he meant, that if you are writing a report at work and you stop to check a message, there will be a cost to your productivity. You will have to exert a large amount of mental energy to go from that message back to the report you were writing. And if you do this multiple times while writing the report, you will take longer and have to work harder to finish it.
Cal Newport advocates turning off your notifications and doing one thing at a time.
Old fashioned?
Sure –
but also, according to him, more efficient and more productive.
So what does that have to do with parenting?
Well, I would be remiss if I advised you to try to get your children to turn off THEIR notifications or if I suggested that you could actually get them to stop looking at their phones all the time. They won’t listen, they will argue, they will get angry – and we all know this.
BUT – there are a couple of things you CAN do.
First, you can start to adopt some of these habits yourself. And then you can talk about having done so IN FRONT OF YOUR CHILDREN. You can talk about whether or not this has helped you.
There are numerous benefits to you here – you may actually find that you ARE more productive, and you may find that you feel less stressed. Constantly trying to pay attention to several sources of communication and information all day long is stressful and anxiety provoking.
Second, while your children are young, you can insist that they put their cell phones (if they have them) in a basket while they do homework and at family meal time. You can probably get away with this through junior high – or, if you are really good, through high school. It will be hard, but if you persist, your children just might develop some good work habits that are more productive and less stressful for them.
Here’s a round up of the top five best parenting books that were released in 2022. Happy reading!
Best New Books:
1) Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids by Mona Delahooke
“Based on years of clinical experience, this book offers a new approach to parenting that considers and centers the essential role of the entire nervous system, which controls children’s feelings and behaviors, in how to raise children.”
2) Peaceful Discipline: Story Teaching, Brain Science & Better Behavior by Sarah R. Moore
“A reflection on the body-brain connection in behavior and why our concept of “consequences don’t work for children, and what to do, within a positive framework, instead.”
3) Raising Antiracist Children: A Practical Parenting Guide by Britt Hawthorne
“An essential guide to raising inclusive, antiracist children from educator and advocate, Britt Hawthorne.”
4) LGBTQ Family Building: A Guide for Prospective Parents by Abbie E. Goldberg
“This easy to read guide offers a comprehensive overview of parenting with regard to the specific complexities, joys, and nuances of being an LGBTQ+ person and parent.”
5) Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Dr. Becky Kennedy
“A comprehensive resource offering new techniques for modern parenting and how to raise kids to feel confident and resilient.”
And a few oldies but goodies:
(These are a few recommendations but this series continues all the way up to adolescence!)
I was never a cooking kid. Despite the many invitations into their separate kitchens I always refused my parents offers to help cook. I never made paprikash csirke with my mom or baked ziti with my dad. The kitchen and all its mysteries was the domain of parents. Except on Christmas. Because on Christmas we didn’t cook. We baked.
Cooking, to me, was the Wild West. Full of strange ingredients, relying on instinct and secret troves of knowledge. Baking was different. There were a key set of players that could be rearranged into a thousand different delicious things. There were steps, there was order, there was control. And as a kid, in that, I found magic.
For the past seven years I have missed those baking Christmases. I wasn’t with EITHER parent – both because I lived abroad and because of the pandemic.
For many people, like me, this will literally be the first holiday season they have together with family in years.
And while that is so so wonderful. It presents a challenge many of us weren’t expecting. In the absence of our routines, in a world turned topsy turvey, traditions were rearranged. Adapted. Transformed. As were relationships and rituals.
Right before the pandemic my mother had gone on a few dates with a guy, I barely remembered his name. Now I know him as Peter, my stepfather, and the man who made her feel loved enough she decided to move in with him after twenty years living on her own. The era of going to my grandmother’s house for the holiday too has ended (she’s moving in with my mom.) And my father, who, over the 25 years of their divorce only ever lived down the road, is moving the day after Christmas to Albany, 3.5 hours away.
There is a part of me that just wants to yell ‘Stop! Hang on a second! Let me catch up.”
At first, I felt like that little kid being invited back into my parents kitchen to cook.I don’t understand. Where is everything as I left it? Where is it all going?
I’m a thirty year old kid and having these questions, these before bedtime fears. So too may many of your little ones. Routine and ritual can be so beneficial and comforting to a child.
Kids love baking.
So how do we talk to our children, both little and big, about life, the holidays as they now are, about a world where traditions sometimes have to change and rearrange?
Every year as I was growing up, my mother and I celebrated advent (the entire December month long lead up to Christmas.) Since I was 18 and moved away, we haven’t had much of a chance to spend that time together. I haven’t gotten to read to her her favorite Christmas Story (A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas.)
This year I have. And when I sit on the couch to do so, my grandmother is there too. And before we begin, Peter lights the Chanukah candles and sings Maoz Tzur. Later tonight I’ll help my father finish packing, moving for the first time to a place that is his and no one else’s. As I sit and read, I can see the advent candles flickering side by side with our menorah.
It is indeed a strange new world. And that can scare kids and their grownups (and grownup kids) alike. But in the strangeness, new beauty and new wonders can be found. And as I sit and read, looking at the glowing world around me, I am reassured that everything is going to be fine, that the kids are going to be alright. Because they’ll learn that old traditions mesh with new ones, and you can make something together, in which everyone is involved. And, from where I’m sitting, that’s a wonderful thing.
After I finish reading, I’ll watch the candles go out, wrap my dad his presents to open in his new house, and later I’ll help with the cooking (and the baking!)
Thoughtful Parenting 