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Living with Children McClatchy Newspapers Q: I recently read an article that said adults need to earn the respect of children. That seems like one more "progressive" attempt to undermine parental authority. I believe children should respect adults no matter what. Don't you agree? A: Trying to trap me with a rhetorical question, eh? I've been around too long to fall for one of the oldest tricks in the proverbial book. No, I don't agree. You accuse the author of said article of "progressive" thinking, but you're the one guilty of proposing that respect is an entitlement due adults because they're — what? — bigger? The fact that a person occupies a position of authority does not mean he or she exercises authority in a manner that deserves esteem. For example, the fact that the law requires me to submit to certain designated authorities does not mean I am obligated to give them my respect. Note that obedience and respect are not synonymous. I obey because I believe in rule of law, however...
Chicago Tribune (MCT) You'd like to take two preschoolers to the pool (your child and her friend). What are some ground rules to make sure everyone stays safe? Parent advice: I would not take another person's preschooler to a pool, other than the little round plastic one that's ankle deep in the backyard, without their parent or caregiver — and I would not let anyone take my own preschooler to a pool. Ever. —Cora de Leon You should have an extra set of hands on board in case someone has to go potty. If you don't have an extra person to help, be sure they all get out of the pool and all go to the potty as a group. And because you are caring for more than one, insist that each preschooler wear a safety vest. —Dawn DeGrazia My oldest child was 39 months old when my third child was born. This put me at the pool for several summers with three kids of preschool age. That hair-raising experience convinced me that it's safest to only go to the pool with a big person for every little person until...
By Debra-Lynn B. Hook (MCT) When you're a mother, you get used to handling whatever comes your way. For starters, you handle pregnancy. And childbirth. As time goes on, you learn to appear normal while wearing spit-up on your clothes; to remain calm while the ER doctor sews stitches into your daughter's head for the third time that summer; to seem unfazed when your crusty pediatrician tells you mothers have lived for generations without eight hours of sleep a night, and you will, too. Ah, but then right about the time you get cocky, right about the time you think you might even be pretty good at this, your daughter, the one who used to wear Hello Kitty jammies and suck her thumb while saying, "You my best friend, Mommy," slams your psyche against the wall. Psychologist types like to call this individuation. I call it hell in flip-flops — that unique time in your daughter's life when she discovers that not only is she separate from you, but that she has a primal need to tear your self-esteem into tiny...
McClatchy Newspapers Q: Our 13-year-old daughter recently told us that she wants to be like everyone else even if that means doing the wrong thing. She gets as close to trouble as possible and lots of times goes head on into it. We let her "hang herself" and then suffer the consequence. And the consequences are not pleasant. We see a very turbulent future ahead for her. Any advice? A: Your daughter sounds very much like a certain headstrong teenager I once knew who although reasonably intelligent seemed to have a talent for making stupid decisions, mostly because he too wanted to be accepted by his peers. He eventually straightened himself out (with the able assistance of a few college professors and later, a wife) and managed to become a respected (if controversial) parenting pundit. Like your daughter, said young man had to learn his lessons the hard way. That turbulent time in my life taught me several things that have proven valuable in my career: First, good parenting does not guarantee...
By John Rosemond McClatchy Newspapers A concerned mother told me her 6-year-old daughter still threw tantrums nearly every day, during which she screamed as if she was being tortured, produced copious tears, and performed various contortions, often losing her balance and falling to the ground where she would writhe as if possessed by demons. In fact, the parents sometimes wondered if an exorcism might be appropriate. These tantrums occurred when she didn't get her way. "Why does she throw these tantrums?" the mother asked. "Because she doesn't get her way," I said. "I know, but why?" "Because she believes she is entitled to what she wants, when she wants it." She stared at me for several seconds, then said, "Someone told me she might be bipolar." "All toddlers are bipolar." "But she's not a toddler." "Yes she is," I said. She's a toddler in a 7-year-old body. Toddlers believe that what they want, they deserve to have. Your daughter believes that. She's stuck in toddlerhood." This little girl's mother was convinced...
McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT) Dear Mr. Dad: I'm an expectant father and I want to take some time off after our baby is born. But even though my company offers some family-friendly benefits, my boss isn't very happy about the idea. At all. I know I have legal rights under the Family Leave Act, but I don't want things to get hostile. Do you have any suggestions for how I might be able to convince my employer? A: Over the past decade or so, more and more companies are offering family-friendly benefits. But when it comes to male employees, the messages about whether it's okay to actually use those benefits are, as you've discovered, mixed at best. For example, about 13 percent of U.S. employers offer paid paternity leave. But even at those companies, only about half of eligible men take it. The rest don't, largely out of fear that they'd be committing career suicide. Overall, compared to mothers, fathers are only one-tenth as likely to have ever used parenting leave and one-sixth as... 
Spring fever has hit. And with what force! It may be that the Summer on 2009 was the "summer that never warmed". After all, my son celebrated his 4th of July birthday playing in the snow. Remember that, Pocatello? Streets turned into oil slicked pools and were blocked off by fire trucks. I have a picture of utter befuddlement displayed across my newly-turned 2 year old boy's face as he holds snow. On Independence Day. Shouldn't we have been playing in a lake instead of huddled inside watching massive amounts of snow/hail accumulate on the deck outside? Or it could be that I had a baby last summer. Pregnancy and newborns tend to take a bit of the carefree joviality that can be often felt through the warmer months. My little guy was pretty travel-friendly and we did swim and play a lot. But being weighed down by strollers, nursing covers and pack&plays will detract from the natural buoyancy of sunny days. Or perhaps I am over-thinking this. I have been recently accused of that sort of thing. I may be thinking through...
By Heidi Stevens Chicago Tribune Your oldest picks on your middle child, who, in turn, takes it out on your youngest. How do you put a stop to this? Parent advice: When one child is picking on another child, the parent needs to listen to the behavior: Does he feel left out? Is she not getting the kind of attention she got before? Does he have something to say and no one is listening? If you really listen, chances are you will hear what your child's particular stress is: No one is paying attention to me; I'm hurting; school was awful today; I've been bullied. Assume your child is trying to communicate to you and listen. --Elaine Spicer Very early on I explained that I wasn't going to step in unless there was blood. They had to work out disagreements between themselves. "Hurting my feelings" didn't count. "Looking at me mean" also didn't count. If there isn't attention from the parents, most of this irritating, petty stuff will go away. --Marie Grass Amenta Expert advice: "There are inevitable conflicts between...
By John Rosemond McClatchy Newspapers Q: My 2 1/2-year-old is still sleeping in her crib. When we put her in for a nap, she begins jumping up and down, holding onto the side. (She was also doing this at night-time, but that has stopped.) We have tried spanking and recently taking away a favorite activity. Nothing seems to work! We feel like she still needs a nap because she acts tired when she doesn't take one. Please help! A: I don't know whether to laugh or scream out loud. Please, take this personally: This is not a parenting problem; this is a parent problem. If the fact that at naptime your daughter takes the opportunity to exercise gross motor skills and have fun at the same time (they are, after all, virtually synonymous) is consuming this much of your emotional energy at 32 months, you will both be candidates for the loony bin by the time she's 5. If you simply put her in her crib and leave and let her do her jumping thing for as long as she likes, she might eventually fall asleep. And if she...
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceDear Mr. Dad: My 2 1/2 year old son has recently started running away from me whenever we leave the house. Sometimes I have to sprint to catch him. It's really frightening and I'm afraid to look away even for a second. Why is he doing this and how can I stop him? A: First, let's keep in mind that your son isn't running away to rebel, and he probably isn't trying to scare you. It's actually a normal developmental phase for toddlers. Aside from having a marvelous time exploring the world, running, being chased, and getting caught makes them feel secure. That said, since dashing off in a parking lot or crowded place can be a serious safety issue, and your son needs to learn to stop doing it (or at least cut back. Here are a few strategies: —Strap him in. The simplest solution is to keep him confined to his stroller. But that can make both of you miserable. However, you can use the stroller as a training tool. Bring it along a few times and if your son tries to...
Today was a hard day for me! I took my little baby boy to daycare for the first time this morning. My family has been watching him, my grandparents and my mom. And my husband has not been working a lot, so he has been staying home with him. But now that it is getting warmer, work for my husband has been picking up, and my family has been telling me that they are getting behind on yard work and such . . . hint hint... In my search for a (good) day care, I have discovered that very few places will take children younger than a year old. The ones that do are all full because, by law, there can only be so many infants per care taker (which I am very grateful for!). The place(s) that do have an opening will only take them full time, at a cost of about $500 a month. Ya, that is not a typo. $500 a month. I would be working just to pay health insurance and day care. Does not make much sense, does it? So I finally find this place. . . It is conveniently located about halfway between work and home, they offer part time care,...
I seem to have had a lot of really good conversations lately. The very best being with my great friend Stacy. We had a wonderful give and take over a book that it seems everyone has read, Twilight and the series. Of course we occasionally veered into drooling over the werewolves in the newest movie, but we had a lot of fun discussing character motives and sympathetic protagonists, sticky plot points and hidden agendas. It was a real, grown-up conversation that never touched on children, which is rare for two mothers. And I loved it.
It was a dark and stormy night . . . . Ok, so not so stormy, but definitely night and definitely dark. My eyes fluttered open with the familiar sounds of coos and tiny feet kicking the crib bumber. How long have I been asleep? The red glow of the alarm clock says about an hour. Is that all? Really? No way . . . there is not way he is awake again after an hour. A loud protest from the crib across the room quickly erased any doubts. This is a familiar routine for moms of two, three, maybe even four and five month olds, but seven? They are supposed to be sleeping through the night by now right? Nope. My husband and I thought so too, when our son, Devin was born in September 2009. But here we were, at 3, 4, 5 in the morning pacing the floor, eyes closed, humming everything from "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to "Poker Face." At first it was funny. We quoted lines from our favorite comedies while we took turns changing wet diapers and spit covered sleepers. But that is when we knew it would change. We knew this...
Ok, so the grocery store flower pot hasn't arrived via a beaming child yet but you've thought about what your day will be like, right? Perhaps you'll sleep in and awake to a warm breakfast in bed, then a leisurely stroll through a local trail. You'll get to hear the birds sing their songs of happiness and feel the dappled sunshine on your back... Wait! Reality. If your mother's day is anything like the 2 that I've already experienced you know that this fantasy will stay just that this Sunday, a fantasy. A dream to be lived out when you get a housekeeper, a nanny, a personal chef, a weather control machine... oh yeah, and a separate house for yourself so you can sleep in. Or just sleep. As for my third Mother's Day, I expect it will be quite indistinguishable from any other Sunday. I'll wake up at 7:00 am to a very happy and very hungry young man. Shortly after the bottle has been gulped down but before the Cheerios have been consumed then the coffee that I made myself will be done brewing. I'll pour a warm mug...
By John Rosemond McClatchy Newspapers, (MCT) Over the past 40 years or so, child advocates have given a good amount of lip service to the view that adults, especially educators, should respect children's "individual differences." In theory, this recognizes the fact that every trait is distributed in the general population in a manner represented by the bell-shaped curve. Whether the issue is general intelligence, sociability, optimism, musical aptitude, artistic ability, or mechanical skill (to mention but a few), relatively few people are "gifted" and relatively few people are disadvantaged. Whatever the characteristic, most folks are statistically "normal." That is, they possess an adequate amount, enough to get by. People gifted in more than a couple of areas are rare, and people gifted in one area but lacking in another are not unusual. A person with outstanding musical aptitude, for example, may be noticeably lacking in social skills, and a person with outstanding verbal skills may be mechanically...
McClatchy-Tribune News Service You know times have changed when C-SPAN needs to bleep a broadcast for language. For a minute I thought it was the foul-mouthed mob bosses on the "Sopranos." It was just Sen. Carl Levin at the Congressional committee hearings. The senator dropped 11 S-bombs in four minutes while soliciting testimony from a former Goldman Sachs executive. At first the senator was simply reading from an internal e-mail describing an investment as an S-bomb. He could have just said, "blank," or "vulgarity" or "coarse language," but he said it. He went for the ratings and, who knows, C-SPAN may really need them. But then the senator began dropping S-bombs into his questioning like punctuation marks in a tediously long sentence. The more he said it, the more he liked it. It was like eating potato chips, he couldn't stop with just one. A fourth, a fifth, a sixth S-bomb. Yes, the Senator was getting in touch with his bad boy self. And then he glazed over with a faraway look. He was... 
Los Angeles Times (MCT) LOS ANGELES — Rarely in life do the personal and professional become the bittersweet blend that Stan Nelson and Carrie Miceli experience every day. At work, the medical researchers at UCLA painstakingly delve into the genetic underpinnings of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most common of childhood's lethal DNA-linked diseases. At home, they treasure their family time with sons Calvin, 16, and Dylan, 9. Such time is precious. Dylan was diagnosed with Duchenne as a toddler. Miceli and Nelson don't dream of a cure for their youngest son. Heavily schooled in objectivity and neutrality, they are able to tolerate the often-creeping pace of science and yet savor its progress. "We have a sweet, wonderful boy who is delighted with life," says Nelson, a former pediatric oncologist, now a genomics researcher. "One could spend one's life racing against the clock — and making that the focus of family life and of research life. I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on that." The...
I thought this was funny so I just had to share. A few days ago my daughter, who is 6, and I are driving home, and she says, "Mommy, when I grow up, I don't want a baby, so . . . . how do you not get a baby?" I was silent for a moment while every possible response floated through my mind. I seriously thought about saying, "well, some adults have not figured that out yet!" But I did not. :) Instead I went with the more responsible approach of explaining that women do not have to have babies, it is a choice, so when she grows up if she decides she does not want a baby, she does not have to. But wow! That through me for a loop! I never expected that question!
McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT) Dear Mr. Dad: Our adorable little girl has turned into a difficult, rebellious teenager. She's only 14, but she already insists on wearing make-up, and screams things like, "I hate you!" and "It's my life so you can't tell me what to do." Help! A: And people say the terrible twos are bad? Ha! It won't come as much comfort right now, but just about every parent of a teen has watched helplessly as their sweet baby morphed into something not nearly as sweet. The first thing to do is take a deep breath and summon up as much patience as you can — you'll need about four years' worth. Here's what's happening. As your daughter matures from child into adult, she's going through a lot of changes. Those famous raging hormones are causing mood swings, angry outbursts (mostly directed at you), as well as those even-more-famous feelings of being misunderstood. In order to assert her own identity and independence from you, she has to treat you like her worst enemy, yelling that...
By John Rosemond McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) Sometimes, seemingly little things are of great import. I was reminded of this axiom recently during a stint as a guest on Dennis Prager's syndicated radio program. Talk show hosts know they have a minute or so to "hook" the listener, so they generally begin any interview with something controversial, something "hot." Being a master at his craft, Dennis' asked, "So John, is it true that you don't believe fathers should high-five their children?" Yes, that's true, I answered, and went on to clarify that although this ubiquitous practice is well-intentioned, it diminishes a child's ability to view his father as an authority figure. Children need two L-words from their parents: Love and Leadership. The high-fiving dad is a loving guy who has substituted relationship for leadership, a proposition that does not work in any leadership setting. The new ideal in American fatherhood is to be a buddy to one's child. That sounds very warm and fuzzy, but children do not need thirty-...
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Daughter needs braces and i need referrals to a good orthodontis. Missing lateral inscisors and I'd like to know if anyone else could tell me about their case and who they went to.
I had this in an email today and thought I would share.
What changes when you have a baby? A better question may be: What doesn't change? Here, writer and mom Rebecca Woolf lists her most notable post-baby observations. Then scroll down to read our favorite comments from readers about how their babies changed their lives.
1. You finally stop to smell the roses, because your baby is in your arms.
2. Where you once believed you were fearless, you now find yourself afraid. [See a reader's perspective in #22, below.]
3. The sacrifices you thought you made to have a child no longer seem like sacrifices.
4. You respect your body ... finally.
5. You respect your parents and love them in a new way.
6. You find that your baby's pain feels much worse than your own.
7. You believe once again in the things you believed in as a child.
8. You lose touch with the people in your life whom you should have banished years ago.
9. Your heart breaks much more easily.
10. You think of someone else 234,836,178,976 times...
I can't believe it has come this far already, and yet how far I still have to go. I had been feeling fine until recently, now it seems that every part of my body aches, from my back to my feet and back up. My ankles and fingers are swelling, and every time I put my wedding ring on I am afraid it is never gonna come back off! It is getting too tight.
The heat has been getting to me too, I can't believe how hot it got all the sudden! We need to get the air conditioner up in our house! I don't have the energy I used to, and I feel tired all the time. I have been feeling queasy in the mornings too, not quite as bad as morning sickness. I hope that is normal. I have a doctor appointment on Monday so I will ask then.
A good thing though is that he is more active than ever. He moves all squirms and kicks all the time. My daughter got to feel him moving the other day when she put her hand on my belly. She talks to him too, it is pretty cute.
I am anxious, but still happy and hangin' in there. I want him to be healthy...
Aria's first baby tooth fell out on Sunday! We were sitting at home watching a movie, after all it was pouring rain, and she suddenly turned to me and said, "mommy, my tooth fell out!" And sure enough, in her little hand was a tiny little tooth!
She had not even really said that it was loose with the exception of one minor mention on Friday night. We have been reading a book called "Moose's loose tooth" so I thought she was just taking a cue from the book. Wrong!
So she put it in a little plastic container and put it under her pillow when she went to bed. The Tooth Fairy brought her four shiny quarters and left her a little note thanking her for taking such good care of the tooth. The look on her face was priceless.
It did not scare her at all, thank goodness, and we have been telling her that this means she is becoming a big girl more and more everyday.
As a mother I can't believe she is already at that stage! It seems like just yesterday when those teeth started to come in!
And there are many more milestones...
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