The New York Times article, For Some Parents Shouting is the New Spanking, by Hillary Stout,  bravely shines the light on a slightly taboo topic. In many parenting circles, spanking is a discipline tool of the past.Whether or not parents actually resort to spanking is another story.

When it comes to screaming, however, it often seems accepted as a matter of course. Everyone  has a reflexive, knee jerk stance based on family of origin. If you came from a family of screamers, yelling might feel completely normal. Many people feel it is an ethnic rite or genetically encoded behavior. Others remember their parents yelling and screaming and the fear that it engendered. These parents do a yeoman’s job of controlling their tempers, but nevertheless find themselves overtaken by fury and frustration at times. Some grew up with simmering issues but no communication, so “letting it all out” can feel like a healthier way.

The problem is that yelling and screaming can feel so damn good while you are doing it. You feel powerful, like you are someone to be reckoned with, self-righteous and entitled.  After all, what human being can cope with the amount of badgering, whining, and defiance that kids dish out. In actuality, the desire to yell actually comes from the opposite place: a place of helplessness, feeling overburdened and incompetent. Screaming and yelling bring false empowerment. True power is when parents control themselves, for example, putting their child in their room without yelling or ranting or being able to take away privileges in a three word sentence like “No TV tomorrow!!”

Unfortunately, the nature of children and the culture we live in has the deck stacked against parents. Kids need repeated reminders, often years of reminders to do things like saying please and thank you, coming to the dinner table and not smashing their siblings. Our culture is all about getting what you want by taking no prisoners.  Given those forces, staying respectful calls for a kind of determination, focus and self control that seems only a zen master could muster. The good news is that self control can be learned. Start with this rule. Screaming, name calling, ranting and shaming is NOT ALLOWED. It is a boundary violation and something to avoid. Remember, it is not our right as a parent.

Since most people are not zen masters, realistically you probabaly will yell or scream when you are in your most helpless and overwhelmed state. Treat it as if you had hit your child. After you calm down, apologize. Remind them that it wasn’t OK, and that you are really focused on learning to control that behavior, just like they are.

A recent article in The New York Times, If Your Kids Are Awake They’re Probably Online, reported powerful data regarding children and their “screen time”.

“The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices, compared with less than six and a half hours five years ago, when the study was last conducted. And that does not count the hour and a half that youths spend texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cellphones.”

While technology is here to stay –for good or bad– parents should not give up their role in limiting media use and monitoring what is going on online.

Here are some basic tips for keeping tabs and limits on your children’s “screen time”:

• Know how to use all technology. Stay current and educated about how to text, use Facebook, ichat and skype. Stay in the loop on the kinds of communication systems your child and their friends are using. One way to get closer to teens is to have them teach you — let them be the expert and you be the student.
• All teens are on Facebook and many adults are as well. Starting your own Facebook page and being “friends” with your teen — even if they block you from seeing some information, will keep you tuned in to what is going on with them. Even if they resist and think you are “creepy and old”, it will become commonplace and accepted after a while.
• Make sure your kids are not sleeping with their phones. Texting becomes addictive and kids are often texting late into the night long after you are sound asleep. Maybe make a family charging station where all phones are charged at night and retrieved in the morning. Protect your child’s sleep!
• Set time limits for TV, computer and video game use. You do not have to allow your child to use media eight hours a day!
• Make rules that children and adults adhere to at home. No texts, email, phone or TV at dinner, or when you are walking children to school. Set a good example.
• Have a healthy distrust for new technology but embrace it as well. It is here to stay and if you can’t beat ‘em-join ‘em with care!

Kids snacking and having “treats” throughout the day has exploded in the last decade. The article  Snack Time Never Ends in the The New York Times, January 20, 2010 presents data that, “between 1977 and 2002, the percent of the American population eating three or more snacks a day increased to 42 percent from 11 percent.”

From 2002 to 2008, one needs only to look around the playground to know that the trend has increased. Food is ubiquitous and adults and children are presented with constant eating opportunities. Add in the generational fear and antipathy to saying no to one’s children and you’ve got haggling and caving going on all day long!

Ellyn Slatter, dietitian and family therapist, is quoted in the article, “The parents’ job is to do the what, when and where of feeding,” she said, “and it is up to the children to do the how much and whether of eating. In order to have successful family meals, you have to structure the snacks.” Her book, Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense, has long been one of Soho Parenting’s favorites.

Here are a few tips to curb snacking and unhealthy eating:

• Snacks should be given at “Snack Time”: A scheduled time and place and not on the run. As Slatter wisely says “End grazing.”
• A good snack is anything you would be happy to see on a child’s plate at a meal. Goldfish on the dinner plate? Fruit Roll up for breakfast? No?
• No more than 2 snacks a day.
• A snack and a treat are two different things. Treats are desserts, snacks are tiny meals.
• Keep “treats” treats by offering them less often.

The following is a piece by Laura Stephens, program coordinator for Soho Parenting and editor of Parentalk.  Laura gives us the young adult perspective on life after being launched.

I turned twenty five yesterday.  With a quarter century under my belt I can look back at my childhood with a more grown up perspective.  Here at Soho Parenting I see how much thought and energy parents put into thinking about discipline and limits for their children.  Half-way between being a child and being a parent myself is an interesting time to reflect on the way my parents approached discipline.

I really gave my parents a run for their money, constantly doing things I wasn’t supposed to.  My parents never wavered in their belief that consequences should always follow breaking the rules.  Their punishments evolved as I grew up.  “Now I’m going to give you three spanks”,  turned to “time out!”, and then switched to,”No friends after school”.  Some punishments felt unbearable – no phone calls or instant messenger for 3 weeks, losing the privilege to have my beloved dog sleep in my room.

As a typical teenager I despised their rules, but in hindsight, I see that somehow those rules gave me a sense of security. That may sound strange, but it is so true.  Unlike my friends who could guarantee that despite a two week grounding they would surely be at the party Saturday night, I always knew my consequence was set in stone.  My parents were steady and firm. Though I made my best attempts to get out my “sentences” it was to no avail.   When it came to deciding and executing their ‘punishment strategy’, they took time to calm down, they consulted together before responding and made the terms very clear. Most importantly they stuck to their word -EVERY time.

I responded to this like any adolescent would – with complete abhorrence.  I would become furious when they insisted on waiting for the other to come home before telling me the details of my punishment.  I hated how specific they were when defining my ‘grounding’ – a sign that they had thought this out and would stick to it.  But I am so glad they did. Bottom line was that despite how much I hated the immediate effects, I could rely on my parents as trustworthy, dependable people.  My family life, though far from perfect, provided me with stability.  I could rely on my parents;  their word was my truth – and this knowledge as a child and then a teenager was monumental.

I am sure this capacity to be a reliable source for my future children – especially when disciplining – will be greatly tested.  If my kids are anything like me, the process will be tough.  It will feel easier to be lax here and there – retract a punishment by a few days to avoid a tantrum.  But like me, all children desperately need to know they can trust and feel safe with their parents. I know that the benefits of the hard work of sticking to your guns far outweighs the immediate relief.

A business card tacked on to the bulletin board at the pediatrician’s office advertises a new service: classes for children and manners. Surely you have to admire the entrepeneurial spirit of this business person, but is this service necessary?  Are we really at a time where we need to hire people to teach our children basic manners? Can’t we do this one ourselves? Teaching manners is on the parental job description.

In the eighties and nineties, parenting advice was so focused on the child’s needs that some specialists suggested that making your children say they were sorry when they didn’t authentically feel sorry was incorrect. Manners were seen by many as old-fashioned and rigid, not to be imposed. Fast forward to today.  Pick up any parenting magazine (the two that are left), and you will see an article every month about how to raise children that are not so entitled, disrespectful and unmannerly. I guess that old way of thinking didn’t really work out too well.

Social graces that were deemed sexist in the seventies and beyond, like holding a door open for a woman or giving up your seat were banished. Couldn’t we just have mandated everyone do it for each other to eliminate the sexism quality but keep the graciousness?  Now you can’t find a good feminist who doesn’t also say chivalry is dead with wistfulness.

Manners: “please”, “thank you”, “excuse me”, “I’m sorry”, “let me get that for you”, “after you”, are the lubricants of civilized social interaction. They are kind, respectful and much appreciated habits that we must teach our children by basically drilling them into their heads for years.  It is a parents job to remind, prompt, model and teach these nicities over and over and over again until they become automatic. This takes years. Kids will eventually learn these manners and will be able to to use them in public, in school, at a friend’s house.  With you, unfortunately it will take the longest and rudeness will die the hardest, becuase you are the parent. That’s on your job description too.

“NO” has gotten a bad rap! Some child rearing advice in the last twenty five years has given the idea that if you don’t use the word “no” with young child they in turn will not use it back to you in defiance.

We would like to officially debunk that myth. It is a misguided and false idea that comes out of a culture of overly permissive parenting.  We know how well that has worked.  Children will learn to say “no” regardless of whether they hear it from their parents – and they need to hear it from their parents.

Now, we are not advocating that your child’s world be overly encumbered with reprimands and prohibitions. Childhood should be a time of exploration and discovery and should have many “yeses” in it.  However, it is equally imperative that your child begin to learn about boundaries and limits.  In fact, it is an important hallmark in their own developing sense of self, ushering in the awareness that they have their own separate wishes, wants and opinions about things.

Behaviors including self-control, restraint and caution are learned by hearing the word, “no”.  Children learn how to tolerate frustration and regulate intense emotions by learning to accept “no”. When you see a child who is behaving in a disrespectful, whiny and demanding manner, there is a good chance that child is desperately in need of clear limits. Without your “no” your child is left to push until he finds these limits. Our advice? Do not hold back from thoughtfully and appropriately saying “No” to your children.

As August light fades and the end of summer coolness sets in, we all, no matter how old, still get that back to school feeling.  The combination of sadness at the summer slipping away mixes with the anxiety tinged excitement at the thought of a whole new year. Remember that great feeling of a new back pack, lunch boxes, and pencils? It’s time for a fresh start!

To capitalize on this feeling have one or two family meetings before school starts. Get a big calendar to go over the general schedule.Who has what when. Kids like to see thing concretely and it helps them organize things in their mind to see it on paper.

Make a list of what needs to happen in the mornings before school and before bed. You can use words or pictures depending on the age of your children. Kids love lists and charts!

It is also a good time to go over any chores you want the kids to have and put it on a chore list.

This is an important time to reiterate rules about behavior. Get your kids involved by thinking about their goals for the year. What do they want to work on?

This is the perfect time to make new paramaters about “screen- time”.  TV, computer, PSP, vand the Wii are all the same activity, besides using the computer for homework. If your kids are moving into school age many families make rules about no screens in the morning, or only after all homework is done, or only computer during the week and TV and video games on the weekend. Think about what works for your family and then tell the kids the new rules at the family meeting.  “Screen-time” is also a priviledge that can be revoked as a consequence for negative behaviors.

Adults also need limits on screen-time. Many families have instituted a “no screen zone” from say 6 PM-bedtime for EVERY member of the family! No email checking and Blackberry texting.

You can also set goals for the year–ask your children what they want this new year to be like–what would they like to add or subtract. Set goals for yourselves as well – less yelling, more individual time with each child, making evening family time a priority.

Again, the back to school month of September is a great time to rededicate yourselves as a family to the coming year with goals and rules and an empowered start to a new year!

Appropriate doses of embarrassment or guilt in childhood are central to developing self-control and morality. Take the example of the 6 year old who slips a candy bar into her pocket while at the grocery store. Many kids will do this at some point during childhood.  If her parent discovers her act and does not overreact the little girl can be told to give the candy back at the store and apologize. Will the little girl feel shame? Yes, of course. Healthy shame. She will learn an important lesson and most likely remember that experience with embarrassment. This will help her override the impulse if it arises again and the apology to the store owner with the return of the candy bar teaches her she can make amends for bad behavior.

What if this little girl is screamed at, called a thief and humiliated in front of the store owner by her parents? She will have an overwhelming sense of her own badness.  An over-reaction creates toxic or unhealthy shame. This may dissuade the little girl from stealing again, but the cost to her ego is too high. It is our job to teach our children right from wrong but we must strive to do this while protecting their sense of basic goodness.

To under-react or disregard the behavior for fear of hurting the child’s feelings is to miss the opportunity to highlight this important lesson.  Becoming overly incensed or ignoring the action sidetracks us from the simple lesson we are trying to teach–we don’t take things that do not belong to us.

For over twenty years we have been counseling families on a wide variety of parenting issues, such as discipline, sibling rivalry, and toilet training. The vast majority of parents, however, seek us out for help with their children’s sleep problems. These parents, tense and bleary-eyed from their own lack of sleep, are in need of guidance, yet understandably wary of subscribing to a method that may be emotionally detrimental to their child now or in the future. Parents’ worries are often magnified by the controversy and misinformation about sleep circulating today. We would like to take this opportunity to clarify our ideas about children and sleep in the context of our Responsive Parenting philosophy.

We are often asked, “Do you believe in letting babies cry?” or “Are you ‘family bed’ advocates?” Although we do not ascribe to any one method of “sleep training” for all families to follow, we do hold strongly to some basic tenets about the importance of sleep.

•    Sleep is one of a child’s most basic needs. Parents should consider it primary fuel, as important as milk.

•    It is a parent’s responsibility, not a child’s, to ensure that a child gets the correct amount of sleep.

•    All children of the same age bracket require approximately the same amount of sleep.

•    Children vary significantly in how easy or difficult it is to get them the sleep they need.

•    Without the right amount of sleep, children are compromised in obvious and subtle ways that can be detrimental to their overall growth and development.

Keeping these important ideas in the forefront, how do we help parents to get their children the sleep they need? At Soho Parenting, counseling sessions are customized to each individual family’s needs. We take into account the child’s age, living situation, parents’ work schedules, child’s medical history, as well as recent events that may effect our discussion of how to proceed, such as the birth of a sibling or a recent move.  We then set up a step-by-step plan of how to implement appropriate routines and structures that will insure that the child will get the right amount of sleep and develop the ability to fall asleep with a sense of security and comfort. Parents can then be in touch by phone or by email as they proceed, to get support, report progress and make any necessary changes in the plan.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for parents is the fear of having their child cry. Crying is a very difficult issue for many parents and we often hear statements like:

“I can’t stand having my baby cry. She’ll think we’ve abandoned her.”
“He’ll stop trusting us and be insecure.”
“She’ll be afraid and all alone.”

It is understandable how this intense worry about crying has developed in parents. But in helping a child to achieve regulated sleep patterns some crying is often necessary. Crying is a natural part of the human repertoire; a certain amount of crying in the service of learning something very important will not harm children. There is even ample evidence that crying in a controlled way to learn to sleep as an infant helps with later sleep problems and reduces maternal depression.

We would like to put this worry into a historical and societal context. Parent-child relationships have been enriched immeasurably by strides made in the 1980’s and 1990’s in understanding children’s emotional lives. But there has been an unfortunate negative outcome as well − pervasive worry about emotionally damaging babies and children. Parenting advice from the previous generation was deemed old-fashioned and unsympathetic to children’s psychological needs. A mixture of popular psychology and influential childrearing advice has strongly advocated an almost constant gratification of children’s needs in order to promote “healthy self-esteem.” This has inadvertently put tremendous pressure on parents who then feel selfish and remiss if they frustrate and upset their child.

These ideas have had a tremendous impact on the arena of children’s sleep. Rather than allowing their child to be uncomfortable and unhappy or frustrated even for brief periods, parents sometimes opt instead for months, and even years, of sleepless or interrupted nights. This can deprive a child of a basic need, as well as compromising the entire family’s functioning.

At Soho Parenting we advocate responsive parenting, which we believe is a more balanced approach to childrearing. It takes into account the importance of connection and comfort, as well as the structure and limits that are essential for children’s psychological growth. Responsive parenting means that sometimes you will respond with comfort, sometimes with distraction, sometimes with explanation. Often though, it will be holding back from responding that will be the most appropriate action. Holding back can leave enough room for your child to develop a new skill of her own. Making thoughtful decisions about when to respond by comforting a child and when to respond by setting a limit is a critically important part of being a responsive and responsible parent.

We know from our own experience as parents and from the many hundreds of families we have worked with that regulated sleep habits for children makes the whole endeavor of parenting easier and provides an important structure that can carry through all of the school years. Helping a child learn the fine art of sleep is a huge gift to him and his entire family for now and years to come.

We thought this was very, very funny!

Fussy’s Five Ways to Spoil Your Children

1) Spend more money than you make to give your children everything their hearts desire. Tell yourself that you do this because you want to give them a happy childhood. If all their friends have it, it would be wrong not to give them the same things. Even though the more you buy for them, the more they complain of boredom.

(associatedpress)

2) Schedule every free moment with ‘enrichment’. If they get bored, make sure to fill their time with every possible activity possible. You may also want to get a second job to cover the cost. Hey, it’s for the kids, right?

(albany.edu.net)

3) Give constant praise and compliments. Constantly work to reinforce your children’s self-esteem. Lavish praise and compliments of all kinds. Tell your children how special, smart and wonderful they are with out any effort put forth.

(360dgrs.net)

4) Always take your children’s side, no matter what. When any problem arises in your child’s life be sure to always take the position that your child is a victim of other’s misdeeds.

Childhood squabbles? Tell your child how awful the other child is and call the offenders parents and let them have it!

Teacher is mean? March up to the principle and file a complaint.

Be sure to disregard any evidence that refutes your position!

Let ‘em have it, Mamma!

(stock xchange)

5) Take away all chances your children have for personal growth. Take away the opportunity your children have to overcome obstacles and for learning to tolerate frustration and delay gratification. Look at childhood as a time of pure bliss and without responsibilities. Give your child the childhood you wished you received.

The best way to remove all opportunities for growth is be a proud Helicopter Parent and hover above your children ready to take away all stress!

(dubuque.k12.ia.us)

Enjoy the fallout from these tips!