Chances are if you’re reading this website, you love your child. It kind of comes with being a parent. It seems when a new little one is delivered to us, a big new bundle of love is delivered too.

But what do you LIKE about your child? Most parents don’t really stop to think about that. My clients are usually surprised when I ask them that question, especially when they’re describing things that are challenging or frustrating. Deliberately thinking about your child and drawing to mind all the things you enjoy, admire and like about them opens the door to a very positive relationship with your child. It can also reveal great ways to support your child or offer helpful forms of guidance and discipline.

When you are conscious of your child’s strengths, you can draw on them and bolster them. Your child will feel noticed, respected and liked. When you carry a sense of gratitude for the positive things your child embodies, you can manage the difficult things with more grace and less anger. And your child, confident of your love and respect, will be much more inclined to accept guidance.

♥ Here’s the insight: Intentionally becoming aware of what you like about your child, and gratefully drawing it to mind from time to time, creates a healthier more positive relationship.

Want to learn more??

♥ Have a look at the Article on “Love Genuinely” (It’s one of the 7 Guiding Principles for building a great relationship with our child)

♥ You may also want to check out the article, Interact Respectfully. Respect is a two way street. We want our kids to respect us, but our kids are just like us in their needs – they want to be valued and respected too. It’s a natural human universal: we each want to be seen and valued for who we are. When we respect our kids, we honor that need and we demonstrate to them how to respect others.

♥ Schedule a 1-on-1 session with me and explore which ways of showing love resonant most with your child addunlea@insightsforparents.com

Worried that you don’t spend enough time teaching your child and boosting their school and life success?  Here’s a new look at quality time 

Last fall, Patrick Ishizuka, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, published a report exploring what 21^st Century parents consider important in rearing their children. It was based on an extensive study of 3600 parents representing a cross-section of socio-economic and cultural groups in the United States.  The results were clear:  parents in all groups value “intensive mothering and fathering,” defined as spending time directly teaching and helping their children learn.  This represents a cultural shift from the mid-20^th century that is reflected in the increasing amount of time parents spend specifically engaged with their children.  It points to “high contemporary standards for parental investments in children,” as Ishizuka states in his report.

Despite the common values across social groups, a fair amount of other recent research shows an expanding achievement gap between children in lower and higher income families.  This gap seems to correlate with differences in how cognitively enriched the children’s home environments are, including the amount of time spent directly teaching children.  Some typical parent-provided enrichment activities are daily reading, storytelling, visiting museums, and teaching academic skills such as numbers, letters, words, or simple math.  In addition to parent time, there are also differences among SES groups in the ability to provide goods and services, such as tutoring or coding camps, that bolster children’s achievement and confidence.  These too contribute to the achievement gap.

One report that includes a careful review of multiple studies (Kalil et al., 2016) points to differences in the amounts of time parents in different SES groups typically spend directly teaching or “intensively parenting.”

So how much time do parents actually spend directly teaching their children?  Not as much as you think:  college educated parents spend an average of about 14 minutes per day directly teaching their pre-school child. Parents with a high school degree or less spend about 5 minutes.  Some spend zero minutes. Educated parents of school age children may spend up to 30 minutes supporting their children’s learning, but that seems to be the maximum.  Dr. Ariel Kalil, lead author of the review study, is quoted in the New York Times saying, “Whatever the myth of hyperparenting is, there is basically no parent who spends two hours a day reading or doing puzzles.”

Directly teaching or deliberately providing enrichment activities clearly provides a leg-up for children, a fact that now seems broadly accepted and valued, even among families that are less able or less skilled at providing it.  But hyperparenting, in the sense of directly and deliberately enriching, is not the full picture.  Parenting is not something slotted into the round of daily activities — cooking time, laundry time, parenting time.

Parenting is a relationship.  One that is embedded into the fabric of family life and is a part of many activities of daily living.  Children gain knowledge, skill, confidence and a sense of self not just from being taught, but from rich interactions in which conversational turns go back and forth between parent and child while other activities are happening:  talking together while in the car, eating, getting ready for bed, cooking and everything else.

This dialogic engagement between parent and child cuts across SES boundaries.  In fact, an important interdisciplinary study (Romero, et al. 2018) finds that children who have more of these turn-taking interactions excel in multiple measures of early academic achievement and also have denser brain development in specific areas of the cortex (language areas) compared with those children who have fewer of these kinds of conversational interactions.  The finding cuts across SES groups. Regardless of other factors, including the number of books in the home or family income or other variables that have been linked to the achievement gap, children from all SES groups who have conversations with their parents in daily life outperform those who do not.  The key is dialogic interaction – talking back and forth in turns.  It is not being talked at, which quickly disengages children.  It is also not ignoring one another while expediently getting tasks done, or being glued to a screen.

Drawing together a lot of this kind of research, I find myself thinking of the old fashioned term, “quality time.”  Providing some direct enrichment activities by teaching children and supporting their school-based learning is certainly quality time.  I did it and I still smile, and maybe laugh at myself, when I open boxes, now lovingly stored in the garage, of magnetic alphabet letters and little beads meant to teach my children about numbers and letters. We did do those things sometimes – probably for 15 minutes at a time and not nearly as often as I’d imagined.  But quality time is also just paying attention to and interacting with your child as part of your shared round of daily living.  It’s playing together, connecting and talking throughout the day.  Interestingly, it is one of the things my now older children especially remember about our home when they were tiny:  we talked a lot together.  In fact, my older daughter began her college essay describing our dinner table conversations and all our daily chattering, commenting that it opened so many ideas and built so many connections.

So how much time are you spending with your child bolstering and supporting development? Maybe it depends on how you count time.  If you’re finding 15 minutes a day for direct “teaching” you’re probably doing it right.  But how about the times you spend with your child every day just engaging in back-and-forth interactions?

References

Ishizuka, P. (2019). Social Class, Gender, and Contemporary Parenting Standards in the United States: Evidence from a National Survey Experiment. Social Forces, 98, (1), 31–58.

Kalil, A., Ziol-Guest, M., Ryan, R. & Markowitz, A. (2016). Changes in Income-Based Gaps in Parent Activities With Young Children From 1988 to 2012. AERA Open, 2,(3), 1 -17.

Klass, P. (2019). Intensive Care:  What makes a good parent? The New York Times, October 2, 2019.

Romeo, R., Leonard, J., Robinson, S. and four others, (2018). Beyond the 30-million-word gap: children’s conversational exposure is associated with language-related brain function. Psychological Science , 29 (5) , 700-710.

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Zillions of articles appear at the beginning of each year about the ambitious resolutions we set for ourselves.  Followed by laments and explanations for why they seem doomed to failure. I suppose this is one more. Except that I don’t think resolutions are necessarily doomed, especially if you re-frame them as goals.  Goals are achievable.

Four things can help you achieve goals (keep your resolutions):

1. Set an intention
2. Create a measurable goal, one where you can note steps in accomplishing it
3. Use mental contrasting to both envision success and be aware of the challenges that must be overcome
4. Recognize that changes often involve creating new habits, so allow time for repetition and practice as you build and restructure neural networks that support the habit.

Set An Intention

Intentions are more powerful than you may realize.  In practice, an intention simply means stating what you want to achieve or do.  It helps to frame the thought as a descriptive statement rather than a want statement.  “I am patient” or “I am physically active” or “I spend time interacting in person rather than on a device” are more effective than “I want to be more patient” or “I want to be more physically active” or “I want to spend less time on devices.”

The idea of setting intentions is an ancient one.  The Buddha, for example, observed that you become what you think.  Neuroscience indicates that intentions work in part because we prime our mind to be more aware of things that are actively in our brain.  Priming is a cognitive process, an aspect of memory, that alerts the brain. When you set an intention, you alert yourself to opportunities to act and incline yourself to pay attention to them.  To maintain the priming effect, you have to remain aware of your intention. You can do that by writing it out and posting it where you’ll see it often, like on your computer or bathroom mirror. There are lots of other ways to keep an intention in your awareness:  pop-up notifications, singing the intention; repeating the intention each time you hear a recurrent sound, such as a phone ringing or a bird chirping; draw it, paint it or photograph things that remind you of your intention. Do whatever appeals to you as a way to keep the intention in your awareness.  You can read more about setting intentions here.

Create A Measurable Goal

In order to achieve a goal, you need to set clear objectives with measurable milestones.  This begins by being specific about what you want to achieve. “I want to be physically fit” is vague.  So are, “I want to be patient,” and “I want to spend less time on my devices.” In contrast, “I will jog two miles three times a week” or “I will lose 15 pounds” are more specific.  Similarly, this is specific: “I will pause before I react to my child’s difficult behavior and I will connect before I try to guide it” (see effective ways to interact for more about this).  “I will spend 30 minutes each day being outside or socializing without my phone” is also specific.

The second part of having a measurable goal is to identify in advance how you will measure the successful steps along the path to accomplishing your goal.  These need to be specific, things you can literally check off. They also need to be realistic. It is much more likely you will achieve a goal if you set small steps and celebrate, or at least happily acknowledge, each accomplishment along the way.  Because each accomplished step IS a success! Small steps are things like, jogging ½ mile twice a week for two weeks; losing 1 pound each week for 15 weeks; pausing and connecting before reacting once on Tuesday and once on Friday this week, then 3 times the following week, and so on; or spending 15 minutes outside or socializing without a phone one day the first week and gradually adding more days and minutes in each successive week.

Remember to enjoy the successes along the way.  Keep a check-list; put a check or star on the calendar; spend a few minutes taking it in, thinking about your success; light a candle as each step is achieved; photograph the accomplishment.  Note it in whatever way has meaning to you.

Use Mental Contrasting

Lots has been said about the power of being positive. There’s ample evidence that envisioning positive outcomes helps promote success and that negative thinking thwarts it.  But positive thinking alone can actually stagnate development and make it difficult to achieve goals! The reason for this is that the mind can become tricked into thinking a goal has already been achieved when we envision it as done, or imagine how it will feel when done. It can create lethargy or apathy.  To counteract that, you can use a technique called mental contrasting, in which you alternate between imagining the positive outcome and realistically evaluating the challenges that must be overcome to reach that outcome. To do this, you draw to mind things in present reality that stand in the way of the vision.  Things like finding it hard to pause when you are angry, stressed or busy; feeling lazy or not wanting to take time to work out; finding it very easy and addicting to get drawn into mobile devices. In mental contrasting you imagine the positive outcome and hold it in your mind for several minutes then draw the challenges to mind and reflect on them. A second part of reflecting on obstacles is to identify things that can be done to counteract them.

 This alternating between envisioning a dream and reflecting meaningfully on challenges stimulates the brain and enhances the likelihood of accomplishing a goal.  You’ll find more information about mental contrasting in the Guiding Principle, Set-Up Success.  It is discussed in the section, “You can help your child learn how to envision and achieve goals.”

 Recognize that Change Involves Creating New Habits

Habits are how we preserve ways we’ve learned to do things.  While there is a lot of press about bad habits — eating unnecessary calories for comfort, staying involved in unhealthy relationships, getting hooked on substances — habits are vitally important to us.  Tying shoes, driving a car, writing, doing daily activities, adding numbers, combing your hair are all habits. Before these skills become habits, they take attention and practice. Think about the difference between a preschooler carefully focussing on her shoe laces, struggling to figure out how to create loops, and your mindlessly tying your shoes while talking to someone or reading an email.  Once learned, habits, become unconscious. They are also rather difficult to teach to others, because we have to work to think about the steps involved and how to describe them. Habits are part of what we call non-declarative memory, a repository of skills that we don’t consciously think about or explain (hence the term not declarative, we can’t easily declare or explain them verbally).

New Year’s Resolutions are usually goals of creating life-style changes.  That means establishing new habits. The important thing to recognize is that before a skill becomes a habit, it takes practice, time, and effort.  Habits are established over time. On route to creating an effective habit, there are periods of trial and error, often a lot of practice, and considerable conscious effort. The brain builds habits over time. Initially there is a period of alertness and attention accompanied by very little skill.  In animal studies, the brain shows bursts of activity in the basal ganglia, an area involved in pain and pleasure, before an action becomes a habit. Actions are at first uncoordinated. A habit begins when a benefit is gained from a particular action, and neural cells become more synchronized and coordinated.  This basic pattern is seen for thinking skills as well as for physical actions. Habits strengthen when the brain receives a reinforcing signal, basically that what you have done or thought is beneficial. Once established, a habit becomes unconscious. This frees up brain space for other thinking and activity, which is why habits are so critical.  They preserve effective ways of doing things and free up the brain to attend to other matters.

Habit formation involves both time and attention, but the pay-off is that once established, habits are unconscious and freeing. In case you’re wondering, established habits can be become more refined or changed.  Consider the “habit” of serving a tennis ball or playing a piece of music or even driving a car. We continually gain experience and skill. These get layered into the habit during sleep. One of the main tasks of non-REM, or non-dreaming sleep, is to allow time for the brain to shift through material that has been added to working memory and create circuitry to retain new information or new skills and to prune out less effective or unneeded circuits.

The important point is that achieving goals involves creating new habits, or sometimes modifying existing ones.  Either way, this requires practice, repetition and time.

Help Your Child Keep New Year’s Resolutions (Achieve Goals) Too

You can use these four strategies to coach your child to identify and achieve goals — or keep New Year’s Resolutions.

♥ Teach your child to set intentions, and if you have a tween or teen, explain why they work.

♥ Help your child set specific goals with measurable steps to achieve them.  A goal of “I’m going to be a better student” or even “I’m going to ace the science test next week” aren’t very good, because they have no measurable steps to success.  A better goal is to set a specific target, such as “I will have a GPA of 3.0 next quarter.” Then have your child identify which class is most in need of a boost and target that one. If math is holding down a GPA, set a goal to study a certain number of minutes each night, to meet with the teacher to tell him/her the goal and ask for advice, to arrange for tutoring or help once or twice a week with a peer who excels in math, a neighbor, an older sibling, or a paid professional tutor.  Set specific measures, such as, “within one month I will have a C in math,” or “I will score a grade of C (or C-, what is realistic?) on the next math test and improve that score by 2 points on each weekly test.”

Acing a science test is much more likely if there are measurable steps, such as “I will study each day for the test and will meet with a tutor (or science loving friend) to go over material on Wednesday.”

♥ Teach your child to use mental contrasting.  You may want to read the article, Set-Up Success for suggestions on how to do this.

♥ Encourage your child to practice and allow time for change to happen. If your child is young, you may want to simply be aware that it takes time to build skills and try to allow time for your child to work at things rather than jumping in to help or rushing her to finish. If your child is older, you may want to also explain how habits take time to build.

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A lot of parenting involves managing the lives of others and making sure things get done. There are a lot of expectations about what should happen and when.  You may also have expectations about what your child should be like or how your child should behave and think. Sometimes this gets in the way of loving and LIKING your child just as he or she is.

Do you sense you need to control everything? The need to control often grows when we become parents. There’s a big difference though between managing activities of daily living and trying to control everyone and everything.

Here are 6 good reasons to let go of some of that need to control:

1. Overthinking and over-planning lead to anxiety and stress. Letting things happen and being a part of the process reduces a lot of that tension.
2. Letting go of control isn’t the same as “loosing control,” as a parent. You can’t control everything, and doing so takes away opportunities for your child to build her own skills by finding out how to do things or by learning from the consequences of her behaviors. Kids learn from experiencing good outcomes and not-so-good outcomes of their actions.  Have some faith in your child. Let them try for themselves.
3. Leave room for surprises and spontaneity. If you over-plan and micro-manage everything, you don’t leave room for the joy of surprise.
4. When you try to control something or someone, you are actually being controlled yourself by that person or thing. Your own feelings and sense of self are tied to the thing you’re trying to control. So, who (or what) is really in control??
5. The need to control undermines your sense of trust in your child. It also diminishes your child’s sense of trust in himself and his confidence in you. Children feel comfortable and secure when they know they can turn to their parent if they need to. That is what secure attachment is – a secure base to return to when needed. A child’s sense of trust and development are nurtured by knowing they are viewed as capable and trusted AND knowing there is a secure base to return to when needed. Your own sense of trust in your child grows when you open to your child’s capabilities, letting him try AND seeing how you are your child’s secure base.
6. Control is based on fear – fear of what will happen if we don’t take charge. Try to understand your fear. If you don’t take charge of something, what might happen? Then ask yourself, is that really true? And even if it did happen, would it be so bad

Think about it. If you’re controlling a lot of stuff, your plate is probably very full. But, are you full?

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How’s your empathy??

Empathy and how to help our children build empathy and act empathetically with others is getting a lot of attention from parents, educators, therapists and developmental scientists these days. And justifiably so. Children and teens who can interpret the feelings of others and interact with kindness, understanding and, when needed, compassion have better relationships and also feel better about themselves.

Empathy is the ability to experience the same emotions that someone else is experiencing. It typically emerges naturally, beginning in later infancy. When we talk about the importance of empathy, we’re really talking about the importance of empathetic concern and response. This is recognizing and acknowledging the needs of others and being concerned about their welfare.

I want to turn this issue around a bit today and ask you how empathetically you interact with your child. You almost surely have very tender feelings about your child and feel your child’s difficulties deeply. You probably hurt with your child when he breaks a toy, is rejected by a friend, fails a test, has a broken heart, feels badly about himself. We keenly feel our children’s physical, emotional and psychological difficulties. And usually want to fix them.

A more interesting question, is how do you respond to everyday events when you are dealing with your child’s feelings? Empathetic responses take the child’s perspective.

Consider these kinds of every day events.

Your child wants to play rather than do homework or a chore. How do you respond? Maybe it’s something like, “You can play after you get your work done.” That kind of response probably comes from a desire to teach responsibility or set standards or keep to house rules. Now suppose instead you said something like this. “Of course you want to play first. Playing is a lot of fun. Sometimes when we play, it’s hard to get back to doing things that have to get done.” Some follow-ons might be: “What if you play for half an hour and then you do homework?” Or, “I need you to empty the dishwasher now so I can make dinner. How about you do that then you can play for an hour?” Or, “You’ve got a test tomorrow. It’s not much fun to think about studying for it. Do you wish you didn’t have to study? …. How about breaking it up? You could study for 20 minutes, then you can play for 15 minutes. Then get back to studying for a while. Would you like to use a timer?” With an older child or teen you could let them know that they’ll remember more and be better prepared if they take breaks so invite them to take a 10 minute break every hour to move around or do something fun. As much as possible, encourage your child to help come up with ways to manage conflicting needs.

Your child wants to have ice cream before dinner. Do you respond by saying, “No. You know you can’t have snacks or sweets before dinner.” An empathetic response would be along these lines: “Yeah, of course you’d like ice cream. It’s good! But when we eat something sweet before dinner, our bodies don’t want other kinds of food. So that’s why we eat ice cream after dinner. Why don’t you decide which flavor you want tonight after dinner.”

Empathetic responding takes into account the child’s perspective and offers support and guidance for behavior. It doesn’t mean not offering guidance. It is grounded in recognizing and acknowledging your child’s feelings and desires.

So why is this important? Well first, you can’t teach empathy if you’re not acting with empathy yourself. In addition, it validates and respects your child’s needs and emotions, which helps your child understand how he or she is feeling. It encourages your child to build skills of self regulation, the executive function that enables us to monitor and control our behavior. It helps your child integrate information from emotional and cognitive sources, thinking about how to handle feelings and learning to make good choices. It builds resilience and positivity – feeling comfortable with feelings and gaining a sense that one can bounce back.

You may want to reflect on a couple of recent interactions you’ve had with your child and think about whether or not you acknowledged your child’s perspective and responded with empathy. If you did, take that in, feel happy about it, and remind yourself that those are good kinds of interactions to have. If you didn’t, imagine ways you might have reacted more empathetically and use those ideas to guide future interactions. Then remember to notice when you react with more empathy and take it in.

Responding to your child with empathy is really very skillful and loving. It is also related to two of our central insights or guiding principles, which you may like to read or re-read: The Key Insight and Interact Respectfully.

~ Anne Dunlea ~

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You don’t have to take on your child’s pains:  In fact …. you shouldn’t!

This morning I got a text from one of my daughters, who’s away at college. “Are you around? I want to talk to you. I have a problem.”

Wow. Nothing can make a parent drop what she’s doing faster. A couple minutes later, on Skype, I saw a stressed looking face, that I love hugely, and eyes that began to tear as the problem was revealed. Fortunately, it wasn’t a catastrophe. But she was very upset and felt responsible for some plans gone wrong, though in fact, she wasn’t really to blame. I helped her come up with a few strategies for negotiating about a potentially non-refundable purchase for a canceled event.  And tried to help her see that this was not huge, and was worth the loss if another solution couldn’t be found. I sent as big a hug and as many air kisses as I could squeeze through the Skype connection.

Of course, it’s not the first problem that’s come up: college students get ill, get stressed about an assignment, suffer romantic break-ups. Even those that are generally very “mature.”

Caring for kids brings a steady flow of “problems,” large and small: nasty cuts, broken favorite toys, ended friendships, lost games, embarrassing moments, illnesses, hurt egos – it goes on and on from infancy through adulthood. (And I know this stuff doesn’t stop even with fully grown “children.”)

This morning as I Skyped, I felt my heart start to ache, my head to get a bit jumpy and I started to worry and feel anxious. I really wanted to erase my daughter’s discomfort. I began to feel as she did – stressed and worried. It’s what we parents do – when our child hurts, we hurt. We suffer along with our kids.

Then a light bulb went on: I cannot take on my daughter’s suffering. Or anyone else’s.  In fact, taking on her pain was exactly the opposite of what would help her!!  If I stay in my own less troubled space, I can think more clearly, project calmness, and beam love to my child.

♥ This is a tough insight that asks us to go counter to our natural instincts. Much as we wish those we love to be happy and problem free, we gain nothing – and actually loose the best we can offer as a parent – by co-suffering.

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Kids forget some of the stuff they’ve learned at school over the summer. Should we really be concerned?? These are oft repeated facts:

– Teachers need to re-teach material in the fall that their students knew in June.
–  Students score lower on standardized tests taken at the end of summer vacation than they do at the start of summer.

This has lead to a push for summer learning programs and enrichment programs with “academic rigor” to curb the inevitable “slide.”

Maybe it’s time for a reality check and some thoughts about how children and teens develop and what kinds of things promote the full development of a person. Despite the “summer slide,” students do learn as school progresses and every parent and teacher recognizes that 2nd graders know more than 1st graders, 7th more than 6th, 10th more than 9th. So children are learning an impressive amount of information in school.  They’re also building many social and cognitive skills outside of school as well.  They do learn information — academic knowledge — from family trips, exploring, watching informative video blogs, talking to friends and engaging in the world more generally.

What concerns me is the focus on school skills as the gold standard for measuring development and mental growth. (And remember, I’m an academic — I value school!) Our children are already over-scheduled, more stressed than previous generations of children, and are pushed to excel at school and all kinds of extra-curricular activities.

What our children don’t have enough of is open unscheduled time. Time to play, be adventurous, and experiment without being evaluated. Time to invent things to do when there’s “nothing to do.” Time to invent games and play activities with friends without a lot of adult intervention. General intelligence develops from trying things out, discovering, and playing. Playing with friends, playing with stuff. Social and emotional intelligence develop through interacting with others and finding out with peers how to collaborate, solve problems, lead wisely, follow skillfully, share, care, empathize.

♥ Instead of worrying so much about summer slippage of academic skills, it would be brilliant if we appreciated how summer can stimulate other important kinds of development.

~ Anne Dunlea ~

PS.  You can find out more about your child’s personal play style here, the power of play here,  and learn more about different types of play here.

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A French think tank, the Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économique (the French Economic Monitoring Center, acronym OFCE) recently suggested that new fathers be required to take paternity leave. Their reasoning is interesting and touches on two areas. From an economic perspective, they suggest that requiring fathers to take time off would help reduce the impact maternity leave has on the careers of women. It would in effect help equalize the playing fields for men and women who become parents and take time off of work during the post-natal period. The OFCE report also suggests that forcing fathers to take paternity leave would get them more involved in child rearing, help them connect better to their children and would get them more involved in housework.

The report is in part a response to a finding from the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development), which found that only four percent of French parents who take parental leave are men. Most businesses in France do offer paternity leave, but few fathers take advantage of it.  In contrast, new mothers have paid leave with job security and just about every woman takes advantage of this.

While the idea of forcing individuals to do particular activities is something of an anathema in the United States, the OFCE proposal sheds some light on some important issues. I was impressed that the report specifically addressed one way to remedy the unfair impact maternity leave can have on a woman’s career. Encouraging new fathers to engage more fully in early child care and to support their partners during the post-natal period clearly has both economic and social benefits for everyone. While we remain far behind other first world nations in providing paid secure maternity leave, it could be wise for us to open the dialogue here to include family leave more broadly.

~ AD ~

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France has just put a new law into effect that gives employees the right to disconnect from emails in evenings and non-work days. The New York Times on January 3 quotes French minister of labor, Myriam El Khomri, as explaining that, “Employees are more and more connected during hours outside of the office (so that) the boundary between professional and personal life has become tenuous.”

The law recognizes the importance of personal time with family and friends, free from after hour invasions from work, and also seeks to reduce employee burnout. The law doesn’t prohibit all after hour emails, but requires managers and employees to set times when replies to emails are not expected, such as between 7PM and 7AM, as well as on holidays and days off work. Several other policy suggestions are recommended that reduce the shear number of messages sent out.

We’ve been grappling with these issues since the internet first took hold in the mid to late1990s. James Gleick was one of the first to explore the problems in his intriguing 1999 book, “Faster.” (Still worth a read!) In it, he discusses the impact of having everything running faster than ever before in human history and how all the new time saving devices and the rapid exchange of information makes us feel even more rushed. He also talks about the enormous toll taken on us when we are always connected, denied private time and denied the possibility of just turing off because the demands of internet technology invade our personal space. We soon realized those demands also intrude on the quality and time available for parents and children to interact in real time.

The new French law is a welcome step toward acknowledging and attending to some basic human needs. It also brings some vital benefits to children, with the hope of more undistracted face-to-face time with their parents. Whether or not it would be feasible for the United States to consider similar legislation, it provides a great opening for employees and businesses to discuss policies that honor the need to differentiate between work and private time, for the benefit of everyone.

Whether you are a manager or an employee, this offers a terrific opportunity to initiate discussions about creating suitable “private time” policies at your workplace.

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The Winter Solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year. It is a time of quiet and waiting, of long darkness, as the days slowly turn toward lengthening light. There is wisdom to be drawn from nature — all things benefit from withdrawal and stillness as a preparation for renewal. Just as the quiet darkness readies seeds to awaken and grow, we grow fuller after retreating. The dark quiet night soothes us when we are exhausted and need rest. Times of quiet calmness ease stress. And times of personal growth so often follow times of withdrawal or pulling back.
As winter officially begins, lengthening light also begins, preparing for the stunning reawakening of spring. One way we can nurture ourselves is to open to our own needs for pauses and retreats and to welcome them. Similarly, a thoughtful way to support our child or teen is to remember that they too need quiet times, times of retreat when not much seems to happen, before the next blossoming. This is how we develop.

Since the election, I have received numerous calls and emails from parents asking about ways to discuss the election outcome with children and teens. For the most part, these have been from parents whose children are concerned, disturbed or frightened. There are, I think, skillful ways to guide children to understand and move forward, drawing valuable lessons for the future.

To begin, it is important to explain that this is how democracy works. However disappointing the outcome may be to them, citizens of the United States do have a voice, and using it is both a privilege and an obligation. Votes are a commitment to the future. Election outcomes will sometimes please us and sometimes not. That is an inevitable aspect of a democracy.

Beyond that, you may find it helpful to explore with your child or teenager exactly which issues are especially important to him or her. For some girls in particular, the hope of breaking through the ultimate glass ceiling was paramount, and failing to do so is disheartening. For other children, it is concern about climate change and protecting the planet; for others the greatest concerns are about social justice and equality; still others worry about student loan debt and future wellbeing.

You can help your child identify area(s) of greatest concern and begin to find ways to channel frustration into positive energy to work toward meaningful changes. Children and teens can volunteer for organizations that support causes that matter to them. They can become involved in projects at school and in their communities that promote changes, even small ones.

Thus, if your child or teenager is discouraged or concerned, you can guide him to understand and appreciate how democracy works, to draw lessons about our civic responsibility to participate in it, and together you can find ways to use this an opportunity to get involved in issues that matter most to him or her.

Whether your child is happy or unhappy about the outcome of the election, you may want to encourage your child to be gracious with all friends and classmates, including those whose views are different. For that is the only way that democracy can continue to work.

Dangers, those things that make us feel vulnerable and at risk, come in two broad forms. Outer dangers are things outside of us that threaten us in some way. Inner dangers emerge from thoughts and concerns that we experience as negative emotions. Outer dangers include violence, unsafe equipment, natural disasters, handling machinery without the requisite skill and the like. Some of the inner dangers children face are risks of shame, embarrassment, of being punished, rejected or shunned. Author and Psychologist Rick Hanson commented in one of his Newsletters (July 5, 2016) that children respond to these kinds of inner dangers by putting on a mask, constraining who they are, in order to deflect unwanted attention. Sometimes those masks may come in the form of concealing parts of oneself, not raising one’s hand, not offering views, following unobtrusively. Other times, they may involve taking the stage and presenting oneself as the clown, the leader, the rebel. All of these are contractions, keeping parts of oneself hidden that may lead to painful experiences.

There are some ways to help your child feel fewer of these inner dangers. One is to promote feelings of self love, self compassion and self respect. You can do this by working with the first two Guiding Principles, “Love Genuinely” and “Interact Respectfully.”

In particular, recall that “Loving Genuinely” doesn’t just mean offering love without qualifications attached, but also loving oneself. Children, too, need to open to self love and self compassion. As you grow in your own self love, you are showing your child how to do the same.

An important part of respectful interaction is trust. Building mutual trust between parent and child is a focus of that principle, but building trust in one’s self is also vital. If a child loves and trusts who she or he is, a gentle confidence is created. That confidence, that loving trust in one’s self, helps children (and adults!) drop their masks. They needn’t conceal what they already like and accept. Interestingly, that authenticity makes others comfortable as well, often drawing friends and building supportive social connections.

Another of the Guiding Principles, “Set Up Success,” offers ideas for concrete ways to help children avoid the inner dangers of fearing embarrassment or shame or rejection. You can use this to help your child be prepared, by encouraging him to complete assignments, practicing skills he will be called on to use, and anticipating or role playing upcoming events that will stretch your child or teen.

If you have some specific ideas about offering support that helps your child avoid some inner dangers, or you have a success story, please share these in Forum.

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We tend to fear boredom, not liking it, wanting to to find something to do. Modernity has give us a nearly infallible boredom vanquisher in the form of a smartphone. Thanks to downloaded games and music, a phone can entertain anywhere, anytime, so long as it is charged. Not only that, so long as there is a signal, it also brings the tantalizing reality of being able to interact with any number of friends just about anywhere. As a result, we never need to suffer the frustration of having nothing to do.

In the 20th century, a commonly heard lament of children was, “I don’t have anything to do.” Remember? Today, it’s a phrase less heard, because children can easily engage in some sort of technologically supported amusement: streaming videos or music, playing games, texting or chatting. Sounds good. But is it?

Boredom is a great catalyst for creativity and discovery. Boredom inspired children to invent games, to get outside and play, or see if friends were available to play. It led children to build forts and houses out of whatever could be found, or to pull construction sets or puzzles off shelves, or to draw or sculpt or even write stories. Boredom leads people, adults and children both, to discover what they are capable of doing and to innovate. It is, perhaps oddly, a boost to intellectual and social growth.

You may want to allow your child to experience a little boredom. For his or her own good.

In an earlier Blog I commented that providing child care is not, or should not be, an “unskilled” job. A US Senate Bill takes some first steps in acknowledging and supporting the importance of education for those caring for children.

Senator Barbara Boxer introduced legislation, S.446,  to support child care provision in two important ways: one is to improve tax support to offset costs parents pay for child care. The other introduces an innovative tax credit for child care providers who have a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education. It is a first step, but it clearly recognizes the importance of having our children cared for by skilled, educated professionals.

 Senate Bill 446

 Right Start Child Care and Education Act of 2015

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) increase the rates and maximum allowable amount of the tax credit for employer-provided child care facilities; (2) increase the eligibility threshold amount and rate of the household and dependent care tax credit and make such credit refundable; (3) allow a new $2,000 tax credit for child care providers who hold a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, child care, or a related degree and who provide at least 1,200 hours of child care services in a taxable year; and (4) increase the tax exclusion for employer-provided dependent care assistance.

The bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee in February 2015, but there has been no action since.

The round of daily events — at home and elsewhere — often includes the need to make decisions, or to give permission for our child to do something. There’s an urgency to it, as others await our verdict. But haste doesn’t always lead to a comfortable or best conclusion.

Patience before making a decision is sometimes wise. It’s okay, in fact good, to pause before you make a decision, whether responding to someone at work, in your personal life or to your child. People who feel aware and have healthy self-respect and self-confidence tend to become more patient in making decisions. Rather than feeling pressured, they may say to someone, “I’ll think about that, and get back to you.” Or they may say to their child, “Let me think about that for a few minutes and I’ll let you know shortly.”

Taking time to reflect is likely to lead you away from making commitments you don’t really have time for or that you aren’t at ease with. It also role models thoughtful decision making for your child.

“The less skilled often take jobs that are hard to fill, like in child care, for example, which allows more parents to work.” The quote is from an editorial published in the New York Times on 9/19/15, commenting that Europe should welcome refugees from the Middle East and arguing that they contribute to the economy in a various ways.

What kind of child care is unskilled? This perpetuates the view that child care amounts to little more than keeping children safe from physical danger and providing for basic needs of food and rest. It equates with tending a herd of sheep. It dismisses what we know to be true, that children thrive, and humans reach their full potential, when they are nurtured with attention that gives them security, social connections to support their mental, emotional and physical development, and education that guides them to develop thinking capacities. Offering this kind of child care requires skill and knowledge.

Child care is not, or certainly should not be, an “unskilled job”.