Parent to Parent
A āTeachable Momentā
āAn Explosion of Family Homelessnessā
The Housing Crisis Created a Boom in First-Time Homeless Families
Ask the Parent!
āHelp! My Sonās a Lazy Bum!ā
The Sexy Sexless Parent
Bedroom Death? Here are Six Tips to Put You Back on the Road to Sexy Town.
You Worry Too Much!
Competitive Sports; Non-Competitive Kids
Build a Better Parent
Sleep Training... for Parents!
True Book Reviews
Raising Boys and Girls: There Is a Difference
Mom, You Are Kind of Weird
Coming Out in Front of Other Parents is One Thing... But What Will the Kids Think?
The Journey to āOhana
How One Grieving Mother Followed Her Vision to Help Other Parents
Dangerous Parenting
My Kid, the Pantywaist
Everybody knows that raising kids with consciousness is hard. But it is especially tough to raise a woke, patriarchy-smashing son when you grew up with a misogynist father and a mother who was a corporal in the US Marine Corps. I vacillate between wanting to cultivate my sonās sensitive, emotionally in-touch side and telling him to get up and walk it the fuck off.
The thing is, my kid cries a lot for his age (almost seven). Heāll climb two feet up a tree and then wail for me to rescue him. (I never do. I have a strict āDonāt write a check your ass canāt cashā policy, and am of the opinion that it doesnāt help anyone if Iām always bailing him out of the trouble.)
It took nearly a week of daily, gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) coaxing before heād dip a furtive toe into the lukewarm caress of the Pacific Ocean during our Hawaiian vacation. Likewise, he loses his shit if he gets a single drop of water on his face in the shower.
When he falls and gets a scrape, he screams like heās had a limb ripped off, and it takes a half hour of Lamaze before heāll even let me get near him with a Band-Aid.
No parent likes to hear their child cry, but help me Jesus, his frantic ānononono!!ā sends me running straight for the boxed wine and Calgon. The kid seems ruled by his fear, and thereās no amount of logic or lollipops that helps. A soothing āthere, thereā is no more effective than a terse āYouāre fineā (courtesy of my inner Spartan). All I can do is try and help him develop tools to cope with those fears so they donāt rule or ruin his life. I want him to be both in touch with his feelings and able to dust himself off when he takes a tumble, whether itās one that scrapes his knees or his heart.
I started reading Lawrence Cohenās The Opposite of Worry: The Playful Parenting Approach to Childhood Anxieties and Fears (Ballantine Books, 2013), and while āplayful parentingā isnāt really my personal style, Iāve found that some of the techniques are showing promise. For kids like mine, an active imagination is both a gift and a curse; it can take them to magical places or the worst-case scenario. For him, itās āgetting a boo-boo,ā but for other kids it could mean being away from Mom or going to bed with the light off.
Turns out the one thing Iāve actually been doing right is not letting him avoid situations that might be scary. For example, making him climb down from the tree himself instead of lifting him out. Keeping kids at what Cohen calls āthe edgeā helps them learn to face their fears, which ultimately builds their confidence and helps develop their internal sense of security. For my son, it means letting him put the Band-Aid on himself when he scrapes his knee. It means taking him to the seashore, but not throwing him in the water. It means saying, āI know you can do this,ā and showing him that I mean it by standing backāeven if he cries.