Taming Tantrums

The other night I was trying to get the kids fed, bathed and into bed. For some reason that evening, in the eyes of Eliana (4.5), I could do nothing right. She didn't like the way I prepared her food. She didn't like the bowl I served it in. And how dare I take her little brother upstairs to try to bathe him while she was "starving" (despite the fact that her dinner was sitting right there on the table)?

I've tried every reaction to tantrums I can think of. I've tried placating. I've tried ignoring. I've tried bribing. I'm embarrassed to say I've tried screaming back. This girl will have none of it.

So that evening, while Eliana was screaming in the kitchen and Ami (2.5) was playing contentedly in the bathtub, I opened a package of brand new bath crayons I'd been planning to surprise them with. A few minutes later, Eliana walked into the bathroom, still screaming about the "unfairness" of it all, and caught sight of Ami gleefully scribbling all over the tub. "Why did he get those," she demanded, her temper escalating.

"Because he's behaving nicely," I answered quietly, turning back to Ami and helping him draw a star on the tub.

Without a word, Eliana zipped her lip, took off her clothes and climbed into the tub.

So I recommend the next time one of your kids is having a tantrum, forget ignoring, forget reasoning, forget bribing, forget yelling, forget punishing. Rewarding the child who's behaving works so much faster and so much more easily. The reward doesn't have to be a prize or a treat, either. A cuddle, some lap time, a story or a game works just as well to tell your tantrum-thrower "this is what you'll get when you settle down, but right now you're not very pleasant to be around."

If you only have one kid - sorry, I've got nothin for ya.

Pick Your Battles

We were about to go out this afternoon so I told my kids to put their shoes on and get ready to go. Four-year-old Eliana asked if she could keep her Tinkerbell costume on for our outing. Two-year-old Ami refused to wear his shoes. "Elmo slippers," he insisted. I smiled at my crazy kids, helped Ami put his slippers on, and shooed them out the door.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. You have to pick your battles. This is true with your kids, with your spouse, with your boss, with whomever.

Whether you want to "battle" with your kids on a particular subject depends on a number of things:

• How major/minor is the issue? (Hitting - Battle. Shoes on the couch - Up to you.)

• How many other things are you working on ingraining in your child simultaneously? A kid can work on learning approximately three different lessons at any given time. If you're working on teaching her not to lie and to look both ways before crossing the street, do you want to make speaking with an indoor voice your third issue or reserve that slot for something more important that might come up? Believe me, they'll be yelling next week too. You're not going to miss your chance. You WILL have an opportunity to teach them about indoor voices!

• What else is going on in the immediate environment? Did your child miss her nap? Is the baby crying to be fed? Are you stressed to get out the door and get to work on time? Is your daughter starving because you haven't gotten dinner on the table yet? Did she have a hard day in which she failed a test, was teased or bullied, or fell in the mud? Did YOU have a rough day in which you messed up a work assignment, had a flat tire, or argued with your spouse? Is it bedtime and you don't want to spend an hour arguing when it's time for the kids to start winding down? Your child's mood and emotional state, your own mood and emotional state, and whatever else is going on in your household at the moment is going to have an impact on her behavior as well as on your decision about whether or not to fight this battle right now.

Remember, anything that is an issue or a lesson your kids really need to learn is going to manifest itself over and over again. You will have plenty of opportunities to deal with the issue in the future, especially if your kids are young. Not only do your kids' immediate needs (food, sleep) need to come first, but any lesson you try to impart to them isn't going to sink in anyway if they're hungry/tired/upset.

Now I'll be honest. Sometimes I do tell Eliana an outfit she's chosen doesn't match. (And she has gotten to the point now that she will often ask me whether it matches.) But I know that not only is arguing over what she wears a waste of time and energy that I should be saving for the real issues, but letting her pick her own outfit also boosts her independence and self-confidence.

So let your kids pick out their own outfits sometimes. Even if you're not in a rush to get out the door. And even if you know you're going to get some funny looks because your toddler is walking around in Elmo slippers!

Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?

Q: My kids refuse to sleep in their beds. How can I get them out of mine?


A: Co-sleeping is a heated topic, and there's no right or wrong - only what's right or wrong for your family. If no one's getting any sleep, if it's causing discord between Mom and Dad, or if for whatever reason you want your kids out of your bed, then it's not working for your family. If that's the case, consistency is the key to getting your kids out of your bed for good.

First of all, tell them in no uncertain terms that sleeping in Mommy and Daddy's bed is not happening anymore. You love them very much. Don't follow this with a "but." The "B" word negates the entire first half of the sentence - any time you use it. Tell your kids they're big boys and girls. They are to sleep in their beds, you will sleep in your bed, and you'll spend lots of time together during daylight hours. Nighttime is not for spending time together - it's for sleeping.

Do they have a fear of something in particular? If so, address it. Do they need a nightlight? Do they need the door left open a crack? Do they need you to yell, "Monsters, monsters, stay away!" into the closet and check under the bed for the boogeyman before you leave? These are all acceptable ways to resolve children's fears. (Don't tell your kids that there's no such thing as monsters. They're not going to believe you, they're just going to think you're not on their side. Instead, come up with a way to keep the monsters away.)

Maybe your kids feel that they're not getting to spend enough quality time with you during the day and are trying to make up for it at night. If this is the case you're going to have to make more time for them. This can just be an extra 15 minutes a day. Fifteen minutes amounts to a few extra stories, a quick arts and crafts project, or a game of catch. It's quality here, not quantity. These few minutes can make a huge difference in your relationship with your kids. I highly recommend finding the time, even if your kids don't have sleep problems or security issues!

Once all underlying issues have been addressed, this is what you need to do:

Let's say your kids go to sleep fine in their own beds, but creep into your bed in the middle of the night.


I know you're tired and it's easier to just scootch over and let them in, but if you ever want this to stop, you need to get up and take them back to their beds. Do this as many times as it takes. It might happen 10 times in one night, but don't give in. If you give in once, they'll learn that all they have to do is keep trying and eventually they'll wear you down. I promise you, if you do it 10 times in one night, the next night (or maybe the night after) it'll only be seven or eight times, and after about a week they won't be coming to your bed anymore. It's just not worth their time and energy if they see it's not going to get them anywhere.

If your kids won't even go to sleep in their own beds and insist on going straight to your room at bedtime, here's what do to:

Put your child to bed in her bed. Sit on the bed with her for a few minutes (quietly - don't get her into another habit like singing her songs or rubbing her back, unless you want to keep doing this every night forever. Which is fine, if you want to do it every night. Just be aware that if you start in with something like this, it will become another routine that your child won't want to let go of). If you pray with your children every night, this is a good time to do it. If your child is the type that falls asleep very quickly, it's fine to sit with her until she falls asleep. If not, choose an amount of time and then say good night and leave the room. Do this every night for a week.


After a week, when you put her to bed, sit on a chair right next to her bed. (Make up an excuse if you have to - your back hurts or there's not enough room for both of you on the bed.) Sit there for a few minutes for several nights to a week. Then move the chair a foot or two away from the bed, towards the door. Sit there for a few nights. Continue moving the chair until it's outside the bedroom door.

You did it! You're free!

P.S. It's perfectly OK to reinforce good nights slept in their own beds with stickers on a sticker chart in the morning if you know this will help motivate your kids!

How (Not) to Praise Your Kids

This post is dedicated to Ava Josephine Jerrick, who passed away one month ago today. Ava, I know your Mama would be praising the heck out of you if you were here right now.

I hesitate to ever say there's a "right" or wrong" way to parent. But there has been research in the last few years on, of all things, how to praise your children.

One would think that praising your children is good and not praising them is bad. Period.

Right?

Wrong.

According to psychologists, when you praise your child, you're supposed to focus on his effort, rather than on his accomplishments. This seems counter-intuitive. After all, if your child scored three goals in the soccer match or got an A on his essay, shouldn't you focus on how well he did?


Apparently, you shouldn't. Instead, focus on how much he practiced and how hard he played, or how much time he spent in the library researching that essay even though you know he'd rather have been doing something else.

Why is this so crucial? For several reasons.

First of all, your child can't always control how well he's going to do something. For example, some kids are just uncoordinated. They're not going to score that many goals in a soccer match, if they score any at all. (Whether uncoordinated children should be playing soccer is another question. Personally, if they enjoy it I think they should go for it. Only if they feel discouraged and out of place should they be encouraged to find an activity that is more suited to their abilities).

If you focus on the quantity of your child's achievements, i.e. number of goals or grade on an essay, you're focusing on his ability or skill level. Granted, sometimes kids can improve by practicing harder or studying more. But sometimes that B or C really is the best they can do. They shouldn't feel bad for doing their best! They should be praised for how hard they tried, not for the outcome.

Secondly, it's hard to believe, but praise for your child's accomplishments can actually have negative effects. If your child sees that what's important to you is how well he does, this can affect not only how hard he tries but also his self-esteem and in fact his entire outlook on how the world works. If he thinks the only thing that matters is skill level - coordination, intelligence, artistic ability, or any other - he might decide there's no point in trying to do something that could be a great experience or a crucial part of his development because he just doesn't believe he has the skills to succeed. For example, if you're always praising him when he gets As on his English homework and he comes home with a C in math, he may well decide "I'm no good at math so I might as well not waste my time. I'll just focus on the subjects I'm good at." This will become a self-fulfilling prophecy: if he doesn't make an effort to study math, he will in fact fail at it, which will only reinforce his attitude. On the other hand, if you praise him when he studies hard, no matter what the end result, he'll get the message that the most important thing is effort. This way he'll continue to work hard and may just get a B or even an A the next time. So in effect, praising him only on his accomplishments may actually end up sabotaging him.


Praising our children for their efforts is crucial not only to our kids' self-esteem but to teaching them that in order to succeed in life they need to try hard and can't give up.

My kids are young, but I have to try to catch myself and not only praise four-year-old Eliana when she draws a picture that actually looks like a person or a rainbow, but also when she draws a picture that I can't recognize (and don't even know which end is up). After all, she spends a long time on her drawings and she is working on valuable skills like patience, concentration, and fine motor development, no matter what she's drawing. The other day she tried to write "Mommy" for the first time. She started with a "W." The first thing I did was say "Wow, Eliana, that's amazing! I can't believe you did that all by yourself." (The second thing I did was teach her the difference between a "W" and an "M.")


But I guess I should have said something like "I'm so proud of you for working on your writing! You're trying really hard," rather than the more specific "You're writing really beautifully." I'm not exactly sure how this whole thing works, but I'm going to try to be more conscious of it in the future.

Praising our kids for their efforts rather than their accomplishments is a really difficult rule to remember. But no one ever said parenting was easy.

Kids Aren't the Only Ones Who Need a Time Out

Being a mother is like being on an airplane when the pressure is dropping and the oxygen masks pop out from the overhead panel. "Please secure your own mask before assisting others," flight attendants remind frequent fliers before every takeoff. It's common sense, really. A person can offer no help to the passenger beside him if he's gasping for air. Nor can a mother raise a child if she's gasping for air.


Every mother wants to be Supermom, spending all her time with and on her children, and if she's not with her children, she feels her remaining energy should go to her husband. But it's crucial to a woman's physical and emotional well-being, not to mention her sanity, to get a break sometimes. Physicians are not allowed to work more than 30 hours in a row, and for good reason: they could seriously hurt or even kill someone if they don't get a break. Well, isn't that true of mothers as well?

That's not to say you can take a break from parenting every 30 hours, but you should try to get a little "me time" in at least once a week to keep from going crazy. Not only will you feel better, but your kids and your husband will notice the difference too. After all, who do you really think they'll prefer to be around: a cranky, exhausted, overworked wife and mother or a refreshed, relaxed, happy wife and mother? The answer is simple. A stressed out mom makes for a stressed out household and a happy mom makes for a happy family.

A lot of times when moms are home on maternity leave, they start to go a little stir-crazy, missing their daily routine and grown-up conversation. By the time those few months are up, they're practically climbing the walls to get back to work. But when they're no longer around their kids 24/7, these same moms find they actually have more patience and appreciate and enjoy being with their children in a way they weren't able to before. Similarly, getting away even just for an hour or two can refresh you and give you a whole new perspective on life (or just enough energy to make it through till next week).

"Time for mom" does NOT mean the two minutes of privacy your kids allow you in the bathroom (if you're lucky). There are a million things you can do with a little "me time" - and a nap doesn't count either! Napping doesn't recharge your sanity. You might be a little less tired when you wake up from a nap, but you won't feel energized and refreshed like you will if you do something that truly makes you happy. Once in awhile you need to know you have a life outside your kids. So try out that new sushi place with the girls. Take up a hobby like scrapbooking or learn to master an instrument you've always dreamed of playing. Join a pilates class. Take up photography. Get a mani/pedi, a facial or a massage.


Unfortunately, budget has to be taken into account and a lot of moms complain that between the price of babysitters these days and the cost of whatever club or class they want to join, extracurriculars are just not an option. Well, no one said a happy mom needs to be a broke mom! There are plenty of things you can do that don't cost a cent and don't require you to fork over cash to a babysitter every week either. Try one of the following tips for moms:

• Take a luxurious, candlelit bath (with or without bubbles).

• Read a book. You can even start a book club that meets at your house once the kids are in bed!

• Start a journal or a blog.

• Work out to an aerobics video or groove to some tunes on your iPod.

• Draw, paint, or create a collage.

• Take up sewing, knitting or crocheting.

• Invite a friend over for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.


And if you really want to learn to play that flute, get creative! See if you can work out some kind of barter arrangement based on skills you have - offer to tutor the instructor's child in math, for example, or perhaps draw up an ad for her business if you're skilled in graphic design.

Too tired to go out and do anything fun by the time you get your kids in bed? Enlist your husband, your parents or a friend to help out with dinner, bath and bedtime once in awhile so you can check out early. If evenings are too difficult, send older kids off to a playdate one day a week, reciprocating the offer so the other mom can get a break another day. And there's no shame in asking your husband to give you a couple of hours to yourself on the weekend. This is a great opportunity for him to bond with the kids, and when he sees how refreshed you are when you come back, he'll be glad he obliged.

Even Supermom needs a break once in awhile to fly off to her Fortress of Solitude, be it at the North Pole or at the local yoga studio. So instead of feeling guilty for not being the perfect mom, embrace what you might see as an inherent flaw and use it as an opportunity not only to pamper yourself, but to actually make yourself a better mom.


There's a phrase that can be heard by women at happy hours everywhere: A happy mom makes for happy kids. So get yourself to that happy hour, and make your kids happy!

As Seen on Facebook

My friend's Facebook status yesterday:

"Sometimes I've cut the crusts off my own sandwich before I realize what I'm doing."

Driven to Distraction

Q: I have twin one-year-olds. I'm constantly telling Becky, my four-year-old, not to pick up the twins because I'm worried about her dropping them and seriously hurting them. (She has dropped them before and they've been badly bruised.) I try to focus on how nicely she plays with them, but I feel like a broken record saying "don't pick up the babies" over and over again. I understand why she does it and I can't blame her for wanting to, but I can't allow it because I'm really worried that they'll get hurt. I'm afraid to leave her alone with them for a minute, even just to go to the bathroom. An "I listen the first time" sticker chart has worked with other issues but not with this one. Any suggestions?

A: I have two tips for dealing with this issue, which I'm going to place in the general category of "following directions."

1. Turn the negativity around. This will accomplish several things. You won't sound like a broken record. You won't feel like a nag. Becky won't feel nagged and she won't feel like she's being picked on. (I know she plays nicely most of the time, but for every negative interaction you have with your child she needs at least five positive ones. Can you really say you compliment your kids on their behavior five times as often as you find something negative to say? I know I can't.

Think about it: Your boss says you did a good job on something. You feel good for a few minutes, maybe even an hour, and then you move on. Your boss criticizes you. You hold onto that for the rest of the day - at least. How much more so with a child? At the end of the day you want your child to remember how much you showed her that you love her and forget about anything negative you might have said.)

Besides, there's an important rule I've learned about kids. When you say "Don't do XYZ," all they hear is "XYZ." The "don't" falls by the wayside. I remember so clearly when I was a teenager, playing outside with some kids I was babysitting for. I said "Please don't break my sunglasses." Fifteen seconds later, CRACK.

Obviously those kids didn't hear "break my sunglasses," but you get the picture. It would have been much better if I'd said "Please give me my sunglasses" or "put the sunglasses down."

Believe me, "Don't pick up the babies" is going in one of Becky's ears and out the other. And the more you say it, the more she tunes it out. I admit, this will require some effort on your part. You may have to make a list of alternative things to say when you see Becky wants to pick up one of the twins. Here are a few ideas:

- If you go sit on the couch I'll put the baby on your lap.
- Please cook the babies some soup in your play kitchen.
- Why don't you go get a book to read to the twins/for me to read to you?
- Should we get out some play-dough/crayons/something else Becky enjoys doing?


Keep your list handy so you don't get flustered.


Which leads me to my second point.

2. Distraction. When a child is doing something you don't want her to do, one of your best options is to distract her with something else. Don't even deal with telling them what not to do. Just find them something else to do instead. The younger they are, the easier this is. "Hey, look at this toy." "I think I hear an airplane." "Want a snack?"

In this particular case, switching negativity to positivity and using the distraction method end up on your end as one and the same. This is not always true. I'm sorry that I'm not giving you two different practical actions you can take to change Becky's behavior. These are two general parenting tips that can be applied in all sorts of situations. But unfortunately in your situation the practical application of both tips is the same.

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Finally, here's a note that you can feel free to take or leave at your discretion:

I gave you the above answers a couple of days ago. But rereading your question now, it strikes me that perhaps (and I hesitate to say this to any parent) you're being a bit overprotective. Kids fall. The twins are going to have their share of spills, whether Becky drops them, they trip over a toy, or fall down the stairs. Kids are resilient. I always say that's why babies are so short. They fall all the time but because they're so close to the ground, they're usually OK.

Becky is not that much taller than the twins - she's only four. She's not holding them way up high off the ground like you do when you hold them. And they're not newborns. They're not THAT fragile. They can hold their heads up, they can catch themselves when they fall. I know they've gotten hurt in the past and it scares you. I'm not promising that nothing's ever going to happen to them - I wish I could. And I'm not saying don't TRY to prevent Becky from picking them up most of the time. But I am saying you shouldn't freak out if you have to run to the bathroom and leave Becky alone with them for a minute. Give her a little space. She might just surprise you.