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Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to dust off my parenting skills. This opportunity has reminded me of some of my thoughts on parenting, which I thought I would share with you this Fathers Day. Perhaps they will help you be a better parent to your child:

• It is our job to be there for our children. Parenting means providing your child unconditional love and support. That doesn’t mean you always agree with what they do, but love must come first. Your child must feel free to talk with you about anything. Anything. A N Y T H I N G. Without any fear of your reaction. You are there to support and help them.
• It is our job to uplift our children. In the broad sense, we are our child’s greatest cheerleader. In the broad sense, our children are by definition beautiful, smart, and talented, and we keep telling them that because that self-esteem serves them well throughout life. This doesn’t mean a particular piece of clothing might not make them look bad, or they might take a stupid action, or be untalented at a given task. But in the broad sense.
• It is our job to respect our children. By showing them respect, we teach them what respect is and how to give it to others. Don’t pick up your child by calling them and having them come out — go to the door and meet them. Don’t call them names, make fun of physical attributes — that’s bullying. Respect their time, if you want them to respect yours. If you say you will be there at a certain time, be there at that time. In short, this is just the Golden Rule: Treat them as you would want to be treated.
• Gently Encourage, Don’t Shame. We all have ways we want our children to behave — things we think are right. But the way to get those good behaviors is not to shame bad ones. Calling someone fat, showing how they are a slob only tears them down and makes you a bully. Instead, do things that encourage the right behavior. Have healthy right-portioned family meals together. Have family non-screen activities. Teach techniques on how to succeed. But while doing this, remember one thing: your love for your child is not a reward or something that can be withheld — it must always be present.
• Couch Criticism Carefully. Every child is going to do something stupid. It is part of growing up. But think about criticism in a TQM sense: what have they been doing right, and where can they improve. Criticize only those things the child can change, and tread carefully on criticizing the child vs. the action. Make it clear when something is your opinion vs. a general societal judgement. “I don’t think that dress flatters you.” (or even better, “You would look better in this“) is much better than “You’re fat.”. Saying “I think that was a silly thing to do.” is much better than “You’re dumb for doing that.” Remember that the job of criticism is not to tear down (destructive criticism), but to show us how to improve (constructive criticism).
• Don’t Hide Consequences. Actions have consequences — that is a fact of life. It is one of the most important rules a child must learn. Good actions have good consequences. Bad actions have bad consequences. As actions come from your decisions, what you do and how you decide to behave will have consequences. A fundamental lesson. However, we must temper that with the temptation to create artificial consequences, or to hide the impact of a decision. Real life consequences are often lesson enough.
• You Will Make Mistakes. Expect that both you and your child will make mistakes. No one is the perfect parent; no one has a perfect child. Learn from your mistakes, and admit when you made them (and what you would do differently). That is how a child learns they don’t have meet an impossible standard of perfection, that they can make a mistake — learn from it — and move on. This also encourages them to tell you about their mistakes and get your help in recovering.
• Avoid Yelling. Yelling does precious little other than relieving stress, or communicating with someone far away or not paying attention. Once you have someone’s attention, talk calmly and with confidence, and they will better hear you. People don’t want to hear yelling and tune it out quickly. We rarely yell in our household (we do, however, talk through issues, which is often painful enough).

Alas, I know there are some people out there with dads that perhaps don’t do what I’ve listed above. Reading my various feeds and news sources back in May, I found this wonderful essay: To All the Brave Kids Who Broke up with Their Toxic Dads. It should be required reading for all children with fathers — no, make that parents — that work against their self-esteem and success. It lets them know that such a break-up is OK, and even to love them from afar is fine. Here’s the opening paragraph to give you a taste: “You are going to be more than okay. Whether it was because of an addiction, constant excuses for not being there, an irresistible urge to put you down, an indifference or inability to give and receive love, his past, pride, selfishness, the fact that he’s weak or scared, or just the heartbreak of dealing with a man who’s broken, you did the hardest break-up that your heart will ever have to endure. You need to understand how brave you are.”

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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What’s this I hear about people being anti-Vax? Don’t they realize that without the Vax, and its older sibling, the PDP 11, there might not have been the Internet as we know it? I mean, Unix was developed for the Vaxxen. Oh, wait, I wanted to write about a different Vax. Nevermind.

Seriously, now that we’re past that bad but obligatory pun, I’d like to talk to you about a different sort of “vax” — vaccines, and their well-publicized opposition, the “anti-vaxxers”. These folks have been in the news lately because of a recently enacted California law that requires parents to vaccinate their children except when medically-contraindicated (no exemption for belief or parent choice), and a Federal Judge upholding that law. Do a search on the Internet related to that law, and you are overwhelmed by the anti-vax opposition sites, such as this one, masquerading as an information site. Closer to home, the subject is on my mind because of a recent discussion with a relative who is in the anti-vax camp, where she asked if she was anti-science because she was skeptical of many things such as the planethood of Pluto, the accuracy of meteorologists, and science’s disbelief (until recently) about the value of the microbiome. This particular post was prompted by a “Fuck You Anti-Vaxxer” rant a different friend posted, which made me realize that a more reasoned screen was necessary.

Let’s work through this and some of the arguments together. The BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) is that being an anti-vaxxer is not necessarily being anti-science, but it is a clear demonstration of how humans want to blame something or someone when something goes wrong, how humans have difficulty separating correlation and causality, and how bad we are at judging and assessing risk. When properly assessed, the best way that a parent can reduce risk for their child is to ensure they are vaccinated.

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This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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Earlier today, I linked to a number of lists posted in the Daily Cal, including a list of 5 things to enjoy now that you’re home from school. Of course, one thing the Daily Cal didn’t post was a list of the things the parents can’t enjoy now that the kids are home from college. I must oblige with a dozen… feel free to add to the list…

1. Peace and quiet in the house.
2. Only having to do a small number of loads of laundry.
3. Having an empty sink in the kitchen… and having it stay that way.
4. Most of the lights in the house remaining off.
5. Only grocery shopping once a week.
6. The house staying picked up for more than 30 minutes.
7. Control of television and other electronic media.
8. Not having to worry about when someone will be coming home… or if… and who they might be with… and if they are spending the night…
9. Being able to run around the house in any state of attire, or lack thereof.
10. Having your car available when you want it… and having it remain clean and with a full tank.
11. Having confidence that all the doors to the house are locked when the house is empty.
12. Yes that. You know you’re thinking about it, and you never want to think about your parents doing it.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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This morning, before I left for work, I posted a link to an article about the death of 14-year old Aria Doherty in Northridge. As I eat lunch, I’d like to expand on the article. Aria was an honors student at Nobel Middle School [FB] (a few blocks away from our house, and the middle school our daughter attended).  She died Monday night, after “huffing” from a can of compressed air used for cleaning dust out of a computer. According to KNBC, she’d been home alone for a couple hours when she inhaled the duster. Her older sister found Aria in bed with a can of compressed air still attached to her mouth, her nostrils taped shut. A plastic bag was found nearby. The “huffing” had sent Aria into cardiac arrest. Her parents Richard and Carolyn Doherty said they were caught completely off-guard. The Doherty’s kept no dangerous weapons in their Porter Ranch home, stored prescription drugs under lock and key, and recently purged their home of all alcohol. They talked to their teen daughters about the dangers of substance abuse. They had never found any evidence that she had huffed at all; they believe this was her first time. Doherty was a straight-A student, ambitious and very active at her school. She was active in the drama department; we had seen her in at least 3 productions in small roles.

Those of us in the broader Nobel community — parents, students, alumni, parents of alumni, teachers — are spreading the word about this tragedy so it does not happen again. Parents and children need to understand inhalant abuse, what huffing is, what products can be used, and most importantly, how to prevent it.

Trolls are also out there referring to the students that do this as stupid, or to the parents as stupid, and blaming everything under the sun for the problem. They are doing this just to incite comments. Ignore them. Stupidity is not involved.

Here are a few key points, as I see it:

• This is not a “ban the products” situation. Far too many products useful to society can be used to “huff”, from air freshener to compressed air to correction fluid. It is not practical to ban or limit them.
• Stupidity is not involved. Immaturity is a different question. We forget that middle-school and high school students are not yet mature. In fact, the human brain often does not finish maturing until the 20s (or even later for men). They may look mature and have mature bodies, but they do not always make mature judgements. Even if our young people are educated about the facts and the dangers, they may still make the wrong risk decision and try this.
• Peer pressure — to do right or wrong — is often important. Fitting in both in behavior and look is important at this age. Often, but not always, friends can provide clues.
• The most important thing you can do is to keep the lines of communication open. This is hard for parents of teens, where your child often wants to push away to establish their own identity. Make it clear that you are always there to discuss a risk decision, and indicate that you won’t be judgemental. You will present them with all sides of the issue, and trust that their judgement will make the right decision (moreso as they get older and demonstrate they make the right decisions).

With this tragedy, parents will be holding their children a little closer tonight, grateful they are there. We can’t for a few more days, as ours is still off in Berkeley. So I’d like to publically note that I’m proud of our daughter with respect to her decisions. Although we don’t always agree with them, at least she talks to us about them and considers what we have to say before making her final choice.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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