Category: Parenting

Good people, bad people, and the rest of us

Posted on by Suki

The other day when we were talking to our kids about interacting with other people online, we came up against a problem that we face over and over as parents:

Concern #1: We don’t think it’s healthy for our kids to view the world as some horrible scary place they should be afraid of interacting with.

Concern #2: On the other hand, horrible scary things happen out there every day, and we want our children to have basic tools to deal with things that might come their way.

How you balance those concerns pretty much sums up your view of what your role as a parent is.

I tend to spend a lot of time standing in the middle of the seesaw, trying to keep it level. I did let my kids walk around the neighborhood alone when they were little. I didn’t prime them with horrible stories about mean people and what they will do to them. I did tell them that it’s OK to question the motives of adults they come into contact with.

Mean people R us, some of the time

A challenge for parents is to develop a consistent approach to how we deal with danger in the world, especially potentially dangerous people. What I came up with translates pretty well to the online world as well:

Premise #1: There is a small number of really terrible people in this world who want to hurt others.

Premise #2: There is a small number of really saintly people who will never hurt anyone or anything.

Premise #3: The rest of us just do our best with what life throws us.

I’ve never been terribly concerned about Premise #1, to tell you the truth. If you want your children not to be hurt by an adult, you’d do well to choose a partner who won’t hurt them because that’s who’s most likely to do it. If there are other people in your life who might hurt your children, do your best to change your life so that you don’t interact with those people.

Stranger-on-stranger violence is rare enough; stranger-adult-on-child violence is really quite rare. It’s also generally not possible to predict, so you can’t live your life assuming that everyone is out to get you.

Since you can’t reliably identify the saints amongst us, Premise #3 is where things get hairy. The fact is, sometimes we human beings don’t behave as well as we should. One of the situations in which we behave less well than normal is when we feel anonymous. Those who live in tourist towns, like me, can tell you without hesitation that people are less polite and leave more garbage lying around when they are at outside of their own community.

Our online lives have offered all of us a certain measure of anonymity and distance from the people we interact with. Even real humans that we see in the real world gain a certain amount of psychological distance online. People put things in email they’d never say to someone’s face. Facebook generates mini-scandals and lots of hurt feelings every day.

Do your best, keep trying to do better

So when we’re talking to our kids about taking care of themselves—in the “real” world or online—we’re more concerned about that huge number of people who are simply doing their best. We’re concerned whether our children are conscious of their own behavior and how it might affect others. And we’re concerned that another child that they met online may not have the same guidance from the adults in his or her real life.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible that the child they met online is actually a 34-year-old serial child kidnapper. It’s just that when I worry about which values to impart to my children, I put fear of someone running a red light and hitting them in a crosswalk way ahead of any of the more headline-worthy ways to get hurt in this world. It’s hard to resist the headlines (not to mention the Amber Alerts shining above the highways) and just plow forward with a hope that our kids will do OK for themselves in the world.

I think that open communication is the best way to do that. Each of us has to make a decision about where on the seesaw we want to stand, and then decide to be OK with that decision, no matter what happens.

Resources:

 

 

Talking about Internet safety

Posted on by Suki

Tonight my husband and I initiated a discussion after dinner that neither of our children wanted to take part in. The topic was how people might take advantage of you or hurt you online.

The kids got a little uncomfortable, to say the least.

These days, teaching our kids to watch all directions when they're online is as important as teaching them to cross a street safely.
These days, teaching our kids to watch all directions when they’re online is as important as teaching them to cross a street safely.

Our kids start with a pretty serious disadvantage in the “you stupid old fogies don’t know what you’re talking about” department. As I pointed out to them, I got flamed on the Internet before it was called the Internet. Their father was amongst the first Americans to visit the World Wide Web.

We’re not newbies. We’re not teetotalers warning their kids against the danger of intoxication.

This is such an important conversation. The world that our kids are growing up in bears so little resemblance to the world we grew up in, it’s pretty much unprecedented. The only analogous situation I can think of is parents who grew up in peacetime raising kids in a war zone.

Everything bad that could happen to us when we were kids had to happen in the “real” world. This other world didn’t exist yet. The little pieces of it that did exist, like chat rooms that users dialed into on their modems, relate to the Web like BB guns to today’s automatic weapons.

This conversation wasn’t out of the blue. I think the only thing that responsible parents can do these days is to keep bringing up this topic, to keep it fresh in kids’ minds, and to keep all the avenues of discussion open at all times.

It makes kids uncomfortable, especially teens. Our twelve-year-old was rather annoyed that her little transgression had sparked this conversation again. Our sixteen-year-old straight-out announced that he didn’t need to talk about it and attempted to walk out.

Kids not only spend time online, much of their sense of self is not centered on their online interactions.

Teens live much of their lives in a digital world these days. And teens are built to wear their feelings very close to the surface of their skin. They feel deeply, which is great. Their first instinct is often to push away adults who make them feel deeply, which is not so great.

But we kept talking. We worked past the denials, the jokes, the sarcasm, the put-downs, and the brush-offs that kept coming our way. Because this topic is important, perhaps more important (statistically speaking) than talking about stranger abduction. Perhaps not quite as important as teaching your children to look both ways before they cross a street, but verging on that level of importance.

It’s easy for us to think, “my kid would never be so naive.” But let’s face it, we all make mistakes. As I explained to my children, I personally have made mistakes online that have led to hurt feelings and worse in my real life. It’s a real topic that we all have to face.

In the end, I think our kids heard and understood. But it wasn’t the end. This is an ongoing conversation as they mature and face new situations. I explained to my kids at after a half-century on this earth, I still turn to their dad and others I know for advice and guidance on how to react to situations online.

Lifelong learning isn’t just IRL.

Resources:

 

Read my follow-up, Good people, bad people, and the rest of us.

A day that I failed

Posted on by Suki

Tonight, I want you to know this.

Tonight, I am a complete failure as a parent.

Nothing has gone right today. Well, OK, I did get my teenager away from his screen by luring him to our local “gourmet gas station” for a lychee-flavored soft drink.

This was my self-portrait of despair from when I was in my 20's. Did I really think I understood despair then? Amazingly, I did.
This is a self-portrait of despair from when I was in my 20’s. Did I really think I understood despair then? Amazingly, I did. By the way, I loved that black shiki cushion in this photo. We had to get rid of it because our children would drag it out, set it up, and go crazy. Really. It was like the cushion was possessed with demons that entered our children and turned them into crazed munchkins. Finally, we gave it away to Goodwill, and they had to find other ways to inspire themselves to pinnacles of bad behavior.

But I’ll admit that’s not really a success, because I paid for less screen time with sugar wrapped in an exotic, overpriced bottle.

Otherwise, I have failed to do pretty much everything I set out to do:

  • One child shrugs and says “OK” as an answer to pretty much any question I ask
  • The other yells at me every single time I ask him to do the most minor of tasks
  • I try collaborative problem-solving and am told that I am a hyper-controlling maniac
  • I try to honor a child’s wishes and find out that she never, ever wished such a thing and how could I think she would?

Before I had kids, my failures were my own. Yes, it’s true that I was failing because it was all my parents’ fault, but since I’d been out of their house since I was seventeen, that excuse had gotten old.

No, it’s true, before I had children I failed, but I only failed myself.

Now I fail two precious, potential-filled human beings every single day.

I fail to remember what I learned about parenting from Youtube, Facebook, Upworthy, and even TED. Or maybe I remember it, but my very real children are somehow much more complex than the children in those uplifting stories.

Remember the first time you read that you should offer your toddler two choices, one of which was clearly inferior? First time you read that, you thought, Wow, that’s brilliant! And maybe you even put it into practice and it worked!

Once or twice.

Then one day you said to your child, “We are supposed to meet Danny in the park. Do you want to put your shoes on now so we can go to the park, or do you want to sit here with me being bored?”

And your child looked at you with those innocent eyes and said, “I’m not bored, Mommy. It’s just I don’t want to wear my shoes. So it’s OK if we just sit here.”

And he did.

Or perhaps your child said, “I don’t want either of those things. I want to throw a big, fat tantrum and ruin your chances of going to the park so you can sit and talk to the three other people on the planet who don’t think you’re going insane (aka other moms you know).”

In any case, the two questions thing, which you had been promised was fool-proof, had lasted all of two days in your house.

How about 1-2-3? Or was it 3-2-1? It’s hard to remember. You saw a video in which a parenting expert promised you that counting would bring your children into compliance. So you tried it!

And it worked!

“Git yer darn shoes on! 1—2—3!”

That kid was pulling on those shoes like you were holding a flaming torch to her bottom.

Next time you try counting? Doesn’t work. Your kid misses park day and forgets about it as soon as she realizes she can pull out the black shiki cushion, set it up as a fort, and launch spitballs at her brother.

You miss park day and miss the only opportunity you had that week to talk to other people who understand that in our world, counting is irrelevant (aka other moms).

On days like today, all parenting advice is irrelevant.

Except for this advice:

We’re doing the hardest job in the world. And until your kids are grown up and have kids of their own, it’s thankless, too. (Unless you are successful at getting your children to be polite with you, another thing I have largely failed at.)

So be aware that some days will be like this. You’ll fail at everything. You’ll end up in your office, typing madly into your blog software, hoping someone will hear your silent scream in the dark.

Why did I do this? Why didn’t I become one of the Childless by Choice? What can I do to rekindle my faith in myself as a parent?

And the only advice I can give is the advice I’m giving myself right now:

This, like all things in parenting, will pass. Your children will thrive (probably), and they will become who they will become, most definitely.

Perhaps with your help, perhaps in spite of your help, they will become functional adults.

One day, your child-in-law will sit at your kitchen table with your grandchild playing at his or her feet, and ask entreatingly, “How did you do it? You were such a great mom!”

And you’ll remember this day, and you’ll remember this advice, you’ll sigh, and you’ll say, “Well, there were days that I felt like I failed.”

But you kept going.

And you did.

Have Fun… and Be Safe… at the Beach this Summer

Posted on by Suki

The most recent newsletter from Santa Cruz Parent contained some great advice about fun and safety for families at the beach. However, I noticed that it lacked one warning that I think is particularly pertinent to Santa Cruz: Don’t let your kids dig deep holes in the sand! I wrote the following article for Growing Up in Santa Cruz the summer after one child was killed and another was seriously injured after a sand cave collapse. These children’s parents were beach natives and caring people, yet they didn’t realize the risk.

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My kids love going boogie boarding at the beach.
My kids love going boogie boarding at the beach.

For Santa Cruz families, the beach is our free amusement park. As soon as school gets out, families head to the beach for long, lazy, fun days.

Few parents will be able to visit Natural Bridges Beach this summer, however, without the accompanying sadness at last year’s tragedy: one child died and one was seriously injured when a sand cave fell on them. As a community, the good that we can make of such a tragedy is to be more aware of how we can keep our kids safe, while still having fun in our natural playground.

Experts recommend the following precautions:

1) Teach your kids about water.
As soon as they are old enough to understand danger, children should learn about the dangers of water and also learn to swim. Recommendations vary for the age when kids should learn, but everyone agrees that a child playing over his ankles in beach water should be able to float for at least a minute.

2) Teach your kids about the beach.
Beach water is a whole different beast than pool water. Kids should know that sometimes the water is not safe for swimming. You can check our local water quality website before you go.
Kids need to be educated about wave behavior. Rip currents are common at our beaches and kids who can swim should know to swim parallel to the beach if they feel themselves being pulled out to sea. Kids should also understand the behavior of sleeper waves. According to BeachCalifornia.com, “Without warning, huge “sleeper” waves sometimes hit the shore. These giants crash much farther up the beach than normal waves. They can knock down both children and adults, and drag them into deep water.”
Our local cliffs and bluffs are made of sandstone, a highly unstable surface. Teach your kids to pay attention to the warning signs. Noting the young adults who are often out on the cliffs can serve as a way to talk about risky beach behavior. Wildlife on the beach should be looked at and enjoyed, but never touched or bothered. Report injured wildlife on our beaches to the State Park Service.

3) Be a responsible adult.
Sometimes it’s a pain to enforce safety rules. For example, kids love the warm, stagnant water caught at slow-moving creek entrances. These bodies of water are permanently posted for unsafe bacterial levels, and parents need to be vigilant.
All kids, even those with more melanin in their skin, need to wear sunscreen at the beach. According to WebMD.com, “Research has shown that sun exposure prior to the age of 18 significantly increases the risk of developing skin cancer later in life, including the potentially fatal melanoma.”
Beaches with smaller waves and lifeguards are safer for kids. Choose the beach based on their needs. And if they are going in deeper water with a body board, even if they can swim, they should have a tether. Kids (and adults) can drown when they swim out to retrieve a board that slipped out from under them.

4) Sand caves are not safe.
Finally, it’s nearly universal in kid world that digging in sand and going in caves is endlessly fun. But parents need to be aware that on average, three people, mostly kids, are killed on beaches each year by sand cave-ins, often from lying down in shallow holes and aspirating falling sand. No child should be allowed to dig a large hole deeper than a foot, and children should be told never to lie down, even in shallow holes.
It can be uncomfortable, but parents can help other parents keep their kids safe. Many of the visitors to our beaches are newbies – we can help them by pointing out unsafe behavior when we see it. If the problem continues, you can contact a lifeguard or the ranger on duty at each beach’s parking area.

Enjoy a safe, happy summer!

Resources:

“Inside Out,” a tour of modern parenting

Posted on by Suki

One of the benefits of parenting now rather than in previous times is how much more we know about human brains and how they work. Before the 21st century, advice to parents and teachers was pretty much based on inference—”we see that lots of people who have done xyz have had good results, so you should do it, too.”

These days, parents are benefiting from—and in some cases, freaking out because of—a huge influx of hard data about how brains work. So it’s not surprising that Pixar has come out with a movie that’s not only for kids, but for us adults who are worrying about how our parenting is affecting our children’s brains. [Read an interview with the director in which he talks about how his 11-year-old daughter inspired the film.]

The freak-out at the dinner table. We’ve been there!

A movie for kids and adults

“Inside Out” is a truly brilliant film in several respects. The aspect most important to me as an adult is that it’s a kids’ movie that adults can not only enjoy with the kids, but enjoy separately from the kids. As we sat in the theater, I noticed a striking pattern of laughter: The kids were laughing at the funny lines, the goofiness, and the nutty action sequences.

True, the adults were laughing at those, too. But we were also laughing at the adult level inside jokes (did they really sneak a joke about San Francisco “bears” into a mainstream movie?), the pained and loving relationship between the two parents (oh, ouch, I think we’ve had that actual discussion, dear), and the uncomfortable recognition of feelings from our own childhoods.

True to life

Not all films have to be “real” in the sense of sticking to objective realism. However, any good story is “real” within its own context. Whether the characters are fairies or girls attending a new school, their experiences and especially their reaction to those experiences need to seem “real” in context. We have to believe them.

The temptation with kids’ movies is to make things happen just because kids think they’re funny, or because it was time for some action in the plot, or because the animator always wanted to animate a wild mass of curly, red hair. “Inside Out” never feels like it’s veering off-center; this is a movie that knows what it’s about.

Modeling a healthy parenting style

Did the makers of this film really portray a loving, modern family that lets their 11-year-old daughter [gasp!] walk to school in a new city? Well, yes, they did. I wonder if Pete Docter has read Free-Range Kids. 

I appreciated that this film featured neither the sappy parent-as-role-model nor the damaging parent-as-natural-adversary tropes that are common in children’s films. These parents are real. They don’t make decisions only for their daughter—they have needs, too. They don’t try to control their daughter or even to completely understand her. They just love her and do their best, which isn’t always quite good enough.

A healthy theory of mind

Let’s face it: this is a cartoon, and the representation of the brains and how they work is cartoonish. But it’s also beautifully constructed both to reflect the state of modern brain research and also a healthy modern view of how to manage our ideas and emotions. In the movie, each person has a “control room” that is run by the emotions happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. But that’s where the brains’ similarities end. Each character in the film has a control room that works differently, depending on the character’s personality and life experiences.

Some of the funniest moments in the film are when we briefly step into the minds of the minor characters and see their control rooms as a metaphor for how they approach the world. Every character, we are reminded, is a person, and has the same emotions as the next. How those emotions behave and interact is what makes each of us unique.

Two thumbs up

I have to admit that I’m generally loathe to go to popular children’s movies. I am deeply grateful when another parent offers to take my child. And now that my youngest is old enough to go on her own, it takes a lot to get me to spend my dollars and my precious two hours on something that will, at best, bore me, and at worst, offend me.

But this is one film I can heartily recommend to parents like me who are done with stupid kid films. I left the theater feeling like I’d actually received more than I paid for, an unusual result of watching a hit summer movie.

Mom’s efficient control room—calm, cool, and collected!
Her daughter’s control room is rather more chaotic.
Dad’s emotions are remembering a great hockey game before they realize that their daughter is having a crisis.

Aside: Interesting how the filmmakers chose to portray Mom’s emotions as all women, Dad’s emotions as all men, but Daughter’s emotions as mixed male and female. Intentional? Hm…

Now available