Prodding a Plodder

Q: My second grader often misses the school bus because she’s not ready in time. Sometimes, it’s because she got up later than usual, while other times, it’s because she’s piddled around eating breakfast, getting dressed, etc. It doesn’t matter if she has her school things together the night before or not—she still procrastinates even with her clothes laid out already. Any ideas on how I can get her moving more in the mornings?

A: Some kids seem to fiddle around more than others, especially when it comes to getting ready. However, there is a fairly easy solution to this very common problem. Applied with consistency, it’s almost guaranteed to work (remembering that when children are involved, nothing can be 100% foolproof).

Before bed, tell your daughter that tomorrow morning will be a new routine, one that you’re sure she’s going to embrace. Show her a kitchen timer, preferably one that rings really loud (as opposed to a digital one), telling her that she will have 10 minutes to get dressed, brush her teeth and hair, and have her school bag and coat ready for the bus.

Ten minutes is plenty of time for a second grader to accomplish those things. In the morning after breakfast, remind her of the time limit, set the timer, and then ignore her. This is very important—do not say a peep about the timer running out. Simply go about your day as if she’s obeying you even if you know for a fact that she isn’t. When the timer dings, walk into her room and assess the situation. If she’s dressed, but hasn’t brushed her teeth or hair, then merely tell her to that. If she’s completely ready, nod and smile, but don’t overly praise.

Chances are, she won’t be ready within the time limit. In that case, say nothing about it and put her on the school bus. However, after she arrives home from school and starts to talk about playing with her friends outside or doing something else, sigh and say you wish she could, but she’ll be in her room for the rest of the day and to bed directly after supper, lights out.

When she asks why, remind her of what happened in the morning. Then follow through on the punishment. She’ll catch on soon enough, and you will probably be able to dispense with the timer after a few weeks.

Do you have a parenting question you would like to see answered on this blog? Email Sarah through the contact page with Parenting Question in the subject line.

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Where Does Fairness Come Into Child Rearing?

“It’s not fair” is one of the rallying cries of childhood. At any given moment, somewhere in the world, a child is sure that he or she is not getting a fair shake. I well remember having the same feelings as a kid, that life or my parents or school wasn’t being fair to me.

Sometimes, when a child says “It’s not fair,” it really isn’t in the true sense of the word. A six-year-old doesn’t get to stay up as late as your 10-year-old, and the eight-year-old does do more chores around the house than the four-year-old. Other times, even if you try to be equitable as a parent, the children can still find things to pout about (“He got more icing on his piece of cake than I did”).

Being fair with our children (or if an only child, with the neighborhood kids or classmates) shouldn’t be our goal as parents. But we should think about what fairness means for a family.

Fairness doesn’t mean everyone in the family gets equal treatment, both good and bad. That would put parents on the same footing as children, which is not good for the family structure.

Fairness doesn’t mean treating all children the same. Older children should have more chores than younger ones, while younger ones shouldn’t have as many privileges as older kids.

Fairness does mean not playing favorites. No child should be made the scapegoat and no child should be mommy’s pet. You don’t have to interact with your kids the same way, but you should have to check your behavior from time to time to ensure you’re not playing favorites.

Fairness does mean leveling the playing field when it makes sense. In other words, don’t make provisions to send one kid to college, but neglect to do so for the others.

Above all, realize that children have a warped sense of fairness as it relates specifically to them. And a good sense of humor helps, too.

Until next time,

Sarah

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Bedtime Viewing

Q: My two kids (a fifth grader and a seventh grader) have TVs in their bedroom that they’re supposed to turn off at bedtime. However, lately, I’ll walk by their rooms after they should be in bed and hear the TV on. They promise to do better, but within a few weeks, they’re back to their old habits. Should I pull the plug?

A: In a word, yes. But if you need more convincing, these highlights from recent research should spur you to get rid of the televisions in their bedrooms—and severely limit TV viewing in general. (My blog on Tuesday talks more in-depth about why TV viewing should be rare for kids of all ages.)

First, having a television in a child’s bedroom significantly increases the chances of that child being obese in childhood and adulthood. A 2012 article in Science Dailyrevealed that “70% percent [of American children] have a TV in the bedroom and about one-third of youth aged 6-19 is considered obese. Previous studies have shown that TV viewing time during childhood and adolescence continues into adulthood, resulting in overweight and elevated total cholesterol.”

Image courtesy of digitalart/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Second, having a television in a child’s bedroom decreases the parent-child bond. An October 2012 article in Huffington Post quoted Jessica Taylor Piotrowski, an assistant professor with the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at the University of Amsterdam talking about this: “Experimental studies have shown that background TV exposure has been linked to lower attention when kids are playing and weaker parent-child interactions.”

Third, having a television in a child’s bedroom lowers the amount of time that child spends reading, which in turn means weaker classroom performances. A University of Michigan Health report found that “TV can discourage and replace reading. Reading requires much more thinking than television, and we know that reading fosters young people's healthy brain development.”

Fourth, having a television in a child’s bedroom reduces the amount of sleep that child gets. “A bedroom TV may create additional disruptions to healthy habits, above and beyond regular TV viewing. For instance, having a bedroom TV is related to lower amounts of sleep and lower prevalence of regular family meals, independent of total TV viewing time,” said Piotrowski.

Personally, I think those are four excellent reasons to chuck the boob tube out of their bedrooms for good.

Do you have a parenting question you would like to see answered on this blog? Email Sarah through the contact page with Parenting Question in the subject line.

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Banishing Television

I’ve always been amazed by how so many parents get so defensive about their children’s television viewing habits. I’ve heard impassioned speeches of why watching "Sesame Street" is okay (“He learned his numbers!”), why "Animal Kingdom" is fine (“Last night was all about lions!”), and why "Dora the Explorer" is good (“She heard about why sharing is important!”).

Then there’s the parents who can’t imagine how anyone with a toddler or infant got anything done around the house without TV. “I had to take a shower,” or “I needed to cook dinner” have been frequent reasons for why said child is parked in front of the television.

Now research is catching up to what our grandmothers know instinctively: TV viewing should be a treat, not a daily occurrence. (And before you ask, yes, the TV in our house stays off for the entire day most days—even in the evening when the kids are in bed). Here are some highlights to get you thinking about your own TV viewing—and that of your children.

Early childhood viewing has been linked to later attention problems, including ADHD, while the American Academy of Pediatrics gets it right when it advises no TV viewing at all for kids under 2. Television often replaces reading. The University of Michigan Health reports that “Kids from families that have the TV on a lot spend less time reading and being read to, and are less likely to be able to read.”

TV viewing’s impact on school performance has long-term effects, such as increasing he chances of dropping out of school and declining chances of graduating from college. As one study put it, “All television shows, even educational non-commercial shows, replace physical activity in your child's life.”

A December 2012 Science Daily report found that the average American child between the ages of 8 and 18 sat in front of the television around 4.5 hours a day. Four and a half hours daily. “There was a stronger association between having a TV in the bedroom versus TV viewing time, with the adiposity and health outcomes,” wrote study co-author Dr. Amanda Staiano.

“A bedroom TV may create additional disruptions to healthy habits, above and beyond regular TV viewing. For instance, having a bedroom TV is related to lower amounts of sleep and lower prevalence of regular family meals, independent of total TV viewing time. Both short sleep duration and lack of regular family meals have been related to weight gain and obesity,” noted Dr. Staiano.

Another 2012 study reported in The Huffington Post found that children have exposure to background TV close to four hours daily, which expert say would likely hinder their development. “The sheer amount of exposure is startling,” said study author Jessica Taylor Piotrowski, an assistant professor with the Amsterdam School of Communication Research at the University of Amsterdam.

Even more troubling, children under the age of 2 had more exposure to background TV daily: five and a half hours. “Experimental studies have shown that background TV exposure has been linked to lower attention when kids are playing and weaker parent-child interactions,” said Piotrowski in The Huffington Post.

Dr. Michael Rich, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical Schooland director of the Center on Media and Child Health, noted that background TV effects both parents and kids. “We do know that when parents have a TV on, the level of communication drops dramatically,” he said. “We can't just say, 'Oh, it's nothing. It's just background [TV].’ It's in our field, and it's designed to grab and keep re-grabbing [children’s] attention.”

What do these studies mean for parents? At the very least, I think we should all take a good, hard look at all TV viewing—educational, recreational and background—and curtail the amount of time our kids are exposed to television.

Until next time,

Sarah

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The Right Amount

Q: I have two children ages 7 and 9, in the first and third grade, respectively. We haven’t given them allowance yet, but would like to start. How do we decide how much and when? Should it be tied to chores?

A: Your children are old enough for an allowance. In our household, we start allowances at the beginning of first grade, after they’ve had some instruction in money. We also raise the allowance at the start of every school year.

How much depends on a number of factors: how much disposable income you have and what you want your kids to do with the money. If this is for a teenager, I’d recommend a higher allowance; for a first grader, a dollar or less a week should suffice. Some financial experts say you should give your child a dollar a week times their age (7 years old = $7 weekly), but I think that might be too much for an elementary-school age child.

We start the allowance at 50 cents a week, then raise it a quarter each year. So my fourth grader receives $1.25, while my third grader gets $1. The kindergartner and preschooler have no allowance yet.

Image courtesy of Idea go from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Don’t tie the allowance to chores—chores are what the child does because he’s part of the family. You don’t get paid for your chores, and neither should he.

But don’t just give the allowance to your child. You should require a few things of him.

1. Give the allowance on the same day each week (like Saturday, for example).
2. The child cannot borrow against next week’s allowance—you are not a bank or a credit card.
3. Require your child to save some of the allowance and give some away each week.

Having an allowance is a great way to help your child gain an understanding about money, one you can build upon as the child grows older and the allowance grows larger.

Do you have a parenting question you would like to see answered on this blog? Email Sarah through the contact page with Parenting Question in the subject line.

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Rough Play

I was popular as a child, not for my sparkling personality, but because I was the proud possessor of a real tree swing. Now I know what you’re thinking: other kids in the neighborhood had swings or tires from tree branches. Ah, but no one else had a tree swing attached to a tree that had a fork from which four trunks extended to the sky, thus creating the perfect place from which to climb up and jump out of to gain maximum velocity.

Yes, this simple piece of wood with a rope inserted through a hole in the middle was, quite simply, paradise. Thirty years later, I can still remember the thrill of standing in the crook of the tree, board between my legs, hands on the rough rope, and then the jump back and up to catapult myself out of the tree and the glorious sensation of flying through the air.

Surprisingly, no one every got seriously hurt from the tree swing—and we played on it a lot. Even when the rope snapped once on the backswing and my friend fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, she only experience some scratches. Once my dad replaced rope, we were back in business. That tree is long gone in my parents' back yard, and none of our trees have branches low enough to set up a tree swing for our children.

Nowadays, we parents are more fearful that our children will get hurt doing most anything. Schools have rules about how high the playground equipment can be (and most have not the see-saws and soaring jungle gyms of my childhood). Parents encase children in all manner of knee and elbow pads and helmets for the simplest things. Yes, I’m a proponent of helmets for bike riding—but not for riding tricycles down the sidewalk.

I’m sad that there are no climb-worthy trees in our yard or neighborhood. I used to climb to the top of many trees in my neighborhood with my friends, loving the thrill of looking down on earth from a bird’s eye view.

Unfortunately, today’s child has not the experience with exploring “danger” like I and many of my contemporaries did. It was never truly dangerous, but there was that sense that we were conquering the world or something pretty close to it. We tested ourselves and saw that we could overcome our own fears in a myriad of ways as we climbed and soared.

For my kids, I encourage exploration and danger, in the sense that we give them freedom to try things that sometimes makes me a little bit uncomfortable. Not really dangerous, but just a little bit danger-filled so they can test their own mettle—and learn something about themselves in the process.

Until next time,

Sarah

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Manners Matter

Q: What are manners my children should know? My husband doesn’t think we should teach any manners, and my mother thinks we should teach a lot of manners. I’m looking for the middle ground. My three kids are between the ages of 7 and 12.

A: The March issue of Practical Parenting tackles the question of why manners are important for children (and adults), so I won’t reiterate those reasons here. (To subscribe to the free, monthly e-newsletter, click on the newsletter tab.)

Image courtesy of chrisroll / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As for which manners all children should master, here’s a short list:

• Table manners: chewing with your mouth closed, waiting for everyone to finish eating before leaving the table, and no elbows on the table are among the things that relate to having good table manners.
• Meeting people manners: looking adults in the eye when addressed, shaking hands, and replying politely to greetings are some of the things necessary to talking with adults.
• Phone manners: saying “Hello, Hamaker residence, this is Sarah speaking,” when answering the phone conveys this is a civilized household. Also teach how to take messages.
• Conversation manners: Not interrupting, waiting patiently while adults converse, and answering when spoken to are just some of the way we should behave in public.

This is not an inclusive list, as there are more manners that need to taught by example and explicit instruction. But it doesn’t have to be boring. We often review table manners while eating dinner or at a restaurant.

Manners are a way of treating family, friends, neighbors and strangers in a courteous, polite way—and well worth the effort it takes to instill them in our children.

Do you have a parenting question you would like to see answered on this blog? Email Sarah through the contact page with Parenting Question in the subject line.

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