Preparing Your Child for An Adopted Sibling With Context and Role Play

Last week I shared some tips for adoptive parents who already have children.  Here are some more:

Prepare 

So much is involved in the adoption of a child, and that process can be all consuming.  However, it is critical that your preparation ensure that your children have ample time to adjust to the arrival of a new child and to be prepared to provide support for that child as a new member of the family.  There are several ways to do this, and you should start as soon as you have certainty that a new child will be coming.
 
Books and Movies to Build Context

Children under the age of 10 are unlikely to have the proper intellectual context to get the idea of adoption.  Books and movies can help.

There are dozens of children’s books available today that portray the experience of a new adopted sibling, such as:
 
The Magical Friendship Garden
What is Adoption? 
 
…and movies such as Disney’s Snow Dogs.
 
Begin introducing storybooks and your own created stories at bedtime around the idea of adopting a new child.    The first step in preparing a child is helping him/her create a “cognitive context” for the process.  Children under 10 may have trouble connecting the dots associated with adoption, so first you need to help them establish a framework for understanding it.
 
Role play
 
Role play is the single most effective parenting tool there is for dealing with troubling issues of all kinds.  I always recommend that families incorporate role play into their lives on a regular basis and make it a ritualistic form of communicating, sharing and problem solving.
 
Role play simply implies acting out scenarios, allowing you and your children to switch roles back and forth to experiment with what is going to happen and how everyone in the scenario acts and feels.
 
Role playing adoption will be much more effective after you have established context with books and/or movies.
 
Invite your child to play the role of himself, the adopted child, or the parent.  Take turns switching.  Suggest language that the child can use toward the adopted child and toward the parent. 
 
With children under 6 you will find that the use of puppets, stuffed animals or any object that serves as a role in your play will help your child project difficult feelings and explore them.  Projection is a healthy process for young children, who are naturally inclined to internalize what they feel and then act it out in destructive behavior.   Role play provides a healthy “solution stage” for children who don’t yet have the sophisticated vocabulary or cognitive processes to solve emotional problems and communicate constructively with you.

How to Help Your Child Tell Time

I have worked with schools and families for over 2 decades, and I am still amazed at the problem of telling time.  Most children under the age of 8 cannot tell time perfectly.  Half of them cannot tell time correctly within the half hour.  Why? 

For some strange reason, we do not teach children to tell time as a quantity first.  We start by teaching them the position of the hands, but most children are not cognitively wired to understand this fully until the age of 8-10.  All research done on this topic shows that children cannot tell time accurately to the minute until close to the age of 10.

And yet, time is so essential.  There are at least a dozen instances in my day of parenting my child for which I need him to “get” the concept of time as a quantity. 

How many times have you screamed “5 more minutes!” to your child who is engrossed in something at the playground, only to have them look at you vaguely and continue as if you said nothing? 

And how many times have you put your child in timeout for 15 minutes and watched them squirm, complain and ask “Is it 15 minutes yet?”  incessantly.

These things happen because children are not cognitively wired to understand time as a quantity.  So, unless you are prepared to show them what the quantity of time means, they will continue not to get it.

So what can you do? 

Fortunately, there are a blessed few miracle products out there that teach time as quantity.  My favorite is the Time Timer, which can be used for a zillion parenting purposes and communicates time as a passing (and dimishing quantity) very well.

Another wonderful tool that can be used to get children to stay in bed longer, respect a parent’s need to sleep longer (do I hear an Amen?) and generally grow to understand time supremely well compared to their peers is the Talking Alarm Clock.

Sand timers hold the fascination of young children while providing you with an extremely useful behavior management and tool for teaching time.  And if you want the best of both worlds, try the digital sand timer.

And if you would like to get your feet wet with scholarly research on children, cognition and learning to tell time, check out Time and Human Cognition.

How to Protect Your Child from a Bully

Parents often have no idea that their children are being bullied.  Not only are children embarassed about it, but children are neurologically programmed to internalize problems, blame themselves, and keep it quiet.  The lucky parent will hear about it firsthand from the child.  Many parents have to watch for signs.

Children who get bullied typically lack the self confidence and social skills to defend themselves constructively in the face of a bully. 

Most bullies are “all talk” but have sophisticated psychological techniques for intimidating others.  Bullies are not necessarily bigger or stronger than their victims, but they can smell an insecure person a mile away, and that is why they prey on them.

All children who are sent to school or into a social setting with peers should receive coaching that prepares them for verbal and physical attack.  Most children, unfortunately, are never given this preparation, and parents only intervene after the attack has occurred. 

To prepare your child for any verbal or physical attack by a peer:

Role play situations

Reach back into your own childhood, and you are sure to find examples of children making fun of each other, daring each other, pushing or shoving each other and so on.  Call upon these experiences to stimulate role play with your child.

Explore the dynamics of these experiences and practice saying and doing things that will diffuse or avoid the situation.

Involve your child in physical activity

Physically strong children are seldom the target of attack, not only because they appear stronger, but because physical training makes a child *feel* confident, and it is that attitude that wards off potential attackers.

Karate or other martial arts training is ideal for a young child because it teaches self defense, which makes your child feel always protected and ready for situations.

Visit your child’s domains and meet his peers

Go personally to your child’s school during recess, observe first and then make a point of meeting your child’s classmates.  Be friendly but firm.  The objective is to communicate strength, wisdom and watchfulness.

Let your child’s friends know that you are attentive.  You will get more mileage out of this approach by making such visits periodically (e.g., monthly), to remind everyone that your child has a protection system in place.

Incidentally, this is also an ideal way to ward off adult predators, who usually study playgrounds and other areas where children run freely, before attempting to abduct or attack a child.  Having a regular but unpredictable presence in your child’s social life sends a message to anyone with criminal intent.

Have a party and invite your child’s peers

Doing this at the beginning of a school year is an ideal way for you to size up your child’s peers and see his relationships with each of them.  It is a plus that this technique also allows you to meet your child’s peers’ parents, which will give you that open communication and the information you need to better understand your child’s relationships as they develop over the school year.

What to Do if Your Child is a Bully

These tips are useful with any child, but especially with children who are showing signs of bullying other children:

Communicate

Set up a day each week where you spend 5-15 minutes talking with your child about upcoming events, large and small. 

Invite your child (if he is 5 or older) to come up with his own items for your “meeting”. The focus is on anything new that might be happening or changes that might take place.

It isn’t necessary to go into great depth.  You want to better understand how your child feels about those changes, and your job is to offer as much information as you *have* about those changes.  With the promise of a weekly chat, your child will eventually begin to calm and grow more comfortable with the change. 

RESULTS:  3-6 weeks of consistent effort

Set Sibling Rules

Establish family rules and results for sibling relationships.  No sibling should have the power to infringe on the rights or space of another, ever, for any reason.

It is critical that you protect each of your children from the others, because they are biologically motivated to battle for your favor.  It is completely up to you to create a healthy, collaborative environment.

Establish a hierarcy of privilege based on seniority (a natural hierarchy that all children respect).  Decide who can do what and when.  Make clear your rules about invading another sibling’s space and what is lost when that rule is violated (or what is gained when it is respected).

RESULTS:  3-6 weeks

Schedule ”Me Time”

Give each sibling “me time” with you at least 5 minutes each week, alone, with your undivided attention.  Stick to it, no matter what. 

RESULTS:  2-3 weeks

Role Play

Role play with your child all the scenarios surrounding bully experiences, both on the giving and receiving ends.  Use books, movies and your own invented scenarios to prompt short role plays with your child.  Involve stuffed animals, friends and siblings, Barbies, or whatever serves best as characters in your play. 

Invite your child to assume both the role of bully and of the bullied and to switch back and forth.  Take turns testing new language to dispel a bully situation and the feelings that motivate it.

RESULTS: 2-3 role plays

Meet the Parents

If you believe your child may be bullying other children, make a concerted effort to meet with the parents of the victim children.  If your child is bullying, he is thriving on any lack of communication that may exist between you and the victim’s parents.

Eliminate these barriers and open up lines of communication so that your child is forced to confront the situation openly.

Not only will this escalate the need for solving the problem, but it will model a healthy method of communication for your child.

RESULTS:  instant

Empower

Any bullying child is experiencing a sense of powerlessness.  You can see immediate results by simply expanding your child’s opportunities to have positive power. 

This can be as simple as inviting your child to participate more in daily household activities, such as cooking, cleaning, home repairs, organizing, grocery shopping, etc.  Or it can be a matter of helping your child find leadership opportunities in school, in extracurricular activities, or in the community at large.

Increasing your child’s sense of power typically eliminates bully behavior altogether because the child no longer has a need to assert power over others. This is the most effective way to stop bullying.

RESULTS: 1-3 weeks

Next week:  How to know if your child is being bullied at school.

Adoption: Preparing Your Child for an Adopted Sibling

Parents who bring an adopted child into a home with their own children often experience problems right from the start. 

Their children see the adopted child as a competitive force drawing attention away from them.  And because they did not have the visual of mommy’s tummy growing over time, the arrival of a new child seems sudden and confusing. 

Most children begin acting out immediately after the arrival of the new child, and it can take many forms, from tantrums to becoming extra needy, and it is all intended to snatch the parents’ attention away and put it back where it belongs.
 
How can you prevent negative reactions by your children to an adopted child and encourage supportive behavior?
 
Guaranteed “me time”
 
All children, whether they are natural siblings or natural and adopted, need guaranteed one-on-one time with parents.  This “me time” is where you focus on that child with undivided attention, doing something you both enjoy, or doing nothing and just being together. 

For your child, this is a message of security and protection.  Children seek attention not out of a superficial need, but because attention equates with protection and watchfulness. 

If your child knows he has your attention, he feels safe.  These are subconscious feelings, and his behavior is motivated by them. So, naturally, when a new child comes into the home, and more of your attention is given to him or her, your child feels the deficit. 

The way to counter this is by scheduling “me time” with your child on a predictable basis, perhaps daily or weekly, even for just 5, 10 or 15 minutes. 

“Me time” doesn’t have to be lengthy, but it does have to be reliable.  Being able to count on your undivided attention will have an immediate calming effect on your child.  Parents are often amazed at how quickly children respond to this simple gesture, but it works 100% of the time, when done consistently.

More tips for adoptive parents in next week’s post on this subject.  Subscribe to get that post by email.

4 Signs That Your Child is a Bully

It is not an easy thing to accept, but if you suspect that your child is a becoming a bully, don’t waste time.  Act quickly, and you can stop the behavior in its tracks.

A bully is a child who asserts power and force over other children.  Children who bully are deeply insecure, and probably feel powerless, a low sense of self worth or uncertain about the stability of the family or home life. 

Bullies are children who feel that life is out of control and uncomfortably unpredictable.  Some bullies resort to aggression because they don’t have enough power relative to their age and abilities…often as the result of an overpowering parent or older sibling. 

Bullying usually starts after the onset of a major unexpected event in the family, such as a separation or divorce, a death, or a move.  It can also grow over time as the result of a life without routine, ritual, predictability or other features of stability.  And it is almost always present in a child whose parent is too controlling. 

The signs of a child who has become a bully are clear: verbal and physical aggression toward you and/or toward other children.  They erupt often, give direction to adults and children, and seem to find every opportunity to stand in the way of what someone wants to do. But how do you know if your child has the potentialto become a bully? 

Your child has the potential to become a bully if:

• there is a major destabilizing event coming or happening in the home, such as divorce, death/illness, a sudden move, etc.
• one or more of the parents is very controlling when it comes to the child’s behavior, actions, choices
• the child hears “no” (without options) more often than “yes” – the child has older siblings who are allowed to control or direct him or infringe on his space uninvited
• one or more of the parents (or an older sibling) has “bully” characteristics

Tomorrow, I will post simple steps you can take to stop or prevent your child from becoming a bully.

The Darker Side of Childhood

Childhood has a delicate side that we all want to nurture and protect. The imaginative spirit of children, their tenderness, and their unbridled sincerity all bring us joy, give us meaning, and offer us a glimpse of ourselves as we once were, before life and its trials hardened us. So, we protect children to preserve that delicate side and to prolong their contentment, and ours.

However, in protecting the cherished elements of childhood, there is a tendency to overlook an important side of a child’s experience, one that is less ethereal and more rooted in uncertainty. Psychologists are acquainted with this darker side of a child’s experience because it is the source of so many of the unresolved emotional issues for which we seek closure as adults. In the less visible experience of childhood, we each grappled in quiet worry with a feeling of helplessness, a fear of abandonment, and a fear of the unknown.

Children naturally feel helpless, because they are. They do not have money, keys, phones, cars, or words to communicate their needs. They are physically limited in height, strength and mobility, and they know it. They watch you take the lid off of a jar, but they cannot; when they go to open the door, the handle is out of reach; the ball you catch so easily hits them in the face. And children recognize their predicament. In some respects, their experience is similar to that of the elderly; there is dependence on others for nearly everything and frustration when their needs are not met or understood.

It is also natural for children to fear abandonment. Should something happen to us, or should we stop loving them, children know instinctively that they are in big trouble because they depend on us for everything. Consequently, until children feel physically and mentally prepared to navigate the world around them independently, they stay carefully attuned to their protectors, watching for any signs that their survival is in jeopardy.

Finally, children fear the unknown because it is all around them, with potential dangers lurking everywhere. This is why children are transfixed by television and movies, particularly when the content is violent. For them, news or visual stories hold information about the complex world “out there” and how one should prepare for it. The more we try to conceal this information, the more valuable it is to them. Their desire to know what lies ahead is a subconscious one, driven by intelligent survival instincts.

Children are not able to articulate these feelings of uncertainty, fear or helplessness, and so parents are often unaware of this darker side of a child’s experience. Instead of using words, the child communicates his needs and insecurities through behavioral “signals.”

These signals start at infancy, when your newborn summons you with cries to attend to his needs. He then continues, throughout his life, to signal his needs with his behavior, employing increasingly sophisticated techniques over time.

Most parents, however, are programmed to view behavior in terms of defiance or compliance. So when a child throws a tantrum, refuses to be potty-trained, rejects dinner, pushes his little brother, forgets to do his homework, comes home late, tries drugs or gets a tattoo, parents are likely to react to the visible behavior by treating it as defiance, without understanding the motivation behind it. The child’s motivation is to satisfy a need, and there are three key needs that every child has and that every parent should learn to recognize.

3 Tips to Having Healthy, Loving, Independent Toddlers

Tip 1: Know Your Child’s “Independence Score”

Take a moment to think through your child’s day (this works for children ages 2-18). Reflect on the ways in which he is expected to make decisions, to control his physical environment, and to try new skills.
 
Starting with the beginning of the day, picture the routines that constitute the morning, day and evening.  What power does your child have in each phase of his day?  What decisions is he allowed to make on his own?  What physical control does he have over his activity?  How much do you trust him to make choices?  And, most importantly, how have you coached him in making those choices?
 
Think of a short list of activities that most of us perform on a daily basis.  How many of these activities does your child do for himself?  How many do you do for him?  Use this list to evaluate how much power your child experiences in the everyday moments of his life.

Tip 2: Invite Your Child to Try Age Stage Challenges

You will be more effective in encouraging your child’s independence if you know what motivates him most during his age stage.  Each physical task he conquers fuels a desire for more, and children between the ages of two and four experience a sense of unparalleled vitality and potential. 

To enhance your toddler’s sense of independence and excitement about trying new skills, provide as much opportunity for structured physical challenge (arms and hands, legs and feet) as possible.  Everything from sorting laundry to smelling dinner ingredients can become a teachable moment! 

 Tip 3: Configure Your Child’s Environment for Independence

As a society, we often configure environments and tasks for the elderly or for those with special needs.  We want those with physical limitations to feel powerful and independent. Why not configure your child’s environment to support his independence?

What are the challenges for your child in doing a task independently?  Does it require manual dexterity?  Sorting?  Reading?  Remembering?  Timing?  Think through the task, and configure it to accommodate your child’s needs.

3 Reasons Play is the Ultimate Way to Learn for Children Under 8

For most children, summertime means playtime.  For parents who are tempted to fill a child’s summer with numerous outside learning programs to “get ahead”, there are several reasons why playtime itself is the best method for gaining knowledge:
 
1. Play provides the two elements to rapid cognitive growth:  open-ended opportunities to explore new ideas with endless chances to re-engage familiar objects/experiences.  It should be a maintstay of a child’s daily experience.  
 
2. Open and mildly structured play encourages (and provides opportunities for the child to build neurological connections around) decision-making, prioritizing, distinguishing, assessing…..the foundations of critical thinking.
 
3. The most effective play (that which provides the richest and most lasting learning experiences) is done alone until the age of 5 or 6.   It is a huge misconception that young children need playmates.  Young children don’t have the cognitive wiring to understand that another child is “another child” and someone they should respect, understand, share with, etc.  This is a widespread misconception among parents, but most child and cognitive experts are fully aware that children don’t have social wiring in the brain that young.

What’s Your Child’s Power Score?

Take a moment to think through your child’s day (best done for children ages 2-18). Reflect on the ways in which he is expected to make decisions, to control his physical environment, and to try new skills. Starting with the beginning of the day, picture the routines that constitute the morning, day and evening. What power does your child have in each phase of his day? What decisions is he allowed to make on his own? What physical control does he have over his activity? How much do you trust him to make choices? And, most importantly, how have you coached him in making those choices?

To help you, I have listed below the activities that most of us perform on a daily basis. How many of these activities does your child do for himself? How many do you do for him? Use this list to evaluate how much power your child experiences in the everyday moments of his life.

If you have a young child, you may feel that he is too young to accomplish these tasks on his own, or perhaps you enjoy doing them for him. If you have a tween or teen, you may envision him shirking some of these tasks or handling them irresponsibly.

EVERYDAY TASKS
 

MORNING

waking up at a set time

completing morning hygiene

dressing properly for the day

making the bed

preparing/eating breakfast

DAILY ACTIVITY

preparing/eating snacks or light meals

completing tasks/chores

choosing entertainment

engaging in hobbies or personal interests

exercising

 

BEDTIME

recognizing a set bedtime

dressing for bed and bedtime hygiene

engaging in calming activities prior to sleep

Mentally give your child a “power score” from 1 to 10, where 10 equates with having control of most of his everyday experiences and 1 equates with having little. Keep this score in mind, as we will be exploring the signals children use when they feel a lack of power. You may find that there is a direct correlation between your child’s power score and the behaviors described below.

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