How to Make Kids Grateful

As the holidays approach, we parents think more about how to make those days meaningful for our children.  Many of us would like to see our children less focused on what they want from Santa and more engaged in the spirit of the holidays, family, togetherness, giving and being grateful for simple joys and experiences.

So how do you instill the modern child with a sense of giving and gratitude?   Not with sermons or moral stories, but with action.  Start by giving the holidays more purpose for your child and inviting him to have a more significant role in the family’s activities during that time of year.

Children learn by doing.  Meaningful life lessons and moral messages are always better transmitted through activity, because then your child can feel the reward that comes with having acted out of a sense of charity, thoughtfulness and generosity, and see the results when lives around him are changed by what he has done.

All children respond more enthusiastically to opportunities to do something meaningful than to receiving toys and other material gifts.  But for the child who has never been invited to give instead of receive, he must first have the experience and its rewards. 

How can you engage your child more in acts of generosity and less in consumerism this season?  Here are some quick and easy tips:

For children under 10:

If your child is 10 or under, he wants to do things that you do.  So, take advantage of this biological advantage, and model the actions you would like to see your child embrace.

• With your child in tow, visit your local United Way and inquire about opportunities to volunteer during the holiday season.  Ask about opportunities that allow children to be involved.
• If you have a passion for cooking, volunteer to cook at a soup kitchen and bring your child along.  Or help your child bake some treats for a charity bake sale.
• If you have fix-it skills, sign up for Habitat for Humanity together and get your child her own toolbelt. 
• If you are a social person, hold party events to support your favorite charity, and invite your child’s help in planning and hosting guests. 
• If you love to sing, find local carolers and bring your child along for a memorable night of delighting others. 
• If you garden, plant vegetables that the two of you can donate to a local food bank. 

Of course, your charitable activities don’t have to be rooted in your own life passions.  Simple acts like bringing blankets and warm clothes to homeless shelters on Christmas Eve, or donating new PJ’s to an orphanage, or volunteering to read stories with children who are in the ICU are all simple but deeply inspiring activities that will permanently transform your child forever and redefine the meaning of the holidays for years to come.

For children over 10:

Tweens and teens respond differently to holidays than young children.  The focus is more on peers and social activity.  Don’t fight this.  Use it to your advantage.

Host a teen charity party.  Your teen won’t believe you are offering your house for a party!  You provide the food and drink, and they ask each attending friend to bring donations for those in need (blankets, PJ’s, canned food, children’s books, etc.)

Combine a sleepover with a late night caroling visit and toy donation at the local hospital’s pediatric ward.  Call ahead to get permission.

Tweens, Teens and The New Tech Social Order

The presence of computers and the Internet has spurred a monumental transfer of power from adult to child.   Prior to the Internet, adults controlled most factors of their children’s social interactions: where, when, how and with whom.

But, the Internet has given children the power to interact with one another and with adults, across all social, cultural, and national boundaries, without the knowledge or permission of their parents. This capability has happened too quickly for society to develop a means for protecting children who use the Internet, and adults have too little time or know-how to keep pace with their children’s seemingly effortless proficiency.

The result is a new and rapidly evolving social order in which children have access to a powerful tool for which they have little modeling and supervision.  Today, a child can see some of the most violent, sexual and morally repugnant realities of the adult world; but because parents are either ignorant of or uncertain how to manage their children’s Internet activity, children are likely to continue its use unseen and unprotected.

Check out The Three P’s of Parenting for ways to protect your child effectively from predators online and in person.  Also find support for you and your child in safe use of the Internet at www.netsmartz.org.

How to Make Your Teen Financially Savvy

What is the single most important financial principle that teens should know before they head out into the real world?

Entrepreneurship, in and out of the workplace.

Knowing how to forge a new idea, build a plan or strategy around it, anticipate potential pitfalls, confirm demand and interest in that idea, and build partnerships to improve its success and sustainability. 

Why?  The world economy – as it is developing now and as it will be when today’s teens are in their 20s — is one that rewards entrepreneurial skills, both in and out of the workplace.

The days of one-country corporate careers are over, and the keys to both long-term financial prosperity and career fulfillment for coming generations of graduates are agility and momentum. The pace of change in business is exponentially faster than it was even one generation ago, and expectations for cross-disciplinary application are higher.

Those who can move and change quickly, pull together new ideas that work in a short amount of time, and quickly mobilize forces around R&D, service design and production on a world scale will be the ones to beat.

Steps Parents Can Take Today

What can parents do to help teach their teen that principle? 

• Encourage financial savvy, such as savings for return, investments, stocks and mutual funds in elementary and middle school.
• In those early years, encourage children to participate in family finance discussions, learn to read bank, mortgage and credit card statements, practice calculating tips at restaurants, figuring sale prices at department stores, bargaining for a better deal at the fresh market, etc.
• Even an 8-year-old can come up with a plan to help the family save money on ATM fees, electricity usage, and groceries.

How can teens put that principle into practice?  

Parents should start supporting and brainstorming entrepreneurial activity with their TWEENS and teens as early as middle school and fully in high school.

• Children between the ages of 10 and 15 can mow lawns, babysit, hold bake sales, walk dogs, and run errands for local elderly and busy moms.
• Children between 15-18 can engineer creative solutions to everyday problems and develop those into full-blown businesses.
• Buy your high school student a subscription to entrepreneurship magazines and encourage them to study the examples of others who have come up with “big ideas” and turned them into businesses.
• Find your high school student a mentorship or apprenticeship, because these experiences are known to not only better ensure graduation, but also encourage better academic performance and a stronger commitment to college and to ambitious plans post high school and college.
• Try to achieve a mentorship in technology or other innovative industry. In Economy 3.0, every field will need tech savvy, and having these skills will give your child an advantage.
• Encourage your child to explore apprenticeships in at least 3 different fields, especially business or finance, technology and science. These are areas that support most successful entrepreneurial ventures of the next economy.

Worried about your high schooler taking college courses? You shouldn’t be.

When high schoolers think ahead and pursue college credit early, they are motivated, and motivation is the #1 obstacle to high school graduation, not just for at-risk students, but all students.

For years, our high schools have needed to catch up with the modern momentum of today’s youth, but instead remain anchored in bureacratic traditions that hold students back and draw lines between high and college. What we need is a seamless offering that encourages movement and ties between the base purity of high school academics and the loftier and more dynamic applications of college.

Not only should senior year be optionally spent on college courses, but so should some of junior and even sophomore year.  The level of challenge, both academic and career-tied, should always remain a few rings above the student, for optimum engagement and motivation.

Every student is different, and senior year is the ideal time to introduce more flexible systems to channel (and reward) budding maturity and academic consistency. This is a time when a child’s identity fulfillment is at it’s peak, when self-confidence and hope for future achievement can be at their height. It is not a time to hold children back with bureacratic restraints that fail to consider personal readiness for “something more.”

How to Help Your Tween Daughter Cope

A tween girl’s experience can be likened to living on a fault line.  There are many beautiful, peaceful days, but at a moment’s notice, it can seem as if the ground is quaking and everything around her is crashing down. 

Big failures and disappointments are almost daily occurrences for a tween girl.  This is because she has landed in foreign territory without knowing the language and without the basic skills of navigation.  You can help her prevent and recover from such failures and disappointments by:

 Getting her back on the bike

Tween girls are being driven by biological impulses to socialize and spend infinite time thinking and talking about relationships.  Many parents make the mistake of trying to curb this.  Don’t. 

Even though her behavior may seem silly or extreme, recognize that for a few years, a tween daughter is in the awkward position of feeling a desperate need to form and experiment with relationships, but does not know how.  Instead of spending (or wasting)  energy trying to contain her, I advise parents to look for ways to support, inform and elevate her social behavior.  Some examples:

Coach her in people skills like introducing oneself, introducing friends to each other, finding common interests in a group of people, and bringing up interesting conversational topics. Invite her to reflect on and build a set of friendship criteria to guide her choices.  She will move in and out of friendships almost daily, so she will have plenty of opportunities to apply and revisit the list of traits she seeks in friends.

Look for constructive social opportunities such as charitable causes, community improvement projects, career-related experiences, or athletics/performing arts.

Provide mentoring opportunities

In this case, I am suggesting that parents encourage tween daughters to become a mentor to younger girls.  This may sound like a strange suggestion for helping a hormone-riddled tween girl who at a given moment, may be crushed.  But it works beautifully.

Tweens and teens are naturally drawn to causes of all kinds.  Charitable causes and opportunities to care for or nurture less fortunate or younger people trigger interest in tweens and teens because they are social experiences, they offer opportunities to practice leadership, and because tweens and teens have an eroded sense of self esteem which means that caring for or defending the less fortunate will elevate their sense of their own self worth.

Role play 

Simply acting out potential scenarios can do wonders for your daughter’s self esteem and success in relationships, now and forever. 

Sadly, role play is not a mainstay of parenting technique, but it should be.  No single parenting method is easier, more enjoyable, healthier or more effective in the mentoring and preparation of a child for life. 

Would parents rather have their daughters experience challenges and disappointments for the first time in the company of a stranger?  It makes sense to prepare ahead of time.

Use disappointment to help her shape an identity

Hormones are telling tween daughters to think more about how she looks to others, because outward attractiveness is key to successful relationships in the tween world.  Instead of pushing back when she seems to spend an obscene amount of time thinking and talking about what she is going to wear, how her hair looks and whether or not she needs a bra, join in and become her identity consultant.

Help her look forward

Perhaps the best way a parent can help a daughter get over disappointment quickly is to help her brainstorm and prioritize activities she has always enjoyed and then analyzing what she likes about them.  Help her put those fulfilling activities into a plan for her future. 

It may seem strange to be talking to a 10-, 11- or12-year old about things like what she dreams of doing for a career, but parents will quickly see how enthusiastically she responds.  Tweenhood is the perfect time to introduce the idea of a future plan of action – even if it only looks down the road for a year or two – because tweens are aching to take steps toward adulthood.

Finally, never pressure a tween daughter to share private thoughts.  Make yourself available.  Support her during this rocky period of emotional development.  And she will come to you naturally.

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.

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.