a visit to the dentist

in the dentists chair a visit to the dentistWe took our 4-year-old to the dentist on Friday. She was scared of going the whole week prior.

When we got there, she watched me get my teeth cleaned – intently. Then, she crawled up on that big seat and sat as still as wood. She opened her mouth and listened to instructions. The hygienist was very kind and explained each tool.

At the end of the visit, my 4yo got a toothbrush, a sticker, toothpaste, and mouthwash. Afterward, she proclaimed that it was “super fun.”

I am often – daily – so proud of her I could burst. She is intelligent, compassionate, candid, and creative. She is meticulous about art and eager about learning. She isn’t afraid to say she is afraid. She is constantly reminding Tim & I to be better – “we don’t talk about other people” and “we don’t say ‘stupid’.”

at the dentist a visit to the dentistHer tender heart and sweet spirit are gentle reassurances of our choice not to spank. [I grew up in a culture that said if kids weren't spanked, they were sure to be spoiled brats. I don't believe that].

I know she’s not perfect, but neither am I. We’re both in this together.

* This post wasn’t meant to be about spanking. It’s just something that came to mind.

* Now I’m going to order a box of cookies for the Affiliated Dental Center staff (because they are awesome).

Have you taken your child(ren) to the dentist? What was the experience like?

Puddle Jumper. (me).

It’s been a WEEK. [Do you know the kind I'm talking about?]

1 is not always onederful Puddle Jumper. (me). looking down age 3 Puddle Jumper. (me).

Whenever I have the kind of week that is full of no’s and tantrums and too much whining (Yes, all of those things happen in our house. We’re not perfect – in case you were tempted to think so.), I always look at ME first. Yes – ME.

in the pouring rain Puddle Jumper. (me).I know this to be true: If I am grumpy or impatient or lacking energy or full of “just-a-minutes” and “not right nows” and “maybe laters,” then my kids mimic my attitude. Every time. So if my kids start acting uncharacteristically unpleasant, I try to react w/ a hefty dose of attention, love, and spontaneity. It’s a wonderful cure.

This afternoon, I decided not to check my e-mail or send out business pitches or tweet (not that there’s anything wrong with those things, by the way…). Instead, I sat out on the back porch swing with my girls and we watched the clouds and sang, “I hope it rains! I hope it rains! Doo! Do! Doo!” And then it rained – it sprinkled – it POURED.

jumping in puddles Puddle Jumper. (me).We ran out in front and dashed back-and-forth to and from the safety of the garage (until we were drenched and our curls were extra curly). When the streets were full and flooding, my 3-year-old said, “Can I go out there?” At first, I was going to say, “Our shoes will get soaked. There are too many cars. Etc.” But then, I said, “Yes.” And I went too! We jumped and laughed and kicked up puddles.

Afterwards, I made smoothies. For dinner. At bedtime, we got under the covers and I read 3 (THREE!) chapters of Ramona the Pest out loud to the girls. And they both listened in captive silence. We stayed up a little later than normal.

And you know what? Today was a really good day.

Does it rain in the summer where you are? Also – Do you read chapter books aloud to your kids? If so, which ones do you recommend for preschoolers? (And – P.S. – three is a wonderful age to start this…my 3-year-old kept wanting me to read “the next chapter!”)

Yes, My Kids Are My Friends

You are his parent; not his friend.

Kids need their parents to be parents…not friends.

She clearly needs a parent…not a mom/dad who tries to be her friend.

I hear those statements pretty regularly in our society and, quite frankly, they bewilder me.

sitting on the couch Yes, My Kids Are My FriendsMy kids are definitely my friends. We spend time together. We make each other laugh. We do crazy and spontaneous things that produce marvelous memories. We share good times and sad times. Sometimes we drive each other crazy, but – in reality – we never tire of each other.

Yes. Indeed. These two girls of mine are my friends. Aside from Tim, actually, you might even say that they are my best friends.

Does that mean that I am not a parent – that I fail to protect, guide, instruct, and teach my children? Not at all! I strive to do all of those things, using my age and experience to help them understand the world around them – to show them through modeling + conversation how to love God and love others.

three girls on a walk Yes, My Kids Are My FriendsBut I refuse to live under the faulty presumption that I must EITHER be a parent or a friend to my children. I choose to be both. Now – and in the future.

After all, I won’t always be the only adult around here. One day, I will be 40 and they will be teenagers. I will be 50 and they will be having kids and careers. Etc. When those milestones come, I want to still be friends. Sharing cares and triumphs. Being taught by each other.

That kind of relationship doesn’t just “happen.” It starts today…right now…in the every day ways we relate to each other.

SLY Awards: Discipline Without Distress

When I asked Kristen about her hobbies, she said, “spending time with other adults, talking grown-up talk (even if it is mostly about our kids!), and reading food blogs and various parenting books.”

Since she likes parenting books (she’s a person who thinks about things deeply – a quality I appreciate), I am happy to present her with a book that I am about halfway through and enjoying immensely.

book 198x300 SLY Awards: Discipline Without DistressDiscipline Without Distress: 135 tools for raising caring, responsible children without time-out, spanking, punishment, or bribery offers a beautiful parenting framework and philosophy – plus, solid advice and hundreds of practical tips.

Author Judy Arnall is the mother of five children and a well-known parenting writer/expert in Canada.

Consider this excerpt:

Discipline comes from the Latin word that means “to teach.” Punishment means “to hurt either by physical, emotional, or social pain.”

But in reality, both types of parent reaction “teaches” the child.

The difference is what each does to the parent-child bond while it teaches. Sometimes punishment “works” in that it gains compliance but at a grave cost to the relationship connection. (page 83)

Arnall uses a combination of science, research, reason, and experience to provide helpful guidance for parents of children, birth to teen. Her book spans a gamut of topics – everything from potty training and sleep to homework and dating. Every parent will be able to glean some nuggets of knowledge and truth from this book – whether or not they agree with every single suggestion in its pages.

YOUR TURN: What are your favorite parenting books?

WIN IT! One winner will receive a copy of Discipline Without Distress by Judy Arnall. To enter, leave any topic-related comment on this post prior to Tuesday, March 23rd at 11:59 p.m. All generic comments like “Enter me!,” “Love it,” and “Cool stuff!” will be disqualified. Winner must provide a U.S. or Canadian mailing address.

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sly awards SLY Awards: Discipline Without DistressJudy Arnall has generously donated 2 books for this SLY Awards promotion – one for Kristen and one for the giveaway. I received no product or monetary compensation for this post. I’m just excited to celebrate Kristen…and you.

*UPDATE* The winner is #14 Rebecca. Congratulations!

Inconvenient…or Incredible?

Most of the time, it’s pretty inconvenient to be a parent.

baby with arms crossed Inconvenient...or Incredible?You want to sleep in. But your kids wake up at an unforgiving hour. You need to make dinner. But your baby wants to be held and swayed and jostled just-so. You’d love to sit in Starbucks for an hour with a book in hand. But, if you did that, you would probably get kicked out because your 18-month-old would run through the cafe wildly.

Parenting is a high-sacrifice business. There are a lot of costs involved. Our kids don’t always do what we want them to do…which, I’ve come to understand, is a good thing.

Consider these common complaints [I hear them often]:

She wakes up before the sun comes up!

He wants to be held all of the time!

She has such a strong will!

He just won’t obey – he always has to question everything!

She sleeps so lightly! If a pin drops in our house, she wakes up.

He won’t sit still! He is moving constantly!

She is so weary of strangers!

He won’t play by himself. He wants me all of the time!

The truth is that almost all of those things are good, wonderful, beautiful, and important characteristics.

sweet baby Inconvenient...or Incredible?She wakes up early because she loves life and doesn’t want to miss a single thing! He wants to be held because he trusts you and your presence comforts him! She is constantly thinking about things and has an opinion! He is inquisitive and analytical and refuses to do things without reason! She will wake up if danger is near! He has tons of energy and likes to be active! She knows the people in her life and has great intuition! He loves to be near you because you are his favorite person in the world!

You see? Most of the things we mark as inconvenient are good – very good. After all, would we really want our kids to be weak-willed, lazy, easily-led, unquestioning, deflated souls?

On the contrary! I yearn for my kids to be brave, strong, daring, active, and thoughtful leaders! I want them to be courageous enough to challenge the status quo, fast enough to outrun the scariest villain, smart enough to brainstorm possibilities, and bold enough to create change.

is it raining Inconvenient...or Incredible?I try to remember these things in the “inconvenient” moments – when my baby takes an extra short nap (She is a lively little girl who doesn’t need as much sleep as the norm! Just think how many things she will be able to accomplish!) or when my 3-year-old wants to read the same book for the gazillionth time in a row (She is a little bookworm and is absorbing language at a neckbreaking pace!).

When I am at the park or in a group of parents and someone inevitably says, “He is so stubborn!” or “She keeps asking me ‘why’ a million times!” I almost always think to myself, “That’s wonderful!

Reframing things from “inconvenient” to “incredible!” really helps me to keep perspective.

smart preschooler Inconvenient...or Incredible?These are the days of life, of growth, and of wonder. These are the days of my children’s youth and I want to be mindful of the people that they are today and the people that they are becoming.

So far? My girls are beautiful, bright, confident, charismatic, and compassionate people that don’t hesitate to speak up about injustice or to help other people.

I am one very proud mama indeed.

book review: love & logic

I recently read both “Parenting with Love & Logic” by Foster Cline & Jim Fay (NavPress, 2006, $24.99) and “Love & Logic Magic for Early Childhood” by Jim Fay & Charles Fay (Love & Logic Institute, 2000, $24.95). Both are excellent – instructive, practical, and immediately applicable.

parenting with love logic foster cline jim fay hardcover cover art 100x150 book review: love & logic“Parenting With Love & Logic” offers parents an overarching parenting philosophy that emphasizes giving choices that are within firm, loving limits. The book is packed with solid content. In fact, there are so many helpful tools in it that it would be hard to simply “summarize” the book and leave it at that.

121 100x150 book review: love & logic“Love & Logic Magic for Early Childhood” repeats the same content, but gives practical examples for parents who have little ones (birth to age 6). Some of the issues covered include whining, chores, bedtime, potty training, and more.

The concepts that I found particularly helpful in both texts were offering choices, being intentional about presenting thinking messages, using the uh-oh song when misbehavior occurs, extending compassion, and modeling appropriate actions. I have begun using quite a few of these “techniques” already (with success).

Although I found most of the examples to be refreshingly compassionate and gracious (yet also firm), several of the examples seem to be too harsh and simplistic. For example, I would not call a friend to come and pick up my toddler if she were acting out at the grocery store (page 32-33, Love & Logic Magic). Additionally, I prefer to have thoughtful conversations with my preschooler when she does something inappropriate (we talk about what happened, why the action was wrong, what she could have done differently, etc.) rather than simply letting natural consequences do the teaching (read page 106 of Parenting with Love & Logic to find out why the authors discourage these kind of conversations).

I would also be remiss if I didn’t point out that I am quite disturbed by Foster Cline’s clinical background and his association with Attachment Therapy, a frightening form of therapy that seems to be downright abusive and sinister. The book doesn’t ever refer to this therapy or Cline’s tie to it (I discovered it when doing a bit of research on the title), but it is upsetting nonetheless.

Those “negatives” aside, both books are infused with much wisdom about fostering creativity, mitigating the media’s role in our lives, capitalizing on the early years, and encouraging children to think for themselves. Some of the examples are flawed and this is not the end-all approach to parenting, but I do appreciate many of the Love & Logic concepts (and I think you will too).

YOUR TURN: I’m curious. What parenting books have you read lately?

WIN IT! One winner will receive a copy of “Parenting With Love & Logic” ($24.99), “Love & Logic Magic for Early Childhood” ($24.95), and “Painless Parenting for the Preschool Years” (DVD, $29.95 – I haven’t watched this yet due to lack of time, but I’m hoping to pop it in my DVD player soon…). To enter, leave any topic-related comment on this post prior to Friday, September 11th at 11:59 p.m. (Don’t forget to follow the rules…all generic comments like “Enter me!,” “Love it,” and “Cool stuff!” will be disqualified.).

*UPDATE* The winner is #42 Jinxy. Congratulations!

7 Reasons We Don’t Spank

1275188911 ebc291d8f4 300x300 7 Reasons We Dont SpankThese controversial posts always make me nervous. Mostly because it’s hard to have these kind of conversations when you’re not sitting with the other person, relaxed on the couch or on a big comfy chair at Starbucks.

There are bound to be disagreements. Some people might take what I have to say personally, emotionally. Yet still, I feel like it is important to write these things: why I don’t let my babies “cry it out,” why I don’t leave my babies in the church nursery, what I wish church was like, why a healthy baby isn’t the only thing that matters (the birth experience matters too), that kind of thing. After each of those posts, I hesitated – a little knot in my stomach. I think I even made my husband push the “publish” button once.

But you know what? I am always SO glad after I publish and the comments start rolling on. Because I really do wish people would talk about the hard things, that we could have these deeper discussions in a respectful manner.

So, today I venture into this terrifying territory once again – to share my heart.

Today, I am sharing why my husband and I choose NOT to spank. I should emphasize here that I am not presuming to know what is best for your family. I am simply sharing what we do and why we choose to do it that way.

Below are seven reasons we choose not to spank:

1. Spanking teaches the wrong lessons. My husband and I have thought about it and talked about it and thought about it some more. And no matter how hard we try, we always come back to what spanking really teaches: “If you do something wrong, I am going to hit you.” I don’t like that message. At all. In fact, I don’t want my kids to ever see me hitting – them or anyone else. That is not an appropriate or healthy way to treat another human being. Regardless of age or stature.

2. Spanking doesn’t teach the right lessons. Kids who are spanked may indeed be well-behaved. It may seem to “work” on the outside, but it doesn’t deal with the heart of the matter. Kids who are spanked learn “if I do ACTION ABC, then I get spanked so I better not do that again…or, at least, I better not get caught doing that.” Spanking doesn’t address the real issue or give positive alternatives. It doesn’t encourage kids to think for themselves.

3. Spanking takes advantage of a child’s stature. Kids are little. Adults are big. So adults tend to use their “advantage” to attempt to force children into their way of thinking – instead of modeling, discussing, letting natural consequences occur, etc. In a sense, it devalues kids. It assumes that kids aren’t smart enough to be given boundaries and to learn from their mistakes.

4. Spanking undermines the parent/child relationship. As mentioned above, spanking may appear to “work” when children are very young, but I think that – overall – hitting produces bitterness and erodes the firm foundation of love and security that the parent/child relationship should be built on.

5. Spanking is, too often, done out of anger. We know a couple who chooses to spank their kids who manage to do it unemotionally, without screaming or shaking. But they are the exception. In fact, I think they are the only couple we have ever met who are able to separate their anger from the spanking process. Most parents spank rashly, out of frustration: “don’t you dare speak to me like that!!!” (whack, whack, whack). Which leads me to my next point…

6. Spanking can lead to abuse. People who spank get used to hitting. If it isn’t working, they might spank harder or give more swats. If a child is stubborn, the parent might exert more force. The reality is that child abuse is a very real thing. According to Childhelp, a report of child abuse is made every ten seconds in the USA (and that’s just what is reported). Almost five children die everyday in our country as a result of child abuse. More than three out of four are under the age of 4. And you know what? I’m not okay with that. We shouldn’t live in a world like that. Maybe all spanking isn’t abuse, but a lot of it is. And the simple fact that so many children are abused – every day, every second – should certainly make us all pause and consider the implications of our actions.

7. Spanking is bad for adults. Violence is never becoming. It is frightening. For the one being hit and the one doing the hitting. When I even consider the possibility of hitting my child (which I have never done, by the way) – if I get that picture in my head – it scares me. Because that is not who I am. That is not who I want to be. I want to parent with grace, with forgiveness, with gentleness. Does that mean that I will let my kids run wild and do whatever they want? No. It just means that I will choose not to exert physical pain on anyone – particularly little children, particularly MY children who mean the world to me.

Because here’s the thing. I make a lot of mistakes. Every day. I’m not always the most “well-behaved” person. But when I mess up, I don’t get hit or slapped. When a friend or my spouse does something appalling or embarrassing, I don’t smack them around. So, why would I do that to someone who is small – a child, the most vulnerable among us? Well, I wouldn’t. I don’t. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

NOTE 1: For more information on this topic (including why “hitting is actually not Biblical”…), read Dr. Sears’ excellent article, “10 Reasons Not to Hit your Child.”

NOTE 2: This post primarily outlined what we don’t do. Stay tuned for some of our thoughts on positive parenting practices…

Image credit: flickr, brtsergio‘s photostream