by Dian 1 Comment

Is Your Lazy Parenting Setting Your Kids Up To Fail?

This is one of my first rants, so buckle up!  I have a lot of opinions about a lot of stuff and I think I’ll be sharing them more.  

I think we are doing our kids a disservice as parents,  and setting them up to fail AND I think it’s lazy.  In my opinion, we want our lives to be easy, but we are using the kids as an excuse and say we’re doing it for them.

Here’s what I mean.  When I was kid, not everyone got a trophy just for being on the team.  Not everyone got chosen to BE on the  team.  In fact, some people were even cut from the team!  Shocking, I know!

But, what I have seen over the past 30 years raising my kids is that all of the kids get a trophy for participating in anything, and everyone gets to play every game, and some organizations don’t even keep score for fear it might hurt someone’s feelings… really?!

This is what I am talking about, we are setting them up for failure.  Listen, they are gonna fail, they won’t all be chosen for the promotion, they won’t all get their dream job, some of them will be fired.  There will be people in the world who just don’t like them, and that’s okay, it happens.  Unfortunately we as parents aren’t allowing them to fail, we can’t teach them how to handle rejection, failure or disappointment, if they never experience it.  BUT, the worst part here is I think we are not allowing these things because we are too lazy  to mend their broken heart or teach them how to overcome being cut from a team because they weren’t good enough.  It’s easier for us to not have them disappointed or sad or broken, but, they weren’t put here for our lives to be easier.  Parenting is hard, childhood is hard – we need to BE the parents, we need to say no, and tell them to get over it, when needed.

Why in the world would we raise them up to think that life is a box of chocolates and then turn them out in the world, and they have NO idea of what’s coming, and then… they have no skills to handle it when things don’t go their way.  THEN we say get over it, grow up, be an adult…. we never taught them how.  We wanted their childhood to be nice, and sweet, and rosy… but, for them?  Or was it easier on us?  It’s hard to be the bad guy sometimes, but, we have to do it to help mold them into thriving members of society.

Have you thought about it?  Is Your Lazy Parenting Setting Your Kids Up To Fail?

by Dian Leave a Comment

Teen Battles:  Are You Choosing Wisely?

I have mentioned in the past that we have now raised 4 teens and we were Youth Pastors for 15 years and had worked with Youth Pastors for years before that.  One thing I have run into quite a bit with parents is their complaining about their kid’s choices.  Now, I am not talking about choosing bad friends, or choosing to skip school, or choosing to set random fires… I am talking about choosing to color their hair or parts of their hair purple or green, choosing to wear navy blue nail polish, or even whitish makeup or weird haircuts.

But, my response to all of that when parents complain to me was and is:  “If purple hair is your only teen issue… you don’t have a teen issue.”  Truly, your parents (yes, I am old) didn’t like your hip huggers, mini skirts, long hair on guys, hair metal bands, punk rock, screamo or rap music.

But, you turned out fine.  Choose your battles, is it a hill worth dying on?  Trust me their will be REAL teen battles and absolute hills worth dying on and PLENTY of them… hair style/color, and most clothing choices do not fall into that category.

Will dog collars and white makeup mean your child will become a “Satanist”?  I have known many teens who did all of that and none of them are now worshipers of Satan, they are married normal, loving parents who no longer where dog collars and white makeup :).

How do you know when to worry?  When your kid retreats from the family, seems depressed or overly angry.  I have found that these are all signs that there is something bothering them and often they feel guilty or are carrying a weight too heavy for them and they don’t know how to talk to you about it.

I am blunt with my kids, not mean, but blunt.  I ask outright questions, the hard ones, the ones you don’t want to get the wrong answers to, but, those are the ones that open the gap, start them talking and when I get an answer I don’t want, I don’t freak out – at least that’s my goal.  My Mom once told me that we often told her things she didn’t really want to know and she felt the reason was that she never acted shocked and that way we never tried to shock her.  I have tried to use that with my kids and it worked well for us.  Even now with the last one at home.  Their friends even shared stuff with us that they never have shared with their parents even now that they’re grown with kids of their own.

When your kids adopt a new “style” think first if this is something you think is worth a battle.  Do you want hundreds of inconsequential battles with your kids, or do you want to wait until there’s a bigger issue you feel can’t be chalked up to weird but acceptable to you?  

What are your thoughts?

by Dian Leave a Comment

Bratty Kids Is It Nature Or Nurture?  Who’s To Blame?

This week there was a bit of discussion on Facebook about a post a wrote a while back:  Is Your Lazy Parenting Setting Your Kid Up To Fail?  There was some discussion about “bratty” kids.  That’s not quite what the post was about, but, you know Facebook threads can run amuck!  lol

We have had this discussion in our own family and it gets me a bit upset.  There is one child in our family who has been called a “brat” more than once, and I have had this discussion with the people who have said it and with the mother of the child.   Are kids born brats?  Are they born with a propensity toward rude behavior?  Well, here we go, this is my blog and you are here so, I get to say how I really feel, right?  

I don’t think there’s such a thing as a “bad” kid.  I never have.  Kids are molded by their parents, siblings, experiences, and environment.  We as parents, though, are the ones who are provided to them to help them navigate it all.  So, when I hear someone call a kid a brat, I think it’s unfair to the kid – they didn’t raise themselves, they didn’t teach themselves how to respond to people and situations.  Their parents either did or didn’t. 

When people call an innocent child a brat, is it because they are too afraid to ask the parents why they raised a brat?  If so, then don’t say anything at all.  It’s not in any way beneficial to child or parent to call a child a brat. The parent is molding that child or they are just letting the child get older under their roof, which is a whole other problem, too!

How exactly do we expect a child of 5, 6, 7 or even older to learn to not be a brat on their own?   I think we all look at what we had or didn’t have growing up and decided how we would be as adults or parents based on that sometimes skewed view.  If we grew up poor, some vow never to let their kids grow up poor.  If we grew up being verbally abused we determine that will never happen to our kids.  Those are bad things to decide, but, too often I see people throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  They go too far the other way.  We went from Leave It To Beaver parents in the 50’s to Flower Power parents in the 60’s and 70’s!  That’s a huge shift, middle ground is not a bad thing.  We can be their parents and not their friends.  

I love all of my children and loved laughing and joking and having a good time.  I have tp’ed a friend’s house with them, I have taken pictures as they jumped off the roof onto the trampoline (I know, I know sometimes it’s hindsight..), but, I also corrected them when they needed it and taught them to be respectful to others.  There are lines and a middle ground – it doesn’t have to be Father Knows Best or living on a commune, there is a middle ground.

Next time you think of calling a child a brat, even under your breath, take a moment to remember they didn’t make themselves that way, it’s not their fault.  When they become a teen or young adult their struggle to fix those things will be much harder than if their parents had just done it when they were young.

Please don’t get upset and tell me that some kids have disorders that cause this behavior, I am obviously not talking about those situations.  But, not every kid that is deemed a brat has a disorder.

by Dian 6 Comments

Are Schools Replacing Parents?

I was talking with a few teachers last night and found out that public schools in our area are now teaching Character Training.  Are schools replacing parents?  Now, I know I homeschooled all 4 of our kids so, I don’t really know what goes on in schools.  But, when I was growing up character training was done at home.

These teachers said every year it’s getting worse, that kids have “no home training” as one of my kids friends used to say.  They said they have no manners, they don’t say please and thank you and they are just lacking common courtesy.  When did these things stop being taught at home?  Don’t tell me it’s still being taught at home, because if it is, why are the schools now doing the parent’s job?

With my kids, please and thank you were some of the very first words they spoke.  When did we stop using Yes Ma’am, No Sir, and other terms of respect?  I required my kids to say “Yes Ma’am” and “No Ma’am”, as well as “Please” and “Thank you”.  When did parents decide that was unnecessary? 

If we don’t teach our kids to respect others what kind of country will this be when we are old and need taking care of, who’s going to do that?  And how will they treat us, if no one teaches them now?

And pardon me, but, truthfully character “molding” should not begin AFTER they start attending school, it should have started WAAAY before then!

According to a 4H Youth Development program they are training teachers how to teach the: 

“Six Pillars of Character”

• Trustworthiness
• Respect
• Responsibility
• Fairness
• Caring
• Citizenship

Personally, I just feel like more and more the schools are taking over our jobs as parents.  According to the teachers I spoke with, it’s necessary because the kids aren’t getting it at home.  Ok, so granted, I was a stay at home parent and that has to make a difference, I am sure.  But, just because parents work, it doesn’t negate their responsibility to teach their children common courtesy and the 6 things listed above.  If this “course” were something that was to supplement teaching that kids were receiving at home, I would agree that it’s a great thing, to back the parents training up.  But according to the teachers I spoke with, it’s not a backup – these kids aren’t learning these things at home.  The teachers I spoke with are teaching high school, too… even more shocking to me.

Have you noticed this at your school, or a lack of character training in your kids friends?

by Dian 5 Comments

Potty Training When Should It Start?

Let’s talk potty training.

I have noticed a trend of parents waiting longer and longer to potty train.  In my opinion this makes it harder on parents AND kids.  Why would anyone want to make it harder on themselves and the kids?  I think waiting longer makes it harder for them to grasp it and “break the habit” of using a diaper, and harder on parents to have to keep buying diapers and cleaning up messes for years.

I asked my 85 year old Mom how old we were when she potty trained.  She said across the board she and her friends potty trained their kids at 12 months.  That sounds really early, I know – but, my first WAS potty trained at 12 months, but the ladies in the nursery at church decided that that was too young and wouldn’t take her to the potty and would put a diaper on her as soon as I dropped her off.  Being that we went to church twice on Sunday and midweek, that was too confusing for her, in my opinion, so I put her back in diapers and waited until she was in the next nursery up and that was the 2 year old nursery.  After that, our boys were all potty trained by the time they were 2 1/2.

But, now it seems that kids are even older when they begin potty training.  I wonder if the fact that the manufacturers have started making diapers for older kids and the “pull up” type diapers if that isn’t causing some of it.  They are duping parents into spending way more on diapers for a longer period of time.

Another thing I did with mine was once they were out of diapers, they were out of diapers.  No “pull up” type pants, no diapers at bedtime, nothing.  Was it inconvenient for me?  SURE!  I am a parent!  That’s part of the life of a parent.  But, I didn’t want that expense and I felt like it was confusing for them – that sometimes they could go in their pants and other times, no… Surely, that would confuse a toddler.

Now, is every kid going to be potty trained in the exact same way, at the exact same age?  No.  I had 4 kids, 1 girl and 3 boys.  The boys were older than my daughter when they learned. You have to know when they understand enough to get it.  I know plenty of 2 year olds that can hold a conversation, and I think that might be a clue that they can also be potty trained.

Don’t get me wrong and let me say it again, I DO believe all kids are different and will be different ages when they are ready.  I just think that the manufacturers are making money and parents are falling for it, again because it’s easy. 

I told someone the other day that when I potty trained my kids it took a full day – and they were shocked!  Not that the kids could be trained that fast but, that I devoted a full day to it… C’mon now – as parents we do have to do the “hard stuff”, too.  I spent a full day with each one and that’s all we worked on that day – between saltines, kool-aid and cartoons, we sat all day and waited and worked!  lol  We also celebrated (not like the celebrations on TV), but we clapped and called Grandma   They were also working towards a prize.  With my Daughter it was the cutest little red, ruffled underwear and she was so happy to “earn” them, and with the boys it was their favorite character underwear.

So, why do you care what I did with my kids?  Maybe it will help someone think twice about whether their kid is really ready and if they are tired of paying for all those diapers…

Anyway, that’s my rant for the week!

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by Dian 22 Comments

Do Kids REALLY Need Speech Therapy?

So, I started this blog “Baby Boomer Rants”, because I have a few very definite complaints, gripes, rants, whatever you want to call them.  They are mostly about raising children.  I guess because I look at how differently people are raising their kids than when I raised mine.

I told you I have 4 kids, and only 1 is left at home.  I don’t think I know it all, but, I have been there and done that – so what I have to say has some value, right?

Today, I want to rant about speech therapy.  Ok, before you get upset with me, I TOTALLY think there are kids who benefit from it, and it is definitely a needed service.  However, I DO NOT think every kid needs speech therapy and right now I see parents being pushed left and right from Doctors and friends to have their kids tested to see if they need speech therapy.

I am shocked at how many people have taken their kids for speech therapy and how many think their kids need it!  I had 4 kids, and if they were young today – I would have been pushed to have at least 2 of them in speech therapy.  One stuttered when he was 5… but, I KNEW it was only when he was over-excited and he needed to stop and take a breath and start again.  I also knew he’d grow out of it, and in about 6 months, he did.

In the last year, 2 close friends have been told by Doctors and friends that their children needed speech therapy because they weren’t talking enough.  They were both around 2 years old.  I told both Moms that I thought their kids were fine (unsolicited advice ).  Both of their children are thinkers and you can just “see the wheels turning in their heads”.  Now, many months later they are both talking and developing just fine.  But, in both cases the parents were made to feel if they didn’t get the therapy (neither continued the therapy after 1 visit) that they were neglecting their child.

From my experience in raising kids, working in daycare centers and just generally being very involved with kids over the years, kids they talk when they are ready (again, I know some DO need speech therapy).  I have seen some wait until they could speak in complete sentences and just bust out talking one day.  I have seen some kids talk at 9 months and some not for a few years.  It’s the same with walking, my daughter walked at 9 months and I had one son who waited until he was almost 14 months.

They are all different and develop at different speeds.  Don’t compare your kids to others or worry about other kids their age so much.  Don’t be pushed into anything by friends, parents or Doctors.  I have seen parents become unsure of themselves and their role as a parent because they are comparing their kids, or someone says something offhanded that makes them worry about their parenting skills.

You know your kids, you live with them 24-7, no one knows them like you do.  Parent with your gut.  I have always told expectant moms “You’ll get a ton of advice – even from me – take what you like and throw out the rest.”, that’s the best advice I can give.  They are your kids, and ultimately it’s your responsibility, don’t let others try and dictate how you take care of your kids.

I am not a Doctor and anything I say here should not be taken as medical advice.

I’m almost scared to ask, but, what are your thoughts ?

by Dian Leave a Comment

Childhood Obesity And Diabetes

I wanted to talk a little about an epidemic we are seeing and I am afraid we are beginning to accept it rather than fight because it has become so common. I am talking about Diabetes.  There are 2 kinds Type 1 (used to be called juvenile diabetes) and Type 2 (used to be called Adult Onset).

Diabetes, the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, is a chronic disease in which blood glucose (sugar) levels are above normal due to defects in insulin production or in the body’s ability to use insulin. Long-term complications include heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, nerve disease, gum disease and amputation of the foot or leg.  The Washington Post

Type 1 normally would manifest before 25 years of age and Type 2 would normally manifest in adults over 30, but, now, they changed what they call them because those rules no longer apply.  Type 1 is genetic and you can control it, but, will more than likely always take shots for it.  We are seeing more and more kids getting Type 2 Diabetes than ever before.  Diet and exercise play a huge part in Type 2 Diabetes.  Many blame the lack of exercise, video games and less outdoor physical playing as well as bad diets, and supersized everything. I was talking to some old friends this week about a Burger King we used to go to with our parents.  We laughed that they had a “walk up window”, no drive thru, no playground, no kid’s toy, no dining room, and no supersized anything.  All of that came years later and now everything can be supersized including us and our kids :/.

Obesity is usually defined as a condition in which a person’s weight is 20% or more above normal weight or as a BMI of 30 or more. “Morbid obesity” means a person is either 50%-100% over normal weight, more than 100 pounds over normal weight, or sufficiently overweight to severely interfere with health or normal functioning. Approximately 60 million Americans, nearly one-third of all adults and about one in five children, are obese. In 2008, only one state — Colorado — had an obesity rate less than 20%.  WedMD

As the years passed and we supersized everything and forgot what a portion size was, we decided people come in all shapes and sizes and that it’s ok.  But, not when it affects our health as badly as it does.  There are many obesity related health problems and I think Diabetes is the worst especially when it affects so many of our children. You see, I personally have experience with Type 1 Diabetes and Type 2.  I was married for 15 years to a Type 1 Diabetic, I learned quite a lot about it.  He was diagnosed as a kid when he went into a Diabetic Coma.  From that time on he had to take daily shots, often more than once a day, as well as prick his finger to make it bleed several times a day to check his blood sugar levels.  As he got older, the disease took its’ toll.  Diabetes, Type 1 or Type 2 affects your organs, and your body very badly.  It’s not just that you eat differently and take a pill (in the case of Type 2), even with the meds and diet it affects your body. Diabetes is a degenerative disease which means it attacks your organs and continues to deteriorate them.  My husband was in the hospital quite often and my kids were very familiar with and slept often in the waiting room.  Some of the things he dealt with over that 15 years were the blood vessels behind his eyes leaked which could lead to blindness and he had to have many painful treatments to close the vessels with lasers, he had multiple heart attacks, his kidneys completely shut down and he was on dialysis for the last few years of his life, and finally he passed away at 35 years old.  All from complications due to Diabetes.  Type 2 or Type 1, the disease is dangerous, and deteriorates your body.

Disease researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made the prediction that one in three children born in the United States in 2000 will likely develop type 2 diabetes sometime in their lifetime unless they get more exercise and improve their diets. The prediction was especially serious for Latino children. Without changes in diet and exercise, their odds of developing diabetes as they grow older was about 50-50.  HealthDay

It worries me that so many kids have it, and I am not sure the education is getting through to us that it is dangerous and these kids may not live to a “ripe old age”, and many won’t outlive their parents, if we don’t do something.  Now, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes a few years ago and I lost over 100 lbs and cut out most sugar and carbs.  I was shocked that I was obese – I reserved that word for people who had to be buried in a piano case – that is NOT the case, all you have to be is 20% overweight to be considered obese, that shocked me!  The Dr. will check me for symptoms and I don’t have any, I no longer take the meds for it, and they tell me as long as I continue this way I don’t have to be concerned with any degenerative issues. If you have a child with Type 2 Diabetes, please study and learn all that you can, also educate your child about their disease.  If you have children, please help them make good diet and exercise choices, and prevent this from happening to them.

by Dian Leave a Comment

Teenage Attitude!  Where Did My Sweet Kid Go?

I FINALLY think I learned one thing about attitude while raising 4 teenagers. One day you have a fun kid that you enjoy being around and who enjoys being around you, and the next day they have an attitude from Hades and you’re left wondering “what just happened?!”.

I can tell you the teen years were as fun to me as their younger years.  They are learning to joke and be “cool” and can carry on a real conversation.  I enjoyed those years very much and watching the transformation that happens so very quickly. But, they all had teenage attitudes, at times, and I hated what it did to our relationships.  We would yell, they would yell, we would be frustrated, they would be frustrated, there would be crying, it was not fun times!

I will sidetrack here to say, Choose your battles wisely.  We were youth pastors for more than 15 years and I often told parents, “If purple hair is the only problem you have, you don’t have a problem!”  Who cares if their hair is pink – it’s temporary, they move on.  One of our boys had every color hair at 12 and 13 under the sun, big deal – he liked it, then he didn’t and it was over.  So, you might not like green hair, but, it’s not a battle worth waging, in my opinion.

Back to the attitudes.  When they are smaller we pretty much know that their temper tantrums and attitude come from being tired or even hungry.  As a teen, that can also be true, but, what I have found, more often than not, is that there is some hidden guilt.  Once we got to the bottom of it and they “confessed” it, they were able to get over it, with our encouragement and guidance, and move on and we got a our fun kid back!

When a new attitude pops up out of nowhere go look for the cause.  There could be a lot of pain and guilt they are dwelling on and they don’t know how to handle it on their own. That’s my tidbit of parenting a teenager with an attitude, I hope it helps!