A friend who is an event planner and I recently shared the dilemma of what to do when guests, often family, want to bring their (young) children to formal events.  Having planned three weddings in the last 22 months, it is a question that is not unfamiliar to me.  For one of our weddings a family member flat out refused to come if she could not bring her infant child. And many years ago at my children’s B’Nai mitzvah the spiritual atmosphere of the sanctuary was shattered by the wailings of my husband’s colleague’s baby.  Most people have been on one side or other of this quandary…the host, the honoree, an invited parent, or an affected guest.

 With some formal events, it is very clear that children are invited. Often in these cases, accommodations are made for the kids—age appropriate activities, supervision just for the children, food intended for the children (that the adults often love!)  In these cases, the hosts’ plan is for the children to attend.

(And sometimes no matter what is planned for the children—games, play sitters, DVD’s—not every child is going to submit to the “play plan.” The visiting guest has to be prepared with a Plan B to make sure the host or  honoree/bridal couple will not be disturbed in anyway if your little angel turns into Godzilla for the evening.)

 But sometimes it is not so clear that it’s okay for children to attend.

I know that your baby/child/tween is really a great kid. I know that he is well behaved and that you are sure the rest of the guests won’t even know he is there. I know he is used to going everywhere with you, and that he likes being with grown-ups.  I know that your child would really love being there, that it might be a fabulous experience for him.  But bringing a child to a formal event just may not be about your child. It might be in consideration of everyone else. And as disappointing as it might be, one of life’s lessons is that sometimes children cannot be included.

 While there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, to bring or not to bring, there are some considerations which might help you make your decision.

 1.    Consider the host and the honorees.  Was your child’s name on the save-the-date card? On the invitation? That’s a dead giveaway! If it is not, you can assume it is an adults-only event. But if you are still not sure, ASK; do not assume.  Even if your child is an infant, ask.  Truth be told, infants, though the easiest to transport, are often the most unpredictable and can be highly disruptive to services and celebrations. And even the precious voice of a better behaved four year old asking questions can ruin a wedding vow!

 2.     Consider the child.  What is your child like? What is his temperament when he is away from home? How is he in strange places (with hoards of people)? How adaptable is he? How patient? How needy? In most cases, children are not happy at these kinds of events, the ones not intended for children. It’s not fun for them (and especially if none of his friends are in attendance.) It might start out being exciting, but it wears off fast. Just as your feet ache in your heels after the second hour, he has had it with the bow tie pretty quickly.

 Black tie events can be the epitome of “lousy local conditions.”  The mini tuxedo/ the scratch party dress, the knee high view of most of the guests, the deafeningly loud band music, the food –Eeewwww! I hate salmon—served at 10 p.m…all make for a less than child-friendly environment.  Are you setting your child up for failure?

 Even if your six year old son has a special relationship with his favorite baby sitter who is getting married, weddings are different than one-on-one sitter nights.  He imagines spending the night with his best gal, but they won’t be playing Checkers on the dance floor. He won’t be happy.

  3.     How will it be for you?  Often the child, feeling out of place, will cling and expect to be entertained by you. Will that be fun for you? Will you be able to celebrate in the way you like? Dance with your partner? Have relaxed glass of wine as you chat with friends?  Parents forget to consider that you don’t get to “party hearty” when your child is present. And which one of you will take him home when he collapses before the first toast?

 Having carefully considered all the variables, there are always compromises that can work—ceremony-only attendance, hiring a sitter to whisk the child away after the first Shirely Temple, etc…,as long as it’s sanctioned by the hosts.  And there are events at which children are both invited and welcome.  But it is a parent’s job to be considerate of the hosts’ needs and desires, not placing them in an awkward position. After all, it is their special occasion and the memory ought not be tainted by tales of the tantrumming 3 year old or the sulky 7 year old.

“Coach Accused of Punching Son”  The headline in the LA Times caught my eye.  A youth baseball coach is facing a simple assault charge for punching his 9 year old son in the face after the boy was ejected from a game.  Are they kidding? I read it again.  [Coach’s name] of suburban Harrisburg was charged after he allegedly struck his son twice with a closed fist…  I read it one more time to make sure I was reading it correctly. Yep, that’s what it said alright.

What could a 9 year old possibly do to cause an adult to punch his son—or anyone—with a closed fist—with a pinky finger? I just can’t make sense of this one.  Did he play poorly? Did he not try hard? Was he goofing around?  Did he not do as his father, the coach, asked? Was he being a smart alec? Did he stick his tongue out? What? Even if he yelled an unmentionable at the top of his lungs, I still can’t fathom a man  hitting a child, any child.

 There are so many directions one could go in reacting to this heinous behavior. I could address parents who are overly invested in their child’s performance at school, on the ice rink, on the ball field. I could discuss the parent who makes it his child’s job it is to meet his dream of achievement.  I could even go on and on about anger management.

 While I don’t know what really happened on the field that day, I do know one thing for sure: Lots of children  must have witnessed that scene, and for sure his own son did.  I can promise you, that boy got more than black eye from his father.

Parents are children’s primary teachers. Children learn more from watching their parents than by anything that that is said to them, even if it is accompanied by a wagging index finger and eyebrows knitted together.  “Do as I say, not as I do” is an expression of the past, and it just doesn’t work.  Parents model, day in and day out, how to be in the world. You can talk until you are blue in the face, but what you do is what your children will learn.  Not only will your behavior communicate your expectations for behavior, but it is also how your child develops his own system of values.

 Children spot hypocrisy more quickly than you can imagine. Yelling at your child not to yell at you because it is disrespectful is a message and a lesson. Jay walking because you are in terrible hurry erases your warnings of never to jay walk.  Speaking rudely to a waitress, to your own mother, to your own spouse negates your preaching the importance of treating people kindly and with respect.  It is your actions that model the lessons you want your children to learn.

 I wonder what lesson’s Mel Gibson’s 8 children learned from him last week.

The emails were all the same:  “I just can’t stop crying…my daughter hasn’t even been gone for 24 hours, and I miss her already.” wrote the mother whose ten year old was off to sleep away camp for the first time.  “The house is so quiet. At first I loved it, but now I am so ready for him to be home,” confessed the mother of a nine year old boy off to two weeks at camp in the mountains.  You wonder if your child is really ready for sleep away camp, when the question really should be, are you ready for your child to go to sleep away camp.

Whether it’s leaving your infant with a baby sitter, watching your four year old go off on a playdate (without you), helping your six year old to pack for a sleepover…whether it’s going off to nursery school, starting kindergarten, or going off to college, over and over again, life is full of separations.

At first the focus is on the child. Will he be okay? Will he be too homesick to have fun at camp? Will the teacher kiss his boo boo at preschool? With whom will he have lunch on the school playground?  Will he even think to wash his sheets in the dorm?  Then the dust settles, all is well, and a new reality emerges.  My child is fine; he can take care of himself. I’m a mess. Look who is having trouble with separation! 

Going to sleep away camp or to a friend’s house for the night are such valuable separations. Not only does your child learn how to take care of his own physical and emotional needs, becoming self reliant and independent, but you get to practice letting go.  All of the little separations in your child’s life pave the way for the big separation. There will come a time when your little guy, now big, kisses you goodbye, and that kiss has to last all the way until his next visit home.

Jessie came home last month to pack up her wedding gifts and drive them to her new home in San Francisco. “Mom, where is my birth certificate? I need it for work.” she asked as she and Michael were about to leave. Of course I had it. It was in the important papers file, its permanent, safe home. “Are you sure you should take it, Jess? It’s the only copy. Shouldn’t we keep it?”  Can you hear the eye roll I got?

 Jessie hasn’t really lived at home, not full time, since she went off to college fourteen years ago. She has come and gone,  vacationed on Greentree Road, but this is still the place called “home.”  But it wasn’t until I handed Jessie her very own birth certificate, that it really hit me. We’ve  separated.

On the next trip,  she promised she would unload the attic and take the rest of her memorabilia to her home.  I waited to cry until the UHaul was at the end of the block.

The approach of summer is laced with so many expectations—relaxed schedules, lazy days, warm evening bar-b-ques, no homework, lighter responsibilities, and vacations!  So many parents have memories from their youth of  family vacations that were fabulous. And for the kids, vacations are usually just that… fabulous!  But that’s not always the case for parents.

It is for this reason that I challenge you with this question:  Do you know the difference between a vacation and a trip?  A trip is what you do with children; a vacation is for parents alone.  Here is the good news: there is room and need for both!

While family vacations (heretofore to be known as “family trips”) are possibly the best memory makers there are, they can also be challenging for parents—the planning, the arranging, the organizing, the packing, the paraphernalia, the schlepping.  But when you are actually on the road, and you’re utterly exhausted from “going on vacation,” that’s when the memories begin. Everyone remembers the time the suitcase flew off the top of the car, the bear that broke into the food stash, the face mask that sank to the bottom of the ocean. And you remember climbing all the way to the top of the peak, swimming with dolphins, and roasting marshmallows on the campfire.  These vacation memories provide fodder for family folklore forever more. And it is these memories that stay… not the pain of getting there. But more often than not, the parents come home exhausted from the trip. No vacation for them.

Family trips are, nonetheless, the mortar that binds families together, especially when it’s just your own family…no friends, no cousins, no add-on’s.  It is amazing how your kids, who are often at one another’s throats, manage to get along when there’s no one else with whom to play.  It’s on family trips that Dad actually has the time to snorkel, to hike, to play a whole set of tennis with both kids, chatting all the while. Mom relaxes or struts her athletic prowess, never having to stop and put dinner on.  In building a sense of family, taking trips together, despite the giant effort it can take to pull them off, are well worth it.

 But what about you? Here’s where vacations come into the picture.  A vacation is when the parents escape for some extended time together…without the children. It’s more than just dinner and a movie. It’s awakening for one morning by your inner alarm and not by the cacophony of kids arguing over which show to watch. It’s eating breakfast whenever you want or not at all. It’s reading the whole newspaper.  It’s talking together (uninterruptedly) about something other than the kids and their issues.

 I know, I know. You think that’s just impossible.  But vacations actually happen in places other than Hawaii and they don’t have to be for ten days. Sometimes ten hours do the trick, and the hotel on the other side of town might not be half bad. Vacations are about parents getting time alone to connect and to remember why you are together in the first place.

Parents who are connected to one another are better parents. They are on the same page. Their cupboards are full. They are mutually supportive.  But you have to make it happen. And that’s why I say take a summer trip and a summer vacation.

I just hung up the phone from my very own bff who was rushing to her mother’s hospital bedside in San Diego. Her world is falling apart. Loaded with her own issues of life and work and now her very ill mother, she needed to complain and unload…and unload and unload. She ended the conversation with, “I just don’t know what I would do without you. You are my bestest friend in the whole world.”

Last week in her article in the New York Times, A Best Friend, You Must Be Kidding, author Hilary Stout explored the question “Should a child really have a best friend?”  I read this piece and my jaw dropped to my chest. No, YOU must be kidding!

 This article references tweens and teens, their texting, their exclusionary tendencies, and bullying, seeing these as being some of the adverse effects of bff relationships. Apparently educators and school administrators across the land are trying to tone down the best friend culture, as a means to dealing with the epidemic of  “mean girl” issues. (I suppose the male equivalent is bullying.)  In so doing, among the outcomes they are hoping for is to curb the tide of parental involvement (calls to the school) regarding their children’s social issues, whether the child is the victim or the perpetrator.

 Many children have best friends; some children do not.  There is, however, no question of the upside to having a bff.  For the young child, this friend often provides a bridge from home to the world, enabling a separation that would otherwise be  difficult.  For single children (without siblings) the bff plays a completely different role; sometimes it’s a faux sibling relationship. For sure and for all, the best friend provides opportunities for lessons and growth in all realms of development, from social and emotional, to the cognitive and physical. 

 It is when the child, regardless of age, exists in the relationship without parental (and sometimes  school) guidance that it can go south.  It is the uncensored relationships, bff and otherwise, that can certainly undermine the development of moral and value based social skills.

 Whether a child has a bff or not, she still must learn social skills—to get along with different kinds of people, to be respectful and kind, to navigate different social scenes.  In short, she must learn acceptable social behaviors, all the different varieties. This is what social intelligence is about.  It is a parent’s job, often along with the school’s, to facilitate her child’s acquisition of these social skills.  It doesn’t start when the child is 10; it starts when the child is 2 years old. And it walks hand in hand with the development of and lessons in empathy.

 It is also a parent’s job to address the social ills that her child may perpetrating…mean girls, gossip, bullying, exclusivity. And it is the school’s job to have policies regarding these same behaviors as it affects school life.

 There is an epidemic of bullying  and mean girl behaviors in this country; this is common knowledge. In an attempt to find a solution, those who blame the bff relationship may be cutting off their noses despite their faces. The answer is not in sabotaging, even forbidding these relationships. The answer is in addressing the ills—having policies and consequences and teaching lessons.

Children who are raised in homes and in schools in which values, ethics, and moral behaviors are modeled, stressed, taught, and rewarded will learn to have best friends and do the right thing. The two are not mutually exclusive.

 As do most of us, I have a bff and I have other friends too, from all walks of my life. My bff is in need right now. I will call in the troops and widen the circle of support  Thank goodness I have many on whom to call.

I watched Derek and his son washing my car, as I stood at the sink, molding patties for our bar-b-que that night. They were having an animated discussion about something, lots of back and forth over the top of my car. The son is really tall at 15, just like his dad.

 Derek does all kinds of work on cars, and on the weekends he and his son keep my car and those of lots of my neighbors in tip-top shape. He’s a really interesting guy. We talk basketball, healthcare reform, the state of LA city schools. You name it, we have chewed on it.

 This is an amazing scene, I thought as I was transfixed on this father and son team.  Every single Saturday and Sunday they spend at least 16 hours together, washing, waxing, detailing cars.  I wondered if they knew how lucky they both are, if they appreciate the significance of their hours together every single weekend. I left my kitchen perch. “Hey guys. I have been watching you two yakking it up, and I just wanted to tell you how cool I think it is to see a father and son working together, chatting it up, chewing the fat, schmoozing. Do you know how great that is?”   They both just smiled, nodded, and were silent.  And then the son said, “My dad and I are really close. We talk about everything.”

 How many dads would, seriously, trade places with Derek?

 Derek added, “Last week I was doing this guy’s car and he came out to show me his new Rolex and to tell about the car he was thinking about buying.  I have it so much better than he does,” Derek said with total conviction. I punctuated his comment with my two cents, “No one ever lies on his death bed wishing he had worked harder at the office or earned more money.”  Derek knew just what I was talking about.

 Derek has been bringing his son with him to work on cars on the weekends since he was five years old.  As his son grew up, Derek discovered that he really valued his son’s help. They were a team in getting the work done. Soon another brother is going to be joining them on the job. Ten years ago when this father-son team first got going, Derek didn’t know the gift he was giving his son and himself.

 We know how important fathers are in the lives of children. Their involved, active participation in their kids’ daily lives influences all aspects of their development, from social skills to cognitive development. There’s lots of research to support this reality.  But influence isn’t just occasional.  Derek is impacting his sons’ lives every single day and most especially on the weekends.

 Can you imagine what kind of fathers Derek’s sons will be? Can you imagine how they will describe their own relationships with their dad as they were growing up?  Now would you trade places with Derek?

 When I was pondering the Introduction to my new book, You’re Not the Boss of Me, it occurred to me that all I really needed to write was one sentence:  Be the person you want your child to be. Four pages later, that didn’t happen. But I still believe it.  Children need to be surrounded by adults who live by and model the character traits and values that matter most if you want them to absorb those values.

 Last week a news story rocked the world of major league baseball.  Armondo Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers pitched a perfect game…almost.  By so doing he would have joined the elite ranks of a very few ball players in the history of the game. It was quite a feat. But he didn’t get credit for it; his accomplishment got derailed by an umpire’s call.  Now here is the amazing part of the story.  After the game had ended, umpire Jim Joyce stepped out in public to say that the call he had made which destroyed the perfect game, was in fact, wrong.  It was a bad call.  He had made a mistake.  No excuses. Bad call. Wow!

 The sports world went wild.  It wasn’t fair!  Galarraga was robbed!  He should have had that perfect game.  Everyone had an opinion. Here’s mine:  Bravo!

 Doing the right thing isn’t always easy. Sometimes it brings disappointment or embarrassment;  sometimes it feels bad, hurts someone’s feelings (albeit unintentionally) or cause someone to suffer consequences;  sometimes you are villainized.  But in the end, you are left with the best feeling of all:  You did the right thing. That means you get to awaken with a clear conscience. You can look at yourself in the mirror and stand tall. With all that you risk in making the tough call—doing the right thing—the greatest reward is your positive, authentic sense of yourself.

Our world is chock full of glaring examples of people who have not made the right choice. From Bernie Madoff to Lindsay Lohan, sports heroes to politicians, coaches to clergymen, friends to family members. They are everywhere, and our children hear about them. 

 But how often to we and our children hear about someone who has done the right thing? How often do people step up and admit their mistakes, without any excuses? Not often enough.  How can we expect our children to step up when the models in their lives do not?

Making a mistake is how children learn not to make that mistake. Being able to own that mistake is an important part of the process, part of the learning and the growing.

 You may be furious at Jim Joyce for raining on Armando Galarraga’s parade. He didn’t get his perfect game.   But he is my hero. Tell your kids about it.

I guess my book, You’re Not the Boss of Me, came out too late for the mom who wrote in the  Two Cents Worth column of my local newspaper:

 I think the [delete name] Pony Baseball Association should consider eliminating playoffs for the younger players (Pintos).  My Pinto player’s team has already lost and it was devastating for him and me. Age 7, 8, and 9 is too early for that kind of serious competition.

 There are so many parts to this letter on which I could and should comment. However, for now I just want to focus on the phrase  “…it was devastating for him and me.”  Was this child’s team’s loss in a Little League play-off game really devastating to the mother?  Wow. That was a big investment she must have been putting in her child’s extracurricular activity.

 It is no coincidence that when a couple is pregnant, it is said that they are “expecting.”  Your child is born loaded with all your expectations.  You expect him to be an artist or an athlete or a math whiz. You expect him to be friendly, well mannered, and appropriate. You expect him to go to Harvard (just like you did.) It’s a wonder that he even able to pass through the birth canal, he is so laden with all your expectations!  And then he is born. Voila!  Your child is his own person. You are outgoing; he is slow-to-warm up. You are an athlete; he prefers more cerebral, sedentary activities.  You love reading; he would rather toss baskets hour after hour.  Do you love him any less?  Of course not.  Sooner or later you discover that your job is to raise your child to be who he is, not what you expect him to be.  The former just won’t work anyway.

 I am reminded of a relative who bounced from focus to focus in her schooling, each new field reflecting what she thought her parents wanted her to do. First she was pre med, then environmental studies, then English.  It took her forever, long after college, to figure out what she wanted to do.

 And then there are the children who are saddled with fulfilling their parents’ dreams.  Maybe your child will be the writer you weren’t, the tennis player you aren’t, the piano player you always wanted to be.  It is hard enough to live your own dreams without having to live those of your parents, too.

 Growing up is supposed to be seasoned with myriad experiences— happy, sad, thrilling, disappointing, and yes, devastating.  That’s how a child learns to survive those experiences, by having and getting through them. It is a necessary part of growing up. And yes, sometimes 7, 8, and 9 year olds lose in the first game of the play-offs. Every year brings a new season, just ask the Phoenix Suns.

  A parent’s job is to love and support her child through it all, to be a container for his feelings, but not add to his load with her own devastation. Likely he had enough just on his own and he would have weathered the reality just fine had his mother not added her own disappointment to his load.

“You’re the meanest mommy in the whole world!” the seven year old screams at her mother, as she stomps down the hall to her room, punctuating the scene with a crashing door slam.  There’s not much that’s good about that scene, except that it is well within the range of normal behavior. You may not like it, but it is what most kids do at some times.

 Kids get angry at their parents for all kinds of reasons. Mainly they get angry when they are in some way thwarted—when they don’t get what they want. But it also happens when they have to do something they don’t want  to do, when they are disappointed, when they are in the midst of lousy local conditions, and when they are just plain crabby.  And the expression of that anger can look pretty nasty.

 But do you really think your child hates you? Do you think he means it when he says he wishes he had a different father and that he wants to live at Jeremy’s house where he can use the computer whenever he wants?  Well, truth be told, maybe he does, just for that split second. Anger will do that to a person, stir up some fighting words, some hurtful sentiments. But he doesn’t really mean it.

 A child’s anger is not about you. It feels that way when a jet stream of vitriol intended just for you fills the hallway airspace. But it isn’t. So don’t take it personally.  Absorbing your child’s anger and making it about you, will only exacerbate the issue. “Don’t you dare talk to me that way, young man.”  Young child needs to be able to express himself and all his big feelings. Yes, he does need to learn about respect. Yes, he does need to know that words can hurt as much as fists. And he will learn both in time … but not in the heat of that moment.

 Later, when the feeling has long since passed is when you do your revisit.  “You were really angry when I wouldn’t let you use the computer. You said some really powerful stuff. I love you even when you are angry and say you hate me. And when I ask you to turn off the computer, I expect you to turn it off.” State it clearly and without feeling. Children need to know that their parents will not crumble when they use their angry words.  You know they reserve they most powerful stuff for you, the person whose love they trust the most.  Remember, it isn’t about you. When you turn it into a finger wagging lecture about respecting you, the lesson about turning off the computer is lost. Further, he will have one more reason to “hate” you. If his words don’t work and don’t have power, they will not be useful to him.

 And you thought raising children would be easy!

 One woman remained after the rest of the participants in my “Birds and Bees” seminar had left.  Sheepishly she said, “My daughter is 9 years old. I have not [her emphasis] told her about the birds and the bees and I am not going to,” as if in defiance. Here’s her answer to my query of “Why not?”  “Because I don’t want her to have sex before she is married.”  This mom is enrolled in the ostrich school of sex education; her head is buried in the ground.

  Children begin to learn about sex from the first time their diapers are changed. Whether it’s a two  month old feeling the cool air on his exposed body or a one year old reaching down to feel his genitals or a 3 year old sharing a potty at school…this is the beginning.  And you can’t stop it; the train has left the station.

Learning about sex is learning about bodies. It is also learning about how people treat one another.  It’s about relationships. That’s why I explain to parents that it is in the kitchen that children learn about sex. It is in the kitchen where life happens—where Daddy plants the Marilyn Monroe kiss on Mommy when he gets home from work…or not!  Because sex is about people and relationships…as well as all the other stuff.

 The answer to the question, When should I tell my child about sex? is actually easier than you think.  It’s just that it makes you sweat to think about it.  Your children are already learning about sex. They are watching you as you relate to your spouse; they are seeing provocative bill boards, bus benches, and magazine covers; they are hearing what friends are saying…they are absorbing it all and learning about sex.

 Around the age of four, the age of questions, most children will wonder where babies come from.  In families where Mom or someone close is pregnant, it may come earlier. In some it may come later.  But, as I explicitly discuss in my first book  Just Tell Me What to Say in the chapter called “How Did the Baby Get in Your Tummy?,” if your child reaches six year old, and he hasn’t asked you, then it’s time.  “So Michael, you have never asked me how babies are made. Do you wonder?”  And if he replies with an emphatic NO! then at least you have planted the seed, if you’ll allow my pun. 

 What parts and how much you tell are up to you. But without question, your child needs to know the truth, the basic recipe and how to cook it. Yes, that does include the penis and the vagina. Regardless of how your child came to you, that is still the basic recipe.

 Wouldn’t you rather your child hear this universal fact from you than from Steven who heard an embellished version from his eleven year old brother straight from the playground?  I think so.