“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.

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.

 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.

 It’s hard not to love the movie Babies. That’s what I chose to do for my Mothers’ Day observance.  It was kind of like eating chocolate… all good! There were none of the not-so-fun parts of babies, like colic and diarrhea and sleepless nights. Just one oooo and ahhhhh after another.

 But the cute is not what stuck with me. Several days later, I am thinking about the stark contrast in the way the Japanese and the American babies were parented compared to the African and Mongolian babies.  The African baby was gnawing on a fat stick he plucked out of the dirt. Splinters, dirt, ants, fungus…yuck! Obviously teething, he chewed away. Flash to the sanitized environment of the American baby in his Parent and Me class, daddy swaying to the song about Mother Earth, as they sat on their acrylic carpet squares.

 Then there was the Mongolian baby who appeared to have more animals than adults in his life. Like self rising flour, he seemed to be raising himself amidst the raw life on the plain.  He crawls through the obstacle course provided by the legs of  a herd of calves, and the audience waits for him to be trampled.  Contrast that scene to the Japanese baby who is under the constant eye of her mommy or daddy or Gymboree teacher, getting her prescribed movement experience.

 In the past weeks as I have launched my new book, I have been speaking to parents all over the country. Among the many points I aim to make, is the need for parents to let go of their death grip.  How can young children ever cultivate independence and self reliance if parents are holding on so tightly? Children need to struggle and fall in order to learn how to pick themselves up and survive.  Dr. Spock said, “A child who has not been well bandaged has not been well parented.”

 I am not suggesting that you place your children’s dinner of mush down on the floor and let them all go for it in a giant feeding frenzy, including smushing the white goo on the youngest sibling’s head. Nor am I condoning a child sharing his bath water with the family goat. I am abundantly grateful for all that we, in our disease free, safety precaution filled America, are able to offer our children. But Babies sure made me think twice about the good parts of what children learn when they are sometimes left alone.

A Mother’s Day blog should be  meaningful, perhaps profound,  poignant, maybe a little sappy, and really chock full of platitudes about the importance of mothers.  It should be, but I am on a different journey.

 I was sitting in Disney Hall, watching the dynamic Gustavo Dudamel and listening to the brilliant Los Angeles Philharmonic with my dear friend, Freida Mock. I sat there thinking how angry I am that music education has been cut from public schools and how important it is that children be exposed to music of all kinds at the earliest age.  Exposure to music not only enriches our lives and speak to our souls, but education and experience with music actually affects a child’s neural development. Music is good for you!

 Freida feels as strongly about music and all the arts as I do. But her life is the arts; she is a documentary film maker. We were first friends because our kids went to nursery school together, trick-or-treated together, celebrated  birthdays together, shared vacations at Red Fish Lake together.

 Freida is a wonderful mother, but film is her life. Her family has traveled the world (literally), shooting films of all kinds in the most remote places. Their holiday cards each year have told the tale, the whole family in the most unexpected places, making movies.

 It should come as no surprise that Freida and Terry’s kids are both artists. In particular, Jessica is a film maker.  Stop right now and give yourself a treat. Follow this link and watch the incredible short film clip Jessica made for Sony.  http://www.jessicasandersfilm.com/sony_trailer.html   It will knock your socks off.

 What does this have to do with Mother’s Day, you ask?  Every time I watch Jessica’s film, I cry. It hits me in the mother place. Jessica is on her way to stardom because Freida followed her own passion. Jessica grew up absorbing her mother’s passion for film making.

 We mothers are told that we need to help our children find their passion. We are supposed to expose them to much so a flame will be ignited somewhere within them. Sure Jessica took ballet and played soccer. But she lived with her mother whose life was film, and that passion was caught. And now her pilot light has burst into full flame.

 How important it is that while we are busy being mothers—driving carpools, making lunches, cheering at  Little League,  and kissing boo boos– we must not lose our own passion.  While your children may not become film makers, they are witness to your passions, to your devotion to your own interests. 

 Mothers wear many hats, each of which looks good on them. While on Mother’s Day your mommy bonnet looks best of all, how good it is for your children to know how much you enjoy wearing them all, as you are defined by all of them.  What better model could there be for your children?

 Happy Mothers’ Day!

In response to my recent appearance on the Today Show  –  http://www.clicker.com/tv/today-show/Brat-proof-your-child-866570.html  in case you missed it! —  a  woman wrote to tell me I was off base. She said that children are naturally brats and are naturally selfish.

 While I would not be quick to countradict this mother  of 4 and grandmother of  11  who clearly has a lot of experience,  I  must say she is right and she is wrong.  She is correct: children are born selfish.  Infants and toddlers need to be selfish. That is, in fact, how they get their needs met.  They are responding to their own most basic of instincts – survival.   How else would we know to feed the child  if he didn’t cry out of hunger or relieve him from the discomfort of a soaked diaper?

 But as the child grows, it is the parents who help to modulate that selfishness. As he learns that other people with feelings, needs, desires exist, so does the child learn to delay gratification and begin to consider others.  And slowly the parent helps to move the child out of his perceived place in the center of the universe to take his rightful place along the side with everyone else. Selfishness begins to subside.

 But children are not born brats. No way, no how.  

 The whole point of my new book, You’re Not the Boss of Me: Brat-Proofing Your 4 to 12 Year Old Child, which is now available online and at bookstores everywhere, is how we keep our kids from becoming brats.  Children are not predisposed, not genetically nor biologically, to be brats.  They are born with the capacity to have all of those character traits that enable them to be competent, confident, terrific children and adults, satisfied and making their way in the world and able to handle what life throws their way…and not be brats!

 This journey does not happen without a parent’s hard work.  Inculcating your child with the values you want him to take with him into adulthood, making manifest the character traits (for which he has the capacity) that enable a child to stay on track, with maybe only an occasional wrong turn, is part of a parent’s job, a big part.  And it isn’t easy at all. 

 Every parent wants to see her child happy in the moment. “I spend so little time with him, I hate to spend it in a fight.”  Or “I just can’t stand to hear him cry. It breaks my heart.”  These confessions I hear all the time.  But I am talking about the long haul.   Too often pleasing your child in the moment means sabotaging his growing ability to take care of himself and make himself happy in the big picture.  Sometimes loving your child means not pleasing your child and tolerating his unhappiness.  Parenting to brat proof is about making the hard call. It is also about clear communication, expectations, and the trusting relationship you have with your child. None of this happens by accident.

 It is from parents and from experience that children learn how to be in the world, how to behave, and what is expected of them.  It is through practice on you that so much is learned.  As you well know, children save their worst behavior for the people whose love they trust the most…that’s you! So, unfortunately, likely you will see the brattiest of behaviors as your child figures out what works and what doesn’t.  It’s the experience he needs.   Actually, that’s the good news  because it gives you the opportunity to work on all those traits you want him to cultivate, the ones that must be caught and not just taught.

 Don’t you want to run out and buy my new book? I hope so…and tell your friends, too!

Last Sunday morning I stood on the corner of Sepulveda and Skirball Drive. Ten families with children of all ages in tow and I stood at the red light, eager to get to Milk and Bookies. (The glory of that charity event held this year at the Skirball is for another blog.) There were no cars anywhere in sight. Not a one as far as the eye could see. Yet everyone stood there, waiting for the light to change.  Good!

 I have been trying to process Julia Siegler’s tragic death all week long. Julia, who ran to catch her bus, crossing against the red light on Sunset, thought she could make it.  Julia’s horrible death was no one’s fault. There is no one to blame, much as everyone tried to point a finger. It was an accident. Julia could have been killed in a cross walk even if the light had been green. The fact is, she ran for it, against a red light.  And what we know is that often kids just don’t think. That’s the long and short of it.

 How many parents make a run for it, cross when the light is red, roll through the stop sign (“the California stop”), jay walk? Lots of us do. And we do it when our kids are in the car, in a stroller, or hurrying right along with us.  When I was a school director, I went out of my mind when parents made a run for it, jaywalking right across the perpetually trafficky Barrington Avenue at Olympic Boulevard, nursery school child in tow. Are you kidding?

 Every time we hurry through a yellow light turning red, roll through a stop, cross on a red, our children are watching. And what is the message? It’s okay…go for it! We’ll be fine.

What’s the hurry, I ask you. What’s the worst that can happen? You’ll be late. Okay, you’ll be late. Next time you’ll leave a little earlier.  Well, I think in Julia’s death we know only too well what the worst is. It happened.   

 It’s time to slow down. Hurrying is enemy. Not only does it often undermine whatever we are trying to accomplish (C’mon. Hurry ! Hurry! We’re going to be late!), as your child slows to a snail’s pace, spikes growing out of the soles of his shoes, adhering him to the earth, but it puts us at risk.  Hurrying takes our attention away from the business at hand. If you are rushing to make the light, are you really thinking about all the possible hazards? 

There are no guarantees.  But maybe if we parents make it a habit to walk to the corner crosswalk, to wait for the light to turn green, to slow down, fate won’t be tempted. If it isn’t even an option then maybe, just maybe our kids will practice the same, never even considering to go against a red light.

There will be times when we need our kids to speed it up. But to quote the great John Wooden, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”  Instead,  hurry up and slow down. If not for your sake, then for your children’s.