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.

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.

There is no debate that the disaster in Haiti is just that, a disaster. But there are differing opinions about whether young children should be exposed to this news.

While I suggest that you have a look at chapter 11 (Is the Fire Going to Come to Our House?” Answering questinos about Natural Disasters, Terrorism, and War) in my book,  Just Tell me What to Say, I offer a few pointers in the meantime.

Of course it is wholly up to you whether and what you tell your children about the earthquake. But remember, young children will personalize this terrible news. For children under the age of six the news is likely to raise anxiety and fear in them, worrying that such a disaster might strike here…them. And be careful to protect tyoung children from the constant media coverage. The repetitive nature of the news makes events seem even bigger and scarier.

Older children no doubt have already been exposed to this news. But even for them, I offer the following tips:

• Take care of your own feelings first. You will surely leak, and you don’t want to add your own pain and saddness if it is extreme, to theirs.
• Don’t whisper!  The moment you do so, or use “pig Latin,” your child’s ears perk right up.
• Don’t avoid questions. Not answering questions gives a strong message about the taboo nature of the topic.
• Find out what your child knows already. Doing so enables you to correct misinformation and give the facts in an age appropriate way.
• Be honest and give accurate information. Just answer the question. Better he hears it from you or from someone else.
• Listen for the question beneath the question. Of ten there is something else brewing that is a source of anxiety unexpressed.
• Don’t downplay your child’s feelings. Resist the urge to say “Don’t worry.” or “Don’t be sad.” First of all, it doesn’t work. But more your child’s feelings are real and deserve your respect.
• Share your own feelings to the appropriate degree. You don’t want to compound your child’s worries.
• Remind your child that your job and that of all adults is to keep children safe. Talk with him about the difference in preparedness, safety precautions, and building regulations  in the U.S. vs Haiti.
• Talk about the ways you are going to help. It always feel better when you are proactive. Help your child to find ways, along with you, to provide aid and show compassion.

Most schools,  houses of worship, and public agencies already have help opportunities in place, from where to take extra shoes to donating money and other supplies. Children are creating drives to raise money and are finding their own creative ways of being charitable. Don’t wait! 

As horrible as the earthquake in Haiti is, it is an opportunity to teach compassion and empathy  as well as to model charity in action.

Where the Wild Things Are, the beloved children’s book by Maurice Sendak, has been made into a movie.  When I first heard about it, I was excited…then worried. An article in this morning’s Los Angeles Times about the movie fueled my worries. Granted, I haven’t seen the movie, but I am still worried.   I just know that hundreds of cool, thirty-something parents are going to line up to take their young children to see it. Is this really a movie for young children?

In today’s world, children are being exposed to many things, the going-to-the-movies experience being just one of them, often before it is best for them. In their zeal to share a fondly remembered experience, they rush, often prematurely, and expose the child to something with which he cannot connect. Worse, it may be something that is actually detrimental to the child and his sense of well being. The problem is, the parent isn’t remembering what it was like as a two or three or four year old. Most people’s memories are from older ages–six or seven or eight years old.  As a result, children are having experiences (movies included) beyond their ability to process in a healthy way.

I remember when I was teaching nursery school over 30 years ago, a parent excitedly announced that she was taking her three year old to see The Wizard of Oz, sharing how much she had loved that movie as a child.  I suggested that maybe her daughter was a little young, reminding her of all the scary parts (those flying monkeys and that witchiest of all witches–”I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog Toto, too.”) “Oh no. She’s  going to love it!”  she proclaimed with total confidence. A few weeks later that same mommy came to me to get help; her daughter was having  terrible nightmares about flying monkeys and was refusing to go to sleep.

Where the Wild Things Are was a controversial book when it was first published. Not bad at all, just controversial.  And it still is. Some children can handle it; for others, it is too scary if read at too young an age.  Movies, bigger than life, can be even more so. Those wild things in the movie trailer looked pretty real to me.

Before you hand pick your perfect seats for the first showing, stop and think about whose needs are being met. Is your child ready to see those larger than life wild things?  Can he, should he even sit still in a dark movie house for an hour and a half?  You can always get it on DVD  next year when he is?

My seminar, Keeping Your Child Safe, is always a sell out. No surprise there. What could be more important than doing everything  within a parent’s control to keep her child safe? In the seminar I address the things parents must know about a child’s safety – what the real dangers are “out there,”   the parent’s role, what a parent must teach her child. I teach what children need to be taught about keeping themselves safe, too.  What I can’t teach, however, is common sense. 

Unfortuantely, it is true that we live in a world that is fraught with dangers of all kinds. But many of these dangers have been around for a long time. People have been doing bad things to kids, for example, since the cavemen times. Bad things have always happened. What is different today is, first of all, there are so many more ways to be unsafe, and second, our awareness of what is happening.  Technology has enabled news of all kinds, including really bad stuff,  to travel lightning fast into our homes to fuel our fears. We handle those fears by doing the best we can, that includes using common sense.

It is  not only a parent’s job, it is her obligation to educate herself and her children in reasonable and appropriate ways about keeping themselves safe. You are your child’s first teacher about safety. Your child who is watching you all the time learns his lessons about what we do as adults to be safe:  we buckle our seat belts; we wash our hands after we pee; we look both ways before crossing. You know the drill.

But here’s what I just don’t get. What the heck are you thinking when you are texting, reading emails, even just dialing the phone while you are driving? 

On my way to Paso Robles this weekend, I was behind a woman whose head was down as she drove. When I pulled up beside her I saw that she was texting.  For real!   Are you kidding?

This is the same woman who uses her foot to flush the toilet. No way she is going to get  potty germs. But she will tempt fate by using her Blackberry while she drives.  Are you kidding?

This is the same parent who asks the playdate’s mother if the the family keeps guns in the house. But she texts while she is driving up the windy coastal road of Route #1.  Are you kidding?

This is the same mother who doesn’t allow a non organic vegetable in the home. No pesticides for her children. But she takes her eyes off the road to look at her Blackberry. You have got to be kidding!

The world is a more dangerous place than ever..for kids and for you and me…because of all those people who are crazy enough to take their eyes off  the road while they use their Blackberries.

Safety is for everyone, not just for your kids.  There is so much you can control.  Don’t tempt the gods. Don’t model bad choices.   Keep the Blackberry in your purse.  And go ahead and flush with you hand. You can always wash with soap.