Is that enough?  As I have read the countless stories about Julia, and as I recall the eulogies for this child who died too young, I am struck by how glorified people become in death. Julia was an incredible gem of a young woman, adored and appreciated by all whose lives she touched.  When someone dies we especially miss all her glory and goodness. But why do we wait until death to talk about it, to tell her,  to shout it to the world?

 Is it enough to hug your child and tell her you love her?  Every day we are given opportunities to tell the people in our lives what they mean to us, what we appreciate about them, what we admire. 

 You are such an empathetic person, Emily.  I heard the way you spoke to your friend just now, and I so admire how you supported her as she struggled with that problem she is having with her mom.

 I am blown away by your ball handling, Micah. I watched you out on the court and I can’t get over  how skilled you are and how far you have come. All the practicing you ‘ve done is so obvious.

 Have I ever told you, Hannah, that wherever I go, people stop me to tell me how much they enjoy your enthusiasm and sense of humor.  You just bring a light to wherever you go. I so love that about you.

 Our kids love to hear the good stuff. (Actually, all people do.)  Yes, it might embarrass her, but I promise you she loves it and she’s taking it in.  Today is the day, every day is the day, to say one of the things you would say in a eulogy. Be specific, tell your child what you love and admire about her, a quality, an attribute at a time.  Not only does it feed the well of her sense of self, but it motivates more of the same good stuff.  Not only does it counterbalance the reminders and nagging that often dominate a parent’s communication with her child, but it makes you the parent feel really good, too.  Don’t wait.  Tell her.

 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 are parents of young children who will read the title of this blog, shake their heads, and walk–no run– away from the computer. Don’t do it!  Children need to learn about death, and they should learn about it from you.  Death is the one great inevitability in life. Everything that is alive will die one day.

Take a minute and read the article I wrote on the topic last summer.  You’ll be glad you did. It’s always better to be prepared before you need to be.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/teaching-your-kids-about-life-and-death

P.S.  As if I am prescient, yesterday tragically a 13 year old girl was killed by a car as she crossed the street to catch the school bus. In front of her mother’s eyes, she was hit by the car, as she crossed against the red light. 

In response to the many inquiries I have received about  how to talk to your (older) kids about this horrible accident, I have written the following:

Points and Talking Points to Use in Processing

the Tragic , Accidental Death of Julia Siegler

1.  Your first job is to listen. Allow and encourage your child to talk, feel, emote without necessarily commenting.
2. Rather than trying to make it better, merely validate his feelings.  I know. I know. It is the most awful thing imaginable. It’s unthinkably tragic.
3. Answer his questions as best as you can. Share what you know, the whole story.
4. Be sad together. Don’t brush your or his feelings off.
5. Allow and encourage your child (especially teen aged) to be with his friends. The most comfort and support is found in groups of friends. 
6. People process and mourn in different ways. Just because your child isn’t crying or talking doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling. Sometimes your own sadness is a vent for your child. But be careful not to dwell or impose your feelings on him.
7. Expect your child to have a reaction. He may want to stay close to home. He may want to be alone. He may become sullen, fearful of going out, nightmares, lots of questions about safety. Questions about God, fairness in the world, BIG questions will come up. (How we all wish we had questions to these.  But remember, it was an accident; it isn’t about a greater plan or about fairness.)
8. Know this:  It was an accident. That is what the word means…it wasn’t supposed to happen. It may not have been anyone’s fault. Just an accident.
9. These kinds of accidents usually don’t happen . They are the exception. Remind your child about all the airplanes that get through each day about which we don’t hear. We only hear about the ones that crash. That makes it seem like they happen all the time, but they don’t. Accidents don’t usually happen; they are the exceptions.   Children cross streets safely all the time. This was an exception.
10. Your child doesn’t need to live in fear.  (see #9, above.) Help him to know that it is typical to be extra frightened or vigilant and cautious after an accident. Everyone is more aware and frightened right now.
11. People have a need to blame someone. It takes the anger and hurt and puts it somewhere. But sometimes there isn’t anyone to blame. It IS just an accident, a horrible accident.
12. There is energy and power that accompanies the anger one feels over this horrible kind of accident. Put that energy to use…write a note, cook a meal, offer to help at the house.   Helping in this way is symbiotic:   It helps you do something with that energy and it genuinely helps the bereaved.
13. As the dust begins to settle (and that will take some time), help your child to do (create) something to memorialize Julia.  Perhaps her friends (and their families) will start a foundation, a charity, raise funds for something in Julia’s name. Create a cause.
14. Keep her memory alive. Photos, memorabilia, discussions about what you remember help kids to learn that people live on within us.
15.  Listen Listen Listen Listen!

But there is more.  While I am a believer in limited screen time for children, especially commercial television, the Olympics are providing our children (and us) with important lessons and messages that are hard to find in daily life, making the screen time well worth it.  In fact, I think the Olympics give new meaning to the show title American Idol.

Did you watch Lindsay Vonn’s Gold Medal run in the Women’s Down Hill?  My heart raced right along with her skis.  Her elation upon winning was contagious.  And her cathartic tears as she described the extreme effort she put forth, the result of which was achieving her goal and her dream, told the tale. 

The same held true for Shaun White, the Red Tomato, and watching him was better than Cirque du Soleil!  A fellow snow boarder described the amount of effort and time he put into his perfecting his tricks and style, “We didn’t see him for a year.”

The athletes of the Olympics are providing just the kinds of heroes we want our kids to have: people who dream big, who set goals, who have passion and devotion, who take risks, who work incredibly hard, who sacrifice who give their all. 

Even though most of the events of the Olympics are individual, each athlete is part of a team, either a specific event team or the country team.  Watching each participant cheer for his team mates, sharing the successes and the disappointments, is a magnificent demonstration of empathy and team loyalty.  Sometimes you lose, but you really can be  thrilled that your teammate has won at the same time.

Some of the athletes reached the moon; but most did not. And that is an equally, if not more important message. You can set you sights high, you can give your very best effort and still not win the medal.  How often do our children get to see failure (of sorts), disappointment, modeled?  Not very often.   The athletes of the Olympics are models of sportsmanship. No tantrums and running away for them!  And the best part?  Those same skiers get up the next day, snap on their skis and try again…and again and again.

 If you haven’t shared the lessons of the Olympics, you still have a chance. Take the time to introduce your children to some real idols, American and all the others.

Kids are exposed to the word the moment the cord is cut in the delivery room.  And it is reinforced and expanded over and over throughout their growing years   Daddy loves you.  See you after school…remember, I love you.

But truth be told, love is a complicated concept. It’s just not as easy as it sounds. When I work with parents who are separating or divorcing, I am always struck by this reality.  There are lots of different kinds of love. 

• The love a mommy and daddy have for their child
• The love one has for his puppy
• The love a child has for his teacher
• The love you have for chocolate
• The love a grown couple has for one another

Some love lasts a long long time. But some kinds of love change, it comes and goes.  You can love chocolate, so much that you want to shoot it into your veins, and then wake up one day to realize you don’t really love it all that much anymore; vanilla isn’t half bad.    You can have a best best friend with whom you love to spend all your time, and then you grow apart…new friends, new interests, not so much love.  And there’s grown up love, the love that a woman and man (or whatever the gender combination) feel for each other.  The dream is that this kind of adult love will last forever, through thick and thin.  It can change colors, but it lasts. It evoles from wild, crazy, mad-about-you-love to deep, abiding we’ve-been-together-forever-familiar love. But that kind of love, too, can fade and sometimes dissolve.

Even the forever stamp isn’t really forever.

But it’s not so with parent-child love. Children need to know that the kind of love that a parent has for a child is different. Mommy love, Daddy love never ever changes; it is forever and ever and ever love. It never fades; it is full- strength forever.

With all the uncertainty in the world, with all the change that happens, isn’t Valentine’s Day a good time to share the wonder of the forever and ever love you feel for your child?  I think you’d better.  He needs to know it.

 Oh my gosh, how great is this! So often dads who come to see me say that they really do want to spend more time with their kids, then sheepishly admit that it is often hard to find things to do, aside from “kicking the soccer ball around” or playing Leggos. At last here is the resource, an unending supply of ideas for dads (and moms) to do with their kids.  I especially love that it was two dads who came up with this idea. Family is still alive and well; there is hope for our society!

 The influence of dads in kids’ lives is profound.  (This is not to underplay the importance of moms. Please, don’t go there.)  Research actually pinpoints the effects of father influence not only on child behavior, but also in who children become, both girls and boys. It is important precisely because it is different from mother influence.  Gender differences necessarily inform the way moms and dads interact with their children.  And each is important and necessary in the lives of children.

 I offer a seminar called Big Hat, No Cattle. That expression, one that came to us from the land of the cowboy, refers to the dad who says he is a father, but doesn’t do the job. In this seminar I address the research and present the effects of father involvement on children, pointing to the day-to-day ways in which fathers can effectively be fathers in their children’s lives.  (There is still room in this March 1st seminar. Let me know if you are interested in attending.)

 In the meantime, you dads, take some time with your children. Not just today, not just on the weekend. Remember it is the pennies and dimes that are put in the bank everyday that eventually amount to a healthy savings. And so it is with your regular investment in your children’s lives. And if you don’t know what to do, visit the website and learn some new car games.

 Why on earth does anyone want her toddler (or infant) to read?

 Then I saw in the newspaper today that Docia Zavitkovsky had died.  Docia, a matriarch in our field, dedicated her entire 96 year life to young children, to raising consciousness about the importance of our children’s early years as the foundation for a rich and satisfying life. She was the founding mother of Play Matters, a nonprofit organization that places play at the heart of early childhood. What would Docia have said about this advertisement? I shudder to think.

 I am not sure which part of the radio advertisement bothers me the most…that parents are pushing their children in the exact wrong direction? That parents are so competitive in today’s world that they are taking desperate measures to give their children a perceived advantage that can actually be a disadvantage?  That merchants and advertisers are taking advantage of naive parents, making money off of them? It all bothers me.

It reminds me of Baby Einstein. The inventor made a fortune off of all those parents who were convinced that pouring images into their infants and toddlers via a screen would actually make them smart. Have you all thrown out those DVD’s yet…or better, asked for a refund?

 How do you grow a child?  Our very youngest children are nourished by interacting with people and with their environment. They learn and grow by feeding the right hemisphere of their brains with sensory and emotional and social experiences, through interacting with all that they encounter in their world. Learning in the early months and years of life is about play, exploration, trial and error.  It is priming the pump, laying the foundation for learning to read and other left brain experiences at the right time, and that is much later. How interesting it is that you can teach a toddler to recognize a word by repeated (boring) exposures to that word, over and over and over. But show him that word when he is six years old, and he’ll have in a minute or two.  And to top it off, he’ll even know what the word means!

 Would it be too evil of me to cross my fingers that Baby Can Read is a total flop? I pray, for Docia’s sake, that not one more DVD is sold.

 To your kids, the back seat of a car is home sweet home. Just like they misbehave more, when they are at home, so do they squabble more  in the car. ..when you are there!  I am quite sure that your fellow carpool driver never complains that your child bickers with the other kids when she drives. Siblings fight in the car because it is just like home. In the familiar setting, the one in which the child is the most comfortable, in which he is sure of your love, he will practice his worst behavior. Your car is no different.

 And in the car you, dear parent, are a captive audience. What your child wants most of all is your attention…negative or positive. Truth be told, he is sure to get your attention when he bugs his brother.  Add to that the close quarters of the car and you have a perfect battlefield – all the ingredients for backseat bickering.

 Here are a few tips for lessening the backseat bickering:

•  Don’t be an audience. When at all possible, ignore your children’s car fights. Even one comment, one threat, one sigh, or one eye roll count as your attention.  Ignore! Ignore!  Ignore!
• Ignore the fighting, not the children. When in the car pay animated and interested attention to the children when they are not fighting. They’ll get the message.
• The issue is the noise, not the fight.  Be clear about it: “In order for me to drive safely, you need to use quieter voices in the car. I need to be able to concentrate on my driving.”  
• Accept no tattling.  Do not receive any complaints about who did what to whom or who did it first. No blaming. Pay attention only to the elevated noise that undermines you being a safe driver. “Your fighting is not my business. Your loud voices, however, are a distraction. I cannot drive safely when you are so noisy. It needs to stop now.”
• Be consistent in your reactions. You need to react in the same way every time it happens,  if you expect your children to learn you mean business. You can’t tolerate the bickering noise one day and blow your top the next.
• If the noise of the bickering is driving you nuts:  Pull over to the side of the road. Get out of the car and open the back door. Without anger but with utter seriousness say to your children, “I cannot drive safely when you are making so much noise. It needs to stop now.” Hopefully, they will be shocked enough to stop.
• If the bickering persists:  Pull over one more time. Get out of the car, once more open the back door and say, “I will not drive this car until the noisy fighting stops.”  Then step away from the car, still within full view of the kids, and busy yourself. Clean out your wallet, work on your Blackberry, read old grocery receipts… but ignore the kids. Give it a few minutes, and when things have settled down, get back in and continue on your way. No comments. They will get your message loud and clear.
• If your car has a third row, you have the option of moving a child’s seat.  When two children are unable to sit peacefully next to one another, they lose the privilege of doing so. Move one booster or car seat to the back, or assign one child a new seat. Ignore the complaints.
• Tell them, “Sit on your hands.” This is a crazy cure, but it is distracting enough that it works.  Before all heck breaks loose, as you sense things deteriorating, tell you children to “Sit on your hands.”  It’s so silly and takes so much effort that it stops the fighting action.

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.

Lousy Local Conditions refers to those times when a child’s less than perfect behaviors are magnified or even created by the conditions of his environment. Children who went to sleep late or work up too early, who have missed a nap or a meal, who have been dragged on too many errands, who have attended one birthday party too many, will reflect those lousy local conditions in their behavior, or shall we say, misbehavior. Your two year old, for example, isn’t so good at “Don’t touch!” when you visit your grandmother and her precious china tea set that sits on the coffee table. The environment sabotages his ability to behave. Your three-year-old will not be too willing to clean up the play room after a wild, napless afternoon with three playmates too many. Your five-year-old isn’t likley to “ask nicely” or speak respectfully after staying up until midnight watching the ball game.

Sometimes a child has tantrums, lots of them, because that’s the stage he’s in. He’s learning to assert himself and is intoxicated by his own power. When he is frustrated in his quest, look out for a tantrum. But when your child has an uncharacteristic tantrum or melt down, when he is unusually uncooperative, or he’s just plain icky, it is often the result of lousy local conditions.

Anticipating your child’s thresholds and breaking points will go a long way in avoiding tantrums and mishbehaviors. Different children have different levels of tolerance for hunger and fatigue, for crowds and new situations, for stimulation of all kinds. Different children react to different lousy local conditions. (By the way, some grown ups do too!)

Craft your reasonable expectations for your child around his age, development, and particular temperament. Then keep in mind the environment that could morph into lousy local conditions, and you will head down the pathway towards taming the tantrums, melt downs, and icky behaviors.