Your kids worship you.  They are unaware of many of the details that life involves.  All they know is that there is this Big Person standing over them who radiates love toward them and they feel good being loved.
Sometimes your love for them assumes the form of stern insistence.  Sometimes your love for them creates balloon jump rides at birthday parties.  Sometimes your love for them points determinedly at the bathroom where their toothbrush lives that should be now moving up and down over their teeth before they go nightie night.  Sometimes your love sees them in a cute outfit and you just have to buy it.
Your love means that you keep your kids at the forefront of your thoughts night and day until they can take over that job for themselves.  One portion of your love is occupied with their becoming adults because you are the main influence on their lives.
I suffered with trepidations when my girls went off to school for the first time because I knew that I wasn’t going to be the only source of information for them any longer.  I knew that they’d bring home to me what they had learned and that I would remain the judge of it’s rightness or wrongness for them.  I’d have preferred they not experience wrongness, but they had to see life as it is, not as how I wanted it to be for them.
My influence on my kids ran it’s fingers through every aspect of their lives.  I was their chief cook and bottle washer.  I was their launderer.  I was their nurse.  I was their teacher.  I was their maintenance man.  I was the parent with the main presence in their lives.  It’s not uncommon in a divorce for one parent to be doing the real parenting - all the little stuff, day in and day out. Buying the groceries, helping with homework, monitoring their computer use, etc. And sometimes the other parent is mostly concerned with the big events. You know, being front-and-center for their birthday party; buying them jewelry from where they went on their latest vacation, and never buying them tennis shoes.
If you’re the Big Event Type, ask yourself if what you’re doing is for you or for your kids. Are you doing the showy things to make yourself look good and ignoring what really matters? If you are, I’ve got a newsflash for you – it doesn’t make you look good. Your fifteen-year-old doesn’t really need diamond earrings. It’s not a competition. There’s really only one question that matters. Are you contributing effectively to the upbringing of your children? If you really feel the need to do the showy things, go ahead, but make sure you also contribute in little ways. The stuff that really matters to your children are the things that no one sees when you’re doing them.
On the other hand, if you’re a divorced parent who is really conscience about parenting, good for you.  Keep it up. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Being a good parent is truly its own reward. You are doing important work. It’s the most important job you will every have. I have clients that have tens of millions of dollars, but they cannot buy what you have with your children. So remember, you influence them everyday. Make it a point to teach them something positive each day.

Len :: Aug.21.2008 :: Caring for Yourself After Divorce, Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

When I was thirteen years old, my moral foundation was tested when my best friend called me all excited and said to come over to his house.  He lived in an old two-story house with a big attic that you could walk in.  He had been in the attic and found an old Playboy magazine with a photograph of a young model, staring into the camera not wearing a top.  We could see her bare breasts.  Moral behavior aside, other than National Geographic photos, it was the first time we had seen bare breasts.  

To us, this photo was a treasure and there might be more treasures down in the walls of the house!  Imagine these two thirteen-year-old boys, up in the attic, reaching down between the 2 x 4’s into the walls of this old house trying to find more pictures of naked woman.  

Everyone knows that is just about what you would expect from thirteen year old boys.  But back in that day, there was no cable TV and we watched shows like The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island.  There was no Internet, nor were there magazines at the grocery store check-out promising you the top ten sex secrets to make your lover go crazy.
Neither my friend nor I turned out to be sex perverts, but we both had parents that gave us rules and they enforced those rules.  There weren’t many outside influences countermanding those rules.  Today, a child can get on the Internet and find pictures and even videos of people doing things we never imagined when my friend and I were thirteen years old.
As I grew older, I look back and realized that whenever I was facing different and challenging conditions, I had been blessed because I had been given a strong moral foundation. It was my parents and your parents’ role to give each of us a strong moral foundation.  Once we had that foundation, we could say no to all the negative influences in the world.  
It’s our role as parents now to give our children strong moral foundation.  If you can establish a strong foundation, your children will become successful adults and they will carry that foundation with them through whatever the future has in store. The scary part about today’s world is that there are more outside influences than ever and they have an influence on your children.  Again, every generation has its challenges. Here are the steps you take to establish your moral authority so that you can create young adults who have the same basic values you do. 

Five Tips for Establishing a Moral Foundation for Your Children.
     

1. You are the most important role model and influence that they have or ever will have.  They will model your behavior for years.  So, in colloquial terms, don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk.  Live the way you want them to live.  That’s the most powerful influence in their lives.  As adults, we’re always looking for cues on how to behave.  Children are especially looking for clues, and you’re the most important one, so live your life the way you want them to live theirs.  Be honest, treat people the way you want to be treated, make your decisions on love – not fear.  Give more than you receive.
     

2. Control their access to the Internet.  If they have their own computer it should not be in their room. It should be out in the open where they’re using it.  If there was an Internet when I was fourteen, and if I had my own computer, I would have spent an awful lot of time on Google looking for sex and naked women.
     

3. Communicate with your children but don’t be their best friend. They have lots of friends; if you’re their best friend, you’re on equal level with the other friends.  You need to establish more authority than just a friend.  Friends come and go.  Friends can be influential.  You need to be the rock that they can always count on, the compass that always points to true north.  Nowadays more than ever, kids need parents to be a parent, not a buddy.  The world is confusing and you need to point the way.
     

4. Establish your home as a safe place.  What I mean by that is you have to impose rules and consequences if those rules are broken, but they have to know they can talk to you about anything and that you always have their best interest at heart.  They have to know they can count on you when they make decisions that may not be popular with their friends.
     

5. Keep your finger on the pulse of their life.  Know who they are hanging out with, know what they’re watching on TV, and know what they’re listening to.  I don’t mean go through their drawers and snoop.  You won’t know everything they do; you can’t.  You’re not going to be standing next to them, but you can get a feel for what kind of friends they’re hanging out with.  Don’t let them retreat into a world of their own where they’re listening to their MP3 player all the time.  There is a lot of poison being sold under the label of music.  What are they watching on TV?  My kids watched MTV and sometimes I made them turn it off.  Other times, they watched things I didn’t care for.  Personally, I don’t think there’s anything worthwhile on MTV but ultimately they weren’t harmed by it because we had a balance.  You can’t protect them from everything, but don’t get so wrapped up in your own life that you aren’t aware of what they’re doing and who their seeing and how they’re interacting with people.

If you’re fortunate enough to have relatives nearby who can help mold moral behavior - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - they can also be a positive influence.  If you don’t have relatives, there are friends, neighbors, parents of other children, school teachers, community programs, etc.

It’s that old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.”  You want to create that virtual village to surround your children as much as possible with positive healthy influences so you can establish a strong moral foundation.

Len :: Aug.21.2008 :: Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

When you are a divorced parent, you’ve got your hands quite full.  There never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done, and your kids can fire questions at you more rapidly than a cherry-spitting contest.  Arguments over dinner and homework abound.  Sometimes, you can get overwhelmed and want to throw in the towel.  
Children don’t understand overwhelm.  They don’t understand not having enough money.  They don’t understand that you need advanced notice to make a trip to buy their school project supplies.  They don’t understand that bunches of kids yelling and laughing can get on your nerves.  They don’t understand their arguing can drive you nuts. They don’t see the full picture.
But you do.  And it’s the full picture that we want to talk about here, because it’s that full picture that will help you to unfold the courage you’ll need in order to persevere with your Great Parenting Plan.  You have made a plan, haven’t you?  You’re not just winging it, are you?
The Great Parenting Plan is where you are all dressed up, dabbing the tears from your eyes, watching your child walk down the aisle at his graduation.  It could be a high school graduation or a college graduation.  That all depends on your plan. You want to take yourself in thought out to that point in the future where your child graduates and begins to move off into his own life, fully self-sufficient and capable. The idea is to get him to that point from where you are right now and where he or she is right now.
Working backwards from that moment in the plan, but always keeping it in the forefront of your thinking, will help you get through those challenging moments that create overwhelm, those moments when you might not even want to be a mom or dad anymore.  There is no quitting option though.  Your kids are here and they deserve your best.  It is your golden opportunity to summon up all of your resources and give it one heck of a go.
It takes courage to persevere with the Great Parenting Plan, and it takes thinking problems through thoroughly to unfold that courage.  One of the nicest aspects of parenting is that the things you need to do the job are all built in.  Yep.  You had them when you were born.  You’ve been building them while you lived your own life.  This parenting task is like getting a Ph. D. in strengthening virtues!
What happens is that your kids provide some test for you – they test your patience, or your courage, or your ability to love.  And you have the option to say “Yes, I can” or “No, I can’t.” Sometimes when you really think that “I can’t,” you still say “I can” and then you do.  Have you ever noticed that in life, when you make a commitment, somehow in someway the fulfillment for that commitment seems to just happen.  
When I was a young parent, I needed a reliable car.  Car wasn’t in the budget that month, but we needed that car.  I made the commitment.  I don’t remember ever not making that payment easily.  Somehow, in someway, the fulfillment for that commitment seemed to happen.
It will happen the same way with bringing up the courage to persevere.  If you determine that, by gosh, you will persevere in doing the absolute best job you can to be their mom or dad, the courage that it takes in the moment (that’d be the moment when you’re exhausted and they need a ride downtown,) you will bring up the courage to set yourself aside and provide what they need from you.  
And you will do it over and over again throughout your divorce.  You’ll forget those moments until you see them walk down that aisle in their gown and mortar board and you’ll be one proud, successful divorced parent. You’ll forget about all the overwhelm.  Oh they’ll have told you “Dad, puhle-e-eze don’t cry at my graduation” and you’ll try.  You’ll really try.  Only you will know of all the times when you set yourself aside to care for them, of all those hundreds of details you handled to be a good parent, and you won’t be able to help those escaping tears.  They’re tears of joy.  I know.
 

Len :: Aug.07.2008 :: Caring for your Children :: No Comments »

If you are anything like any other divorced parent in the world, you would agree with the fact that it is sometimes hard to keep your cool.  When life is stressful, when your tired, when your irritated, the hardest thing in the world is to have patience and tolerance for your children.  If you are going through a divorce, you will probably find yourself going from one extreme to another.  One minute you are feeling guilty about the divorce and over indulging your children, and the next minute you are so overwhelmed with how much you have on your plate you seem to fly off the handle at any little thing.  This is all very normal, but not productive.

Stress can cause us to act in ways that don’t make us proud.  The first thing that you need to remember is that losing your temper with your children just makes the situation worse.  They are under pressure, too, and are probably acting out a lot more frequently than usual. If you can step outside of yourself for a moment and look at what you are actually losing your temper about, you would probably find it to not be such a big deal. 

The trick is to take some time everyday to take a breath.  In fact, take some deep breaths.  It may seem like very generic advice, but it actually works.  If you find yourself starting to lose it, walk away and breathe.  Evaluate what is actually so terrible at the present moment.  Probably nothing is all that bad. 

When you lose your cool, you end up feeling guilty, and that just ends up in a downward spiral on the road to other bad decisions regarding your children.  You can really make a difference in your own life if you try to make it a daily goal to not yell.  You will be able to think more clearly about what is going on and make better decisions. Discipline will also be more effective if you don’t lose your cool.

When you are a divorced parent going through difficult times and it is hard to keep a clear head, many people make things worse by losing their temper. Don’t be one of those people.  It’s not good for either you or your children.  Think clearly and emotion free.  Be objective not subjective.  What advice would you yourself give a friend that was going through the same situation that you are going through?  You already have the answers; it’s just hard to find them alone when your feelings are all stirred up.  Have confidence in yourself that you are able to handle what ever gets thrown your way and you will be better at keeping your cool.

Len :: Jul.13.2008 :: Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

Blame.  We all do it.  We blame others for things that they deserve to be blamed for and things that they probably don’t deserve.  Placing blame seems to be a technique that we learn very early on.  When you think of children even as young as two or three years old, you can hear them saying, “She did it.  It wasn’t me!”  Taking responsibility for our own actions and short comings is one of the hardest life lessons  to accept.

Looking directly at ourselves in the mirror can be difficult to say the least.  It’s much easier to point the finger somewhere else.  If you are going through a divorce, I am just going to be frank with you.  You were part of the problem.  You may be saying, “Well he cheated; not me.” Or, “She yelled all the time; I didn’t.”  It makes us feel better to divert the attention of the problem elsewhere.  The thing is, by blaming your ex alone, you may be bandaging the real problem for a short time; but eventually, that bandage is going to get yanked off and the pain will get worse.  The good news is that by accepting your own fault and focusing on what part you played, you just may learn how to avoid this situation in the future.

Let’s look at an example.  Mike cheated on Julie and he has been cheating for a long time.  Right there, you are probably saying, “Mike’s  a jerk,” and you  would be right, because adultery is never excusable in a marriage, but we aren’t going to focus on Mike. It’s obvious that cheating is wrong.  It stands out.  It’s easy to blame Mike, and maybe Julie didn’t really do anything wrong.  What if there was something that she could have done different?  What if she missed the clues all together from ten years ago when she married Mike? Mike was selfish.  Julie inherently knew it early on in the relationship, but thought she could change him.  Mistake.  Julie would never be able to change Mike.  So here is an example of Julie’s role in her current situation.  She wanted to be married so badly, that she refused to look at herself and say, “He isn’t right for me.” 

The examples could go on and on, but the key factor that remains the same is you.  It won’t matter who you are married to if you aren’t honest with yourself.  Can you really take a look at yourself and see your own shortcomings.  Can you say to yourself, “You know what, all I do is nag.  All I cared about was getting my way and being right.”  Now is nagging a huge problem?  Is it a deal breaker in a marriage?  Who knows?

I don’t believe that only one type of behavior breaks up a marriage.  It is a series of negativities: cheating, lying, finding fault, nagging, deception, blame, falling out of love. Whatever the supposed reason for the divorce, it’s never simple.  Don’t worry any more that Mike cheated on Julie.  Yes, Mike was wrong, but what responsibility did Julie have that contributed to the divorce?  What did you do that brought on your divorce?  What can you do better next time?  We all have room for improvement.  If you’ll work to make your improvements, your children’s lives will benefit, and that is the most important thing. You don’t get a do-over with them.

Len :: Jun.26.2008 :: Caring for your Children :: 1 Comment »