More Homework, Please! (By Anshu Basnyat, LCPC)

   For many, the first week of school is coming to an end and this means many parents are probably wondering about the H word: homework.   Some parents are hoping there will not be too much homework for various reasons while others are saying “Bring it on!” In terms of research, the jury is still out.  There are staunch supporters on both sides.  For me, however, I was on the fence but now I say “More homework, please!” So, why the switch?

   Well, I had an epiphany this summer.  Last year, my son’s Math teacher gave him a little booklet called “The Math Whiz” and you are supposed to play a magic game with it.  It is basically six pages stapled together with numbers written all over on five of them. The game goes like this: He would ask someone to pick a number on the first page and told them to keep it a secret. Then, he would turn each page and ask if the secret number was on that page until he got to the last page. Meanwhile he is doing some kind of computation in his head and magically arrives at your secret number! He would repeatedly play this game with our family and friends.  He was completely indulged by their reactions. “Wow, how did you do that?!” or “You are so smart!” He would flash a big smile, and not reveal the magic, but instead told you to pick another secret number. There begins another round of the game. Well, just a few days ago while we were cleaning his homework area, he came across The Math Whiz! Of course, he wanted to play the game again.  Guess what happened this time?

    Yes, you got it! My math whiz struggled with the game. Although he arrived at the correct answer, he kept getting confused when doing the mental computations.  Of course, this was a great teachable moment and I certainly seized it by letting him know that we easily forget what we learn if we do not practice it regularly. You can look at any dementia or Alzheimer's research and find this conclusive evidence. It also helped that my husband chimed in at this point. I will not chant “Practice makes perfect” because I feel this is not a realistic goal parents ought to be promoting and given my child’s personality, this will only provoke anxiety in him and negatively impact his academic performance. However, I will happily say “Practice makes you sharper!” and that alone is enough for me to chant “More homework, please!”

    Of course, there are other bonuses too: when doing their homework, they are away from the tv, computer,  and video games.  Moreover, they cannot get into mischief or trouble if they are busy doing their homework.  Also, homework is a concrete way to beautifully connect the school to home life, which research conclusively states is key in a child’s academic achievement.  As always, parents are the most important role models for their kids so below are ten strategies to use when encouraging good homework habits.
 
10 Strategies for Homework Help
  
1.    Model a positive attitude about homework and education, in general.
2.    Have a designated homework area with minimal distractions and good lighting. 
3.    Make sure materials/supplies are readily available.
4.    Give your child a healthy snack before starting homework.
5.    Use planners or agenda books to help organize their materials and time for homework.
6.    Encourage your child to do the easier assignments first so a feeling of accomplishment is experienced rather than frustration with harder homework. Some education experts advocate for the reverse order so the child is not exhausted and frustrated by the time they get to the more difficult homework.  Ideally, if you have multiple assignments, you can do the easy-hard-easy order. You be the judge of which order works best for your child.
7.    Be available and look for opportunities to praise your child.
8.    Engage in “homework-like” activities such as reading a book or balancing a checkbook/online accounts while your child does homework.
9.    If your child needs help, provide guidance rather than giving your child the answers.
10.  Give your child breaks if necessary, especially when frustrated. If your child regularly gets frustrated then consult with his teacher about any potential, academic difficulties. 

Best wishes for a wonderful school year!

Advocating for Your Child with Special Needs (By Anshu Basnyat, LCPC)

    Many students across the United States will start their new school year next week. It is a time of full of excitement to meet new teachers, make new friends, and learn new things! While this may also be true for parents with children who have special needs, but it is also intertwined with feelings of fear and anxiety about what the new school year will bring for their children.  This is doubly true for me since I now have two children with special needs.

    My regular, blog readers know that I have a three year old daughter who was born a micro preemie with many health complications. She is also hard of hearing and has been wearing hearing aids since she was one year old.  Well now, my seven years old son was diagnosed as being deaf in his left ear over the summer. Advocating is not a new thing for us. However, advocating for a second grader looks quite different than for a toddler.

    One or more accommodations in the classroom will be necessary for children with special needs. An example may be of what educators call “preferential seating,” which my son will undoubtedly need in the classroom.  This is not a big deal for my toddler daughter because the class sizes are smaller and more staff is available in the classroom to assist with whatever is necessary.  However, preferential seating will be a challenge to implement for my son.  On paper, preferential seating seems like an easy accommodation to make after you figure out the location of the seating (left front for my son). Practically, this is much harder to implement and this is why: a dynamic and effective teacher is constantly moving around the classroom!

    Advocating for the accommodations and making sure they will be implemented will be challenging, but the most significant difference when advocating for a toddler versus a school-age child is the support system that is available.  With the very young, there is a team of professionals who are working with you in your home, school, and in the community to guide you along your child’s development. For our daughter, this meant we had the support and expertise of the speech and language therapists, special education teachers, ASL teachers,occupational therapists, physical therapists, audiologists, just to name a few.  Once they reach school-age, the parent is pretty much on their own to get the advocacy ball rolling and staying afloat along the way.  The parent has to be the driving force and the child’s strongest advocate.  There will be high points and there will be low points along this journey. Below are strategies to keep in mind when advocating for your child with special needs.  I will use my son’s hearing problem as an example to illustrate the points.

7 Strategies When Advocating for Your Child

1. Take referrals seriously.  There are a number of ways a concern about your child’s development can be raised. For our son, he was the one who initially raised the issue and soon after he failed his hearing screen at school. The school nurse sent a referral note and we immediately contacted the appropriate professionals. We could have easily ignored the note and gone about our business, especially considering that he had been doing extremely well academically. Instead, we took the referral seriously.

2. Identify the special needs.  Once a referral is made, there will be a series of tests or evaluations that need to take place in order to properly diagnose a special need.  The nurse sending a referral note that he failed the hearing screen for his left ear is not enough.  I say this because the identification process is time consuming, tiring, and frustrating.  It will become so easy to give up and not follow-through with subsequent recommendations.  You might even have to seek second opinions if things do not sound right to you.  Without completing this identification process, you cannot move forward in the advocacy.

3. Gather pertinent documents. As a trained clinician, we have this mantra we follow that says “if it’s not written, it didn’t happen.”  Make a file for your child’s medical record of all the referrals, test results, and recommendations.  If possible, have electronic copies of them which will come in handy later on in the advocacy process. Organizational skills will come in handy at this point.

4. Contact the school principal in writing.  After you’ve gathered all of the pertinent information from the professionals, you are now ready to contact the principal.  The correspondence should be in writing and you should include the medical documentation (this is why the electronic copy becomes convenient). This will speed up the process and you will have a "paper" trail to refer back to.

Also, keep in mind that timing is important.  This is just my opinion, but I do feel that sometimes contacting the principal too early may not necessarily work in your favor.  For example, if you contact the school too early, let’s say early in the summer, you might not get the response you want right away. Moreover, if the timing is off you might actually risk getting the attention you deserve.  In other words, sometimes “the early bird does not always get the worm.”  For my son, I had all of the documents ready about a month ago, but it did not feel like the right time to contact the principal then.  Even though my super-organized, early bird husband insisted I do.

This week was back to school for staff so I figured this is a good time to shoot an email to the principal. Sure enough, in less than an hour the assistant principal calls me to address of my concerns and schedule a meeting to discuss what kind of accommodations would be warranted for our son.  Of course I did not gloat about this to my husband! 

5. Be prepared for the meeting with the school.  Make sure you and your partner discuss the talking points in advance and write them down.  Those meetings can easily get sidetracked and become emotionally charged so it is crucial you have a visual reminder to keep you on track.  You want to be able to identify the special need and ask for concrete accommodations.  Advance research will be key. Also, take at least two copies of the documents you emailed earlier for convenience, just in case they do not have them at hand. 

6. Advocacy does not have to be adversarial.  Really, you can effectively advocate for your child without having to get into an emotionally charged battle! Keep in mind that the teachers and  the staff also want what is best for your child.  If you are not convinced then consider how the school would look in terms of reputation if their students do not perform well.  Working within the system is a much better and effective approach than working against them.  This will create a much better working relationship with the school and at the end of the day will benefit your child.  However, again worth mentioning that, we as the parents, have to be the best and strongest advocates for our kids.

7. Teach your child self-advocacy.  We have talked with our son about self-advocacy and what that means. However, we also explain to him whenever we advocate for him so he can learn from our examples not only to self-advocate, but also to be proud of whom he is no matter what challenges he may encounter.  The look on his face was priceless when I told him that his assistant principal had called!

A South Asian Parenting Dilemma: Push or Foster? (By Anshu Basnyat, LCPC)

    In the Basnyat household, whether to push or to foster our children’s development is a constant topic of discussion. My husband, who has an interesting background of spending a good chunk of his formative years in the United States (former diplomat’s kid) but also spent much of his childhood in Nepal, and then came to the US for college. He decided to hang out here ever since, get married and raise a family. The whole nine yards! He plays for the Push Team.
  
    I, as a Nepali-American who primarily grew up in America and not to mention with an extensive Psychology background, am playing for the Foster Team.  We both want our children to do well academically, have good social relationships, and lead healthy and happy lives. However, by no means am a Tiger Mom and he a Wolf Dad.  Physical punishment and scolding are out of the question for us, but praise is a favorite strategy.  We truly want to take the Best of Both Worlds Approach (BBWA) in our parenting.  To the best of my knowledge, this is not an actual theoretical paradigm, but this is how we describe our multicultural parenting style.

    The BBWA is also the reason why we have this parenting dilemma. Had we simply chosen one path (Eastern or Western) to parenting, we would not have to debate so much.  Given our personalities, ambitions, and professional backgrounds, there is no end in sight for these debates. Every time he says something to the effect of “we have to push the kids to reach their potential” I quickly offer a myriad of word choices like foster, cultivate, support, encourage, etc. to replace “push.”  This is how our discussion may sound like.

The Academics

Husband: “I think it is important for him to do practice work (Math, Reading, etc.) outside of his homework.  The kid is really smart and we need to push his limits to see how far he can go.”

Me: “Yes, he is smart and I also want him to excel, but I don’t feel pushing is the best way to accomplish this.  He is so young and at this point, learning should be fun and enjoyable so he would want to do it more rather than get frustrated and avoid it.” Sometimes, I may pull one of these stunts. “At this developmental stage, it should be about the process of learning not so much the product.” I mean, really, who could argue with a point like that?

The Sport

Me: “I am really concerned about the time he is spending in soccer.  He seems too tired to do his homework or get any down time.”

Husband: “He loves playing soccer and he needs all the practice he can get to be better at it. He has so much potential.”

Me: “He does love to play and he is good at it.  How about we stick to one sport at a time so it’s not too much for him or for us?” My husband agrees. It does not always work this way.

The Musical Instrument

Husband: “Shouldn’t he be playing an instrument like a violin or clarinet by now? You used to play the violin.”

Me: “They start in third or fourth grade. He’s only in the first. I started in the third grade and there was too much pressure so I gave it up in junior high. I really don’t think that kind of pressure is good for him.”

Son: “I don’t want to play anything I have to blow, it’s too hard (he's asthmatic). I want to play the violin or the drums.”

Husband and Me: “No drums! Maybe a violin or guitar, we’ll see.”  To be continued...

    So, you can see from above how the Push vs. Foster discussion may transpire in a parenting conversation. I feel we do not have to “push” our kids into anything and thereby run a high risk of this pushing backfiring on us.  If you are skeptical, try this experiment at home: have your significant other stand in front of you and you push him or her from the back.  What happens? Although Physics was never a strong suit of mine, but I believe this is called Resistance.  In Psychology, we call it Rebellion.  This usually is not a pretty phase and I will use all the strategies in my parenting toolbox to avoid this parent-child dynamic.   

Do you believe in pushing or fostering your child to reach their potential?

NICU and Preemie Parenting (By Anshu Basnyat, LCPC)

    As a parent of having two premature babies, one born at 31 weeks and the other at 25 weeks (micro preemie actually), I am no stranger to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).  Our first born had to be delivered early due to pregnancy complications (preeclampsia) and spent about six weeks there seven years ago in 2005.  Shortly after we arrived in Sydney, Australia in 2009 I experienced another complicated pregnancy (again, preeclampsia) and our daughter had to be delivered early on Easter Day. She spent 5 months in the NICU and endured five major surgeries during that time.  At day four of her NICU stay, the doctors had lost hope that she would make it and we were encouraged to call our local priest to do last rite rituals.
   
     Having been in Sydney just for two months, we had not even visited a Hindu temple, let alone had a family priest.  The hospital staff called one from their directory and this kind, gentle, Hindu priest drove an hour from his home in the middle of the night to perform these last rite rituals for our daughter.  He told us that she WILL be okay with such confidence that I had to believe him.  He was so right and after some time, we visited him at his temple to express our gratitude personally.  He was so delighted!

     Spiritually, I take a very eclectic approach and draw from many faiths. Hence, I truly believe that the words and actions of this Hindu priest coupled with her Easter birthday played a major role in our micro preemie’s survival.  However, I also believe that both my husband and I must have some sort of inner resilience to cope with such dire circumstances.  Other people’s reactions to how we managed confirmed this hunch. Thought I share some of the strategies we used in hopes that this will resonate with many parents who are going through these difficult circumstances right now.

5 Issues and Strategies in Preemie Parenting
1.    The Hope.  From moments before and after the preemie is born, doctors of every specialty in existence in the medical field will come and talk to you about the risks associated with having this baby.  Please understand that this does not come from a bad place and is not meant to instill fear in you, even though it does.  It is intended for the parents to consider all possible outcomes when making their decisions.  And these will be HARD decisions to make! Parents will be required to make decisions anywhere ranging from the side effects of medications to whether you want your baby resuscitated or not.  I know, this latter one came as a huge surprise to us in our daughter’s case.  I suggest that you just listen to what the physicians have to say and ask as many questions as you like and as many times as you like. If you don’t understand the answer, ask the question in a different way.  Even if you are heavily drugged out. Try to stay focused and of course have your partner there too so you don’t miss anything.

Before my daughter’s birth, one of the first doctors was a neonatologist who was doing some research on preemie and their breathing. She shared a very long list of things that could go wrong with our baby.  The outcomes ranged from attention problems to brain damage and cerebral palsy. Did I mention that I was heavily drugged out at the time? I must have asked many good questions because I remember her saying something like “wow, you are asking very good questions even though we have injected you with every possible drug at our disposal.”  Few days later when I was more lucid, I met her again in the NICU, but I couldn’t remember her face. At this time, she reminded me again how surprised she was with my “good questions.”  The take home message is to listen, ask questions, but DO NOT ever lose Hope.  For those skeptics who talk about “false hope” to which I say: “There is no such thing as false hope. You either have hope or you don’t. You CHOOSE.”


2.    The Milk Supply.  After you hear all the bad things that could happen to your baby from the doctors, the lactation consultants start rolling in to share how breastfeeding will make things better for the baby.  It is well known fact that breastfeeding is good for the baby, especially for preemies.  In particular, the colostrum, which is the first drops of yellowish milk when the mother starts expressing, is the most beneficial for the preemie.  The colostrum has many ingredients such as vitamins and proteins that serve as antibodies to diseases.  As a result, mothers of a preemie baby tend to put extreme pressure on themselves to produce the milk.  And there begins the vicious cycle.

The mother’s milk supply becomes suppressed because of the extreme distress due to the circumstances and the baby may not be able to suck to stimulate the milk supply.  There are many herbal remedies, such as fenugreek, to stimulate milk production.  Talking with a lactation consultant is a good starting point if your milk production is low.  Despite all of your loving efforts and hard work, your baby many not be able to tolerate your milk. Although many believe a baby cannot be “allergic” to the mother’s milk, but who is to say that the baby could not tolerate due to the interactions of all the medications being pumped into that little, fragile body? This happened to our daughter. Thankfully, she was able to take in all of the colostrum, but as time went on with surgeries and medicines being given, she could no longer tolerate my milk and had to start her on formula.  All of which was done through a feeding tube. As a mother who is a huge believer in breastfeeding, this was devastating to hear.  It felt like all of my hard work pumping at home day and night while my baby was in the NICU and pumping at the hospital went to waste.  

Eventually, I had to come to terms with the fact that this was out of my control and luckily she was able to get at least the colostrum.  In Australia, if my memory serves me right (was under the influence of a cocktail of medications) you can donate your milk to babies who are unable to get their mother’s milk for various reasons.  This is did help me feel better.

3.    The Emotional Roller Coaster.  It will be an emotional roller coaster.  You may visit your baby in the morning and everything seems fine, but when you make the evening visit, you may be hearing that your baby may need some kind of surgery.  This happened numerous times for us.  Our daughter’s five months NICU stay included five major surgeries where sometimes she had to be transferred to another hospital for the procedures. This is a very scary thing to go through. When your baby is that tiny and vulnerable, the parents will be an emotional mess.  What worked for us was to have a mindset that anything is possible so just to take it one day at a time and deal with whatever may come our way little by little. 

4.     The Good Enough Mother.  The second person who will be most affected when a preemie baby is in the NICU is naturally the mother.  I will never forget when the lactation consultant asked me if I knew about “The Good Enough Mother” concept. I said No, but I sure knew about “The Supermom,” and “The Perfect Mother” notions.  She gently told me that I need to adopt this new way of thinking about motherhood.  Knowing from my pre-move research that Australians have a good reputation for knowing how to be “happy” or “satisfied” with their lives, I decided to heed this advice.  In all honesty, this did take some time to fully understand and practice, but this way of thinking really alleviated the stress and reduced the guilt thousand fold.  This of course, fits well with cognitive-behavioral theories on anxiety. The more pressure you put on yourself, the more likely it will be counterproductive.  I am a better and happier mom because of “The Good Enough Mother” guiding principle.  

5.    The Social Isolation.  When your baby is in the NICU, it is so easy to become socially isolated because your whole life revolves around your NICU visits, talking to the doctors and nurses, pumping milk, researching about the conditions your baby is dealing with, experiencing all kinds of emotions, etc.  It becomes exhausting and the mood is not optimal for social gatherings.  However, I cannot stress enough how important this is to your and the baby’s health.  Social isolation is a major risk factor when it comes to depression, which only leads to a downward spiral.  Parents with preemies in the NICU cannot afford to get depressed for extended period of times because this will directly impact how you care for your baby.  Therefore, it is paramount that parents make every effort to surround themselves with supportive people in their lives and try to enjoy the moment.  This means to be with people even when they do not understand what you are going through.  Connecting with people and simply laughing at times will go a long way in coping with these difficult circumstances. 

Do this without any guilt because in some cultures there seems to be an unspoken rule that you should be sad all the time during such situations.  People may judge you for being social, but that is okay too.  That comes from a place of ignorance so do not let this get to you.  When I gave birth to our micro preemie only after being in Australia for two months, our social network was limited.  We tapped into whatever limited resources we had at our fingertips and made the best of it.  I highly encourage you to reach to your social network (real or electronic) and make some time to laugh a little!

Making Summer Fun and Educational (By Anshu Basnyat, LCPC)

   Summer is in full swing in America.  Now that the anticipation of Independence Day celebration is over, many parents are probably wondering how they can keep their kids busy, learning, and having fun all at the same time.  Research shows that low-income children are at a disadvantage during the summer time because they do not have the resources to explore and learn as their affluent counterparts do.  Students from low-income households lose an average of two months reading achievement over the summer.  This, many assert, is a major contributing factor to the “achievement gap” between the "haves" and the "have-nots" (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11826934).  Children with resources are enrolling in enrichment programs, visiting museums, reading with parents at home, etc. while those without the resources do not have these opportunities.  Over time, this gap widens and has major implications. All children need to be intellectually stimulated during the summer or they are at risk of falling behind in academics.

    I know what some parents may be thinking: “kids need their downtime, need to have fun, and just be kids.”  I know this because I am one of those parents.  While I believe in this viewpoint, I also believe that children need to stay engaged in “school-like” activities to keep their mind fresh and ready to learn when the new school year begins in the Fall.  The goal of this article is not to argue whether to have year-round school with a cumulative two months break distributed throughout the year or continue with the existing model of having the traditional two months summer break.   Rather, the goal is for parents to work within the current schooling structure so our children can maximize fun and learning during the summertime.  If you know me, you will know that I am all about maintaining “win-win” situations.  This is one of them, where we can enjoy the summer break and still foster learning in our children.  Of course, this will require parents to tie in the academic piece at home while continuing the leisure activities such as going to the pool, bike riding, tv watching, etc.  Like many things in parenting, a balancing act is necessary.

    Here is an example of how I plan to balance between leisure and academics.  This week, we have been having a heat wave in parts of America, including where I reside.  So, just to be funny I put on my Facebook status “Wondering what would happen if I put cake batter in a pan and let it sit out on my deck for an hour or so.”  Then I thought about it, well tomorrow I have both of my kids home, my son asked if we could make cookies, and it is Friday.  The latter part is significant because I am a NPR junkie and one of many favorite shows is Science Friday by Ira Flatow. Therefore, tomorrow will be Science Friday at the Basnyat’s home where we will experiment with cookie dough and cake batter.  We will compare the time and temperature it takes to make yummy treats out in the blazing sun to that of the burning oven.   It will be over my three year old’s head, but my seven year old will learn and enjoy at the same time!

5 Tips for Summertime

1.     Journaling.  Writing down dates and times of trips and activities will not only help in understanding timelines, but your child is practicing writing skills.
2.     Arts and Crafts. This can include a whole host of activities from making cards to making bird feeders. 
3.    Gardening.  Growing and taking care of plants not only teaches about science, but also teaches patience and responsibility.
4.    Baking. All kinds of learning is happening when you are gathering materials, measuring, reading instructions, baking, and the cleaning up process.
5.    Fields trips.  Visiting the library, museums, zoo, and other wonderful institutions enrich a child’s learning experience.  Just this week, I took my son on a field trip on the public bus to the local senior center and the library. He learned so much about how the bus system works, how senior citizens stay active, and used the library’s call numbers to find his books.   
 

 

So, What’s in a Value? (By Anshu Basnyat, LCPC)

    Everyone knows about “family values.”  Some values people may have include education, religion, intelligence, attractiveness, money, responsibility, honesty, prestige, etc.  Intellectually, we also know that values are neither right nor wrong.  I cannot judge someone's values no more than they can judge mine.  So, the real question becomes whether we think about our values regularly to help guide us in our parenting. 

    Values provide a framework in parenting. This framework helps us to prioritize and make decisions effectively in our day to day parenting.  As parents, we have to constantly make decisions that pertain to our family and children’s welfare.  Some of these decisions are easy and others are very difficult.  Add to the mix, competing demands or other people trying to influence our decisions for whatever reason.  Now, it is a great recipe to make a parent's head spin. If you do not like making decisions, then your head is spinning even faster! So, I propose you use this approach so we can all avoid dizzy spells. 
 
The Approach

1.    You have to identify what your family values are. 
2.    Discuss these values with your partner and come to a mutual understanding.
3.    Regularly reflect on these values so they are fresh in your mind and heart.
4.    Rank order your values with the most important being at the top and the least one at the bottom.
5.    When decision time rolls around, use the most important values to help you make the decision!

The Examples

    In practical terms, what does this look like right?  People have told me that they like it when I use my personal examples so here goes another.  Couple of months ago, our 7 year old son’s school had a STEM Night Fair.  For those who may not be familiar with STEM, it stands for Science Technology Engineering Mathematics.  This is a nationwide initiative in the US to stimulate interest and foster a long-term commitment to these areas of study in our school systems.  Of course our son wanted to participate since the students would be "earning" medals. I cringed a little when I learned this latter piece, but succumbed to the notion that if this were going to spark an interest for my child, then so be it.  Well, that same night our son also had a soccer game.  The dilemma we faced was deciding between the competing values.

    YES, soccer is a value in our family, which I learned the hard way.  The other obvious value is education.  Our son wanted to do "half and half."  When he suggested this solution, the other value that crept in was that we believe in doing things all the way rather than “half way.”  So, we decided that attending the STEM would be more important than the soccer game.  Explained this to our son and went happily to school that night. We all had a great time, learned a lot from the other projects, and he earned a medal! 

    Let us contrast this with another example.  A few days after the STEM Night Fair, our son woke up looking sick with a pink eye, which could very well have been allergy symptoms.  Ding, ding decision time again.  Should he or shouldn’t he miss school?  Did I mention that he has never missed a day since he started school?  Our son is very aware of this fact and quite proud of himself, as he should be.  Well, you already know how important education is to us. This time, the competing value was not soccer, but health.

   How can health not trump education? I mean without health, what good is an education right?  Needless to say, he missed school and visited his pediatrician instead.  It turned out to be allergies and he was back to school the next day.  Interestingly, his report card does not reflect this one absent day.  I wonder if the secretary thought the recorded absence was a mistake. Shhh, we’ll just keep that between us (wink). 

    These two examples illustrate how a parent can use their values to guide them in their parenting.  Furthermore, the importance of values shifts depending on the circumstances and/or competing values.  Therefore, prioritizing our values is critical in the decision-making process.  Without strong family values, decision-making can be much harder than it needs to be! 

I Think You Just Answered Your Own Question, My Friend (By Anshu Basnyat, LCPC)

    Every parent knows that there is no cookbook to parenting. However, this does not stop many from trying this approach.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I cannot tell you how many times I have encountered people in my professional and personal lives who say they have “tried everything” to get their child to do whatever. A variation of this may be them complaining that they have researched online or read parenting literature and tried the strategies the experts recommend, but they-simply-do-not-work.   When people have come to me in this semi-crisis mode, I usually ask them two questions: what strategies have you tried and how long have you tried it for?  Typically, the strategies themselves are reasonable and some are even creative, but the answers to the second question baffle me.  I am usually told days, no more than a month really.  So, what is happening here?

         The parent who tries tactics after tactics without giving it sufficient time is not going to get the results they want from their children.  This is like Baskin Robbins advertising their flavor of the week. It works for an ice-cream parlor, but not parents. Although parenting is not a cookbook; however, there are fundamental principles that make the job more effective and much easier.  Here, the one that is most at play is consistency.   Unlike a recipe, human behavior is complex and to change it takes time, effort, and teamwork.  When a child has learned a particular behavior that has worked for them for years (however maladaptive it might have been), it will take consistency on the parents’ parts to have a fighting chance to unlearn it. Otherwise, it will be a very difficult battle.

     A battle with a slew of issues that can arise when parents are not consistent with their child. Here are some of them:
•    Negative parent-child relationship develops.
•    The child gets labeled as a “bad kid” at home, school, and in the community with serious negative consequences in terms of academic and social functioning.
•    Gets misdiagnosed, such as having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), various Anxiety Disorders, Depression, etc.
•    Parents start blaming the school for the problems, which quickly turns into a negative parent-school relationship and does not benefit the child at all.
•    The child becomes the identified problem, when in fact it is a parenting problem and this can negatively impact the marriage.
•    If there are other children in the home, then detrimental sibling rivalries can develop because now we have the “good child” and the “bad child.” Think about all of the drama that can come out of this unhealthy dynamic!

         Therefore, consistency is important not only to change a behavior, but also to prevent undesirable situations.   Please allow me to sidetrack just a little here to make a point.

         So, I recently read an article that adeptly pointed out that in our society we have a very interesting view of risk taking (http://www.webinknow.com/2012/05/risk.html).  Often, we consider the risk of doing something and the negative consequences associated with that act.  Moreover, this view may be even more prominent in litigious societies.  The argument being that when we take this approach, we may be missing really great opportunities for growth personally, professionally, and in other ways. Rather, the risk of not doing something may be a more effective approach.  Therefore, in terms of parenting, consider the risk of not being consistent with your child.

         Now that we are all motivated to be more consistent in our parenting, here are some tips to guide you:

1.    Each parent has to be consistent with the child. For example, if Johnny gets in trouble for stealing cookies from the cookie jar on Monday. If he tries this again on Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. then he should get in trouble for this behavior again on each occasion.  This will send Johnny a clear and consistent message not only about stealing cookies, but stealing in general. The flip side is that he gets punished on Monday, but not on Tuesday, and then again on Wednesday so on and so forth. If this inconsistency is happening over and over again, then Johnny will be very confused about what is expected of him and will not effectively learn what his parent is trying to teach him.  After all, being a teacher is a huge part of the parent’s role!

2.    The parents have to be consistent with each other.  This by far, is the most common problem I have seen in my professional experience as a therapist and a parenting coach.  Going back to the same example, if Johnny’s mother reprimands him for stealing the cookies, but his father tells him to go ahead and enjoy the yummy cookies, then there is a consistency problem between the parents. No doubt this is difficult at first, but once the parents are on the same page with each other, parenting becomes much easier, enjoyable, and beneficial for the child. Here are some ways to accomplish consistency between the parents:

•    Do NOT undermine the other parent, especially in front of the child.  It may look something like this. Now, Johnny wants to go to the mall to hang out with his friends. He asks dad whether he can go and dad says “yes.” Mom overhears this, and she may say this to dad (probably in front of Johnny) “Why would you say yes, when he still has to clean his room?!” To Johnny, mom says “No, you can’t go and that’s final.”  If this happens consistently, then this is a HUGE problem!

First, mom has just communicated to Johnny that dad has no authority in the family, and she is the boss. Second, this will be a blow to dad’s self-esteem, which will ignite resentment towards his wife and over time this will negatively impact their marital relationship in more ways than one. Third, Johnny will not only be confused, but will probably use this inconsistency between his parents to his advantage, probably not in a good way.  We have a very scientific name for this process and it’s called manipulation. 

•    If the decision does not have a serious consequence, go with what the first parent has said to the child.  Since dad said it is okay for Johnny to head to the mall, mom should just let it go (aka L.I.G). Letting go is an important life skill in and of itself, wouldn’t you say? A common question people have is this: “Well, isn’t mom undermining her authority by doing this?”  The answer is No because there will be plenty of opportunities for dad to support mom in this way.  At the end of the day, it all works out beautifully because the partnership works best this way!

•    If there is a major consequence to the first parent’s decision, then the second parent can offer valuable information to the first parent.  In other words, let’s just say that Johnny not cleaning his room will mean that the soon to arrive out-of-town guests will be scrambling for a room to sleep in, which would really add stress on the whole family.  What mom can say to dad is: “I don’t know if you knew this, but Johnny has not cleaned his room yet.”  Mom has conveniently given dad new information so dad can make a wiser decision, but the decision is still dad’s and mom will respect it.  In this way, dad is not being undermined by his wife, but just simply being informed.  A very different message is being communicated here to Johnny. That is, mom and dad are on the same page and therefore, a team in parenting.  Johnny is outnumbered, so it would be foolish to challenge this.  In case he does challenge it, again mom and dad will handle it like a team and things will run much more smoothly in this household. If this is something you need to work on in your family, try this approach and let us know how it works for you (after sufficient time)!

3.    Parents should ask themselves: “Am I being consistent?” or “Are we being consistent?”  This has worked very well for us as parents.  When our son was having some social issues with his peers in kindergarten, it took us a while to figure this out, but we realized that somehow we had fallen of the consistency wagon. This can easily happen if you have competing demands like jobs and other responsibilities. The important thing is to get right back on the consistency wagon. Similar to bike riding, after a fall you get right back on it or you will not learn how to ride a bike. Once we got back on the consistency wagon, our son’s behaviors improved. Since we are usually consistent with each other, it did not take very long for our son to realize that mom and dad are on the same team again so I better not mess with them! If you practice consistency regularly but sometimes forget, then getting back on track and seeing the results may only take few days.  Likewise, if consistency is lacking in the family then it can take some time because it is a process where "things may get worse before they get better."  However, the time and effort it takes will be well worth it!  

    In other words, there are no “quick fixes” in parenting. So, the next time somebody tells me they have tried every trick in the books and they are not working, and asks “What should I do?” You know what I’ll be saying: “I think you just answered your own question, my friend!”