Do we expect too much from our kids?

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Published 11.14.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (8)

There's a brilliant article in Slate that I think every parent should read—more than once. "Why Can't Johnny Jump Tall Buildings?" addresses the pressure we put on our kids to meet milestones before they're ready.

Parents, the author argues, sometimes have unreasonable expectations for their children; we simply don't realize that often what we expect from our kids is, developmentally, out of their reach. stress out when they don't meet those expectations, and we react accordingly, either with disappointment or punishment. We're especially off when it comes to psychological development. "The research shows," he writes, "that we consistently overestimate their self-control, ability to persevere and stay on task, consistency of performance, and social ability."

(Incidentally, the author, Alan E. Kazdin, is a professor of psychology and child psychiatry at Yale University, director of Yale's Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic, president of the American Psychological Association, and author of The Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child.)

I read this article and saw myself in almost every sentence. I'm definitely guilty of this kind of pressure. Most of my conflicts with Henry stem from my own anxiety over his development. There are his issues with food—shouldn't he be eating a more varied diet by now? There are also the things that his friends are doing, and I wonder why he isn't doing them, too. All of his friends are swinging on the monkey bars every chance they get, for instance, but Henry won't go anywhere near them. Is his reluctance a lag in physical development? Comparing our kids to their friends is another common mistake, according to Kazdin. We forget that there are huge variations in each child's development, and we set our standards "with a too-small sample group drawn from personal experience: our own first child, a neighbor's child, or our own unreliable childhood memories of how our parents raised us."

And Kazdin says that we shouldn't make too big a deal of our kids' dishonesty or insensitivity; children can sometimes act like pint-sized sociopaths, but it's often part of their development and doesn't necessarily indicate trouble down the road. "Don't crank up the pressure unnecessarily," Dr. Kazdin advises, "by making every single one of your child's behaviors into a slippery slope, a domino, or an occasion to draw a line in the sand."

Oh, how that sounds like me. I can't tell you how many times I've fretted over six-year-old quirks that I fear might become permanent features of his personality. If Henry denies that he nabbed the remainder of the Oreos (as chocolate crumbs are flying out his mouth), I see a con artist in the making. If he tells his best friend that he plays all wrong, I worry that he's going to grow up into a friendless control freak. My fearful prophesying kicks in whenever he acts in some way I dislike. The fear of him becoming a childish adult because he's childish now (at the age of six) is kind of ridiculous, and it's led me to deal with him more sternly than I would if I stepped back and put things into perspective.

Setting expectations too high isn't just unfair to your kids—it's also going to backfire. Putting undue pressure on your child—and yourself—can lead to stressed-out, shrieky parenting, which will encourage nothing but defiant behavior. This can escalate a minor event into a big problem, one that could potentially damage your relationship with your kid—and surely won't address the issue at hand. Instead of starting a push-pull dynamic, Kazdin recommends gently "shaping" the kind of behavior you want. Lower your expectations and take on challenges in baby steps. "It's only human for parents to tend to expect that our children can do more than they can really do. Even slight adjustments of your expectations to compensate for that tendency…can produce surprisingly excellent results."

Have you been guilty of the same kind of high-pressure parenting that I've exhibited in my worst moments? I like what Kazdin's saying (obviously) but I can see how it might seem a little too easygoing for some parents. What do you guys think? Is this attitude a step in the right direction? Is lowering our expectations healthy, or does it express a lack of faith in our kids?

President-Elect Barack Obama

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Published 11.07.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (19)

First of all, let us review my election-night prediction and congratulate me on just how right I was. From the cupcakes to the drinking to the early concession. The fact that McCain conceded an hour earlier than I had guessed only shows how sometimes reality can one-up your most optimistic fantasy.

Like most of you, I'm still in a state of disbelief. The past two elections broke me. I wasn't ready to believe that America would ever make the right choice again. Even when all the polls showed Obama leading, when fivethirtyeight.com predicted that Obama had a 98% chance of winning the presidency, I still didn't really believe it. Surely the Bradley Effect would rear its ugly head, come Election Day. Surely deep-seated racism that people weren't even fully aware of would leap into consciousness and McCain would suddenly seem like the better candidate. Surely some secret right-wing cabal would undermine democracy, fix the votes, do something.

And yet it seems that we did it. The people stood up, and were counted. The Bradley Effect (and boy, I hated that name) never came into play. We actually voted in a black man as president. I keep looking at the headlines for confirmation. Yesterday I saw "OBAMA" splashed across the New York Times, and I burst into tears. I tried to explain to Henry the significance of this election, and I choked up. "This is going to be a moment you can tell your kids about," I told him. ("I'm not going to have kids," he informed me, but I ignored that part.)

There are things this election does not mean. It does not mean that racism has been eradicated. With gay-marriage bans passed in Arizona, Florida, and of course California, it doesn't, sadly, mean that everyone in the United States enjoys the right to marry whomever they wish. (Although I have more hope now that that day will come. And that someday we'll have a same-sex married couple in the White House.) It does not mean that our troubles are over, or that President Obama will arrive in the White House and perform miracles. The last eight years have left this country in a mess, and solving it will not be easy. I don't envy our next president the mess he will have to try and fix.

As he himself put it:

For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime -- two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.

There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or save enough for their child's college education.

There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

I promise you, we as a people will get there.

We've got a long way to go, but before we begin the journey, I think it's only fair to take a moment and appreciate just where we are in history, right now. This is an unbelievable moment. And we all made it happen.

What do you think will happen on Election Day?

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Published 10.31.2008 | Permanent Link | Comments (29)

November 4, 2008

9 a.m. Henry reminds me at breakfast of our deal: if Obama wins, we celebrate with ice-cream sundaes on Wednesday night; if McCain wins, we stuff our faces with ice-cream sundaes so that we can't feel the pain inside.

10 a.m. Scott calls to tell me that I shouldn't vote anytime soon because everyone and their mother is out voting right now. I act as if I were on my way out the door, when in fact I am still in my pajamas.

11 a.m.: Henry, who has the day off for Election Day, asks me when we're going to go vote for Obama. I consider getting dressed.

Noon: Finally dressed, we start to make our way to the polling place, which happens to be Henry's school. On the way there, Henry can't help but notice that his friends are all in the playground. Can he go over there for just a minute?

1 p.m.: I manage to drag Henry away from his friends and toward the polling place, when I see the Election Day bake sale still going on and remember that I said I was going to bring something. Crappity.

1:01 p.m. I have to buy two chocolate cupcakes to make up for my failure as a bake-sale contributor. It is my civic duty. I have approximately five minutes before Henry goes batty from all the sugar coursing through his system.

1:05 p.m.: The polling place is still surprisingly busy—although everyone here is over seventy. The poll workers are even older. Do I know CPR? Henry is eyeing my cupcake, and I cram it into my maw before he can even suggest that he deserves seconds.

1:10 p.m. Somehow I manage to vote as Henry leaps up and down beside me and my eyeballs vibrate inside their sockets.

1:30 p.m. Now that I'm home, I'm certainly not going to look at news sites and obsess.

1:35 p.m. I begin obsessing.

3 p.m. Still obsessing.

4 p.m. Did you know that the Internet is large? And there are many web sites with election information?

5 p.m. Henry has had it with my obsessing and demands that I read to him. Quality time with my child? Torture.

6 p.m. How can I cook dinner when I'm so busy obsessing?

7 p.m. Having somehow managed to feed my family, I am now watching television. Also, I am freaking out. The exit polls seem to indicate that this is going to be a closer race than I had told myself it was going to be. There are more votes for McCain than, say, 0.

8 p.m. Ohio looks like it's going to McCain. It's over. It's all over. We might as well move to Canada now.

8:05 p.m. The drinking begins.

8:30 p.m. Ohio is now too close to call. I continue to drink.

9 p.m. Florida loves Obama! This calls for a drink!

9:15 p.m. Henry insists that he can't sleep because of all the history being made. We almost fall for it.

10 p.m. The pundits are being all pundity as the numbers roll across the bottom of the screen, and I require way more alcohol to keep myself from bouncing off the walls.

11 p.m. The swing states are mostly going in Obama's favor, and it really looks like he might win. I am now gnawing on my knuckles. Then I gnaw on Scott's knuckles. I don't want to get my hopes up. But maybe? Maybe he might win? Unless McCain does. GAH.

12 a.m. It's all over. McCain concedes at the stroke of midnight. Obama declares victory, I don't throw up from all the alcohol consumption, and everyone gets free puppies. Also, there's sex.

Okay, so maybe an Obama victory by midnight is a tiny bit optimistic, but a girl can dream.

And you? What do you think will happen on Election Day?