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I would firstly like to state that I am not an advocate of homework in primary school. I will avoid jumping up on to my soap box here, but will say that Alfie Kohn has written an excellent book called the The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing. By following this link you can listen to an interview with Alfie Kohn about homework.

However even with my philosophical opposition to homework my children do have to do homework. Once children reach grade three at the school they attend, they are expecting to complete on average 15 - 30 minutes homework a night. Hence, we have been at this homework thing for almost two years now, but it has probably taken until about half way through this year until we really have established a good homework routine.

With out going into all the gory details, some of the issues that we came across were:

- homework being left to the last minute.

- rushing tasks.

- mum interfering.

- frustration from both child and parents.

- things getting misplaced.

- tasks taking much longer than really needed.

While all is not perfect and there are still the occassional intense discussion over homework, the process that has evolved through trial and error, does work quite well for us. Here are some tips that we have found to aid the homework process for both parents and child.

(1). Homework is the child’s responsibility.
For a long time, I was really wearing the responsibility of the homework. I was checking at the start of the week what had to be done and would check through out the week that it was being done. I would then review the homework to make sure it was completed.

Thinker didn’t need to worry about his homework because I did for him! I met with his teacher and explained that I was no longer going to be doing this. (Thinker has an excellent teacher.) She was very supportive of this and I explained that it was important that the stated consequences for non completion of homework would be enacted if it came to this.

Thinker was probably the happiest person about my decision to back off. He (quite rightly!) was resenting my “nagging” and since I handed over full responsibility he has had no problems handing his homework in and I don’t have to nag.

(2). Designated Homework Area
For too long, Thinker was doing homework in a variety of places. Upstairs in the study on the dining table etc. When we made the above change, as part of the changed process we placed a desk in his room and this is now the only place where he is to do his homework.

(3). Part of Routine
Although the homework from school is an averaged amount of time per night, this is not realistic for us with after school activities. Thinker doesn’t do homework (he still has reading) on the two nights he has after school activities, but works for greater periods of time on the other nights.

(4). Parents to assist with the process, not the content
It is important that I am still available to assist Thinker when he requests. We have set guidelines around this though, for example he cannot expect that I can help when I am in the middle of cooking dinner, so he needs to plan when he would like my assistance.

What I have learnt to do, is to not focus on the content of the homework, but what is the logical process that he should follow to successfully complete this task and discuss this with him. For example, if he has to write a speech to present to the class, we talk about what is the logical structure of a speech on this topic - intro, arguments to fill time limit, conclusion etc. I make sure he writes this down - his mind can wander and by having something to refer back to he can continue on with his task.

(5). My Attitude
As stated above, I am not an advocate of homework in primary school. Thinker was aware of this and it was affecting his attitude to his homework. I had to discuss with him another of my strongly held beliefs - if we have committed to something we must follow through to the best of our ability.

By enrolling him at his school, we effectively committed to their rules. While he is there I will expect him to complete homework to the best of his ability regardless of my philosophical opposition to homework. (Yes I know, what a hypocrite .)

(6). Minimise Distractions
Thinker shares a room with his brother and the other siblings are often in and out of his room. When he is doing homework this is not to happen. At first for some reason, this seemed to make it more necessary that they all had to go in to his room and tell him stuff, but we have all gotten used to the idea now.

(7). Resources
As well as having a designated area for homework, we made sure he has all the things he needs to complete his homework. This includes not only stationary, but also things like a dictionary and a pin board.

Thinker works well with visual reminders. He can pin his homework to the pin board in his room at the start of the week and it helps him organise what he needs to do.

(8). Model Research Skills
I find children learn so much by watching and quite often when they don’t realise that they are being taught something. I do quite a bit of research for some of the posts on this blog and I will quite often show Thinker what I am doing (if I think that it is a topic that will interest him).

There are also plenty of real life opportunities to use as well - researching school holiday activities, buying presents for people, solutions to garden issues and lots more. Thinker’s dad has to do numerous presentations for work, so this also provided opportunities to show how important research skills are and that they are not just a homework task.

(9). Fed and Watered
Thinker eats a lot and I make sure he has had adequate afternoon tea, before he even starts his homework. Thirst and hunger can be massive distractions!

(10). Time Limit
Thinker does love to learn and can get quite absorbed in some of his projects for homework. This does however mean that he will spend a great deal of time on them. As with all activities there needs to be balance, so it is sometimes necessary for us to set time limits for him to complete the task.

For example recently Thinker had to turn his research into a Power Point presentation. Thinker loves Power Point and would have spent hours adding pictures, animations and sound affects. We set a time limit (generous though as to not to squash his enthusiasm) to make sure that he was still having time to go outside and play.

What tips have you come across during your homework journey? What would you avoid?

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Australia is one of only two developed countries without paid maternity leave. The Rudd Government says that they will change this status and will legislate some form of compulsory paid parental leave. We received our first inkling as to what this might look when the Productivity Commission released its draft report on Monday.

The Productivity Commission is the Australian Government’s independent research and advisory body on a range of economic, social and environmental issues affecting the welfare of Australians. Its role, expressed simply, is to help governments make better policies in the long term interest of the Australian community. (Source: Productivity Commission Website.)

The Productivity Commission’s draft report recommends 18 weeks’ government-funded leave in addition to any existing employer-funded scheme. Employers would be expected to contribute a further $75 million a year in superannuation payments. You can read the complete draft report here and they will receive written submissions on the report until COB Friday 14 November 2008.

The release of the report has started a public debate in Australia on paid maternity leave. The ABC reports that the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI):

“does not support the Productivity Commission’s recommendation of 20 weeks’ paid parental leave, claiming it would put excessive burdens on businesses.”

The Age noted that:

“Unions NSW and the Australian Greens are urging Labor to pay 26 weeks’ leave, saying that is the minimum needed to allow adequate support for parents and their babies.”

And I have to say that I agree with the latter. A submission by the National Investment for the Early Years articulates the many reasons why 18 weeks is not long enough and takes into consideration the economic rationale as to why longer paid leave is also beneficial in economic terms as well.

GetUp is running a campaign to support the call for paid leave to be for a minimum of 6 months. If you feel strongly about this too, please sign their petition and help them achieve their goal to attain 30,000 signatures to send to the Federal Government, to show that the community supports at least 6 months paid maternity leave.

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As mentioned before, the amount of time my children watch television is limited. When they do watch it, it tends to be mainly on non commercial channels or DVDs. So I was completing amazed by the results of study discussed in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this month. It looked at research undertaken at the University of Sydney. The study looked at more than 20,000 ads aired during popular children’s programs, finding more than one-quarter promoted junk food.

The article concluded that :

“Children are subjected up to three inducements to eat junk food for every hour of television they watch”

Not only are there heavily concentrated junk food ads, but junk food ads that screen during children’s programs are 18 times more likely to use gimmicks like competitions and celebrity power.

Lesley King who was a researcher involved in the study says that:

“These techniques are used even more for unhealthy foods at the [time] children are watching television,” she said. “These all appear to be strongly reliant on these tactics to influence the decisions [children make].”

There is a move by some state governments to introduce legislation to regulate the advertisements that are on during children’ television show. I acknowledge that parents have a role in monitoring what and how much children watch, but when only one hour of children’s television exposes them to three junk food ads, I really think that it is time that there is some level of regulation introduced.

What do you think? Time to curb the level of junk food advertising aimed at our kids, or is it solely up to parents to manage?

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A lovely reader included this in an email to me recently:

I really liked the idea of your weekly family meeting I was wonder though what sort of topics are brought up at these meetings and if the children bring up issues in your house and if so what sort of issues are they bringing up. I am definitely going to start having family meetings at our house but i just am not sure how to make my 6 & 4 yr olds understand the purpose of having a family meeting.

PURPOSE
Background for those of you who may not have read a previous post on having a family meeting, the purpose of our family meetings are:

• To provide a communication strategy to deal with contentious issues.
• To create a forum where all voices are equal.
• Create a forum to jointly plan activities and areas of home life.
• To role mode and offer opportunities for the kids to practice decision making, negotiation and problem solving skills.
• To create a sense of ownership of family decisions.

If I were to repeat the above purpose to my four year old she would probably just stare at me and say that family meetings are for “sharing stories and solving problems”. At its core that is really what we do and Mr Infrastructure and I really try to encourage both the problem solving and the idea generation to come from the children.

We have been successful in obtaining valuable input from the children in these meetings by making sure that our expectations are age appropriate and that all their contributions are respected (no matter how off beat they are!).

PARENT INPUT
I think the best way to introduce small children to family meetings is to role model the types of issues you would like to discuss. We try very hard to keep the meetings positive family interactions and try to avoid them to turning into a “wingefest”. So for the first few meetings, I would suggest that the parents have a couple of positive or fun things to discuss, along with any issues that they may have. Here are some examples of things in this category that I have brought to our family meetings:

• Acknowledging the children’s support of the time I spent on the 30 Day Challenge.
• What would they like to do on the school holidays?
• Ideas on how to celebrate Grand Final Day (Australian Rules Football).
• Highlighting children’s achievements at the end of the school year.

More serious issues can then be brought up in this positive environment. Mr I and myself have brought up things like:

• Packing up one game, before going on to another.
• Leaving food scraps like apple cores around the house.
• Managing birthday party celebrations.
• Respecting each others need for private time.

We tend to state the problem and then open the discussion for solutions, leaving our opinions to last. Hopefully we can come to a resolution without the need for too much parent input.

CHILDREN’S INPUT
In terms of what the children bring to the meeting, it is helpful if you have the minutes book easily accessible. We use the back of the minutes book to note down issues that the children may bring to me during the fortnight (we are currently having fortnightly meetings).

This works wonderfully well in two key ways:

• It places responsibility for resolving the problem on to the child.
• It stops the complaining as they know it will be addressed seriously at the next family meeting.

There is an amazing range of issues that my children have brought to the family meetings and I have noted some of them below:

• Thinker wanted to stay up later on school nights.
• Possum wanted Babaganouski to stop pulling her hair.
• Little Rascal no longer wanted to have a bath with his younger brother and sister.
• Little Rascal wanted to make something out of wood.
• Thinker wanted to be able to get up in the middle of the night and watch the Soccer World Cup.
• Thinker wanted to go the beach.
• Possum wanted to see dad’s work.
• Little Rascal wanted to go fishing.

No doubt any or all of these items could have been solved outside a family meeting and there is certainly times when these types of issues are resolved instantly and amongst only two family members. Part of the point of the family meetings for the younger children is to get them to understand how they work, what they are for and how they should behave in them.

Another reason why the children will tend to wait and bring these issues up in the family meeting is (I think) for the accountability this places on mum and dad to carry out any actions that they are assigned in the meeting. The previous meetings minutes are reviewed at the start of every family meeting, and mum and dad do have to own up to whether or not the task is completed!

Over the years that we have been conducting family meetings, the children start to bring more serious issues to the table and also with them solutions that they have created themselves to propose for the rest of the family to discuss. We now have in place a framework for communicating in the family, that will make managing a house with five adolescents with competing needs much easier. Everyone will understand the process needed to follow to change/adapt/adopt family practices and to share ideas.

CONSENSUS DECISION MAKING
Consensus decision making is key to successful family meetings. Each family member needs to know that their opinion, regardless of their age is considered with the same weight. Through their knowledge of this, they are far more likely to contribute and to carry out the actions of the family meeting.

Good luck with your family meetings, and I hope you find them as useful and helpful as we do!

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My toddler (Babaganouski) is now showing all the signs of being ready for toilet training. The signs that I have picked up are:

Comes and asks me to change me his nappy when it is wet or soiled.

Can put his own pants on and off.

Tells me he has done a wee or poo.

Wants to stand and do a wee at the toilet with his brothers.

My other three children have all starting using a toilet at different ages, ranging from 2 years old to just before 3 years old. I have waited for not only the child to be ready, but for the timing to be right for me as well.

I have a pretty simple toilet training process that I have used with the other children that I will use again for my toddler. I also go into the toilet training with a flexible attitude - if I have judged the timing wrong, then I will be prepared to pull back if it looks like it is not working.

The toilet training process that I follow is like this:

- Give the toddler some warning that we are going to stop wearing nappies soon and use a toilet.

- Allow the toddler to have some time sitting on the toilet (we have one of those seats with steps that sits on the toilet) when they want to, so they can get used to how it feels.

- Start the first day wearing underpants and only use nappies for sleep time from that point on.

- Ensure that we have a few consecutive days when we are at home a lot or in an environment where it will be okay if there are accidents.

- Ask the toddler regularly if they need to wee or poo.

- Keep a closer eye on toddler, looking for signs that they need to use the toilet.

- Endure a number of days of cleaning up wee and poo mishaps until it comes together for them.

Using this toilet training process I have found success within the week. Of course there is occasional accidents (especially when they are engrossed in an interesting activity) and times I will still need to remind the toddler to go to the toilet, but I have found they once they are free of nappies, they tend to get the process relatively quickly.

I am waiting until we start school holidays (Friday) before I start toilet training our toddler. Knowing that I was going to be revisiting this process, it was with great interest that I read an extract from Professor Joshua Gans new book “Parentonomics: An Economist Dad’s Parenting Experience“. The extract from Jans was published in the Sunday Life magazine from The Sunday Age. It detailed his experience of toilet training his little girl.

When Gans and his partner started the toilet training process, they immediately used jelly beans as “incentives. One for “number ones” and two for “number twos”. This worked for a while but eventually they needed to increase the incentive to chocolate frogs. Once this had happened they then found that their daughter had worked out how to manipulate the system (lots of frequent small toilet sessions) to increase her incentive intake. In the end they ceased using rewards and Gans concluded:

“the management process was painful and I can’t prove whether this wouldn’t have all happened of its own accord anyway, without rewards.”

I do have a business background in both theory and practice (which all seems so very long ago now!) and found it interesting that a Professor of Economics would overlook the importance of intrinsic vs extrinsic motivators in human behaviour.

When Mr I was completing his Masters in Business, he studied in detail concepts of motivating behaviour. When I starting to read about intrinsic motivation in parenting articles, we found it amusing how we were effectively studying the same aspects of human behaviour, just on very different age scales. I think using extrinsic motivators on any age group can be detrimental to the original aim and needs to be considered carefully before being initiated.

What has been your experience with toilet training your toddler and do you have any tips for success?

Postscript: I have just proof read this post and can’t quite believe that I have written a post that contains the words poo and wee so many times!

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A blog that I like to read regularly Education Innovation, put me on to an article from the Boston Globe which was detailing the research from scientists on the importance of daydreaming.

The article Daydream Achiever I found interesting not only from the perspective of current education processes and my own children, but from my own childhood and even my current tendency to daydream.

In the article they talk about a new line of thought being taken towards day dreaming:

“Many scientists argue that daydreaming is a crucial tool for creativity, a thought process that allows the brain to make new associations and connections. Instead of focusing on our immediate surroundings - such as the message of a church sermon - the daydreaming mind is free to engage in abstract thought and imaginative ramblings.”

They use the example of Arthur Fry who whilst day dreaming through a sermon came up with the idea for sticky notes (post it notes). While I do not come up with such useful inventions, it is my moments where I let my mind wander when I will come up with new ideas for how to make things run smoothly for the family, think of solutions to issues that I may have with the children or for an idea for a post for my blog.

As a child, I was renown for often day dreaming and straying from task, lost in my own thoughts. Thinker also has this tendency.

Teresa Belton, a research associate at East Anglia University in England looked at the relationship between creative thinking and daydreaming in children.

“After monitoring the daily schedule of the children for several months, Belton came to the conclusion that their lack of imagination was, at least in part, caused by the absence of “empty time,” or periods without any activity or sensory stimulation. She noticed that as soon as these children got even a little bit bored, they simply turned on the television: the moving images kept their minds occupied.”

With countless channels to watch or games to play on their consoles their isn’t time for the boredom to creep in and create an environment for day dreaming.

“The capacity to daydream enables a person to fill empty time with an enjoyable activity that can be carried on anywhere,” Belton says. “But that’s a skill that requires real practice. Too many kids never get the practice.”

I have posted previously on how I feel my kids need time to get bored, so they are inspired to create new games etc to keep themselves amused. This current research gives me just another reason not to fill the void for my children if they tell me they “have nothing to do”, but to allow them the time to practice their creativity skills.

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A lovely reader of Planning With Kids, “Lifewith3boyz” wrote me a great email recently and one of the questions she asked me was:

“I was also wondering what sort of discipline tools you use. What happens in your house when someone does the wrong thing.”

I find the subject of discipline a really interesting one when it comes to children. I think the word itself brings up different meanings to different people. To answer this question, I thought I would first share a definition of discipline that I feel most aligned to, then give a brief description of some of the theory that I have used a base for my parenting and then give some examples of what I do when my children “do the wrong thing”.

THE THEORY

Disciplining your child means teaching them responsible behaviour and self-control. With appropriate and consistent discipline, your child will learn about consequences and taking responsibility for their own actions. The ultimate aim is to encourage the child to control themselves and manage their own behaviour.

Source: Better Health Channel

This is my aim with my children. Discipline does not equate to punishment for me. If you look at the roots of the word discipline, it comes from the word ‘disciple’, meaning ‘to teach’.

But I do have to admit that I find discipline is by far the hardest part of parenting. Getting the balance of children to behave considerately and encouraging them to have regulate their own behaviour is not always easy.

As a parent when we read parenting books, some stick with us more than others and a number of years ago I came across a book that really helped me define the discipline I wanted to have for my children.

I have talked about this book previously on the website and it is by Louise Porter and titled “Children are People Too - a parent’s guide to young children’s behaviour.” It is a book that I still go back to frequently and would probably name it as my most useful parent book that I own.

It was from this book that I grasped the concept of considerate behaviour in children as opposed to children doing as they are told. Porter points out that teaching children to be compliant and obedient is actually quite dangerous on three counts:

(1). Sexual abuse: children need to know that they can and sometime should say no.

(2). Bullying: often involves one ringleader talking their friends into teasing or hurting another child.

(3). Societies: would be safer if people did not follow commands of brutal and violent dictators.

Discipline is therefore most potent when it teaches children how to behave coniserately through:

(1). Self disciplne. They need to practice at regulating their own behaviour.

(2). Expressing their feelings appropriately.Part of childhood’s journey involves moving from acting on every feeling they have to learning to choose when and how to express their emotions.

(3). Co-operating with others. Children live in a family and are part of a community. Children need to learn that achieve tasks and function effectively cooperation is required by all.

(4). Potency. Children need to believe that they can make a difference by the decisions they make in their life. That is “children would not only know right from wrong but would feel pwerful enough to act on their knowledge.”

THE PRACTICAL
So what do I do when my children don’t behave considerately? This does happen in our house and some days it can happen frequently!

I think that it is essential to set up the foundations (the old prevention is better that cure philosophy ) that will create a nurturing environment within which children have the opportunity to feel safe, loved and can behave considerately. In reality this means that as parents we need to:

Be consistent but not inflexible with the children.

Have clear expectations about what is considerate behaviour.

Have defined responsibilities within the house.

Have a routine which provides a framework for the children to operate in.

Role model considerate behaviour.

When inconsiderate behaviour arises my response will vary slightly depending on the age of the child involved. There are a range of responses that I use, but below I list the two most frequently used strategies for the defined age groups. (Please note that the strategies used are mostly derived from Porter’s book.)

Toddler and Preschooler
Bring Them In Close- This strategy I use for tantrums of all types and sizes. This strategy needs to be explained in advance to children about how you will react when they lose control of themselves and especially when you start this, you need to be consistently doing it for every episode that occurs.

Losing control of themselves is in essence what has happened to a child when they have a tantrum and I find it really helps to look at this way, as opposed to thinking that they are “just trying to manipulate me” or “screaming until I give in”.

So if my preschooler “loses it” I will bring her in close and sit her on my knee and tel her that I am you going to help her get herself calm. I am signaling to her that this behaviour is not considerate and needs to be changed. Depending on the size of the tantrum bringing them in close may just involve a cuddle and holding her for a time until she has recomposed herself.

For other tantrums though, their will be a struggle to get away from me and more yelling and tears. I need to remain calm and gently increase the firmness of my hold (NB. This never means hurting or using holding her as a punishment). Then with as few words as possible, I explain to her that I know she can get herself calm and I will just wait for her to do this. I find less talk is better when children have lost control of themselves.

As the preschooler calms, I also relax the firmness of the hold and it turns into a cuddle. I have found that from past experience, that you really do need to wait until this point of calmness before letting them go, other wise the chance of the behaviour being repeated is very high.

Once she is calm, we then go about life as normal. I do not reprimand her further as the emotional toll of the tantrum and the calming process is enough.

Repeating Myself
These age groups love to go on and on and on, sometimes, completely indifferent to my response. If they are asking for something that I have said no to and my response is reasonable, I simply stick to it and repeat it.

I like to make sure that the children know that I understand them, but there is a valid reason for my permission not being granted on this occasion. For example when the toddler asks for crackers as I am finishing off dinner, I will say something along the lines of:

” I know that you are hungry and am sorry you have to wait. Dinner will be ready in five minutes, so I will need you to wait until then for something to eat.”

If the requests continues, with genuine feeling (parroting this phrase ad nausea will just increase frustration) I will repeat my response along the lines of this. He will either get sick of this or it may turn into a full blown tantrum, which if this is the case, I will then deal with using the above strategy!

School Age Children
“I feel” statements
This is really my way of sending an assertive message to my children. The theoretical form is:
When you (do such and such)
I feel (xxxx)
Because (my rights are being violated in this way).

In reality is sounds a little something like this:

“I feel frustrated when you do not do your jobs without being reminded, because then I have to stop what I am doing and spend time finding you and reminding you do it.”

Collaborative Problem Solving
Quite often when one of the older boys is doing something which I feel is not considerate to my feelings or another family members, I will ask them what they think a solution is that would be acceptable to all involved.

It is amazing how often they will come up with a solution that I feel meets my needs and that they are also happy with. Sometimes with the younger school age children, they may need some help via questioning or exploring the issue to come up with the solution, but by working through it together, the outcome is resolved with everyone feeling that their needs were taken into account.

If this form of discipline interests you, Louise Porter has a down loadable article on Guiding Children’s Behaviour, which I can highly recommend.

So how do you deal with inconsiderate behaviour in your house?

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Having been completely focused on the 30 Day Challenge this month, I haven’t had much time to think about the pregnancy. It was wonderful then today to see our new little one during the ultrasound.

The photo above is not of our little one, but is roughly what our little one looks like right about now. So far all has been kind to me this pregnancy and am hoping like the others it will continue this way.

I really should start thinking about names though. Can anyone recommend a good baby names website. I did a Google search and there seems soooooo many, so I’d love any personal recommendations for baby naming sites that are easy to use.

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This is part 4 in a review of the wonderful book on adolescent boys “He’ll be Ok: Growing gorgeous boys into good men” by Celia Lashlie.

If you would like to read the previous posts, you will find them here:

He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 1)
He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 2)
He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 3)

Men’s Business: Letting It Happen
Lashlie through out the book has been very clear that during adolescence it is very much the time for mothers to move over and allow fathers a more active role. I have to be honest then and admit that I was at first disappointed to read the following in this chapter:

“I have absolutely no intention of telling men what to do”

Instead Lashlie explains:

“My main intention, in straying into the wolrd of fathers when this book is written primarily for mothers, is to honour men - their humour, their intuition, their strength and, above all else, their maleness.”

So in this chapter Lashlie tells stories of how the world looks from the perspective of an adolescent boy and reveals comments from boys on what they would like from their fathers.

After finishing the book, I do have a better appreciation for why the author took this approach and to an extent it is her example that I will have to follow during this period. I will need to trust my partner that he will step up and fill the needs of our adolescent boys, and will do so capably and without the need for my overt influence.

It doesn’t mean that I won’t have a role to play, it just means my role changes.

“Where at all possible raising a boy should be a partnership between his mother and father.”

For dad’s through the stories that Lashlie tells, the following themes become very clear:

“Your sons want you to step up, elbowing their mothers aside if you need to.”

“Your boys don’t want you to be anyone else; they just want you to be their dad.”

“All he wants is your time, even if it’s just five minutes a day>”

Growing a Good Man What It Takes
This book grew out of The Good Man Project which Lashlie ran through schools in New Zealand. An aim of the project was to establish an agreed definition of a good man.

However it was agreed by the school principals involved in the project that what they were looking for was far too fluid to be defined in a phrase or few words. (Out of interest the top three qualities listed by boys to make a good man were trust, loyalty and a sense of humour.)

Lashlie makes a concise summary at the end of the chapter about what are some key issues for adolescent boys and she has this last piece of advice on how to get our boys safely through this challenging period:

“What we have to remember is that we can only do it, mothers and fathers, parents and step parents, paretns and teachers, if we hold hands. We can’t do it alone.”

Technorati Tags: adolecence, fathers, mothers, parenting

• He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 3)
• He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 2).
• He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 1).
• What To Expect When You Are Expecting An Adolescent

Image: Leonid Manchenkov

This is part 3 in a review of the wonderful book on adolescent boys “He’ll be Ok: Growing gorgeous boys into good men” by Celia Lashlie.

If you would like to read the previous posts, you will find them here:

He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 1)
He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 2)

Intuition and Wisdom: The Hidden Gifts
If you are the mother of a gorgeous boy in year 9, then this chapter is a must read. It will give you hope that they will indeed grow out of the monosyllabic stage. Lashlie in her conversations with year 12 boys was often

“taken aback by their ability to talk in depth and with amazing insight about hte hard issues.”

Stop Making His Lunch: What Mothers Should Do
This is a very forthright chapter from the author. Lashlie’s own personal experience, coupled with the experience from the Good Man Project showed her that:

Mothers, particularly white middle class mothers, are overly involved in the lives of their adolescence sons.

The need for mothers to take a lesser role in this time of her sons life, is a constant theme through out the book. So what is it that we should be doing then? Lashlie has these tips for us:

In the context if what else is happening in the life of an adolescent boy, does it really matter that there were clothes thrown on the spare bed in his room?

Every bit of information you push into his head before he turns 13 and the testosterone starts to move stays in there and will eventually re-emerge.

The first decision he makes should be nothing more significant than deciding to get out bed to make his own lunch so that he doesn’t spend the day hungry. It shouldn’t and doesn’t need to be deciding to put his foot on the accelerator, running a red light and dying.

The advice that Lashlie gives in this chapter does fit already with my philosophy as a parent. That is, to let children do what they are capable of. I do know though, that I will have to work on leaving some of the “small stuff” alone, like a messy bedroom, messy school bag and propensity to leave things to the last minute.

When His Father Isn’t There: The Single Mother’s Journey
Lashlie herself was a single parent, so is well qualified to talk about this issue. Again she notes that if she had the knowledge that she had now, she would have done many things differently with her own son.

I assumed that to ask for help would be to admit failure in the raising of my son. Asking for help from good men would have made the journey easier.

Next week is the final part of this series on He’ll Be Ok. After having Lashlie tell us how important it is for mothers to move aside and allow fathers to play a bigger part in the life of their adolescent son, we finally get to hear her advice to them. I have to say, it wasn’t what I expected.

Technorati Tags: adole, parenting

• He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 4)
• He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 2).
• He’ll Be Ok: Growing Gorgeous Boys Into Good Men (Part 1).
• Ten Things We Should Never Say To Kids.