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Issue 11
magazine Helping today’s parents raise exceptional kids S TO TEACH YOUR KID
SHRUG!
FIVE STEPS
TO STAYING SAFE Page 14
SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS Page 04
WHY SOME OF THE BEST LEARNING FOR OUR KIDS OCCURS OUTSIDE SCHOOL Page 06
TIPS FOR SRUGGLING KIDS Page 10
MOMENTS
TO BE TREASURED Page 16
The secret to having resilient, confident and optimistic children is to teach your kids to shrug!
An essential guide to raising children in the 21st century. Available now in paperback or digital version at the parentingideas.com.au shop.
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Welcome to the eleventh edition of Parentingideas magazine, designed to give you up-to-date advice and to make your parenting easier. E MICHAEL GROS
Modern children can find themselves under a lot of pressure. Rates of depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses in young people are increasing. Expectations are sky high. A big part of the problem is that kids have never learnt the ability to shrug things off. My article Teach your kids to Shrug! helps you prepare kids for the downs as well as the ups of life. While on the subjects of preparing kids to be successful, my second article in this edition focuses on promoting tolerance in children. Believe it or not, kids who accept differences in others are setting themselves up for success in the world of diversity that they will enter.
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About Michael Grose Michael is widely regarded as Australia’s No. 1 parenting educator. The author of eight books for parents his latest Thriving! has been described “as the new roadmap for raising 3-12 year olds with confidence, character and resilience.” He supports over 1,000 Australian schools and hundreds and thousands of parents with his practical, easy-to-read resources. An in-demand speaker Michael is one of fewer than 100 Certified Speaking Professionals (CSP’s) in Australia. Contact 1800 004 484 to find out how to have Michael liven up your next conference or event. Join thousands of parents and follow MichaelGroseParenting on Facebook.
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Have you spoken to your kids about gay relationships yet. If you are still to have this conversation then Parentingideas journalist Karen Fontaine’s article ‘Making same-sex part of the conversation’ will have you wondering why you haven’t had this conversation before. It’s a great piece about a very pertinent topic. With the school holidays around the corner two articles fit in the ‘must-read’ category. Dr. Jenny Brockis has written a thoughtprovoking article about how you can keep your children brain-fit during the holidays. And Jenny’s not suggesting rocket-science. Good old-fashioned fun and games will help keep their brains fit and raring to go for when they get back to school. Any parent who has temporarily lost a child will know what sheer panic feels like. That makes Catherine Gerhardt’s article a real boon. She shows you five easy steps to teach your child to follow if they get lost. These steps are applicable to kids of all ages, in all different environments. We all know that kids say the darndest things about their parents. Earlier this year Ninja Dad, aka Malcolm Dix, got the shock of his life during a kinder talk when his four year old son revealed far more than he was prepared for. As you’ll read the results were far-reaching. Time & Space’s Bill Jennings just had a fatherly moment that he wasn’t quite prepared for. His teenage son finally got the better of his dad….and Bill couldn’t have been prouder. As always, Bill’s article is a great read. This is the final Parentingideas magazine for this year. The previous editions are still on the parentingideas website for you to read. And they’re free. All the very best for the holiday season to you and your family. Enjoy!
Michael Grose PS: If you enjoy this edition of Parentingideas magazine then do all the writers a favour and PASS IT ON to a friend, colleague or family member. Email it with a personalised message. Best of all, It’s FREE!
Issue 11 Page 1
TEACH YOUR KIDS TO SHRUG! The secret to having resilient, confident and optimistic children is to teach your kids to shrug! BY MICHAEL G ROSE
It was so irritating, yet so effective. I’m talking about my boyhood mate Terry’s habit of shrugging his shoulders whenever anyone teased him or tried to persuade him to their way of thinking. ‘Hey Terry, you’re a **&&&E@@!’ Shrug. ‘Hey Terry, everyone says your……..*&&TR!’ Shrug. ‘Hey Terry, I’m going to tell on you!’ Shrug. His nonchalance used to drive everyone nuts! So much so that he was rarely targeted for teasing despite the fact that he wasn’t sporty, he wasn’t cool and he was late maturing – all of which back then, as now, would put a boy in the ‘to be picked on’ category. I thought of Terry recently when I was coaching a young person about how to respond to some schoolyard taunts. This young person wore his heart on his sleeve, taking taunts and even witticisms too seriously for his own good. Unfortunately, some of his so-called mates used to enjoy seeing him become angry. The best way to break this toxic cycle of taunt-reacttaunt was for him to change his reaction. So we did some coaching in the art of shrugging and before long my young charge was shrugging his shoulders, as if to say ‘Whatever’, and walking away
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at the first sign of a taunt. Eventually he was channelling Terry so well that his nonchalance even began to irritate me.
Some things can’t be ignored Don’t get me wrong. Kids cannot and should not ignore all negative comments directed at them. There are times when they need to stand up and be counted. They don’t need to be aggressive about it, but they do need to be assertive from time to time. Sticking up for a friend, rescuing someone who is being taunted or even looking out for a sibling’s best interests at school are times when children need to assert themselves rather than shrugging off a problem. the
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Kids practise on their siblings Socially savvy kids know that some of the negative peer comments directed at them need to be ignored. However, this is quite a skill. Ignoring comments and choosing your arguments is something many kids learn in their battles with siblings. Those noisy sibling skirmishes that annoy the hell out of parents actually toughen kids up for the less-thanpleasant social interactions that take place in the schoolyard. Interestingly, my boyhood mate Terry was the youngest of four brothers. I guess he would have perfected the art of shrugging out of sheer necessity. So, if you have a sensitive child who wears his or her heart on their sleeve, or a child who reacts impulsively to both taunts and witticisms alike, you may wish to introduce the art of shrugging into their repertoire of responses.
How to create a good shrug Kids can practise shrugging in front of the mirror so that they can see what a good shrug looks like. There are 4 ingredients: 1. A ‘whatever’ look. 2. A shrug of the shoulders. 3. A simple, non-combative, non-sarcastic line such as ‘You may be right’, ‘Whatever’ or ‘I hadn’t thought of that’. 4. A final breaking of eye contact that indicates that they are in control.
A word of warning If you teach your kids to shrug, you need to be prepared for them to use this shrugging technique against you when you direct some criticism or constructive feedback their way. If they do, you’ll find out how damn infuriating nonchalance (even when it’s fake) can be. Oh, and you’ll be seeing a child or young person who is exercising a degree of personal power that, when used smartly, will increase their overall social effectiveness.
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THE ART OF SHRUGGING
You can get more ideas to help you raise confident, resilient kids in Michael Grose’s NEW book ‘Teach your kids to shrug!’ It’s available in paperback or digital format at the book shop at parentingideas.com.au
Michael Grose, Parentingideas Michael Grose is the founder of Parentingideas, Australia’s No. 1 parenting education provider. parentingideas.com.au office@parentingideas.com.au facebook.com/parentingideas.com.au
Issue 11 Page 3
MAKING SAME-SEX PART OF THE CONVERSATION BY KARE N FO
NTAINE
Teaching young children about gay relationships is not about sex, it’s about painting a true picture of the diverse ways in which different people live and love, writes Karen Fontaine
from his six-year-old perspective, ‘gets’ it. It’s as trivial to Noah that Mark has chosen David as it is that he prefers mint-chocolate-chip icecream to vanilla. He’s not yet mature enough to articulate it, but Noah understands that when you love someone, gender is irrelevant. The inclusiveness Noah is absorbing goes to the very heart of the ways children can and should be taught about the manifold ways the world works, says Dr Lynne Hillier, Adjunct Associate Professor at La Trobe University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. Teaching primary-school-aged kids about gay issues is not about sex, it’s about fair representation – and normalising same-sex relationships is important because the greater knowledge children have of the different ways in which people live and love, the better, Dr Hillier says.
There are many things our six-year-old son Noah cares deeply about. Food, Luna Park, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, Slip n Slide, and his family are just five of his “best favourite” things. One thing he couldn’t care less about is that Uncle Mark, my best friend and his beloved godfather, is gay. Noah doesn’t know the word ‘gay’ and he doesn’t need to. What he does know is that Uncle Mark loves Uncle David. Noah sees Mark and David regularly, proudly exhibits his latest paintings on their fridge and goes to their home for Star Wars movie marathons and sleepovers. In January, Noah will bust his best dance moves at their wedding. Noah wants to be near Mark and David and their love because they make him feel safe and special and part of a wider family. Noah knows his Mama and Dadda are married because they love each other above all others – and so it is with his uncles. They love each other, too, and Noah knows it, sees it and,
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Sex doesn’t even necessarily need to form a part of the conversation. “When discussing homosexuality with younger children, it’s as appropriate to leave sex out of the equation as it is to leave sex out of a discussion about heterosexuality,” Dr Hillier says. “The same rules apply, whether talking about sex, love, families or relationships.” As Dr Hillier concedes, many parents find talking with their offspring about any kind of sex difficult, but the best and most valuable learning about sexuality happens in the home. “We need to remember that so much of this is not about sex – it’s about representing the world to your children the way it is and not perhaps the way it was represented to you, bleaching out all of those fears, misconceptions and stereotypes that make homosexuality a scary thing rather than a normal and natural thing,” she says. Certainly, same-sex couples are becoming more comfortable about disclosing their relationships, and the recently released NATSEM report showed that in the past
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10 years, the number of same-sex couples has increased 73 per cent to 33,714 households. The majority of Australians also support equal rights for same-sex couples, according to the report by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM), a research centre within the University of Canberra. A strong growth in support among older Australians lifted the national level to 65 per cent approval rating for samesex equality. Studies have shown that when families talk frankly with children about sex and sexuality, it contributes to greater openness on this topic and, eventually, improved sexual health among young people. Joel Radcliffe is a Project Officer for the Safe Schools Coalition Victoria (SSCV), a groundbreaking program in operation for the past three years which aims to make all schools safe and supportive places for same-sexattracted, intersex and gender-diverse students, teachers and families. Normalising same-sex relationships among primaryschool-aged children was a way to stamp out the homophobia that, even today, remains rife in schools, Joel says. According to the latest survey conducted by Dr Hillier’s team at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS), 75 per cent of the 3,200 participants had experienced abuse or discrimination on the basis of their sexuality, the vast majority of it taking place at school. “It’s amazing to see really young primary-school-aged kids take the lead with this stuff – they tend to deal with it a lot more swiftly than adolescents and teenagers,” Joel says. “A lot of the stuff in the curriculum in Australia isn’t mandated to be taught until year 9/10 but if these subjects haven’t been raised in classrooms up until that point it can become very awkward and uncomfortable and difficult to broach.”
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Joel says: “Our advice to parents is to keep it uncomplicated. Of course you can talk about love and relationships with your children, from as young an age as they can understand, and it’s really important to do that so that children are forming ideas and using language around relationships from the moment they can speak.” As an example, Joel pointed to a colleague who has a powerful and age-appropriate activity that she does with primary-school-aged students. “Using felt figures, she sits down with Kindy kids and talks about how, ever since the beginning of time, people have fallen in love and hearts have come together,” Joel says. “She goes on to say that ever since the beginning of time some of those hearts have been girls’ hearts with boys’ hearts and some have been two boys’ hearts and some have been two girls’ hearts. She tells the kids that that’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it will always be, forevermore. It’s a really nice, simple way to have a four- or five-year-old-friendly conversation about sexual diversity.” Dr Hillier provides the following tips for parents wishing to discuss gay relationships with their primary-schoolaged children: 1. Search your own beliefs and values. “You need to look at the teaching you have been given,” says Dr Hillier. “Look at what you have been told and then you need to question it, because so much of what you have been told is totally inaccurate and much of people’s fears are based on these unsubstantiated inaccuracies.” 2. Forget the fear. “Fear should have no place in this.” 3. Keep it equal. “Whatever you do with regard to discussing heterosexual relationships and families, you can and should do the same with gay relationships and families.”
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WHY SOME OF THE BEST LEARNING FOR OUR KIDS OCCURS OUTSIDE SCHOOL BY JENNY
BROCKIS
Holidays are fun times right! BUT they are also times of fantastic learning if you know what to look out for.
It’s holiday time. Yay! But along with the exhaustion that often accompanies the end of the school year, parents can also feel anxious, wondering how to fill in all that time and keep the kids entertained. The one phrase that every parent dreads hearing is “I’m bored!” Perhaps you have already organised the family holiday, some excursions, some extra sessions of sport or dancing or the vacation swimming lessons. But the one thing that kids need more than anything else over the summer break is time out. Time to just chill. Having time for play is important because it promotes intellect, problem solving, emotional resilience and social interaction.
Young brains develop at a phenomenal rate and at school our kids learn how to study effectively, how to stay focused and how to successfully navigate their way through a very busy curriculum. Holiday time provides the stage for a different sort of learning – learning of the sort that comes through exploration of the world at large through unstructured play. Unstructured play is play that is initiated, organised and developed by kids themselves. Previous generations of children enjoyed far greater freedom of unstructured play, often being allowed to roam freely from morning to dusk, climbing trees, riding bikes and generally just hanging out with each other. Today, in a different world, parents are much more wary of allowing children to play without close supervision. Modern technology with online games and movies can be
IT’S HOLIDAY TIME. YAY! Issue 11 Page 6
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seen as an easy and appealing option, but it doesn’t provide the same mental and physical benefits that unstructured play does. That’s not to say they shouldn’t spend any time playing video games or watching television, but just be mindful that a couple of hours allocated to watch one movie doesn’t turn into a whole day in front of the screen. Ideally children need to be outside playing for at least one hour every day, with twice as much time spent in unstructured play as in structured activities. This will encourage your children’s sense of adventure, curiosity and willingness to try out new ideas.
What does play teach our kids? 1. Teamwork If you have ever watched children organising their own games, you will see how quickly they reach agreement about what the game will be, decide the rules, work out the sequence and even manage the sometimes tricky and different perspectives of all participants. 2. Social skills
can come up all sorts of great ideas and novel ways to entertain themselves. 2. Allow play that includes physical activity, being outdoors and minimal adult supervision. Allowing kids to experience risk including grazed knees, falls from bikes and climbing trees creates a greater connection with the outside world, teaches perseverance and provides the feel good reward of final success. 3. Encourage creative play using dress ups, household items such as jam jars, plastic pots, paper towel tubes, spare buttons and items foraged from outside such as feathers, shells and leaves. It’s okay to get dirty. 4. Allow sleepovers. Promote that sense of wonder and curiosity of what they can explore and discover through play. Maybe try some camping out in the garden overnight. 5. Include yourself. Who says that only kids can have fun with play? Spending time playing with kids is great for us grown ups too, strengthening the parent–child bond. Enjoy a wonderful, playful and happy summer.
It’s not unusual to hear arguments and disagreements occurring during play. Allowing your child to resolve these conflicts themselves is great learning in how to get on with others and value individual differences. 3. Emotional resilience Play is great for reducing stress and anxiety. When absorbed in a game, children are relaxed. Working things out for themselves during play – while creating a cubby house, mastering new skills on the monkey bars or putting together a model – teaches resilience and self-confidence. 4. Innovation and problem solving Imaginative play such as dragon slaying, talking with imaginary friends and dressing up as favourite characters and super heroes promotes innovation, creativity and self-belief. Building these types of thinking skills enhances the problem solving and decision making that are vital for dealing with our increasingly complex and challenging adult world.
Tips to increase unstructured play time.
Jenny Brockis, Brain Fitness
1. Allow time for ‘boredom’. It can be very tempting as parents to jump in and organise activities for our children – we are so used to doing it!
Dr Jenny is a brain fitness specialist and author of the book Brain Fit! and Brain Smart. She writes a blog and a regular newsletter, Brain Fit with Dr Jenny. She is mum to two young adults.
However, having unorganised time allows a child to experience the joy of not having to be continually busy and fosters self-reliance. Left to their own devices, our kids
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Issue 11 Page 7
TOLERANCE: A VITAL INGREDIENT FOR YOUR CHILD’S SUCCESS Kids who accept differences in others are setting themselves up for success in the world of diversity that they will enter. BY MICHAEL G ROSE
Want your child to be successful way past the confines of the school gate? Then you need to make sure your child is tolerant of individual differences and accepting of children and adults who look and act differently to them. There’s no doubt that success in today’s world depends on the ability to understand, appreciate and work with others. The child who is open to differences is likely to have more opportunities in school, in business and in life in general. Schools are diverse places Walk into any school ground in Australia and you’ll witness diversity firsthand. You’re likely to see children from many different cultural, racial and family backgrounds. You’ll also see kids with different needs and diverse ways of expressing themselves. Some kids will wear their hearts on their sleeves, while others will be taciturn and quiet. Tolerant kids are accepting of these differences. They make friends with children and young people who may look and act differently to them. Intolerance breeds bullying Intolerance, or prejudice, is at the heart of a great deal of the bullying that occurs among children and young people. Kids who look and act differently or who are more isolated often experience bullying for no apparent reason other than the fact that they are ‘different’. Whole-hearted acceptance and even appreciation of differences is a preventative bullying measure that we can all support.
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Tolerance starts at home Kids learn attitudes such as tolerance from those around them. Children in primary school usually reflect the attitudes of their parents. While adolescents are strongly influenced by their peers, parental attitudes still have a significant impact on their attitudes to other people. In short, if you want your child to be accepting of differences – whether they are racial, cultural, behavioural or in sexual orientation – then make tolerance a family trait. Here’s how:
Help your child feel accepted, respected, and valued. When your child feels good about himself, he is more able to treat others respectfully. Model acceptance. Kids learn what they live so make sure you welcome differences in others, and be sensitive to cultural or racial stereotypes. It also helps on a practical level to discuss prejudice and stereotypes when they occur in the media. Challenge prejudice or narrow-minded views. Sometimes kids, knowingly or unknowingly, can say the cruellest things about others. As a parent respectfully remind your child or young person about the impact that a narrow view can have on his or her own behaviour as well as on those it may be directed towards. Intolerance of diversity is an attitude that parents should make a stand against. Answer kids’ questions about differences honestly and respectfully. Teach your kids that it is acceptable to notice and discuss differences as long as it is done with respect. Respect individual differences within your own family. Your ability to accept your children’s differing abilities, interests and styles will go a long way towards establishing an attitude of tolerance in the children themselves. By valuing the uniqueness of each member of your family you are teaching your kids to value the strengths in others, no matter how diverse. Modern Australia is such a wonderful culturally-rich place. This diversity is part of its magic. One way to make sure our children fully appreciate this richness is to fully embrace tolerance in everything we do.
KIDS LEARN ATTITUDES SUCH AS TOLERANCE FROM THOSE AROUND THEM.
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Michael Grose, Parentingideas Michael Grose is the founder of Parentingideas, Australia’s No. 1 parenting education provider. parentingideas.com.au office@parentingideas.com.au facebook.com/parentingideas.com.au
Issue 11 Page 9
HELPING KIDS WHO STRUGGLE AT SCHOOL DENT BY MAGGIE
School doesn’t come easily for every child – about 30% of children struggle. Here are some valuable tips to help children who find school a challenge.
NAPLAN results and top rankings on the MySchool website. However, lots of educators tell me that they also get pressure from parents who do not understand how critical non-formal learning is early on. The rise in aggressive behaviour being exhibited by many younger children, mainly boys, is a sign they are unable to cope in environments with no opportunity to play, no fun, little movement and developmentally inappropriate tasks. We then penalise these children by suspending or expelling them. The latest COAG Reform Council report on education, released in October 2013, shows that despite some improvements in overall outcomes, the gap for Indigenous children and disadvantaged children is growing ever wider.
More and more in my work, I hear about young children struggling with anxiety, serious behavioural concerns, mental health issues and aggression. At the same time, I am staggered to see the ‘push down’ of formalised learning onto children under six in this country. This is contrary to best practice in early years education and despite a lack of evidence validating any positive influence of early formalised education on young children’s lives. In Issue 9 of Parenting Ideas, I wrote about why play is critical for brain development and social, emotional and cognitive development in young children. The removal of play in kindergarten and preschool in favour of sight words and worksheets, homework and black line markers can be damaging to our children’s ability to function as social beings – which is still our key biological driver. Much of the push seems to be happening to improve schools’ data – misinformed principals seeking good
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When you think that around 30% of children struggle with school anyway, how can parents better support their kids if they are struggling?
Tips for struggling kids The first thing to consider is whether there are any developmental delays. Children mature at varied rates and in all sorts of ways depending on environment and unique genetic templates. Any kid can have developmental delays around phonemic awareness, and these can be helped by being read to a lot, learning nursery rhymes and songs and engaging in lots of conversation. From birth children need to be saturated in sound from humans as they are unable to learn sounds from television, DVDs or screen-based devices like iPads. If the delays are in self-regulation – the ability to manage one’s energy, to be able to concentrate for up to 15 minutes, to sit quietly when asked – you need to identify and reduce the stressors in the affected child’s life.
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CHILDREN MATURE AT VARIED RATES
Things that improve self-regulation include music, sport, real play, time spent in nature and being in safe environments. Things that hinder it are too much television or other screen time, being too passive, poor food, lack of sleep, too much pressure and weak human connectedness. If a child is forced to attempt a task they’re unable to do developmentally, this can cause enormous distress. Take handwriting for four- to five-year-olds: it’s a complex task that many children are unable to do until closer to six. The brain integration required is deceptively complex. When a child cannot do a task like handwriting, or can’t manage to remember sounds or colour within the lines, they often see themselves as dumb or stupid.
things in the shed. This helps them build a healthy sense of self, even if they struggle with maths or learning to read. For older children, investing in tutors and maybe purchasing some technology-based support is well worth the cost. Practice makes perfect and brain plasticity allows for kids to always improve with increased effort. Remember that it must be engaging learning and fun or it will simply make things worse. Finally, if your child is displaying really significant anxiety and distress and you have done your best to work with the school to improve things, then the environment may need to change.
Have realistic expectations of your children and talk to their teachers or school leaders if you feel they are expecting too much. (There are lots of articles on my website you can use as evidence in these conversations.)
We can’t leave kids struggling and just say ‘toughen up’ – otherwise we are just wiring them for hypersensitivity for life, when childhood should be filled with joy and delight.
If it is identified that your child has some delay issues, early intervention is essential, particularly if they are identified as having an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), auditory processing concerns or sight issues.
Maggie Dent
Not all kids are going to do well at school. According to Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory we have at least nine different ways of being smart. Google this to show your children and help them work out ‘which smarts are you?’ If your child is struggling academically it is important to help them at home to be really competent at something! Self-mastery builds confidence – even if it’s tree climbing, stargazing, frog hunting, growing vegies or helping to fix
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Author, educator and speaker dedicated to quietly changing lives through commonsense wisdom. She has four adult sons and is author of five books and numerous resources including a new video seminar on raising boys: Boys, Boys, Boys. Check out her vlogs, newsletter and other resources at www.maggiedent.com info@maggiedent.com www.facebook.com/maggiedentauthor www.twitter.com/queenofcommonse
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HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT You’re never too old to learn. Ninja Dad Malcolm Dix gets an uncomfortable reminder from his four year old son that little eyes are always watching. BY MALCO
LM DIX
Earlier this year, as part of a homework project on ‘My Family’, my son’s kindergarten teacher asked the class to draw a picture of their mum and/or dad. She also asked the kids to answer a number of simple questions as a way of describing their parents to the class (for example: What do you like doing with your dad? What is your mum’s favourite food?). When I saw the finished product, with the picture of the two of us kicking the footy together, along with my son’s cute answers about me, I was chuffed. But that all changed when I saw the answers he’d given to the following questions: 1. What does Daddy like doing when he gets home from work? 2. What does Daddy like to do on the weekend? 3. What is Daddy’s favourite drink?
‘drink beer’ and ‘beer’. OMG. Initially, I laughed and shook my head, as did a few of the other parents who were also ‘dobbed in’ by their angels for drinking booze whilst on the parenting ‘job’. I wanted to say, ‘Come on, they’re kids, right? They just make this stuff up. Surely no one takes these answers seriously? Right? I mean why didn’t the teachers edit their responses in the first place? This is outrageous, somebody call Today Tonight! Your Honour, the teacher is leading the witness!’ Having been publicly shamed and humiliated, that night I joked about it with my partner as I drank…a beer (doh!). But later that same night, I lay in bed and thought to myself: Is this is really the message I’m sending to my kids? If so, bugger, bugger, bugger! At that point I was forced to ask myself three tough questions: Am I being the best dad I can be?
To those three questions my son answered – ‘drink beer’,
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Am I being the best partner I can be? Am I being the best man I can be? The truthful and somewhat painful answer was a resounding NO on all three counts. Despite the last few years of talking, writing, and blogging about raising kids and what it means to be a dad, here I was yarning about one thing and living something else entirely. It was as if certain aspects of my behaviour were hidden in plain sight. Quite simply, I couldn’t see ‘it’ despite it dancing right there in front of me (and dancing rather badly may I say). Thankfully my four-year-old helped point it out. Mind you it still took another month before I got serious about doing something. To be fair, the footy season had just started – for crying out loud, what was a man to do? I can’t watch footy and drink herbal tea. I’m Australian. I grew up in the shadows of giant meat pies, lashings of beer and yelling abuse at umpires. Suddenly all of that was being called into serious question.
Sometimes we parents focus so intently on our kids that we simply forget to look at and after ourselves. Only now do I understand that by looking after myself first, and making that a conscious priority, am I then able to be a pretty darn good dad. Not perfect by any means, but much better. (There’s no such thing as ‘the perfect parent’ by the way, so don’t waste your time trying to be one.) Today, thankfully, ‘Ninja Dad’ has returned with a vengeance. He knows there’s a long way to go, but if the innocent observations of a four-year-old can teach him this much, what’s a five-year-old gonna do in 2014? Oh the mighty possibilities. Who knows, that 12 month time frame might get extended to 24. When you’re on a good thing… Stay sane, stay healthy. Stay laughing. Merry Ho Ho Ho Ninja Dad.
However, over the next few weeks those three questions kept playing over and over in my mind. Eventually I knew if I was serious about being a ‘Ninja Dad’, then I had to either put up or shut up. I decided I was going to stop drinking for a year and see what changes it brought about. I had never gone longer than a few months without a drink and so the idea of twelve months was a little daunting, however as long as the answer to those three questions remained ‘no’, I wasn’t going to be happy. Fast forward to today and I’m now seven months alcohol free. Physically I’ve lost 8 kilos, I’m exercising regularly (often with my kids), and overall I’m feeling a damn sight better. I’ve saved a small fortune and yes, I discovered this winter that I can indeed drink herbal tea and still thoroughly enjoy the footy! But personally, the best outcome by far is that I feel like I’m a much better dad: far more engaged, patient, and aware of how I’m parenting. Apparently I’m also a much more enjoyable partner as well – who would have thunk it?! Furthermore, both she and my mates are delighted with my new-found commitment to health and happiness as they now have a ready-made skipper. All because a four year old shed some light on a part of me that I couldn’t see.
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Malcolm Dix (AKA Ninja Dad) Malcolm is a father of four, Speaker, MC and Corporate Comedian. Read his weekly Ninja Dad blog www.malcolmdix.com
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TEACH KIDS 5 STEPS TO STAYING SAFE BY CATHERINE GE
RHARDT
Despite our best parenting practice there are times when kids get lost in public. Here are five simple steps to teach your child so he can stay safe if he gets lost.
I was in a major department store the other day when I heard over the public address system: ‘Attention customers we have a lost little girl in the store. Her name is Emily and she is wearing pink pants and a purple top. If you find her can you please bring her to the customer service desk at the front of the store.’ I’m sure most of us have encountered this scenario before, and it may have even been our own child who was lost. Without a doubt, the scariest moment we will ever have as parents is the terrifying moment when we realise we have lost our child. I remember it happening to me in a department store – one minute she was there, standing amongst the clothes on the rack, and the next minute she wasn’t. Your stomach lurches, your eyes widen. Panic sets it. In a flash, you are overwhelmed with the thought that your child is gone.
What is important at this point are the ways both you and your child react. A lost child does not have to be as vulnerable as you may think. Luckily most stories of kids who go missing have happy endings. Kids need to learn to make safe choices in these situations. Just as kids practise fire drills at school, we should be able to prepare our children for any potential safety threat by talking about them and practising them. Routine practice, like fire drills, can play a significant role in the successful resolution of an actual emergency. Take the time to talk to your kids about what to do if they become lost. Make sure they understand that if they are lost, they will not be lost forever; that at some point they will be found and reunited with you. This helps them stay calm. However they must also know how to stay safe. Small children should be taught the ‘Five Steps to Staying Safe’ when lost.
Five Steps to Staying Safe Stop As soon as your child realises he is lost, he should stop moving. He should pretend he has cement boots on and is stuck to the ground. Let your child know that the last place you saw him is going to be the first place you start looking, so if he starts wandering around it will be harder for you to find each other. A child should never go anywhere with people he does not know – even security guards. Staff should take you over to him, and not the other way around. Look The child should look around with their eyes, not their
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feet. The child may just have to focus on where they are and who is around them. She should know that you may not be too far away. By taking the time to look around with their eyes, the child will have time to calm down and regroup. Listen Assure your child that you will be calling his name and he should listen for it. If the child hears an announcement, he will know that you are looking for him, and it shouldn’t be too long before he sees you again. It is important that your child understands that they must never go anywhere with anyone without asking your permission first. This is impossible if they can’t find you, so they must stay where they are. Call out Teach your child that when she hears you calling her name, she should call out and tell you where she is. She should then wait until you come to her. If the child does not hear you calling her name, she should call out for you.
A happy ending Like most stories of children who go missing for short periods of time, the story in the department store I was in did have a happy ending: mother and daughter were reunited within minutes. Learning the ‘Five Steps to Staying Safe’, even at a very early age, gives kids their first lessons in personal safety and provides a basis that they can build on as they grow older and take on more responsibility.
Follow Bob-bee through his adventures at the Flea Market and learn the Steps to Staying Safe when he finds himself lost and separated from his mother. Books available through Melbourne@kidproofsafety. com. $15 (includes postage)
Choose someone to help Teach your child to say no if someone – even a shop employee or security officer – approaches him and offers to help by taking him to the office. ‘Never go anywhere with anyone without asking permission’ is a rule that applies even when lost. It would be better for the adult to help the child by alerting management that they have found the child and then wait with him until you arrive. If a child has gone through the first four steps and is still lost, with no offer of help, he then must find someone to help. He must decide who to trust before someone decides for him. So who does he choose? When given the choice, a child should always choose a woman to help. Women, particularly ones with children, are more likely to commit to staying with a child until he is no longer in danger. However, even after the child has chosen to ask a woman for help, the same rule still applies: he is never to go anywhere with anyone without asking first. That rule never changes. It must be kept consistent.
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Catherine Gerhardt, Kidproof Melbourne Kidproof provides proactive and preventative child and family education programs. We work with schools, community groups and other child centric organisations. We provide peace of mind for parents and create safer communities for everyone. www.kidproofsafety.com.au melbourne@kidproofsafety.com 1 300 577 663
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BY BILL J
MOMENTS TO BE TREASURED Kids grow up at the speed of light, but growing up provides moments of parental pride to savour.
a definite pattern emerging in the way our games were going. You hear about how the lion packs in the African Savannah work out who is the boss lion: the old lion often sees off some early challenges but eventually the young lion wins a fight and becomes king of the pride. During that first loss, whilst scrambling to try and maintain my title, I could see that my son was bringing a new strength and pace to the game that I couldn’t match. I promise you, the fight went to the last point but when he won, a wave of pride washed over. He had done it ... gone past his old man. This was a treasured moment.
This year it finally happened. The threat had loomed for a while but when the time came, it kept coming. He proved the next two times we played that his first victory wasn’t a fluke. For about four years now, my 17-year-old son and I have had a regular hit of squash up at our local RSL gymnasium. Up until this year, my title was unchallenged. I’m a bit old school when it comes to the debate about whether you play full tilt or let your kids have a chance against you in competitive games. Especially with our squash games, I have always shown no mercy. And when his turn came, neither did he. You wouldn’t have seen it on the back page of your newspaper and it wasn’t the lead story in sport on the evening news but, in June this year, whilst still 16 years old, Jack beat me 3-2 in a fiercely contested game of squash. He lead 2-0 and I clawed back thinking, ‘I’ve got him’. After that, well, the rest is history. He allowed me only two points as he finished his dad off in the fifth game. I thought, ‘Right... next time, I’ll get him back’. Well, next time, he beat me 4-1 and then for good measure, he got the same score the time after that. There was
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Everyday life goes on. Then something happens that marks a moment in time. Our kids have got to a new stage. These moments don’t have to be contests. They can be moments you become aware of some time after a new change has occurred. My eldest Amber provided another of these moments this year, along with my mum. Amber actually stopped being a teenager this year (by virtue of turning 20). Life is flowing for her: just finished second year university; she’s recently done some housesitting for friends; she has got herself a great steady part-time job and now is driving her own car. She has been forging her own independence. Somewhere along the way, I heard my mum start a sentence that will probably read as fairly ordinary to you. Mum and dad are still in the same house I grew up in. We are now on the other side of town. Mum started, ‘When Amber popped in again the other day...’ Like I said, this probably seems somewhat innocuous to you, but it has always been me or her mother who has driven Amber over to see her grandparents. Now she was ‘popping in’, of her own accord, after uni. When she housesat, she was closer to her grandparent’s house than to ours.
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OUR KIDS HAVE GOT TO A NEW STAGE
Mum explained that Amber had been coming to visit just to say hello. Over the visits, an idea Amber has for a family film project grew. Amber is lucky enough to have a memory of mum’s parents ¬– her great grandparents. My grandpa died in 2002 when Amber was nine. She remembers this kind old man who had lived a tough life. Grandpa grew up in the Depression. He was orphaned and built a life with his own family from this starting point of adversity. Amber is fascinated by her great-grandfather’s story. She has also developed a passion for documentary making at university, so at a recent family gathering she asked everyone to be ready to share their memories of grandpa sometime soon, on camera. Mum told me that she had shared things with Amber that she can’t recall ever telling me or my brothers or sisters. Mum said it was easier to talk to her grand-daughter about the period when she was growing up. My daughter, who it seems just a second ago was a little baby I could hold in one arm, now has her own adult connection with my mum. It is their relationship. Amber’s got her own independent, creative ideas. Of course she has. It might read as obvious but when mum said, ‘When Amber popped over again the other day...’, the sense of another wave of pride washed over. A treasured moment had visited again. Almost invisibly, another stage in your child’s life is progressing to a point where some time soon, you’ll be
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right in the middle of a treasured moment. You’ll feel it right there and then – perhaps being delightfully confronted by the realisation that they have gone past you, like the young bloke did destroying me on the local squash courts. Maybe you’ll become aware sometime after the event – like I did with Amber – realising, ‘wow she seriously is a young adult now ... she has an impressive generous imagination ... she has her own family connections that she can pursue.’ Sure, we drive each other crazy. We get things wrong a lot of the time with our kids. But hey, our kids surprise us. They can delight us with a treasured moment that says they are on the way to being their own person, a young adult.
Tip This is a good time of the year to look back and wonder ... where were those treasured moments for you as a parent, as a mentor to a young person? Give yourself a bit of Time & Space to wonder at the magic of your kids growing up.
Bill Jennings, Time & Space Bill Jennings is Australia’s leading parent-child program facilitator. As director of Time & Space, Bill offers your community exactly that… ‘time & space’ for young people and their parents to share important memories and, in doing that, create a new one. www.time-space.com.au bjennings@time-space.com.au
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