Parent Talk Today

Need a Little Gossip? Just Go to the Grocery Store

It's official. We no longer need soap operas on TV. Want juicy tales of marital cheating, embarrassing (or so you'd think) medical problems, and local gossip? Just walk the aisles of your neighborhood grocery store.

Lately I've overheard — from women talking on cell phones loudly enough to be heard all the way from the granola bars to the Raisin Bran —  all the details about how one mom hates her kid's baseball coach, how another's husband is cheating on her, and how a third is trying to find the right vaginal-itch cream.

Please, people! I'm just trying to buy some bananas. Do I need to hear all the intimate details of your life? (And forget about me. What if your kid's coach or your child's teacher is shopping just one aisle over?)

Of course, the worst part is that many of these people (and, sadly, the vast majority of these yackers seem to be women) have young children in the shopping cart, hearing every word they say. Don't they realize these little people are sponges? That they have ears?

It's so tempting to go up to these women and say something, but what would you say? "Have you talked with a therapist?" "Can I recommend a good gynecologist?" "Was that your coach's wife I just saw in the produce section?"

Check Out My Guest Post at The Simple Marriage Project

I'm excited to be invited to share a guest post over at The Simple Marriage Project today. This blog offers so many inspirational ideas for making marriage better — and a lot more fun.

I haven't yet tried the "21-Day Complaint-Free Marriage Experiment," because, really now, how long would I last? I'm guessing I'd catch myself in a whine of some sort by mid-afternoon on day one.

But maybe that's the point of the experiment: To make myself more mindful of my attitudes and my words. If I give it a shot, I'll let you know. And if you try the experiment yourself, let us know over here how it's going.

And please drop by and check out my guest post, too! Thanks, Corey, for the kind invitation.

Fun Optical Illusions for the Whole Family

I love it when I learn about a website or video that's entertaining and that also teaches something cool. Optical-illusion expert Jerry Andress will amaze you and your kids with this YouTube video showing how what we see depends on how our brain interprets things. Check it out.

Jessica Alba's Pregnancy Style

The folks over at SporkFashion.com scored a fun interview recently. They talked with Jessica Alba about how pregnancy changed her style.  Check out the interview here.

I have to admit that, looking at her, I don't feel all that stylish when I think back to my own maternity clothes. But I love how she talks about taking her skinny jeans (and these are skinny jeans; scroll down on the Spork blog page to see them) and turning them into maternity jeans. She also takes a mini dress and wears it as a top.

While we non-celebrity moms may not be wearing all the latest designer-label ($$$) maternity clothes, we can steal some great tips from this mom-to-be who always looks fabulous. (And I love that Alba mentions that her shoes no longer fit! Boy, can we all relate to that or what?)

Here's Help for Restless Legs Syndrome

Why talk about restless legs syndrome (RLS) in a blog for parents? Because many pregnant women experience RLS symptoms, especially after the 20th week. Children can have the condition, too.

It's bit tough to describe to anyone who hasn't experienced it, but people with RLS often describe it as an unbearably tingly, creepy or even painful feeling deep within the legs.

It's not technically a sleep disorder, but because it often keeps people awake and contributes to big-time insomnia, it is often lumped into this category and is studied by sleep experts.

Happily, the folks at Health.com have put together a wonderful collection of resources on RLS, including terrific videos that explain RLS symptoms, talk about treatment options and much more. Check it out here.

And please help spread the word. The more people know about RLS, the more we can do to encourage research into this condition, which disrupts the lives of so many people.

 

Innocence Lost

"Don't say anything."

My husband placed his hand on my arm as the trio sat down right in front of us in the movie theater at our local mall: a couple and a little girl, about 6, who seemed focused on her popcorn. But the R-rated movie we were watching soon grabbed her full attention.

I bit my tongue, but my insides squirmed as she flinched at scenes that were tough even for adults to watch: a whacked-out teenage girl in a filthy motel room, selling her body for drugs. A man digging his own grave, at gunpoint, before being shot in the head.

When the girl finally fell asleep, I thought of my own son, who still calls out to me in the night when he’s awakened by bad dreams.

What hideous dreams will that little girl be having? And after this night, what could possibly be “too much” for her? Why trouble yourself with holding the line on innocence at all, when your 6-year-old has just been shown how to freebase cocaine?

And these days, it starts much younger than 6. In fact, the sex-and-violence train starts steaming down the track as early as 3 or 4. When my son, Matthew, was in preschool, a 4-year-old boy in his class liked to sing Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” (“I like big butts and I can not lie...”), declaring it his “favorite MTV video.” In kindergarten, several of Matthew’s classmates talked of playing blood-and-guts video games. And in a recent report, ACNielsen listed “Desperate Housewives” as the most-watched television show for 9- to 12-year-olds.

When exposure to sexually explicit material starts so young, what does it take to entertain a teenager? Singer Naomi Judd found out the hard way. A few years ago, Judd was accused of assaulting a male stripper at a Brentwood, Tennessee restaurant, the local paper, The Tennessean, reported. She was upset at seeing the man straddling a teenage girl, police said. Judd reportedly said she placed her hand on the man’s shoulder to tell him to stop, and he lost his balance and fell.

Silly Naomi. Turns out the stripper had been hired by the girl’s parents as a present for her 18th birthday.

While experts certainly fret about youngsters’ exposure to sex, the disturbing increase in school shootings has focused their attention on violence. The American Academy of Pediatrics, along with three other prestigious medical groups, has declared that “viewing violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behaviors, particularly in children” and can cause “emotional desensitization toward violence in real life.”

Less than a week after seeing that R-rated movie, I witnessed this desensitization myself. A murder had taken place in the parking lot of that same upscale mall. A young man allegedly stabbed a 66-year-old woman during a robbery, at lunchtime, in front of several stunned shoppers. The T.V. news showed the woman’s sunglasses and one high-heeled shoe lying on the ground, surrounded by blood and yellow police tape.

A few days later, I spoke to a teenager who works at the mall.

“You must be pretty upset by that woman’s murder,” I said.

“Well, I know this will sound bad,” she replied. “But it’s not like I knew her personally or anything.”

How have our children become so numb to violence that the blood of a fellow human being, staining the asphalt just steps from where she works, can leave so little impression on a 16-year-old girl?

True, most kids don’t wind up in jail. Don’t shoot their classmates. Don’t become pregnant at 12 because of something they saw at the local megaplex back when they still believed in the tooth fairy. But when parents allow a preschooler to memorize lines such as “Watchin’ these bimbos walkin’ like ho’s,” there’s something wrong. When parents care more about catching a popular new movie than about protecting their first-grader from graphic violence, we’ve lost our way. When a 16-year-old is so jaded that the new shipment of Prada handbags gets her heart pumping more than the news of a woman’s stabbing ever could, we’ve reached an all-time low.

Maybe I should have risked embarrassment and stood up for that little girl in the theater before she had to watch a man get shot in the head at point-blank range. Maybe every parent in that room should have said something or done something. But we didn’t.

After all, it’s not like we knew her personally or anything.

Protect Your Child From Identity Theft

When my son was in elementary school, we used the Internet to look up facts on dinosaurs, earthquakes and Benjamin Franklin for school reports. But now, as a sixth grader, Matt is starting to dip his toe into the social aspects of the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. I’m sure he’ll be wanting to check out Facebook or MySpace before long. (Although I’m certainly not pushing it!)

Of course, we’ve had conversations about the importance not posting personal information on the Web, for safety’s sake. But now the Federal Trade Commission is urging kids to avoid posting personal information for another important reason: identify theft. The problem isn’t just for adults anymore, they say.

PROTECTING CHILDREN’S INFO ONLINE

According to the FTC, identity theft from victims age 18 and younger increased from 6,512 in 2003 to 10,835 in 2006. (These figures are based on formal complaints only, so actual incidences of identity theft are higher.) In 2003, about 3 percent of identity-theft victims were younger than 18. By 2006, the figure had risen to 5 percent.

The “friends-of-friends” aspect of social-networking sites allows pre-teens and teens to provide information about themselves that can now travel far beyond the kids they know. And these sites can increase our kids’ exposure to people who have criminal intentions. The FTC and other online-safety experts (see below) suggest these tips for socializing safely on the Web:

°     Know the potential audience. Think about how different sites work before deciding to join a social-networking site. Some sites will allow only a particular community of users to access posted content. Others allow everybody and his brother to view postings.

°     Encourage your child to think about keeping control over the information she posts. She might consider restricting access to a select group of people, such as her buddies from school, a club, a team or a community group.

°    Keep critical information private. Tell your child to never post his full name, Social Security number, address, phone number or bank and credit-card account numbers — and don’t post other people’s information, either.

°    Keep screen names vague. Make sure your child’s screen name doesn’t say too much about her. Kids shouldn’t use their name, age or hometown on social-networking sites.

°    Remind kids that posted material never disappears.  Once your child posts information online, he can’t take it back. Even if he deletes the information from a site, older versions exist on other people’s computers.

THESE ORGANIZATIONS CAN HELP

To learn more about avoiding identity theft online, check out the following organizations:

°    i-SAFE — Endorsed by the U.S. Congress, i-SAFE is a non-profit foundation dedicated to protecting young people on the Web. The site incorporates classroom curriculum with community outreach to empower students, teachers, parents and law enforcement to make the Internet a safer place.

°    National Cyber Security Alliance — This non-profit organization provides tools and resources to help keep kids (and adults) safe online. NCSA members include the Department of Homeland Security, the FTC and many private-sector corporations and organizations.

°    Staysafe — This educational site helps consumers manage online safety and security issues.

°    Wired Safety — This group is made up of volunteers around the world. Wired Safety provides education and assistance on all aspects of cybercrime and abuse, privacy, security and responsible technology use.

°    Federal Trade Commission — To file a complaint or to get information on consumer issues, visit the website or call toll-free 877-382-4357. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity-theft and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law-enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

°    GetNetWise — This is a public service sponsored by Internet-industry corporations and public-interest organizations to help ensure that Internet users are protected.

°    Internet Keep Safe Coalition —  This site, the home of Faux Paw the Techno Cat, was created by a coalition of 49 governors, law-enforcement agencies, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other associations dedicated to providing tools and guidelines to teach children to use technology safely.

OTHER WAYS TO AVOID KIDS’ IDENTITY THEFT

Experts at Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus, note that child identity theft can go undetected for years because it often isn’t discovered until the victim applies for credit, tries to rent an apartment or tries to open a bank account. There are things you can do to protect your child against identity theft offline, too:

°    Don't let kids carry their Social Security cards in their wallets. These cards should always be stored in a safe place.

°    Keep your child’s magazine subscriptions under your name, not his. This helps prevent your child's name from appearing on mailing lists.

°    Pay attention if your child starts receiving junk mail. If your 12-year-old suddenly begins receiving credit-card invitations in her name, it may mean that her personal information has been compromised.

°    If someone insists he needs your child's Social Security number, verify that he really needs it. I have started questioning this practice at doctors’ offices, and have refused to give out my family’s Social Security numbers to be used as patient identification numbers. When I explain my reason for refusing, most staff members have been understanding. Some have even said “Gosh, I guess I shouldn’t give mine out at my doctor’s offices!”

Are You Taking The Bait?

Today we're featuring a terrific guest post from family therapist Corey Allan, Ph.D. who blogs over at The Simple Marriage Project. Corey and his wife, who celebrated their 15th anniversary this month, have a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son. (And a cool dog named Otis — see below.) Thanks for sharing this with us, Corey!

Spend any time with a parent, and you are bound to hear tales of his or her children's escapades. Stories about when they said the most inappropriate thing at the most inopportune time, when they continue to test the boundaries and rules, or when they've thrown a tantrum at Target. It's enough to drive almost anyone crazy. Take comfort in knowing that you're not alone.

Parents worldwide have gone through or are currently in the midst of the storm as well. Take advantage of the times when you can swap stories with other parents in the trenches. It can be hilarious, enlightening — and you may walk away from the conversation thankful for your children's "tame" behavior.

Have you ever stopped to contemplate your role in your child's behaviors? Could it be that they feed off you? I believe the answer is yes.

Applying this thought to parenting is the way to begin to gain control over your child's behaviors. And the most effective way to do this is to get a better handle on your own emotional reactivity.

Let me explain. You come in after a long day and your child is in a bad mood due to a run-in he had with his teacher at school. You are already predisposed to reacting badly to any negative behaviors due to your tough day, and your child decides this is the best time to inform you that he did not do any of the chores you assigned him for the week. He even goes so far as to add a few colorful descriptions to his replies.

Do you take the bait and jump all over his disrespectful attitude? If you do, you've allowed him to change the topic of conversation, which was his incomplete chores. It's easy to react when our buttons get pushed, but it is also the way they kids the subject. And they only get more expert at this skill as they grow older.

When it comes to arguments with another person, especially children and teenagers, the rule is this: Whoever controls the mood and the direction of the argument will win the argument.

My belief is that if, as a parent, you get into an argument with your child, they've already won. While they may not have changed the responsibility or the consequence, the fact that you had to argue about it keeps the "power" in their court. They controlled you by pushing your emotional buttons. When our emotions get the best of us in conversations, most people either over-react or shut down completely — leaving a possible wake of damage behind.

To take charge of your child's behaviors, learn to react less emotionally to their instigations. It will change the dynamic between you and leave them wondering what to do next. After you have learned to react less, you are then more capable of creating an appropriate consequence for the behavior.

As a parent, you're not raising puppies. You don't have to catch your child in the act. Take some time to contemplate an appropriate consequence. Confer with your spouse. Search the Internet. Then get back with your child and calmly inform them of the consequences of their actions.

Do this consistently and over time, you will be in charge of the playing field in which your children reside. There will also be far less damage repair needed after the emotional upheavals.

Incidentally, the principles of being less emotionally reactive work with spouses as well.

Check Out My New Health Column, "Boo-Boos, Germs & Pap Smears" on MommaSaid.net

I excited to share the news that I'm the new family health columnist over at one of my favorite sites, MommaSaid.net. Visit "Boo-Boos, Germs & Pap Smears" on the home page under "What's New in Linger."

You'll also find columnist Mary Collette Rogers writing about everyday good eating; you'll enjoy words of wisdom from Karen Bannan, the "Natural-as-Possible" mom; you'll fall off your noodle for Judy Gruen's "Off My Noodle: Carb-Free Humor for the Mom on the Go;" and you'll find parent-friendly movie reviews by Jane Louise Boursaw in "Reel Life With Jane."

Mia Geiger writes the "Read 'Em & Reap" column, focusing on children's books related to mothering. Brette Sember, who writes the "Parenting Together Apart" column, discusses everything you need to know for parenting after separation and divorce. And Apryl Chapman Thomas shares terrific traveling-with-kids tips in "Have Children, Will Travel."

But wait, there's more! "Make Payable to Mom" by Gwen Moran; "Lean Green Family" by Leah Ingram; "Bringing Up Geeks" by Marybeth Hicks; "Pulse on Parenting" by Lynne Ticknor; "Buzz on the Birds & Bees" by Melanie Davis" and "Teen Wise" by Pamela Oldham. There's something here for every parent, no matter how old your kids are. (Well, OK, I don't see a "Geezer Parenting" column — yet!)

I'm so happy to be in the company of these terrific columnists, and I hope you'll stop by MommaSaid.net to see what's new!

You Can Recycle THAT?

It's easy to think of the usual suspects when it comes to teaching your kids about recycling: newspapers, bottles, cans.

But how about also recycling tennis shoes, computers, packing peanuts, cell phones, toothbrushes, motor oil, formal dresses, eyeglasses... Whew! The possibilities are exciting.   

Visit Forecast Earth to learn more and check out their terrific article, "10 Things to Recycle That You Never Thought You Could."