Happy Father's Day!

Research continues to support the notion that fathers are important to children, not only because of the financial support they provide but because of the unique perspective men contribute to the development of children. Dads play differently with their kids than moms do, are concerned about different things, and help their kids in different ways. The key is “different” not “wrong.”

Too often mothers get the idea that they have the one right method of parenting. This notion probably starts when the newborn comes home and parents are confronted with the possibility of making dangerous mistakes. In fact, of course, babies are pretty resilient – if they weren’t the human species would have died out long ago – and most parents do a decent job of keeping kids safe. But this impulse to impose the “one right way” to parent often freezes out fathers, who naturally do things differently than mothers do.

The point here is that moms and dads provide complementary support and guidance to their kids. Children need both perspectives. While general agreement on household rules and expectations for kids is good, parents’ interaction styles can be quite different. This is ok.

Today, when we honor fathers, honor also the unique contributions dads make in the lives of children.

... happens first at home.

Maybe you should move the crib

A new study from a major conference of sleep researchers reports that babies whose beds are in the same room as their parents and whose parents linger in the room while the child falls asleep take longer to fall asleep and wake more during the night than children who sleep in their own rooms. The quality of children’s sleep was better and they slept for more total hours when they were encouraged to fall asleep on their own and slept in a different room than their parents. This was a large-scale study, involving over 28,000 infants and toddlers from more than seventeen countries, including the United States.

The take-home message is obvious: if your older infant or toddler is struggling to fall asleep at night and seems wakeful for no reason, consider moving the crib to another room and consider letting the child fall asleep on her own. Within a few nights, you should see a new, more peaceful pattern emerge.

... happens first at home.

Setting a good example: A puzzle

This morning I took my dog for a walk, as usual. What was not usual was that on the sidewalk at the bus stop were the broken pieces of beer bottle. I clucked my tongue and carefully walked the dog past the glass.

On the return trip, the bus stop was crowded with middle schoolers. As I steered the dog around these kids, he kicked a shard of glass. The noise made me stop. I picked up the piece of glass (luckily, the dog was not hurt) and stood there a second with the glass in my hand.

What to do with it? Do I put it on the curb? Drop it back in the street? Hide it in the bushes? And then there was the rest of the broken bottle. What to do with that? I realized the middle schoolers were watching me. I took a baggie out of my pocket and filled it with all the glass, pocketed it and walked on home.

So here's my puzzle. I didn't feel I needed to pick up any of the glass on my first trip down the sidewalk. I picked it up only when my dog tripped over it and, even then, only because kids were watching. I doubt I would have done the good-citizen thing of picking up all the glass if the students hadn't been there.

I can tell you that I was acutely conscious of setting a good example. The reason why I didn't just drop the glass my dog had hit was because I realized that how I handled the situation would be a lesson, if you will, for the kids who were watching.

So, along with a whole host of ethical and socially-aware considerations this little incident brings to mind, how important is it to model what we want our kids to do while they are present? When we do the responsible thing - whatever that is - should we be sure to do it when we have an impressionable audience?

... happens first at home.