{"id":1623,"date":"2011-08-04T00:36:06","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T04:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=1623"},"modified":"2011-08-04T19:56:33","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T23:56:33","slug":"9-things-to-tell-your-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=1623","title":{"rendered":"9 Things to Tell Your Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK, as promised<\/a>, a short list of things from the Big Ugly Man Doll that I think you\u2019d do well to tell your kids, teen-aged or not.\u00a0 In no particular order.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Good job.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Not just for the big things, like getting an A or a goal or a win, but for the small things.\u00a0 They\u2019re smarter than you think, and they damn well know when they did one of the big things well \u2013 not that you shouldn\u2019t make much of it, but remember to make as much of the little everyday things. \u00a0Parenting is the ultimate B.F. Skinner experiment.\u00a0 Every word you say and every action you take will help to modify your kids\u2019 behavior, however slightly.\u00a0 When you call out something that they did well, that they did correctly, that they did the way you want them to, mention it.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just positive reinforcement for the action, it reminds them that someone\u2019s watching.
    \n.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. I love you.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span> Say it early, often, and without embellishment.\u00a0 They\u2019ll figure out just what you mean by it, and what it means, by your actions.\u00a0 Try to make sure your actions reflect what you want \u201cI love you\u201d to mean.
    \n.<\/span>\u00a0<\/li>\n
  3. It\u2019s OK to be the best.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span> Our society rewards conformity, and once they leave your house, they will learn quickly that \u201csit down and shut up\u201d is often a more valuable lesson than \u201ctell me what you know.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s frightening to stand out in the crowd.\u00a0 Let them know that if they decide to go for it \u2013 school play, team, league, what have you, if they decide that maybe they will<\/strong> try their hand at something competitive, something that would set them apart from their crowd \u2013 let them know that you\u2019ve got their back.\u00a0 Often they just need to know that it\u2019s OK to try, and even that it\u2019s OK to try hard.\u00a0 Give them permission to succeed.\u00a0
    \n.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. You screwed up on that one.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span> They know it anyway.\u00a0 If they\u2019ve really screwed the pooch, don\u2019t mince words \u2013 you risk confusing the message.\u00a0 Give them a chance to learn from the mistake; if this is a serial screw up, ask them about the wider issue causing them to fail on the task at hand.\u00a0 This is part of your job as a parent, and like any job the conversation will be more constructive if you stay professional.\u00a0
    \n.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. I apologize.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span> When you need to say it, say it to them directly.\u00a0 Being sorry, and even saying so, is passive and keeps the focus on you (you’re sorry).\u00a0 An apology is a noun, given when appropriate.\u00a0 I’ll give you a short\u00a0informative example.\u00a0
    \n.<\/span>
    \nI came home a few years ago to find something broken; don’t remember what, doesn’t matter.\u00a0 It had been up high enough that only the Human Tape Recorder could have reasonably reached it; it wasn’t the kind of thing the cats would get into, and the Reigning Queen of Pink was a baby.\u00a0
    \n<\/em>
    \nI confronted the HTR with the broken thing, and asked her what happened.\u00a0 “I don’t know.”\u00a0 I reminded her that her siblings were unlikely to have interested themselves in it and even less likely to have been able to reach it, and asked her again what happened.\u00a0 “I don’t know, maybe my brother broke it, I don’t know.”\u00a0 She was clearly squirming, and I could tell I might be close to uncovering the mystery if I only applied a little more pressure.<\/em>
    \n
    \n“I’m going to go downstairs and ask your brother about this. Now, we both know that with his autism, he doesn’t know how to lie, and he will tell me exactly what happened to this thing.\u00a0 Now, before I go talk to him, is there ANYTHING you’d like to tell me?”
    \n<\/em>
    \nThe word “no” came out in a tiny squeak, and I shook my head and walked downstairs.\u00a0 I held whatever it was up for Number One Son to see, and asked him what happened.\u00a0 “Oh, yeah, I broke that, Daddy.\u00a0 Sorry about that.”\u00a0 (For the record, he has since learned the art of Lying For The Sake Of Self Preservation.\u00a0 While it complicates situations like the above, we’re still oddly proud \u2013 though we don’t tell him that.)
    \n<\/em>
    \nAnd I walked back upstairs, told the HTR what he’d told me, and took my lumps.\u00a0 “I apologize for doubting you.”\u00a0 Nothing else would have sufficed.
    \n.<\/span><\/em><\/li>\n
  6. Work on your situational awareness.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span> I don\u2019t know about yours, but my kids are poster children for the experiment with the gorilla walking in front of the things you\u2019re trying to count.\u00a0 After 60 seconds, the subject is asked how many times the event they were tracking happened, and then about the guy in the ape suit who walked across their field of vision.\u00a0 Something like half of them said, \u201cWhat ape suit?\u201d\u00a0 If you don\u2019t notice a fair bit of your surroundings, you won\u2019t see safety hazards and you probably shouldn\u2019t drive yet.\u00a0
    \n.<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. To err is human.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span> Period, full stop.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need to get into divinity, forgiveness, any of that.\u00a0 Our ability to make mistakes, recognize them as such, and learn from them is a large part of what separates us from the lower animals.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve stopped making mistakes, you\u2019ve stopped learning. \u00a0(If you keep making the same ones time after time, you\u2019re probably crazy.)\u00a0 Remind them not to stress over failures any more than they crow over successes \u2013 both are lessons.\u00a0
    \n.<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. People are crazy, and life’s not fair.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 They will run into people who are mean, people who are irrational, and there won’t be a damn thing they can do about it.\u00a0 Sometimes, the fates deal you a rotten hand.\u00a0 Get over it and move on.\u00a0
    \n.<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. Plan for the long term.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span> Yes, everyone’s in a hurry, and yes, everyone’s late and running behind and playing catchup, in grade school, in high school, in college.\u00a0 \u00a0Don’t worry about it too much; make your goals and work toward them.\u00a0 Use sunscreen and pay off your credit cards every month.\u00a0 Trust me on these.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So, I’m sure I’ve missed a half dozen things that I ought to tell them.\u00a0 Readers, what else?\u00a0 What do you or would\u00a0you tell yours that should be on this list?\u00a0 What did you hear growing up that stayed with you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Parenting is the ultimate B.F. Skinner experiment. Every word you say and every action you take will help to modify your kids\u2019 behavior, however slightly. Try to make sure your actions reflect what you want \u201cI love you\u201d to mean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,47,3,5,40,10,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1623"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1630,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623\/revisions\/1630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}