My 3-year-old is fearful of trying anything new, including things that other kids his age love to do such as swinging on a swing, sliding down a slide, and splashing in a pool. I feel like I should begin talking to him about what to do in case of a fire in our house and “stranger danger,” but how can I make him aware of how serious these dangers are without scaring him?

Making children happy became a parenting goal in the early 1970s. The paradox, as everyone with a modicum of common sense knows, is that the more effort parents put into making a child happy, the more unhappy the child becomes.

Underneath the cute appearance of an infant lurks a tyrant. I would have been expelled from graduate school for writing that sentence, but as loathe as many of today’s parents are to accept it, that is the truth. Another paradox: Parents who are unwilling to accept it are the ones most likely to give the tyrant permission to step out of hiding and begin his reign of terror.

It’s all over the web, that “grit” thing. Seems like every day, I get some promo for a webinar on how to get more grit, project more grit, or get in touch with your inner grit. So, allow me to enlighten the reader on how to help your child acquire grit.

First, what is grit? Grit is equal parts determination, tenacity, and emotional resilience, which is the ability to withstand setbacks and even failure. Grit is nothing new. Marco Polo had it. Edmund Hillary had it. Navy Seals have it. I know that leaves lots of people out, but this is a magazine column, not a history book. You get the picture. Grit is hanging in there and getting the job done when failure is a looming possibility. Grit is in short supply today, as I and many folks of my generation fear.

I often find myself telling parents that they need to stop
doing something that is counterproductive and, in most cases,
contributing significantly to whatever parenting problem is bedeviling them.

“How do I stop?” is the typical response, which brings to mind “The Bob Newhart Show” which ran on CBS from 1972 to 1978. Newhart, a truly gifted comic (i.e., one who does not need to resort to vulgarity to get laughs), played Dr. Robert Hartley, a Chicago psychologist who was known for his unusual therapeutic techniques, one of which consisted of two simple words.
After listening to a client describe a mental problem, such as an obsessive fear of being buried alive in a box (my personal favorite), Dr. Hartley would lean forward and yell, “Stop it!” (Readers interested in watching a brilliant demonstration of authentic comedy can access re-runs of TBNS online.)

“We should, like, what? Give him a year to figure out his life and move out?”
I’m talking to the parents of a 21-one-year-old male who instead of
going to college or into the military, delivers pizzas, eats pizzas
(he gets an employee discount), and plays video games.

I’m having a déjà vu experience. I’ve had this conversation before, many, many times.

“Why a year?”

“Um, well, that’s enough time for him to figure things out, isn’t it?”

Q: Our four-year-old, an only child, is giving us fits. As a toddler, he began ignoring us. That evolved into downright refusing to do what we ask, as in, “I’m not going to” and just plain “No.” It seems like the nicer we are to him, the meaner he is to us. In addition, his tantrums when he doesn’t get his way have become Class 5 hurricanes that last until we give in. We know we shouldn’t—give in, that is—but his fits just wear us out. There is no doubt that he’s in complete control of our home. Is it too late to turn things around?

We interrupt this monthly column with a three-question quiz, following which you will find the correct answers.

True or False? Telling a child that her feelings concerning a decision you have made
are irrelevant and that you will not discuss the matter with her is likely to cause
psychological damage to the child, including trauma to her self-esteem.

True or False? Answering “Because I said so” to a child who wants to know the
reason behind a decision you have made is likely to cause psychological
damage to the child, including trauma to her self-esteem.

True or False? Refusing to help a child with a problem she brings to you is likely to
cause psychological damage to the child, including trauma to her self-esteem.

Q: My 15-year-old daughter is slowly driving me insane! She argues with me about everything and always wants the last word. No matter how well I explain the “why?” of a decision to her, she argues. Even when I offer a compromise, she argues. It’s her way or the highway. Is there a solution?

The biggest problem in the life of today’s all-too typical mother is herself. She is her own worst enemy. Them’s fightin’ words, I know, but please, hold the tomatoes and other vegetables and bear with me.

One of the doctrines of the Good Mommy Club, the evil sisterhood to which many (if not most) of today’s mommies belong, albeit unwittingly, has it that the Good Mommy does as much for her child as she possibly can, and then some. A guarantee of frustration, anxiety, stress, resentment and guilt, that.

Guys! Guys! Look, your wives, bless their hearts,
are having enough trouble putting their children and priorities into proper perspective without you adding to the muddle.
Keep it straight, please.

I’m referring to the media voices telling you to be better fathers. Three times in the last six months or so I’ve been invited on podcasts promoting fatherhood. The hosts are well-meaning, sincere, articulate fellows who apparently didn’t know they were interviewing a guy who never says what other people expect him to say.

The biggest problem in the life of today’s all-too typical mother is herself. She is her own worst enemy. Them’s fightin’ words, I know, but please, hold the tomatoes and other vegetables and bear with me.

One of the doctrines of the Good Mommy Club, the evil sisterhood to which many (if not most) of today’s mommies belong, albeit unwittingly, has it that the Good Mommy does as much for her child as she possibly can, and then some. A guarantee of frustration, anxiety, stress, resentment and guilt, that.

Concerning my prior use of the word “addiction” in association with smart phones
and children (including teens), some people think I am speaking figuratively.
To set the record straight: No, I am speaking quite literally.

When the addiction in question is to a substance, as in an opiate, there is both a psychological and physical component. During withdrawal from an addictive substance, both components come into play. The individual’s thoughts and emotions are in disarray and the person suffers physiologically, as well. When most people think in terms of an addiction, that is their mental picture.

A therapist takes a 10-year-old boy into what she calls “therapy.” The young fellow is belligerently defiant toward his parents and throws titanic tantrums when things don’t go his way. At school—virtual, going on a year—he’s distractible and doesn’t finish his work without being hovered over and harangued by his mother, a tactic that frequently precipitates more belligerence and a titanic tantrum.

Q: I teach 3- and 4-year-olds in a childcare center in Australia. I always have a few difficult children in any group and the book in which you describe Alpha Speech [The Well-Behaved Child] has been very helpful. My disciplinary options are limited to separating a misbehaving child out of the group for a few minutes and talking, but I cannot isolate or take privileges away. Besides, it seems that the worst kids’ parents undo at home what we accomplish in the classroom. Some of them even side with their children when they misbehave. Meanwhile, we walk on eggshells when it comes to discipline so that a parent doesn’t file a complaint against us with child protection. What suggestions do you have for preschool teachers?

Q: We have a 10-year-old daughter who runs our family. We allowed her to begin dictating to us when she began talking and it’s just gone slowly downhill ever since. She manipulates us with shrieking tantrums, disrespect, and downright refusal to do what we tell her to do. We must have done something right, however, because she gets nothing but praise and compliments from teachers, coaches, and her peers’ parents. We can hardly believe they are describing the same child. Is it too late to turn this around? If not, what should we do? We’re desperate.

Q: We sent our daughter a recent article of yours hoping it might cause her to rethink her approach to raising our grandson. It was not well-received and she is no longer speaking to us. The child, age four, is quite ill-behaved. Our daughter makes one excuse after another for him: he was premature, he was hospitalized at age three and now has PTSD, he might have a biochemical imbalance, and so on. We feel that his real and only problem is lack of discipline. For example, when he’s with us, he’s perfectly well behaved. We love our grandson, but don’t like being around him when his parents are running the show. What should we do now?

As just about everyone who has lived with a child for more than two years knows, the most potentially dangerous thing one can say to a toddler is “no.” That single syllable strikes deep into the core of the reptilian portion of the toddler brain, arousing a reaction that dwarfs Godzilla’s most destructive rampage.

“Should I simply ignore my two-year-old’s tantrums?” a young mother asks.

 “Can you?”

She ponders that for a moment or two. “Not really.”

Ignoring is about as over-rated as it gets, especially when it comes to toddler tantrums. Nothing brings out a toddler’s inner Godzilla like being ignored. That same mother, for example, reported that when she ignored a tantrum, it quickly escalated into hitting, biting, and head-banging. If she began walking away, her live-in maniac would wrap himself around her leg, shrieking like a banshee.

Our 10-month-old son has recently discovered the joys of throwing finger food on the floor at mealtimes. He doesn’t seem to care if I feed it to him myself, one piece at a time, but isn't it important that he start feeding himself?

Not to worry. The emergence of “throwing food on the floor behavior” at this age, especially if a dog is waiting below, is indisputable indication that the child’s development, not to mention sense of humor, is proceeding according to plan.

In 1972, a Stanford University psychologist conducted a study in which young children, individually, were offered either a small but immediate reward (a marshmallow or a pretzel) or a doubled reward if they were able to wait for fifteen minutes. In follow-up studies, researchers found that children who were able to postpone gratification experienced better life outcomes as measured by such things as SAT scores, academic achievement, and body mass index.

I have long maintained that well-done research in the so-called social sciences does nothing but confirm common sense, and it certainly seems commonsensical that impulsivity and difficulty delaying gratification have a negative impact on life outcomes. The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, as it is known, bears significantly on childrearing attitudes and approaches. Simply, teaching a naturally impulse-driven child to exercise restraint greatly increases the child’s chances of success.

I have come up with a new psychological diagnosis, one that I won’t, however, be submitting for approval to the powers that be: simply, odd. My “odd” is to be distinguished from ODD, the acronym for oppositional defiant disorder, an invention that enables mental health professionals to obtain payment from insurance providers…but that’s another column entirely. Stay tuned!

Odd is what all human beings are. Starting from the top down, all adults are odd. I am odd, you are odd, Bill Gates is odd, President Trump is odd, Barak Obama is odd (must have diversity, you know), and so on. Most people, by early adulthood at the latest, begin to identify their personal peculiarities and realize they must be concealed from the general public lest they cause social and employment difficulties. Adults who fail to conceal their oddities are prone to becoming known as “jerks” and other equally hobbling nicknames. Or, they become mental health professionals, politicians, and famous actors who win Academy Awards.

Psychologist B. F. Skinner, the formulator of behavior modification theory, was attempting to prove that the same principles that govern the behavior of amoeba, planaria, rats, dogs, and monkeys also govern the behavior of human beings. A very Darwinian proposition, indeed.

What my graduate school professors conveniently “forgot” to tell me: Skinner failed to prove his hypothesis, and no researcher has ever succeeded where Skinner did not. Some have claimed success, but all they’ve succeeded at proving, really, is the fact that human beings are economists by nature. From a very early age, humans weight benefits versus costs and make logical decisions, if not always rational ones.

One website is titled “How to Cope with Kids During Coronavirus.” Another, featuring a staged photo of an obviously frazzled mom with a toddler on her lap, tells the reader that “Parents are losing their minds having kids at home during coronavirus!” There’s yet another, advising on “How to Keep Kids Entertained During the Crisis.” On and on it goes, website after website counseling parents on how to deal with being confined at home with one’s kids.

The early Twenty-First Century may be remembered as the “Age of the Personal Soap Opera.” A person makes a soap opera out of a life situation, claims victimhood, garners sympathy, manufactures more soap opera, garners more sympathy, and so on. Soap opera begets soap opera. Forty-plus years of counseling experience has taught me that once a person becomes caught in the soap opera loop, it is harder than hard to get out.

Q: Our ten-year-old granddaughter lives with us. We have custody of her but her father, our son, is now asking us for visitation privileges. I probably don’t need to tell you that both he and his ex-wife were not up to parental responsibilities. He says he’s cleaned up his act and wants a relationship with his daughter. She says she wants to see him, too. We’re not completely opposed, but we’ve heard all this before and are, of course, skeptical. She came to us two years ago with major behavior problems—disobedience and lying, mostly—and has improved some but not a lot since then. She’s been seeing a therapist for more than a year but my husband and I see no improvement. We recently found out that she and the therapist spend most of their sessions playing board games and doing crafts. My granddaughter wants to continue her therapy, but we don’t see how playing board games is going to bring about improvement in her behavior. Can you give us some direction here?

One of the “secrets” to a happy, healthy emotional life is to identify one’s bad, nonproductive habits and replace them with habits—slowly built—that are functional. That same principle is of the essence when it comes to a parenting life that is satisfying.

Most parents who want to do a good job but feel frustrated in the attempt are making a finite number of mistakes – ten, to be exact. If a parent who is making these common mistakes eliminates and replaces them with behavior that works, both their’s and their children’s frustration will practically dissipate.

The myth of the first three years has it that whatever habits, traits, dysfunctions and so on that a child develops during this admittedly formative period are going to stay with him for life. That is not necessarily so. For example, Romanian orphans who had suffered severe emotional and physical neglect during infancy and toddlerhood recovered fully after being placed with American families. When put in play groups with American-born kids who were living with biological parents, they could not be identified reliably. The adoption-babblers have a difficult time explaining that, by the way.

Q: After a recent talk in South Florida, women came up to me in droves asking,
“How much should I help my children with their schoolwork?”A: That not one man asked the question speaks loudly to the state of parenting in postmodern America. Men don’t ask the question because they know they are not trusted to do BIG parenting stuff like ensure their kids’ academic success.

My answer: “I can’t quantify that for you, but I do know that the more you help your child with his or her schoolwork, the more you will be called upon by said child to help. A child’s belief that he can’t do something is rarely fact-based; it’s usually instilled by well-meaning people, as in, his parents.”
Before drilling deeper into this ubiquitous issue, a few facts are in order:

Q: Our 7-year-old son recently stole two small model cars from a playmate while he was at the playmate’s house. Apparently, he wanted to trade one of his toys for the two cars, but the playmate refused, so he stole them. When we found them, he claimed his friend had given them to him. We absolutely know that’s not true, but it’s been over a week and our son refuses to admit to the theft. He’s changed his story, then changed it back, so we know he’s lying, but still he refuses to budge. Nothing like this has ever happened before and we’re at a loss. We called an acquaintance of ours who’s also a therapist. She said that children who steal are often compensating for some insecurity and that punishing him could make matters worse. We have no idea what insecurity our son is dealing with or what to do about the theft and his lies.

Your marriage (or your adult partnership) is the foundation upon which your entire family is built. If your relationship is strong, your family will be stronger; your life will be more peaceful, you’ll be a better parent, and quite simply, you’ll have more fun in your life. Even if you believe this, it can be hard to put your adult relationship in the position of importance that it deserves.

Developing friendship skills takes time and experience. The only way young children will learn social skills is by practice, so even though there are plenty of bumps along the way, it’s worth scheduling playdates with other children.

These are all normal, yet frustrating, scenarios for parents; but there is a simple solution to this problem—read on!

Children are often in their own imaginative world, and they don’t even hear your instructions half the time. Other times they may not think that you’re speaking to them, or they don’t understand what exactly you expect. Regardless of the reason behind it, children of all ages respond much better to purposeful, eye-to-eye conversations, than vague across-the-room requests.