Seeing Is Believing?

I came across something yesterday about imparting religious or spiritual beliefs to our kids that really resonated with me.  As many of you know, I follow the blog "Single Dad Laughing" (SDL).  Well, yesterday, he posted an excerpt from his book, The Real Dad Rules, about how to share our beliefs with our kids. His thesis is that you shouldn't teach your kids what to believe - you should teach them how to believe.

I discussed this issue when we were examining Robert Epstein's article about what makes a good parent, and his top 10 areas of parental competency, which included religion. I discussed why I disagreed with that in the post, "Losing My Religion," but I also shared a viewpoint similar to SDL's. If you haven't had a chance to check out that post, please do.

It Only Takes a Second

Okay, I know we got off to a humorous start this week, but this is too important to save for another time.

I recently wrote about child safety issues in the context of our discussion about the parenting skills article.  In response to that, a friend shared a story with me on Facebook – a story that has been at the forefront of my mind ever since. Now, I want to share it with you.

Parenting Skills List Wrap-Up

Before we say goodbye to the parental skill series, I wanted to wrap it up with one more discussion and also post the results* of our poll about this article.

37% of people who responded said they agreed with the list as-is.
25% said they agree with all 10 items but would order them differently.
37% said they did not agree with all 10 and would add something else.

* Totals do not add to 100% due to rounding.

If you didn’t respond but would like to, please give us your opinion in the comments.

We looked pretty thoroughly at all the traits and competency areas that supposedly indicate we’re good parents, and will make our relationships with our kids better and make them happier as a result. But I thought it would be useful to take a moment and see what it all boils down to: in other words, what do we take from this and what can we do to embody these skills?

Safe In Your Arms

We briefly touched on this issue in “Miss Independent.” Rounding out our list of the top 10 parental skill areas is safety.

Frankly, I can’t believe this is at the bottom of the list, after religion and life skills and health. Does it matter how well our kids eat or exercise or whether they go to church if they’re gone?

Safety is a huge issue for parents in today’s world. Not that it wasn’t years ago, but there is such significant media focus on this now that worries about our kids’ safety are almost always in our minds to one degree or another. I asked readers to think about this not only as a separate issue, but also as it relates to cultivating independence in children.

Losing My Religion

Well, we’re finally here: the stickiest subject (for me, anyway) of the ten parental competency areas. Researchers list religious involvement or upbringing as No. 9 on the Top 10 list.

This is a tough subject for me because I often feel caught between my own beliefs and the warped version of them that is sometimes found in what we refer to as “organized religion.”

I should note that I was raised a Baptist. I attended a Baptist school from kindergarten through fifth grade. I attended church from a young age (maybe 6?) until I was 20, and was very involved in choir and Sunday school and youth group.

Reader Poll: What do you think of the Parenting Skills List?

As we prepare to finish our series on parenting skills, we're interested to get your views on the Top 10 list. So, we've created a poll to find out!

We'd like to know whether you (1) agree with the list as-is, (2) agree with the 10 skills but would rank them differently, or (3) disagree with the inclusion of at least 1 thing. Please take the poll on the right side of the page and let us know what you think!

If you disagree with the presence of one or more of the skill areas on the list, please let us know in the comments to this post what you feel should not be in the list and what you would substitute. Please choose the answer you most agree with. The final results of the poll will be included in a post after we finish all of the posts in the series.

[Editor's Note: This Poll has ended.  Check out the Poll Results and Summary Here.]

Getting Better

As you can see, I’m determined to complete my post series on this subject having used song titles for each one. Surely this is one of the things for which Anna will make fun of me in the coming years! Don’t worry, there are only two to go after this one.

Next in our ideal parental skill set is having a healthy lifestyle, such as good nutrition and exercise habits, which your kids will want to emulate.

I suspect (hope) that everyone will agree that it’s important to take good care of our bodies and to teach our kids to do the same. The trick is finding time for those things we need to do, like walking and preparing healthy meals, in our fast-paced world.

Positive Vibration

Ahhh “behavior management.” Our collective blood pressures probably rise a bit when thinking about all the things, major and minor, that our little ones like to do to test our limits… and the gleeful looks on their faces sometimes when they know they are pushing our buttons.

This ranks in at No. 7 on our list of important parental skill areas. So, today we discuss whether we depend on positive reinforcement and only punish our kids when everything else we’ve tried fails.

Roll With the Changes

We now interrupt this parental competency program to bring you a message from our sponsor. I thought I’d make a brief diversion from our (okay, my) discussion of the ten most important areas of parental competency to discuss something that didn’t make the cut but, in my opinion, should have.

Adaptability.

This skill is implicitly involved in some of the other topics we’ve discussed, such as stress management and life skills, but I guess the researchers thought it didn’t merit independent discussion. So, despite my lack of credentials, I am going to take it on myself.

She Works Hard For The Money

Parental competency area number 6 is “life skills” – which sounds like a ridiculous high school class. In any event, this skill area entails having some sort of plan for the future and providing adequately for your child.  Clearly these are important considerations, although I don't think I would have rated this above others, such as safety. 

I had what I thought was a pretty clear plan for my future – and then Annapie came along and changed my entire world.  I’m so glad she did! The great irony is that now I want to make corresponding changes to the rest of my future plan, but I can’t because this little girl depends on me to provide for her.  Funny that the remainder of the plan I had all along doesn’t fit so well anymore, or at least it feels that way sometimes.

Teach Your Children

Returning to our series about researchers’ most important skill areas for parents, we come to #5 on the list, education and learning.  It’s probably obvious to everyone that it’s important to “promote and model learning” and to “provide educational opportunities” for our kids.  What is interesting to me here is the variety of views out there about how best to go about accomplishing this.

One debate revolves around whether flash cards are useful or not. I will save thorough discussion of that for another post, but I will say that even though hands-on learning is best, I do think flash cards have their place too. Anna really enjoys them and has gotten quite good at connecting pictures with letters.

Miss Independent

[Proving there’s a song for everything.]

In our continuing examination of our “parental competencies,” we come to number 4, which is “Autonomy and Independence.”  To succeed in this department, according to the article, “you treat your child with respect and encourage him or her to become self-sufficient and self-reliant.”

So Happy Together

[I’m 3 for 3 with the song titles!]

Continuing with our series about the ten most important “parental competencies” we need to have, today I’ll be discussing relationship skills, which follows love and stress management on the list.

At first glance, this seems like a no-brainer:   if the parental couple is generally happy, the children will be happier too.  But what does it mean to be “happy”?  That kids should see a lot of affection between their parents?  That they should be kept up to date on what’s going on with their parents? That spouses shouldn’t fight in front of the kids?

Under Pressure

In case you were wondering, I hadn’t planned on using song titles for every post in this series about parenting skills….but I’m enjoying it, so now I just might try!

In any event, according to the article we introduced on Monday, the second most important ability that we need to have as parents is effective stress management.  By this, the researchers mean that we should take care to properly manage our child’s stress and our own, relax and keep a positive outlook.  Easy, right?  Sure.

Talking to Your Kids: "Do"s and "Don't"s

I just came across this article on CNN.com about what not to say to your kids (and some suggested alternatives). It's helpful, and it goes right along with our examination of parenting skills this week so I thought you might want to check it out.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/07/12/dont.say.to.child.p/index.html?hpt=hp_p1&iref=NS1