How often have you heard this advice?

Slow down.

Quit all of those extracurricular activities. 

Just relax and enjoy the little things!

If you’re a parent steeped in busyness (and aren’t we all?), such prescriptions for happiness probably pop up so often they’re beginning to sound cliché. But, though everyone seems to applaud the benefits of purging toys, quitting soccer class, and embracing unstructured play, very few of us are actually following through to stop and smell the roses.

But what if you don’t know how to smell the roses?

Most “slow down and smell the roses” experts seem to assume that living simply – once the actual work of simplification is out of the way – is second nature for us all. They act like the only barriers standing between us and purposeful, joyful parenting are smartphones, busy schedules, and too-large toy piles.

And, look, I’m sure that’s true for some of us. Perhaps, given the time and space, some parents can effortlessly transform an afternoon at the park into a fantastical adventure complete with treasure hunts and impromptu science experiments. Others can look at a box of random art supplies and immediately envision beautiful and kid-appropriate craft projects.

But for me personally, that is not the reality. After a life of chasing achievement – in high school, college, the professional world, and beyond – I had no idea how to enjoy quiet, empty hours in an uncluttered home with nothing on the schedule and only a small child for company.

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I was sexually molested by a relative from the age of eight to fourteen.

Later in my teen years, several other men, strangers, approached me and tried to have sexual interactions.

I felt like I had the proverbial sign above my head. “Easy target. Pick her.”

Back then, I had no idea why. Now, I understand.

My low self-esteem. My assumptions that sexual things were secret, dirty, and unspoken. My belief that my feelings weren’t valid.

All those, indeed, put an invisible sign over me that predators, who know what they’re looking for and know how to spot it, could easily see.

I am a #MeToo girl, but I’ve worked to make sure my three girls don’t have to say that. No one wants to think about their little girl or boy being sexually traumatized. We know, though, that given the plethora of #MeToos and the cultural landscape, we need to prepare our children for the possibility.

Yet many of the popular ideas out there for teaching our girls are so negative. Don’t wear this. Don’t go there. Don’t act this way. This is actually the opposite of what girls need to have a healthy outlook on their bodies and their rights.

Boys, on the other hand, may learn that they’re supposed to be tough, rub some dirt in it, and never cry. They’re expected to aim for sports fame and leadership. A boy who has no interest in those activities can feel left out of social interaction, vulnerable to someone who tries to isolate him even more. Boys who don’t fit the “tough” mold aren’t as likely to tell someone they’re being abused, fearing that “telling” is proving their own weakness.

Ted Bunch from A Call to Men insists that parents should strive not to reinforce stereotypes that indicate boys are weak if they cry or feel emotions. He says “I think that we have to be careful in how we talk to our boys and be more sensitive in how we talk to our boys. We want to teach boys to have the full range of emotions, let them cry, let them experience their feelings.”

What are some positive ways to teach our daughters and sons about this dangerous aspect of their world without instilling fear or shame?

Maybe surprisingly, the best options are not specific to sexual trauma but to raising healthy children in general. Healthy, strong kids become kids who resist becoming statistics.

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It was a normal evening, full of dinner making and homework and activity. My youngest sat at the table doing a math worksheet, my oldest was practicing her flute, and my son was shooting hoops. I stood at the stove, chopping an onion for the sauce. Normal.

“Mom, what’s Sandy Hook?” my youngest asked.

I stopped chopping, grateful my back was to her and also that I had been chopping an onion. Even five years later the name of that small town in my small state brings tears to my eyes.

I inhaled, and exhaled, perhaps taking a moment too long to answer. She was probably wondering if I heard her. How could I explain this to my little girl? How could I tell her that I still remember exactly where I was sitting and where she was playing as I watched the tragedy unfold on the news? Kids, just like my own, at school, murdered.

I turned to face her, my girl blissfully unaware of the deep heartache those two words held. Sandy Hook was no longer just a small town an hour away; it was forever ingrained as a tragedy. And now my little girl wanted to know about it. Talking to my daughter about handling tragedy was not what I imagined was on our agenda for the evening.

“Where did you hear about Sandy Hook?” I asked sitting next to her.

“Someone said it at school. Something about five years since Sandy Hook.”

I had braced myself for questions about the recent shooting in Florida, but somehow bringing up Sandy Hook caught me off guard. It felt different. Not because it was any more or less tragic, but because [Read more…]

I thought it was an ordinary Tuesday. A day full of hope and promise for fun and learning. A normal day … until I looked at the clock.

One minute the clock is kind – telling us we have plenty of time to get our people ready and out the door for a new day. Suddenly, it changes, almost screaming at us, “Hurry, hurry, hurry. We’re all going to be late!”

There is a missing shoe and cereal spilled on the floor; a stuck backpack zipper and a forgotten math test. I didn’t even hear myself until I was at least 6 words in to a rant about us always being late again and we can’t keep doing this and where in the world was that missing shoe?!?

We did what we always do. We let the dog clean up the cereal, I insisted (rather forcefully) on my youngest switching to a different pair of shoes, and then I started spouting out math facts as I worked on the zipper.

We were getting it done. But none of us were happy. And this was not the way I wanted to send everyone off on their day.

Have you had mornings like this?

A bad morning does not mean a bad day. Here are 8 ways to turn things around.

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Three kids. Two cats. One dog. Zero time to fret about myself and my job, let alone the state of our home.

But fret, I must, if I want a calm, clutter-free home.

My husband and I have three daughters, evenly-aged at twelve, ten, and eight, and a few years ago we found a chore schedule that transformed our household chaos and empowered our kids to make valuable contributions to our home.

I believe that while parents should expect their kids to help around the house, the skills that children gain by performing regular housekeeping tasks are crucial for character development.

Chores help kids become responsible adults. Julie Lythcott-Haims, a former Stanford University dean and author of the recent bestselling book titled How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success, says in her TED Talk that kids (and parents) should be less obsessed with things like school grades and test scores and more focused on things like love and chores.

“Did I just say chores?” Lythcott-Haims asks her TED audience, and indeed she did because the Harvard Grant Study, one of the longest longitudinal studies ever conducted, found that kids whose parents asked them to perform household duties were more likely to find professional success later in life.

And the earlier they start, the better, Lythcott-Haims argues. Kids need to feel like they are an integral part of the home. Giving them regular, age-appropriate tasks will instill in children a sense of community and shared purpose, a deeper understanding of responsibility, and the “grit” to accomplish a task that might seem daunting.

Our family had switched chore strategies faster than our clothes, mostly because one approach was fine for our older daughters but too complicated for our youngest, or another method was too “childish” for our big kids but just right for the littlest.

Before our family found this successful strategy, we had tried magnets-and-fridge chore charts, stickers-and-happy-faces on paper, and plain, old shouting out to anyone within earshot, “Can someone take out the stinky trash, please?!”

Sometimes, our charts were so complicated that even my husband and I couldn’t make heads or tails out of which kid had performed what job. It became so frustrating that I often resorted to doing every chore myself, and most parents know that when one family member is trying to hold everything together, things fall apart.
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