The Best Gift for Our Children

It was Parents' Weekend during our daughter's freshman year at college. The ladies' cross-country team had arranged a dinner for their parents. As we dined on ravioli at a local restaurant, it dawned on me that I was sitting in the middle of a statistical anomaly.

Every team member had a parent there, and of approximately 20 young women, only one set of parents were divorced. With the national divorce rate reportedly hovering around 65%, why was the divorce rate only 5% in this group of families?

Doing some research I found out some interesting facts, one being that the divorce rate is difficult to calculate, and is estimated to be between 40% to 60%, depending on what factors are used. I did discover that as the level of education rises in a marriage, the divorce rate plummets. As income rises, the divorce rate drops. Also, in stable marriages, the educational and income level of adult children rises.

What I observed at Parents' Weekend was not an oddity at all, but in fact normal for families with college students. What came first, though, the stable marriage or the educational and financial success?

A doctor friend of mine told of a fellow physician who retired at age 55 after his children had graduated from college. When asked at his retirement party how he was financially able to retire at a young age, the doctor smiled and said, ''One house. One wife.''

For this doctor, an intact well-working marriage provided financial and emotional stability to family life. What a present for children.

Dr. Robert Shaw, in his book The Epidemic, has a thought-provoking list, ''15 Ways to Ruin Your Child and Your Life.'' First on his list is, ''Don't plan ahead. Don't think early on about arranging a secure home in which to raise a child. Especially, don't pick a husband or wife with character traits that would make him or her a true partner and supporter as you rear your children.''

Deborah, a friend whose parents divorced when she was ten, still hopes that her parents will reunite. Deborah told me, ''Mom and Dad will both be here for Thanksgiving. Wouldn't it be great if….'' For Deborah, 40 years later, the wish for an intact family remains.

Creating a happy marriage is difficult work. Victoria, married over 30 years, told me, ''I always cry at weddings because the bride and groom have no idea how much work is ahead of them.'' Victoria is right, but a new couple has no idea of the happiness and joy that will come their way if they will do the work.

Dr. John Gottman, in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, tells us not to focus so much on conflict resolution, as in developing shared meaning and a sense of purpose into our marriage. The basis of Dr. Gottman's approach is to ''strengthen the friendship that is at the heart of every marriage.''

Take the time every day to strengthen your friendship with your life's partner. It's a great gift to each other. A strong happy marriage is the best gift you could give your children.

Next week: Laziness: Fact or Fiction?

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD

Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:

Click here for a free subscription.

©2006 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

The Indefatigable Spirit of a Child

''There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.''

~Zen Proverb

It is a gray drizzly morning in a week of gray drizzly mornings. I am content to wait in the car as my husband peruses the home improvement store. People enter and leave the warehouse building, trudging to their vehicles with packages and looks of determination to complete projects.

Out from the wide doors bursts a toddling two-year-old boy, followed by a man in his late 20s. The toddler's being shines with a smile as he looks up at the sky and lets the rain fall onto his face. Little Guy giggles, claps his hands and twirls around, staying close to his father.

Little Guy and his dad walk over to the SUV next to me. The man opens the passenger-side rear door. The floor of the truck comes to Little Guy's shoulders.

''Get on in,'' his dad says. ''Climb on up.''

With a grin, Little Guy pulls himself up with his arms and begins the ascent into his car seat. Little Guy kicks his foot to the side, maneuvering his way through the door and into his seat. Little grunts of exertion come through my window. Quite a feat. A couple of 5.10 climbing moves in seconds.

Little Guy reaches over his head, pulls the restraint device down and snaps in the buckle. His father checks the fastener and tells Little Guy, ''Good job, son,'' and shuts the door.

Little Guy is snug in his car seat, glowing with satisfaction. Little Guy waves to me. I smile at him and think, ''Little Guy's in his car seat. All's right with the world.''

We are amazing. Us. Human beings. Each of us is born into a time and place that has never been traveled the way we are traveling it. We are born with eagerness and a built-in desire to meet our challenges.

If we are as lucky as Little Guy, we have parents and a community who provide an emotionally stable foundation for us where we can feel safe enough to meet our challenges. Safe enough to climb into a car opening that is almost over our head, into a vehicle almost four times as tall as we are, to reach back and pull a harness over our heads. And be cheerful as we do it.

The natural state of the child and of the human being is joy. Work and problem solving are the natural activities of the human being. We are designed to be joyful adventurers. How easy it is to forget!

We need to nurture the natural spirit of the child in each of us, child and adult, so that we find bliss in our gray days; so that we discover delight in the rain in our lives; so that we become the sunshine for others.

We were born to be happy. Allow a child to show the way.

Next week: The Best Gift for Our Children

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a free subscription.

©2006 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Ain't Misbehavin'

Children don't misbehave, says Dr. Thomas Gordon, author of the best-selling book, Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T).

Wait a second, you say. Whoa! Everywhere you look there are children misbehaving.

Dr. Gordon says that children's actions are judged as misbehaviors when those behaviors come into conflict with the desires of parents and other adults. What we judge or perceive to be misbehaviors are actually a child's efforts to have his or her needs met.

For example, three-year-old Stephanie enters her 14-year-old sister Lisa's room and pours out all of Lisa's make-up and cologne into Lisa's underwear drawer while applying a new face. Big mess. Big perceived misbehavior. Especially by Lisa.

Human beings have many needs, and trying to meet these needs makes us human. We will gain insight into Stephanie's actions when we look at how Stephanie was trying to meet her needs.

Stephanie's parents, Jim and Linda, analyzed Stephanie's behavior by asking how Stephanie's needs were satisfied by disorganizing Lisa's room. Jim and Linda looked at the following needs: activity, exploration, orientation, order, becoming, belonging, repetition, precision, exactness, communication and imagination. Let's take a closer view at these needs.

Human beings have a need for activity. Stephanie needed an interesting activity to occupy her. What is that saying about idle hands?

People have a need to explore, orient and order our environment. Stephanie had a desire to explore her sister's off-limits room. Stephanie had watched Lisa open bottles and put them back into the drawer, but Stephanie didn't understand the order of the process. Stephanie had a need to orient herself to this grown-up activity.

Humans have a need to become, to have a sense of growth. Stephanie had watched her sister and mother put on make-up. We also have a need to belong. Stephanie wanted to put on make-up due to a need to become and to belong as a female in her family.

People have a need for repetition, exactness and perfection. Lisa should be careful. Because Stephanie didn't get the make-up activity right the first time, Stephanie may have a need to try again, and again.

Stephanie also had a need to communicate that she was a ''big girl'' since there was such an age spread between her and Lisa. Stephanie needed to use her imagination to create that ''big girl'' image.

Children's misbehavior occurs when children's actions to meet their needs conflict with adult's needs. To meet everyone's needs, both children's and adults', Dr. Gordon recommends that we step out of our roles as parents and focus on being a person, a human being who has needs and who is trying to help another younger, smaller person meet his or her needs. It's about finding a solution where everyone wins.

Jim and Linda made it clear to Stephanie that Lisa's room was off-limits, but they also designed some activities that helped to meet Stephanie's needs. Lisa put together a basket of small colored bottles that Stephanie could open and close. Linda made Stephanie a mirrored make-up kit of lotions. Lisa kept her door locked but also spent time with Stephanie, letting her put make-up on Lisa.

By considering Stephanie's behavior as needs-driven, Jim, Linda and Lisa found a way to direct Stephanie's activities so that both Stephanie's needs and their adult needs for order (and sanity) could be met.

For more information about Parent Effectiveness Training, visit www.gordontraining.com/familyresources.html

Next week: The Indefatigable Spirit of a Child

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a free subscription.

©2006 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing

Parents Are the Real Thing

''Humans would degenerate without the child to help him rise. If the adult does not waken little by little, a hard crust will form around him and make him insensible.''

~Dr. Maria Montessori

Being in the city is interesting, to say the least. Surrounded by world-class restaurants with scores of ethnicities, shops, theatres, museums, galleries and on and on, the choices for activities are immense.

It's a beautiful fall afternoon. I sit on a park bench people-watching, and I think that in the city we extend childhood. I see adults but few children. In the city, we adults amuse ourselves with our lattes, our sushi, our lectures, our happy hours and our 24-hour gym memberships. But I sense that where there are seldom children, there are not many true adults.

There are dogs in the park, chasing balls and wagging their tails. Domestic dogs retain the puppy gesture of a tail wag because emotionally and socially pet dogs do not mature into adults.

These playful animals are mature biological specimens, but they are not the adults of their species.

Two athletic tan guys drive up in their German-made convertible, the kind with three letters in the name, not two. They toss a Frisbee and talk about the party they went to last night and the one for tonight.

Across the street, two 30-ish women come out of the salon, high-heeled, manicured, pedicured and outfitted for an evening at the new trendy spot.

I grin, remembering how in my early 20s the pursuit of being hip, dressing right and eating out allured me. Not much of that, though, helped me become a better person.

Then came parenthood. What a wake-up call for character development! Being responsible for small human beings, day in and day out, year after year, created qualities in my personality that I never imagined.

From the beginning, our children reflect our best and worst traits, if we can bear to look in this mirror. These reflections help make us into a better person by showing us our strengths and uncovering our weaknesses. Our relationships with our children force us to decide what kind of person we want to become.

So in those moments of parenthood when we dream of a bit more ''adult'' sophistication with images of carrying an evening bag instead of a diaper bag or when we wish that we were pushing 70 mph in a sports car instead of pushing a stroller, remember these things: The job you are doing as a parent is the most important job on this earth. As a parent you are your child's first and best teacher and ally. You are stronger than you realize.

Remember, in your low moments, that real people are walking around with babies instead of the newest electronic music-makers. Real people are taking kids on a walk instead of taking golf lessons. Real people are reading Goodnight Moon for the thousandth time instead of the latest novel.

To you, dear parents of all ages, I say thank you. Thank you for being the adult. Thank you for having the courage, the sense of adventure and the sense of humor to continue the human race.

Next week: Ain't Misbehavin'

Kids Talk™ is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Complete Collection of the Shining Light Reading Series Now Available on DVD
Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
Click here for a free subscription.

©2006 KIDS TALK™
25877 East Bright Avenue
Welches, OR 97067
503.550.3143
maren@kidstalknews.com

Kids Talk is published in conjunction with Scribe Marketing