Click here to learn more about The Science for Raising Happy Kids and the Half Full Blog

Is your teenager grouchy? Does your little one have a cold? Research shows that kindness is a sure route to greater happiness and, in some cases, improved health. (See posting, What You Get When You Give from my blog, Half Full, for more about this.)

Here are five ways to raise kinder kids:

1. Model kindness yourself. Kindness can be contagious: when we see someone else perform an act of kindness, we are more likely to feel an impulse to help out, too. Research suggests that altruistic children have at least one parent (usually of the same sex) who deliberately communicates altruistic values to their kids. Similarly, when preschoolers have nurturing caregivers who deliberately model helping others, they tend to be more helpful and verbally sympathetic to other children when they hurt themselves. There are many ways to model altruism for your kids, as the Half Full reader shows:“We have twin 4 year olds. Girls. We make a lot of art for people. Even just a drawing. We also make cookies or other baked goods for people. We’re in the process of planning to do a bake-a-thon for a bake sale for Haiti and my girls are very excited for that. Right now it’s little things but I hope to get them actually volunteering and holding lemonade sales at an early age.”
2. Make kids personally responsible in some way. Four to 13 year olds who were asked to donate their Halloween candy to hospitalized children donated more (and were more likely to make a donation) when they felt personally responsible. Researchers made kids feel responsible when they said things like: “I will be counting on you and you and you…I will put each of your names on the bag of candy I give tomorrow to the hospitalized children” rather than “please give them as many as you want by putting the candies in the box on the table.”
3. Don’t reward helping behavior. Very young children who receive material rewards for helping others become less likely to help in the future compared with toddlers who only receive verbal praise or receive no reward at all. This research suggests that even the youngest children are intrinsically motivated to be kind, and that extrinsic rewards can undermine this tendency. One reader posted this comment in response to previous  posting about kindness on the Huffington Post:“Some of us feel happy helping others while some feel happy hurting others. I opine that it is the conditioning by our parents when we were young that have led different people to different paths. As a parent, we need to reward our kids when they do a good deed so that they become condition to help others.” What parents model conditions kids in ways that affect their behavior later (though I do have a hard time believing that anyone would feel true joy hurting another person). Although rewarding kids has been shown to backfire eventually, praising kids for helping others is a good idea if we use growth-mindset praise.
4. Be positive. Parents who express positive feelings and use positive, non-coercive discipline raise children who are kinder and more compassionate toward others. Using the ERN method described in this posting is positive and non-coercive; yelling, spanking, and threatening is not.
5. Expose them to need. Too often we protect our kids from pain and suffering, and in so doing we shelter them from others’ needs. Consider the counterintuitive notion that compassion is a positive emotion strongly correlated with happiness, and provide them with opportunities to feel compassion. Teach kids that this compassion is a gift—it is a way to give their time, attention, and energy to another. Added bonus: When we expose kids to others’ suffering, they often feel both compassion and gratitude.

I’ll close with a reader’s comment on my last post that provides a nice illustration of this link between kindness, compassion, and happiness:

“I run a program that helps people overcome the emotional after-effects of traumatic illness and injury. I have seen numerous examples of people changing their life direction after they began giving of themselves to others. It also made a difference for me after I went through life changes due to heart disease and cancer.”

To subscribe to the ‘Half Full’ blog and or to sign up for their e-newsletter visit their website: Science for Raising Happy Kids

Photo credit:

The goal of parental discipline is to help a child rely on his own motivation — to control his impulses, manage his emotions, respect the needs, feelings and rights of others, and “do the right thing” for its own sake.

   A child who believes in himself can dare to face his mistakes. Gradually he must learn to accept them and feel satisfaction when he corrects them. Praise helps, but it must lead a child to find his own pride in his behavior.

   A child who is dependent on a parent’s praise will feel threatened and defensive when it is unavailable or withheld.  Over time, a parent will need to go from saying “I am so proud of you” to “Aren’t you proud of yourself?”

   As a child grows, parents can leave more room for him to recognize his missteps and their consequences — and how to make amends.

   This process begins when a parent notices a grateful look of relief on the child’s face after he has been reprimanded. He has begun to recognize he needs discipline and is on the way to disciplining himself.

   Look for opportunities — especially in mid-event — for the child to examine and manage his behavior more independently. Substitute “Do you realize what you did?” for “You shouldn’t have done that.” Or “Do you know how that made him feel?” for “You are going to have to apologize.”

   These subtle differences tell a child that you count on him and that he can count on himself to make up for his mistakes. You’re letting him know that you value his new strengths.

   A child needs to know that to make mistakes is to be human. A mistake can be understood and forgiven, even though there will be a price to pay.

   Mistakes can be seen as necessary for learning rather than as a reflection of self-worth. Parents’ faith in a child can encourage his capacity to believe in his own progress.

   TEACHING SELF-DISCIPLINE.

   1. Observe your child ’s nonverbal behavior to see how badly he feels about what he has done. If he already knows he’s done something wrong and feels guilty about it, then he’s begun to learn his lesson.

   2. When guilty feelings are too hard to bear, a child may cover them over with denial. Don’t push the child so far that he can’t face what he has done. Instead, commend him for the bravery it takes to face one’s mistakes: “I can see you feel awful about what you did. You know I don’t want to make you feel worse than you do already.” He may be surprised by these words — and open to listening.

   3. You can make sure he understands what he’s done by asking him to tell you. His words will be worth a lot more than yours, and you can clarify any misunderstanding you hear.

   4. Decide upon a consequence that matches the misdeed and allows your child to make amends. “You’re going to have to make a nice card to say how sorry you are.”

   5. Make sure that your child understands the importance of apologizing and making amends, and that he feels forgiven. “Do you need a hug?”

   (This article is adapted from “Discipline: The Brazelton Way,” by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D., and Joshua D. Sparrow, M.D., published by Da Capo Press, a member of The Perseus Books Group.)

   Questions or comments should be addressed to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and Dr. Joshua Sparrow, care of The New York Times Syndicate, 620 Eighth Ave., 5th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10018. Questions may also be sent by e-mail to: nytsyn-families(at)nytimes.com. The (at) represents the symbol on your keyboard. Questions of general interest will be answered in this column, which may be posted on a Families Today Web site or collected in book form. Drs. Brazelton and Sparrow regret that unpublished letters cannot be answered individually.

   Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Dr. Brazelton heads the Brazelton Touchpoints Project, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is director of Special Initiatives at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Photo credit:

Josie, who is in the fifth grade, spends the afternoon with her neighbor Debbie, who is a year older.  Other girls join them.  That evening, Josie shows her mom a round red mark on her arm and confesses that she let the older girl touch her arm with a hot spoon as a secret initiation into a club they were making. 

Her mother is upset.  “What were you thinking?!” she exclaims as she puts salve on the burn.  Later she complains to her husband, “I wish that girl would use her head.  Will she ever learn common sense?”

What is common sense?

Common sense is a kind of intuitive judgment derived from experience, both our own school of hard knocks and the distilled experience that gets handed down as folk wisdom. Together, these create what we think of as “good instincts.”  The concept of common sense suggests that people have a body of shared, unwritten knowledge that allow us to function successfully even in the absence of formal advisers or schooling. Education can provide another treasure trove of information that lets us understand the limitations of our common sense instincts.

When we access our common sense, we find a trove of valuable practical information that helps guide our choices and actions. Common sense answers aren’t always right answers, but they are a great starting point especially when peers are egging each other on. 

Quotes to contemplate discuss and share.

Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.
 –Franklin Roosevelt

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
 –Paul Valery

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.    
 – Buddha

If common sense were a reliable guide, we wouldn’t need science.
  –Amanda Geftner

Bringing it home to your kids

1. Remember, childhood is about acquiring common sense—mostly by exercising bad judgment in situations where the consequences are minor compared to what they will be in adulthood.   Falling down is part of learning to walk.
2. Take time when you and your child are calm and rested to process missteps.  Pragmatic, sympathetic questions often are more useful than scolding, since self assessment is the key to growth:  What do you wish you had done?  How do you hope you might handle that next time?
3. When your child will be with peers who tend to push the limits, help them to anticipate sticky situations they might get into and talk through some options in advance.
4. Share stories of binds you’ve gotten yourself into and out of.  One of the great things about our capacity for imagination is that we don’t have to fall into every pit ourselves.
5. Tape Portia Nelson’s “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters” to the inside of a cupboard door, or someplace where you’ll be able to read it when your child seems to need the same lesson over and over. 

Photo credit:

Modern women still feel the centuries of social command to be selfless and all sacrificing for the sake of their children.

Yet mindfulness is impossible without a sense of oneself. Earlier generations of women — our own mothers and grandmothers — had fewer opportunities to develop their own identities or to even know how they really felt.

Without these abilities, and with the demands of parenting, many simply could not pause, breathe, pay attention to their own experience and recognize how they were reacting to their spouses and children. They were too busy just trying to survive.

In order to bring “compassion and nonjudgmental acceptance to their parenting interactions,” as this website advocates, mothers need to experience this personally. When we let go of the idealized (and impossible) Great Mother expectation, we make room for what’s real: a mother who snorts when she laughs, who works or stays at home or something in between, who doesn’t wash her two year old’s hair for three days, who needs a coffee date with herself once a week, who sometimes feels ambivalent about being a mom even while loving her kids fiercely.

 Self-care is part of this mindful reality. Everyone ultimately benefits when mothers are able to tend to themselves. Fathers and other adults get the chance to nurture children. Sons develop self-reliance and competency. Daughters learn they have great value as individuals when they see their mothers with identities of their own.

This creates a new legacy of femininity, one that allows mothers and daughters to stay connected without having to merge completely. I’ll write more about this experience in my next article.

Book recommendations:

Mothering Without a Map: The Search for the Good Mother Within, Kathryn Black, Viking 2004

The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness, Maureen Murdock, Shambhala 1990

Photo credit:

.
.
.

Thirteen year old Katherine resents having to pick up and vacuum the basement playroom every Saturday morning.  She protests that she doesn’t even spend time down there – that all of the clutter and dirt are from her younger sisters, Jill and Jennifer. 

To make matters worse, this Saturday at 11:00 is a Spring clean-up at the neighborhood park.  Normally the whole family goes, but as Katherine ramps up her outrage, her parents begin wavering.  All the things she says are true:  She has lots of homework.  Her friends sleep in on Saturdays.  Nobody else her age will be at the park. And the twins really are the ones who use the basement. 

Katherine’s parents end up letting her stay home, but they don’t feel good about it.  As they leave the house they can hear Katherine angrily bumping the vacuum cleaner down the stairs.  They want their daughter to be a contributing member of the family and community, but they’re not quite sure how to balance this with time for friends and school.  

What is Citizenship?

As social beings, humans tend to flourish only in community.  We depend on each other more than we realize.  There is no such thing as a self-made man or woman.  Citizenship means giving back to the communities of which we are a part, acknowledging our debt to both the living and to those who came before us.

We participate in the roles and tasks that must be filled for a healthy collective; whether that collective is a household, a nation-state, or something bigger. We do what needs doing rather than leaving it for someone else. We seek to elevate not only our own well being but the well being of all. Since home is the first place that we learn to rely on each other, this is where we begin learning what it means to live in community with others.

Five Quotes to Contemplate, Post and Discuss.

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but must always participate in the swell of the ocean, so we can never experience life by ourselves, but must always share the experience of life that takes place all around us.  
    –Albert Schweitzer

You can’t be human alone.
     –Margaret Kuhn

Genuine politics — even politics worthy of the name — the only politics I am willing to devote myself to — is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.
–Vaclav Havel

Honest people know that the road to success and virtue always involves shared sacrifice, hard work, and gratification postponed.  Telling people otherwise isn’t leadership, it is pandering. 
– Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
–Margaret Mead

Bringing it home to your kids

1.  Remember, it takes three kinds of responsibilities for children to become well rounded citizens: taking care of themselves, giving back to the community of people who give to them, and serving people who can’t give back.  How is your child learning each of these? 

2.  When you can, team up with your child to get a job done.  Dust the same room they are vacuuming.  Chop vegetables together.  Find service projects that they can do with friends.  Serving the community is a lot more fun when it’s done in community.

3.  As fitting, give your child a voice in the division of labor and in choosing service projects.  Not all jobs are fun, and sometimes as a parent you simply need to insist that something get done.  All the same, giving children options among tasks that need doing can help create a sense of ownership and commitment—especially as they approach the teen years.

4.  Create some kind of community service routine for your family, however intermittent or small.  Routine is the key word here.  Make community service part of “who we are” as a family.

5.  Remember efficiency and effectiveness comes through practice.  When your child is young, it may be more work to have them help than to do tasks alone, but the only way for those tasks and activities to get easier is for your kid to have lots of opportunities for practice.

Photo credit:

A child needs to be met and held.

In my work with children, my focus is to empathically recognize these needs of the child. This includes the need for validation of a child’s affective or emotional experience, the need to be admired, and the need for soothing.

It is critical that I relate to the child as a real person engaging authentically to demonstrate the mutuality of our impact on each other, all the while valuing the child for being unique and separate.

In my work, I will shift back and forth between participation and observation, involvement and detachment. This flexibility gives me the opportunity to share in the experience and comment on it so that I can draw the child’s attention to what the child is playing out or enacting. The emphasis with children learning is on experiential knowledge.  

Children usually bring their struggles to therapy nonverbally and communicate behaviorally. They tend to express their pain, distress, and frustration through aggressive play, defiance, tantrums, anxious behaviors, or withdrawal.

My job, as therapist, is to be receptive to what the child reveals by being mindful, aware of present experience with acceptance. This way of being mindful can increase our capacity as adults to be connected and to relate empathically with a child.

Sustained mindfulness requires the intention to stay in the present with a child and to observe and accept both pleasurable and painful experiences as they occur. The application of mindfulness to parenting means learning to be accepting and nonjudgmental in the face of a dizzying array of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of their children. This approach to a child’s needs helps them organize their experiences and teaches them to value all of themselves.

The role of the therapist is not unlike that of a parent who models an accepting, nonjudgmental, and empathic stance. This non-threatening attitude allows children to unburden themselves openly with the freedom to experience their feelings fully.

One must be able to let go of control and be open to embrace whatever arises with the child. This will require flexibility from the parent as well as a steady tolerance for both positive and negative feelings and thoughts from the child.

Change takes place in the direction of greater freedom and spontaneity.  Mindfulness can help us adults be open to all layers of our own emerging experiences and cultivate a greater sense of compassion, empathy, patience, and connection with our children. This is essential to practicing mindful parenting.

Photo credit:

The natural empathy that Jane Brody refers to (Empathy’s Natural, but Nurturing it Helps) is often evident in children and adults when they interact with an infant.

Spontaneous smiles, gentle relaxed facial expressions and softened voices are some of the responses evoked by a baby.  Mary Gordon, the creator of the Canadian program Roots of Empathy and author of the book by the same title, has developed a school based program focusing on the power of a baby and the relationship with a parent to nurture empathy.

 In Gordon’s words, “Empathy is caught, not taught.”  Students throughout the Seattle area are “catching” empathy through the implementation of the Roots of Empathy program for students K-8 and through a demonstration project of Seeds of Empathy a program for 3-5 year old children in child care settings. 

The young infant and parent visit a classroom every three weeks throughout the school year. The classroom visits are facilitated by a trained instructor who guides the student’s observations and interactions with the baby and mother through a series of themes related to developmental milestones of the infant. Themes are reinforced through carefully selected children’s books that highlight emotional responses.

Students who may have missed an early experience of attachment and attunement are able to witness the emotional dance between the mother and the infant to gain some understanding of  the foundational elements of all relationships in life.

Roots of Empathy is currently being delivered in 38 area classrooms in the Seattle, Highline, Kent, Bellevue and Shoreline districts and in four private schools Lakeside, Bush, Westside and the JCC. Seeds of Empathy is being piloted at the Stroum Jewish Community Center and at the Ninth Avenue Children’s House.

For more information about the programs, please visit www.rootsofempathy.org

Related video clip:

Photo credit:

Question: My older daughter was conceived through IVF (in vitro fertilization). Shortly after her birth I began wondering when she might ask the inevitable question, “Where did I come from?” What would you say?

  
Answer: Children usually ask that question at age 4 or 5 when they begin to wonder about the differences between boys’ and girls’ bodies, and between their bodies and their parents’.

This curiosity coincides with the time when children deeply want to imitate their parents and identify with them. They are becoming more aware of gender differences and seek to understand why they are different and how their bodies work.

The questions are perfectly natural: “Where did I come from?”, “How does the seed get to the egg?” and “How does the baby get out?”

So it’s a good idea to be ready when your child is approaching that age. Conception, pregnancy and birth are such miraculous feats that it is hard for any of us to fathom just how they all could happen. Add in the marvels of medical technology and it’s no wonder we struggle to answer children’s questions.

Fortunately, children only take in simple, clear answers aimed at their level of understanding. If you overshoot with details, eyes glaze over or the kids start fidgeting and change the subject.

Your reply to your child depends on a few specifics — including her age and her interest in bodies or babies. Your reply also depends on whether she was conceived with her mother’s egg or a donor’s.

The basic information is the same. Babies come from an egg from a woman and a kind of seed called sperm from a man that fertilizes the egg.

These facts of life are already surprising and hard enough for a child to understand. You may not be adding much to spell out that sometimes the egg comes from the mommy and the sperm from the daddy, and sometimes they get it from another woman or another man if they need it to make the baby they both want so much to have.

By now, the child may have heard enough until the next conversation. If so, you can save this information for then: The fertilized egg grows inside the woman’s body, in her womb — a kind of pouch inside made especially for babies to grow in. The baby comes out through the mother’s birth canal, or she may need an operation to help the baby come out.

Parents love their children no matter where they come from, how they are conceived and born, or what the connection happens to be between biological parents and “real” parents in a family. This is what children need to know most of all.

For more information to answer children’s questions about their bodies, see Robie H. Harris’ books, including “It’s Perfectly Normal.”

How to talk about the birds and the bees
– Tell the truth. If not, you may lose a child’s trust. You needn’t tell the whole truth all at once, just what the child can handle.

– Be open to a child’s questions and ready to answer, which will prepare the way for open communication all the way through adolescence.

– Let the child’s questions and behavior guide you. If you watch and listen you’ll know when you’ve given a little too much information.

Questions or comments should be addressed to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and Dr. Joshua Sparrow, care of The New York Times Syndicate, 620 8th Ave., 5th floor, New York, N.Y. 10018. Questions may also be sent by e-mail to: nytsyn-families(at)nytimes.com. The (at) represents the symbol on your keyboard. Questions of general interest will be answered in this column, which may be posted on a Families Today Web site or collected in book form. Drs. Brazelton and Sparrow regret that unpublished letters cannot be answered individually.

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Dr. Brazelton heads the Brazelton Touchpoints Project, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is director of Special Initiatives at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Photo credit:

Welcome to a journey into the heart of our lives. Being mindfully aware, attending to the richness of our experiences, creates scientifically recognized enhancements in our physiology, our mental functions, and our interpersonal relationships. Being fully present in our awareness opens our lives to new possibilities of well-being.

Almost all cultures have a form of practice to help develop awareness of the moment. The major religions of the world utilize some form of focusing one’s attention, from meditation to prayer, yoga to Tai’ chi. Each of these traditions may have its own particular approach, but they share in common the power of intentionally focusing awareness in a way that transforms people’s lives.

Why is this mindful awareness so universal an ideal goal across our human family? Can we find a common thread that links these practices that might help us understand the power of this way of being to enhance health, relationships, and well-being?… download the pdf to continue reading

Photo credit:

Question: My 3-year-old son now resists a nap until late afternoon. Of course that affects his behavior. (We also have a 5-month-old baby boy, which is part of the problem.)

If our 3-year-old eventually puts himself down for a nap in late afternoon, bedtime is a nightmare.

How hard should we try to get him to nap? I don’t think he is ready to drop it, based on his mood on days when he doesn’t get one.
  
Answer: Most children start dropping their afternoon nap after age 3. Ready or not, your son seems to be moving in that direction.

His new baby brother may be a reason to stay awake. Five-month-olds are much more exciting for young children than newborns. Everybody else is captivated by babies at this stage, too. Your son doesn’t want to miss out on anything — especially if his brother is in on it.

You’re right that a late afternoon nap postpones bedtime. Instead of a nap, might you set up an early afternoon “quiet time”? Don’t call it a nap. You might even avoid using the bed where he usually naps.

Set up a regular time and place for him to cuddle with you, and for you to read stories together. Or ask him to stay quietly in one spot — a mat or a few cushions — for 30 to 45 minutes. He may surprise you and fall asleep. If not, at least this quiet time may keep him from falling apart later.

Also consider moving his bedtime a half hour or so earlier.

Think of this new schedule as a combination of nap and nighttime sleep. You may find that even if he goes to bed a little earlier, he wakes up in the morning at the same time as before.

On average, 3-year-olds need 10 or 11 hours of sleep each night and an hour’s nap. Children who don’t get enough rest in a 24-hour period often have trouble falling asleep, and their sleep is disrupted at night.

But even if you can’t get your son to nap, he may soon be able to get all the sleep he needs at night.

Questions or comments should be addressed to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and Dr. Joshua Sparrow, care of The New York Times Syndicate, 620 8th Ave., 5th floor, New York, N.Y. 10018. Questions may also be sent by e-mail to: nytsyn-families(at)nytimes.com. The (at) represents the symbol on your keyboard. Questions of general interest will be answered in this column, which may be posted on a Families Today Web site or collected in book form. Drs. Brazelton and Sparrow regret that unpublished letters cannot be answered individually.

Responses to questions are not intended to constitute or to take the place of medical or psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis or treatment. If you have a question about your child’s health or well-being, consult your child’s health-care provider.

Dr. Brazelton heads the Brazelton Touchpoints Project, which promotes and supports community initiatives that are collaborative, strength-based, prevention-focused sources of support for families raising children in our increasingly stressful world. Dr. Sparrow, a child psychiatrist, is director of Special Initiatives at the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Learn more about the Center at www.touchpoints.org.

Photo credit: