The Center for Parenting Education

“The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher”

Chinese Proverb

Did you ever hit black ice on the road? One minute you are driving along smoothly, the next minute you are doing a “180”, almost completely out of control.

That’s how it can feel when your little baby, who previously allowed you to lovingly meet his needs, enters toddler-hood. As children begin to assert their independence, many parents feel both exhilarated by the growth and unprepared to deal with this new little person:
• You may feel excited about their beginning to speak, but some of the things they say may stand your hair on edge, especially the incessant and forceful “No’s.”
• You may be thrilled that they now walk, but of course, this means they can run away from you – and you find yourself constantly running after them.
• You may be so pleased that they are more independent, but now they have opinions on everything from what they wear to what they eat to what songs you can sing.

It’s time to become a disciplinarian as well as the nurturing and loving caretaker you have been. It’s time to set limits to protect your children, make them feel safe, give them knowledge of what is expected of them and provide them with a sense of control and power over their own little world.

But limit setting needs to be realistic based on the child’s age, temperament, and developmental stage. If you do your best to understand child development while trying to set reasonable limits, your life with this ever-changing child can be more enjoyable. It may still be challenging to figure out how to cope with these new stages, but learning about the ins-and-outs of limit setting can minimize the “black ice” feeling and maximize the joy in this new phase of your parenting journey.

By Claire Gawinowicz, Certified Parenting Educator

It was another winter day, but because it was the weekend, I was able to spend more time with my family. My wife and I cherish the opportunities that we have on the weekend where we can be with our two sons. Our children, who are four and two years old, enjoy sleeping late on the weekend. On this day, they did not have to get up early for their respective school and day care. After having breakfast and playing in their room, the boys wanted to watch cartoons on television. I told my wife that I wanted to take the boys to the park, and she thought they might be hesitant. My wife was right; the boys kept pleading their case about just staying inside for the day.

In the past, I had relented to my boys’ wishes about staying inside for the day. But after reading Richard Louv’s book, “Last Child in the Woods,” I decided that Daddy was going to take the family into the park. The boys continually screamed for their television shows and toys, and my older son began to cry as I put his sneakers on his feet. After all the chaos just to get out of the house, we took a stroller to the park. The boys began to calm down as they observed the trees blowing in the wind, and a big, old Golden Retriever barking at us as we approached the park.

When we came to the edge of the park, my wife noticed a path leading towards a stream. I parked the stroller at the side of the path and perceived that the boys did not want to get up and walk. They were tucked snugly in their winter coats, and began to cry as I said we were going to walk to the stream. Both of the boys said that they still wanted to be pushed down the path in the stroller. Even though I was frustrated by their apparent lack of interest, I calmly told my wife to walk towards the stream. After my wife walked ahead, I followed her down the path. Our boys knew that they were going to have to get out of the stroller and walk down the path to be with Mommy and Daddy. Both of them ran to us to catch up. After a few additional complaints about not being in the stroller, the boys finally calmed down and began to enjoy their surroundings. They climbed over rocks and fallen branches and soon marched down to the stream. My older son looked around and found larger tree branch and stuck it into the stream. In a matter of fifteen minutes he was captivated – by nature. My younger son was also enjoying himself thoroughly. He was picking up different leaves and moving them from place to place, with a great smile on his face. The boys had soon forgotten about my wife and I, as we watched them frolicking all over this beautiful area of the park. The cries for the television, their toys, and the stroller were now nonexistent. After the boys had spent a couple hours playing in the park, they both told us that they were hungry. Further up the path we had found a bench, and sat down and ate. The boys strayed from us for moments to explore, and then came back for more food. My wife and I continued to enjoy watching the boys and their free play in the park.

After we walked home, I reflected on how much fun the boys had in the park. They were both truly enthusiastic and exploratory once they had a chance to really orient to where they had been. They had the opportunity to obtain first hand experience of the world around them, as opposed to watching cartoon characters or a computer dazzle them. They were able to use their senses and enjoy nature. I realize that television, computers, and cell phones will always be a part of our lives and each have become habitual commodities as forms of entertainment. However, nature is often now forgotten in this technological world, and it can be most awe-inspiring and enjoyable to the human spirit. After reading Richard Louv’s book, I began to realize that my sons have more access to the technological world than the natural world. The television, computers, and cell phones are in their home; the park is outside. Even though they love nature, the power of the screen can induce initial ambivalence, resistance, crying, and protests. Yet after reading and thinking about how important nature is to children’s well-being and actually witnessing it firsthand, I will continue to take my boys to the park.

by Dr. Adam Berman, a clinical psychologist and a certified school psychologist, who works with children and their families with regard to concerns about excessive amounts of time spent on the cell phone, computer, or watching television.
267.971.1537
adamberm@comcast.net.

It takes a village to raise a child.
~African Proverb

Experts agree that bullying is a serious issue. It involves not only the bully and the victim, but also all the children who are aware that bullying is occurring but are not directly involved with the situation. What is the responsibility of these “bystanders”? It takes a confident child to stand up to a bully when they witness one in action. I asked two experts about the role and responsibility of the bystander and they said a sense of community coupled with strong role models seem to be an effective strategy to help the bystander take action.

Susan Robison, a local psychologist for adolescents says, “kids need to get the message from role models such as teachers, administrators, parents, etc. that bullying will not be tolerated, and that it is safe to discuss bullying with us.” She continues, “If youth are held to a high standard of bringing bullying to the attention of an authority figure, and are given full anonymity to do so, they are much more likely to disclose these events, especially if they are praised by authority for doing so.”

Margaret Preston, a psychotherapist with offices in Erdenheim, PA, agrees. She says, “educate these youngsters to be on the alert for bullying and inform them of several options that may be reasonable such as, reporting the bullying to a parent or a teacher, befriending the victim, and building support networks around the victim. [There is] strength in numbers.”

Parents need to instill in their children that bullying will never be tolerated and open a dialogue about what role they both can play in a bullying situation. Parents also need to get involved in any anti-bullying programs their schools might initiate. Adults play a vital role in empowering the bystander. It’s all part of the “village” that helps to end bullying.

by Claire Gawinowicz, Certified Parenting Educator

My daughter was heading to high school. Most parents that I knew were fretting about the transition from middle school, and all the various concerns that accompany that type of change. I was obsessed with just one thought, I only had four years left with my precious child and she would be gone. I felt like I was living in my own personal ticking time bomb.

Four years passed with a million different reasons to celebrate and some very challenging hurdles to overcome. Normal life in every family. Always in my mind, the time bomb ticked. It was a quiet ticking, not one that took away pleasure or that drowned out everyday life. Just a constant nagging in the recesses of my mind.

College preparations were in full swing, the search for schools, the applications, complicated by the fact that she was pursuing playing a sport in college. The process, of course, is all consuming. I had watched others navigate and had promised myself that I wouldn’t let it be so difficult. I failed, it consumed our family. In a way, I relished the distraction from the ticking time bomb.

I remember thinking that if only you had a crystal ball and knew the outcome, you could actually sit back and enjoy the process. The hardest part, I think, is that you can’t rush it, can’t control it, can’t do anything but just put one foot in front of the other. I realized early on that it can be a very stressful time for a teenager and was determined to focus on how to eliminate any excess stress that I could from the process. For our family, that meant sharing the college visitation process with my husband, when I really wanted to do it all myself. After all, the ticking caused me to strive to savor every precious moment that was left.

Flash back a decade or so and I remembered struggling with a similar process when my daughter was in pre-school – the public school/private school dilemma. Tortured to make the right choice for her, I studied the options, made criteria for the selection, made pro and con lists, talked to anyone that would listen. Then one day, a wise friend said, “You know, you really can’t make a bad choice. Your daughter will be fine in either school”.

She was right. She was fine.

Would the same be true for college? She had good choices. She could handle change. She could make new friends.  Worst case scenario, she doesn’t like it, and she transfers elsewhere. Everyone said when she finds the right fit, she will know it. So, that day came and sure enough she said, “This is it, Mom. I am sure.”

Finally, a decision. We could all relax. But, not me. It felt like the end was getting closer. Why was I so distraught? How would I ever survive seeing her off? What would life be like without her? I loved my husband dearly, but did I still like him? Did he like me?

Two dear friends called one day and said let’s make scrapbooks for the kids’ graduation. I said, “You have got to be kidding me. Hot pokers to my eyeballs!” They convinced me we should do it, coercing me with the idea that we would have dinner together once a week. Working full-time, I thought that I just couldn’t fit it into my life, but they pestered me into saying yes. For about nine months, we met weekly and ate dinner while we scrapbooked 18 years of our daughter’s lives. We laughed at the top of our lungs, we cried, at times we sobbed. And, we told stories that we had long since forgotten about our children. We cherished the memories, captured some of it on the pages, and presented the gifts at graduation. And shortly thereafter, off she went.

Her absence was huge, like a gaping hole in our hearts and the adjustment was not easy. But, my husband and I learned some important lessons along the way. First and foremost, we survived the transition because our daughter survived the transition. I like to believe that she thrived, in some small part, because of the foundation that began at home. The changes were enormous for her and for us. Communication was critical. When she needed us, we talked; when she needed space, we managed. At home, we found that we had new-found time. We made lists of things we loved to do and for 18 years didn’t have time to do. My husband and I were joyous when we discovered that we actually did still like each other. We learned that our relationship with our daughter was even better than it had been in high school. She was more mature, more responsible, more grateful, more understanding and the time that we had together on breaks and during the summer months was even more precious.

Junior year of college, she brought her boyfriend home with her to meet us. He is from Chicago and she wanted him to meet everyone, spend time in Philadelphia and go to the beach for a weekend. The first thing she did when they arrived at our home was to show him around the house, and then things were quiet. I wondered where they had gone. I heard voices in our den and ventured in to talk. Sitting comfortably on the sofa together, my daughter was showing him the scrapbook of her life, telling stories much like the ones my friends and I had shared. And he was listening.

Now I sit, about one week before the momentous next mountain to hurdle. My daughter will graduate from college. We’ll all go half-way across country to her university to celebrate – my mom, my sister, my step- daughter, my husband and me. We will all cry, I am sure, as we share our pride and we anticipate the next chapter. She’s headed to Chicago, with a wonderful job waiting, her boyfriend headed there as well. And the difference this time around, I don’t hear the ticking time bomb. I know that we’ll all adjust just fine.

By Beth Ann Neill, parent of a young adult

I am very sympathetic to new parents of Downs kids.  It is traumatic and frightening, but the kids are so wonderful, and every inch of progress makes for grand celebration!  You only can appreciate their beauty once you relax and realize they are just kids, and they remain kids a lot longer than “normal” kids (whatever that is).

We had kids because we wanted kids and with Cara that turned out to be a kid for a life time. Cara is now 40 years old, in some ways she is about 9 years old and some ways she is 40. But overall Cara is a lot more mature than me, she is rock solid in her convictions, right is right, and wrong is wrong, all the time. Never any exceptions. Cara is extremely moral, committed to her loyalty.  She simply loves everybody she meets.

When Cara was born in Burlington Vermont (on April 1, 1971, how’s that for ironic?) we were scared stiff and had no idea what to expect. People back then were uncomfortable around us, and the sometimes said some awkward things, including one guy I worked with who blurted out, “well you’re not going to keep her are you?”

We had a wonderful old family doctor who simply said, “take this beautiful child home and love her.”  We asked questions of what could we expect, like would she be able to walk? She was so double jointed and flexible it seemed like there was no way she could walk.  He assured her she would be fine, but it wasn’t enough.  We heard of a clinic in Cherry Hill NJ that was doing super progressive work with Downs kids.  We made an appointment for an evaluation.  They spent the day with us and tested Cara in many ways; there was a very detailed technical report that said she would be pretty much what she is today.  She is fairly high functioning to start with but the big thing we learned that became our whole recipe for raising a Downs person.  If you treat her normal she will be normal, if you treat her special, you will create a special person.  We had to learn to be consistent. Yes, and no, must be the same every time in every situation. If you are not allowed to climb on the coffee table today, you cannot climb on it tomorrow, or ever. It takes more discipline for the parent s than it does for the child.  And this applies to all kids, not just downs. My wife became the disciplinarian and I tried to be the “Daddy.”  I was not as good as my wife was at being firm. I just wanted to protect her from anything or anybody who would be unkind in any way.  Time passed and our family grew with the birth of Cara’s brother Derek. They are about three years apart, and grew up learning about life and love together.

When Cara was less than two we moved to Massachusetts. Their school system was highly advanced and the Federal Education Mandation laws were just being enacted. It was mandated that all kids be educated to their fullest potential, no matter of their physical or mental capacities. But Mass was really already doing that.  Cara went off to school where they developed an education plan to work primarily on her social skills, Cara was potty trained by the time she was 18 months old, and going to school in a taxi cab!

Cara was a bright penny in our family and with her school teachers.  She was always outgoing, charming, interesting, and very precocious. She stayed in public school until she was 21. In the later years of high school she was a social butterfly, working for the teachers, counselors, and the school office secretaries, she had the run of her high school, and virtually everybody knew her. She did copying, collating, and distribution of tests and handouts, and mail, around the school. Cara went on to work in our local sheltered workshop, and also from there did volunteer work at the local hospital. At the hospital she worked in the women’s health unit, and again became well known and very social.  She made friends throughout the hospital, the sheltered workshop, and high school that she communicates with still today.  It wasn’t all roses, the workshop had a social network of all different types of disabilities, some of the people were more physically challenged than mental and there was a lot of gossip, and manipulating of weaker personalities. At one point Cara became involved with a group of very undesirable clients who were pushy, aggressive, and down right nasty.  I never knew exactly what Cara’s role was in that click but it was not nice.

We got past that phase, but shortly after that Cara’s health really deteriorated, she had gained an awful lot of weight and was often sick, and hospitalized with a lot of upper respiratory problems.  At 305 pounds she was sent home from the hospital with congestive heart failure, and pneumonia, on oxygen, and with visiting nurses tending to an IV of antibiotics.  We explained to Cara that she could not live this way, sitting and eating and watching TV and that the doctors had told us there was nothing more they could do for her. We out right told her she would die if she didn’t get up and move.  She got that through her head and started walking the hall way of our home between TV commercials.  That seemed to work, so to encourage her, my wife got her a pedometer to track her progress. She logged countless miles in the house!  Cara saw her weight drop a couple pounds and that encouraged her to expand her own exercise program over the following years until she was doing exercise tapes, Sweating to the Oldies with Richard Simmons, and Walk away the Pounds. She became obsessed with health and got down to 125 pounds, virtually on her own. Her story was better than many you see on Oprah. That weight loss was probably 10 years ago, and although Cara still fights the weight battle, she has gained back some of her weight but is no longer  morbidly obese. Cara slept with oxygen and we traveled with portable bottles for maybe four years but eventually she got rid of all that stuff and she has not returned to the hospital since. 

Today at forty years old Cara will tell you she is retired, but she works very hard in our home.  She does most of the laundry, takes care of all the kitchen cleanup, and dishes, vacuums, waxes furniture and dusting.  She loves her TV programs, soap operas, Country music and Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburg Steelers.   She prowls the internet constantly, on her own computer, researching characters on her soaps, and following stars like Roethlisberger, Wynonna Judd and Alan Jackson.  She talks on the phone regularly to her friends, but her social life is mostly interacting with her niece, and nephews, and family members.   Some of Cara’s friends live in group homes, but Cara has always wanted to live at home. She never wanted to discuss living in a group home.  She loves her life here with her family, she has her room, and her stuff, and that’s all she really wants.  She takes care of her grandma, who at 87 needs Cara’s reminders to take her pills. When grandma spends the winters in our home she and grandma are together constantly, and when grandma goes home for the summer Cara talks to grandma at least twice a day every day.

People throw around the word “retard” like it is a descriptive color or shape.  When some one says it once around me I usually disregard it and hope they just slipped up.  The next time I hear that same person say it I embarrass them and explain how hurtful it is.  The third time they say it I am inclined to take action, like when it happened in the work place or some place I can take it to a management’s attention.  I usually would shun anyone like that but sometimes you are forced to associate with people who are rude and ignorant.

We wanted kids when we were young, and one of our kids still lives with us.  And I wonder what was it that I was afraid of when she was born.