Have a New Kid by Friday (26 page)

Although your child’s peer group will have a tremendous pull on her, you want your child to be able to think for herself. Sometimes she’ll make mistakes—big ones. The most important thing for you to do is to stay part of her world. And, at times, you’ll need to enter her world, unbeknownst to her, in tough love. Like the dad who decided to go view the same movie his daughter and her boyfriend were supposedly seeing—he didn’t see them at the movie, put two and two together, and showed up at the town’s local make-out spot. Neither of those teens will forget the flashlight beam he shined into the backseat that illuminated exactly what was going on.

When a university student insisted on dancing topless at a local strip club, her parents were nearly apoplectic. However, when they confronted her about it, she said vehemently, “You just don’t understand like my friends do. It’s artistic expression!” But the picture changed when her two older brothers decided to go and view her “artistic expression” on stage, and her parents joined them. When the girl spotted her family midway through her act, her gyrations came to an abrupt stop, and she ran offstage. As hard as it was for those family members to show up, they did so because they knew it would bring reality into the situation—and show the act for exactly what it was.

I applaud all of you parents who take the extra time to enter your child’s world and show tough love when it’s called for.

Pets (and Caring for Them)

Whose pet is it?

If you’re one of the parents who bought a pet for your child because (1) you thought it would be good for your kid to have a pet or (2) your son really wanted that fuzzy little puppy, then I suggest that pet belongs to you. If you buy a pet for a youngster under 5, it’s definitely your pet. Between the ages of 5 and 10, it’s principally your pet. After age 10, it’s more likely to be your child’s pet.

Should children take care of their pet? Yes. If they want to claim ownership—“that’s
my
dog”—then brushing and walking the dog, feeding the dog, and doing dog poop control need to belong to them. Even a 5-year-old can use a little shovel to pick up dog poop and hurl it into your neighbor’s yard. If your older child—say a child over 8—has campaigned nonstop for a dog, make sure you go over these things with your child: “This will not be my dog. It will be your dog. And I expect you to feed it and clean up after it! There can’t be any poop or pee on the floor either.”

The problem is, as soon as you take on a pet, everyone in the family is going to have some responsibility for that pet. At first family is going to have some responsibility everything is rosy. That cute little puppy will get a lot of attention. Soon, however, it will become more and more evident that your child isn’t planning on doing a lick of work. If this happens in your home, here’s what I suggest: stake the dog in the front yard with a For Sale sign. Or put an ad in the paper or on the Internet to sell the dog. That ought to get your child’s attention.

In other words, don’t give your child wiggle room or any gray area here. Either he steps up to the plate and takes care of that dog or cat or guinea pig, or he doesn’t—and the critter goes to someone who will. I like goldfish because they teach kids a lesson about caring for pets, but you’re not stuck with them for years. They certainly teach kids about death and burial at sea. That’s always been my job: the grand flush down the porcelain canyon. Recently, though, I’ve been stumped by a black fish that won’t die. Every time we travel from Tucson to New York for the summer, we expect to come back to Tucson and find that fish dead. But the fish must have 9 lives. . . .

I love pets. We’ve had our laughs and tears over them (and lots of funerals in the backyard). I adore our dog, Rosie. She’s got a great personality. She even sleeps with Sande and me. She’s an integral part of our family.

But all 5 of my kids, while growing up, knew that pets were a responsibility. That once you got ’em, you didn’t take ’em back . . . until they went down the porcelain canyon or out under the tree in the yard.

Don’t get a pet just because it’s cute or you think it will help your child be responsible—unless, that is, your children aren’t enough for you to take care of and you’re craving something else to do. If you buy your child a little chick at Easter, you’re nuts. (If you live on a farm, I withdraw my diagnosis.)

Picky Eaters

There are three things in parenting that you don’t need to spend a lot of time worrying about—eating, sleeping, and going potty. All those things take their course quite naturally, believe it or not, if a parent stays out of it.

Eating is way too big a thing for many parents. They turn a molehill into a mountain by constantly harping on eating habits:

“Eat your veggies. They’re good for you. If you do, you’ll grow big and strong like your 143-pound father.”

“People who are starving across the sea would love to have that food.”

“Eat it. You’ll like it.”

“Just take a bite, and I’ll give you some candy for dessert.”

Those kinds of comments were around when I was a kid too, and they didn’t work for me either. But here’s the truth: if eating is in a mountain category, it’s because the parent is dumb enough to bring home all the sugars and fats that the kids are eating. If parents are smart, they start early in getting children interested in eating real food rather than the sugar-carb crap that serves as baby and toddler food.

Many studies have been done that show that children, if not pushed by their parents, will eat what their bodies crave. For example, children who are in a growth phase might require a lot more protein. Who cares if a child eats fish, fish, and fish for a week, then eats veggies the next week because that’s what she craves? She’s still getting an overall balanced diet.

When eating becomes a battle with children, it’s because the parents are too pushy. They hover, they overcontrol. And every child has a built-in antenna that’s aimed toward identifying what’s important to Mom and Dad. That’s the way your kids keep you over a barrel and controlled—at least in their thinking. So if you make eating an issue, they’ll say, “Hey, let’s give Mom a run for her money and see how far we get.”

One key to good nutrition is preparing well-balanced meals. Dishes should be passed, and children should use a serving spoon and put the food on the plate themselves (rather than being served a certain amount). Emphasize that trying things is good. Acknowledge that not everyone will like the same thing, but everyone needs to try it. Don’t force children to finish what’s on their plate. Studies have shown that your child can eat in one sitting only the amount of food that is the size of his fist. Any more than that can stretch his capacities and lead to struggles with overeating. Also make it clear that when dinner’s over, it’s over. There’s no going for the snacks in the cabinet an hour afterward.

Another key is not having junk food in the house. If you have it in your house, who is bringing it in? The next time you go to the store, check out the fat and sodium content in Lunchables and Goldfish crackers—two items many parents consider standard kid food. Then there’s McDonald’s and pizza day at school. The American diet, in general, is horrible and life-shortening. So many of the things our children consume are actually horrific to eat. And with our on-the-go American lifestyle, the average American child ends up eating out at least one meal a day!

Recently Lauren, my teenage daughter, and I went to a basketball game. Neither of us had eaten before the game, so we were really hungry afterward. “Where do you want to go to eat, honey?” I asked her. Well, guess what? She didn’t say McDonald’s or Burger King. Good for her. You know what she wanted? Salmon! Yup, salmon. A whole lot more expensive for her thrifty father, but a whole lot healthier for her. And you know why Lauren said that? Because Sande, my dear wife, spent her time at the food processor when Lauren was a baby, making her own baby food without all the preservatives and junk that go into the Gerber variety. What we ate at the dinner table, Lauren ate in mushed-up form. And it taught her to enjoy the taste of real food, healthy food.

That’s a taste she’ll have for a lifetime. Well worth the extra work, I’d say.

Pornography

All the mom had intended to do was change her adolescent son’s stinky sheets, but she got much more than she bargained for. Just as she pulled the sheets off the bed, something else peeked out from under the mattress:
Penthouse
and
Playboy
magazines.

Stunned doesn’t describe how this mom felt. What should she do? She had filth in her house, and her young son was not only looking at it but had brought it in to the house!

Here’s what I suggested she do. Rather than confront her 13-year-old and get into a yelling standoff, the mom quietly placed the two magazines on the coffee table in the living room, along with her
Good Housekeeping
and
Self
. Then she waited for her son to come home from school and discover them.

Sure enough, he did—within minutes, as he plopped down to watch TV. He nearly choked on his Coke. Then he turned bright red. “What are these doing there?” he finally managed to say.

“Oh,” the mom said glibly, “I found these magazines with beautiful women in them under your mattress. I thought I’d just place them out here, where your sister and your dad can enjoy the pretty pictures too.”

At that point, the son looked like he was going to puke. He’d been caught red-handed.

“Or maybe there’s a better place for this stuff,” the mom continued matter-of-factly. “Like tearing it up and putting it in the trash. But I felt like that’s something you should do, rather than me doing it for you. After all, you’re the one who brought it into the house.”

The mom sat down with the son, talked with him about what the magazine was all about and how it depicted women, and asked, “Is this really what you want to spend your time looking at? Pornography is highly addictive.”

And that’s true. Addictive long-term behaviors start with brief encounters with such material.

Is it natural for an adolescent or teenage boy (11 to 14 is the age at which 9 out of 10 boys view pornography) to want to see what a woman’s body looks like? Yes. But there are healthy and unhealthy ways of viewing a woman’s body. And pornography is definitely unhealthy because of its lewd poses, raw view of sexuality, and degrading perspective of women.

Every boy since the beginning of time has been interested in and fascinated by a woman’s body. But today’s culture ups the ante of parental watchfulness because of the types of objectionable material that are so readily available. When I was a kid, porn wasn’t easily available like it is today. My buddy Moonhead and I got our sex ed from his father’s subscription to
National Geographic
.

With the Internet, pornography steps right into your living room . . . if you let it. Did you know that Internet pornography is a $12 billion industry?
⁶
Wise parents set up blockers for objectionable material and periodically check the history button on their computer. You would never let your child wander through an adultbookstore, right? Well, I’ve got news for you. Your child can see a lot worse than that on the Internet with just one click of the mouse. Wise parents need to become savvy about everything their children are viewing—whether in magazines or on the Internet. Stats say that 9 out of 10 children will view pornography on the Internet. Will your child be one of them?