So, here's a video clip of a mom and dad who moved to live with their daughter during college. Is this a good idea or not?

I would argue that it's being far too overprotective. These are the classic Helicopter Parents. You can see that they love their daughter to death. And, it appears that the daughter, Fallon, is really happy having them living in her apartment. But, I would argue that's probably because she's used to them hovering over her all her life.

Some would say there's nothing wrong with it. Young people all over the world live at home while going to a local college. It's a way to save money while also being the first step transitioning to adulthood.

But going away to college is a different story. This is Fallon's opportunity to get away from her parents safely and put into action all she's learned living at home. 

Mom and Dad say that they wanted to take a year off and live somewhere else, and it just so happened to be the same city in which their daughter was attending college.

Will this ruin Fallon for life? Probably not. Will it make it harder for her to transition to adult independence? There's a good chance it will take her longer. It's hard to let go, but it's imperative for our children's well-being as well as rediscovering ourselves as adults, not just parents. Having an empty nest is also the opportunity to remember who we are as couples and rediscover romance as well as our partners.

Fallon, kick them to the curb and order a pizza!


image courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/claudelle

With the New Year just days away, many adults are contemplating making a New Year’s Resolution: seek better employment, quit smoking, join a gym, go on a diet. The problem is that only about 50% of resolution-makers stick to them by February, and only 8% last the entire year.

Part of the reason is because our resolutions are often about us. On January 1st, we are all gung-ho about focusing on how to improve our lives, but parents’ lives are busy. No matter our intentions, our focus inevitably shifts from us and gravitates to our children. So, this year, for New Year’s, why not consider making some parenting resolutions?

We all want our children to be happy and successful and there’s a good chance we may not have been going about it the best way possible. Using these six Safety-Net Parenting skills can help us keep our Parenting Resolutions in 2015.

1. Help Your Child Find His Passion

If you haven’t already, in 2015, consider making an effort to find out what your child is passionate about. Sometimes it’s obvious, but other times a child doesn’t even know. So, you listen. You pay attention. When the screens are off, what is it he wants to do most? What is he telling you about every time you drive him to soccer practice? These are his passions. These are crucial to learn so he can start building successes and self-confidence.

2. Find Her Opportunities To Strengthen Her Passions

If your child loves building, find opportunities for her to build. Search for a club at school together. Look online for a Lego building or design competition close by. As an adult, often we have the experience that our children don’t have. So, we show them how they can take their passions and make them into strengths.

3.  Let Him Fail

In 2015, pull back a bit. Helicopter Parents hover and studies show us that this is not good for our children’s self-perception. They don’t feel a sense of independence. So, when they go out on their own, they don’t fully trust themselves because they have not been given the opportunities in the past. So, this year, let him learn from failures. If he leaves his homework on the dining room table after you have reminded him twice to put it in his backpack, don’t turn the van around and retrieve it before school starts. Safety-Net Parents allow their children to fail (but, not crash) so they can learn from their mistakes and hopefully avoid them next time.

4. Show Them How To Give Back

Researchers have found that children who give back to their communities have stronger connections to their surroundings and do better in school. So, this year, find a way for your child to give back. Have her be a part of this decision-making. Will she donate a portion of her allowance each week to an animal shelter because she loves dogs? Does she want to hold cookie sales and open a lemonade stand each month to donate to cancer research for her aunt who is battling the disease? How about volunteering at the local YMCA for her high school community service hours because she a health advocate?

5. Set The Rules and Stick To Them

This is the year that you follow through. Although they rarely admit it, children need boundaries to feel safe. Once they feel safe and know their limits, they are free to explore their passions. So, our job as Safety-Net Parents is to set those limits, make the consequences known, and (most importantly) stick to them. It’s easy to give your son “one more chance,” but when you do, you’ve trained him to know that there is no consistency in your follow-through. Be the bad guy once (maybe twice) at the beginning of 2015 and make life easier for everyone the rest of the year.

6. Be the Person You Want Your Child to Become

Oh, all right already. Yes, you can make a resolution as well. Actually, it’s incredibly important you model the behaviors you want your children to have. If you want them to find their passions, explore your own. If you want them to give back, then you must also give back. If they need to eat right, stay healthy, exercise, so should you (this is your resolution part).

When our children become happy in the lives they live, confident in the skin they are in, and successful in the endeavors, life at home is pleasant for us all. And, with a stable home, it’s easier for us parents to focus on our own resolutions: getting a better job, getting rid of the cigarettes, hitting the gym, and being better parents.


image courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/Yuri

Should we give to our kids during the holidays just because it's the holidays? I recall one year when my oldest daughter, Riley, was three. She was acting the fool the day before Easter, and I warned her that if she didn't shape up, the Easter Bunny wouldn't be filling her Easter basket the next day.

My threat did nothing. Riley continued acting the fool and my wife and I sadly felt that we were forced to follow through. When she awoke the next morning, the Easter Bunny had left a note regarding her behavior and why there were no hidden eggs and an empty basket.

It was the hardest thing we as parents had to do, but as conduits of the Ester Bunny, we felt we had to keep his/our promise so that Riley would realize that her actions dictated her consequences.

Riley was an angel that morning, and after her nap, as the Easter Bunny's letter promised, she found a filled basket and hidden eggs (because she had changed her attitude). Riley never forgot that and when warned in the future, she made appropriate changes.

I don't believe that during the holidays we as parents need to feel obligated to give our children all the gifts we had planned to give if they start acting the fools. We warn them. And, if they continue to be knuckle-heads, Santa is definitely allowed to deliver coal. You have the right to hold back on some of their gifts. And, on Christmas morning, if they wonder why the gifts were a bit on the thin side, you can let them know that you and/or Santa saw how they were acting and made appropriate changes.

You could return the gifts, but I suggest holding on to the extras and giving them during Valentine's Day, Easter or birthdays. Hopefully by holding the kids accountable the one tough holiday will make the future ones pleasant. 


image courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/OJO_Images

It's important to know what our children are doing online. Many parents feel as though if it's online and not face-to-face that it's safe, but lots of internet activity affects our children emotionally, affects other young people, and can also lead to something that can be dangerous. Its crucial that parents monitor their children's social network accounts from time to time. Who are they interacting with? What kind of language are they using? What plans are they making? Are they communicating with strangers? Is there bullying going on?

The problem is that some of us have no idea what young people are saying online. Teens have an internet language of their own, "Netspeak", and if parents aren't versed in the language, we may miss important opportunities to intervene.

If you saw "OMG" or "LOL" ("Oh my God" and "Laugh out loud") those are pretty innocent, but what if you saw "TDTM" or "P911"? Do you know what they mean? If not, what would you do? I tell parents to google search the terms they don't know. And, if you did you'd learn that "TDTM" means "talk dirty to me" and "P911" stands for "parents watching".

It's not snooping. It's monitoring and it's important because our job in raising our preteens and teens is to help guide our young people in the right direction, and as their prefrontal cortex continues to develop, sometimes we need to be the voice of reason and logic to keep them safe, happy and successful.


image courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/chrisgramly

If you are anything like me as a parent, it seems like every year your kid’s holiday gift list has been fed with Miracle-Gro and fresh-from-the-farm fertilizer. I used to be able to write my daughters’ “This is what I want for Christmas” list on the back of a Jiffy Lube business card. Now, it takes a couple of thumb drives and a back up on Google Docs, and it’s only the first half of December. Every time I look, more items are being added to “the list”. I’ve had to add a table of contents to the thing just to keep track.

Too many of us, though, feel obligated to purchase every item on said last. And, dear parents of the world, I am here to free you of that obligation, to tell you that “the list” is not gospel, it’s not law, and by no means is it a contract. The List needs to be viewed merely as a suggestion, kind of like the whole flossing-every-night-thing your dentist tries to lay on you every six months (crazy oral hygiene freak). And, here are seven reasons why:

1. Our Kids Have Too Much Stuff Already

Getting the giant new iPhone 6 just because it’s new (and the size of a small dictionary), or a toy that looked cool on a commercial during a Nickelodeon program isn’t always necessary. Electronic gadgets pile up as the old ones become “obsolete.” New toys and games are played with for 42 minutes, then stuck in a closet until cousins visit, which is precisely when your kid can’t share them. A UCLA study found that all that extra stuff is not only cluttering our homes, but keeps families apart.

2. It’s Time to Appreciate

When we give our kids whatever they want, it makes the last mass of items we gave them pase. They no longer appreciate what they had. And, that will be the fate of the items on “the list” in two months if you get them all. Hold up on the gifts and let your little one appreciate his Hot Wheels or your teen realize her not-so-new jeans have character.

3. They Are Not Entitled Just Because It’s December

We have become a culture of “Wait ‘til Christmas. I’ll get it for you then.” As a result, our children feel they are entitled to what they’ve asked for because they’ve waited all year for the holidays. I remember a time when kids thought they might get something from their list because they’d been good all year, not just because they survived to year’s end.

4. Spoiled Kids Smell Rotten

Okay, maybe not literally (although I know a few who emit a little funk), but figuratively they do. People don’t want to be around kids (or adults, for that matter) who know they can have whatever they ask for. It creates brats (hence the term “spoiled brat”). If you are fine with a spoiled brat running around your home, lovely, but for the sake of the rest of us, take it easy on the wish list.

5. Surprises Are a Good Thing

Take a look at your kid’s list. Allow it to soak in a bit and spark your creative juices. Then, decide what you want to get them. Maybe there are items on the list you would truly like to purchase, or some you were unaware of. But, also consider deviating from “the list.” What is it you know your little one would love, but he doesn’t yet know he’d love?

I remember a December in the 80’s finding a piece of paper my mom had written with the names of three Atari games on it. Immediately I tried to push the names out of my head, erase them from my memory. Why? Because I wanted to be surprised Christmas morning.

6. There’s No Need to Keep Up With the Mini-Joneses

Just because Bobby down the street has the new Lego Minecraft Set, doesn’t mean your kid needs it. Once you start showing your children they need to have what their friends have, you’ll have pulled a Dr. Frankenstein, creating little monsters that grow into adult monsters who spend more than they have in order to keep up appearances.

7. It’s Not What the Holidays Are About

If you teach your kid anything during the holidays be sure it’s not about “stuff.” It can be about babies and mangers, elves and deer, candles and menorahs, stars, family, love, faith, helping others, parades, lights, trees, but just not about “stuff.”

Look, I’m not recommending your kids shouldn’t make “the list.” Nor am I telling you not to get them anything from their list. But, be selective. Don’t spend because you feel obligated. And, don’t buy because you want to give them a moment of what appears to be happiness. Think of the long run when buying gifts from their lists. Use the holidays and your kid’s list as an opportunity to build character during this time of year, so they will grow up to be the adults (and parents) you can be proud of.


image courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/inhauscreaive

I help coach Riley's basketball team. She's eleven, and loves the sport, although she has some room to grow in the skill department. I love my girl, but she is a very sensitive soul. Earlier this week she injured her big toe, probably sprained it. Today was her first day on the court after her injury.

During play today, someone stepped on that purple toe of hers and she cringed, held back the tears and told me "Dad, someone stepped on my toe." I told her to take a seat and had someone come in for her. But, that was it. With such an emotional young lady, all she needs is something like that, and the emotional faucet starts to flow.

Later, she got back on the court and during one play was standing around, not moving very much. The other coach called her on it, and said she needs to move around. This touched her deep in her heart. She wants to please so badly. She never wants to disappoint, especially somone like a teacher or a coach. I could tell she was fighting to hold back the tears. Her face got that contorted look only a preteen gets when she doesn't want her peers to see her lose it.

I could have told her to suck it up. I could have said for her to sit it out until she regained her composure. I could have consoled her. But, instead, I safety-netted. I looked away and let her figure this out on her own. The next play she was moving all over the court, and the other coach made a big deal of it. But, even at the water break, she was still upset. So, I went and talked with another player to allow Riley to work through it.

When she got back on the court, she scored the next three baskets, and walked off the court at the end of practice with a wonderful grin. She had to deal with this blow on her own so that she could learn from it and then appreciate the success that followed. When I asked her on the ride home how she think practiced went, she grinned and told me, "Great! Did you see? I was on fire!"


image courtesy ©iStockphoto.com/Mlenny

Someone recently told me that yelling at your kid is the new hitting. As an adult who was both yelled at and hit, I would take the “new hitting” any day over the “old hitting”.

We all know we shouldn’t yell at our children. We also shouldn’t yell at the guy who cut us off on the freeway, people at work who annoy us, refs who make wrong calls, and telemarketers who refuse to abide by the Do Not Call List.

To lump yelling at your child with striking him is just going a little overboard if you ask me. Sure, some will argue that when you yell at your child and berate her and call her names and tell her she’s worthless, you are messing with her psyche and self-confidence as well as self-worth. And, I do agree verbal abuse can be as damaging if not more, than physical abuse.

But, that’s emotional abuse, and it’s horrible. What I am hearing is that we shouldn’t raise our voices in anger at our children. And, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t, but just because we’re parents does not mean we are perfect. And, God knows those little ones we brought into this world are not perfect either.

Some days there’s only so much we can take from our offspring before we reach the end of our fuse. I know I have been there. I’m not proud of it. I don’t want to do it again, but I know it’s human nature. We had a bad day at work, didn’t get enough sleep the night before, find out the car needs a new fan belt. We carry these burdens with us, and then we come home to find that Sarah left the milk out all day and now it’s spoiled. Should we yell? Of course not, but we might.

And when we do (because we will at some point), we need to learn from it and try to better ourselves, but we should not beat ourselves up thinking that we damaged our children the same way hitting them will. I have been yelled at about not doing my chores and I have gotten a black eye for forgetting to put away my toys. I didn’t like either, but I can tell you that the scar left by that black eye was far deeper than any of the ones from being yelled at… and besides, I really should have put the milk back.

                                                                                                                                                                           image courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/alvarez