Why Have a Vision? · Understanding My Values: What Do I Want to Teach? · When Your Values Differ from the Values of Your Partner · Narrowing the Vision-Action Gap · Looking at the Bigger Picture · How Do Children Learn Values? ·


Why Have a Vision?

      All of us of us come to parenting with hopes for our children, our families, and ourselves. We imagine the families we want to create. We dream of all that we want for our children. We hold a vision.
      Through the experience we gain as parents, this vision is continually reshaped. Our perspective shifts, our values change, and our understanding deepens.
      At the beginning of her parenting classes, Janis asks everyone to bring in a list of three of the most important things they want to teach their children. As parents call out their answers, Janis writes them on the board. The resulting list is always a powerful testament to parents' commitment to their children: "I want my children to always feel cherished and loved, no matter what they do." "It's important to me to have a close knit family that always pulls together." "I want to be the kind of parent my kids can always talk to." "I want to teach my children to make a difference in the world." "I want to be able to give my kids a lot of the things I never had."
      Creating and holding a vision is critical to us and to the health of our families. When we know what we are striving for, we continually have a yardstick by which to measure our choices and actions as a parent. We learn to enact our values in the present and project them into the future.

Chapter 2: LEARNING ABOUT CHILDREN

What Is Child Development and Why Is It Useful? · Getting To Know Your Unique Child · Understanding Your Child's Temperament · Learning to Observe · Magda Gerber on Observation · What Is Your Child Working On? · The Basics of Observation · Why Observe? ·


What Is Child Development and Why Is It Useful?

      Child development is the study of childhood. In the last hundred years, child development researchers around the world have built a large body of knowledge about how children grow. This research teaches us:
. Children go through certain predictable stages of growth. Children use a nipple before they use a cup; they walk before they skip.
. Each stage of children's development builds on the success of the previous stage. Babbling lays the groundwork for later speech. Trust is necessary for later independence. Stages can neither be hurried nor skipped.
. Each child has her own unique timetable for development, yet there are broad norms which can provide useful benchmarks. Chelsea might take her first eager step at eight months, while Jack tentatively walks at fifteen months. Conversely, Chelsea might have few words at eighteen months while Jack begins simple sentences at eleven months. Knowing the wide parameters of normal growth can help parents accept their child's individual developmental clock.
. Children's development is not linear or even. Often children take a few steps forward and several back. When a child first learns a new skill, like weaning, using the toilet independently, or spending the night away from home, she often "regresses" in other areas, forgetting already established skills.
. Disequilibrium is part of normal development. Child development theorist Jean Piaget coined the word "disequilibrium" to describe the out-of-balance times children often go through right before they learn something new. Children who are on the verge of crawling sometimes get fussy or start waking at night. Children who are just about to figure out how to play successfully with other children may become unusually aggressive. Knowing that children's struggles are indicative of their attempts to grow helps parents provide appropriate support.
. Mistakes are part of normal development. Children usually make many unsuccessful attempts before mastering a new skill.
. Children grow in different realms at the same time. A child who is sitting on the couch reading with his grandfather is simultaneously gaining knowledge in at least four different areas. Cognitively, he is learning about language and the concepts in the book. Emotionally, he is learning that he can trust Grandpa. Socially, he is learning to take turns talking. And physically, he is learning how to make his fingers turn the pages.
. Learning about child development gives us a framework from which to see and support our children. When you know that your child's behaviors are normal for his developmental stage, you can respond accordingly, knowing that the resolution of a difficult behavior is often as much a matter of time, as it is of teaching. When you understand that mouthing things is part of the healthy development of babies, you can provide a variety of safe things for your infant to suck on and move dangerous things out of her range. Once you know that four-year-olds love to feel skillful, you can provide your son with a sponge to clean the sink or pliers to help put a new bookcase together.

Chapter 3: CULTIVATING A SPIRIT OF OPTIMISM ABOUT YOUR CHILDREN

Introduction · Proving Children Wrong · What Are We Actually Saying to Kids? · Alternatives to "Proving Kids Wrong" · Be Optimistic About Children's Struggles · How and When to Help · When Children Beg You For Help · The Problem With Praise · Acknowledgment vs. Praise · Can't I Say Anything Nice to Her? · Finding Your Own Sense of Optimism · "We Never Give Up, Dad": Somchai's Story · Optimism Isn't Blind ·


Introduction

      Through our attitudes and perspective on their growing abilities, we set a tone for our children about who they are. When we believe that our children will successfully master developmental tasks — learn to walk, use the potty, develop empathy, share with others, complete a puzzle — we mirror back to them encouraging and hopeful images of who they are.
      Babies and toddlers are naturally driven to achieve developmental milestones. Preschool-aged children are similarly motivated, and they also become aware of setting goals for themselves. They want to learn to play successfully with their friends, button their coats, and ride big bikes with training wheels, but they don't automatically know they're going to succeed. Sometimes their frustration is intensified by their lack of trust that it's going to happen. Our optimism and confidence in them can go a long way in bridging the gap between their struggle and their ultimate success.
      In effect, our job as parents is to hold a vision for our children of the people they are becoming. They're pushing and shoving now, but we believe that ultimately, they are going to learn to share. It's critical that we strive to keep their potential success in mind rather than defining them as unsuccessful people who haven't yet met our expectations.

Chapter 4: UNDERSTANDING THAT PARENTS ARE ALWAYS GROWING

Staying Open to Your Children · What Keeps Us From Being Open? · Ten Parenting Paradoxes · Growing Alongside Your Kids · Doing It For Kenji: Maria's Story ·


Staying Open To Your Children

      Many of us begin our lives as parents wanting to figure out what we're going to do ahead of time. Yet there are things children allow us to discover about ourselves that we can't possibly know until they're actually in our lives. The relationship of parent and child is unique.
      No matter how much we know about babies, no matter how much we've taken care of other people's kids, no matter how much we know about how children grow and develop, we all move into uncharted territory when we begin to build our own families. We don't get to practice for parenthood.
      Faye explains, "Before I had children, I had all these ideas of what parents should 'do.' If a child was acting up, I thought his parents should 'do' something. But once I had a child, I realized a lot of parenting is 'not doing.' A lot of what kids go through are phases, things they work through themselves. Watching my kids, it's clear they're their own people, that I can't take as active a role in managing them as I previously thought. They're not just clay that you mold."
      Ginny, the mother of a five-year-old, agreed. "I had all these ideas about parenting, but then my daughter took me down a different path."
      As much as we might like to enter parenthood with all our answers, techniques, and strategies in place, doing so would mean building a system that fails to include the input of our children. Our ability to stay open, adaptable and responsive necessitates that we don't start with all the answers, but that we dedicate ourselves to figuring them out along the way.
      Being open to our children is a lifelong process, as Maggie explains: "As an adoptive parent, I think I have different expectations than biological parents. I value the uniqueness of each of my children in a special way because I didn't have a preconceived idea that they were going to be like me. It's like going to the nursery and getting an unmarked seed. I nurture it and help it grow and I don't know what kind of tree it's going to be. It's like a surprise package."

Excerpted from Becoming the Parent You Want to Be: A Sourcebook of Strategies for the First Five Years by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser.
Copyright © 1997 by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser. Excerpted by permission of Broadway Books, a division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.