Big Lessons for Little People - Softcover

Nachamie, Lois

 
9780440507406: Big Lessons for Little People
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0440507405 ISBN 13: 9780440507406
Verlag: Dell, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

Find out how to make the toughest job in the world a whole lot easier.

The advice given in most parenting books sounds fine in theory.  But it often doesn't feel right in practice.  Lois Nachamie, a mother herself, teaches parenting.  Her experiences with thousands of full-time and working mothers, fathers, caregivers, and children has helped her create this warm, wise, down-to-earth guide to what parents today need to teach their children in the first five formative years.

ò Practical tips to help you deal with the daily grind and nitty-gritty of sharing, hitting, sleeping, potty training, and toys.

ò Activities and exercises to help you teach your child how to choose, how to take turns, and maybe even how to read.

ò True tales from the trenches, where you'll see how other mothers handled problems--sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

ò Dealing with tantrums--your child's and yours.

ò Loving, fun ways to launch your little one on a glorious learning curve.

ò Limiting TV time and ads that give our kids the Gimmies.

Finally, the one book that does it all--offers commonsense, practical strategies to help you teach social skills and successfully set limits; present ideas about simple values and love; and invites you step into your own as a parent....

Big Lessons for Little People--the Mother's Helper you've been waiting for.

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Aus dem Klappentext

to make the toughest job in the world a whole lot easier.

The advice given in most parenting books sounds fine in theory. But it often doesn't feel right in practice. Lois Nachamie, a mother herself, teaches parenting. Her experiences with thousands of full-time and working mothers, fathers, caregivers, and children has helped her create this warm, wise, down-to-earth guide to what parents today need to teach their children in the first five formative years.

ò Practical tips to help you deal with the daily grind and nitty-gritty of sharing, hitting, sleeping, potty training, and toys.

ò Activities and exercises to help you teach your child how to choose, how to take turns, and maybe even how to read.

ò True tales from the trenches, where you'll see how other mothers handled problems--sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

ò Dealing with tantrums--your child's and yours.

&

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

No book can give you a recipe for raising your child.  There is no script that says, "If your child does this, you should do that," or "If you do this,your child will do that."

Even the most predictable event has no universal "correct"response.

Let's look at a common sight in any home with a child under the age of six: a spilled bowl of Cheerios.

A hint that we often encounter in parenting books is this: Clean up the bowl of Cheerios without recriminations.  Say to your toddler, "No problem.  Accidents happen."  To your four- or five-year-old, "Here's a sponge.  Let's clean up."  No anger, no reproach.  Everything fine and dandy.

This would seem to be advice worth following.

But if we pretend to be a movie camera and pull back from the innocuous spilled bowl of cereal on the tile floor in the kitchen, here are just some of the larger pictures we might see:


ò You are late for work, the phone is ringing, the dog is barking, your husband is in the shower singing--because he  can't function in the morning until he's jogged five miles and had his shower.  And you have no more milk.

ò It was his turn to buy milk, and he forgot.

ò It was your turn.  You forgot.

ò You and your husband had a big fight that morning, which your child heard and saw.

ò You and your husband have been working long hours, you really miss him, and the only thing you really want to do is sit down out back with a cup of coffee, lean on his shoulder, and talk.  Uninterrupted.

ò Your husband comes into the kitchen, says cheerily, "Hey, Pal," lifts the baby out of the high chair, and carries him into the den.  You can hear them laughing uproariously as you clean up the mess.

ò You just brought a new baby home from the hospital.

ò Your child good--naturedly and unintentionally--spills everything, relentlessly, day in and day out, no matter what it is or where you are.


Pull back the camera a little farther.

The TV is on.  Images flick by.  A young black man, handcuffed, hooded sweatshirt covering most of his face, is led away by white cops.  An eye-catching animated monkey croaks in a cute voice how yummy chocolate cereal is.  An ad for sports clothing pans from the face of a beautiful, smiling woman down to her tight stomach muscles, belly button, and ends with a close-up of her crotch as she slips off her pants.  Your child watches curiously.

Spilled Cheerios, Take two: out in the world.


ò You're in a restaurant.

ò You're at your mother's.  No matter what your child does, including heaving the bowl of cereal against the dining room wall, she thinks it's the cutest thing she's ever seen.

ò Alternative: Your mother laughs--spitefully, in your opinion--and says, "Boy, are you  getting it all back in spades."

ò Alternative: No matter how you respond, your mother gives you a "look" that fills you with self-doubt.

ò Your grandmother suggests a good, swift swat.

ò You're at your mother-in-law's.  According to her, as she informs you at the moment and will repeat every half hour for the rest of the weekend, your husband never  spilled anything when he was little.  "Were you  a spiller?" she asks.  She says "spiller" the way she might say "murderous chicken-blood-drinker."


Bowls of Cheerios never spill in vacuums.

"We've spilled the Cheerios.  Let's clean up" is a useful response in a calm moment where nothing is going on except you, your child, and his breakfast.

But we do not live in a never-never land where every home is well-ordered,where external pressures never intrude on a parent's response, where no mothers have short fuses or lives of their own, no couples ever disagree, and no cultural influences are at play.

Our children don't punch in like clockwork on developmental stages at the "right" time.  Nor do they fall neatly into the most well-thought-out categories.

If I were to say to you, "Do this and your child will do that," and you were to follow that advice to the letter, we'd be living in a fantasy world.

I can offer you some things to think about while raising your own family.

I can pass along practical tips that have worked for others.  That doesn't mean they will work for you.  Moreover, what works one day with a child may not work another day.  By "work," I mean any technique that helps you get your child to do what you want your child to do at that moment.

A Thought to Hold On To

No one statement, slip up, wrong turn, explosion of anger, or crying jag will permanently damage your child.

I will suggest ways you might handle a given moment in your child's life.  I will suggest other ways to rehandle it if you're not happy with how things are going.  Nevertheless, remember that the shaping of a personality comes from many, many moments.

In addition to the cumulative experience of a child's life, even past these important first five years, the personality type your child is born with will shape who your child becomes.

Over the long haul, if you are essentially a loving parent your love will have a profound effect.  There is never any one moment when you should rend your clothes and strew ashes on your forehead, keening, "Now I've done it!  Now I have really messed up my kid!"

The likelihood of your wanting to be a perfect parent is high.  Otherwise, you wouldn't spend time reading about parenting.

If this is helpful, let me toss this idea your way: I give you permission not to be perfect all the time.  Your child will not be picking off people from a bell tower twenty years from now because you said something stupid this morning.

We are advised in most parenting literature to present a united front with our husbands.  While this makes sense in theory, it does not always reflect normal, happy homes.  Hopefully, both parents agree on the fundamental values they want to instill in their children.  But parental disagreements and different ways of handling the same situation, from the largest to the most mundane, might not be so terrible.  They are real.  You, your husband, and child are living real life, after all, not in a textbook.  An important lesson for a child to learn about the real world is this: Different people have different ways of doing things.  Children need to learn how to be flexible and adjust to these differences.  They need to recognize that we can be different and still get along.  They need to learn that we can be different and still be in love.

As we go along I will bring up other areas where I feel that maybe the pronouncements made in books ought to be questioned.  I will write about some topics that I never see anywhere else, and I will write about some topics where I think the universal approach might not be so useful.

Although I, like any other writer and teacher, have very definite opinions, I will do the best I can to present them in ways that encourage you to figure out what you think makes sense, theoretically and practically.  And even if I get upon my high horse and start pontificating, when all is said and done, your family is your family.

You are...

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Verlag
Dell
Erscheinungsdatum
1997
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0440507405
ISBN 13 
9780440507406
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
400
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Dell GmbH
6997927350
DE.CustomerSupport@dell.com

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