The Mommy Wars – Get Over It!

Did you hear about Hilary Rosen, the woman who seemed to discount Ann Romney because she has never “worked a day in her life?”  The internet sort of blew up after this comment.  With good reason.  Why anyone would say something like this about a person who raised 5 boys and is married to a politician (isn’t that a job itself?) is beyond me.  Perhaps it was a goof, maybe she got a little nervous during her live TV interview and it just slipped out.  Maybe not.  Maybe Ms. Rosen, like so many other women before her got caught up in the “Mommy Wars” which pit woman against woman in the argument about whether it is better/harder/more worthwhile to work inside or outside of the home.

Seriously, can’t this issue be over already?  It’s been going on for decades, and no one ever wins.  I have two thoughts about this on-going and fruitless debate:

1. Most women are too busy doing whatever it is they do (raise children, take care of parents, sell cars, write books, make dinner) to engage in this debate or really care about how other women choose to spend their time.

2.  The vast majority of women (and men) are doing the best they can with what they have.  The Mommy Wars debate has always struck me as elitist and irrelevant to a huge percentage of families.  What about the women who have absolutely no choice but to work?  What about the women who would love to work but don’t have access to jobs, childcare, or the skills needed to find one?

Get over it ladies, gentleman, and the media especially.  We all have too much work to do.

Gossip: Not Just Bad Manners

Everyone gossips sometimes.  Even me.  Why?  It can be sort of fun.  It can make us feel better about ourselves.  It can help us feel connected to the person we’re gossiping with.  These are all good things.  So, is gossip really that bad?

Yes.  I really think it is that bad.

I believe gossip is bad for our mental health for a number of reasons, including:

1. It takes our focus away from the positives of life and makes us focus on the negatives

2. It encourages us to assume the worst in people, and causes us to doubt people’s intentions, motives, and the effort they put into their lives

3.  It can really screw up relationships if word of your gossiping gets out (and it very often does)

4.  It makes you feel crummy after the gossiping is over

5.  It does absolutely nothing to improve the state of our lives, our communities, and our world

So what if we made a pledge to stop gossiping for even a day or a week?  Would that change anything?  My bet is it would.  Try giving up the gossip for a week and notice if it makes a difference in how you feel about yourself and the people around you.  I bet it will make a difference about how they feel about you!

Need some ideas about how to stop gossiping?  Check out this article on the blog Tiny Buddha: How To Stop Gossiping and Creating Drama.

 

 

 

 

Playing Outside with Preschoolers: We’re Not Doing Enough

Did you see this new study which found that nearly half of all pre-schoolers in the U.S. don’t get outside to play each day?  The findings were presented in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine just a couple of days ago.  The folks over at CNN’s The Chart wrote a piece about the findings and suggested that parents make sure their children’s daycare providers provide outside time each day, and parents need to get outside with them, too.  Outside play is important for some obvious reasons: it helps with weight management and physical fitness.  It’s also essential that kids get enough Vitamin D and work on their motor skills.

That’s all well and good, but sometimes it’s tough to think of fun things to do outside – and by fun I mean for the kid AND the parent.  I’d love to hear about some of the things you enjoy doing with your kiddos outside.  Here are some of my faves:

pulling weeds/gardening/raking

playing “tennis” in the driveway

kicking around a soccer ball (or any kind of ball)

drawing with sidewalk chalk

going on nature walks – i.e., noticing the plants, animals, sky around you, collecting bugs

playing hopscotch

playing follow-the-leader

window shopping around an outdoor mall/shopping center

Experts recommend 60 minutes of outdoor activity time per day for the preschool set.  Remember, it doesn’t have to be done all at once.  20 minutes here and there really add up!

Chores: They’re Never Too Young to Start Them

OK, maybe my 4 month old is a bit young to start changing his own diaper or dusting his room, but not by much!  Chores are great for kids and families for several reasons: they teach them responsibility and make your load a bit lighter (at least in theory).  Parents often underestimate what their kids can do for themselves, and the variety of ways they can help throughout the home.  I was recently quoted in an article about chores in the Yuma Sun.  Check it out:

So how does a parent choose chores for their kids?  Perhaps you should start with the things you don’t like to do! Putting laundry away, emptying all or part of the dishwasher, sweeping the kitchen – these are all tasks that even very young kiddos can complete.

Need some help staying organized?  Check out this cool website that offers free chore charts.

News-Induced Depression

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How do you get your news?  Do you watch the nightly broadcast?  Read it on Google, Yahoo!, or AOL?  Glance at it on Twitter or Facebook?  Read the (gasp!) old-fashioned print version of your city’s paper?

I’m not a huge news person.  Meaning, I don’t watch cable news, I don’t read a newspaper regularly, and I don’t troll the internet for the latest breaking news items from around the world.  Instead, I’m probably like a lot of people.  I pick the news up here, there, and all around in bits and pieces.  It probably doesn’t make me the most informed  person, but it works.

But even in my semi-ignorant state, I still get News-Induced Depression from time to time.  This isn’t a diagnosis recognized in the DSM-IV or by any scientific body of researchers, but I think it is real nonetheless.  Here are some of the symptoms:

  • Feeling sad, down, and/or tearful after hearing about a news event
  • Continuing to think about news event over the course of several days or weeks, causing a deflation of mood
  • Fear for safety of family and/or self (over and above the ordinary level of concern) for several days or weeks after hearing about news event
  • Desire to either learn as much as possible about the news event or ignore all information about the event
  • Experience an increased level of overall anxiety, nervousness, and/or worry in the days and weeks following learning about the news event

Have you ever experienced News-Induced Depression?  If so, what are the stories that typically cause it?  Are you affected more by personal tragedies and traumas (i.e., rapes, murders, etc) or by political scandals, corruptions, and disappointments?  How do you deal with it?

 

Failure is a Good Thing

Photo via: loyal_oak

I wrote a post over at Your Mind. Your Body. earlier this week about some new research just released from the American Psychological Association.  For someone like me – an anti-perfectionist (slacker? lover of mistakes? fan of failure?) the news was great.  In a nutshell the French researchers found that children who struggled, failed, and squirmed their way through tough academic assignments performed better on subsequent academic tasks.  The authors concluded that struggle and failure in school is actually a good thing in terms of future performance. What a relief!

I am so pleased to hear this because I am a big fan of flailing and failing, and making mis-steps and mistakes.  Perhaps it’s because I have made so many of them myself over the years, or maybe it’s because perfection simultaneously intimidates and bores me.  Either way,  I’m always looking for reasons to avoid it (perfectionism) and embrace the opposite.

So what can we take from this research?

The math homework doesn’t need to be done to perfection every night to get something out of it

Having some cooking disasters shouldn’t keep us from continuing to bake

Letting our kids watch us fail, may help them learn to fail with grace and humor – which may actually benefit their school performance down the road

For more tips about how to make use of this study, check out my post: Learning is Hard and That’s OK

Laptop Shooting Dad: No Different Than the Rest of Us?

Have you heard about the dad who recently shot up his teenage daughter’s laptop because of some unflattering things she wrote about her parents on Facebook?  Not only did he fire shots into the computer, he also filmed himself doing it and posted the video online.  As someone who does not see a lot of gunfire in everyday life, I have to admit the footage is a little alarming.  The dad’s rage, anger, and disappointment are clearly visible in his rant before the shooting, but after watching this interview with the dad and his family I’m wondering if he is much different than any other overwhelmed parent?  It’s easy to criticize other people’s parenting styles from afar, but is all the criticism of this dad really justified?  Sure firing a gun at anything can be scary, and his tactic of “you’re criticizing me in public, so now I’m doing the same to you” is a little childish, but really – what parent hasn’t reacted in a childish way when pushed?

Some things to keep in mind when judging the laptop (or any other) dad:

Being a parent is super hard, and we all get pushed further than we’d like sometimes.  This is not to say that all parents are abusive, or do harmful things to their kids (and I’m certainly not ok’ing abusive parenting techniques).  But I know there isn’t a parent around who hasn’t said something or done something they regret in a moment of frustration or anger.  Heck, just last week I told my daughter I didn’t care if she ever completed any of her homework again.  Oops!

Parenting in the age of technology is something we’re all learning on the fly.  None of us parents now can refer back to how our own parents dealt with: at what age to buy kids cellphones, how much texting is too much, how to navigate privacy and safety issues on Facebook, etc.  Yea, there are resources out there, but in essence, we’re all making it up as we go, so it’s not a surprise that we make some (or a lot) of missteps along the way.

Being negative and criticizing others doesn’t do much for our mental health.  I have recently written a couple of posts (here and here) about the damaging effects of negativity in the workplace.  Negativity towards other parents and families is no different.  Resist the urge to badmouth others and use that energy to work on your on family’s challenges.

 

Dealing with Negative Co-Workers

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Longmont Times-Call February 6, 2012

I was recently interviewed for the above story on dealing with stress and negativity at work.  Who among us hasn’t dealt with these issues at least once?  Especially in this era of mass layoffs, downsizing, and salary reduction, negativity in the workplace can spread like the flu.  If you have a negative (and talkative) office mate, it can feel almost impossible to maintain a positive outlook.

I once worked with a woman who – I kid you not – had absolutely NOTHING positive to say about our workplace.  She was pretty negative about life in general, but in the 6 months I worked with her, I never heard her say anything even remotely positive about our job, co-workers, or employer.  It was a tough few months.  I struggled to stay positive around her, but often felt like a polyanna – I ended up sounding unrealistically hopeful and upbeat.  So how do you stay positive around a negative co-worker without sounding like a phony goody-two-shoes?

  • Minimize your interactions.  You may not be able to control the amount of time you spend with a co-worker in meetings and other work-related activities, but you can curb the amount of time you spend with them on breaks, lunchtime, and after work activities.  If you must, make up excuses (I have to pick up the dry cleaning at lunch today, finish this book for book club, etc)!  The time away will do you good.
  • Establish a no-work zone.  We spend so much of our lives at work, it can be easy to waste many of our non-work hours re-hashing what happened when we were on the clock.  If your workplace is negative or causes stress, stop talking about it when you aren’t there!  This sounds like a no-brainer, but it is harder (and more helpful) than it seems.  Give it a try for a week: Once you get in your car to come home, don’t allow yourself to talk about, email about, text about, Facebook about work until you arrive at the office the next day.
  • Take your breaks.  I love watching shows and movies from pre-technology days, when people actually took their lunch breaks.  Sure, drinking 5 martinis and sleeping with your secretary over the lunch hour (a la Mad Men) might not be the best idea, but getting out of the office and taking a break from the computer is great for your mental health (and your productivity, by the way).

What do you do to stay positive in the face of negativity?

Talking to Your Kids About the School Shooting

I got so teary this morning watching the coverage of the school shooting in Ohio.  Sad for the victims, sad for the survivors, sad for the families, and sad for the gunman and his family.  It is tough to make sense of such violence, and tough too not to fear for the safety of the children in our own lives.  I wonder what it would be like to be a kid watching the news about such events as the shooting in Ohio?  While I felt the shock and grief over the shootings at Columbine High School (not far from where I was in graduate school at the time), I wasn’t a child.  Would my feelings have been different if I had been 8 or 12 or 16, knowing that the place I spent 7 hours each day could come under a similar attack?  Do kids these days (post-Columbine, post-911) feel safe at school like I did decades ago, or is that sort of security a thing of the past?

The American Psychological Association (APA) has posted some great tips on talking to your kids about these sorts of topics.  It can feel intimidating to talk about such things, but it is well worth the effort.  Kids almost always have thoughts about the events going on around them, and frequently have more insight, ideas, and solutions than we might guess.

Here are a few tips offered by APA:

  • Find times when they are most likely to talk: such as when riding in the car, before dinner, or at bedtime.
  • Start the conversation; let them know you are interested in them and how they are coping with the information they are getting.
  • Listen to their thoughts and point of view; don’t interrupt–allow them to express their ideas and understanding before you respond.
  • Express your own opinions and ideas without putting down theirs; acknowledge that it is okay to disagree.
  • Remind them you are there for them to provide safety, comfort and support. Give them a hug.

For the full tip sheet and more ideas about talking to kids in the aftermath of a school shooting, click here.

Stress in the Workplace

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The studio at 710KNUS

I was recently interviewed on 710KNUS radio here in Denver for a story on stress in the workplace.  (Listen to the segment, which aired on the Business Uncoventional program on February 19, 2012 here.)

The topic is one with which many of us struggle: the pressure to work harder, longer, and under increasingly negative conditions.  So how does one combat this?  How do we stay positive and healthy in the midst of all the stress?  Below are some of the tips mentioned in the interview.

Keep on keeping on.  Don’t forget to use the good stress management techniques you already have in place!  Resist the urge to skip book club or yoga class when you are stressed. That’s when you need these outlets the most!

Find and be a good role model. Bosses and supervisors can do their employees a huge favor when they model good stress management themselves (by actually taking their lunch break, for example).  Employees can be well-served to find a role model of good stress management.  Have a co-worker or boss who manages their home and work lives in a way you admire?  Ask them out to lunch and get some tips.

Get moving, people!  The American Psychological Association’s recent Stress in America survey revealed that Americans are getting better at managing stress, but we often pick sedentary activities to do so (think reading, praying, watching TV).  While these can be great at helping keep stress levels down, active strategies are even better for our overall health (think walking, swimming, gardening).