Parenting

Kids and Money, Giving Them the Savvy to Succeed Financially by Jayne A. Pearl

Recommendation

Jayne A. Pearl shows you how to give your children financial roots and wings. By roots, she means good financial information, values, and ethics. By wings, she means encouraging kids to be confident, independent financial managers. While Jayne Pearl’s information is thorough, some of it is specific to U.S. taxation laws and economic structures, which makes the book less useful to an international audience. getAbstract recommends this book to parents who are concerned about their children’s financial well being, and to those who need a refresher on good spending habits.

Take-Aways

• Kids face an entirely different set of challenges and circumstances in the job market today than you faced when you were growing up.
• Issues they must learn to manage include: divorce, peer pressure, heavy advertising, and a volatile job market in a fast-paced material world.
• Give your children financial roots by teaching them good values and ethics.
• Give your children wings by encouraging them to be confident, savvy, and financially independent.
• Counter the influence of advertising by watching it with your children and talking openly about its messages.
• Teach them to shop wisely by comparing different brands for quality and price.
• Allowances can hinder rather than help if you have children who won’t do chores out of a sense of responsibility or even for the money.
• Help your children visualize their wishes and set attainable goals.
• Include children in your own financial choices, both successes and failures, even when being honest may feel uncomfortable.
• Be involved with your children as they identify their interests.

Kids and Money Book Summary

Kids Face Complex Financial Issues

Kids face a number of complex issues these days. Divorce causes financial and emotional stress. Advertising bombards them from all directions. Credit card companies recruit them at college and give them too-easy access to large amounts of money. Your children won’t learn adequate financial skills or responsibilities unless you teach them. As a parent, you must guide them through the complexities of the material world. Show your children how to make wise financial decisions. Teach them basic financial skills, including a good work ethic, strong financial values, and sound financial management.

Allowances and Consequences

Allowances may teach kids the value of earning their own money, but they can also have negative consequences. An allowance may send a message that a child shouldn’t do anything just to be kind or helpful. Kids who expect to be paid for chores may “nickel and dime” you for everything you ask them to do. Follow these allowance guidelines to avoid some of these problems:

• Be consistent in how and when you give an allowance.
• Agree with your spouse or ex-spouse on rules about money. Avoid giving your children mixed messages.
• Do not give loans and advances except in very rare, appropriate circumstances.
• Set up clear terms in advance if you lend your children money. Include repayment plans.
• Consider allowances carefully before you equate them with chores, behavior, and grades.
• Give a base allowance without any conditions or strings attached. Put chores under “extras,” or duties they can perform for extra money.
• If you own your own business, hire your kids.
• Encourage them to have an entrepreneurial spirit.

How to Save and Invest

Children should get into the habit of saving money. Teach them how to decide what amount they should set aside from their income. Help them focus on short-term, attainable goals. They can figure out how much they can save in a week, or a month, to get something they really want. Then, they can work up to larger, long-term goals. Post a photograph that represents their goals to keep them enthusiastic about saving. Do not be surprised if your kids’ savings plans go off-course from time to time. In fact, expect a failure or two and use that productively. Try these tips to set up a successful savings plan with your children:

• If your children have difficulty saving money, offer to match the amount they save.
• Make saving fun. Give them a new bank or a coin sorter.
• Share your financial decisions. Tell your children your successes and your mistakes.
• Help them imagine or create a simulated investment in a company that interests them.
• Set up a place for your kids to keep their money. Try a transparent container so they can see the money accumulate or, for older children, open a bank account.

Accountability and Budgeting

To help your kids make a budget, ask three questions: How much will they save, spend, or give to charity? How much money will they earn and spend in an average week? What have they been doing with their money until now? Use these pointers to teach children to keep track of their money, and to create a budget:

• Show them keep how to keep a record of their money, either on paper or with a computer.
• Help them make a budget showing income and expenses.
• Help them track their expenses for a month, so they can see where their money goes.
• Find ways for them to adjust their spending habits or to make more money if necessary.
• To teach your kids a good attitude towards taxes, point out when you use a government service, for instance, the library. Show them how to make use of government services and tell them the benefits they are entitled to receive.
• When they are old enough to get jobs, show them how to plan their taxes.
• Show them the difference between discretionary and non-discretionary income.

Block That Commercial

Advertising bombards kids relentlessly during the average of 25 hours of television they watch each week. You can counter some of the impact of advertising by taking these steps:

• Watch commercials with your kids. Talk about them. Does the food really look like that? Can a shampoo make you happy?
• Teach awareness of what is false and what is real.
• Make a game of conducting your own product tests at home with different brands of the same item. Find out if the advertising claims match your results.
• Show kids how to examine labels.
• Teach them to comparison shop.

The Material World

Children have a huge influence in the marketplace. BusinessWeek estimates that U.S. children younger than fourteen influence $200 billion of their parents’ spending and have $20 billion a year of their own to spend. However, they are not necessarily spending it wisely. To help them cope with the material world, you need to:

• Set limits on what they spend.
• Say “no” when necessary.
• Give and show them the importance of giving.
• Teach them to be responsible with money.
• Be a model for good spending habits.
• Honestly discuss spending issues with them, even if it make you uncomfortable.
• Teach them that not all money is for shopping or entertainment. If they make a significant amount of money, be sure they are saving some of it.
• Demonstrate resistance to impulse spending.
• Wait for sales.
• Use coupons only for products that you would buy anyway.
• Allow them to make their own, small instructive mistakes.
• Involve them in purchasing decisions so they learn to budget.
• Involve them in charitable decisions so they learn to give. Help them identify with good causes. Teach them that volunteering time is as important as giving money.
• Keep your eyes wide open to any possible financial difficulties your child may be having, such as, gambling, shoplifting, or over-spending.

Wings: When Your Kids Leave the Nest

Your children need a sense of financial confidence, independence, and savvy. That will help them succeed in independent living. Age 16 or 17 is a good time to teach your kids how to use a credit card. Put an extra card on your account, so you can monitor what they spend. Or, get them a debit card with limits on how much they can spend from an existing account. Let them participate in evaluating the features a credit card offers. Does it meet their needs? Is there a grace period? What is the interest rate? Follow these credit card pointers:

• If you co-sign for a card, negotiate with the credit card company. As an established adult customer, you may be able to obtain lower interest rates or annual fees.
• Teach your kids that credit is not free. Explain fees and interest. Show them how costs can mount up and surprise them. Show them how to keep track of credit card purchases, save receipts, and review their statements to make sure the bills are accurate.
• Make sure your teenagers keep charge balances lower than 10 to 20 percent of their monthly income.

College Costs

If you plan to send your children to college, it is never too early or too late to start saving money. Although your kids can cover some costs through scholarships or grants, plan on spending cash for at least one-third of college expenses. Don’t be discouraged by daunting amounts; just save as much as you can. When you are finished spending money on diapers or day care, put that amount in your children’s college fund. Keep the savings in your name until the child starts college. Remember:

• The most expensive college is not necessarily the best one for your child.
• To cover costs, you can borrow from your pension or take out a home equity loan.
• Consider community college for the first two years. Community colleges are far less expensive than four-year universities. If your children want to go to a larger institution for their junior and senior years of college, community college credits are transferable.
• Don’t feel guilty about having your children take out student loans. Just be sure they carefully plan the details of their loans. Help them determine what monthly payments they will have after graduation, and what careers would enable them to cover the cost.

Job Hunting

Before, during or after college, your children will enter the working world. You can help them find the jobs that best suit their needs. The job market today is entirely different from when you entered it, so be aware of how the rules and circumstances have changed. Avoid giving advice that might be inaccurate. When your children have big dreams, be careful not to shoot them down. They might not be the next Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey, but their drive, ambition and role models will propel them to success. Dreams have their practical side because companies today look for passion and enthusiasm in potential employees.

“Financial success is not just the result of how much money a person earns, but how well she manages what she has.”

If your children cannot decide what they want to do, help them create a “job circle” of their interests on a piece of paper. Start with their main interest in the center, then work outward in a circle as you brainstorm possible jobs that match their interests. Identify areas of the job market that have a shortage of qualified people. In terms of constructive guidance, you can:

• Help them practice by setting up interview scenarios.
• Encourage them in their endeavors and discuss any fears they may have.
• Explore career options with your children.
• Encourage them to try work-study programs, internships, and summer jobs.
• Coach them as you would a client. Treat them with respect and work together.
• Help your kids learn about the companies they are interested in advance.
• Self-employment is an option for people with appropriate skills.
• Using the resources in a college career center can minimize the cost of a job search.
• Other resources include employment centers, job fairs, classified ads, the Internet, job banks, and networking.
• Help your children make the connection between the jobs they want and the skills they have, or need to learn.

“How do you glue financial wings on your young slacker who has only vague, if any, plans beyond the college graduation party? You may not be able to inject ambition into your kid’s veins, but at least you can avoid supporting his doing nothing.”

One way to prepare for the job market is the “ready, aim, fire” approach. This is a three-step process of discovery. For “ready,” ask your children to write down all their goals and dreams. For “aim,” help them find and research careers that relate to their passions and interests. And for “fire,” show them how to tailor resumes to individual employers. Customize each resume to a particular job. Avoid fancy and hard-to-read fonts and use key nouns (titles, skills, and experience) that will be noticed. Target only those companies which truly interest your children. Help them prepare for information-gathering meetings as well as job interviews. If they want to explore a field before committing to it, help them arrange an informational interview.

About the Author

Jayne A. Pearl has twenty years of experience as a business reporter and editor. She worked for Forbes magazine and for a syndicated business news program on American Public Radio. She co-launched Family Business magazine and was the editor of Tom Peters’ newsletter, In Search of Excellence.

Video & Podcast

The Long-Distance Dad, How You Can Be There for Your Child – Whether Divorced, Deployed, or on the Road by Steven Ashley

Recommendation

Steven Ashley takes the high road in this primer on the proper behavior for fathers separated from their children. Instead of coming across as bitter and vindictive, he is reasonable. He stresses the importance of communication, pointing out that children are ultimately the victims when mom and dad lock horns. Ashley’s long-distance dads include deployed military men and businessmen on the road for extended periods. But clearly his target audience is divorced and separated men dealing with complicated emotional issues. Even the most bitter and battle-scarred divorcé will probably agree with Ashley’s bottom-line philosophy: Do right by your kids no matter what. getAbstract recommends this book to long-distance dads who sometimes find that challenging.

Take-Aways

• A poor relationship with your former spouse or partner ultimately harms your child.
• Respect is the foundation for a positive relationship with your child and your ex-spouse.
• Children from fatherless homes are statistically much more likely to have emotional and psychological problems.
• Consider a modified work schedule so you can spend more time with your child.
• Many bosses will react unfavorably when you suggest working fewer hours.
• Long-distance dads are still entitled to make rules and set limits.
• Explore “virtual visitation” as an option for interacting with your son or daughter.
• Before you date again, discuss the idea with your ex.
• Offer your adult children counsel, but don’t interfere in their lives.
• Your children come first.

The Long-Distance Dad Book Summary

Fathers Step Up

Not too many years ago, most people dismissed the notion that men should take an active role in parenting. Fathers worked outside the home and mothers raised kids. Case closed. But that has changed dramatically. Men have come to understand the benefits and appreciate the rewards of being involved with their children. In addition, the skyrocketing divorce rate has increased the pressure on fathers to work harder to maintain a relationship with their children. The challenge is also significant for military men who may be away from their families for months at a time.

“There have always been long-distance dads, and long-distance dads today have it easier than those in the past.”

Many studies and statistics offer evidence that children from fatherless homes are more likely to have mental health problems, drop out of school, abuse drugs, get pregnant and commit serious crimes. Committed fathers do not let distance prevent them from being good parents. More importantly, they understand the significance of establishing and maintaining a civil relationship with the mother of their children. After all, making trouble will only harm the kids.

Calming Rough Waters

Fathers must attempt to reassure their children, once separation becomes inevitable. With divorce, you don’t need to go into the gory details or bad-mouth anyone. Explain that living apart will not affect your love for your child. Fathers being deployed or leaving on a long business trip should explain where they are going and for how long. Your child will not enjoy the conversation, regardless of how much sensitivity and tactfulness you use. Separation rocks children’s stability and security.

“If you’re divorcing, remember to hold your tongue if tempted to say something negative about your ex-spouse.”

Once you become a long-distance father, schedule specific times and dates for interacting with your kids. Stay in touch between visits by phone or e-mail. Call your child after an important dance recital or Little League game. Acknowledge birthdays and other noteworthy events. Children crave routine. When they visit you, try to keep to their schedules as much as possible. Provide a clean, safe and hospitable environment.

Working to Achieve Balance

Achieving a healthy work-life balance is a challenge even for men in traditional nuclear families. But it’s a major issue for long-distance dads who not only have to support themselves but in most cases are also responsible for providing child support. Making the decision to cut back on work hours to spend more time with their kids is difficult for many single fathers. Military men also suffer since they don’t have any choice in the matter.

“It is disturbing and emotionally painful to a child when a parent misses an appointment with him or her.”

Some long-distance dads throw themselves into their work to avoid dealing with their feelings of loneliness and rejection. Other men, believing their self-worth depends on material possessions, work long, hard hours so they can have a fancy home and exotic car, and eat at the swankiest restaurants. Devoting enough time to your children is impossible if you are working excessively long hours. In addition, by not making enough of a commitment to your children, you risk a conflict with the children’s mother. Take the case of a divorced woman who lives near her ex-husband because she wants her child to have a positive relationship with the father. If he chooses to work instead of spending time with the child, the mother, as the custodial parent, could become frustrated, decide to start over and move hundreds of miles away.

“A first priority of responsible parents is to do everything possible to rebuild that which divorce has torn down.”

Unsympathetic employers are another problem for long-distance dads. Companies tend to frown upon employees who ask to reduce their hours. In fact, they expect workers to arrive early and leave late if they want promotions and pay raises. Cutting back on your hours and potentially decreasing your income may also threaten the financial comfort of your children and their mother. Communication is the key. Explain that you intend to continue providing financial support while becoming more of a physical presence in the child’s life. Of course, your best-laid plans may be moot if your work schedule is inflexible. See if your boss will cooperate. Can you work 10- or 12-hour days to free up more time on other days? Is telecommuting a possibility? Build a strong case for yourself and speak to your boss. Explain the benefits for yourself and the company. You may be surprised with the results.

Get Support

Some fathers feel like failures when their family breaks up, but that mindset is not productive. Seek friends who will listen to you and lend support without being judgmental. Getting professional help is another good option. In counseling, you can safely express all your emotions. A qualified therapist can offer an objective point of view and help you put things into perspective.

“The decision to parent more and work less is seldom easy, especially for men.”

An adjustment period is normal when you begin to spend more time with your child. You’ll have to do more laundry, and buy and cook additional food. Certainly you’ll have more responsibilities; however, you’ll also have the opportunity to forge a closer and more intimate relationship with your child. Connect with other families. Your child needs friends, and you need people who share similar feelings, challenges and circumstances. Places of worship can be ideal for making social contacts. Many churches and synagogues have support groups you can join.

“Divorced parents who are jointly responsible for their children are typically dependable, hard-working adults.”

As fathers become more involved with parenting, new organizations that support them are springing up everywhere. Peer-group meetings offer men a forum to discuss common issues, such as co-parenting, custody, child support, and relationships with exes and their families. Peer groups can provide comfort and inspiration. Consider starting a group if one does not exist in your area. It will be well worth the effort.

Be There at Every Stage

Every long-distance dad wants to have a good relationship with his children – whether they’re two or 32. But every age group has different emotional, physical and psychological issues. The key is responding to those needs so you can strengthen the bonds with your child.

“The idea that going through a family breakup means one is a failure is nonsense.”

Here are some basic guidelines to follow for different age groups:

• “Newborn to Age Five” – Establish a strong foundation with girls in particular, who because of divorce may grow up to view men negatively. Young children respond to pictures and sounds. Send your child lots of pictures of yourself and the two of you together. Let the child hear your voice on tape or by telephone. When you are together, engage in activities the child enjoys. Read books, explore a nearby park, visit the zoo. Make the time you spend together memorable.
• “Ages Six to Ten” – Children in this age bracket are aware of family dynamics and may be affected by your divorce and absence. Talk to their teachers or school counselors if you suspect problems. Be careful not to be excessively emotional; kids may blame themselves if you’re feeling bad. Children in this age group need to know that your love is unconditional and that they can count on you to be a part of their lives, no matter what happens. If your schedule allows, become involved with your children’s school activities, get to know their teachers and chaperone field trips.
• “Ages Eleven to Fifteen” – This is a crucial developmental period for children, physically and psychologically. Divorce and separation can have devastating effects, so maintain constant contact with your child. Statistics show that teenage pregnancy and suicide rates are higher for children from fatherless homes. Structure is vital. Set realistic rules and expect accountability – even from long distance.
• “Ages Sixteen to Twenty” – Young adults test limits – and their parents’ patience – as they spread their wings and express their individuality and independence. They may be moody, self-righteous and difficult. Keep the lines of communication wide open and be there to help them. Now is the appropriate time to discuss sex; however, don’t pry into your child’s personal life. Find suitable activities to share, even if that means just watching a football game on TV.
• “Adult Children” – If you’ve done a good job with the other stages of development, your kids will probably want to continue their relationship with you. Parents frequently have difficulty treating their children as adults. You still may have the urge to fix their problems. Just let them know that you’re available as a sounding board. Offer advice only if they ask. Be careful not to overstep boundaries if you’re a grandfather. Don’t be invasive or sabotage your child’s parenting efforts. Respect is a two-way street.

Technology: Your Best Friend

Communication has never been easier. You really have no excuse for not staying in touch with your children. Almost everyone has a cell phone and they all come with text messaging. “Virtual visitation” – video conferencing over the Internet – is an even better option for divorced or deployed dads. More states are enacting virtual visitation legislation as judges acknowledge the importance of children having two involved parents. Of course, virtual visitation is impossible without the consent of the custodial parent. You may have to include virtual visitation as an option in your divorce settlement.

“We protect our children by being honest about our feelings – so long as we’re careful not to burden them with our emotions.”

Virtual visitation requires an investment in the proper equipment: computer, Webcam, appropriate software, broadband router, high-speed Internet connection, and headset and microphone. Mom and dad will have to agree on a virtual visitation schedule, who is going to pay for what and who will be responsible for repairing broken equipment.

Make Peace, Not War

Interested in ruining your chances of having a close, meaningful relationship with your child? Then pick a fight with his or her mother. Learning to get along with your ex for the sake of your children may be your single most difficult challenge as a long-distance dad. Resist the temptation to push emotional buttons. Keep your interactions focused on the kids. Show the proper respect – even if you don’t feel like it. Harboring anger is counterproductive.

“It is the long-distance dad’s job to reassure his children that he will remain in their lives.”

Take a businesslike approach in communicating with your child’s mother. Discuss issues calmly and be assertive but not aggressive. Make sure you understand one another even if you don’t necessarily agree. Work within the boundaries of legal visitation agreements. Don’t feel obligated to follow your attorney’s advice blindly. Avoid contentious situations. Your child will suffer miserably if your co-parenting is fraught with anger and dissension. Jealousy can also be a huge stumbling block, particularly if one parent is remarrying.

“It seems that the more school field trips I went on, the quicker I was accepted by my daughter’s teachers and other parents.” ”

If a civil relationship with your ex-wife is impossible, consider communicating through e-mail. Emotions will play a smaller role and it will give both of you a record of your interactions. But e-mail is not foolproof, and people often misinterpret messages. Whether you communicate in person, by phone or by e-mail, maintain a dialogue with your child’s mother. You don’t have to be friends but you do have to work together. Always remember what’s at stake.

Dating: Proceed with Caution

Seeking companionship after you’ve worked through the emotional upheaval of divorce is normal. But if you don’t handle the situation diplomatically, your decision to date and possibly cultivate a relationship can upset your ex. Consider broaching the subject through a letter or e-mail. Respectfully explain your intentions while reassuring your ex that your child’s best interests are always your first priority. Promise not to invite women to stay overnight at your house when your children are visiting. Demonstrate that you are sensitive to your ex’s feelings.

“It’s important to present a united front with your children’s mom as a team.” ”

Introducing your children to your dates during the first year after a divorce is not advisable. They may still be secretly hoping that you and their mother will reconcile. Go slowly. Your child needs a lot of time to adjust. In addition, some single women may not understand that your child’s needs have priority. Being a potential stepmother may not be very appealing. Be upfront with dates. Explain that your children come first and that they are part of the package.

“Jealousy is likely to get in the way of your attempts to successfully co-parent when one person appears to be replacing the other.”

A very sticky situation can arise if you believe your ex’s new relationship is harming your children. Children should not have to deal with men sleeping overnight in her home. Most courts agree that’s unacceptable. Notify authorities if you suspect that her partner is involved with drugs, excessive drinking or physical abuse. Above all else, your duty is to protect your children.

About the Author

Steven Ashley is the founder of the Divorced Fathers Network. He self-published Fathers Are Forever: A Co-Parenting Guide for the 21st Century. Philip S. Hall is a psychologist and author of Educating Oppositional and Defiant Children and Parenting Your Defiant Child.

Mending the Broken Bond, The 90-Day Answer to Developing a Loving Relationship with Your Child by Frank Lawlis

Recommendation

Parental love for a child is one of the strongest emotional bonds. However, love alone does not guarantee a healthy, solid relationship or a happy, confident and well-adjusted child. And isn’t that what you want the most? Dr. Frank Lawlis shows you how to channel your love so that you can be a successful parent. Each chapter focuses on one of the 10 steps Lawlis suggests to build, reshape and strengthen the bonds between you and your child. His steps include learning effective communication, managing behavioral challenges, and developing the ability to cooperate, heal and forgive. The book overflows with helpful quizzes, exercises and real-life examples, adding structure and life to his advice. Although Lawlis crafts his plan to fit a 90-day schedule, getAbstract suggests that parents seeking guidance concentrate on the chapters that address their specific concerns.

Take-Aways

• Form loving bonds with your children by working with them, instead of trying to control them.
• Focus on the emotions that underlie inappropriate behavior instead of on the behavior itself.
• The ability to read nonverbal communication is an essential social skill.
• You cannot work on your relationship with a child whose brain is not functioning normally due to toxins, a physical condition or substance abuse.
• Parents need to walk the fine line between tolerance and control.
• Empathy is vital to helping your children feel acknowledged and understood.
• The way you communicate with children affects how they receive your message.
• Pay attention to your body language, gestures and tone of voice.
• Control your reactions by learning how to forgive.
• Children seek spirituality when they want to know that they are special, that they have a purpose and that they have something unique to contribute.

Mending the Broken Bond Book Summary

The Love Connection

Almost without exception, parents love their children. Yet resentment, anger, unfulfilled expectations, disappointment and frustration can hinder the exchange of love, and problems may arise. While people have the innate ability to love, it does not necessarily come along with the skills you need to form a loving connection. You can “mend the broken bonds” by working through the emotional challenges that get in their way.

“Rarely do I see parents who do not love their children. Most will fight to the grave for them, but many parents are in desperate need of ways to develop bonds of love and understanding with their children.”

Many parents misunderstand some basic facts about raising children:

• You don’t need to make children happy. Your role is to help your children handle frustration and disappointment, and learn to solve problems on their own.
• It’s not always good to let it all out. Teach children to manage feelings of anger.
• Teenagers need rules and structure to help them manage this challenging stage.
• A child’s cry serves a purpose. You shouldn’t let a child “cry it out.”
• Corporal punishment is negative. Use positive reinforcement.
• Watching television evokes a genuine emotional response from your children.

Step One: Love, Don’t Control

Hannah, an intelligent girl and a good student, got kicked out of school for antisocial behavior. When Dr. Frank Lawlis began treating her, he saw that she felt like a failure, and that her life was a series of mistakes and bad choices. It transpired that her mother had transferred her own fears and insecurities to Hannah. The result was severely impaired communication. Learning to communicate and listen, to set boundaries, and to be honest with one another helped this mother and daughter create a new, loving relationship.

“Giving and receiving love is vital to human existence. It is the glue that binds couples, families, communities, cultures and nations.”

Many people base their parenting methods on false assumptions. These include the belief that children will love and respect you because of the things you give them. To teach good behavior, use positive reinforcement. Most parents are good at identifying poor behavior, but often ignore the opportunity to reinforce good conduct. For example, offer a reward for good behavior, such as “When you put your toys away you can watch your favorite TV show,” instead of threatening with a punishment such as: “Put your toys away or you’ll go to bed right after supper.” Use “natural consequences” to direct behavior. For instance, teachers often give students detention for fighting. Instead, a session studying methods of conflict resolution makes more sense.

“Young people learn how to relate to others through their relationships with their parents.”

To build a long-term, loving relationship with your children, learn how to work with them rather than manage and control them. You are a role model for your children and are critical to their self-perception. Set standards and live up to them. Listen with an open mind and an open heart. Seek common ground, and practice negotiating and compromising.

Step Two: Cooperation

Pete, who spent his first year in an orphanage, was a well-adjusted child in every respect except that he was hostile and aggressive toward his younger brother. Pete’s survival instinct, honed in the orphanage where “he had to compete for essentials like food, comfort and adult attention” made him view his sibling as a threat. By participating in team activities, he eventually learned to work together with his younger brother.

“Your child is a reflection of your parenting, for better and for worse.”

Cooperation and socialization are learned skills. When children express emotions inappropriately, parents need to focus on the message underlying the behavior. One vital premise of parenting is: “There is always a reason for behavior, and when that reason can be expressed in other ways, there is no more reason for destructive behavior.”

“Most parents don’t realize that they are the most important figures in their children’s lives from day one.”

Let your children know that you love them. Respond with empathy and teach them ways to handle adversity. You can build stronger bonds with your children by playing together, spending time together as a family and praying for each other. Some families find that drumming together promotes a spirit of mutuality and cooperation.

Step Three: Strengthening the Bonds

Humans have instinctive recuperative and healing capabilities. People use the senses of smell, touch and even taste to convey their love, soothe and heal. Children can detect a loss of affection or an attitude change in their parents through their sense of smell. You can use aromatherapy via candles, herbs and flowers to create or change a mood in your home.

“To give love, we must know we are loved. To care for others, we must know others care for us.”

Never underestimate the power of healing touch, whether it is the therapeutic use of massage, or simple hugs and caresses. In every culture, people use food to nurture, celebrate and express love. Just thinking about your favorite childhood foods evokes a positive emotional response. Cook with love and prepare meals with your family to strengthen your relationships.

Step Four: Listen Visually

Darin lacked some basic socialization skills but his parents couldn’t figure out why. The results of initial testing showed signs of autism or epilepsy. However, further tests revealed that Darin was visually impaired. The problem with his eyes prohibited him from reading nonverbal cues such as facial expressions. “Mindsight” is the ability to receive nonverbal communication and it is essential to developing relationships.

“A parent can love a child without having a healthy, loving relationship with the child.”

Nonverbal cues make up 75% of communication. You express yourself not only with words but also with your volume and tone of voice. You use facial expressions, and arm and hand gestures to convey your message. You communicate with body language to reinforce your words, replace words, enhance your spoken message, emphasize a point or control the exchange. Help your children develop this important skill and pay attention to their nonverbal cues.

Step Five: It May Be Physical

Joe’s parents believed the boy had become “possessed by demons” when he was 10. He used profane language and his sole interest was working alone on model airplanes. They brought him for a psychological assessment after he was suspended from school for smoking and harassing other students. He underwent a brain scan and the tests showed that he was intoxicated – on glue. The chemicals he had inhaled had damaged his brain, causing the bad behavior.

“It is your responsibility as a parent to get actively engaged in nurturing, shaping, teaching and guiding your children.”

For children to think clearly and behave normally, they need a properly functioning brain. You cannot work on a relationship with a “sour-brained” child. Toxins that prohibit normal brain function include environmental poisons, street drugs, misused prescribed drugs or alcohol. Allergic reactions or other physical conditions can also affect brain activity.

“Children need both our encouragement and our guidance.”

If your child is under the influence of toxins, you must stop the exposure. If it is in your environment, such as lead pipes, fix the problem immediately or move to another residence. If the problem is drug or alcohol abuse, be prepared to intervene. Focus on the problem – substance abuse – and not the child. Adopt a problem-solving attitude based on love and concern. Get expert advice and call in professionals if necessary. The next step toward restoring logical thinking is to clear away the toxins. This might take time and your child might suffer setbacks, but once you detoxify the body, you can begin to work on rebuilding your relationship.

Step Six: Finding Balance

Children are naturally exuberant and energetic. Parents who tolerate their children’s self-expression say that they love their creative energy and individuality. However, children also need to learn how to keep their energy in check and how to exhibit proper social behavior. But how do you find the fine balance between tolerance and control?

“Nobody sets out to be a lousy mom or dad, but there are many out there who simply don’t know what they don’t know.”

Children need to learn self-control so that they can master their emotions. Learning how to calm down is imperative. Teach your children how to breathe slowly and relax their body. When the body is calm, the mind will relax, too.

What do you do with an overstimulated child? Jerry, age five, loved to shout and yell. Although this was appropriate behavior on the playground, Jerry’s parents needed to teach him how to behave at home. They took this four-step approach:

1. They asked Jerry to stop yelling and explained why.
2. They suggested a calming behavior, such as listening to music.
3. Then, they offered ways to reroute his energy such as running in the yard or playing with building blocks.
4. Finally, Jerry’s parents praised him for channeling his energy appropriately.

Step Seven: Being Understood

People who feel accepted and understood are in a good position to develop long-lasting relationships. Unfortunately, many child/parent relationships are rife with misunderstandings and lapses in communication. Your job as a parent is to be empathetic to your child’s feelings. Learn how to discern the feeling expressed behind the words. When you don’t understand what your child is attempting to communicate, ask for clarification. Repeat what you hear, a technique called “mirror reflection.” For instance, if your child says, “You are mean,” try responding with, “I understand. You feel like I am not being nice.”

“Overcontrolling parents aren’t powerful – they are just overcontrolling.”

Don’t try to jump in and fix things. Instead, acknowledge what your child is going through. Throw judgment out the window. Ask questions and listen thoughtfully to the answers. Reach out, share how you felt in a similar circumstance or relay a story from your own childhood.

Step Eight: Word Up

Dr. Lawlis couldn’t understand why Kevin said his five-year-old son Jacob was out of control until he asked them to work on a puzzle together. Kevin berated his son with statements such as, “Jacob, what are you doing?” and “Are you stupid or just being uncooperative?”

“The ability to read and react to the emotional states of others is an important socialization and communication skill.”

Children respond to your words. They want to please you, but you might not be communicating clearly enough for them to understand, or you might be communicating the wrong message. When you speak to your children, express what you mean with clarity. Don’t assume they will automatically comprehend your message. Instead of name-calling, state how the child’s behavior is making you feel, such as, “I’m getting irritated by your running around.” Give simple and precise directions, and don’t overload them with too many instructions at once. Use stories to convey your message.

Step Nine: Forgive and Move On

Your children will disappoint you. You will disappoint your children. Parents and children are not infallible and they will make mistakes. This much is out of your control. However, you can control your reactions. You can become a victim and remain bitter, or you can choose to forgive.

“A parent who strives to understand the emotions behind the child’s words and actions rather than focus on what is said or done will likely build loving bonds for a lifetime.”

When you forgive, you separate your emotions from the hurtful action. You are not saying that the action was justified. You are merely deciding to let go of the negative feelings. Learning to forgive is a prerequisite to forging long-lasting bonds with your children.

Step Ten: A Greater Power

At some point during childhood, every child wonders, “Why am I here?” Children want to know that they are special, that they have a purpose and that they have something unique to contribute. No matter what religion you practice, you can reassure your children of these spiritual beliefs:

• “Everyone is connected.”
• “Justice is ultimately served, and forgiveness is a strength.”
• “Each individual has a higher purpose.”
• “There is a source of infinite wisdom.”
• “Love conquers all, even death.”

About the Author

Dr. Frank Lawlis is psychologist, researcher and counselor with more than 35 years of experience working with parents and children. He is the author of the two bestsellers, The ADD Answer and The IQ Answer.

Great Kids, Helping Your Baby and Child Develop the 10 Essential Qualities for a Healthy, Happy Life by Stanley I. Greenspan

Recommendation

The way you raise your child from infancy through adolescence determines his or her success in interacting with people and dealing with life situations. Every parent wants confident, sensitive, patient and morally sound children. But human beings are not born with these qualities; parents and caregivers are responsible for teaching children about them. Dr. Stanley Greenspan, an authority on infant and child development, describes each of 10 essential traits he believes children need, and advises parents how to instill and encourage them in their kids. His contentions are backed up by 30 years of practical experience. getAbstract recommends this book to parents who are looking for a guide through the complexities of child rearing.

Take-Aways

• Children are not born with essential traits; they learn them.
• Empathy and “moral integrity” are the most important traits.
• Parents are responsible for instilling these traits in their children.
• Love alone is not enough to raise emotionally healthy children.
• Every child has the potential for greatness.
• Intelligence and talent do not guarantee the development of a well-adjusted individual.
• Moral people behave according to an internal set of rules.
• Parents can damage children by not permitting them to express emotions.
• Parents must walk a fine line between offering too little and too much praise.
• Building youngsters’ self-esteem requires input from parents at every stage of their development.

Great kids Book Summary

The Stages of Life

Most parents want two things for their children: They hope their lives will be “happy and fulfilled,” with families of their own, and socially useful. The intellectual and emotional traits that children need in order to do this are not inherent, though; parents must teach them at each of these developmental stages:

• “Awakening to the world” – Infants observe the world around them and experience it through each of their senses.
• “Engaging and relating” – Starting with their first smile, children interact with others.
• “Communicating” – They respond verbally to others.
• “Problem solving and a sense of self” – Assimilating the information they gather from the people and things around them, children learn to act upon the world and to differentiate themselves from it.
• “Language and ideas” – These enhance communication and understanding.
• “Logic” – Making connections between ideas and emotions reveals the structures and patterns behind the behavior of people and things.

“The ability to engage with another person is the bedrock skill for the development of a great kid.”

Teaching your children the following 10 fundamental traits will give them a solid foundation for becoming “great kids” and eventually great adults, who reach out to others and act according to their inherent values.

“Engagement”

Interacting with others is a basic human need, right up there with food. Babies recognize almost immediately that smiles, kisses and hugs feel good. As they grow, they learn that their gestures and behaviors connect them with others. Use “floortime” to help children learn engagement. Get down on their level, literally in the case of toddlers, and figuratively as children grow older. Follow their lead and encourage their interests. Shy children may have trouble making friends. Encourage them to include others in activities they enjoy. Set up playdates if necessary.

“The lunchroom and playground drama of grade school is so consuming for children that it’s remarkable they get any work done.”

Adolescents may feel alienated from you as a parent. Ironically, some of your best “floortime” moments may take place over the phone or in the car – situations in which you can’t look each other in the face. The familiar sound of your voice may be enough to show your support.

“Empathy”

Certain emotions, such as rage or fear, are inbuilt. No one needs to teach them to you. Empathy is different. You learn it only through experience. Infants learn empathy as parents respond to them by fulfilling their needs. Sometimes, as when a baby is sad or angry, parents can help by mirroring the emotion. Rocking a crying baby and crooning, “I know, I know” can make the baby feel safe and calm.

“Without disappointment and sadness, a child can’t learn to have true joy or a true sense of self.”

Empathy emerges as babies learn to read their caregivers’ gestures and facial expressions, and to respond to them with gestures, expressions and sounds of their own. To do so, they must first learn to differentiate Mom’s emotions, for example, from their own. The next step is “shared social problem solving” – reaching out to parents and then to peers to get what they need, as well as for fun. From as early as eight months old, babies can engage in “circles of communication” – seeing a gesture from someone else, responding to it, and so on. Infants usually go about four rounds, but by the time children are 18 months old, they may go through as many as 50 or 60 cycles during play.

“Curiosity is such a reliable force in a small child that a parent’s job is mainly to keep her safe, without dampening that inquisitive spirit.”

Help children learn empathy by showing them your feelings and responding to theirs. Encourage them to express all kinds of feelings, not only positive ones. Show them that feelings can be complex: You can feel happy about moving to a new house, for example, yet at the same time miss your old neighborhood. Encourage children to anticipate disappointment – for example, by asking, “How will you feel if your team doesn’t win tomorrow?” – and to put themselves into the shoes of others – for example, by saying, “How do you think Meaghan feels when you snicker at her?” As children get older, discuss books and films such as To Kill a Mockingbird or Oliver Twist, and news reports on wars or natural disasters, to help them deepen their sympathies.

“Curiosity”

Children are naturally curious. Indeed, this is such a “reliable force” that your main responsibility as a parent is to make sure they stay safe as they conduct their investigations. Don’t supply answers. Instead, ask children questions that will help them solve problems themselves. For example, if the Lego tower keeps collapsing, ask, “How else can we build it?” Encourage them to look for several possible answers to one question. Ask their opinions: “Who was your favorite character in that book?” Acknowledge “gray areas”: Some answers involve layers of contradiction.

“A reflective child with an internal standard is able to explore her own thoughts, behavior, and judgment.”

Facilitate your child’s natural curiosity by providing learning opportunities. Introduce toddlers to objects of various sizes, shapes, colors and textures. Go on nature walks. As children grow older, their thinking becomes more sophisticated and reflective. Thoughtful children may be less inclined to act impulsively.

“Communication”

For the first few months of their lives, babies are observers. Soon, though, they begin to move their mouths and make sounds. They imitate what you do, and they learn that their sounds can make things happen. By the time they are six to eight months old, they are able to communicate nonverbally. To produce verbal children, respond to their signals and babbling. This encourages children both to express themselves and to listen.

“Life is a process of continuing to explore new realms and mastering additional levels of thinking at all ages.”

Once children can talk and express their emotions and ideas, they begin “thinking of an internal sense of self.” They can judge their words and actions against their personal values and standards.

Raising communicative children boils down to one thing: engaging them often in long conversations. When you play with them, let them take the lead, but draw out the game by doing the unexpected. When your child plays the “mommy” and offers you “soup,” instead of saying, “Thank you,” say, “No, no, no! I want a cookie!” Ask “why” questions, and challenge them to tell stories from different points of view. As they get older, ask their opinions about everything from family dynamics to school to current events.

“Emotional Range”

Children must learn not only to express their full range of emotions but also to handle them appropriately – although, of course, no one is perfectly calm and balanced all the time. Children practice modulating their emotions through play: banging toy cars together for a scary crash, then healing “injured” dolls at a “hospital.” As they get older, they learn to figure out the sources of their feelings – “Mary ignored me on the playground, so I feel angry, and sad, too” – and even to look for explanations – “Maybe she didn’t see me.”

“Simply being able to express a range of feelings isn’t enough. Children need to master the skill of returning to a sense of equilibrium.”

To encourage emotional range and balance, don’t categorize some emotions as “good” and others as “bad.” Insisting that children always be happy and calm may make them passive and repressed. Instead, learn to work with assertiveness, sadness or anger. If a child is overexcited, calm him or her down by staying calm yourself.

“A sense of engagement, warmth, and delight in others is the foundation for self-esteem.”

Understanding your child’s personality type will help guide your interactions. Sensitive children may not enjoy roughhousing or loud noises. Active children may have difficulty settling down.

“Genuine Self-Esteem”

Children don’t develop self-esteem because they hear constant praise. In fact, praise that’s not based on genuine accomplishment seems empty and meaningless, and promotes insecurity. Instead, children learn self-esteem when they face and overcome obstacles – with your support. Don’t do their homework for them; the A grade will mean more if they achieve it themselves. Acknowledge children’s accomplishments and challenge them to do even better next time.

“The internal values someone has created, and a sense of how well he or she is progressing toward meeting those values, is not crushed by minor setbacks or even by major tragedies.”

Self-esteem involves many aspects of maturation: body awareness and acceptance, curiosity and engagement with the world, and a realistic assessment of personal strengths and weaknesses. Self-image is important, especially when it comes to trying something new: You must be able to picture yourself in the unfamiliar situation.

“Emotions organize a child’s senses and actions.”

Adolescents feel particularly vulnerable as they mature. Although you can’t take away the hurt when your children’s peers tease them, when they don’t make the team or when they get a bad grade, you can redirect their attention to their strengths and to activities they do well and enjoy.

“Internal Discipline”

Self-discipline is the ability to follow through, ignoring distractions and finishing what you started. Parents often want to punish children who are inattentive, distractible or impulsive – but “tough love” may exacerbate the problems by teaching them that discipline comes from the outside rather than from within.

“Adults who have had their creativity encouraged during their developmental stages find it easier to develop new levels of reflective thinking and empathy that are necessary to get along with a spouse and to raise children.”

Encouraging your children’s natural drives helps them learn how to follow through. Help them understand the consequences of not completing a task by setting limits. Eventually, they will develop an “inner voice” that keeps them going. Adolescents rebel against all sorts of outside boundaries, but they do this to find their own limits and “establish themselves as themselves.”

“Creativity and Vision”

For children, play is “work, a critical developmental task.” Through play, they reflect on their experiences and experiment with new ideas. Creative people “search for the unusual,” enjoy new ideas and experiences, and are not afraid to make mistakes. Creativity involves the ability both to “generate” new ideas, and to “reflect” and analyze them.

“We reach children by joining them in their world and then pulling them into ours.”

Encourage experimentation. Instead of teaching by rote, ask children to come up with ideas and solutions from their reading and experiences. Help them express their fantasies and emotions through the arts.

“Logical Thinking”

Logical thinking is about collecting information, making connections between causes and effects, and recognizing patterns. It begins in the crib when a baby realizes that squeezing a toy results in a sound or that touching Daddy’s face makes him smile.

To learn logic, children must be able to distinguish fantasy from reality. Help by participating in their games: Your voice represents the outside world. As children get older, they can engage in “differentiated thinking,” the ability to weigh the positive and negative, and assign values to each. Promote differentiated thinking by asking children not just to express their opinions but also to back them up.

“Moral Integrity”

Integrity and empathy are perhaps the most essential qualities of great kids. Almost everyone knows what is right and wrong. But moral individuals care about the distinction between the two. Students with strong morals wouldn’t cheat on a test because it would compromise their integrity; they care less about the penalties the outside world imposes.

Toddlers learn about being “mean” or “nice” through their interactions with adults, through imaginative play and on the playground. Set an example with good behavior, and discuss limits and punishments for bad behavior. Without love and respect, children can’t internalize values, and behaving well becomes only a means to an end: If they do the things adults demand, they will receive rewards. If they don’t, they’ll be punished. And when no one else is around to see, they do what they want.

To raise moral children, set a good example and reasonable limits. Allow your child to be upset about being punished for misbehaving. When he or she has calmed down, engage your child in a discussion about the incident so he or she can understand all sides. Tell children about your own moral dilemmas and how your values or faith helped you solve them.

About the Author

Stanley I. Greenspan is a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School and the author or editor of more than 40 books.

Business Dad, How Good Businessmen Can Make Great Fathers (and Vice Versa) by Tom Hirschfeld and Julie Hirschfeld

Recommendation

Many powerful, effective businessmen feel lost when it comes to raising their kids. As a result, some spend more time at the office, where they are confident and capable. To remedy this dilemma, Tom and Julie Hirschfeld, a husband-and-wife team, offer a class you won’t find in an M.B.A. program: Fatherhood 101. Presented as an executive briefing for a new assignment, Hirschfeld’s book teaches you to apply your business know-how to achieve parenting success. The concept is long overdue, though the book skims over the crucial topic of maintaining life-work balance and is prone to gender stereotypes. getAbstract recommends this handy guide to working fathers and fathers-to-be.

Take-Aways

• If you are a good businessman, you have the potential to be an exceptional father.
• Today’s fathers are more active in their families’ lives than fathers were before the 1960s.
• Dads are not “second moms” – they provide certain things that moms can’t.
• Fathers are important role models for their children.
• Kids have four basic emotional needs: “love, acceptance, self-esteem and stability.”
• Each child requires a unique blend of these elements.
• Fathers face numerous obstacles in parenting, including a lack of training, role models and feedback.
• Your business experience is the key to overcoming these obstacles.
• Professionals have four main work responsibilities: “gathering information, making decisions, executing decisions and managing others.”
• By applying these skills at home, you can become a better parent.

Business Dad Book Summary

“Master of Fatherly Administration”

Today’s fathers must balance increasing work and home responsibilities. Business has grown more competitive since the 1960s. If you want to be successful, you have to work longer and harder than your competition. At the same time, the role fathers are expected to play in the family has also expanded. The social infrastructure – schools, educational TV programs, good neighborhoods – parents used to depend on to help them raise their children is eroding. Dads need to be more than just providers and disciplinarians.

“When it comes to fathering, everyone’s an amateur.”

Deciding to be a better father is a good first step, but you should prepare yourself to meet a few obstacles. Parenting challenges are different from those you face in your career:

1. “No training” – You can get an M.B.A. from universities nationwide, but you’ll be pressed to find a school that offers a master of fatherly administration. Readying yourself for a product launch or merger is far easier than preparing for fatherhood.
2. “No role models” – The professional world offers up numerous business titans to admire, including Bill Gates, Michael Eisner and Sam Walton. But there are few well-known fathering heroes. Traditionally, society focused more on grooming women for motherhood than preparing men to be fathers.
3. “No expert status” – Moms have reputations as child-raising experts. What makes them so? The amount of time they spend with their children. Fathers should try to overcome this knowledge gap, even if they aren’t immediately successful. They must be willing to invest time in their families.
4. “No evaluations” – At work, your employers generally provide you with a periodic assessment of your performance. These evaluations let you know what you are doing right and what you should improve. Your kids can’t give you such feedback until they can talk, and even then, you are unlikely to receive an objective performance review.
5. “No competition” – The desire to outperform your colleagues, your neighbors or your college roommate drives your career. At home, there is such competition.

Transferable Skills

Parenting presents unique challenges, but you have a secret weapon. Your business experience is an untapped reservoir of fathering skills. If you are a good businessman, you have the potential to be an exceptional father. Although you can’t behave in the home exactly as you do in the office, there are enough similarities between the two environments to allow you to adapt some of your business skills for home use. In the workplace, you spend time on four main activities, each requiring different aptitudes and abilities: “gathering information, making decisions, executing decisions and managing others.” Look for ways to apply these skills toward the goal of rearing happy, successful children.

Gathering Information

To gain important information at work, you keep an ear perked to your bosses, customers and colleagues. Yet, what your children have to say matters even more – and they have fewer listeners. Try applying these information-gathering techniques at home:

“Dads still have to be providers, but no longer just in the financial sense.” ”

•“Learning” – In business and in fathering, “keeping up is a whole lot easier than catching up.” Try to continually learn about your family – in the same way you are always striving to know more about your products, customers or industry. •Understanding – Demonstrating that you empathize with someone takes you much further than just listening. Being more effective at home involves showing your family you care about them. •Managing “by walking around” – Like your subordinates, children don’t always come to you when they have a problem. If you are not actively looking for warning signs, you can be blindsided. •“Critical thinking” – At work, you deal with many gray areas in your decision making. Gathering information helps you avoid making poor choices. At home, people will be more willing to accept your decisions if you show they are well thought-out and informed.

Making Decisions

Managing your career involves weighing short-term goals against long-term objectives. The same is true for parenting. Indulging your children’s immediate wants can jeopardize their future. Balance is the key, but you should also cultivate the following strengths:

“[Fathers are] desperately needed as equal partners in child-rearing, in providing that warm, structured upbringing that could make the difference down the line between Yale and jail.”

•“Creativity” – Being creative at work helps you perform better, settle conflicts and foster a fun work environment. Creativity in the home can produce similar results. •“Proactivity” – You don’t succeed in business by waiting for something to happen. Your power as a father also comes from “action, not reaction.” •“Comfort with chaos” – Today’s business world is so chaotic that, in some ways, it prepares you for the madcap confusion of home life. •“Crisis management” – The way you respond to a crisis has a lasting effect on how your co-workers and supervisors view you. People respect Johnson & Johnson for its handling of the Tylenol scare in 1982. Likewise, you should remain calm and be competent in a family crisis.

Executing Decisions

Apply the principles of “prioritization, organization and disciplined time-management” that you use at work to help you make the most of your home time. Stress these qualities and tactics:

“In a cruel trick of timing, [Dads’] most severe period of career testing coincides with [their] prime child-rearing years.”

•“Reliability” – In business, your reputation as a reliable person earns people’s trust and helps you meet your goals. Your children must also be able to count on you to keep your word. •“Delegation” – Delegating is a crucial aspect of your professional decision making. Knowing when to delegate a project and when to do it yourself helps you use time and resources efficiently. At home, you may be tempted to delegate tasks to your wife, but remember that some things call for your involvement. •“Negotiation” – Businesspeople must be savvy negotiators. Sometimes you can apply that know-how to change your kids’ behavior. •“Respect” – Showing people respect earns their cooperation. Treat your kids respectfully and they will act more worthy of that respect.

Managing Others

Good business leaders inspire those who work for them. Think of the pep talks you give at the office as practice for motivating your kids. Remember these motivational tools:

“There may be no such job as professional father, but the most electrifying work throughout history has come from amateurs, those nuts who excel for the sheer love of what they do.”

•“Authority” – Being a vice president or dad may entitle you to give orders, but no one will follow them unless you have an air of authority. Increase your influence by using discipline justly and employing negative and positive incentives. •“Tolerance” – The flip side of discipline is tolerance. Showing a little patience can prevent mutiny at work and at home. •“Values” – Businesses try to differentiate themselves through a distinct company culture. Identify and support your family’s unique values. •Mentorship – Consider yourself a mentor to your children. Just as mentoring at work grooms people for success, your mentoring at home prepares your children to realize their full potential. •“Leadership” – To develop your role as a family leader, earn the trust of your family members and ensure that you all share the same “vision” for the family.

Dad’s Place in the Organizational Chart

A dad is not a second mom. Fathers are equal partners in raising their children and they fill a unique role. For example, a father’s physical strength can make children feel protected. After his father’s death, a very young John F. Kennedy Jr. once asked a family friend “Are you a daddy?” When the man said yes, Kennedy asked, “Then will you throw me up in the air?” The boy, who deeply missed his father, was searching for “something he thought only a daddy could give.” Fathers should try to engage in physical play with their kids – wrestling, and playing hoops or catch. This type of activity promotes their children’s physical development.

“We can’t and shouldn’t remake ourselves from scratch to become effective fathers.”

Moms and dads enforce rules differently. When children break rules, mothers are more apt to “make greater allowances for extenuating circumstances,” whereas fathers tend to insist on “the letter of the law.” Each approach teaches children distinct lessons. They may learn compassion from their mothers and develop a “respect for rules” from their fathers.

Raising a Happier Child

Both boys and girls need positive male role models. A boy looks to his dad as he tries to define his male identity. Without such a figure in his life, a boy can become too aggressive or, at the opposite extreme, he may not learn assertiveness. Sons observe and learn from how their fathers behave, including coping with frustration, interacting with women and handling responsibility. Daughters also learn from their fathers. Girls whose fathers are involved in their lives tend to do better at math and logical thinking. Additionally, they view their fathers as models for their future husbands. The way you interact with your daughter will influence the kind of guy she will want to marry, so treat her respectfully and lovingly. You must attend to the basic emotional needs of your children if you want them to be happy. These fundamentals are “Love, Acceptance, Self-esteem and Stability”:

1. Love – The simplest way to provide the love kids need is through affection and cuddling: “When in doubt, give a hug.” Show your love by empathizing with your children’s problems. Be willing to abandon the shield of emotional toughness you use in business, so you can really feel your child’s pain.
2. Acceptance – Acceptance does not mean approving of everything your children do. Show your kids you accept them by telling them you care about their success, but that’s not how you measure their worth. Your acceptance must be unconditional. If you reject your kids when they do something wrong, they’ll start keeping their failures from you, which prevents you from being able to help or comfort them.
3. Self-esteem – Many experts make the mistake of considering only the short-term aspects of self-esteem. They communicate the overly simplistic message that, above all else, kids should think highly of themselves. However, raising your kids to be “little egotists” will not help them make friends in the long term – and lack of friendship does contribute to poor self-image. Help your children learn from their mistakes instead of ignoring them. Teach them to view self-esteem as “a feeling of intrinsic self-worth independent of one’s abilities, but which does not artificially alter one’s judgment of those abilities.”
4. Stability – Children are in a constant state of flux. As their minds and bodies change and mature, consistency in other areas of their lives is critical. Make sure your kids see you and your wife settling disputes constructively, complimenting each other, laughing together and treating each other as equals. Provide a structured home life for your kids by making clear rules for the whole family.

“[Dads] should take the habits, managerial and otherwise, that [they’ve] already internalized successfully, and open [themselves] to the idea of using them at home.”

Children’s four basic needs relate to the four elements: water, air, fire and earth. The water children need to survive is love. Acceptance is the air that, if withheld, “suffocates growth.” The fire that “ignites their explosive change and progress” is self-esteem. Stability is the earth that provides them a “firm footing.” The right mixture for each child will vary, but incorporate all four elements in your parenting.

About the Authors

Tom Hirschfeld is a venture capitalist. He was previously the assistant to the mayor of New York. He has written two books about video games. Julie Hirschfeld, Ph.D, specializes in family therapy. They have two children.

Video & Podcast

Angela Duckworth’s journey to the study of grit began to take off when she began teaching. As she learned that the smartest kids in class weren’t the highest achievers, she wondered why. When she moved from teaching to psychology, the study of grit became a passion. This book covers everything she’s discovered to date about grit, where it comes from, and how to develop it.

Here’s what you’ll learn about in this summary:

• The traits, ways of thinking, and practices of someone who has grit
• Understanding what things contribute to the development of grit
• Ways that you can increase grit in your own life, and the life of your children

Crucial quotes

It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers special. In a word, they had grit.

Ultimately, adopting a gritty perspective involves recognizing that people get better at things they grow. Just as we want to cultivate the ability to get up off the floor when life has knocked us down, we want to give those around us the benefit of the doubt when something they’ve tried isn’t a raging success. There’s always tomorrow.

To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight.

Tweetable summary

Grit – the tenacious and persistent can-do attitude of successful people is explored and understood through Angela Duckworth’s book.

THE BIG IDEAS

1. Being gritty makes all the difference

“In sum, no matter the domain, the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually resilient and hardworking. Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what it was they wanted. They not only had determination, they had direction.”

Most success stories involve action after failure, persistence, passion, and hard work. Through her work as a psychologist, Angela Duckworth became increasingly fascinated with a culmination of these categories, plus a few more, that she calls grit. Her extensive studies have covered evaluations of all types of people, of almost every age, and across a wide spectrum of industries, fields and areas of interest. With all of this research, Duckworth eventually developed a Grit Scale that can “measure the extent to which you approach your life with grit.”

A quick note to keep in mind before we move any further: It’s important when examining grit to not mistake it with talent…

Again, grit does NOT equal talent. In fact, studies show a much stronger inclination towards grit when participants were never perceived as talented in the first place. In a study of Ivy League undergraduates, SAT scores and grit were, in fact, inversely correlated. For West Pointers, first year cadets encountering the Beast, an intensive and demanding seven-week program designed to create Soldiers out of cadets, the most definitive criteria for success was a high score on the Grit Scale.

A high Grit Scale score also predicted:

• higher high school student graduation,
• the longevity of salespeople who worked for a company,
• the likelihood of pursuing higher education,
• the odds of winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee,
• and even those who will successfully graduate as Green Berets.

So, what are some of the other factors that work alongside with grit to help people achieve success? Prior experience is one factor. Having a supportive mentor or teacher is another. And having some baseline skills is another. Ultimately, however, Duckworth tells us that the most important factor to success is going to be grit.

Now let’s talk a little bit more about the relationship between grit, success, and talent…

As Duckworth transitioned careers from high-level consultant to teaching disadvantaged children, she could clearly see that aptitude did not guarantee achievement. This clarification between ability and success is a common theme throughout the book. Here’s how she puts it: “I grew less and less convinced that talent was destiny and more and more intrigued by the returns generated by effort.”

Those who are aware of natural talents and gifts tend to have less grit than those who have to work hard to achieve the same level of performance. Once this effort is established, many surpass the naturally talented by hard work and persistence with grit.

Researchers across the board agree that when it comes to success, a person’s willingness to work hard (their grittiness) matters more than a given person’s natural talent. For example, expert music instructors agree that productive hard work is more valuable than natural musical talent.

Even though the value of grit over talent is clear and measurable, for some odd reason our society still tends to prefer naturally talented people over everyone else — whether in business, sports, or music. And unfortunately, this can lead to some pretty disastrous results; like the total implosion of Enron, for instance. This was a company who used to boast in their hiring practices of top talent. Duckworth tells us that Enron’s focus on talent over grit “inadvertently contributed to a narcissistic culture…that encouraged short-term performance but discouraged long-term learning and growth.” In other words: people thought they were already too talented to put in the grit/effort to improve themselves whenever necessary… This “talent is better than grit” mindset pervaded Enron’s entire culture—starting from the top, and then cascading downward and then laterally until it infected the entire organization like a virus—contributing to the eventual demise of the entire company.

Bottom line? Focusing on talent sends a message that the qualities inherent in a gritty individual aren’t as important as they actually are.

In the book, Duckworth shares touching and inspiring stories of people who were written off as not smart, or not talented, until they had a moment where they got to challenge this belief, and work towards a better future. All of these people became exceptionally good at the things they did, and made significant positive contributions to their world.

2. Effort is more important than talent

“Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t. With effort, talent becomes skill and, at the very same time, effort makes skill productive.”

Let’s do a point-by-point breakdown of the aforementioned quote, shall we?

NO EFFORT = UNMET POTENTIAL (Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t…)

• This first part of the quote refers to the naturally talented person who doesn’t work hard to achieve their highest potential. Here’s an example: On scale of 1–10, a naturally talented swimmer who never puts in the effort to get better might be at about a 7. Better than most. But is it optimal? Nope. Here’s why: If that same swimmer leveraged her talent AND put forth the effort to continuously improve herself as a swimmer, she might be at a 9 or 10, making her one of the best swimmers around.

TALENT + EFFORT = SKILL (…With effort, talent becomes skill…)

• Putting in the effort to achieve your highest potential in any given endeavor gives you the edge—both personally and professionally.

EFFORT + SKILL = SUCCESS (…and, at the very same time, effort makes skill productive.)

• When we work hard on our talents, they become skills. And when we work hard on our skills, we dramatically increase our likelihood of becoming more productive, which allows us to become better and better, which allows us to become more successful at what we do!

It’s easy to believe that only the talented will succeed. It lets the rest of us, who aren’t talented off the hook; allowing room to relax into the status quo. When you’re talented and you try hard, you can quickly improve, but when you use these improvements and continue to try hard you really begin to achieve. Effort is required for both. You can’t achieve unless you try, regardless of whether you’re talented to begin with.

In psychology tests, those people who are able to stick to a difficult physical challenge through continuous effort are the ones who display “psychological adjustment throughout adulthood.” An even better indication of grit is those who are willing to come back and perform the test again the next day, to improve their score. “[W]hat matters is that they wake up the next day, and the next, ready to get on that treadmill and keep going.”

From famous writers to master potters to actors, people who choose to put in effort to improve every day, regardless of talent, find success.

3. Your grittiness level

“Grit has two components: passion and perseverance.”

Wanna grow your grittiness level? Keep the following points in mind from Duckworth’s Grit Scale to get an indication of your own grittiness:

• Repeating the Grit Scale over time has shown researchers that grit is something you can grow.
• You can look at your own life for examples of how gritty you are.
• Someone who’s gritty is passionate about what they’re doing, and this makes them want to stick with it.
• Showing “consistency over time” is a great indication of grit. It can be something that starts as a childhood fascination, and grows over time and exposure. (This differs from those who have interests that change regularly.)
• Passion provides a compass to guide you as you explore different sides of an interest. It can lead you on a journey where you find where you ultimately want to be.
• People with grit approach life as an opportunity to continue to improve. It helps to have a guiding philosophy when you make choices about what tasks you will undertake.

Now let’s move into something a little more tangible…

Duckworth suggests seeing goals as a hierarchy. The top is your ultimate goal. Below that are mid- and low-level goals that can feed up to the top. These are short-term, specific goals. When one doesn’t work, look for a new goal that still leads to the top. “The top-level goal is not a means to any other end. It is, instead, an end in itself.”

When you are passionate, this top-level goal, or guiding philosophy, is constantly on your mind. Having your priorities focused towards this goal, and sticking to that goal is having grit. Note that you can substitute lower-level goals as you proceed, keeping in mind you are always looking for what will get you to your top goal. Eliminating goals that don’t work is necessary, since you have a finite amount of time and energy. “On any long journey, detours are to be expected.”

Going back to the idea of talent versus success, Duckworth shows how analysis of some of the most remarkable figures in history revealed that “the relationship between intelligence and eminence…was exceedingly slight.” Things that showed a strong relationship to these high achievers were as follows:

• having a clear top-level goal,
• having a mindset of following through over time,
• having perseverance,
• and not quitting when encountering challenges.

These were the attributes of history’s grittiest people.

4. Where grit comes from

“in the simplest terms, this means that some of the variation in grit in the population can be attributed to genetic factors, and the rest can be attributed to experience.”

There is indication that grit is genetic to a certain extent, but this measure is small in comparison to the influences around you that can develop grit. What type of environment you grow up in has a significant impact on your development of grit. The experiences you have, the failures you experience, and people around you are definitely going to have an impact on your grittiness. But your grit also changes over time as you grow and adapt to challenges. It’s also constantly impacted by the culture you are surrounded by.

There are four traits that gritty people have in common:

1. Interest — Gritty people have an interest and a passion in what they do.
2. Practice — Their deep interest leads to deep practice (“the daily discipline of trying to do things better than we did yesterday”).
3. Purpose — A belief in the meaning of the work.
4. Hope — The last trait is hope, the optimistic belief in engaging in every stage regardless of setbacks. “You can grow your grit from the inside out.”

5. Passion and grit

“passion for your work is a little bit of discovery, followed by a lot of development, and then a lifetime of deepening.”

Loving what you do can take time and experimenting. Many gritty people took a long time before they created their top-level goal. In order to discover your passion, you need to get out there and try things. Don’t expect an immediate revelation. Give things some time. When you find an interest, surround yourself with supportive people.

Additional points on passion and grit:

• If you’re a parent, encourage your kids to play and goof around, because play plays a role in triggering and re-triggering areas of interest. Also remember that everyone starts out as a beginner. Let kids make choices about what they’d like to try. Give them encouragement without too many expectations. In the end, this pays off, as people who are gritty will spend less time changing careers and searching for an elusive purpose.
• As skills and interest develop, the novelties of a passion become a special nuance to the expert. This is evident for those who are experts in an art form, or a sport, or in business.
• If you are seeking your passion, start with discovery. Ask yourself what you love and what fascinates you, as well as what you absolutely cannot stand. When you find a direction you’re interested in, experiment with it. Feel free to make guesses, and eliminate what doesn’t work. Then, develop this interest by asking questions, digging deep for answers, finding others who share your interests, and looking for a mentor. If you have a direction of interest, but no clear passion, look for ways to explore passion within that interest.

6. Practice and grit

“the most important finding was that the type of practice mattered tremendously. Deliberate practice predicted advancing to further rounds in final competition far better than any other kind of preparation.”

Practice is driven by a desire to improve and excel. Experts practice thousands of hours, but in addition to quantity of time, they also incorporate quality of practice into their routines. Experts practice by setting up a specific goal related to their passion. This goal is something that is not immediately attainable. As they practice, they get feedback, and then they use this feedback to practice until they achieve their goal. Then, they establish a new goal and begin practice again. “One by one, these subtle refinements add up to dazzling mastery.” By breaking down their largest goal into components, and then achieving each component, they are able to achieve great things. This type of deliberate practice requires significant effort. It’s not easy. Whether it is a mental challenge or a physical challenge, it is demanding.

A reward for deliberate practice is when you experience flow ease and enjoyment from something that was previously challenging. Experiencing flow leads to more deliberate practice, and this cycle sets apart gritty people from average achievers. Studies have also shown that gritty people enjoy deliberate practice more, even though they find it takes more effort.

Define your stretch goal, practice with total focus, seek and use feedback, and then repeat with all of this in mind. Make deliberate practice a habit. View each experience the success and the failure as a productive part of deliberate practice.

7. Purpose and grit

“In my “grit lexicon,” therefore, purpose means “the intention to contribute to the well-being of others.””

Gritty people may begin with a passion that is self-focused, but those with the most success find a way to make this passion create benefits for others as well. They find a purpose to their passion and hard work and ultimately, their efforts pay dividends to other people. This purpose provides strong motivation to excel, to engage in deliberate practice, and to enjoy a meaningful life. Oh, and by the way, those who have great purpose in their lives have higher Grit Scale scores.

The same job that one employee sees as ‘just a job,’ another employee may see as their purpose or calling. It’s not the job, but the person’s outlook that makes the difference. Those who find meaning in their work are happier, and more conscientious.

At first glance, grit may seem at odds with purpose. Grit involves focusing on a personal top-level goal, while purpose requires deep consideration of others. However, those who can “keep personal and prosocial interests in mind do better in the long run than those who are 100 percent selfishly motivated.” Having both outlooks leads to greater success.

There is a process for acquiring purpose: It starts with a spark an interest. Then, you find someone who is purposeful and watch them. See how they live with purpose. What follows is an internalization (“I believe that I can personally make a difference.”) …And that’s how purpose begins to develop.

A spark + A role model + A dedication to making a difference = PURPOSE

To cultivate purpose, think about ways the work you’re already doing can help society. When people start to think creatively about their job, and generating purpose, they come up with all kinds of ways to make their work more meaningful. Again, finding a role model that you can observe is important.

8. Hope and grit

“Grit depends on a different kind of hope. It rests on the expectation that our own efforts can improve our future. ”I have a feeling tomorrow will be better“ is different from ”I resolve to make tomorrow better.” The hope that gritty people have has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with getting up again.”

Studies about suffering and hope have shown some important lessons. When suffering can’t be controlled, it leads to learned hopelessness. But when suffering that has an ‘out’ something that can be done to change the circumstances resilience and fortitude develop.

Pessimists tend to place blame on “permanent and pervasive causes,” “optimists habitually search for temporary and specific causes of their suffering.” This difference in outlook can change a life. Optimists often see causes as their personal responsibility which means they can change their circumstances. When something doesn’t work, they move on and keep on trying. To quote Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t you’re right.” Failure can be seen by an optimist as just a reason to try harder.

Having a growth mindset means believing people can change. “With a growth mindset, you believe you can learn to do better.” This correlates very well with grit. Gritty people just keep on going because they believe it will make a positive difference. Being a model of this type of thinking can have a strong impact on the people around you. Studies have supported this view. Believing that a situation can be controlled and changed leads to stronger, grittier people. This belief is often formed when “you experience mastery at the same time as adversity.”

Developing hope progresses from three steps: (1) a growth mindset, that leads to (2) optimistic self-talk, which leads to (3) perseverance over adversity.

In each step, ask yourself, “What can I do to boost this one?” Remember that you can learn and develop intelligence and skills these are not fixed aspects. Practice optimistic self-talk. If this is a struggle, consider working with a cognitive behavioral therapist who can train you. Ask hopeful people to help you learn hope.

9. Raising gritty children

“If you want to bring forth grit in your child, first ask how much passion and perseverance you have for your own life goals. Then ask yourself how likely it is that your approach to parenting encourages your child to emulate you. If the answer to the first question is “a great deal,” and your answer to the second is “very likely,” you’re already parenting for grit.”

Duckworth’s research has shown that parents who raise gritty children are both loving and kind, and firm with high expectations. These parents offer children “love, limits, and latitude to reach their full potential.”

Children are excellent emulators. They imitate the actions and words of the adults around them. When children and teens are challenged to slightly exceed their believed limits, they create success.

Teachers also have a significant impact when it comes to raising gritty children. The ideal is a teacher who is respectful and supportive while expecting the very best from each student. Many gritty adults attribute their success to a special teacher who challenged them, and believed in them.

Having a total system of support from family, mentors, teachers and friends has a substantial positive impact on a student. As these students work through challenges and begin to develop their own personal missions, gritty actions and beliefs develop.

There is strong evidence to support the importance of involvement in extracurricular activities for developing grit. Children who are involved in any activity for at least a year show more grit. As they become teenagers, commitment to these activities becomes even more important. The longer they stay involved in activities the better. “There are countless research studies showing that kids who are more involved in extracurriculars fare better on just about every conceivable metric they earn better grades, have higher self-esteem, are less likely to get in trouble and so forth…overdosing on extracurriculars is pretty rare.” Learning to follow through with activities, and participate in areas where they can see personal improvement is extremely beneficial. It’s something that requires grit, and develops more grit. Children’s personalities are not fixed, they can grow, develop, and change within the right environments. Giving children challenging tasks helps them grow gritty, and develop “learned industriousness.”

Duckworth has instituted a “Hard Thing Rule” for her family. It has three criteria: everyone in the family has to do something hard (professional development, music, sports), you can only quit at a reasonable stopping point, and each family member picks their own Hard Thing to do. This shows that the whole family is committed to growing and improving. Once her daughters reach high school they must stick to their choice for at least two years.

10. Grit in culture

“The bottom line on culture and grit is: If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you’re a leader, and you want the people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture.”

Being part of a gritty culture provides great benefits. It can be a team, a family, a club, or even a country. When you are surrounded by characteristics such as perseverance and determination, you tend to increase them in your own life. “The way we do things around here and why“ eventually becomes ”The way I do things and why.” You internalize what you are surrounded by.

In Finland, grit is similar to the term sisu. This perseverance, and inner strength is a national trait. “Finns believe they’re born with [it] by dint of their Finnish heritage.” This small country managed to hold off the Soviet army for months in 1939 because of their perseverance. Most Finns “have a growth mindset” about the development of sisu. They believe it can be developed, and practice opportunities for their children to be challenged and stretched. To capture this attitude, choose to see yourself as someone who overcomes significant challenges, and visualize an internal energy that you can draw on when you feel you have nothing left… “there is a way to accomplish what all reason seems to argue against.”

This type of gritty culture has also been found in sports organizations, corporations, and schools. If you can’t join one, make one. Surround yourself with people who are tenacious, optimistic, and hard-working. Memorization of affirming and grit-building statements also leads to gritty community.

11. Grit and the bigger picture

“On your own, you can grow your grit “from the inside out”: You can cultivate your interests. You can develop a habit of daily challenge-exceeding-skill practice. You can connect your work to a purpose beyond yourself. And you can learn to hope when all seems lost. You can also grow your grit “from the outside in.” Parents, coaches, teachers, bosses, mentors, friends developing your personal grit depends critically on other people.”

Grit is something you can grow. And as you continue to cultivate your own grit, you’ll also find that you’re cultivating more satisfaction with your overall quality of life.

To date, Duckworth has not identified any negative results of growing grit. It also does not appear that you can have too much grit. It is still important though, to recognize the importance of other traits, such as self-control, gratitude, and social intelligence, since grit does not develop in isolation.

Here’s to having a clear focus on becoming grittier, and just as important taking the necessary actions to help you live the greatest, grittiest life you can imagine!

Closing notes

Key take-away:

• Grit is a quality that nearly insures success and life satisfaction. It is available to everyone, and can be developed regardless of IQ, talent, or current circumstances.

Actionable insights:

• Being gritty is a choice, so decide that you want to be grittier.
• Start with your interests and explore them in greater detail.
• Pay attention to the things you are passionate about.
• Make a top-level goal and lower goals, and begin to work your way up.
• Honor your top-level goal, and adjust the lower goals as necessary. Stick to it!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

• Angela Duckworth is a brilliant psychologist who has spent years exploring and explaining grit. She credits her success less to talent, and more to her passion for research into grit. She is also a TED Talks speaker and author. Learn more and connect: angeladuckworth.com

Video & Podcast

Scientific studies of the human brain have a lot to tell us about childhood development and how the various parts of the brain work together. By understanding the concepts of the left and right brain, the “upstairs” and “downstairs” brain, and interpersonal integration, we can consciously guide the physical development of our children’s brains so that they can be happier and healthier, both now and into adulthood.

The Whole Brain Child offers strategies for handling the everyday challenges of parenting, including children’s struggles with themselves and conflicts with others, so as to not only survive the difficult moments but use them to guide the development of your child’s brain toward personal insight, empathy, and integration.

Here’s what you’ll learn about in this summary:

• The whole-brain perspective allows parents to harness daily parenting challenges and to not only survive them, but use them to teach our kids to thrive.
• The brain is “plastic,” or moldable, and our experiences change the physical structure of our brains even into old age. This means that at any age we can rewire our brains.
• Teaching your child how to integrate the many parts of herself will help her develop into a happier, healthier adult in control of how she interacts with others.

Crucial quotes

“Tantrums, meltdowns, aggression, and most of the other challenging experiences of parenting—and life—are a result of a loss of integration, also known as dis-integration.”

“Once they understand about integrating the many parts of themselves, they’ll be able to comprehend themselves much more deeply and actively choose how they interact with the people around them.”

“When you’ve become the active author of your life story and not merely the passive scribe of history as it unfolds, you can create a life that you love.”

Tweetable summary

Use the daily challenges of parenting to develop your child’s whole brain integration so that they not only survive but thrive.

THE BIG IDEAS:

1. You can influence your child’s brain-growth towards integration by using everyday moments as teaching opportunities.

“Harmony emerges from integration. Chaos and rigidity arise when integration is blocked.”

As adults, and as adolescents and infants, our mental state is a lot like a boat riding down a river, with one bank being “chaos” and the other “rigidity.” Now, in order to be happy and healthy, we’ve got to consistently keep our boat riding along nicely, right between both banks.

When your child hits either one of these two banks, you can help guide him/her back into the flow of the river — back into a nice, harmonious state of mind.

• Examples of the “chaos” state might be: crying, yelling, and hysterical fits.
• Examples of the “rigidity” state might be your child’s refusal to share a toy, or intentionally ignoring/pretending not to hear you when you call out her name.

When your child veers into either of these “banks,” it presents an opportunity to help her thrive and grow towards being healthier and happier… But how?

The authors tell us we can help our children guide themselves towards the direction that’s best for them in any given moment through what’s known as “horizontal and vertical integration of the brain.”

If your child is in a chaotic or rigid state, then it’s safe to say they’re outside of the ideal state, which is a state of “integration.” Our role as parent is to gently help them get into an integrated state of mind on a consistent basis…

By recognizing when states of chaos or rigidity begin to arise, and applying the whole-brain strategies we’ll cover in our upcoming Big Ideas, you can use these otherwise negative moments to help your child become more integrated and therefore more emotionally and mentally healthy. The key is to be present with your child and look for these moments of opportunity.

2. Help your child to integrate the left and right brains—horizontal integration—by using the “connect and redirect” technique. 

“In order to live balanced, meaningful, and creative lives full of connected relationships, it’s crucial that our two hemispheres work together.”

The brain is divided into two hemispheres—left and right—that influence us in different modalities. The left brain is associated with linear thought, logic, words, and literal thinking. The right brain is nonverbal, intuitive, and holistic.

The right brain hemisphere is also the source of “gut feelings” and is more directly influenced by the body and “lower brain” (which we’ll get to later). The right brain receives and interprets emotional information. And it’s also where autobiographical memories are kept. Very young children are entirely right-brain dominant, but you can see the left brain starting to kick in when a toddler asks questions that begin with words like “why”, “how”, or “how come.” Some quick examples:

• “why is the sky blue?”
• “how come some colors are bright and others aren’t?”
• “why is the President’s hair so orange?”

To foster your child’s emotional wellbeing, the authors tell us it’s important that we become horizontally integrated—meaning that both the left and right brain hemispheres are working together.

When a child is upset, for instance, it’s usually useless to appeal to the logic of the left brain before we’ve attended to the emotional needs of the right brain.

Our job as parents is to help our children reign-in their left brains in order to gain some perspective on the emotions coming from the right brain. You can do this by using a strategy the authors refer to as “attunement” to emotionally connect with the right brain:

When your child is in a chaotic, emotional right-brain state, communicate by acknowledging your child’s emotions and using nonverbal communication such as physical touch, facial expressions, and tone of voice and by being an open listener.

Once you’ve connected with the right brain and helped calm your child’s emotions, you can redirect with the left brain by using logical explanations, planning, and decision making.

Example scenario:

• Your child gets angry for no apparent reason. He cries out loud and throws his Lego blocks all over the floor, flailing his arms and hands across the table of Legos, sending the blocks in every which direction, chaotically clanking as they randomly hit the floor. You notice the tears streaming down his eyes… What do you do?
• Start by quickly (within a few seconds or less) assessing the situation and taking the first step towards attunement with your child. Clearly in this scenario, you’d immediately recognize that your little one is incredibly upset and his emotions are high, which means he’s in a a mental state of chaos – his right brain has taken over.
• A sensible step to take at this point would be to simply kneel down and embrace/hug your child while saying something like, “I know sweetheart, I know… you’re really frustrated right now.” The goal is to let him know—in a cool, calm, and empathetic tone of voice—that you understand where he’s coming from and that you’re there to help him cope, rather than yell at him for throwing the legos.
• Once your child feels safe and understood (thanks to your genuine empathy), then you may find him calming down. He’ll stop crying and/or become less emotionally charged… This is how you’ll know you’ve connected with your child’s right brain.
• Once you’ve established a connection with your child and helped him come back to a positive state of calm, you can then begin redirecting with the left brain hemisphere by saying something such as “So buddy, what happened here?” or “Let’s talk about what we can do next time…”

3. Name overwhelming emotions to tame them.

“When we can give words to our frightening and painful experiences—when we literally come to terms with them—they often become much less frightening and painful.”

Overwhelming emotions can be tamed when they’re named and transformed into stories.

When your child is affected by fears and anxieties from past events (which reside in the right brain), you can help her by engaging the left brain to put the details of the story in order.

It’s important to help kids tell their own stories. Storytelling integrates the left and right brains by bringing words, order, and logic into our autobiographical memories, associated emotions and bodily sensations—which, in turn helps us understand ourselves and our world.

When the left brain works together with the right brain to tell our own autobiographical stories, we experience healing and are no longer overwhelmed by the negative emotions from past experiences.

You can help your child tell a story about something that happened in her life that is troubling her by encouraging her to share detailed accounts of her experience, and by then asking non-threatening follow-up questions about those details.

Naturally, you may have difficulty getting her to talk about an experience, especially if it is a source of very negative emotions. Here’s a simple tip the authors share to help your child engage in open-dialogue: children are more likely to share/chat while they are doing something else, such as playing with building blocks.

Alternatively, if you’re having difficulty connecting through conversation, you might also try encouraging them to talk with another caregiver, a friend, or even a sibling.

Bottom line? The key to helping your child tame their past negative emotions is to name them, talk about them, and create stories about the past experiences that are at the root of the negative/fearful/anxious emotions they’re experiencing. Name them to tame them.

4. The “upstairs” brain and the “downstairs” brain.

Perhaps one of the most powerful Big Ideas from the book is about understanding the difference between your child’s “upstairs” and “downstairs” brain.

This concept goes a long way towards helping your child understand how their own brain works.

Additionally, developing an awareness of the upstairs and downstairs brain, and when and how to respond to each one can make us much more effective parents when it comes to exercising drama-free discipline with our children.

So here’s how this idea works…

Just as the brain has a right and left hemisphere, it also has an “upstairs” and “downstairs.”

• The downstairs brain includes the brain stem and limbic region. It is considered to be the more primitive part of the brain and controls basic functions such as breathing, innate reactions, impulses such as fight/flight, and strong emotions such as anger and fear.
• The upstairs brain is more evolved and controls analytical and higher order thinking, such as decision making, planning, empathy, self understanding, conscious control of the body, control of emotions, and moral reasoning.

The goal of the parent should be to help build the “staircase” between the upper and lower brains so they can work together, or become vertically integrated. While the upstairs brain can help keep control of the strong emotions, impulses, and innate reactions of the downstairs, the upstairs needs to consider the emotions and physical feelings coming from the downstairs brain in its decision-making and analysis.

Side note: It’s important to remember that in children, the upstairs brain is very much under construction and will not always be available, so as parents you must keep your expectations reasonable when it comes to vertical integration.

Another important factor in vertical integration is the amygdala. The job of this little gray mass located between the upstairs and downstairs brains is to process strong emotions, particularly fear and anger…

For instance, sometimes, we need to react before we think—which is necessary in moments where the danger is immediate—like when running away from something big and scary (especially if it wants to eat you!) Moments like these are when it is the amygdala’s job to take over and direct immediate action without getting the upstairs brain involved to slow things down (for example: to think about what your three most strategic courses of action could be).

However, this is not good in normal situations, and if we are not truly in danger we do need to think before we act.

In children, especially, the amygdala tends to jump in too often and block the stairway between the upstairs and downstairs, like a baby gate. In those moments, you’ll need to help your child calm the amygdala so that it will open that gate back up and give your child access to his developing upstairs brain.

5. Recognize “upstairs” tantrums and address them appropriately by setting boundaries and having rational discussions on acceptable behavior.

“You’re teaching her that respectful communication, patience, and delayed gratification pay off—and that contrary behaviors don’t. Important lessons for a developing brain.”

Although there are times when kids are simply biologically incapable of accessing their upstairs brains, they do have the capacity to do so.

You can learn to tell the difference between when the child is trying to use a tantrum to get what they want because they’ve decided in their upstairs brain that this will work, or when the amygdala really has snapped the gate shut and they are unable to control their behavior.

When the child is having an “upstairs” tantrum (having a tantrum on purpose as a tactic to get her way), that is a moment to teach the child that appropriate behavior and rational, respectful communication are rewarding, and tantrums are not.

6. Address “downstairs” tantrums by first soothing the child and shifting her attention to get the amygdala to open the baby gate again, allowing for vertical integration to happen.

With the downstairs tantrum, the child is in a state of “dis-integration,” and trying to communicate with the upstairs brain won’t work because they do not have access to it. The amygdala has taken over. He’s “flipped his lid.” The first thing you need to do is calm the amygdala so that it will open the gate to the upstairs brain. This calls for a completely different response from an “upstairs” tantrum. The response should be nurturing and comforting. The first thing to do is connect with the child. Use a soothing tone of voice and physical touch. You may have to hold him close and talk him down.

Once you have done this, you can then begin to address the issue using logic. By waiting until the “gate” is open and the upstairs is accessible, you ensure that the child can internalize what you are saying.

One way to help kids calm down or regain control is to get them moving. Suggest a game or some other activity that will get them physically active. Moving the body is an excellent strategy for gaining control over the mind. We can actually change our emotional state by changing our physical state, as much of the emotion we experience actually comes from the body.

7. Engage and exercise your child’s upstairs brain.

“Your goal here isn’t perfection on every decision right now, but an optimally developed upstairs brain down the road.”

The upstairs brain is just like a muscle that must be exercised. The right brain is responsible for the functions of decision-making (executive functioning), controlling emotions and the body, self-understanding, empathy, and morality.

By guiding your child to engage their upstairs brain, you are helping them to develop these functions.

One way to do this is to by encouraging the child to talk about a conflict using precise words, by asking questions and suggesting words that can be used to describe it. Ask her to come up with her own ideas for a solution that works for both everyone in the conflict. By doing this, you engage the upstairs functions of analysis and decision-making, which helps them learn about consequences and appropriate behavior as well as thinking about what other people need and want.

8. Use narratives to help your child transform implicit memories into explicit memories that have meaning.

“It is in this transformation—from implicit to explicit—that the real power of integrating memory brings insight, understanding, and even healing.”

Memory is not so much a file cabinet where memories are stored to be retrieved later, but really an association machine. Memory is association. The brain actually experiences something in the present, such as a smell, an emotion, or an idea and then associates it with an experience from the past. Whenever we have a first-time experience, the brain connects it with another experience. So when we call up a memory, the brain activates a cluster of neurons that is similar to but not actually identical to the one that was created at the time of the experience. Which means that memories are distorted.

There are actually two kinds of memory: implicit and explicit. Implicit memory is the automatic memory that allows you to do things such as type or ride a bicycle without having to think about it. It encodes our bodily sensations and emotions. It creates “priming,” the way that your brain anticipates the world and gets ready to react in a certain way. It helps us to act quickly and automates responses to certain situations. Explicit memory, on the other hand, is the recollection of a past experience, such as remembering the day you learned to ride a bike.

Implicit memories that we are unaware of consciously can be very painful and create fear, avoidance, and other negative emotions and even sensations in the body. However, making implicit memories explicit by shining a light on them can turn them into sources of power and self-understanding. The job of integrating implicit and explicit memories is that of the brain’s hippocampus. Integrating implicit and explicit memory helps us to become active in writing our own life stories. Storytelling integrates implicit and explicit memory. Telling our own stories brings together the scattered puzzle pieces of implicit memory into something whole—a story—that has clarity and meaning.

Implicit memories affect our sense of who we are at the moment and influence the way we deal with the world. Integrating implicit and explicit memories means integrating past and present, and when children can do this, it helps them regulate their behavior and thoughts, reducing irrational responses to the present that are really reactions from the past.

One technique for replaying and addressing painful memories that a child doesn’t want to talk about is thinking of the memory as a movie on a DVD and giving the child a “remote” for the DVD so they can fast forward and go back and forth in the memory, skipping ahead to the outcome where everything is okay, then going back to the frightening or painful parts and playing them again.

Another way to use storytelling is to make recollecting events part of a family routine. This gives children a chance to tell their stories and make meaning of them. Recounting basic facts of events develops your child’s memory and her ability to integrate explicit and implicit memory. When done with pleasant memories, it reinforces a sense of well-being.

9. When a child becomes fixated on one point on their rim, teach them mindsight exercises that help them get back to their hub and show them that they can decide where their awareness is focused.

“By directing our attention, we can go from being influenced by factors within and around us to influencing them.”

Mindsight is the understanding of our own minds as well as the minds of others. The key concept of the first aspect is personal insight. You can teach your child about this concept using visualizations and exercises that help them understand and control their own minds. For example, you can use a visual aid such as a windshield with dots and smudges on it to explain to your child that that there are many parts of themselves, like smudges on a windshield, that they can focus on.

Another visualization is the “wheel of awareness.” The wheel of awareness is a model that can be used to visualize how our minds work and understand how we can better integrate the whole brain. The hub of the wheel is our awareness, or our executive brain, where decision-making happens. The various points around the rim are various aspects of ourselves, such as memories, emotions, and physical sensations. We can choose how much attention to give each point and which points to focus on.

When children experience a particular emotion at a moment in time, they may tend to define themselves by that feeling rather than recognizing it as a feeling of that moment: I am stupid rather than I feel stupid right now.

They perceive a state as a trait.

However, by learning to shift their awareness to other parts of the wheel and see the whole picture of who they are beyond that one emotion or experience, they can see that this is not true and not confuse states with traits.

Where we focus our attention actually changes the physical structure of the brain. Our brains are plastic and can be rewired through conscious effort. The tool of the wheel of awareness helps kids shift their awareness and actually change how their brains are wired, so that they not only survive a negative moment but learn to thrive by having their brains wired for a sense of well-being. We can direct our attention to other points on the rim and thereby be active participants in deciding what we think and how we feel.

Another exercise is using the SIFT model. To develop mindsight, kids need to first learn to become aware of what they are experiencing. They can do this using SIFT, which stands sensations, images, feelings, thoughts. To use the SIFT model, guide you child in scanning her mind first for physical sensations that she is feeling, then for images present in her mind, then for feelings or emotions, and then finally for the thoughts that she is having.

To guide children in the SIFT model, ask them questions such as, “What do you feel in your body right now?” and “What pictures do you see in your mind?” Thoughts are different from the others in that they reside in the left brain.

Direct your child to understand that they do not have to believe their thoughts just because they are having them at the time. They can evaluate a thought using other things—other points on the rim—to decide if it is really true. All of the points on the rim influence others and work together to form our present state of mind. Teaching children to SIFT helps them recognize all the different aspects of their “rim” and learn to integrate them in the hub, thereby gaining more insight and control. It also helps to teach kids that their emotions are like clouds, that they can just let them roll by, because they will. An emotion comes and goes in 90 seconds, on average.

10. Look for opportunities to encourage children to develop the second aspect of mindsight, the ability to see and connect with the mind of others, so that they can experience meaningful relationships.

“Mindsight is the basis of both social and emotional intelligence. It allows children to learn that they are part of a larger world of relationships where feelings matter and connections are a source of reward, meaning, and fun.”

The essence of mindsight is the ability to see your own mind as well as the minds of others. While the key concept of the first aspect is personal insight, the key concept of the second aspect of mindsight is empathy.

Insight and empathy together make up mindsight. Meaning and happiness comes when the “me” joins the “we.” Brains are neurologically built as social; the structure of the brain is wired for interpersonal integration, the ability to cultivate connections with others while honoring and nurturing our differences. The individual brain is built to relate with the brains of the people we interact with, just as the different parts of the brain are made to work together. Through “mirror neurons,” our brains are hardwired to “mirror” both the behavioral intentions and emotional states of those around us.

Our mental life is comprised of both our internal neural worlds and the signals we received from the external world, including the neural worlds of others. We actually soak in the internal mental states of others into our own mental worlds. Thus, we need to help kids understand how they connect to those around them, including their family, friends, classmates, and communities. Children need to learn the mindsight skills to connect with others to share, listen, forgive, and sacrifice so as to build meaningful relationships. We can help children do this by looking for opportunities to encourage them to develop these mindsight skills.

There are two states of mind: open (or receptive), and closed (or reactive).

The reactive state of mind is that of the fight/flight response of the nervous system. The receptive state of mind comes from our upstairs brain and allows us to connect with others and feel safe. We want to help our children develop mindsight skills by responding to the downstairs brain’s reactivity in a way that calms it and allows the child to then access the upstairs brain and exercise mindsight.

We can use conflicts as teaching opportunities to teach kids to argue with a “we” in mind and recognize others’ points of view. Teach them to watch for nonverbal communications to attune themselves with the feelings of others and to make things right after a conflict.

You can also use family activities to develop receptivity and feelings of connection. Think of building long-term relationships between your kids as a math equation in which you want the amount of enjoyment and connection they experience with each other to be greater than the amount of conflict they experience.

Those experiences of connection and safety develop the upstairs brain’s receptivity to other relationships throughout their lives.

Closing notes

Key take-away:

By teaching your children how to integrate the many parts of themselves through whole-brain strategies, you help them understand themselves more fully and learn to actively choose how they think, feel, and interact with others.

Actionable insights:

• Use difficult moments as teaching opportunities.
• Recognize the different parts of your child’s brain at work.
• Help your child understand her own brain.
• Teach your child mindsight exercises she can use on her own.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

• Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. is the Director of the Mindsight Institute and a clinical professor of psychiatry a the UCLA School of Medicine. He is an author, educator, and practicing psychotherapist who works with children, adolescents, adults, couples and families.

• Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D, founder of The Center for Connection, is a practicing psychotherapist a who offers parenting consultation and therapy for children and adolescents. She is also the Child Development Specialist at Saint Mark’s School in Altadena, the Director of Parenting Education at the Mindsight Institute, the Director for Child Development for Camp Chippewa in Cass Lake, Minnesota, and the Child Development Director for Lantern Camps.

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Trillion-Dollar Moms, Marketing to a New Generation of Mothers by Bonnie W. Ulman and Maria T. Bailey

Recommendation

If men are from Mars, mothers are from Venus and advertisers are from another galaxy altogether. Fortunately, authors Maria T. Bailey and Bonnie W. Ulman have a hot ticket for corporations that hope to rocket to the new frontiers of mother-focused sales. Backed by credible marketing data, real-life case studies and their own experiences as mothers in the world of marketing, Bailey and Ulman decipher the consumer motivations of modern moms and New Age grandmothers. They include excellent examples of successful corporate strategies and of some misdirected advertising campaigns as well, plus easy-to-understand charts, sidebars and graphics. This makes the book repetitious in parts, but still strong. getAbstract.com warmly recommends it to marketing, public relations, advertising and business development professionals.

Take-Aways

• Mothers – the consumers with the greatest clout in the U.S. – represent a huge, but largely untapped business opportunity .
• The ages of a woman’s children have a greater impact on her consumer behavior than her own age does.
• The number of working mothers has declined, but the field of women with stay-at-home businesses is burgeoning.
• Boomer mothers, guilty about working, gave their kids many treats, toys and perks.
• Gen X moms – born 1965 to 1976 – are active consumers and very diverse.
• Echo boomers or Gen Y mothers – born 1977 to 1994 – have been hit with a barrage of marketing since birth, and will regard your message with skepticism.
• Gen Xers push for individuality, while Gen Y moms seek group affiliations and like to buy everything from cookware to lingerie at home parties.
• Moms respond to products offering tradition, nostalgia or educational value.
• Moms feel the tight grip of time. They value productivity and efficiency.
• So, to earn a Mom’s cash, “walk in her shoes.”

Trillion-Dollar Moms Book Summary

Finding the Target

Don’t just think outside of the box. You’ll need a new box to be sure your product reaches the modern mom. Too many businesses waste valuable time and effort with worn-out products and promotions. Others mistakenly completely overlook moms, the largest consumer group in the U.S. What’s more, some companies use a half-hearted, “one-size-fits-all approach. That’s bad business. Consider the data: Mothers control more than $1.6 trillion in annual household spending. Businesses owned by women represent $1.15 trillion in yearly sales. Mothers are 80% more inclined to purchase an item or service from a corporation that demonstrates its understanding and recognition of moms’ multiple roles.

“Great opportunities exist for marketers who connect with mothers using the right words and images.”

Various short-term and long-term factors have altered the Maternal Market. For example, traditional age-related boundaries have shifted; women no longer “act their ages.” In fact, a Baby Boomer mother (born 1946-1964) with a young child is likely to act more like a Gen X mom with a child the same age than like another Boomer who has teenagers. For marketing purposes, the ages of a woman’s children have a greater impact on her activities, decisions and spending patterns. Gen X and Gen Y moms are very tech savvy and skeptical about ads.

The Generation Gaps

Society has traditional labels for different generations of moms. “Silver Birds” are mothers born during the Depression Era, from 1935-1945. These older women are the mothers of Baby Boomers, born post-World War II. Younger generations of mothers include, Gen X (birthdates: 1965-1976) and Gen Y (1977-1994). Although these groups are marked by the major events of their eras, previously well-defined age-related boundaries are blurring. Generational issues remain important, but increasingly women’s social networks (co-workers, fellow PTA members, neighbors and more) shape them more than their ages.

Mothers at Work

About 70% of mothers with school age children work. But one class of working moms is decreasing. Mothers of younger children were 60% of the workforce in 1998, and are 55% now. But don’t be fooled; the traditional 1950s Leave It to Beaver family has not returned.

“Mothers represent the most powerful consumers in the United States today.”

After watching many Baby Boom mothers struggle to balance high-powered careers and family life, younger moms see the home vs. work equation a new way. Gen X and Gen Y moms use their familiarity and comfort with technology to create profitable, flexible home-based businesses. The founder of Baby Einstein Videos, an educational company, was a stay-at-home mom. On a smaller scale, many Gen X moms operate lucrative E-bay storefronts from home computers, raising their children during the day and earning money at night.

“Although it is true that all moms are women, not all women are moms, and expecting to connect with a mom if you speak to her only as a woman is a well-documented misnomer.”

One out of every 11 females in the U.S. is a business owner, according to data from the Center for Women’s Business Research, but women with traditional corporate jobs also seek the flexibility that ownership delivers. “Mom-friendly” corporate benefits include fluid work schedules, childcare subsidies, take-out dinners, job sharing and telecommuting. When companies fail to offer those benefits, Gen X and Gen Y moms move along. They do not work – or shop – at companies that do not support integrated family lives.

“It’s extremely important for marketers to remember that moms are women with children.”

To gain potential consumers and employees, corporations need to understand how much an integrated lifestyle matters to modern moms. They often need to order school and work supplies with equal ease. After packing lunches and driving carpools, many moms flip on their computers and work. Remember their dual roles when you market your products and services.

The Baby Boom Mom

After World War II, Silver Bird moms created very traditional households as stay-at-home moms. They raised the children; dads supported the families. But even as they filled traditional roles, Silver Birds (consciously or unconsciously) pushed their Baby Boom daughters to want more. Indeed, given an education, a career and a home, they believed Boomer women could have it all. Work became a status symbol, and Boomers clung to their cherished careers even during motherhood. They led the parade of mothers entering executive suites.

“The Tupperware party was the forerunner to what marketing professionals today refer to as viral marketing, which relies on an influencer to tell her friends about a product or service, and, in short order, a message is spread.”

However, that dual track led to a significant increase in daycare centers, relocations and divorces. “Latch key” children arrived home to empty houses. With the disruption of nuclear and extended family ties, Boomers needed a “village to raise a child.” To offset their guilt about long hours away from home, Boomers spent heavily on their children. Spurred by a competitive spirit, they invested in their kids’ intellectual and physical growth, including paying for educational programs such as tutoring. With high disposable incomes that they are willing to spend, Boomers remain a very attractive market.

Gen X on the Spot

Gen X members hate to be labeled “Xers.” As the children of working and/or divorced women, Gen Xers became self-reliant while their mothers worked. The kids spent their after-school hours playing early generations of video games and watching MTV. They developed problem-solving skills and observed their moms’ difficult struggles with the pulls of home and work.

“For brands to connect with Gen Y, they must speak to Gen Ys’ aspirations and visions of their ideal selves.”

Gen Xers push for individuality. They seek personalized jewelry, clothing and stationary, and are very receptive to do-it-yourself home improvement. Given their turbulent childhoods in divorced, blended or latchkey families, Gen X moms want to create stable homes. Let Boomers have their villages, Gen X moms believe children need to be raised by families. They place a premium on educational toys and tuition savings programs. They are joiners, so they like “Mommy and Me” gatherings, volunteer events and religious study groups. Home shopping parties are favorites with these moms who get together to buy jewelry, kitchen ware and children’s books in their friends’ living rooms – thereby creating a nearly $30 billion industry.

Tapping into the Y-Not Generation

Generation Y is the latté generation. Spoiled children of prosperity, Gen Y girls grew up with gourmet coffee treats, manicures as teens and pre-teens, and average weekly allowances of more than $80. This generation owns Playstations, DVD players, cell phones and other electronic toys. Technology is a key social and economic tool for Gen Y Moms, who connect with their friends via the Internet, camera phones and instant messaging. Reaching these consumers requires communicating through multiple channels in various mediums.

“Minorities make up 34% of Generation Y, up from 24% in the Baby Boomer cohort…Gen Y is a well-blended generation that celebrates diversity.”

Given their comfort with technology, Gen Y moms prefer work environments that offer telecommuting, flextime and part-time schedules. Therefore, market watchers should expect Gen Y mothers to swell the ranks of home office workers and small business owners. With an emphasis on home and traditional values, Gen Y mothers are more likely to home school their children, a potential market for companies that produce office supplies and educational materials. Gen Y mothers prefer:

• Trendy, but original merchandise – Gen Y shoppers purchase popular fashions and then customize the garments with personal touches.
• Relevant products – They seek products that best suit their lifestyles.
• Increase skepticism – Gen Y moms have been inundated with advertisements since their childhoods and brand names don’t hold much significance for them.

Silver Birds and Golden Purses

The money trail often leads to Silver Bird grandparents, typically born during the Depression Era and early 1940s. Grandparents represent a major economic force. The American Association of Retired Persons reports that typical grandparents spend an average of $500 a year on items for their grandchildren, and two out of five spend $2,500. Silver Birds enjoy buying educational toys and nostalgic brands such as Matchbox and LEGO. Today’s more youthful grandmothers shop with their Baby Boom daughters and Gen X or Y granddaughters at stores such as Old Navy, where three generations of women can find hip, but age-appropriate clothes. Today’s grandmothers fit three categories:

1. “Traditionalist” – Keepers of stability and rituals.
2. “Empowered” – Seekers of careers, experiences and adventures.
3. “Enlightened” – Builders of bridges between the two other roles.

“Moms are the greatest problem solvers in history. Perhaps they haven’t signed treaties to end wars, but they have mastered the art of negotiating whose turn it is to use the blue PS2 (Play-Station 2) controller.”

Discard all your stereotypes about bent, gray grannies in rocking chairs. Silver Birds and Boomers are grandmas on the go. Today’s grandmothers are more involved in their grandchildren’s lives; some are even primary caregivers. Smart companies recognize that fact and pitch their products with a multigenerational spin. For instance, Disney has hosted “Grand Gatherings” – promotional events designed for extended families and grandparents.

Moms and Media Messages

Marketers hoping to target the Mommy market should empathize, but not patronize. Provide timely tips, problem-solving answers and insightful data. Modern moms want to know that you “get it,” so avoid superficial outreach programs. Multitasking moms will punish your company at the cash register if your marketing campaign hits a false note, condescends or offers inadequate solutions to complex problems. Make your marketing campaigns matter by tapping into five basic themes that are the foundation of many homes:

1. “Time” – Every woman seeks that “twenty-fifth hour” of the day. Highlight how your product or service will save energy and time.
2. “Family enrichment” – Advance kids’ educational, cultural or athletic skills.
3. “Health” – Family health and physical well-being are top concerns.
4. “Value” – Maternal mathematics works like this: “Performance + quality + benefits = value.” Moms are value hunters with a sharp eye for quality.
5. “Solutions” – Products that answer nagging problems (misplaced socks, unwieldy juice boxes, saving half-eaten goodies) are big hits with moms.

Tapping the Right Channels.

Meaningful marketing dialogues take place through several channels: online communications, direct mail, magazines, newspapers, specialty publications, catalogs and hybrid “magalogs,” (part magazine/part catalogue). Pack your message with informative how-to ideas and market it in multiple formats. Harried modern mothers are very selective and especially value periodicals that directly address stage-of-life and quality-of-life concerns.

“If you consider that women, whether with child or without, have only had the right to vote since 1920, it’s not surprising that the career of working mothers is short in terms of America’s history.”

About one-third of moms are offended by many advertisements and very few (20%) believe that advertisers successfully reach out to mothers. Homerun ads include a recent McDonalds pitch touting healthy salads for mothers: “Now Mummy has her Yummy.” In that campaign, the company acknowledged that moms want more from fast-food restaurants. In contrast, a recent glossy car ad struck out with some moms. The ad featured photographs of several types of drivers, but did not include women with children. The pitch ignored the lucrative maternal market.

“The term supermom was born and society recognized a new generation of self-sufficient, multitasking women who could be mothers and CEOs. Progress came with…mothers, who are tired of trying to have it all right now, and are open to the idea of more fluid work choices.”

Moms want to be entertained, educated and assisted while interacting with your brand, store or service. Pay attention to details, such as the shape of product packages, the layout of your store, the cleanliness of your bathrooms and your company’s community service programs. Use skillful PR to reach moms, who are less skeptical of public relations messages than they are of advertisements. PR provides a stage to educate and communicate. What’s more, a successful PR campaign operates with a longer shelf life than the typical half-minute television commercial or 60-second radio voiceover. A well-crafted PR campaign can generate positive “word-of-mouth buzz” in the highly profitable Mom Market.

About the Authors

Maria T. Bailey is the CEO of a marketing firm that serves major retail and entertainment clients. She hosts the national Mom Talk Radio show and runs BlueSuitMom, a magazine and Web site for women executives. Bonnie W. Ulman heads an Atlanta consumer research and communications company.

Media Moms & Digital Dads, A Fact Not Fear Approach to Parenting in the Digital Age by Yalda T. Uhls

Recommendation

By 2010, children were spending more time with electronic devices than with their parents or in school. Is digital access destroying childhood? Child psychologist Yalda T. Uhls urges parents not to worry. Calling on multiple and varied studies, including her own, she discusses the mostly positive research on children and media use, and she helps parents understand and manage the media habits of their children, from toddlers to teenagers. She explains how families should take an active role in setting their media consumption and includes research on how children and teenagers learn through digital means. getAbstract recommends her thoughtful, encouraging conclusions to parents, educators, policy makers and anyone in a digital business.

Take-Aways

• Parents worry about how today’s digital environment affects their children and teenagers.
• Because infants learn best by interacting in person, children under the age of two should have extremely limited media time or none at all.
• Children learn by observation and model the behavior they see.
• Children under the age of three have a “video deficit” and cannot tell the difference between two-dimensional screen-based media and three-dimensional real life.
• Parents should monitor their family media use.
• Set aside daily device-free time for your kids.
• Decide if and when you will allow your child to own a cellphone, join social media and use email.
• Many teenagers communicate through social media and texting. Unlike adults, youngsters don’t see these activities as different from interacting face-to-face.
• “Media multitasking” distracts your attention and worsens your performance.
• Playing video games offers several benefits, including improving spatial skills.

Media Moms & Digital Dads Book Summary

Parenting in the Digital Era

The cellphone is “the most rapidly adopted consumer technology in the history of the world.” From 2005 to 2013, the global pace of mobile phone subscriptions outstripped population growth. In 2013, the United States reported an average of six web-connected devices per household – more than the number of people in each home.

“When we look at screens, we are less engaged with our social and emotional environment. Human interaction is critical.”

Social media are ubiquitous. Touch screen technology is so simple that even infants and toddlers can use it. From 2011 to 2013, kids younger than the age of eight doubled their use and ownership of mobile devices. By 2013, 78% of young children had used cellphones and tablets.

In 2012, researchers found that media consumption was lowest among families with children aged two to six, but they also discovered that parents didn’t monitor their kids’ content as frequently as parents of children aged seven to twelve. Elementary school students’ increased media use meant a decrease in time spent in other activities.

Parental Involvement

Parents should consider whether to allow electronic media in their kids’ bedrooms, whether they will prescreen or watch programs with their children, and whether they will allow (and how they will enforce) online viewing and email. Teens spend much more time on digital media than in other activities. Parents of teenagers should lay out rules for social media use that balance parental oversight with their kids’ desire for privacy and independence. Consider making those rules before your children start elementary school.

Digital Ground Rules

Parents should adopt some practical guidelines, such as:

• Consider how you use media. Children learn from what they see and model their parents’ behaviors.
• Set aside daily device-free time.
• Be positive. Don’t constantly criticize your children’s media use.
• “Live where they live.” Watch programs or play games together. Ask questions and discuss what you’re sharing. Join the same social networks.
• Relate what happens online to the real world. Discuss both positive and negative news stories with tweens and teens.

Infants and Toddlers

Parents should limit the amount of time infants and toddlers spend in front of screens. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children younger than the age of two should not be exposed at all to electronic devices with screens.

“A screen is like a page in a book: Both can take you away from the social world, yet I doubt many people would blame reading for a child’s inability to understand emotional cues.”

In the early 1960s, Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura was the first to propose that children learn by watching others. Bandura conducted a groundbreaking experiment using large, inflatable “Bobo” dolls that bounced back after being knocked down. One group of three- to six-year-olds observed an adult punching, slapping and sitting on the toy, while a second group in another room watched an adult quietly playing with other toys and ignoring Bobo. After 10 minutes, the children went to a new room filled with different toys. Then they returned to the original rooms that had the Bobo dolls. Each group replicated the behavior it had earlier observed. Behaviorists had previously believed that rewards or punishments affected children’s choices, but Bandura’s research showed that simple observation guided their actions.

“As an infant’s brain makes the connection that human faces are critical stimuli, the child becomes ready to engage, interact and learn from other humans.”

Infants learn from clues in their visual field and practice “perceptual narrowing.” They focus on what matters to them and disregard everything else. Before the age of two, children can’t translate what they see on a screen to the real world. Scientists call this the “video deficit.” For example, children aged two and two-and-a-half watched a video of an adult hiding a toy. The two-year-olds couldn’t find the toy, but the two-and-a-half-year-olds could. In a second experiment, two-year-olds watched an adult hide the toy through a window – a real-life action. They all found the toy.

“Researchers found a strong relationship between…parents’ and kids’ use of media.”

Children younger than age three learn best by observing real life. When parents and their toddlers watch programs together, parents can point out what’s important and help their children develop social cues and language skills.

Technology’s Impact

In 2007, Apple revolutionized the mobile phone market by introducing the first smartphone – a pocket-sized computer. In 2014, smartphones accounted for 88% of cellular sales growth. Babies and toddlers intuitively grasp how to use a tablet or a mobile phone. This proliferation of technology has come at a price. Because people spend so much time staring at screens, they miss out on the social and emotional signals that come from interacting face-to-face.

“The verbal acuity of kids who watched more TV was neither better nor worse than those who watched less.”

Child psychologist and author Yalda T. Uhls wanted to learn if screen-based media time hampers the development of emotional and social cues. She worked with two groups of sixth-graders from a California public school. One group attended a five-day sleepaway camp in science and leadership education at the Pali Institute, where they had no digital access – no cellphones, TVs, tablets or computers. The other group went to their classes at public school as usual.

“Too frequently, we focus on the children who ignore their parents because of technology while disregarding the fact that parents are setting the example.”

Researchers tested the youngsters at the beginning and the end of the five days on their ability to recognize fear, happiness, sadness or anger after viewing photographs of people’s faces experiencing those feelings. For the second test, researchers asked the kids to identify actors’ emotional reactions after watching videos of them doing normal kid activities. After five days, the camp children showed greater improvement on both tests than the school children. This suggests that media time doesn’t cause children long-term damage, which is good news, and also that time away from screens improves emotional understanding.

Mobile Phones for Children

Many parents want to know if, or when, they should get mobile phones for their children. This is a personal decision that will vary by family. According to the website Growing Wireless, children receive their first mobile phones at the age of 12, on average, and 56% of children aged eight to twelve have these phones. Many parents give their kids cellphones when they start middle school.

“Attention is limited and when we divide our attention between two activities, we automatically perform worse on one.”

Before deciding if your child should have a cellphone, consider if he or she is responsible enough to take care of it. Will you allow your child to have a regular mobile phone or a smartphone with Internet access? What kind of plan will you use? Will you allow electronic devices in your kids’ bedrooms? Sleep is crucial, especially for teenagers. Think about adopting and signing a family media-use contract that covers times and types of usage, so everyone follows the same rules. Then your kids won’t feel singled out or persecuted.

Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and other social networks allow people to share their thoughts. Created in 2004, Facebook boasts more than 1.3 billion profiles, but teenagers’ most popular spots are Snapchat and Instagram. Scientists and researchers argue that the desire to belong is a fundamental human need. Social media feed the desire for human connections and the necessity to “self-disclose.” While adults see the virtual and real worlds as separate entities, teenagers don’t make that distinction. Teens view social media and texting as genuine communication with their friends.

“Taking away mobile phones and Internet access may sometimes be the right parenting choice, but it does not need to be the automatic default.”

Teenagers who use social media more frequently are also more social in real life. Popular celebrities hire people to manage their social media accounts, but teenagers must manage their own “brands.” Social media use amplifies peer pressure among teens and tweens. They try to keep up with what their friends are doing and can suffer the “fear of missing out” (FOMO). A survey of 13- to 18-year-olds found that girls “worry more about FOMO than fitting in.” Because adolescents are still developing their own sense of identity, their peers’ activities matter to them. Social media provide extrinsic rewards.

“Surveys of young people, even teens, find that they prefer to hang out with their friends in real life…rather than in the digital realm.”

Most social media networks bar users under the age of 13. However, 40% of tweens admit to lying about their age so they can sign up. Teenagers from the age of 13 use social media networks more than any other age group and have an average of 145 “friends”; Adolescents manage their online profiles to increase their popularity. The main topics teens discuss online – perhaps surprising to adults – are school and homework.

“By talking about the stupid things other people did online, along with the consequences, you are educating your child about the risks, but it won’t feel like lecturing.”

Before your child turns 13, decide how you will handle social media in your household. Make sure your teens connect with you online so you can actively participate in their digital activity. More positive interactions between parents and adolescents occur in the real world when they share the same virtual space.

Online Permanence

Anything you or your teenagers post online will never go away. Help your adolescent understand the ramifications of inappropriate postings, pictures or videos. Explain that colleges and employers examine the online data of potential applicants and reject candidates based on their virtual activities. Among college admissions officers, 30% found information online that negatively affected candidates’ chances.

Digital Literacy

Age, personality, hormones and other factors affect attention span. Online distractions more seriously affect children who are easily distracted offline. People now multitask as never before. Kids in the United States often use several different screen-based media simultaneously. Youngsters aged 8 to 18 can spend 11 hours “media multitasking” every day. But there’s no such thing as multitasking; what you’re really doing is switching quickly from one task to another, and the more you take on, the worse your performance.

“Social media can be a good forum for practicing real-world skills such as learning to form groups, getting along with other people and networking.”

People claim that digital advances have led to a decrease in reading, but the opposite is true. Children and adults can choose to read on screens (with electronic readers) or on paper (the old-fashioned way). For teens and adults, there seems to be no difference in comprehension scores between reading on screens and reading on paper. Real books are best for children under the age of three.

“An inverse relationship exists between the sale of video games, which grew rapidly, and rates of violent juvenile crime, which decreased.”

Some parents don’t consider texting to be real writing because of the poor grammar and acronyms involved, but many teachers feel texting allows self-expression and creativity. Texting can improve reading scores and other literacy metrics.

Video Games

Many people believe that video games have a negative impact on children’s reading and math abilities, attention spans, creativity, and social skills. But studies show that video games improve the spatial skills important in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Spatial skills improve with practice, which includes playing video games.

“Parents must teach children the importance of face-to-face time. Creating a home environment that reflects these basic and enduring human values is a crucial role of modern parents.”

Girls should play more video games, because they generally lag boys in developing those spatial skills. First-person shooter games help kids learn problem solving, creativity and flexibility – despite their often violent, graphic imagery.

Video games help kids process negative emotions and improve social abilities. Children play video games with others, physically or online. Therapists use video games in treating Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), autism and anxiety.

Violence and Addiction

Video games have drawbacks, including violence and addiction. Every time an act of violence occurs in US schools, such as at Columbine and Newtown, experts discuss whether violent video games lead to aggression. But pinpointing aggression’s underlying causes is difficult.

If parents notice negative changes in their children’s behavior after they play violent video games, the adults should limit that use and seek qualified mental-health counseling.

About the Author

Yalda T. Uhls, PhD, is a regional director for the nonprofit organization Common Sense Media and a senior researcher at the Children’s Digital Media Center @ LA at the University of California at Los Angeles.

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Our Kids, The American Dream in Crisis by Robert D. Putnam

Recommendation

Harvard public policy professor Robert D. Putnam documents the tragic plight of the American dream of upward mobility. His case studies, statistics and charts illustrate how the lower class has diverged from the middle and upper classes in economics, education, health and other areas. The personal accounts of people struggling against overwhelming and multifaceted circumstances will break your heart. getAbstract recommends Putnam’s presentation to educators, parents, politicians, policy makers, NGOs, and anyone interested in creating a more functional, fair society in the United States.

Take-Aways

• The American ideal of economic mobility no longer exists.
• Life experience in the US differs markedly by class.
• Class segregation grows as economic inequality increases.
• Poor neighborhoods lack social cohesion.
• Affluent families are more stable and have stronger social networks than poorer families.
• Well-to-do parents cultivate their children’s development, self-esteem and critical thinking.
• Poorer parents accentuate discipline and are more likely to discourage their kids.
• Affluent kids get a superior education, more mentoring and more after-school programs.
• Poor children don’t get the support they need and don’t reach their potential. This causes economic and social damage to the country.
• Antipoverty programs, early childhood education, mentoring programs and access to after-school programs improve the lives of poor children.

Our Kids Book Summary

What Happened to the American Dream?

In the 1950s, Port Clinton, Ohio, offered a solid portrait of the American Dream. Minorities and women suffered social repression, but income inequality was relatively low. People from different classes mixed socially and often intermarried. Communities were strong, and children born to poorer families had a chance to improve their economic circumstances.

“The essence of democracy is equal influence on public decisions.”

Consider Don. His father worked two jobs. The family didn’t eat out or take vacations, but they owned their home. Though neither of Don’s parents graduated from high school, they encouraged him to go to college. He attended a state college and became a minister. Richer kids in Port Clinton, like Frank, had advantages Don lacked. Frank was the first kid in his class to get braces. Frank had more financial security, but his life’s path – pursuing a career in journalism and running the family business – did not differ qualitatively from Don’s.

“Healthy infant brain development requires connecting with caring, consistent adults.”

Starting in the 1970s, the region’s manufacturing base crumbled. Manufacturing once provided 55% of local jobs. By 1995, it provided only 25%. Incomes started dropping in the 1970s and are now 25% below the US average. Population growth leveled out in the 1970s and started dropping in 1990. Local businesses closed. The number of single-parent households and unwed mothers rose, as did juvenile delinquency.

“Regardless of their own family background, kids do better in schools where the other kids come from affluent, educated homes.”

Wealthy Ohioans built expensive vacation homes in Port Clinton, increasing the gap between rich and poor. Teenagers who live there now experience very different educational and community worlds than Don and Frank. Those from affluent families enjoy expensive parties and vacations. Those from poorer families live makeshift lives; their parents are sometimes absent due to arrests or drug use. These parents do not supervise their kids’ schooling. If poorer kids graduate, they do so without a clear focus or skills. The town exemplifies the failure of the American Dream.

“No serious observer doubts that the past 40 years have witnessed an almost unprecedented growth in inequality in America.”

Port Clinton also poses a question: What chance does this generation of poor kids have to succeed? Does everyone still have a chance at economic equality and mobility? At the start of the 20th century, inequality was rampant in the US. Between 1945 and 1975 – inequality decreased. Incomes for the lowest 20% of wage earners grew slightly faster (3% annually) than for the top 20% (2.5%). This trend reversed in the 1970s. Income inequality increased, generally and within ethnicities. Those with college degrees earned “20% to 56%” more, while those with a high school education or less saw their incomes drop (22% for dropouts, 11% for high school grads). Neighborhood and “educational segregation” tracked this growing income gap. In Port Clinton, as elsewhere, the classes barely mix.

Families and Parenting

Two-parent families were the norm in the US in the 1950s. Only 4% of marriages ended in divorce. If a couple conceived children out of wedlock, they felt social pressure to marry. By the 1970s, the Pill had decoupled sex from marriage and procreation. Feminism challenged gender roles. Women moved into the labor market as economic shifts removed opportunities for men.

“Low-income men and women have children while searching for a long-term partner, not after they have found one.”

The most affluent people in the US have established a new family structure in which men and women both work. They build their careers before they have kids. College-educated women wait until around age 30 to have their first child. Women with only high school educations have children at 20 or earlier. Divorce rates rose in the ’60s, but divorce declined around 1980. For the poor, divorce kept rising and marriage became less common.

“In addition to philanthropy and good works, religious involvement among youth themselves is associated with a wide range of positive outcomes, both academic and nonacademic.”

All economic classes cohabitate now, but college-educated cohabitating couples rarely have children. Poorer couples do, but often the couples don’t stay together. Men with less education are more likely to father children with women they don’t live with; and more children grow up fatherless as “multipartner fertility” increases. College-educated mothers are more likely to work outside the home and more likely to have an employed male partner.

“Poor kids, through no fault of their own, are less prepared by their families, their schools and their communities to develop their God-given talents as fully as rich kids.”

Parental action influences kids. Parents who talk to and listen to their kids stimulate learning. The stable presence of responsive adults contributes to “healthy infant brain development.” In the right environment, kids between three to five years old develop their “executive functions,” which spur self-control and focus. If children experience stress, as poorer kids do, their executive functions develop more slowly. Poor youngsters are more likely to lack guidance for developing intellectual and social skills.

“Children pay the cost of early childbearing and multipartner fertility in the form of diminished prospects for success in life.”

Since World War II, parenting followed two main trends. Mid-century, Dr. Benjamin Spock told parents to enjoy their kids and let them develop naturally. In the 1980s, “intensive parenting” replaced “permissive parenting.” Educated families who apply this model manage “concerted cultivation” of their kids. They use software and organize play sessions with developmental goals. They raise kids with high self-esteem who think independently. Affluent parents are likelier to reason with and spend more time with their kids.

“With the spread of the Internet, TV is being gradually replaced by web-based entertainment, but the basic fact remains: Rich kids get more face time, while poor kids get more screen time.”

Parents from lower classes don’t have as much time, money or energy to devote to their children’s development. They emphasize discipline, and may spank or hit their children. The gap in parenting styles extends even to how parents talk to children. Over the course of raising their kids, more-educated parents offer “166,000 encouragements and 26,000 discouragements.” Working class parents give “62,000 and 36,000” encouragements and discouragements, while “parents on welfare delivered 26,000 and 57,000.” Children in poorer homes watch television instead of spending time with their parents.

Schools and Communities

De facto economic class and ethnicity segregation defines US schools. Schools with similar budgets, numbers of students, levels of teacher experience, and so on, differ radically in academic performance and student experiences. Compare Troy and Santa Ana High Schools in Orange County, California. Some 14% of Troy students qualify for reduced-price lunches; 84% qualify at Santa Ana. Four percent of Troy students have limited proficiency in English; 47% of Santa Ana students do. The schools’ SAT scores differ more than 600 points; graduation rates differ by 20%.

“Kids from more affluent homes are exposed to less toxic stress than kids raised in poverty.”

At Troy, students can select among more than 100 clubs, which parents pay for through donations or fund raising. Students at Troy study for the SAT on breaks and take extra classes. Troy parents help and guide their children. Santa Ana parents show little understanding of how the school system works or how to help their kids. Teachers assume few Santa Ana students will go to college, and don’t guide them to pursue appropriate curriculum tracks.

“There is no credible evidence that excessive parenting produces anything approaching the abundant ills associated with inadequate parenting.”

Sociologist Sean Reardon documented a growing gap on standardized test scores. In reading and math, the gap is 30% to 40% higher in 2011 than it was for those born 25 years earlier. Children from higher income families get “several more years of schooling” than poorer children. Scores for different racial groups converge, but scores within groups diverge according to class. Schools don’t cause these divergences: They exist by the time kids enter the school system. Rich and poor children attend different schools; concerned parents move to school districts with better schools.

“Changing the norm from childbearing by default to childbearing by design might have a big effect on the opportunity gap.”

Attending school with students from “affluent, educated homes” improves academic performance. Affluent parents demand stronger curricula. Peer pressure nudges students toward higher levels of commitment and achievement, rather than toward crime. Affluent schools offer more programs outside of class. Students who join them are more likely to have positive educational outcomes. Those who lead clubs and teams get jobs in management and earn more later in life. Their coaches and advisers often serve as mentors. As schools face budget troubles, they cut activities or impose “pay-to-play fees.” In one Ohio high school, these fees were as high as $783 to play football and $933 to play tennis. Schools offer waivers for low-income students, but these stigmatize participants.

“On average, parents from all socioeconomic strata have increased their spending on childcare and education over the past five decades.”

Different economic classes have different social networks. People with more education “have wider and deeper social networks” of family, friends and acquaintances. Educated people tap these networks for advice, references and jobs. The less-educated have narrower social networks that don’t help them advance economically. The Internet does not make up for this gap. Educated parents teach their children more sophisticated skills for navigating the digital world. Even if they do have web access, less-educated kids don’t know how to use it well.

Affluent kids have more mentors. Some are formal and some informal, growing organically from interactions with teachers and coaches. “Informal mentoring” tends to last longer than formal. Children from poorer homes are two to three times less likely to experience useful informal mentoring. The mentoring they do get doesn’t last as long as the mentoring that adults give more-privileged kids. Good mentoring helps affluent kids understand how to advance economically.

Neighborhoods are increasingly unequal and segregated by class. Your neighborhood and how long you live there has a powerful effect on your life. Poor neighborhoods lack “social cohesion” and “collective efficacy.” Residents rarely cooperate to make things better. Children learn not to trust, and suffer from violence, both directly and through the anxiety and depression it causes. Poorer children are more likely to be obese. Kids in richer neighborhoods learn to trust others. Their neighborhoods support academic success and provide opportunities for the children living in them. Houses of worship and religious institutions can help the young and the poor.

How to Make Things Better

As the gap between classes grows, lack of economic mobility becomes more significant. Your class and family background have more impact, and those effects last longer. Older Americans who matured while ascending the economic ladder tend to understand less about what life is like for people in other classes.

Poor children have little chance to realize their potential. “Child poverty” costs the US half a trillion dollars annually. Technology increasingly defines the economy, and workers need technological skills. Allowing an undereducated poverty class to grow makes the US less competitive. The country loses trillions in the wages that poor youth would earn if they were better educated. Nobel economist James Heckman estimates that money invested in early childhood education would outearn the stock market, producing returns of 6% to 10%.

Democracy assumes that all citizens have equal say. People must get involved on the grass-roots level and vote. Political involvement diverges according to class. If you have only a high school education, you’re less likely to attend a town hall meeting or join advocacy actions like boycotts. Once “political noninvolvement” becomes a personal norm, it is likely to be inherited. This creates a permanently disengaged political underclass. These classes may remain inert, but demagogic leaders can rouse them, as happened with Nazism.

To help this situation, address families. People should have children by choice, not by accident. Since 90% of Americans support birth control and 60% of pregnancies of single young women aren’t planned, make birth control widely available. Consider giving existing poor families money: Increasing a family’s income by $3,000 when children are five years old or younger increases those kids’ SAT scores 20 points – and boosts their later income by roughly 20%.

Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and provide a more generous “child tax credit.” Policy makers should protect programs that fight poverty. Legislatures should reduce sentences for nonviolent crime. Prison should provide rehabilitation and retraining.

Good day care and providing coaching in parenting skills promote child development. Get rid of “residential segregation” to help children socially and educationally. Put more money into schools, especially investing in recruiting better teachers. School systems could offer bonuses to draw teachers to poor schools in weaker districts. School boards, parents and legislature can make the school day longer and more rigorous. Help start and nurture community organizations that support outreach across class lines, education, families and the larger community. Revive vocational education. Poorer students tend to attend community colleges. Strengthen these schools, and support students with formal mentoring programs.

About the Author

Robert D. Putnam is Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard, winner of the Skytte Prize and the National Humanities Medal, and author of American Grace and Bowling Alone.

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