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December 9, 2013
The following article is excerpted from my book: Teaching Kids to Be Good People
 Teach ’em to give back For the first few years of life kids aren’t always capable of telling us exactly what they want. Which is why helpful, loving parents and grandparents pepper the little ones with questions that often begin with: “Do you want _______?” Since it’s too early for real conversations, grownups fill in the blanks:
- Do you want to play with this?
- Do you want a story?
- Do you want to go to the park?
- Do you want Mint Chip or Jamoca Almond Fudge?
Our every childish wish becomes our parents’ command. That’s why we quickly we learn to say “I want _______.” Being a little kid is a sweet gig until the day when a parent says, “NO” to one of our demands, and our little brain explodes:
“What did you say?! What do you mean it’s too close to dinner? What do you mean it costs too much and you won’t buy it for me? This is outrageous!!”
We don’t have all those words, so we reiterate the obvious for stupid Mommy/Daddy:
“BUT I WANT IT!!!!!”
Tantrums don’t always work, but they work often enough for little humans to keep hope and self-centeredness alive.
At age three we tend to become more aware of the power dynamics within our family and start testing boundaries. That’s the time a parent’s “Do you want ______?” may take on a sinister ring:
- Do you want me to take that away from you?
- Do you want a time out?
- Do you want me to lose your snack?
- Do you want me to give you something to cry about?
That last rhetorical question was surprisingly popular amongst certain parents during the second half of the last century. Hopefully it’s gone the way of the landline, but I’ve got no empirical data either way.
Obviously all those years of “Do you want _______?” congealed in the spongy language and reward centers of our brain where we realize how important our happiness is to Mom and Dad. Because we are all about making it easy for them to please us, our demands become very specific as do our reasons for why they ought to be met . . . NOW:
“I want __________. And yes, I am old enough!”
“I want __________. ’Cause I’m the only one who doesn’t have one!”
“I want a new __________. ’Cause my old one sucks!”
“I want you to give me what I want, and I want you to leave me alone.” (Double demand . . . impressive language development!)
And so, for those of us who grew up in comfortable circumstances (that would be you with the latte in hand), it stands to reason we may need an attitude transplant to progress from “I want to get” to “I want to give.” But we can do it! We have the technology to connect with organizations doing awesome work. We have credit cards that make spending less painful.
Any time is a good time to look around and see where you could spread a little sunshine and some green. December is an especially good time. Some of my personal favorite do-great .orgs are Oxfam America, Good Weave, Doctors Without Borders, and Kiva. And there are at least a million others effectively working on solutions to local, national, and international challenges. Giving to any of them makes you (and any entitled kid you want to inspire) part of the solution. Start your search with the Charity Navigator and find out whose efforts you and your family want to support.
Warning—Giving can become habit forming, but in a healthy way. Besides, do you and your kids really need more stuff or might you be in the market for some good karma points?
November 21, 2013
The following post is an excerpt from my latest parenting book, Teaching Kids to Be Good People. You can read all of Chapter 1 right here.
 Life, bring on the lemons! Ever been up close and personal with a lemon tree and noticed how cool they are? I never had until I moved to California. Now I’ve got my own dwarf Meyer lemon and I can tell you that tree is an underrated miracle of nature. Right now, November 21st, it’s got teeny flower buds, heavenly smelling blossoms, baby green fruit, and ripe golden orbs, all at the same time. On a cosmic level, the lemon tree is constantly manifesting its entire life cycle, simultaneous living its past, present, and future! How cool is that?
One might assume straddling the time-space continuum causes internal conflict for the tree. Like maybe an undeveloped puny green guy eyes a juicy yellow beauty and gripes, “Damn! How come I’m not more mature?” Or some blossom whose petals flap in the wind, whines about how unfair it is that she’s no longer taut and firm like that sweet young bud over there. But noooo. The tree has evolved to a point where no phase of life is any better or worse than another. In the realm of lemon trees, there are no complaints, only total acceptance. What is, is. Lemon embraces all of it with equal acceptance and grace.
We humans on the other hand are hardwired for complaining. Even (maybe especially) those of us who have pretty soft lives compared to most folks on the planet. Adults often evaluate things in terms of what’s “wrong.” So how surprising is it that our kids frequently complain? The older they get, the more likely we are to find fault in what they do or fail to do! In addition to what we’re teaching them through negative modeling, teens are already incredibly judgmental. After all, they’re grappling with some key questions of their own:
Am I cool enough? Am I hot enough? Am I good enough?
The less confident they feel (from their own self-doubt and from the feedback piled on by their “friends” and parents), the more likely they are to complain. The more they complain, the more we complain about their complaining. Ugh.
Now I’m not advocating an all- Zen-all-the-time approach to living, where we make damn sure we never find fault with anything. That’s too tough to be practical. Besides there are certain situations that are inherently faulty. Like when the cottage cheese has gone off. No amount of Ohmmming is going to make me smile when I lift that lid and get a whiff. So yeah, life serves up plenty of unacceptable tidbits. When you’ve got one, just do something about it. Complaining is never a prerequisite for action. Nor is it a substitute.
When a family member presents us with something unacceptable, rather than exploding and losing control of mind and mouth, try this instead: “This cell phone bill of $1,000 is unacceptable. You will pay this, not me.” That’s not a complaint. That’s a simple directive. When we whine less and fill our sentences with more verbs (calls to action), we might get more cooperation and less complaining from our kids. At the same time, we are teaching them that a positive attitude helps us deal with life’s inconveniences more effectively than complaints.
On that positive note, I want to report that last week I picked all the ripe lemons from the tree and made lemon marmalade. Not to complain or anything, either the recipe was wrong or I misread it. Either way, the results were . . . uh . . . not edible. Fortunately the tree’s still got plenty of green babies. In another month or so, I’ll take another shot at it.
September 19, 2010
 David McQueen, The Dave Mack Project You don’t need me to tell you the road gets plenty rough during the teen years, for them and for us. 21st century parents frequently miss opportunities to take the lead and maintain meaningful connections with their tweens and teens. Of course, it’s not all our fault. Teens don’t encourage dialogue, at least not with us! But we can only change ourselves and we need to do a better job when it comes to really listening and trying to understand what’s going on with the young people we love most in the world. Because the lessons of intimacy we teach at home help our kids grow into adults with the confidence to discover who they ought to be.
When we miss those opportunities to connect, it’s not because we don’t care, it’s just that all of us (the kids too) are too busy to check in with each other. Sometimes reminders are needed.
My guest today is David McQueen and he’s here to provide some reminders. David is an educator, international speaker, and blogger extraordinaire. He empowers adults and youth alike on subjects such as leadership, careers and communication skills. Dave is also the founder of The Dave Mack Project, a teen empowerment movement that combines speaking, live events, social media and youth coaching for teens and those who work with teens.
For the last 22 years, Dave McQueen has reached over a million teenagers through live speaking and workshops, on TV and online, with messages of empowerment about inhabiting the present and creating a brilliant future.
Listen to our conversation right here:
[QUICKTIME http://www.anniefox.com/podcast/FC020.m4a 300 300 false true]
If you have iTunes, you can subscribe to this podcast in the iTunes Store.
Or, you can download an MP3 version here.
Upcoming guests include:
Ronit Baras, author of Be Special, Be Yourself for Teenagers
Sean Buvala, author of DaddyTeller: How to be a Hero to Your Kids and Teach Them What’s Really Important By Telling Them One Simple Story at a Time
Dr. Karyn Purvis, co-author (with Dr. David Cross, Wendy Lyons Sunshine) of The Connected Child: Bring hope and healing to your adoptive family
Judith Warner, author of Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety and We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication
Katherine Ellison, author of the memoir, Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention
March 3, 2010
 What's the plan, Dad? I do a fair amount of parent education seminars. If you’ve ever caught my act you know my presentation style is very casual. But while it may look like all I’m doing is leading discussions based on teen email from the likes of “Invisible Loser” and “Stuck and Lonely” plus sharing war stories about discovering our daughter on the phone with her boyfriend at 2:37 AM (on a school night!) and morphing into Godzilla in the doorway of our son’s absurdly cluttered room… I actually prepare for every parenting workshop. Seriously. I’m a teacher. Educational objectives and lesson plans and are in my DNA.
All parents are teachers. At 18 your kids will graduate from your private school of human development and race into the world with a bunch of lessons learned… from you.
What will your exit exam measure? Not sure? You’re not alone. In the first 5 years of a child’s life parents have a packed curriculum for their little ones to master (walking, talking, potty training, toy sharing, nose-blowing, etc.). But beyond 1st or 2nd grade parenting objectives start getting fuzzy.
As parents of teens your days of close-at-hand parenting are numbered. So if you are currently a bit unclear about some of your parenting goals maybe I can help. Here’s a question I often ask at my workshops: What are your top 5 parenting objectives? That is, by the time your kid graduates high school and begins the first chapter of adult life, what kind of person would you like him/her to be?
Usual responses include:
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· Self-sufficient
· Independent
· Caring
· Responsible
· A good friend
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· Productive
· Honest
· Self-confident
· Healthy life style
· Able to make good decisions
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It’s a great starter list, but listing goals is obviously easier than working to achieve them so here’s my next question: What are you consciously doing to support the development of the skills and character traits you say you want for your kids? I realize that’s a tough one because we’re all so busy. But if you buy into the premise that parents are teachers and have some accountability for the way their kids turn out then you need a strategic parenting plan.
That means you’ve got to figure out a) what your plan is and b) how to put it into action. How else will your kids get to the place you say you want them to reach by the time their packing for college? Most of us don’t usually think about parenting in such concrete ways. But Mom, Dad, with all due respect, if you’ve got no game plan, your list of parenting objectives are just of bunch of words. Granted, raising kids is an art and not a science, but still, if you’ve got things you want them to learn from you, then you have to teach them.
Here’s my final question for today: What might you be doing (consciously or unconsciously) to undermine your own stated objectives? Maybe you say that you want your child to be self-sufficient, but you’re still dragging your 15 year old out of bed every morning, making him lunch and checking his homework. Maybe you say you want your 14 year old to be self-confident, but you also routinely tell her she’s lazy, rude, self-centered and can’t do anything right.
You get the idea. You need to be aware of your parenting objectives and you need to be the kind of teacher that supports your own curriculum every single day.
One more thing to keep in mind… if you’re not personally modeling what you teach, then you’re teaching something else. Simply put, you can’t expect your kids to treat you with respect if you are routinely rude to them as well as to waiters, cashiers, etc. Your kids are watching, listening and learning.
Class dismissed. See you next time.
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