Parent of the Week: Danny Tanner

This past Sunday was Father’s Day and I can’t think of a better dad to celebrate than Danny Tanner himself. I mean, seriously, raising three girls on your own PLUS letting your deadbeat starving artist musician brother Uncle Jesse, his wife and twin babies, AND your creepy (did he ever really date anyone?) quirky best friend Uncle Joey live with your family in your amazing San Francisco town home? How did he do it? And what did he do for a living again? (Oh yeah, he hosted a television morning show. I just Wikipedia-ed it. I guess they could afford that house...)

ANYway, Danny was an awesome dad and the last five minutes of every show make me confident of this. Why, there was the time DJ went on a crash diet so she could be skinny, the time DJ got drunk at a party...man, DJ had a rough go of it. But Danny was always there for a quick 5 minute heart to heart, complete with compelling background music. And shoulder pads. For both of them. And a swinging kitchen door. What is it with 80’s/90’s sitcoms and swinging kitchen doors? Did any real people actually have these in their homes?

I digress. Again.

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Teens who Feel Responsible to Parents Fare Better in School

In a fascinating new study, researchers find that teens who feel a sense of responsibility toward their parents tend to do better in school. Interesting, huh? I know what you’re thinking – this website is about preschoolers. But preschoolers grow up to be teenagers. And parents are always concerned about how to help their children succeed in school. So I thought this was relevant J

The study followed children from 7^th to 9^th grade in both the United States and China and asked kids questions like, ‘How much time do you feel you need to spend with your parents?’ and ‘Do you try to do well in school in part to please your parents?’ When students were in 7^th grade, both American and Chinese students felt equal respect and responsibility toward their parents, but something interesting happened as they got older: American teenagers began to feel less responsible to their parents. This was not true, however, for Chinese teenagers. This is likely a difference between cultures.

But here’s where it gets really interesting. For both American and Chinese teens, those who felt a high sense of respect toward and responsibility to their parents got better grades and showed better attitudes for learning. Why? Well, we don’t know for sure, but it may have something to do with those teens and parents maintaining a close relationship with each other. One of the authors of the study suggests the importance of parents being involved in teens’ lives, which was also linked with teens’ feelings of responsibility toward their parents.

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Children and Mistakes

I'm excited to bring you a guest article from Alina Tugend, author of Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong. Goodness knows that I'm wrong. A lot. I'm so excited to read this book and learn about how we can actually benefit, and help children benefit, from learning from our mistakes rather than dwelling on them...enjoy!

Children and Mistakes

by Alina Tugend,

Author of Better By Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong

It's crucial that we, as parents, allow our children to make mistakes and fail and figure out how to recover from them. We can't rush in and fix every problem, whether it be forgotten homework, an awkward social encounter or not getting a part in the school play.

We know from research that building children's self-esteem and self-worth is much less about praise and gold stars and trophies for everyone and much more about creating resilience. Children who know how to screw up and fail and try again.

"While we do not want our children to face ongoing failure, to attempt to overprotect them and rush in whenever we fear they might fail at a task robs them of an important lesson, namely that mistakes are experiences from which to learn," writes Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein in their book Nurturing Resilience in Our Children. "It also communicates another subtle or perhaps not-so-subtle message to a child: We don't think you are strong enough to deal with obstacles and mistakes."

It's not that resilient children don't feel bad about their mistakes and failures, but they don't see themselves as failures. Too often children who think that messing up means they're losers quit tasks, blame others and deny responsibility.

But, as we know, nothing in parenting is black and white. It's fine to theoretically say that all children must make mistakes and fail, but when it's our children, all that great insight can go out the window. Or as my sister said when her nine-year-old was having a particularly tough baseball season, "I just don't want to be there when he strikes out."

What parent hasn't felt he or she would do anything to stop the tears? Or even worse, knowing there's something we can do and chose not to because our son or daughter has to learn a lesson.

So here are some thoughts that I keep in mind during the treacherous journey of parenthood:

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