Harley Rotbart, M.D.

Nov

29

How to Convince Your Spouse/Partner to be a No Regrets Parent

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As part of my ongoing national seminar series based on the No Regrets Parenting book, I spoke on behalf of Children’s Hospital Colorado to a community parents’ group program this week. As usual, the questions at the end of the program were insightful, intelligent, and provocative. One mom, Lisse (not her real name) asked this heartfelt question:

“Everything you said tonight struck at my core, and I am trying to be that No Regrets Parent. But how can I get my husband to do the same. He doesn’t seem to enjoy his time with our kids. After work, he’ll sit and read the newspaper while the kids are playing in the same room and, when I ask him to spend the time with the kids, he says, ‘I am with the kids. We’re all here together.’ When he takes our daughter to swim meets, he spends the whole time on his iPad and doesn’t even watch her. I want him to be as excited about being a parent as I am. What should I do?”

There are no easy answers to these questions. Here’s what I suggested:

Find ways to help your husband “double-dip,” one of the “staying sane strategies” in No Regrets Parenting. I define double-dipping as doing activities that a parent and a child would both enjoy doing separately, and instead doing them together.  Movie makers, for example, have figured this out and found it to be very profitable; today’s slick animated films are targeted to both adult and kid sensibilities.  Some of the jokes are way above a child’s head, and the story lines may be as well, but there are also enough cute characters, goofy gags, and slapstick to tickle a wide range of childhood maturity levels. Two hours in the theater with your kids, everyone laughing (albeit, often at different times), everyone sharing popcorn, and everyone talking about the movie in the car on the way home. A great double-dip.

A few more examples:

Biking—Put the littlest ones in a trailer, the somewhat older ones on a trailer cycle that hooks onto your bike and lets your child pedal; once kids are old enough to bike next to you, they get their own wheels. You get outdoor exercise, your kids get fresh air, and you get each other.

Charity—Do a charity walk together; get sponsors and spend a weekend day in healthy outdoor activity for a good cause. Or have a spring-cleaning day where everyone collects clothes and toys from the closets and under the beds to donate. Then go to the collection center together and show your kids the act of giving.

Jogging—Strollers made for keeping your kids close while you’re pounding the pavement are perfect for together times that relieve, rather than create, stress.

Language lessons—Learn a second language together, listening to tapes on long car rides or in the dentist’s waiting room.

Swimming—The pool feels great on a hot day whether you’re an adult or a kid. When the kids are old enough to play in the pool unsupervised, you can swim laps while they splash their friends.

Reading—Books are one of the best ways to reconcile different attention levels and interests. Quiet time with everyone reading his or her own latest page-turner.

Snow-shoveling and leaf raking—Depending on the age of your kids, you may be doing most of the shoveling while you help them build a snowman, make snow angels, or have a snowball fight. The idea is that you’re all at the same place at the same time, sharing the experience. And the snow gets shoveled. Same idea with raking the leaves: you rake, and the kids play in the piles and help you fill the bags. As the kids get older, of course, feel free to assign them the harder parts of this partnership.

I suggested to Lisse (the mom at the seminar who asked the question) that she start slowly with No Regrets Parenting training for her husband. Have him announce “Time for READING CLUB” to the kids when he’s ready to sit with his newspaper, and gather the kids in the same room to read their books or magazines. Every 10 minutes or so, have him pause and ask the kids what they’re reading, and share what he’s reading (age-appropriate news only, of course). That’s double-dipping reading time. Lisse had another great suggestion based on one of the other strategies I presented in the seminar – she’ll ask her husband to video her daughter’s swim meets so they can watch together at night. Lisse can’t get to the meets because she works at those times, so now she’ll get to share the excitement and her husband will be pulled off his iPad.

Share your own suggestions for helping your spouse or partner get in the No Regrets Parenting spirit. Click on the title of this post, and a comments box will magically appear.

www.noregretsparenting.com

 

 

 

Nov

21

Parenting Our Kids, Parenting Our Parents

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Thanksgiving is for families, and multi-generational gatherings are blessings. My post today in the New York Times celebrates the opportunity to parent our kids and, when necessary, parent our parents.

http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/21/patience-consciousness-and-white-lies/

Best to all for a meaningful and memorable Thanksgiving

Nov

07

The Best Investment for No Regrets Parents of Teenagers

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We found it at a garage sale when our kids were 10, 12, and 14, and for $55 we took a chance. The kids weren’t with us that day, so we didn’t know exactly how they would react when they saw it in the basement, but what the heck? If it wasn’t a hit, we would resell it when we had our own garage sale.

Our find of the decade was a six-sided poker table, with a felt-covered center and felt-lined cup holders on each of the 6 sides, priced at an amazing $25. And, for $5 each, we also bought the accompanying 6 retro orange vinyl chairs that sat around the table. Yes, the table and chairs had seen their better days, but they were still pretty cool looking, and not an embarrassment when surrounded by the indoor basketball hoop, the shelves full of board games, the sports and national parks posters, and the makeshift ping pong table already in the basement.

We never could have guessed the impact that table would have on our kids’ teen years. Our basement became the epicenter for our teens’ middle school and high school friends  for the next 5 years. Penny-anty poker, blackjack, Texas-hold’em, and “War” alternated for turns on our table. Coke cans in the cup holders, potato chips within reach, poker chips on the felt, and cards tossed about in celebration and disgust pretty well summarizes weekend nights in our basement.

We never figured out why a real poker table, as opposed to a folding table or the ping pong table, could create such a profound and prolonged attraction to our basement. But what a joy it was to be the house that our kids’ friends wanted to hang out in.

It’s always better to be “the” house, rather than have your teens going to friends’ houses to play video games and you missing all the fun of standing at the top of the basement stairs and eavesdropping on your very own “World Series of Poker.”

 

Oct

25

The Aroma of the Arena and No Regrets Parenting

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Our kids were 3, 5, and 7 years old, wide-eyed wrangler wannabes, eating corn dogs and cotton candy on the bleachers at the rodeo. Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson ballads blared from the loudspeakers. A bright blue Saturday afternoon, complete with a country twang and a cowboy drawl.

Our oldest was a competitor (still is as a 24 year old, actually). There was nothing like a kids’ sports event with trophies or a contest with prizes to get his 2nd grade juices flowing. So, when the Snowmass Rodeo announcer invited all the young cowpokes onto the arena floor for the “catch-as-catch-can-calf-chasing” event, Matt bolted from the stands and headed straight for the corral. Well, to be completely honest, he didn’t bolt until we told him it looked like some the kids running toward the field looked really fast, probably even faster than he. Then he bolted. Twenty calves stood looking bored at the far end of the arena; six had red ribbons loosely tied to their tails. About 40 little kids stood at the near side corral gate waiting to be released, like bulls from the chute. With the sound of the cowbell, the gate opened and the “roundup” began. When the calves saw the little wrangler stampede, they took off like, well like calves being chased by a herd of screaming kids. It was a mini cattle drive on steroids.

The kids in sneakers seemed to have an edge over the kids in cowboy boots; Matt was wearing sneakers. The kids in cowboy hats were slowed trying to keep their hats on while running; Matt wasn’t wearing a hat. Nevertheless, other kids were, indeed, faster. There were only six ribbons to be had, and you only won a prize if you captured a red ribbon. Five of the ribbons had been quickly snatched by other little rustlers when Matt began closing in on the last of the adorned calves. Two other kids, a boy and a girl, spotted the same last-chance target, but Matt was not to be denied. With the speed of the Lone Ranger and the dexterity of Zorro, Matt caught up with the puzzled calf and in one smooth motion slid the ribbon from its tail.

In retrospect, the motion may have been a little too smooth, and the look on the calf may have been more purged than puzzled. As Matt victoriously held the ribbon high in the air for his proud parents and siblings to see, brown goo dripped down his arm and onto his cheek. That’s when he first reacted to the smell. Completely clueless as to the origin of the ooze, and holding the ribbon as far from his face as his arm could reach, he ran for the stands screaming, “Yuck, Yuck, Ewww,” a much smellier variation of “Duck, Duck, Goose” I guess you could say. “Get it off, get it off, what is that stuff?!!” Fortunately, our van was parked nearby with one of the largest collections of wet wipes in the country (recall our kids were 3, 5, and 7!). By the time we were done birdy-bathing Matt with the perfumed wipes, our young tenderfoot smelled like a walking, talking diaper change.

Oh, you’re wondering about the prize Matt won for capturing the ribbon? A plastic cowboy hat with no resemblance whatsoever to anything a real cowboy would wear.  “Dorky,” he said, and graciously gave it to his little brother, who didn’t take it off his head for the next two years.

 

Oct

18

Turning Grief and Tragedy into Knowledge and Hope

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The tragic death of Colorado 10 year old Jessica Ridgeway following an abduction has heightened everyone’s awareness about the risks of predators and the need to protect our kids. Our local NBC affiliate (9News) recently hosted an important  Twitter chat on childhood safety. I was honored to participate on behalf of Children’s Hospital Colorado, joining newscasters from 9News, the Denver Police Department, and several outstanding parenting experts. If you have young kids, take a few minutes to read through the 2 hour chat to find helpful resources and useful advice. The world is not the same as when we were kids, and we owe it to our kids to be informed and prepared.

On Twitter, search #SafeKids.

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