The Pew Research Institute recently reported a national survey where they compared views held by different age groups. They discovered a fairly wide gap between younger and older people in regard to lifestyle, relationships, moral behavior, and religion. The difference, or gap, is as wide as it was in the 1960’s when there was a lot of generational conflict over the Viet Nam war.
The idea of a difference between age groups is likely related to social change and we know this because historically political or social transformations are often indicated by generational differences. Not all of these social changes are positive, however, and usually have far reaching effects which may not be seen at the time they take place. In the cases where there are negative outcomes for us we often treat them like a historian reviewing the causes of the civil war and suggesting that if only certain things took place the war could have been avoided. By that time, however, people had been killed and the country devastated.
So now, what if we are in the middle of one of those social changes and we either like or do not like the direction it is going. And, what do we do if we do not like the suggested trends because we fear the consequences for our children will not be positive. We do not have to accept what appears to be going on around us, but we need to understand what else we might do. I have a couple of suggestions.
We can realize that children develop and grow over time and this gives us as parents a great deal of leverage and influence if we choose to use it. We can help our children identify directions they are going and then persuade them we can help them be successful. In the process we can teach them values and methods which are designed to help them acquire the lessons of life we hope they will learn. Families are made up of older more experienced pathfinders and younger less experienced individuals just for that purpose.
The second thing we could do is realize that the relationship between adults and children provide the social and emotional context where the forms of thought as well as what children come to believe are first learned from these adults, adopted by the child, and then the child adapts them to fit his own desires. When adults teach children the structure of language they also teach children the structure of thought. What this means is that the amount of time, the quality of relationship experience, and the degree of effort given to the process make a big difference. It is no minor thing when families spend little time together if the lack of time means their relationships are of poor quality. Let’s look around and find a little more time, find ways to make the time we spend powerful, and then teach what we want our children to know with great consistency. They are going to need the best we’ve got.

Dorothy (my wife) and I had to organize ourselves during Summers because we had eight children and they were all at home from school and needed something other than the freedom to lay around and do nothing. We decided that we could find some work for them to do, practice the piano, and read or do other learning activities. These had to be done before anyone could leave to play with friends. Just to supply some order to such a big gang we met each week to discuss how we all had done and this gave us a chance to reinforce good things and encourage those who lagged a little. One year we asked our children what fun things they would like to do during the Summer and we all added our ideas to create a pretty full schedule of something fun each week. We had pie eating contests, obstacle races, swimming parties, night games, visited the nearby dinosaur museum in Vernal, Utah which displays skeletons and other interesting things. We went to sports events, and went into the mountains to eat dinner and play games around an evening fire. One night we sat on the side of the mountain looking over Utah Valley to watch the sun set. We were lined up sitting on the hill side, which gave us an amazing view all the way from the Point of the Mountain to Santaquin. We made things simple by buying fried children and we ate our evening meal sitting like that. When we couldn’t see anything we packed up and came home.

I remember that Summer. As the years have passed most of us don’t talk about the chores we had to do, the piano practicing that went on, or the books that were read. And, there were quite a few books read because rewards were given for each book each child read. What is talked about was the pie eating contest or something else fun. I should have expected that given that children love to do things that are fun. But, I am surprised that those same fun things are what I remember too. I am glad our children love to read and to this day read quite a bit, but if I had to choose what I am most thankful for it would be that I had the chance to be with all of my children at the same time doing something that was just plain fun. We looked forward to each event. We were all excited. There were few arguments. We talked about important things going to and from each activity. The same things could be accomplished by working together on some family project, but as I watch my children with their children, I smile when I see them make choices to do something just for the fun of it. In their generation they are drawing themselves as parents close to their children attached to each other with love and fun. It is a very good thing.

We have learned to think about time in more than one way. For instance, when it comes to marriage we often hear or read about the importance of spending time with each other, or taking time to nurture this important relationship. Then we learn it is a useful idea to correctly gauge when to tell a spouse something which may be difficult to say or listen to. This idea is reduced to “timing is everything,” and we learn the importance of this because most of us have said something at the wrong time and have learned that even good intentions might result in something else.

There is a third use of time which is familiar to everyone except as applied to marriage. We all know that we have a past, present, and future. We are often encouraged to live in the present because the future cannot be predicted and the past has passed. Where the emotional benefits of marriage are concerned, however, this application of time can be used another way. Criticism and blame are almost always in the past because they are statements describing something which has already taken place. The more marriages become unhappy for either person the more they communicate about things or events in the past. When quarrels about something in the past become more elaborate and habitual people often add absolutes such as “you never,” or “you always.” This often leads to a partners debating the inaccuracy of such statements but locks the couple into thinking that whatever causes unhappiness is not going to change.

I once told my wife that “i can see you sitting there filled with love for me.” After laughing at me she agreed. Then I explained that I hoped for that to continue and thought maybe I would promote that goal by loving her. Then I discovered that it is possible to have conversations in the present about current things and in the present about future possibilities. Hope, love, faith, charity, and other positive forms of behavior almost always lie between the present and the future. If couples learn to say instead of criticizing, “i would like…” or “if we worked together on this we could…” they might be able to move themselves away from a negative past into a more hopeful future. As it turns out, happiness is connected to hope and the belief that things can get better. It is a great use of time to talk about things in the present as they might out in the future. Getting the good things we hope for is more likely if we can communicate clearly about them and care enough to help each other get them.

Somewhere and somehow current generation parents have learned that asking young children to make choices is a good way to limit their frustration and increase their compliance. So, when children are asked to “come and eat,” or told,” it is time to go to bed,” they will be given a choice to get them to do what parents want without an emotional episode. To avoid that, a mother might say, ” would you like to eat right now, or eat in five minutes?” assuming that the child will in fact do what he or she chooses. Or, a parent might say at bedtime, “do you want to to read a story or put your pajamas on first?” There are times when asking the child to make a choice is a good strategy and may lead to compliance. It is also true that if we actively teach children they have a choice in most things they may begin to feel that no one can tell them what they should do and they will develop feelings of entitlement and actually begin to resist parents at other times. The problem is, however, that if we don’t teach children to choose and instead exert excessive control they may be unable to manage their lives, become angry and resentful, and the outcomes will be undesirable. But, this is not the whole story.

There are three other things I believe parents should think about. (1) There are sometimes when children will need to be told what to do and they should obey. These are times when there are no choices other than to do what they are asked or not. For instance, if children want to do something that will harm them, if they want to do something which is reckless, or when they are in danger we would not want them to deliberate about the options. How do we teach children when those times are and that they should trust and respect their parents enough to do exactly what they are asked to do? (2) Most parents hope their children will learn that consequences for themselves or for others will almost always follow their decisions. How to we ensure that children learn this vital lesson? (3) We want children to mature and become independent. How do we use decision making to ensure they improve their abilities to make decisions, have confidence in their decisions, and at the right time move out and away from us and live their own lives?

Let’s suppose there is an answer for these questions. It will include the idea that decision making is a critical skill and we can and should teach our children how to be good decision makers. In addition, we need to add a lot of communication with our children so we can teach them about all aspects of making decisions including: (1) identifying what the decision is that needs to be made, (2) gathering information about it, (3) considering the options and the potential consequences for each, (4) selecting the best option or one that feels the best, and (5) carrying out the decision. By teaching this or other fairly simple methods of making a decision we can also teach variations. For instance we can teach our children about different decision making times, tell our children when they can decide and when they cannot, and help them make that adjustment. If we start when they are fairly young we can help them understand the idea of consequences and learn to consider those before they choose and decide. We can also understand the sequence of letting our children make small choices while we make big ones for them. This can be followed when they are older by forming partnerships and making decisions together with them. Then, later, we can help them learn to make their decisions on their own. We will be confident in their abilities and can be less anxious abut them because we will have taught them to be good decision makers.

A few years there were seasons of the year for given sports and sometimes during the year where I lived there were no sports teams in operation where youth are concerned. This is not the case now because basketball, for instance, and other sports is a year around activity, excepting, a brief lull during winter. Even then, aspiring players are asked to participate in conditioning programs or in other ways attempt to build their skills.
I have had the opportunity to be a coach for my childrens little league sports. I have played high school sports and knew a little bit about basketball, football, and baseball; but at the time I began I had no experience being a coach. I became involved because some of my older children had played on teams and were coached by people and I was not very pleased with all of them. Some of these coaches were skilled teachers but didn’t treat the players well. They yelled at young kids, they put too much pressure on them, and they were so competitive they displayed a lot of intense frustration if they lost. Some coaches made the effort but their work required more time than they thought, so the kids lost the opportunity to learn.
Sometimes parents became too emotionally involved and their sportsmanship suffered a bit. I have observed parents yelling negative and abusive things to opposing players and display anger triggered by referees or umpires who didn’t do as they wanted. And, over the years I have had the experience of men and women who didn’t spend a lot of time coaching attempt to influence how I did it. This was especially the case when they worried about how much their child would play.
The reason I mention these experiences is to contrast them with other people who understood that sports and team building offers a terrific time for parents to teach important lessons. One of these is to help children become self motivated and discover that being a self starter is more mature and more satisfying than depending on someone else. For a sport, they will get themselves up in the morning, they will practice on their own, and they will desire to be on time because that is usually what their coach asks them to do. It is also possible to use sports to teach that a player has responsibilities to others and needs to obey rules and work hard to help rather than hinder their team. You can use sports to help teach dependability and the importance of being accountable for what you do. Overall, sports can be used to improve a child’s sense of achievement.
In this same vein it is possible to teach children there are consequences for decisions they make. What they do or do not do matters because they are involved with other people. If parents saw these opportunities they could use the same communication and reasoning about the individual child and the other members of your family. What they do or do not do matters to other family members and may help or injure them.
In this time of year we will have a lot of opportunities to teach children. We thank those who spend the time and effort and we can teach our children to respect them by setting an example ourselves. It is a good season if we take advantage of these opportunities.

I remember riding along with my father one day talking about anything that came to mind. He asked a question wanting to know something I had thought about and I gave an answer that wasn’t anything special. But, I could tell that he was a bit impressed with what I had said. My dad wasn’t one who gave a lot of verbal praise or compliments even though he was a pleasant and genial person. So, when I noticed that he liked what I had said a feeling of pleasure went though me that I have not forgotten. I can’t even remember what I said, I only remember that he liked it and the feelings I felt because of it.
As the routine of our lives goes by it is sometimes hard to remember that to our children we are important for many reasons and one of the greatest reasons is our ability to give approval and recognition of them. They are never free to not need that from us. I have noticed that if we do not recognize that then it is often the same thing as if we have forgotten that we hold a huge asset which we can use to influence them.
When this ability to approve is coupled with clear expectations which we communicate to our children, the amount of influence doubles. It is one of the most powerful forms of influence if it is sincere, not to frequent, and is in response to something real. Although we need to give our children clear feedback about their successes and their failures, it is nearly always a good thing for us to have high expectations (still achievable) and then give them a positive response when they make progress or accomplish good things. Quite often these moments are very small, like the conversation with my father, and perhaps we don’t attach much importance to them, but our children do.
Part of the memories I have of dad include the times when he said something about me and it helped me feel like he liked me. As a result of this I tried to learn how to work hard like he did, be honest like he was, and care about others like he did. He died many years ago but he is still influencing me. I often wonder at the power of his influence. I loved him, and because I believed he loved me, what he said lasted longer than if he had used a pattern of criticism and confrontation. It was a small experience, but a very big lesson.

For some reason

The hearings before the Supreme Court of California, regarding the now famous Proposition 8, have been on TV for anyone to review. Attorneys from both sides of the argument have presented their cases. One side has argued that it should not legal for one group of people, a majority, to discriminate against a suspect special group, in the minority, by giving this group a different name (civil unions). The attorney for this side used the example that women on the court would need to be called commissioners and the men could be called justices and posed the question, “is that not unequal before the law.” The other side said that marriage is the name which the majority of people wish reserved to recognize the relationship between a man and a woman. Proposition 8 did not alter the legal rights which people had before the law and did not seek to take rights away from people. It only sought to require that the term marriage applied only to the union between a man and a woman.
If we have paid attention to the news we have seen how emotional this whole situation is, some thinking there is inequality and the law is perpetuating that and others thinking they are saving and protecting marriages. My feelings ran a different course and I would like to write about that.
I have wondered what the difference is between equality and fairness (or justice) and the connection between equality and freedom of opportunity. If people are not equal in every respect is there also the absence of justice and fairness between them? Can there be fairness and justice without people being equal? To answer these questions I have thought about our need still to seek racial and cultural acceptance. Where the fight for racial equality is concerned people who wanted segregation tried to apply the “separate but equal” idea but then and now that meant a lack of fairness and opportunity. That was not and is not acceptable to me or to anyone I know. It seems like equality was then and is now necessary to create fairness and freedom of opportunity. But what about gender issues? Should the question of equality before the law be extended to the equality of boys and girls, men and women? If it is, what about the idea of gender differences, social and sex roles of boys and girls? Can we perpetuate appropriate differences between boys and girls without their being inequality in every case? How do we do it?
These are cultural questions which lead to ideas that influence us as parents and how we rear our children. Like it or not we rear our children in this cultural context and both they and we are influenced by them. What is fairness in our families? What is freedom of opportunity and how do we create and preserve it for each child? How do we feel equality and fairness in our marriages where there are many differences of opportunity required of men and women who work in a job and/or at home and also carry out different parental roles.
I believe we can’t preserve fairness and freedom just by adjusting our family rules (or
civil laws) without creating relationships where we are involved in each others lives and care about one another. That might be part of the problem. If we knew each other better and cared more we might not need to worry so much about every specific point of rights, equality, fairness, and freedom. We ought to try it out.

Many people do not know that family history, obtaining information about your ancestors, is more popular than any hobby except gardening. It is amazing to me that so many people have a strong desire to learn about generations of grandparents and spend a great deal of time, money, and energy collecting this information. It also seems to produce great satisfaction for those who do it. However, I wish to write about another aspect of family history. It is that knowing our own history seems to anchor our children to the stable values most parents want them to learn and then demonstrate.

There is quite a bit of scientific evidence that children who know their grandparents and are positively influenced by them have greater opportunities for emotional health and overall success. Apparently grandparents can add support for what parents do and in some cases counterbalance the mistakes we as parents might make. But, why would knowing about people whom children have never met exert influence? I believe there are a few important reasons and if we understand them we have another approach to help successfully rear our children.

An athlete who has a winning history tends to expect to win in the future. Adults with happy childhood memories tend to be more successful and happy in their marriages. Soldiers who understand their history tend to be more stable when fighting against an enemy who wishes to defeat them. These are examples of the principle I am writing about. When our children know about the people who preceded them, and form connections between themselves and these people, they are influenced by the qualities and sacrifices, and character qualities demonstrated by these people. Children need to know the people part of their own history rather than seeing their history as a set of events and happenings. When a growing child of today knows that someone immigrated to this country, for example, he or she can begin to see courage, sacrifice, a sense of adventure, and a willingness to work hard for new opportunities. This child is here, for instance, as a result of what someone else did and accomplished.

Having this knowledge makes it possible for a child to define his or her future using what has been learned from these former people. Even if they made mistakes, had problems, or something else their examples can be used to guide a child into an uncertain future. When the positive characteristics of these individuals are known they too can provide a guiding hand. Let’s consider just one example.

The idea of hoping and believing in a good future is thought to be essential for anyone’s success and happiness. We want our children to believe in themselves, the future, and their ability to match whatever requirements they are going to face. Where does that come from? It might come more naturally to some and it might come from parents who display optimism and courage. But, it can surely be influenced by learning that a child comes from a long line of people who had hope, who faced the challenges of their day and survived them, who developed strong values and adhered to them no matter what they faced. Armed with this knowledge a child can face his or her future with hope and even if mistakes are made they are more likely to recover, change themselves, and begin to live more consistently with the good things they know about. We should maximize this effective tool by teaching our children about all those who preceded them and then explain to them that it would be a good thing for them to honor those by living well.

In the past few years we have seen very good scientific evidence that during prenatal development several factors work in concert to shape female and male brains differently. Some of this research began with the work of John Money at Johns Hopkins University three decades ago. It is an area of great interest and still receives a lot of attention. While the scientific world has been researching and publishing the results for several years, we in the rest of the population mostly live without knowing what is being produced and the significance of it for parents, teachers, and mental health workers. For instance, if we knew the differences between male and females could we make better adjustments to our children and treat them with better care and greater opportunities? Probably.

Two familiar examples can illustrate. Males typically develop eight to ten months later than females until puberty or months afterward when males catch up. Knowing this, lets suppose parents are faced with the choice of sending a child to school whose birthday is just before the school deadline or keeping that child out for another year. If the child is a boy the best guess is to wait another year. If the child is a girl, then depending on mental readiness and social confidence, parents could send the child with greater confidence success will result. Here is a second example. Males typically prefer to spend time with activities which include rough and tumble play, building, using objects, and etc. Females usually prefer to put things together such as putting toys in a circle, arranging objects, and enjoying companionship as much as performing some activity. Should we make use of this knowledge when we buy toys or arrange games for them to play?

The language center in female brains is typically larger and more densely organized than in the male brain. The brain center for spatial relationships is typically larger and more organized in males than in females. Girls typically understand language better, see and understand facial expressions and emotional cues, typically do better with the verbal requirements of school while boys typically do less well with emotional cues but do better with hands on tasks to learn. I use the word typical because there are many individual variations.

Can any of these mental skills be advanced if we want to educate boys and girls to improve their skills. In most cases the answer is yes but it takes time and effort. We are revisiting the idea of same gender math classes and language classes so we can adapt teaching methods to specific genders. There is mounting evidence this might be helpful to both.

The important key for parents is this. We will find similarities between boys and girls. We will see uniqueness for each gender. If we worry more about equality between the sexes than we emphasize the need for understanding individual differences we might penalize our children. We can do both without making one feel less important than the other if we know how they are different and how we can treat each with appropriate care.

Moral situations, where someone could be helped or harmed, exist when there is no neutral ground. That is, when faced with a decision or dilemma between two or more alternatives doing nothing has an impact as powerful as making the wrong or right decision. It is interesting that a marriage relationship has exactly the same quality, at least in one respect. There are times of course when it is best to say nothing, to do nothing, and to remember nothing. But overall, failing to do what will enhance a marriage has consequences that are often unseen but really powerful. It is expressed in the idea that bad things like conflict, criticism, and condemnation by one person or both exists because good things have not and are not present in the relationship.
This happens, in my opinion, because the positive conditions we hope marriage will provide do not appear to create themselves or happen by chance. Love and happiness and all other positive qualities we hope marriage brings to us typically result from effort, skill, and a willingness to improve ourselves through behavior change and growth. Less than ten percent of married couples report they have a relationship which seem magical from the start and which continues throughout their lives together. The other ninety percent either end their marriages, or live in some times of love and happiness combined with resignation, acceptance of less than desired, reduced expectations, obligations for the children, and guilt for mistakes.
This might seem like dismal view of marriage, and it could be, but I do not intend it that way. I believe these conditions exist because most people do not understand the axiom. Bad things happen because good things don’t. If we understood that idea, we would look around ourselves, find out about the good things which are related to love and happiness we feel, or hope to feel for our partners and immediately and persistently communicate more about love, do things which show love, and share in anything which can produce more of it.
This is not a simple process, but when a person follows it well, marriage improves. Here is one example. There is a great deal of evidence which suggests that if one person decides to work a little harder to do things which communicate love and happiness, that same person will feel more love and happiness even if the other person does not. What does that mean? It might mean many things but there are two conclusions I would like to suggest. First, it is clear that one’s actions produce some part of what one feels. If that is the case, and it seems true to me, then anyone could increase his or her love and happiness by trying harder to create those feelings. Another, and second conclusion we could reach is that if we can cause some of our own positive feelings then our partner is never fully to blame for our negative feelings. We would need to acknowledge that both how we act and how our partner acts is responsible. Try both of those ideas out. Set aside three or four days a week and on those days display several forms of love, warmth, kindness, gratitude, and helpfulness. Do not measure your success by anything you want from your partner. Measure it by your feelings. Then, during the same week, whenever you talk about your feelings indicate they are caused by what both people do. “I am happy and it is because of what I am doing and what you are doing, so thank you for your part.” See if you can reduce defensiveness and threat. If you can do that, you might at the end of the week discover the truth to the idea that bad things happen because good things don’t.