DAUGHTER NEEDS TO STEP UP WITH RENT MONEY
By Amy Dickinson Tribune Media Services

DEAR AMY: I had a good job working for the city and owned a house. Due to extreme health problems, I had to leave my job. My health is stable now, but I went bankrupt.

My wife had a good job, too, but is now unemployed. I was able to get my pension and Social Security disability payments.

My mother let us move into the basement apartment at her house. My sister lived there for six years and never paid rent. She also never helped my mother. I do everything to help my mother and also pay rent.

My son is 21 and in college. My daughter is 25 and a licensed insurance agent. My daughter made some mistakes with various boyfriends and is now in debt. We wanted her to be nearby; she found a good job and is moving here.

My problem is that the basement is too small for three people, while the upstairs of the house is large. I asked my mother if my daughter could use the spare bedroom upstairs. She said no. She wants her space.

I tried to tell her that my daughter would only sleep there and would spend the rest of her time with us. My children are very upset. My son doesn’t even want to come back during his school break. Please give some advice. I feel bad for my kids! — Alan

DEAR ALAN: I’m not sure why you feel bad for your kids — one is in college and the other is facing a new job with new possibilities. They seem to be on track.

Your daughter could offer to pay rent for a room in the upstairs of your mother’s house, or perhaps rent a room in a nearby home and take her meals with you. (More people are renting out spare rooms during the economic downturn.)

Your mother sounds unhelpful, but regardless, it is her home and she gets to choose who lives there.

You sound like a good son and a good father. Your children should follow your example and do their best to work and prosper. You and your wife should focus on pulling yourself out of debt so you can afford different housing.

DEAR AMY: I am interested in your opinion on participating in school fundraisers and class gifts. My husband and I have contributed more than $400 to fundraisers for school this year.

Before the winter break and at the end of the year, I am solicited, multiple times, by the “room parents” to contribute $20 toward the class gift for the teachers. I am also asked to contribute $20 for auction items for the spring fundraiser, as well as another $20 to place an ad in the tribute book to thank the teachers (this is per child). This is on top of the other fundraising events.

I prefer to give my children’s teachers a home-baked gift (I am a professional chef) and a handwritten note of appreciation before the holidays and at the end of the year. I also volunteer in the classroom.

We also donate an expensive item to be auctioned off at the spring fundraiser.

I don’t contribute to the class gifts, but should I? I don’t want the teachers to think that I don’t appreciate them. There’s always a sign-up sheet outside the classroom, so everyone knows who’s contributing — or not. I know these economic times affect everyone, so when is enough, enough? — Nickeled and Dimed

DEAR NICKELED: You can only do so much, and you shouldn’t feel guilty for saying “no” sometimes. You will continue to be asked, however, and I would suggest skipping the “tribute” ad and perhaps contributing to the teacher gift instead.

Posting the names of contributors is not a good idea. You might want to become a room parent next year to minimize the process and handle the solicitations more sensitively.

DEAR AMY: I’m responding to “No Garlic Lover,” who wanted to know how to get her nanny to stop smelling of garlic.

As a former nanny who now employs one myself, I understand the value of people who will care for any child in a way they would care for their own. If an employer had attempted to ask me to “remedy” my garlic consumption, I would have submitted my notice and contacted the several families in line who were waiting for my services to become available. — Former Nanny

DEAR FORMER: Because this employer and employee had a good relationship and the employee had an extreme odor problem, I felt it would be possible to address it respectfully without people submitting their notice.

(Send questions via e-mail to askamy(at)tribune.com or by mail to Ask Amy, Chicago Tribune, TT500, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Amy Dickinson’s memoir, “The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter and the Town that Raised Them” (Hyperion), is now available in bookstores.)

(C)2009 BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

By John Rosemond, McClatchy Newspapers

One of the defining features of today’s parenting mindset is guilt. Mothers seem to be especially susceptible to this psychological virus — today’s moms, that is. Fifty years and more ago, before the psychological parenting revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s, mothers were more immune to guilt.

Back then, when a child behaved badly, the mother made the child feel guilty.

These days, when a child behaves badly, the child’s mother is likely to experience the guilt due the offense.

This has happened because today’s moms — the primary consumers of parenting information and therefore its primary victims — believe that parenting produces the child. That’s understandable. After all, if one goes to a mental health professional because of some problem, the overwhelming likelihood is that the MHP is going to ask questions about the person’s childhood. Determinism has been a dominant feature of much if not most psychological theory since Freud, and even though it is not supported by research or common sense, it lingers on.

Mainstream psychological theory is hard pressed to explain how a person who grows up with every conceivable advantage takes a hard left turn as a young adult and winds up trashing his life, much less that he keeps making the same mistakes over and over and over again. Violent criminals do not all come from violent families. Pathological liars do not all come from pathological families.

The only conclusion upheld by common sense: Parenting does not produce the child. Parenting is an influence, and it is certainly prudent for parents to do what they can to maximize positive influence, but in the final analysis, the child produces himself. At any given point in his life, he takes your influence (along with a host of others) and he decides what to do with it. He is the decider.

Prior to the Age of Psychological Parenting, parents understood that they could only do so much. They understood that no matter how “good” their parenting was, their children were still capable on any given day of going to school or out into the community and doing bad things — really bad, even. In the final analysis, therefore, their children were responsible for their own behavior.

So back in those not-so-long-ago days, when a child misbehaved, the child’s parents weren’t likely to agonize over it, punishing themselves. They punished him.

All too many of today’s parents, in the same circumstances, punish themselves. They agonize. They feel bad. They search themselves for the answer to “Why?” Consequently, their children are not being held fully responsible.

Of late, I’ve been asking my audiences two questions:

1. Is parenting more or less stressful, do you think, than it was in the 1950s?

2. Are today’s children more or less happy than were children in the 1950s?

Every audience — of which there have been approximately ten so far — has reached instant consensus. Their answers have been, respectively, more and less. Those are, of course, the correct answers.

I simply propose that much of the stress is due to parents holding themselves responsible for their children’s misbehavior. And I propose that much of the unhappiness is because children are not being held responsible for their own behavior.

___

(Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions on his Web site at www.rosemond.com.)

___

(c) 2009, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

By Shaila Wunderlich, Chicago Tribune

It may be that I’m more clueless than most first-time moms-to-be, but the issue of changing tables has me utterly, thoroughly confused. With less than three months to go until my due date and my shower invitations in the mail, the questions I have on the topic could fill a book. Do I really need a changing table? Couldn’t I save myself the bucks and the space and change the baby on a surface I already have — maybe a dresser, for instance, or even the floor? Why are some changing tables $100 and others $1,000? If I do decide to get one, what do I do with it after the baby is out of diapers? And the list goes on.

With my book of questions in hand, I consulted no fewer than eight experts. Here’s what I learned.

1. Necessary? No. Helpful? Yes. Parents have changed their babies on floors, beds, countertops and tables for ages, and that’s not likely to change. Among the experts, the consensus is that as long as the surface is secure and, at every second, you keep one hand on the baby, it is OK. “A changing table is safe when the person changing the baby is there,” says Mark Lazar, owner of Lazar’s Juvenile Furniture in Lincolnwood, Ill. — and father of seven.

That said, a changing table offers several benefits that these surfaces do not. Accessible storage makes it easier for you to keep hand-on-baby while grabbing for the talcum powder. Ergonomic heights (36 to 43 inches, according to Consumer Reports) reduce the strain on your back. Details such as lipped edges, wall mounts and straps assure extra safety.

2. Store-bought options. I thought I was confused before. “There are at least three choices in the market today: basic changing tables, changer tops and changing systems,” says Jamie LaPorta, merchandising director at The Land of Nod stores.

Changing tables are pieces of furniture with drawers or shelves or other storage options.

Changer tops are traylike components that attach to the tops of existing furnishings, such as dressers. Relatively new to the scene, changer tops are becoming the popular choice because of their flexibility and relative affordability.

Also new are changing systems, massive wall units with the changing unit in the center and columns of shelves or closets on either side.

3. Other options. For her two babies, Courtney Baros bought an old dry-sink cabinet on eBay and attached a changing pad. “I wanted something that I could use again for other things after the baby got older,” says Baros, co-owner and executive director of the shop Be By Baby! in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood. Between babes, Baros used the piece as a serving table and to display photos. This sort of retrofitting is acceptable as long as you stay true to certain specs.

4. Non-negotiables. Sturdiness, security and supervision rank supreme. Most changing tables and tops come with hardware for mounting the pieces to the wall or to each other. For even more security, LaPorta recommends requesting additional hardware to secure the table or dresser to the floor.” The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a lip on all sides of at least 2 inches high, the higher the better. Never place a changing table in the middle of an open space, and never use a piece that could be considered remotely tippable. Baros’ dry-sink creation met all of those specs: the sink-base was sturdy, matched the dimensions of her changing pad, had drawers for storage and featured 5-inch built-in barriers in the form of splash guards.

5. Cost. The same factors that drive variations in all home furnishings drive the wide gaps in changing table prices — quality of materials, craftsmanship and shipping methods. The recent demand for “green” nursery furniture has driven up prices further. “Solid quality furniture is shipped mostly assembled via freight trucks (rather than broken down to ship via ground service),” says Deree Kobets, owner of Grow, a Chicago kids boutique specializing in organic gear. Grow’s low-VOC changing tops and tables range from about $225 to $2,050. At The Land of Nod, prices range from about $119 to $349, while most Target prices are $79.99 to $299.99.

___

(c) 2009, Chicago Tribune.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

By Jeff Herring, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

1. Often in marriage, especially in the early years, there is a choice: You can be right or you can be happy — not both. Choose wisely.

As a friend of mine said after his first year of marriage: “I finally figured out that the sun will come up tomorrow if we do it her way.”

2. Learn the gentle art of cooperation. Related to wanting to be right, competition in a marriage is corrosive — it eats away at all the good stuff.

If you are going to compete, compete together to have the very best marriage you can have.

3. Talk about the important stuff. Most couples spend more time planning a vacation than they do planning for their relationship. Create a relationship vision by asking: “If we could have it exactly like we want, how would it be?”

Build from there. If you get stuck, ask or hire someone to help.

4. Forgive as much or more than you would like to be forgiven. Sometimes forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, especially when you do not feel like it. Forgiveness can release you from the pain of the offense.

5. Celebrate what you want to see more of. Appreciation can go a long way.

6. Listen to the heart more than you listen to the words. Focusing on the words can lead to endless and meaningless debate: “No, that did not happen on Tuesday, it happened on Monday!”

Focusing on the heart behind the words can lead to resolution of conflict and to taking care of each other.

7. Don’t be a Darren Stevens.

In the old sitcom “Bewitched,” Samantha merely had to wiggle her nose to make incredible things happen. Darren was always trying to get her to stop using her magical powers.

Even as a little kid, I thought the guy was nuts. He could have had anything he wanted. Instead he tried to get Sam to stifle her gifts. Encourage your partner in her gifts.

8. Check out your communication. While it’s easy for two people to talk to each other, sometimes it is more difficult to really communicate with each other. Practice these two sentences: “What I think you’re saying is … did I miss anything?” and “Please, tell me what you think I just said.”

9. Take responsibility for your contributions to the struggle. In 20 years of doing marriage counseling, I never a relationship problem that didn’t have two sets of fingerprints all over it. Yet, we tend to focus on what the other person is doing. “If only you would …,then everything would be OK.”

One of the quickest paths to frustration and failure is to try to change someone else. Take responsibility to change your contribution to the problem, whether it’s what you are doing and/or how you respond to what your partner is doing.

10. Don’t assume that just because you are married, you know how to be married. Pay attention to what works for other couples. Read all you can. Go to seminars. Everybody needs a coach. Find one. It’s a lot less expensive than divorce, financially and emotionally.

___

(Jeff Herring, MS, LMFT, is a marriage and family therapist. E-mail him at jeff@jeffherring.com or, for more tips and tools for living you can visit www.JeffHerringOnline.com. For information on great relationships visit http://www.AsktheRelationshipCoach.com.)

___

(c) 2009, Jeff Herring

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

By John Rosemond, McClatchy Newspapers

Stand-up parenting is a rare thing these days, and if my ears are properly set to the ground, becoming rarer all the time. Parents stand up when they prove to their children they mean exactly what they say. By so “meaning,” they become, in their children’s eyes, “mean.” Such was the case with a school-age boy who recently learned a valuable lesson in the hardest of ways

At their most recent conference, the boy’s teacher told his parents that he was talking excessively in class and not following her directions very well.

The parents subsequently sat him down and told him that his participation in an upcoming field trip depended on his completely solving those problems. They made it perfectly clear that they were not willing to accept a partial solution.

Several days later, the teacher reported an incident. Two days later, she reported yet another. That evening, they told him he wasn’t going on the field trip, which was still ten days away. As one might expect, he had a major meltdown, during which he denied that his classroom behavior was a problem and threatened to be “really bad” if they didn’t change their minds. They stood their ground.

“For the next ten days,” wrote his mother, “we had the best-behaved son. The teacher even asked us to change our minds, calling our attention to his greatly improved classroom behavior.”

But they didn’t change their minds. They followed through as promised, telling me that if they hadn’t, the whole exercise would have been “a joke.”

Indeed, and a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Since that watershed event, the boy’s behavior has been sterling, both at home and at school. The mother writes, “The respect we saw after this one hard lesson was huge.

He now knows that his dad and I are on the same page and that we don’t say one thing and then do something else entirely.”

I know there are folks out there who will think these parents went too far, that they should have reconsidered their ruling after the teacher’s plea, and that in not doing so they were being unreasonable. I disagree, but then I believe in being “mean,” as previously defined. Therefore, I completely support what these parents did. They invoked what I call the Agony Principle:

Parents and teachers should not agonize over a child’s misbehavior if the child is perfectly capable of agonizing over it himself.

The Agony Principle embodies the fact that children have to learn some lessons the hard way. For this little boy, this was one such lesson. Had his parents let him go on the field trip, he would have learned nothing of value. He would have learned that when he gets himself in trouble, he can get himself out of it by playing contrite. He would have learned, in short, to be manipulative, to play games. Instead, he learned that when his parents lay down the law, he needs to pay close attention. In fact, he learned that he needs to make sure things never get to the point where his parents feel the need to lay down the law, because once they do, they are going to follow through.

These parents are throwbacks, for sure, by which I mean that they would have felt more at home fifty-plus years ago, when stand-up parenting was the norm. For example, when my parents told me, in January of 1960, that one more report of misbehavior from any of my teachers would result in me repeating the seventh grade, excellent grades notwithstanding, I believed them. The next day, and for the rest of the year, I held my ADHD in check. To this day, I absolutely know they would have followed through. Stories of that sort are not unusual in my generation. It’s unfortunate that today’s kids, by and large, are deprived of the same degree of certainty in their lives.

It is a fact that today’s kids are not as happy, as carefree, as kids in the 1950s. Childhood depression, once a relatively rare thing, is on the edge of epidemic today. The irony is that the 1950’s child was held to higher standards at home and at school, and the 1950’s parent was almost universally “mean.” I have to believe that there’s a correlation between “mean” parents and happy children. The research says as much. It says that the happiest, most well-adjusted children are also the best-behaved children. I simply propose that the parents in question say what they mean and mean exactly what they say.

___

(Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions on his Web site at www.rosemond.com.)

By Dave Bundy, Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis

To be a parent is to live in a state of self-doubt. 

Am I doing enough to help my kids learn? Am I doing too much? Are they happy? Are they eating right? Am I being too easy on them? Am I asking too much? How long is too long when I’m holding my kid in a headlock making him practice piano? Should I let my kids go out dressed like a colorblind superhero? Am I squelching their individuality by requiring underpants to be under their pants?

Your answers to those questions – and hundreds more every day — shape what I like to call your “parental coolness quotient.” With my oldest son heading into middle school, my PCQ matters now more than ever. A dorky dad move at a slumber party or a movie night at our house could put my son on a social trajectory that will find him at age 28 living in our basement, eating Ding Dongs with his pet ferret and still playing with his Star Wars action figures.

My son’s actually a pretty cool kid, which puts all the more pressure on me keeping my PCQ up. So I’ve developed a test that I can give myself periodically as a checkup. I’m sharing it with all our Savvy Family parents as a public service. 

1. My favorite outfit for mowing the lawn is:

a. Long pants, long-sleeved shirt, durable shoes and appropriate safety glasses.

b. Plaid Bermuda shorts, dark socks, wingtips and, in lieu of a shirt, plenty of back hair.

c. Whatever my spouse wants to wear while she/he does it.

2. When I want to show my kids I still know how to rock, I break out:

a. My Jefferson Airplane 8-tracks.

b. My Foo Fighters CDs.

c. In sweat shimmying awkwardly to Hannah Montana or High School Musical. 

3. My view about teens on dates is:

a. You’ve got to start trusting them sometime. Just not now.

b. I’m fine with it as long as the date a teen is on doesn’t happen to be my daughter. Then he better get off her right away. 

c. I don’t think teens on dates are any worse than teens on raisins, prunes or any other dried fruit.

4. If approached by the PTO to chaperone a school dance, I: 

a. Agree excitedly, dust off the velour leisure suit and get ready to show those youngsters my funky, fresh moves.

b. Accept, then use my martial arts training to separate teens dancing any closer than arm’s length.

c. Refuse, citing outstanding warrants for my arrest in three states on charges of aiding and abetting the careers of Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanilli.

5. My child wants a cell phone so I:

a. Help him or her select a good plan and find a part-time job to pay for it.

b. Ground him or her immediately, thereby limiting the time we’re not within earshot.

c. Buy the newest, coolest, most technologically advanced phone on the market … and give them my old crappy one.

Scoring: If you answered all five questions – regardless of your answers – you at least care a little about your kids’ feelings. And that’s the coolest thing of all. Besides, parents aren’t supposed to be cool. They’re supposed to be parents. Congratulations.

(Dave Bundy is editorial director of the Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis and former editor of the Bismarck Tribune.)

By Dave Bundy, Suburban Journal of Greater St. Louis

Until recently, I was pretty sure I’d had an idyllic childhood.

My parents were – and still are – wonderful people. Even during my teenage years, when I was the smartest person in the world, I always suspected they might – in some limited areas — be smarter still.

I have beautiful memories of laughter-filled dinner conversations, family vacations, rain-soaked camping trips, magical Christmases and countless nights of Monopoly, card games or popcorn-fueled TV viewing.

But in the last month or so, I’ve become aware of a situation that casts doubt on at least one set of those memories – the TV viewing. Television wasn’t the center of my life, but with three major networks, a PBS station and probably an independent station in most markets, it was a cultural touchstone for everyone in a way it can’t be now that 300 million people are watching just about as many different channels.

But enough sociology. Back to my shattered memories.

My kids stumbled across a cable TV channel called Boomerang. It’s a 24-hour-a-day version of my mid-1970s Saturday morning. Laid out for my children and the rest of the world to enjoy as nostalgia or kitsch or irony are the TV shows that I set my Mickey Mouse watch to three and a half decades ago. 

Some of it – Popeye and Tom and Jerry – was nostalgia when I viewed it. Some of it – The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo – has remained part of popular culture thanks to bad movie remakes. Some of it – The Pink Panther, for instance – holds up beautifully as an example of all that was right with Saturday morning. And some of it is absolutely horrifying.

Though it made sense to me a long time ago, “The Perils of Penelope Pitstop” now seems the most inane show ever made. Yet my kids roll on the floor holding their bellies with laughter as the Anthill Mob saves Penelope from the Hooded Claw time and again, even while not realizing her tormenter is in reality her guardian, the none-too-subtly named Sylvester Sneakley.

“Josie and the Pussycats,” could be a close second. It took the least likely aspects of “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” and added a rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack. The band, the boyfriend/roadie and the rest of the entourage made Fred, Wilma, Daphne, Shaggy and Scoob look like Einsteins. And as if there weren’t enough dumb things for them to do on Earth, they tweaked the show after a couple years to make it “Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space.”

Somehow, though, back in 1974, with the sugar from a couple bowls of Qwisp cereal coursing through my veins, all this made more sense. I cared about Top Cat, Atom Ant, George Jetson and Huckleberry Hound. I always rooted for Yogi and Boo Boo to elude Ranger Smith and get the “pic-a-nic basket.” (Just to be clear, I always hated the Smurfs.) There was even something about Josie and her Pussycats — maybe it was those ears – that spoke to me.

Now I see my kids hoot and holler as they watch these shows. I can’t quite bring myself to ask them exactly what’s so funny about them. I once laughed at them. Maybe my kids are laughing with me. Or maybe just at me.

Maybe my four-year-old twins don’t see the gaping plot holes, the cringe-inducing stereotypes or the idiotic character development. Maybe they see the world – TV being only a small part of it – through the same 4-year-old eyes I had, eyes that bought the whole premise of “Thundarr the Barbarian.” 

Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter. At least they’re laughing. 

(Dave Bundy is editorial director for the Suburban Journal of Greater St. Louis and former editor of the Bismarck Tribune.)

By John Rosemond, McClatchy Newspapers

Stand-up parenting is a rare thing these days, and if my ears are properly set to the ground, becoming rarer all the time. Parents stand up when they prove to their children they mean exactly what they say. By so “meaning,” they become, in their children’s eyes, “mean.” Such was the case with a school-age boy who recently learned a valuable lesson in the hardest of ways.

At their most recent conference, the boy’s teacher told his parents that he was talking excessively in class and not following her directions very well.

The parents subsequently sat him down and told him that his participation in an upcoming field trip depended on his completely solving those problems. They made it perfectly clear that they were not willing to accept a partial solution.

Several days later, the teacher reported an incident. Two days later, she reported yet another. That evening, they told him he wasn’t going on the field trip, which was still ten days away. As one might expect, he had a major meltdown, during which he denied that his classroom behavior was a problem and threatened to be “really bad” if they didn’t change their minds. They stood their ground.

“For the next ten days,” wrote his mother, “we had the best-behaved son. The teacher even asked us to change our minds, calling our attention to his greatly improved classroom behavior.”

But they didn’t change their minds. They followed through as promised, telling me that if they hadn’t, the whole exercise would have been “a joke.”

Indeed, and a waste of everyone’s time and energy. Since that watershed event, the boy’s behavior has been sterling, both at home and at school. The mother writes, “The respect we saw after this one hard lesson was huge.

He now knows that his dad and I are on the same page and that we don’t say one thing and then do something else entirely.”

I know there are folks out there who will think these parents went too far, that they should have reconsidered their ruling after the teacher’s plea, and that in not doing so they were being unreasonable. I disagree, but then I believe in being “mean,” as previously defined. Therefore, I completely support what these parents did. They invoked what I call the Agony Principle:

Parents and teachers should not agonize over a child’s misbehavior if the child is perfectly capable of agonizing over it himself.

The Agony Principle embodies the fact that children have to learn some lessons the hard way. For this little boy, this was one such lesson. Had his parents let him go on the field trip, he would have learned nothing of value. He would have learned that when he gets himself in trouble, he can get himself out of it by playing contrite. He would have learned, in short, to be manipulative, to play games. Instead, he learned that when his parents lay down the law, he needs to pay close attention. In fact, he learned that he needs to make sure things never get to the point where his parents feel the need to lay down the law, because once they do, they are going to follow through.

These parents are throwbacks, for sure, by which I mean that they would have felt more at home fifty-plus years ago, when stand-up parenting was the norm. For example, when my parents told me, in January of 1960, that one more report of misbehavior from any of my teachers would result in me repeating the seventh grade, excellent grades notwithstanding, I believed them. The next day, and for the rest of the year, I held my ADHD in check. To this day, I absolutely know they would have followed through. Stories of that sort are not unusual in my generation. It’s unfortunate that today’s kids, by and large, are deprived of the same degree of certainty in their lives.

It is a fact that today’s kids are not as happy, as carefree, as kids in the 1950s. Childhood depression, once a relatively rare thing, is on the edge of epidemic today. The irony is that the 1950’s child was held to higher standards at home and at school, and the 1950’s parent was almost universally “mean.” I have to believe that there’s a correlation between “mean” parents and happy children. The research says as much. It says that the happiest, most well-adjusted children are also the best-behaved children. I simply propose that the parents in question say what they mean and mean exactly what they say.

___

(Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions on his Web site at www.rosemond.com.)

By Armin Brott, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Dear Mr. Dad: When my kids were young I worked a lot and wasn’t around as much as I wanted to be. But now that I’m retired and a grandfather, how can I make up for it and build strong relationships with my grandkids?

A: There’s no way to make up for lost time, but there are some excellent ways to be an active, involved part of your grandchildren’s life.

–Stay connected. Call, write, email, text, Skype, or twitter. There are tons of ways to keep in touch.

–Watch the unsolicited advice. Part of what makes the grandchild-grandparent relationship so satisfying for the child is that it doesn’t include most of the natural conflicts inherent in the relationship with parents. If you act like a parent, you’ll get treated like one — rejection included.

–Be there. If you live nearby, mark as many of their special occasions as possible (if you don’t, call or send a card). Spend some one-on-one time with each grandchild getting to know one another.

–Encourage variety. Take them to museums and concerts, share your hobbies with them, read to them, or better yet, tell them about your childhood and the “good old days” (even if you have to make something up!)

–Get to know them. Learn about what they’re interested in. Have them burn you a CD of their favorite bands, send you links to the blogs they read, and tell you about their hobbies. At the very least you’ll learn a ton about popular culture. You’ll also pick up some great birthday present ideas.

–Know their friends. Find out their names and what your grandkids see in them. Asking about friends and otherwise supporting the friendships shows your grandchildren you’re interested in them.

–Don’t be a Disneyland Grandpa. The term Disneyland Dad usually applies to non-custodial divorced fathers who try to fill every second with their kids with fun and games and treats. Plenty of grandparents do the same thing, buying extravagant gifts, eating every meal out, giving into their every whim, throwing discipline to the wind, and treating them like visiting royalty instead of children. It’s an easy trap to fall into, but eventually you’ll either run out of money or treats. When that happens, your grandkids will be so spoiled that they’ll either resent you for not giving them “their due,” or think you don’t love them anymore. Or both. Instead, try to make their time with you as normal as possible. Naturally, you’re going to indulge them a little — that’s what grandparents do. But don’t go overboard.

–Be patient. Tweens and teens may back away from you during their I-must-reject-everything phase. Don’t judge, just be there and let them know they have a safe place to land if they need anything.

–Don’t take sides. Never, ever, get in the middle of an argument between your children and grandchildren.

–Let your adult children live their own lives. Yes, you’re interested in their job prospects and you want to make sure they’re saving enough money to put your grandchildren through college. And yes, you want to make sure they’re married to the right person. But really and truly, none of that is your business. It’s fine to clip out an occasional article on something you think might interest your child. But barring real danger to life or limb, keep your advice to yourself unless it’s specifically asked for (including telling your child that he or she married an idiot).

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(Contact Armin Brott, armin@askmrdad.com, or visit his Web site, www.mrdad.com.)

By John Rosemond, McClatchy Newspapers

Regular readers of this column are no doubt familiar with my imaginary friend, The Doctor. I often call upon him to solve behavior problems of various sorts, from bedtime to toilet training, with young children. Well, he’s done it again! This time with separation anxiety; or, I should say, what many mental health professionals would call separation anxiety.

The child in question is a male, presently age 5. His mother attended a recent talk I gave in Durham, N.C., and shared this helpful and funny story with me. With her permission, I am passing it along. She asked only that I change her son’s name, so for our purposes he will be Frankie.

For some time, Frankie had been having a major problem with separation from his mother. Every time she took him to his preschool program or left him with a sitter, Frankie had a major meltdown. I emphasize major. He would scream, cling, become hysterical, and generally act like a nut case. Otherwise, mind you, Frankie was a normal kid in all respects. Oh, I should tell you: Frankie hates to take naps. I mean HATES.

Shortly before his fifth birthday, Frankie’s mom read a column of mine in which I described one of The Doctor’s miracle cures and decided to ask him to make a house call.

The afternoon following one of Frankie’s nut-case meltdowns over being taken to his preschool program, his mom sat him down and told him that she’d talked to his doctor about his little problem. The doctor, she said, was concerned and told her that Frankie is throwing “Don’t leave me!” fits because he’s not getting enough sleep.

“So,” she said to Frankie, “on those days when you have a fit because I leave you at your program, you have to take a nap. Your doctor says so. He also says you have to take a nap the next day if you have a fit over being left with a sitter at night. And Frankie, since you had a fit this morning, you have to take a nap this afternoon, right now.”

She promptly took Frankie to his room and put him to bed. After about 45 minutes of howling, screaming, crying, and pleading, he fell asleep. The next day, when his mom took him to his preschool program, he got out of the car and walked right in, with nary a backward glance. And Frankie hasn’t had a problem with separation since.

It’s fair to say that if Frankie’s mom had sought help from a mental health professional, there is considerable likelihood that Frankie would have been diagnosed with separation anxiety disorder. Said professional might well have taken Frankie into talk or play therapy in order to help him work through the supposed “issues” that were causing the problem. It’s anyone’s guess as to how much time and money this process might have taken (not to mention the cost of continuing consultations with Frankie’s parents). Furthermore, the therapy might not have resulted in progress (in fact, the problem might have grown worse in the meantime) in which case perhaps said MHP might have given Frankie yet another diagnosis and scheduled yet more treatment.

I’m not saying The Doctor is capable of curing all children who have problems separating from their parents. Nor am I saying that all such problems have no valid psychological cause. I am saying, however, that there are times when common sense trumps graduate school.

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(Family psychologist John Rosemond answers parents’ questions on his Web site at www.rosemond.com.)