I have had the enormous honor to raise three young girls for about a decade.  All of them are now elementary school age, but my memories of preschool and toddler years are not far away in my mind.  I cannot and never do profess to be anywhere near a perfect parent.  I do my best, but I’ve made my share of mistakes.  That said, I’d like to go ahead and share what I feel is a pretty solid recipe for disaster as a parent.  The retail store child-meltdown.

Unfortunately, sometimes we parents are partly to mostly at fault for it.  We know better, but just try to keep our fingers crossed because we have to get X, Y, or Z done right then.  Parents maybe hope for and mean the best, but get frustrated because they neglect the truth about young kids.  They can only handle so much at a time, and it is often less than you would wish for.  There’s no getting around that.

The reason I’m writing this post is because I saw something the other day that really stood out to me.  I witnessed a mom doing each of the things I am about to list.  She may have been thinking it would all work out OK, but I can’t really guess.  All I know is that everyone got to see and hear everything.

Here’s my recipe for a good old fashion store meltdown for your young kids:

1.  Take your young preschool age kids out shortly after lunch, right around nap time.  Here’s the truth – they are usually very tired.  I rarely had success when I tried taking my preschool-aged children out at that time without a nap.  Unless you have some kind of emergency, and I don’t mean a shopping emergency, just stay home or get a sitter at that time of the day!

2.  Be sure your voice is louder than your child’s, and right in their face.  What’s a preschooler supposed to take from that?  They aren’t listening to the words you say, I mean shout.  Not really.  They are mostly responding …

This week marks the 40th anniversary of an iconic show of my childhood.  Heck, when I was a kid, it was THE show.  Not much other competition that I can remember, and I believe that’s why they created it.  My how times have changed for the child and parent searching for good stuff on TV.

Obviously, Sesame Street is still on TV these days, and I believe it still has the same education nurturing spirit.  Unfortunately, it has lost some of it’s cultural significance because of the huge number of children’s TV programs available now.  But parents who grew up on it know to look for Sesame Street online and on TV.  My only real programming gripe is that half the show seems to be dedicated to just one character – Elmo.

My mom said I went to Kindergarten reading for one reason only – Sesame Street.  I apparently took to their format well and translated what I learned into my first years at school.  Repetition with music, dance numbers, skits between puppets and humans, little cartoon vignettes.  I still count to twelve sometimes with the ladybug picnic song because it’s so darn catchy.  And that immediately reminds me of the popular animated pinball segment that counted to twelve with funk rock music.  To this day I have a good appreciation of funk rock as well as counting to twelve.

I wasn’t watching pointless ‘tween sitcoms on Nick, weird shows on Cartoon Network, or an endless stream of hard-to-tell-apart little kid cartoons.  And don’t get me wrong, there are several shows for young kids out there today that are good and creative.  I’m just saying that with Sesame Street, I know my mom could sit with me and enjoy the whole hour long show along with me if she wanted.  I’m not so sure I can easily find such a delicate balance between kid and parent enjoyment from other shows.

Another key aspect is the incredible use of great music on the show from contemporary performers.  I saw a video on YouTube by Stevie Wonder that blew me …

Many parents now set aside decent sized chunks of money to fund their children’s college education.  Not everyone can do this, but it is certainly something many parents work at for years.  So when you finally start sending off some of that hard earned money and you find that your child is behaving badly, what can you do?

Here’s the crux of the issue – whoever is paying has the power.  If you are supporting your child through college, your financial support is there because you are helping them bridge the gap on the good faith that they will do their best and graduate with a degree.  But remember, it’s on a good faith assumption – they have to hold up their part of it.

What if a worst-case-scenario happens?  You find out they’ve been getting low grades and blowing off their responsibilities.  By all rights, you have every reason to pull your funding immediately – no matter how distressing that may be to your child.  You could decide to give them another chance to redeem themselves, but you would need to make your terms very clear so they understand you won’t be giving them a free ride for nothing.

You can also turn this approach to fit an adult child who is living at home for a while until they “get back on their feet.”  If your child is contributing to the good of the household in some way and being a decent person, you probably have something good to work with.  If that doesn’t sound like your situation, then you need to reevaluate what’s going on.

For example, if your son is living at home to save up money because he’s getting married in four months and has housing lined up for him and his new bride, you are probably going to be fine.  If he doesn’t keep a job for more than a few months and doesn’t seem like he looks motivated to get back out there, you will need to firm up your plan.

What is your agreement between you and your child?  Do you …

I found this interesting article on an Everyday Health e-newsletter that I received this morning.  It discusses the results of a study claiming that having children adds to the happiness of a married couple, but not so much for unmarried parents.

As I always say when referencing studies, this is just ONE study.  No one single study, no matter how awesome it may be, can possibly tell the whole story about a problem, situation, or subject area.  There are simply too many variables that can affect the outcome, even if there are good controls.  The more studies done on a specific “scientific question”, particularly replicating original research conditions, the more reliable the results.

That being said, the result are interesting and worth looking into.  This study apparently measured life satisfaction with the addition of children, with both married and unmarried parents.  One of the researchers suggest that if a couple is married, that signals some amount of readiness or at least willingness to become a parent.  Single or separated parents would obviously have a tougher road as well.  Even if the other parent lives  nearby, it’s not the same as having everyone under the same roof acting as a family team every day.

I would add further a bit more about the difference of a couple living together and a couple being married and living together.  A couple cohabiting together may believe that they are acting as husband and wife, but truthfully there is no lifelong commitment made.  There is no official obligation to be faithful, anyone could leave at any time or get in touch with ex’s, there’s not much red tape to untie, no vows made before others to signify complete devotion to each other.

Marriage really is more than just a piece of paper – it’s also a mindset and a life-altering decision.  To use a phrase from the researcher quoted in the article, I’m concluding that cohabiting is probably not one of those “right conditions” that helps people feel happier or more ready for parenthood.  I have seen enough in my counseling …

Hello dear Family Mental Health readers.  Due to an inclusion in an Everyday Health newsletter, my blog post “Can You Step Away From a Hurtful Family Relationship?” post got a tremendous response.  If you are now a new reader because you saw that post and have come back for more, “Welcome.”  Stay a while and take a look around the blog.

First, WOW.  So many of you are enduring very difficult family dynamics.  Mean behavior, family favoritism, verbal and physical abuse, legal issues, flat-out crappy petty behavior, and more.  My heart goes out to you who are either working your lives around that or have maybe decided you’ve had enough and backed off.  That’s a lot of stress and pain to put up with.

Another topic that struck me was about being there for family.  A few people also brought up unconditional love.  I like somebody’s response that made the distinction between your loving feeling toward that person and your tolerance of awful treatment.  You could feel love out of sentiment that they were your child, mother, or whomever, but it didn’t mean you needed to become a martyr for them.  You didn’t need to subject yourself to constant punishment just because you shared blood ties with them.

I think this is an important point.  Yes, in many ways, family is there to be a safety net, a group of people you could count on for support because you shared a history and connection.  And in an ideal world, unconditional love and an incredible amount of patience would be present between all family members.  I mean it.  Acceptance, a soothing presence, demonstration of affection – these would go a long way towards creating safe havens for everyone.

Being loving, considerate, responsible, selfless, courteous, respectful is generally learned behavior.  If the family isn’t capable of teaching all that, chances are good that each generation will have lots of problems.  There are some stand-out people that make it through a difficult family and still turn out well.  But many don’t, and they haven’t the foggiest clue how to …