Look Out, I’M Parenting Here: A Survival Guide for the Single Parent

By Ted D. Moss III

Look Out, Im Parenting Here is a must read for anyone who is taking on the challenge of raising toddlers. This no-nonsense narrative is easily one of the best reference guides on the market today.

In a society where families are now spread across the country and young parents have little or no extended family support, Look Out, Im Parenting Here relates the basic concepts of good traditional parenting in a friendly and easy to understand manner. Just as you would with a relative or trusted friend, you will find good sound advice on many basic issues that face all new parents.

As you head into the ever changing maze of a full time career while trying to raise small children, this book will provide you insight into the many tasks at hand while offering you hope and promise for the future. Single or married, the challenges of raising young children are the same. Look Out, Im Parenting Here will give you solutions that really work in the voice of someone who has been down this road before.

However this books greatest gift may just be a better understanding of how precious these years are to both you and your kids. You will find new ways of turning your daily turmoil into harmony and really start to enjoy being a parent. These can be some of the best times of your life, if you understand the people with whom you are sharing these years, your children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462016631

Ted D. Moss III

Ted D. Moss III is the father of four children with 34 years of parenting experience. He was married at the age of 21 while still in college and divorced before the age of 30. When his marriage ended, he chose to be actively involved in his children’s lives and was granted joint physical custody when they were just 2 and 4 years of age. Remarried at the age 37, he has had the unique opportunity of raising two more children while watching his older kids become adults. Ted now lives in Fenton Michigan with his wife Teresa and their two teenage daughters, Brooklynn and Samantha. He enjoys golfing, writing and spending time with his family. His oldest daughter Kyle, has worked on Wall Street is now married, living in Los Angles, and works in New Media Development for a large media company. His son Teddy has traveled the country as singer/song writer and now resides in Chicago.

Book preview

THE EVOLUTION OF TED’S FAMILY

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PART ONE

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1. Let Love Be Your Guide

Let the love you hold in your heart for your children always be your guide. Whether it is applying the strategies of this book or the well-meaning counsel of friends and family, know that no words of advice are perfect. History has time and time again proven that regardless of good intentions, any standards set for the caring of children will someday be found to be flawed. You, as your toddler’s ultimate guardian, should always try to error on the side of love.

Your primary responsibility to your children is to nurture and love them. When things are not going right and you feel tested, seek the compassion and understanding within your heart; which will help you to be the loving parent that your babies deserve.

My oldest daughter, (now happily married,) was in town a while back, and told me she was thinking about having children. We had a little conversation about being a parent and how it feels to have a child.

When asked about the bond of love, I told her this: "There are many kinds of love you will experience, throughout your life. They will range from your first crush to deep devotion, but none will be like the love that you will have for your children. It is really a unique feeling. I wish I could tell you, that you were so compelling as a newborn that I couldn’t help but love you so deeply. But that would probably not be correct.

The simple truth is every child is different. Their relationship with their mother and father, and their parent’s expression of love for that child varies to accommodate that individual. The common factor is that parents are by nature deeply bonded to their children. This serves for the child’s protection and survival. This bond is recognized in the parents as a deep feeling of love and caring for their children.

So if you want to know about a parent’s love, and how I really feel about you, the truth is that it’s something as unique as you are and I really do not have the words to describe it. However, if you have children someday, you will know then.

There will come a day when you hear a little voice calling for you from a bedroom. When you enter, your toddler’s outstretched arms over the crib rails will be waiting for you. As your baby sees you, a big smile will come over their face. Their feet will begin to stomp with anticipation. Then as you lift this little person into the warmth and comfort of your arms, stop for a moment, close your eyes, and think about me. Then will you truly know the way I feel, and how much I love you."

I think there is nothing more important than this. As we go through this experience of parenting and we address the many issues with our toddlers, I think we should always temper our actions with the feelings of love that we have for them.

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2. Create Structure

Anytime you have small children in the house you can expect chaos until YOU provide structure. Structure is just a basic framework of social behaviors which are considered to be appropriate. Once properly established, behaviors outside the framework of this structure will be understood to be inappropriate.

You may think, with a small child, this could be difficult to establish. But really it is quite simple. As a matter of fact, you have probably already developed some structure for behaviors in your toddler’s life.

You can begin by deciding what basic behaviors are required on a regular basis. It is best to start with behaviors that are overt and clearly obvious as to whether or not they are being observed.

Here are a few examples of simple structured behaviors.

1). We say excuse me, when others are talking and we want to speak.

2). We brush our teeth every night before we go to bed.

3). We take off our shoes when we come into the house.

These are not extremely important behaviors and certainly have nothing to do with the child’s safety or survival. However, there are literally thousands of social behaviors that you will need to introduce to your children as they grow, which will ultimately impact their lives.

Just as our society has standards of acceptable behavior, it is necessary for you to make specific decisions about what will fly and what will not fly in your home. By so doing, you will educate them on the best way to navigate their world, which is primarily your home today, but will be expanding tomorrow.

If you just think about it, I will bet that you have already done a little of this. Certainly by now you have established some survival rules for the safety of your toddler, such as no don’t touch that, it’s hot! Your kids have understood and accepted these rules. Therefore, you must have presented these things in a clear and consistent manner.

What you need to do now is fold some simple structure into their social behavior. Start by presenting social rules in the same simple and clear way, as you did when it came to presenting rules about their personal safety. This will establish which behaviors are expected in certain situations and which behaviors are unacceptable.

Once you decide which rule you want to start with, you then must clearly communicate this to your toddler. Key to accomplishing this is the way in which you present it. Your toddler certainly understands when you are serious about other things. You need to use the same tactics with social structure. Be clear, pointed, and direct. Believe it or not, your toddler will pick on the fact that you are serious.

Keep it pretty basic to start and you can add as you go. You can begin by just stating the rule or desired behavior to your toddler. Then you must take the time to have your toddler repeat the rule back to you. You should encourage them to state it in their own words. I cannot stress enough how important this is. If they just parrot the same words back to you, this does not show that they have captured the idea. When they can say it back in their own words it shows that they have a reasonable understanding of what is expected of them.

A lot of parents are quite good at this and to many it comes very naturally. I think parents learn to teach in this style simply because it works. When the parents are receiving positive reinforcement for these mini-conversations, they also learn to repeat this method. So your child, by responding in a positive way, is actually teaching you to be a better parent.

I love Dr. Phil’s question: How’s that working for you? We need to keep this in mind. If our parenting technique is not working for us we need to consider changing our method or tactic until it does.

Your toddler’s behavior will tell you when you get it right. It makes no sense to continue communicating to them by methods that consistently do not work. So be a little flexible with your communication technique. You will find that some children respond better to one style, while others will learn quicker with another. There is no sense in continuing a style that is not working. However, regardless of the style you use, try to be specific and to the point. Long, droning on explanations are not effective and will be lost on your child.

Notice how all of the above examples of structure state: We do this or We do that. This means that the structure (or rule) has to be obeyed by everyone, including you. You can always make exceptions to this by saying children must but it is not nearly as convincing and lacks the same level of commitment. However, saying children do not drive cars, light matches or drink beer may be lines you want to draw even though the exceptions may be hard for the toddler to comprehend. But remember, to your child this really does confuse the issue.

So to begin, make sure your rules are inclusive and apply to everyone in the home. Also make sure that you continue to obey the rule. You may not realize it, but your toddler will notice if others are not obeying the rules.

As your toddler sees you obeying the rule, it becomes more pronounced in their mind. Over the months and years you will come to see your little ones copying a lot of the behaviors that he sees in you, both good and bad.

When introducing your child to a new behavior you expect, do not make the mistake of explaining the logic behind the rule. This is a major no-no and a trap many parents fall into. Explaining the reasoning in any more than four words is not only a waste of time and energy, it is anti-productive. First of all you will lose them in your logic. And just as sure as you are reading this, they will tune you out and not hear anything that you are saying.

Justifying or debating your decisions on proper social behavior with a toddler is also just as futile. Allowing debate will also reward resistance from your child and encourage them to debate everything you tell them to do.

Just think about it. Does your child have any basis to decide what is and is not socially acceptable behavior? No! Will you toddler eventually give in and surrender to your logic? No! Do you look a little silly debating with a three year old? Yes! So just make the call. Tell them what you expect them to do. Don’t be one of those parents I see out at the grocery store arguing with the toddler seated in their cart as to what will or will not be place in the basket. Take charge when you make a decision; after all, you are the parent.

Now that you have stated the rule, enforce it. Then, POOF you have structure and little by little the chaos will subside. I know what you are saying, Enforce it? How do I do that? Well just read on, maybe I can help.

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3. Be Consistent

It is terribly difficult for anyone to obey any set of rules if the rules keep changing. You need to recognize that your toddler will not be able to recognize situations which may call for different behaviors. For instance; they will not know that their behavior at a restaurant should be any different than their behavior at the dinner table at home.

You need to know that if you do not consistently enforce a rule, it appears to your child as being an optional behavior, subject to whether or not you may be enforcing it today, and also it becomes discretionary to them. This means they may only abide by the rule when they feel like it.

A golf coach once told me Practice does not make perfect. Only PERFECT PRACTICE makes perfect. We should keep this in mind while parenting. It would be unreasonable to practice one behavior at home repeatedly and then expect another behavior out in public.

Years ago I used to have a friend that I ran with occasionally. We both competed in numerous 10K road races and would practice 3 to 5 times a week. He also subscribed to the delusion that he could practice one thing and expect a different results come race day.

He would always want to practice at a 9 to 10 minute mile pace and I would want to run sub 8 minute miles. He felt that if he did enough 9 to 10 minute miles his body would become better conditioned and that he would be able to perform to a higher level when it counted.

As you might guess it was the same every race day. I would finish averaging at a pace which was a little under 8 minutes per mile, and he would finish averaging about 9 minutes per mile. And while he was quite frustrated by this, he never seemed to get the connection between what he practiced and the result he would get. Don’t let this be your failing.

We as parents know that rules of conduct or proper behavior vary depending upon the situation. Therefore you will most likely try to enforce rules when you are out in public that may be different than the ones you enforce at home. While this makes perfect sense to us, it is really quite confusing for your toddler. Eventually the discretionary application of rules of proper social behavior, dependent upon situation, will become a core lesson you will need to teach your children. However, this will come easier as they grow older and develop a keener social awareness.

An example of this dichotomy would be our understanding that behaviors which are acceptable at home may not be appropriate for the work place. If we look at this even closer we find that even within the same environment, appropriate behavior may vary dependent upon the people we are with. Certainly the language we use to get a point across may vary dependent upon if we are speaking to our buddy, the truck driver as opposed to the language we would use with a priest or a nun.

The concept of varied application of rules of social conduct is well beyond the grasp of your toddler. Remember that there is no reason to expect them to adhere to rules that just seem to be changing all the time. So moms and dads don’t be disappointed. Understand if presented improperly, they are just not going to get it. Therefore, you must change either your expectation or you presentation.

With small children it is important to start with just the basics. Make a point to establish reasonable rules of behavior expected in most all circumstances. Then learn to enforce them consistently. Share these rules with others who care for your children to make sure you are all on the same page. If all of your children’s caregivers enforce the same rules all the time, good behavior is pretty easily attained.

For the exceptions I will share with you the rule of three. This is an unwritten rule that applies to most social situations and believe it or not, you probably already abide by it.

The rule states that if you do anything three times in a row it becomes your job. Not only will others