Keep it Real and Grab a Plunger: 25 Tips for Surviving Parenthood

By Julie Nelson

Get the parenting results you want without stepping into the battle zone. Popular blogger, professor, and TV panelist Julie K. Nelson combines her professional expertise with her personal experience as a mom of five in this book. Humorous, insightful, and authentic, this must-read will help you enforce rules without manipulation or coercion, so you can be the parent you’ve always wanted to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cedar Fort Publishing & Media
• Release date: Feb 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781462124640

Book preview

Chapter 1

Keep It Real . . . and Grab the Fingernail Clippers

Just a Typical School Morning

Straight from my journal on 10/22/02

I wake up at 7:00 a.m. and take a shower. I wake the kids up at 7:15.

Daniel starts crying, so I get him out of his crib and find that he has thrown up in the middle of the night. He slept in pajamas and sheets soaked with his own vomit and I didn’t even know it.

I am overcome with guilt.

I start making french toast for breakfast and, at the same time, sack lunches for all the kids. I have to remember which kid likes which food and not to get the lunches mixed up (hold the mayo for Jared, no bologna for Rachel, whole sandwich for Jared, half for the girls, sliced orange for Kathryn, and applesauce for Emily and Jared, and so on). I have become an assembly line short-order cook.

Jared has ninth-grade school papers for me to sign, and I get a quick whiff of him. I suggest he might want to change his clothes from yesterday. He probably hasn’t showered in days either. It doesn’t work. He’s walking out the door in the same wrinkly, food-stained clothes at 7:40 to catch the bus.

Junior high school teachers don’t get paid nearly enough to marinate in classrooms all day with sweaty, hormonally ripe teenagers.

The girls begin the frantic search for clothes. We’re having the typical pants and socks crisis. Neither Emily nor Rachel can find either, and Rachel ends up with socks from yesterday and pants and shirt that don’t match. I don’t think it bothers her nearly as much as is does her mother. At least they dressed themselves. Emily wears pants that fit her last year but are too small for her this year. Oh well. We’ll just upgrade them to capris.

I try to wipe the guilt away but eat a full course of it for breakfast.

Kathryn begins practicing the piano. She has to transpose a song into every key signature, moving up half steps every time. She asks for help, and I try, but we’re in such a rush and I’m such a music-theory Neanderthal that we both give up in frustration.

I hope her piano teacher forgives us.

Kathryn’s sixth-grade class is studying Egypt, and she has to bring her Egyptian costume we made last night. It won’t win the prize for Most Authentic Costume of the Nile, but she now knows one more use for a bed sheet, burlap sack, and empty plastic milk jug. We bag it, and she grabs her lunch and homework. We get her hair combed, and at 7:55 a.m. we rush out the door to take her and Emily to early morning school choir practice.

Kathryn remembers it’s Sunglasses Day at school, so she relays the message for her younger sister, Rachel, to gather up sunglasses for them. When I get home, we go on a find the sunglasses treasure hunt around the house.

I smell a stink and notice Daniel needs a diaper change. Mental note to self—give him a bath soon!

8:15 a.m. I start violin practice with Rachel. Her fingernails are so gross that I tell her to stop and trim them. She resists, like always, and we start the clip-your-fingernails-or-else fight.

8:30 a.m. My husband calls from California and we talk about his business trip and Jared’s band concert last night. I solicit his help with Rachel and the fingernail clipping issue. He tells her he’s looking forward to coming home tonight and seeing her beautiful nails. It works.

8:40 a.m. I fix Daniel a bottle. He’s been neglected this morning. I’m tottering on the edge of patience and ready to fall off the cliff any moment now.

8:45 a.m. We resume the violin practice, and Rachel gets in a few minutes of screeching the latest Suzuki song, which makes me want to tear out my fingernails.

I hope her music teacher forgives us.

8:50 a.m. She quickly unloads the dishwasher before running out to the bus stop.

9:00 a.m. I fix Daniel a warm bath and we finally get him cleaned up. I get him changed into his clothes and get ready to take him to his one-year checkup and shots. His appointment is at 9:20 a.m. I wonder if Daniel is well enough to get his vaccinations today after throwing up last night.

Now where did I put his immunization card?

In my now-delicate level of sanity, I realize that I am still in my bathrobe. Can I throw a towel on my head to hide my hair and tell the nurse I just came from the spa?

9:30 a.m. I won’t get to the appointment on time. I hope the doctor forgives us. Nothing got cleaned up from this morning. I leave the house looking as frazzled as I feel.

Big decision when I come home: do I clean it up or take a nap?

You don’t want to know how the rest of my day went. Some days were just like this, particularly when the children were younger and needed more assistance. As they grew older and I grew smarter, they did more for themselves, like packing their own lunches. I learned how to be a more efficient mom.

Our schedule wasn’t always this hectic either. We had many quiet, peaceful mornings too. In later years, the house hummed along while all I did was kiss them good-bye.

This was just an ordinary school day with five busy youngsters. It made up the rhythm of life with ups and downs and everything in between, much like the notes my children played every morning. It took diligence, patience, and practice to get through each day and appreciate the music.

Some days just screech like dirty fingernails scratching out a tune on a cheap violin. Other days, you just weep at the progress you both are making and how beautiful the harmony sounds.

I’m never going to be close to perfect, but I keep practicing. Every day. It gets better with practice, I promise.

And I try to keep my fingernails trimmed.

Chapter 2

Keep It Real . . . and Put Down the Pop-Tarts

Encouragement and Praise

Which is better when helping children develop self-worth: encouragement or praise? Is one better than the other, or are they both valuable? That’s like asking who is a better parent: mom or dad? (Don’t answer that!) Both are valuable and make distinctive contributions. However, these two approaches are often misunderstood, neglected, or misused. Perhaps you always thought they were the same. I’ll summarize each, and then you can decide how and when to use them.

At its core, encouragement builds intrinsic worth and the opportunity to use positive self-talk. It turns an incident into a teaching opportunity where the child can evaluate his or her own effort. It offers more open-ended conversation between the child and parent.

Praise, on the other hand, is externally driven, with the parent doing the evaluating and talking. It is frequently a closed-ended conversation, with the good job punctuating the interaction and not much following. However, it is a feel-good moment between the parent and child.

Praise is the Pop-Tart of parental feedback. It is easy to fix, easy to serve and digest, and gives you a sugar and carb buzz for a short while. Encouragement is the longer-lasting (insert your favorite healthy snack here) approach—the one that stays with you and steadies your performance. Too many praise Pop-Tarts without a balanced diet weakens a child’s ability to realize his or her own potential.

I’ll share a recent example that contrasts praise and encouragement. My son sang a solo for the first time to a large audience, and he looked a little troubled afterward. Praising him would have seemed a natural response to build his confidence and reassure him. Daniel, that was super singing. Good job. However, he was unsure of himself and might have felt what I said was disingenuous and not believed me. He might have felt invalidated because I didn’t notice or acknowledge his lack of confidence in his abilities. He also might have felt dismissed like I had just said my part of the one-sided conversation and ended our discussion.

Encouragement required that I go deeper and put down the Pop-Tart. It involved validation and empathetic listening. Our conversation went something like this instead:

Daniel, what did you think about your song?

I don’t know.

Did you feel good or bad about it?

I don’t think it was very good.

Why not?

I don’t like singing in front of people.

Oh. That makes you uncomfortable?

Yes. I’d rather just sing with the choir.

I see. That’s something good to know for the future. But how do you feel you sang the song? Did you get the words and notes right? Do you think the audience appreciated it?

Yeah, I got it right and they liked it. Lots of people told me so.

Oh, you had lots of people come up afterward and tell you they thought you sang well?

Yes.

So aside from feeling uncomfortable, how do you feel you sang?

I guess pretty well.

You have a good voice?

Yeah, I do.

In this second example, I was able to help my son do a more mature reflection on his own. I became his guide toward self-discovery as he processed and verbalized his own feelings. I took the time to help him develop esteem rather than telling him what to think and feel. Encouragement steers the child toward having positive rather than negative impressions of him- or herself.

So is praise bad? No. I use it quite often! It is especially useful with babies, toddlers, and preschoolers as we shape their understanding of themselves, set boundaries of what is right and wrong behavior, and describe our expectations for them. If the task doesn’t require a child to evaluate his or her effort, a quick thank you so much—well done does the job. It takes little effort, but it gives a child plenty of verbal high fives throughout the day.

Encouragement steers the child toward having positive rather than negative impressions of him- or herself.

Yet praise can become a parent’s default button because it is so easy to use. Super job. I’m so proud of you. Way to go. Too much praise and too little encouragement can feed a parent’s ego instead of teaching a child to feed his or her own. It can create a Pop-Tart praise junkie in an older child. Children who only hear what their parents think of them and don’t create their own mental and emotional narratives will more often look to their parents for approval. The danger of having a child seek approval from outside sources, including peers, is alarming.

A mother told me how her parents raised her on a diet of praise and little to no encouragement. She became a pleaser, willing to do anything for their approval. Performance was what mattered, not her motivation or effort. Somewhere along the way, she lost a sense of who she was by over-identifying with her parents. It caused tremendous difficulties in her adult life as anxiety took hold because she had not learned to develop an inner voice to calm and support herself. Perfectionism became her master. The man she married controlled every aspect of her life, because she needed someone to replace the role of her parents. She was aware that many factors contributed to her situation and ultimate divorce, but still felt a longing for a childhood with parents who had given her opportunities to exercise self-confidence, independence, and satisfaction with her best effort, no matter what.

Few parents reflect on the value of encouragement and its long-term effects. Instead, they praise their child to check off a positive parenting task on their daily to-do lists.

If you find yourself to be a Pop-Tart parent, you might want to increase your awareness of encouragement and how to use it more often. Here are four proactive points to consider:

Be Child Focused Rather Than Parent Focused

Kids are usually hungry for approval. Don’t exploit their dependence on an emotional reward from us. Working for a treat or a good word can have short-term benefits. We are stealing an opportunity for children to take delight in their own efforts. Withholding encouragement and waiting only to praise them when they meet their parent’s approval might be feeding the parent’s Pop-Tart ego. The message could be interpreted, Thank you for making me look good. I only care when you excel.

Independence is what children must eventually achieve in order to live on their own. They move to a new physical location, but can they move on emotionally without you? Too often children turn to parents for every thought, feeling, and action. How did I do, Dad? Do you like my science project? Rather than looking to you, ask your child first to say something good about what he or she did. It is better to hear, Hey, Dad. I did this! Then you can affirm what is already known by the child: Awesome! That’s gotta feel good.

We want to raise strong-thinking, motivated, self-assured people. If we focus on children’s evaluation of themselves rather than always giving them our thoughts, it helps them develop self-esteem. They are more motivated to keep themselves in the game, so to speak, with positive self-talk.

Here is a child-focused parent: How are you doing on that song? You’ve practiced every day this week on the piano. Self-reflection is a powerful tool that is part of encouragement. Accordingly, use mirror talk. Turn around that picture she just painted and show it to her. What does she see? What is her favorite part? How long did it take her? Did she try hard?

Motivate the Child through Encouragement and Not Just Value Statements

Sure, there is applause and a free T-shirt after crossing the race finish line. The beginning and end of a marathon are the most exhilarating parts. Long-distance runners, however, need the most cheering in the middle of the race when their minds are their worst enemies.

The term hitting the wall graphically describes the point when fatigue tempts the runner to quit. For that purpose, water and first aid stations and encouraging signs are strategically placed to replenish the runner emotionally and physically. Ideally, he or she has also learned about the positive self-talk mentioned in point #1 for a boost of energy from within.

For life’s marathons, parents can set up equivalent water stations and friendly You can do it! signs. It can be discouraging to keep plugging away in a difficult subject in school, continue playing during an entire sport season, or practice for the never-ending musical instrument lessons. More than one child has wanted to literally hit the wall in frustration. My mother was the queen of encouraging notes during my childhood. I found little goodies wrapped in friendly notes on my bedroom pillow, in my lunch box at school, and in my bags at summer camps.

Both praise and encouragement should be present in a child’s life. We all need cheerleaders along the way as well as someone to be at the finish line to congratulate us for a job well done.

Praise = Value Judgment

Example: You got such good grades. I’m so proud of you! Let’s go out and get some ice cream to celebrate straight As. There are high fives all around. (The focus is on the parent’s feelings).

Encouragement = Motivation

Example: Let’s see what you’ve been working on in school. Which assignment is most challenging? How much are you studying for the next math test? Do you need any help from me? Is there any subject you could improve in? (The focus is on the child’s feelings).

I’ve never seen children beg to clean their bedrooms. If you have a child who likes to clean his or her room, I know some scientists who would like to come to your house to study such a rare specimen. For the rest of us, it can be an ongoing battle that wears down the parent and child, with one of them eventually giving up.

A discouraged child languishes in the unclean room. If he or she finally cleans the seemingly insurmountable mess, a parent’s impulse is to remark, You got it done. Good work. That response acknowledges the clean room, but it does not validate the child’s valiant effort. An encouraging parent knows that the marathon of cleaning requires that he or she appear in the bedroom to cheer on the child from time to time.

A dad with a sense of humor popped his head around the corner of his daughter’s bedroom door as she half-heartedly cleaned her room. He mimicked a sport announcer, voicing the play-by-play action: She’s making progress, folks! The clothes are off the floor. The bed is nearly made. And the crowd roars (fake cheering followed). What will she do next? The daughter just smiled. His visits were first aid to her weary soul.

Here’s another example of encouragement after a soccer practice: What skill did you work on today? Where is your greatest area of improvement? Great coaches use both praise (immediate, short-term reward) and encouragement (lasting inspiration). So should parents.

Be Process Oriented Rather Than Outcome Oriented

While a child is working on a project or developing a skill, it takes a caring, conscientious parent to build the child’s self-awareness along the way. Both parent and child should take time to notice the process rather than the product or outcome. Only one person can win the race. There is only one class president. There is only one blue ribbon. Does that mean all the rest are losers? Not if we focus on what the child is learning along the way.

One of my daughters played tennis in high school and kept losing matches. As she processed each game, we asked her how she and her doubles partner were getting along, how she was enjoying the team, how exciting the matches were, and how she thought the skills she was developing would help her. On the last game of the season, she and her partner won. You should have seen the excitement! Over the years, the memory of how many games she won has faded. How she feels about herself remains.

Recognize Character Rather Than Rewards

If we are process oriented, we are interested not only in how the project is going or how the skills are being developed but also in how the child’s character is forming. We would never want our child to win first place if that meant he or she cheated. A teenager doesn’t learn much about effort if he or she receives an A on a paper