What Do Our Children Want Us to Know? (15 Tips)

Over the years, as I meet for counseling with children and teens, I often wish parents could listen in and be moved by their children's reflections about what they really need and want. It isn't stuff. If we can think about the great honor it is to become a parent, it puts our hearts in the right place. Instead of mold children into shapes, I like to think of parents being curious about who we've been sent, and doing your best to help them develop their skills, abilities and unique interests.

So, what do children want from parents?

1. Not to be compared to others: siblings, classmates, or you at their age. Don't play favorites.

2. Listen, really listen from the heart.

3. Put down our phones and tablets and be present.

4.  Give our attention. Our children and teens want it, and if they can't get it in a positive attention, they will often try for negative attention.

5.  Offer constancy and predictability. Children like the structure of family dinners, activities, movie nights, and bedtimes. Teens need all these things, too, even though they give pushback. (It's their job to push away from us.)

6. Give encouragement. Notice their strengths. Comment on hard work, effort and improvement.

7.  Provide acceptance. Our children need us to accept their innate temperament, their body type, their interests. If your child is an introvert, don't try to 'remake' them into an extrovert.

8.Don't lecture. It makes your kids tune out.

9. Don't embarrass them. If you have to discipline, do it in private. Watch pictures you post about them on social media, that they don't embarrass.

10. Be a good role model. Work on yourself. They learn more from what you do than what you say. By being kind, treating other people well, picking up after yourself, working hard, etc. you teach these things best.

11. Remember it's not YOUR childhood, and they're not YOU. Don't try to get them to ice skate, play lacrosse, be on debate team, major in accounting or become a doctor because you did or you wish you did. We call that projection, and it's not fair.

12. Have some fun together. All of life shouldn't be a drag. Kids often tell me they wish they could engage and play more with parents. Think board games, outings, hiking, biking, baking, crafting, art, and more.

13. Teach them skills. Self-esteem comes from feeling capable. Have them tell you things they want to learn. Keep teaching independent living skills all the way along, as it's age appropriate. Even four year-olds can set the table, and enjoy helping.

14. Help them understand their emotions. Don't tell them not to feel what they are feeling.  Let them know that all feelings are okay, it's your internal experience and it's understanding it that's key. Help them to sort out what they are feeling, and how to express it to others.

15. Don't yell.  It makes you scary. It doesn't motivate your children to do better. Speak calmly and carry reasonable consequences you can follow through with.


Think of your child as you would a beautiful sunset at the beach, or a rose that's opening. You wouldn't critique them as not quite the right color. You wouldn't judge them as not as good as others,  not smart enough or pretty enough. You accept them for the unique gifts they bring to life. We need to value each child or teen for their uniqueness, what they bring to teach us and give to the planet.

Thanksgiving Blessings: Appreciating What You Have

As the calendar turns to Thanksgiving this week, it seems a good time to reflect on the blessings, people, and things we have in our lives, as well as being grateful for the bad stuff we don't have. Thornton Wilder wrote "We are most alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." Too often, I see people take the special people in their lives for granted, not realizing the true value of those closest to them.

In his book,"How to Want What You Have: Discovering the Magic and Grandeur of Ordinary Existence" (Holt and Company,1995), therapist Timothy Miller does a brillant job of illuminating the grass is greener sort of longing that many people have, assuming that some other path taken in life would be more satisfying. Many people make the mistake of thinking, "If I just had this, life would be perfect."

Wanting what you have, and seeing the goodness in it is the surest way to create satisfaction, contentment, and joy. As Miller suggests, daily practice of compassion, attention, and gratitude is the surest way to be content.We all will do better at this some days than others, and that's okay. Contentment and happiness are not steady states of being. It is in cultivating the daily habits of compassion, attention, and gratitude that we become better at creating a receptiveness for appreciating the little joys of daily life.

It is a mistake to tell ourselves that we will be happy when....(we finish college, get married, get our dream job, have a certain amount of money, have children, get the house we want, get divorced, or move someplace else, etc.). It's elusive. Wherever you go, there you are, so we need to be able to enjoy now as an incredible gift, making the most of each day and each interaction. We want to keep a keen awareness of how good it is to love others, to be loved, to feel strong and healthy, to enjoy sunsets and nature, to appreciate art and music, and all the other little things that make life worth living. Loving life is in the details of our ordinary days.

Miller points out, wisely, that the desire for more often does harm. It does indeed. I have worked with a number of individuals in counseling over the years who really regreted losing something precious, like a relationship, because they didn't realize how valuable it was. Sometimes people put what is most important in their lives at risk in order to have something they falsely believe is more or different. Note how many celebrities are successful in their careers, but unsuccessful as partners or parents.

Focusing on identifying non-compassionate thoughts, about yourself and others, and replacing them with compassionate ones is a good start in cultivating more contentment. Next, act compassionately. Move away from the judgement of others. It is not your job, and it will not bring you inner peace. Be as attentive as possible to others, and be observant of yourself. Finally, practice living in reverence and gratitude. Express your gratitude to others.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to refocus ourselves on what is most important. Don't miss an opportunity to tell someone close to you this week what you love or appreciate about them. Contentment has a great deal to do with being here now, and recognizing goodness, beauty, support, and love. If you want to truly prepare your heart for Thanksgiving, and feel really blessed, consider all the gifts that you have in your life that money cannot buy. I have a number of people in my life that I feel blessed to be close to, and then there are those two crazy golden retrievers who are pretty wonderful, too.

Hope Springs: Don't Ignore Your Partner

I had the pleasure of seeing the new film Hope Springs recently. I saw it with the perfect audience for this film, lots of bright seniors at a late afternoon matinee in Santa Barbara, California. They laughed continuously at all the truths packed in that movie about long-time committed relationships, and what happens if nobody's paying attention to the relationship. Basically, continental drift has occurred between the movie's lead characters, Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones.  Meryl is desperately unhappy and enrolls them in week-long intensive couples’ counseling a few states away with therapist Steve Carrell. What follows is funny, true, and touching.

I won't spoil the ending for you, but I thought I'd highlight a few of the universal relationship principles the movie explores. Here are some:

1.      Don't ignore your partner. They are not a potted plant. They are a living, breathing person that needs to have your attention, love, and listening ear.

2.      When couples drift apart, there is often (although not always) a part of that distance that each partner contributed to.

3.      In relationships, you sometimes need to decide if you want to be right, or you want to be happy. Choose peace if and when you can.

4.      Physical intimacy is like glue that contributes to a couple being closer. We all need to touch and be touched. We need to be open-minded and expressive about what we want, and how we like to be touched and courted, even by a long-term partner. Don't assume you know what your partner wants. Ask them! People usually change and evolve over time. Try to keep the intimacy thread going.

5.      Couples need some of their own activities, identity, and time apart. It's refreshing, and when you get back together you have more to bring to each other. Couples who are always together can emotionally suffocate each other.

6.      Take warning if your partner is very unhappy. The worst kind of loneliness can occur when you are in a relationship and yet feel the other person doesn't truly try to understand you or meet your needs. A number of my patients have told me over the years that they find this worse than being alone. Don't ignore this red flag and then act surprised when your beloved departs.

7.      Express appreciation that you feel for your partner. Nobody I know likes to be taken for granted.

8.      We're not getting any younger. Don't miss opportunities to join your partner in some fun activity or snuggle together. You really don't want to regret later that you didn't lean fully into your relationship.

9.      Fight for the best relationship you can have with each other. Be open to reading something new, or seeing a couples’ therapist together to have them help you break the impasse and get things going in the right direction. Tommy Lee Jones is not a happy camper about Meryl dragging him into doing couples’ counseling, but he is a better, more open man from the work they do with therapist Steve Carrell. I compare opening up in counseling being like the bear that gets a thorn stuck in his paw, and it is sore, but the bear's afraid to go to the thorn removing expert. The bear has to go through the hurt of the thorn coming out in order to heal. So do people.

10.  Don't give up easily. It's amazing the transformations I've seen in couples in relatively a short time as I have worked with them these last 20 years. Couples can go through tremendous disconnection and come back through it to a new renaissance in their relationship. Even when couples can't find their way back to each other, as sometimes happens, I think there is some peace of mind in knowing you did everything in your power to try to grow through the pain.

11.  Don't be an old grump. Remember Dr. Phil's classic line, "How much fun are YOU to live with?"

12.  Separate bedrooms are usually not a good idea. If you snore so that it disturbs your partner, be a responsible partner and see you doctor to determine if you need a sleep study to check for sleep apnea.

13.  Don't be like a memory foam pillow, and hold on to every dent. Try your best to work through things and then let them go.

14.  Don't give lousy, practical gifts to your partner, like appliances. Not romantic. At all. Ever. Am I clear on this one? Nothing says I've given up like lousy gifts, or forgetting anniversaries.

15.  Change things up a little from time to time. It will help keep things fresh.

Hope Springs? It's a good one to see. Meryl Streep was terrific, as usual. Tommy Lee Jones' character strikes a balance between angry and hurt. Steve Carrell made a pretty good therapist- sincere and direct. (Except, with Steve, I kept waiting for his sense of humor to pop out, but he plays this one straight.) It's interesting to watch the way the device of showing the couples’ therapy sessions, and the homework assignments they struggle with, move the development of the characters and their relationship forward.

The Gift of Attention

It feels really,really good to have the whole,undivided attention of someone you care about or hold in high regard.It's about the best gift you can give or get. Children love their parents' and grandparents' attention.Even teenagers like to get low-key attention and hanging out together with parents,assuming it's without conversational grilling(how about that Algebra 2 grade?)Husbands like to get positive attention from their wives,so they feel held in the relationship,important and special.Wives love to get positive attentiveness and companionship from husbands to feel visible and cherished.Adult children still jockey for position to notice how aging parents pay attention to adult siblings.

I can remember being in graduate school at Chapman,in supervision with a favorite,esteemed professor and noticing how it bothered me when he got up and fiddled with making coffee while I was getting consultation with him on my first counseling caseload.I finally summoned up my courage part way through the semester and shared with him that I really benefited from his eye contact and full focus while I was with him for a valued hour of his insight and wisdom on treatment planning.It became a standing silly joke between the two of us whenever I met with him after that."Christyn,I am listening!" he would say with a smile in his eyes.

Full attention requires eye contact. It means you are honest if you are distracted,and plan another time when you can give your all. Full attention means sitting nearby the other person,and putting away cell phones,ipads,computer screen,and turning off the television.You can't multitask and give some one your complete attention. It is rare that we get someone's full attention these days and it feels WONDERFUL.It makes you feel valued,significant, and nurtured.It costs nothing!

In the age of 'stuff',we buy our children things,and we drive them to lessons,social events,school,and sports.Maybe this is a novel way at looking at our relationships with our children and our partners,where we give them the best gifts of all---our time and attention.In a hurry-up,fractured world, a little one-on-one time soothes the savage beast in each of us and strengthens the connection between us. Who can you give your full attention to this week? And whose attention do you want to ask for in a humor-filled or direct way? You can change the dance in any relationship by showering that person with your full attention.Just watch;they should be pleasantly surprised by the promotion to a higher level of your attention.Remember, where attention goes,energy flows.