Parents wanting to prepare their children for the modern world need to let their kids get out and explore it — sometimes without them.

That is the message visiting psychologist and TED talker Kathryn Berkett shared with Taranaki parents and teachers at her latest public talk this month.

Parents were conscientious around their kids' physical safety, but needed to be more aware of the dangers that lurk online, the Wellington-based psychologist said.

Developing resilience

Allowing your kids to go to the neighbourhood park, walk to school on their own and play outside uninterrupted were simple ways to increase resilience, she said.

"Resilience is only grown through experiencing tolerable stress.

"Which means kids need to tolerably lose, they need to get teased and experience the frustration of not getting a certificate."

Berkett spoke at a Raising Resilient Children evening for New Plymouth parents at Mangorei School last week, and held sessions with teachers from the region.

It goes against parents natural instincts to allow their children to experience hurts and disappointments, but kids need these experiences to cope as they grow, she said.

"It hurts us, but our kids are not being resilient," Berkett said. "They're getting angry, anxious and frustrated because they can't regulate their emotions.

"We're seeing a significant increase in our inability to regulate our emotions."

Berkett has a TEDx talk, The Neuroscience of Device Zombies, which delves into the effects of a device on the developing brain, the dopamine hits — and the stresses.

The brain's reward centre lights up from using devices and social media, but is negatively impacted through sudden and ongoing high levels of stress.

She referred to American social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt who linked increases in anxiety to excessive social media use in kids and teenagers.

"Social media and device use activates the stress response but it happens way bigger and way faster," Berkett said. "You're not having the normal increase in stress."

Her antidote: "Get them off the phone."

Kids learn from making mistakes and they need to be able to do this in a controlled and supported way, Berkett said. Read more

• Michelle Robinson is a Columnist at Taranaki Daily News.

After an injury-riddled season to date, the premiership-winning coach will be itching to bring his star back onto the field to reinforce the team ahead of the finals, following just their third back-to-back loss in five years.

More importantly, Ivan's also a father who must want to see his boy back doing what he loves.

Father and son relationships

Why has this family-first approach to Ivan and Nathan's relationship as coach and player yielded so much success for Penrith?

If "love is blind" as the saying goes, isn't sport surely the last place a father-son relationship should dictate proceedings?

I only need to think back to my soccer team from under-10's to 14.

On one sideline stood most of the dads, including mine, bellowing orders at their sons.

Each shouting dad wanted his son to look good. Love, in this instance, really was blind.

On the other sideline stood our coach, giving actual team orders.

As annoyed as we were with our fathers' selfish desires, no one felt the heat more than the coach's son.

He became the best player in our team, born from a genuine desire to prove himself to his coach and to his father.

Perhaps the Cleary mentality has been the same at Penrith all these years.

Like my coach all those years ago, Ivan's left behind the stereotypical fatherly ego and developed Nathan not only as player, but as son.

The Panthers can reap the rewards on the field, with two Clive Churchill medals, two Dally M halfback of the year awards and three consecutive premierships to Nathan and the club's name.

But off the field Ivan has learnt more than he ever could hope in a trophy—he's learnt to be a dad proud of his boy.

What then is to be done when things go south?

The same love and desire for his son's success nearly drove Ivan to leave the club at the end of 2019, telling The Sydney Morning Herald last year he blamed himself for Nathan's poor performances.

"I felt very burdened by the father-son thing. Nathan wasn't playing well, and I felt guilty for that. I felt like a burden on him. Then I was wondering ‘maybe I'm not the right man for this job.'"

Family first

It's clear that Ivan understands the hierarchy of his vocations—dad first, coach second. He's willing to let go of his own aspirations and sacrifice for his family.

Perhaps it's why the Clearys have been so successful at Penrith. Not because they've treated their relationship like a business, like everyone expected it ought to have been, but have instead put family ahead of all things.

Of course, if things go sideways accusations of nepotism are never far away.

Poor Jakob Arthur - then-coach Brad Arthur's son who was virtually driven out of Parramatta last year from fan abuse - knows the feeling all too well.

Fans forget that, in most cases, the son must work twice as hard as everyone else to prove their worth to both the world and their dad.

So while players often describe other teammates "like family," perhaps actual family can help a player make the most of himself.

That's certainly what the Penrith duo can attest to. Nothing can replace a boy playing to make his father proud and a father in admiration of his son

Any success the Panthers may gain from that—and success they've certainly already had—is surely just a bonus come October.

• First published by The Catholic Weekly

• George Al-Akiki is a junior multimedia journalist at The Catholic Weekly.

I can give you chapter and verse of shouting, harassment of all kinds, extreme bullying; and all done with a smile and "she'll be right, mate".

These people saw themselves as the centre of the universe.

Then nearly six years ago, two academics - Sander Thomaes and Eddie Brummelman - foretold the future.

"When we think of narcissists, we typically think of adults, whose personalities are rather crystallised - perhaps a charming but manipulative ex-partner, or a self-absorbed and authoritarian boss.

"We do not typically think of children, whose personalities are still in flux."

Here's the killer from these two: "Narcissists do not just begin to love themselves at their 18th birthday; they typically develop narcissistic traits from childhood onward."

Now the kids are behaving badly.

They monster their primary teachers, they badger their high school teachers and, by the time they get to university, they argue the toss about every single grade, they whine about group work and they want extensions because they don't wish to be inconvenienced (although, let me say, there are also those who get extensions for real reasons).

I'll defend active parenting and standing up for your children when they can't stand up for themselves - but there are limits.

Here are mine.

Your child should not be abusing a parent who comes in to help with reading groups. Your child does not need your advocacy to get them into the top sports team at school.

And your child, kill me, does not need you to call their university tutor to argue a mark on an assignment.

It was a wonderful moment in my life when I was able to tell such a parent (I'm pretending here it was a single occasion; it wasn't) that I couldn't discuss her child's university progress with her for privacy reasons.

And, no, it made no difference (at least to me) that the mother was paying the university fees.

I used the same answer when explaining to another mother that she needed to talk to her own child about whether he had actually submitted all his work.

He hadn't, no matter what he told his doting ma.

As Brummelman and co-wrote in 2015 in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "We demonstrate that narcissism in children is cultivated by parental overvaluation."

They found narcissism levels are increasing among Western youth and contribute to aggression and violence. Yes, there is a direct line between the kind of parenting we do and the kind of children we rear.

A fill-in teacher has admitted his actions were "shameful" after he punched a student during an out-of-control brawl at a NSW school.

Let's be clear. We all want to stick up for our kids. We have our own ideas about what's right and what's wrong.

And I've certainly been to see the class teacher and even the principal when things went badly wrong. I've been to meetings where my own (ever so slightly imperfect) children's behaviour was called into question.

I am no angel, neither was their father and I guess it's genetic. But this constant indulging - even protectiveness - of entitled behaviour has to stop. Your child is not always right.

It's not just rudeness or a lack of cooperation or even respect.

It extends all the way to violence. We have record levels of assaults at schools and violence both within and outside school - and believe me, it is not only the behaviour of students with significant trauma in their lives for whom we must make both excuses and support mechanisms.

We know now that private schools have their own - significant - issues around assault and violence. Read more

• Jenna Price is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University and a regular columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.

A letter has been published in the New Zealand Medical Journal on Friday about paternal depression among fathers in the Christchurch Health and Development Study by researchers Louise Rippin, Geraldine McLeod, Jacki Henderson and Joseph Boden.

The study found 5.4% had major depression within one year of becoming a first-time father and all major depression cases were among fathers younger than 30.

It says paternal depression is a growing global health concern, as the mental health of fathers impacts the developing child and their family. Read more

He served as a RAF pilot during World War II when longevity was rare. Later, not long before I was born, he was badly injured in a civil air accident when his aircraft iced up.

When I was three-years-old he had two engine failures in single-engine aircraft but successfully landed on rugged South Island beaches.

When I was 10-years-old, he was nearly killed with a double engine failure and crash landing into the Shotover River at Queenstown, close to our home. When I was 15-years-old, he again nearly died from peritonitis.

Suddenly, when I was 27-years-old my Dad did die, while I was in my first year of church and community ministry. I still miss him these 35 years on.

My Dad - Captain Brian Waugh - made a big impression on me, not only his flying adventures but because he was a good man. He gave us children time with a special focus for each of us; for me, it was especially about cars; for my sister music and my brother rugby.

In his younger days, my Dad was not especially spiritual; yet he supported my Mum and came to church when he was able.

Later in life he made a more deliberate commitment to God, thankful for God's protection over his life, and became an intentional and growing disciple of Jesus Christ, never missing a Sunday in worship.

I cherish the memory of his prayers at family mealtimes and encouragement at key times in my early life; when I first started work as a 17-year-old in the motor industry, commending my ministry call and meeting my wife-to-be. All those memories mean a great deal to me.

If your Dad is alive; cherish him, warts and all, as our earthly existence can be surprisingly short and the precious relationship of Father to children - and grandchildren - is so important and doesn't last forever.

From my own experience with my Dad and my own parenting. I continue to learn much. Continue reading

• Rev Dr Richard Waugh is a long-time church leader in east Auckland, a former Howick Citizen-of-the-Year and absolutely committed to strong family life. He is also an Aviation Chaplain, historian, author and spokesperson for the Erebus National Memorial.

But for your teen, he/she is experiencing this suffering which means these are emotions being felt very likely for the first time (part of adolescent development).

They are overwhelming emotions. Your teen is scared. Your teen doesn't have the words to express how he/she feels. Your teen doesn't know if the suffering will ever end. Your teen wonders— and is really scared — if they will never be normal again.

This hurts you so much. You want to speed through the process. You want to divert out of the process. You want to numb this pain for your teen. You mostly want to speak words and make it all go away.

Here is your hope, parent. It is in the suffering your teen will find their identity, especially their identity as loved personally by God. Pain is your teen beginning to finding out who they are. The Jesus your teen meets in the suffering is the type of faith your teen will take into adulthood.

Other identity-forming factors for teens are school; classes they excel at; sports they excel at; extracurricular groups they discover a passion for; friends they surround themselves with.

All of these are "liquid" and constantly changing, hence your teen's identity is continually changing.

This has always been a part of adolescent development. And why these teen years cause parents so much fear. Why youth pastors grieve in prayer so much because the identity of who they see at youth group is more often not the identity of who goes to high school.

The internet creates a whole other possibility of identity formation. There are now filtered identities and faux identities. All swirling together inside your teen who is secretly fearing that they will never figure life out and never find their place in this world.

Suffering actually offers a rootedness to all of this swirling.

It is in the suffering that one can see the constancy of Jesus. This is even more true in these wonderful and vulnerable teen years.

Their adult minds haven't rationalized Jesus away yet (like you did at one time?). Their new emotions of hope and possibility are drawn to the personal bigness of Jesus.

Teens are particularly drawn to the big truth that Jesus is with us in the suffering.

No other religion has that message.

The true God does not abandon us, ask us to strive more, or sends us on a quest. Jesus' compelling story is one of love and self-sacrifice. Jesus promises, "No, I will not abandon you as orphans — I will come to you" (John 14:18). This speaks. So many of Jesus' promises speak to that fear-filled-yet-won't-talk-about-it soul of the teenager.

(Side note: The small Jesus of many youth ministry teachings — aka Jesus is your best friend or Jesus loves everyone always — is not the same as the big Jesus whose call to us involves commitment, self-sacrifice, and leaving something behind.)

Those teens who have been challenged to dig in and know Jesus because they have actually read the Gospels for themselves know that Jesus doesn't abandon them.

The rah-rah-ness of a youth group does not provide this. Being segregated by age leaves them all together lost and not brave enough to ask their fear-sourced questions. They are all lost together while trying to figure out their peer relationships. Figuring out their peer relationships is emotionally consuming enough.

Those teens who have relationships with wise adults in their church also learn how Jesus doesn't abandon them. In a church family, there are people who are safe for teens to ask their secret questions to.

Wise people who won't think their questions are stupid, silly, faith-shocking, or frivolous.

Wise people who can put words to their fears. Fears which are often misunderstandings but teens don't know that yet until they get adult wisdom to help them understand.

These are also adults from whom teens can see live real faith. Real live faith that has worked in real life and has stood the test of time. These wise adults are not afraid to enter into a teen's suffering.

These wise adults already know how temporary suffering is.

How pain is the beginning of growth. Intentional intergenerational ministry plans provide a path.

The bonus for the wise adults is that even when your beloved teen moves in their early 20s and is questioning everything, they will remember these wise adults from your church.

And maybe reach out to them. (The youth pastor is probably temporary and already moved on.) You don't forget the adults who gave you the words that quelled the anxiety that overwhelmed you in adolescence.

The truth is this suffering is temporary.

Pain is the beginning.

God has hard-wired us for pain.

Your teen doesn't know this. Yet.

When they do understand this, faith becomes a part of their identity.

At the end of Job's disaster, he said, "I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes" (Job 42:5).

Pain does have a way of showing us God in all truth.

This is why pain is our beginning.

I have never been able to unsee God's faithfulness to me in each painful season I've been in. And I've always made it through. I've always grown through it to find the beauty.

I wish as parents we could "kiss suffering and make it go away." I wish God would just protect our innocents from suffering. But life.

So parents, trust the God who promises with the pain your teen feels. Follow the holy tension and something holy will happen, such as your teen grows into someone who blesses this world.

• Brenda Seefeldt has served as a youth pastor for 39 years.
• First published in The Christian Post. Republished with permission.

In the current environment of secularity within the first world, where all belief systems compete for adoption, the Christian faith has distinct advantages.

Much like the day of Elijah calling down fire as visible proof of the superiority of his God, the climate of secularity demands a new apologetic—one that moves from the theoretical to the actual.

Few today seem to be asking the questions of modernity, that is, "What is truth?"

Today's apologetic in many respects is far more practical: "What works?"

"What will help keep my family whole?"

And, "Where can I see truth?"

And it is in the real-world answering of these questions that Jesus-followers corner the market.

And none more than Christ-following parents.

What we are really talking about is revealing the Kingdom of God as a family.

My simple definition of the Kingdom of God is: What things look like when Jesus gets his way.

For a family, the Kingdom of God is often revealed through the faithful way that parents shepherd their children.

It looks much different than the world's shifting ideas that change from generation to generation.

The kingdom effect is both universal and eternal.

This difference is far greater than a weekly polishing up and shuttling of children to church.

It is a difference of kingdom allegiance.

This year, I am preaching through Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7) in order to help our church family understand the counter-cultural way that kingdom citizens live.

In Matthew 5:37, Jesus states in bold red letters, "Let what you say be simply ‘Yes' or ‘No'; anything more than this comes from evil."

Many biblical teachings can be difficult to understand, but this is not one of them. It is simple to understand, and simple to apply.

To Christ-following parents, the applications are entirely counter-cultural, and it is in the applying of Jesus' words that we have the opportunity to show the world how well a family works when Jesus gets his way.

Here are six implications of Jesus' teachings for the benefit of thriving missionary families. Continue reading

But chances are that the details of their lives — from their phones and their politics to their dinner plates and how they raise their kids — are still ruled by some sort of a religious impulse, says author David Zahl.

Zahl is the founder of the popular nondenominational Christian Mockingbird Ministries project, which formed 12 years ago to reach out to young adults who felt they had been "burned" by the church.

His most recent book, "Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do About It," suggests that American culture is not actually becoming more secular at all.

It's simply becoming more religious about more things, with people increasingly attaching their natural yearning to feel like enough to more and more things.

"If you want to understand what makes someone tick, or why they're behaving the way they are, trace the righteousness in play, and things will likely become clear," he writes.

Zahl, who also works for the Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, spoke to Religion News Service about the secular religiosities he sees ruling people's lives and anxieties. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Can you define "seculosity" and how you see it play out in the world around you?

It's a mashup of secular and religiosity.

It really refers to what I call religious devotion or religious feeling or even the impulse when it's directed at earthly rather than heavenly objects.

But also I wanted didn't want to ascribe belief in something divine or supernatural. So that's why I chose the word seculosity.

Especially as a young parent, I would see codes of behavior, people clinging to something that's righteous.

There's an orthodox way and almost like a heretical way of raising children.

People were constantly at war with each other.

You would see a parent at a playground correcting a perfect stranger.

And it felt to me like what you would see sometimes in a church event.

So I saw all the young parents around me always get so anxious, like they were being graded all the time.

Are there other areas you see it playing out?

Certainly you see it in things like exercise.

I remember being invited to a SoulCycle class, which is the classic example.

We're all facing one direction and we're standing and we're kneeling and there's someone at the front who just starts spouting out witty sayings.

But they weren't just about exercise, they were about betterment and perfection.

The community and the ritual that developed around exercise to me felt a lot like the small groups that I had been a part of in churches in the past.

Take something like food.

Look at the emphasis on the purity of where ingredients are sourced, what's being put into you, the way that we used to call it fasting and now we just call it a cleanse.

The moral language, the anxiety around food, the fear of getting caught eating fast food — again, the judgments we wield against each other based on diet. It felt like a lot of anxiety.

A lot of sense of righteousness was at stake in where people were eating and what they were eating and there was a lot of hiding.

And any time there's hiding there is usually some form of judgment or condemnation that people are afraid of.

I can go on and on. T.S. Eliot once said half the harm that is done in this world is by people who are absorbed in the "endless struggle to think well of themselves."

A lot of times we turn to these seculosities to make us feel better about ourselves but they end up making us feel worse.

Do you see the proliferation of social media and technology as exacerbating seculosity? Perhaps in the ways people present certain kinds of images of themselves online?

Absolutely.

But I don't think this tendency is something that's invented by social media or technology.

Church people have always felt that there was sort of Sunday face that you would put on where everyone was sort of shiny and happy sitting in church wearing nice clothes and got the sense that everything was going well.

Then there was the rest of the week where you were just who you were.

That phenomenon of like a "Sunday face" versus the "rest of the week face" — that's social media to me.

It's the gap between who you should be and who you actually are, which creates a lot of dissonance and a lot of, again, anxiety but also loneliness.

And the comparisons that people make each other jump through, it's pretty merciless.

In the church, there was a backdrop of sin and the idea that people are not perfect.

Without that you just have pressure to curate and put up a happy face or sophisticated face or effortlessly sophisticated face at all times.

That's really daunting.

There's some real spiritual and emotional fallout in that.

Do you think people of faith are less prone to seculosity?

In a lot of ways — I call it Jesusland, the kind of bastardized form of Protestant Christianity that dominated a lot of the West, or at least America — it resembles seculosity much more than medieval Christianity or Reformation Christianity or first-century Christianity.

It's a lot about church as the place to assert or earn righteousness, rather than a place to receive it.

Speaking myself as someone who is involved in a couple of churches, I found myself very, very, very much prone to seculosity and everything I describe in the book.

So I don't know.

Seculosity is not so much about worship so much as self-justification, like where people are finding their sense that they're justified, they're enough, they're OK.

That's part of what religion is about, a sort of guilt management system where you end up offloading your guilt or your shame, receiving some sort of better sense of yourself.

People are very much doing the same thing.

When the seculosities exhaust you, when they beat you into the total nervous wreck, that's usually when you find real faith, something that's not based in your performance.

What message do you hope religious and nonreligious people will walk away with?

One of the things I wanted to do in the book was not give people another set of things to feel like they're failing at.

I really wanted to point to whatever it is, wherever it is, a person finds some form of grace — that can be in the form of forgiveness, mercy, love in the midst of deserving something else.

That is what I hope and pray people will cling to and value a little bit more deeply.

Because you're not going to get it from your bank account or social media.

We're not going to get the gift of humanizing and absolving like that.

But I think we all tend to have something that functions in that way in our life, and I hope we can figure out a way to stay closer to it.

Can houses of worship aid in that journey?

I do have some prescriptions for what I think it would take for religion in this country to function again in that way, as a religion of grace rather than one that drives exhaustion and hypocrisy and perfectionism.

We have to evaluate our relationship to our performance, to find some sense of dignity in our being rather than our doing.

It's a little cliché, perhaps, but I think one thing that would help is talking a bit more about death.

So much of that anxiety that I'm describing is stuff that you don't think about on your deathbed.

Ultimately, death is the great equalizer. And I think that it actually, instead of being morose, it shows us that our performance really isn't the most important thing going on in life.

Our relationships are more important.

You realize that everyone already feels like a failure.

We all have some sort of treadmill that we're running on.

People are suffering under enormous burdens of who they should be. And what would it look like for our houses of faith to be places you go when you mess up rather than places you flee from when you have?

Religion at its best has been a place where we can go to with our guilt and our shame.

When you cut religion out of your life, a lot of times it looks like you're cutting out the oppressive part, the mandates.

But when you do that you're also cutting off the forgiveness.

Clergy used to be your local forgiveness person.

Wouldn't it be beautiful if our houses of worship were places we could go to unload, to atone, to be refreshed, to receive hope beyond your performance that day?

• Aysha Khan is a Boston-based journalist reporting on American Muslims and millennial faith for RNSFirst published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• Image: RNS

Her hand went to her head, to her chest and completed a toddler's awkward sign of the cross.

My husband and I were horrified by the slobbery dog-water blessing.

But we were also awestruck: We had never seen her cross herself at church before, and we had not yet tried to teach her.

My now 18-month-old comes to Mass with my spouse and me about twice a week, on Sundays and on Thursdays with my school community at work.

Mass has always been part of the rhythm of our life together, and her existence has shifted that rhythm in every way possible.

Nothing about having a kid is easy, and navigating worship and prayer with our daughter has not only been a challenge but has required a real assessment of what our commitment to our faith and the church really means.

On Good Friday last year, my daughter struggled during the evening service, crying more than she ever had in Mass.

I bounced and cooed at her, hoping to avoid any stares or grumbles.

I looked up to see my spouse giving me the very stare I was trying to avoid.

Stunned and angry to feel shamed by my own husband, I booked it to the back of the church to try to soothe her tears on my own.

Pacing at the back of the church with her, livid with my husband, I could not help but keep thinking, "Why did I even bring her?"

Caught up in my own shame and anger, I just wanted to go home.

Navigating worship with our daughter has required a real assessment of what our commitment to our faith and the church really means.

As I tried not to cry, another parishioner went out of their way to come up to me and simply thanked me for bringing her.

That moment of encouragement reminded me that I knew why we brought her.

My husband and I had a quiet moment of reconciliation that night and reaffirmed why our daughter was at Mass that evening and every week.

This was the promise that we made at our wedding and again at her baptism: to bring her up in the faith.

Bringing her every week risks crying or blowout diapers.

But this is also where she will learn the sign of the cross and the creed and what it means to pray and serve in community.

Kids learn through repetition, and they imitate what they can see. My daughter insists on holding a hymnal and "singing" along with everyone else. Continue reading

• Image: Aleteia

There are emotional needs, physical needs, and lifestyle needs.

And technology has made it harder on parents - no more sitting in the living room watching their television shows with them; they are streaming it on their phones, finding resources and information on YouTube, and constantly learning new ways to access connections that parents then struggle to learn about.

It's not your imagination.

Parenting has gotten more difficult.

When you think about parenting, you might think about all the things listed above, but consider adding one more aspect to your toolbox of "things to focus on" - teaching your kids the fine balance between being strong and sticking up for themselves and what they believe in, and being kind.

It may seem like a disconnect - "only the strong survive" and "nice guys finish last" are some of the adages - but teaching kindness, in a world that seems to reject it more and more each day, may be the only way to help your children survive and thrive throughout their lives.

Becoming Strong

Being strong does not mean being a bully.

In fact, the truly strong person has developed an inner core that allows them to withstand whatever life throws at them, including bullying and naysaying.

The strong individual has developed an inner confidence that allows them to believe in themselves no matter what happens.

What are some things parents can do to help their children be strong, but not overbearing?

Teach them to recognize their own triggers and learn what upsets them or throws them off their game.

Why learn this? Because the more a person knows about their triggers, the sooner they have a chance to deal with them in a less emotional and more direct manner.

The more upset you become, the more likely you are

to "blow" your top, or to go inward.Practice direct, non-violent language.

Instead of "I hate you", say "I get very negative when you ask me to do something I don't like to do".

Help them assess their response and connect their comments to the actions, not the person. Hint: As the adult, it is critically important that you model this behavior, too.

Stand for something.

Help your children find something they care about and something they believe in.

Allow them to volunteer, write letters to someone they admire about something important, become educated about what's happening around them (yes, even young children can learn to care about their environment and their world).

The more they have an inner core that stands for something, the less likely they will be to fall for anything.

Including Kindness

Doing all of the things listed above can help them develop an inner core, but without kindness and compassion a strong person can fall victim to too much intensity and possible narcissism as they age. Continue reading

• Image: South Shore Senior News

They act like personal concierges who assist their kids with everything from sports equipment to science fair projects.

They rescue their kids when they forget their soccer cleats and they chauffeur them from one activity to the next.

Quite often, kids with that type of support are able to gain a slight competitive advantage. And that makes sense.

Anyone with a full-time personal assistant is likely to excel when they're competing against individuals who do everything on their own.

But over-parenting takes a toll on kids in the long-term.

Kids who grew up with helicopter parents quickly lose that competitive advantage when they grow up.

Researchers who have been studying the long-term effects of helicopter parenting say these are the five biggest problems helicopter kids experience in adulthood.

1. The have more health problems
2. They feel entitled
3. They have emotional problems
4. They rely on medication
5. They lack self-regulation skills

Continue reading

• Amy Morin is a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist, college psychology instructor and internationally recognized expert on mental strength.

In November 2009, TIME published an article called "The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting."

In a fascinating examination of all the bizarre lengths to which modern parents will go in order to prepare their precious little ones for the world, writer Nancy Gibbs suggested that increasing numbers of parents are pulling back, getting less involved, and releasing their children from unfair expectations of perfection.

That was nearly nine years ago, coinciding with my introduction to the world of parenting; sadly, I don't think things are any better than they were in 2009.

In fact, I'd say they are getting worse.

Social media has upped the ante and parents are desperate to make their kids look as successful and brilliant as possible in the eyes of online viewers.

Parenting feels like a race to acquire the greatest number of awards, experiences, and extracurricular activities on behalf of one's child in the shortest amount of time - and posting photos about it on Facebook.

Even the general term ‘overparenting' has given way to the more specific label of ‘helicopter parent,' used to refer to parents who hover around their children, orchestrating their lives, preventing errors and pain, and talking far too much.

Helicopter parents raise children who, according to Parent Further, are "overly dependent, neurotic, and less open."

If you thought helicopter parents were too much, wait till you learn about ‘lawnmower parents.'

These are the next generation of helicopter parents, who take overparenting to the next level.

Rather than hovering, these parents actively prepare the way for their children to succeed (in a warped interpretation of the word, of course), cushioning every bump along the way.

Says Parent Further, lawnmower parents "mow down all obstacles they see in their child's path; [they] smooth over any problem their child has; [they] make sure their kids always look perfect (and if they aren't, they'll intervene and make it better right away)."

Their goal is to create a soft, even surface onto which their child will proceed, free from harm and anxiety. They intervene before issues reach their child, sometimes even going to unethical lengths, such as writing college papers on behalf of a child who's running out of time. Continue reading

• Katherine Martinko blogs at Feisty Red Hair and is a former contributor to TLC Parentables. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, The Green Parent (UK), and Geez magazine. She graduated from the University of Toronto and now lives on the beautiful Lake Huron coast with her family.

The Parenting Place offers public events that combine entertainment with a stimulating dose of relationship information.

This year they are coming to Wellington with a special presentation on Raising happy, confident and resilient children.

It will be on Tuesday 1^st August 2017, Sacred Heart School, Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, 40 Hill Street, Thorndon. Doors open at 7pm.

Jenny Hale from The Parenting Place will be leading the seminar. She is the senior family coach at the Parenting Place and has over 20 years experience as a parenting coach.

She has been a parent for over 36 years to two now adult children and is also a grandparent. She has been a school teacher and worked in early childhood education and has appeared on TV One's Good Morning and The Cafe.

She helped develop the Toolbox parenting programme and currently writes for Parenting magazine.

The press release says about the seminar says "One thing we can guarantee is that you will enjoy it because, not only do our presenters really know their stuff, they are all excellent communicators who bring this material alive. We specialise in cutting straight to the information that is positive and practical and then presenting it in an entertaining and fun way."

Tickets can be purchased by visiting https://raisinghappyconfidentandresilientchildren.eventbrite.co.nz

We buy them a toy rather than spend more time with them; we lose our temper rather than practice patience; we put on the TV at dinnertime instead of having a conversation.

That's why this article from Time Magazine really stood out to me - because it's a reminder that tiny parenting moments, which seem so trivial at the time, can add up and have a lasting impact on our kids. Here are the five things kids will remember of you:

When you made them feel safe

My baby is not yet four months, but I can already sense how she feels safe when held by my husband or myself, especially when she's in an unfamiliar environment. Kids are vulnerable; they have an innate need to be protected.

When you think about how reckless children can be, it shows that they subconsciously put all their trust in their parents. But by the same token, they'll remember the times they felt unsafe - something to think about when we lose our temper with them or show anger in their presence.

When you gave them your undivided attention

So simple, yet so often not done! I read an article recently about how 10-15 minutes a day of undivided attention for your child - no phone, no TV in the background, nothing else on your mind - is so beneficial.

Talking with them, reading them a book, colouring with them or anything like that will do the trick. As the article put it, "What that gives them? The essentials to feel loved, safe, secure, self-assured, and valued. What it gives you? Much of the same and so much more."

Not to mention that it will help you create a relationship with your child that will last through to when they are adults. Continue reading

• Tamara El-Rahi lives in Australia and is a Journalism graduate from the University of Technology, Sydney.

You'd think that those negotiating and persuasion skills I'd acquired on the job would have equipped me for parenting.

Have you ever tried negotiating with a toddler? It becomes very clear who's in charge pretty quickly.

I thought all you needed to be a good parent was to love your kids, and I could do that. I did love my kids but that didn't help me with the nitty gritty detail of family life. I needed many more skills and strategies.

My middle son Christian came into the world in a dramatic way with the umbilical cord round his neck, blue and needing to be rushed away for resuscitation.

Although he was alright, nothing was quiet in our family after that.

Christian tested all my parenting abilities - and they were found wanting.

He was rough and mean with his brother, he irritated his sister, he got into scrapes with other kids, he broke things and didn't do as he was told.

His early childhood was characterised by him doing one thing or another that got him into trouble, both at home and at school.

Once he started "big school" my husband and I spent quite a bit of time in the principal's office.

We sat on the sofa and were made to feel like we had a uniquely awful child, and we thought we were uniquely deficient parents.

When Christian did something terrible I'd think, I'm supposed to punish now. So I'd do that.

But the behaviour continued.

We tried all the things that parents were "supposed to do". We tried ignoring and distracting only to be met with greater persistence.

We sent him to his room, we withdrew privileges and he got told off, lectured and scolded.

A few times, when my buttons had really been pushed, I smacked.

I certainly tried cajoling, pleading and bribing too.

None of it worked. We felt quite powerless. Continue reading

• Melissa Hood is a former lawyer turned parenting class facilitator who works in both London and Sydney. She is the author of Real Parenting for Real Kids.

A flood of new research offers explanations for some of these mysteries. Brain imaging adds another kind of data that can help test hypotheses and corroborate teens' own accounts of their behavior and emotions.

Dozens of recent multiyear studies have traced adolescent development through time, rather than comparing sets of adolescents at a single point.

The new longitudinal research is changing scientists' views on the role parents play in helping children navigate a volatile decade. Once seen as a time for parents to step back, adolescence is increasingly viewed as an opportunity to stay tuned in and emotionally connected.

The research makes it possible to identify four important phases in the development of intellectual, social and emotional skills that most teens will experience at certain ages. Here is a guide to the latest findings:

Ages 11 to 12
As puberty takes center stage, tweens can actually slip backward in some basic skills. Spatial learning and certain kinds of reasoning may decline at this stage, studies show.

Parts of the brain responsible for prospective memory, or remembering what you are supposed to do in the future, are still maturing. This may be why a teen may seem clueless if asked to give the teacher a note before school.

Coaching tweens in organizational skills can help. Parents can help build memory cues into daily routines, such as placing a gym bag by the front door, or helping set reminders on a cellphone. They can share helpful tools, such as task-manager apps.

Parents can help foster sound decision-making, thinking through pros and cons and considering other viewpoints.

Children who know by age 10 or 11 how to make sound decisions tend to exhibit less anxiety and sadness, get in fewer fights and have fewer problems with friends at ages 12 and 13, according to a 2014 study of 76 participants published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Continue reading

Sources

• Article by Sue Shellenbarger, the creator and writer of the The Wall Street Journal's "Work & Family" column, in The Wall Street Journal.
• Image: Free Printable Behavior Charts

The Bible is a written testimony to the persistence of God's grace throughout centuries as experienced by a particular people, in particular times and places. Scripture presents ancient families doing things that ancient families did and presuming things that ancient families presumed.

Viewing Scripture as a direct source of parenting advice disregards the complexity of the biblical witness as well as that of our own lives. Such an approach leads to sentiments that are comforting on the surface but lacking in depth and substance.

Coming to terms with the distance between Scripture and our own experience is an important first step in recognizing the parallels that may actually exist.

Values, knowledge and beliefs change significantly over time and across cultures. Yet some basic experiences still unite human families. Family members are generally marked by affection for one another, new caregivers are often deeply anxious about their duties, and parents must negotiate childrearing within the constraints of external forces and their own abilities.

Encountering the biblical testimony with an honest and critical eye to both its complexity and our own experiences permits encounter with the counsel it may offer.

1. Families are complicated. Even the most cursory review of families in Scripture reveals their complexity. In the first family, Cain's jealousy provokes him to murder his brother, Abel (Gn 4:8).

A few chapters on, Noah curses his own grandson, condemning him to slavery (Gn 9:25). Later, Abraham fathers Ishmael with the concubine Hagar (Gn 16) and eventually abandons both in the desert (Gn 21:14). Abraham's grandson, Jacob, marries the wrong sister (Gn 29:25) and eventually fathers children with four separate women (Gn 30). This list could be much longer. Continue reading

Sources

• America, from an article by Jake Kohlhaase, an assistant professor of moral theology at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
• Image: Defenders of the Catholic Faith

I sometimes feel annoyed by mothers that seem to keep their baby all to themselves when all they are doing, perhaps subconsciously, is protecting their child as they know how.

Which leads me to the topic of over-parenting: because yup, parents, it's a thing - at least according to a recent stuff.co.nz article. And I'd have to agree!

Like most things, parents wouldn't even be aware that they're doing it. But, also like most things, parenting should beware of extremes and strive for a healthy balance between guiding kids and allowing them to flourish freely.

According to the article, mums and dads fall into over-parenting because of fear (and really, most bad decisions come from a place of fear).

As put by Dr. Wendy Mogel, clinical psychologist and author: "Parents today are either afraid for their children or afraid of their children." Dr. Wendy has 10 signs of over-parenting and tips to work through them, and I'm going to share a few of them here:

You find it hard to say 'no'

Those toys at the supermarket, that McDonalds run on the way home, they want to eat dinner now instead of later… I think a lot of parents find it hard to say "no" to these things.

Sometimes it's because it's easier to just give in, but I think it stems mostly from not wanting their kids to experience any emotions like negative emotions. Yes, these emotions aren't fun, but we all need to learn how to deal with them in a healthy manner.

Imagine if you were protected from them all your childhood and then got hit with the real world? That would be way less fun! Continue reading

• Tamara Rajakariar lives in Australia and is a Journalism graduate from the University of Technology, Sydney.

The pint-size throne was bright red, plastic, and - how to put this delicately? - filled with tangible results.

"First time in the potty!" crowed the caption, written by the proud mother.

The picture generated scores of thumbs up, and several comments.

"Woot woot!"

"Such a relief for Mom!" - celebrating this magical moment of which we were now all a part, whether we liked it or not.

And magical it might be; potty training is no small feat, as I'm learning myself these days.

Yet no one said what I was thinking, and what others surely were thinking, which was "Seriously? Did you really just post that?"

Families used to be like Las Vegas - what happened at home, stayed at home.

For better or worse, previous generations of parents, and especially mothers, were expected to stay mum about their lives and sum up their daily frustrations with a smile and an "Everything is fine!"

We modern-day parents, however, live in a world of updates and uploads on the minutiae of child rearing for a cast of hundreds, sometimes thousands, which includes everyone from close friends to coworkers to people we've met just once or twice, or not at all.

Not surprisingly, many parents think all this sharing has gotten a little out of hand.

In an exclusive Parents survey of more than 2,000 respondents, 79 percent said other parents overshare on social media - yet only 32 percent of us think we overshare ourselves. Hmm.

Of course, what's too much information (TMI) in one parent's eyes may not be to another's.

For example, 65 percent of parents think posting a picture of a kid in her underwear is not okay to post, which leaves room for plenty who think it's no big deal (NBD).

What's more, we're only beginning to learn how this "oversharenting" might be affecting kids.

This is the first generation to be born into the like-happy world of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And it's hard not to notice that children as young as 3 or 4 have become strangely adept at posing. Continue reading

Today, fathers who live with their children are taking a more active role in caring for them and helping out around the house. And the ranks of stay-at-home fathers and single fathers have grown significantly in recent decades.

At the same time, more and more children are growing up without a father in the home.

The changing role of fathers has introduced new challenges, as dads juggle the competing demands of family and work. Here are some key findings about fathers from Pew Research Center reports.

1. Fewer dads are their family's sole breadwinner. Among married couples with children under age 18, dual-income households are now the dominant arrangement (60%).

In 1960, only one-in-four of these households had two incomes; 70% had a father who worked and a mother who was at home with the kids.

The public has mixed views about these changes. Most (62%) say that a marriage where the husband and wife both have jobs and both take care of the house and children is preferable to one where the husband works and the wife takes care of the home and family (30%).

At the same time, a majority (74%) says having more women in the workplace makes it harder for parents to raise children.

2. Dads' and moms' roles are converging. As the share of dual-income households has risen, the roles of mothers and fathers have begun to converge.

In 1965, fathers' time was heavily concentrated in paid work, while mothers spent more of their time on housework or childcare. Over the years, fathers have taken on more housework and child care duties—they've more than doubled time spent doing household chores and nearly tripled time spent with children since 1965.

Meanwhile, women have increased their time spent doing paid work. Significant gaps remain, but there is clearly a more equal distribution of labor between mothers and fathers these days. Continue reading

Sources

• Pew Research Center
• Image: Huffington Post