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Yeah! KSL TV liked the Studio 5 segment on on helping your children find and become heroes so much that they ran this related story yesterday on the 5 o’clock news.
In a culture consumed with pop stars and super heroes, it’s hard to spot true heroes. Find out what real heroes are made of and how to help your child be a real life hero. Therapist, Julie Hanks, LCSW explains the difference between role models and heroes.
What do you think of when you hear the word “hero”? For many, the word “hero” has become synonymous with celebrities, inventors, sports figures, musicians, and other individuals with special gifts or powers, excellent performance, or other noteworthy accomplishment.
Social psychologist Phil Zimbardo, PhD, claims that as a society we’ve “dumbed down heroism”. Not every good, kind, generous, smart, talented, famous person is a “hero”. There is a difference between role models and heroes.
Helping children become heroes in their own life story
1) Redefine Hero
What is a hero? Heroes don’t have to have magical powers or be involved in monumental feats. Zimbardo defines a hero simply as “a person who acts on behalf of others or in defense of integrity or a moral cause” and involves these 4 parts:
Voluntarily action
In the service of others or moral cause
Involves personal risk
Without expectation of personal benefit
Last Christmas my 8-year-old son showed heroism in a simple, yet touching way, when he left this letter for Santa on Christmas Eve. While it’s a small gesture, it was the opportunity for me as a parent to celebrate those budding heroic qualities.
“Thanks for bringing presents, but iff you think I don’t need it than give it to people who doesn’t get presents”
2) Watch for Heroes Everywhere
Once you’ve redefined what a hero is, you can take note of every day heroes in your community, in your family, and literature and movies.
Disney’s animated movie “Mulan” is an entertaining movie, with lively characters, and it can also be a springboard for conversation with your children about the 4 parts of heroism. Here are a few questions you might want to ask your children.
What value or moral cause prompted Mulan to go to battle?
Why do you think Mulan volunteered to fight in her father’s place?’
What was Mulan personally risking by making the choice to join the army?
What are some values that are important to you?
Are there any situations where you can act like a hero?
Jason M. Robison posted this on Facebook, “We teach our four children that being a hero is rarely glamorous and very often unpopular. We keep our eyes wide open for examples in the community that we can point out to them.”
3) Encourage Social Awareness and Action
The greater more people who witness an emergency; the less likely anyone is to do something about the situation. This is called the bystander effect. Help your child to understand this tendency and encourage them to act. They have the power to change the group norm by taking action on behalf of someone.
Encourage your child and teen to speak out, and to even challenge authority, in defense of another or one of their core values, even if it’s not popular.
Our children and teens come up against opportunities every day to be heroes. It may be as simple as sitting next to a lonely classmate in the lunch, walking away from a group of friends when they start to gossip, or reporting an act of bullying that they witnessed on the playground.
On Facebook, Vickie Johnson De Blasio says “We teach our kids that a hero does their best to improve the lives of others, without looking for acknowledgement.”
4) Teach and Nurture Heroic Virtues
Talk about your family’s values and the importance of developing character. Cultivate integrity, courage, compassion and social awareness in your family life. Families are losing the oral tradition of storytelling, and technology is taking over conversation and reading times. Provide your child opportunities all have examples of heroic figures with qualities that children can emulate in your family history, in literature and in religious text.
I’ve often heard my neighbor and dear friend Rene tells her three young children, “You can do hard things.” That simple statement can help her children see themselves as standing for something greater than themselves. Another family member frequently asks his son daily, “Who’s life can you bless today?”
Sharing stories of heroic family members can help nurture heroic virtues in your child. In 1856, one of our distant family relatives, Ephriam K. Hanks, volunteered to rescue a group of the Mormon Pioneers who were starving and stranded in a bitter winter storm. When he heard about the plight of the Willie and Martin handcart companies he was ready to risk his own life to help bring them to the Salt Lake Valley.
5) Be a Hero
The best way to inspire and teach your child to cultivate the hero inside of them is to be a hero, to cultivate your own heroic nature. I often hear children and teens in my clinical practice complain about how their parents lecture too much. We can do better at living heroic qualities instead of simply talking about those qualities.
As an adolescent, I remember going with my dad on Sunday’s to visit widows in my church community and neighborhood. We took them food and sat and talked with them. As a young child, I thought it was a boring and a waste of time, but looking back now it was a powerful lesson on the ability to make a difference for someone else.
Do you have a friend or neighbor who try to tell you what to do and how to do it? For example, how to parent your child when you never asked for input? How about a mother-in-law or family member who tell try to tell you how to live your life?
Handling comments gets even trickier when it’s your family members who are giving unsolicited advice. What’s the best way to handle these difficult situations?
We tackled this issue today on B98.7 Todd and Erin Morning show!
I had a great chat with Todd and Erin this morning at B98.7 radio about how to help your child cope with the news coverage about the natural disasters in Japan and the general uncertainty in the world today. Best part of all was that I got to hold their new baby daughter!
(Click on the link below to open the link in Quicktime)
Q: I have a 6 1/2 year old daughter. My husband was married and divorced before and has 2 children. We
haven’t told her any lies about anything but we haven’t told her the “whole” story about everything.
I didn’t really think she was old enough to need to know or understand. I also want to preserve her innocence as well as foundation about her parent’s marriage. She is getting older now though, and obviously seeing more; her brothers are rarely with us so she knows they have another mom and things like that. I don’t know what or how to tell her; I am just terrified that it will shatter her reality of what her life is and should be to know her Dad was married to someone else before. I know she doesn’t need any details, but she will be asking more questions, and I really don’t know what to say. I know this was a very long question but any help or advice you could give me would be so appreciated. I wish I could come see you for counseling but I do not have the means to do that. Thank you for your emails and advice that you give out to me and others who are in the same situation.
A:Â She may not be as traumatized as you think by knowing that her dad was married before, as long as you and your husband have made peace with his past.
Was there some kind of behavior on her dad’s part that led to the divorce like a affair or addiction or abuse in her dad’s past that you’re trying to shield her from? More important than saying the right things to your daughter is to examine your own feelings about the situation. I wonder if you’re projecting your own fears or insecurities about your husband’s previous marriage and children with another woman onto your daughter. Your daughter will take the emotional cues from you on how to think and feel about this situation. The more you can accept your husband’s past, the better your daughter will be able to accept it and integrate it into her life story in a healthy way.
My advice is for you and your husband to talk to your daughter about his past marriage in an honest, straightforward, and simple way. It might sound something like this, “Dad and I love each other very much and we love you. Before we got married, your Dad was married to ____ and they had your brothers. Their marriage ended. Dad and I found each other and fell in love and had you – one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It might be kind of hard to understand this grown up stuff but if you have any questions about it, you can always come to me and Dad.”
Thanks for your email and feel free to drop me a note and let me know how the conversations go! Take good care of you and yours.
Have a question for me? Send me your family relationship and emotional health questions here!
How to assess your child’s self-esteem – When to worry & how to help
Studio 5 Contributor and Therapist, Julie Hanks, says parents are often surprised to discover their child struggles with self-esteem issues.
Self-esteem, a popular construct used to describe an individual’s inner experience, has two parts: how you define yourself, and how you evaluate yourself. It’s easier to evaluate your own experience than someone else’s subjective experience, even your own child. Here are some signs of healthy self-esteem, some examples of when you should be concerned about your child’s self-esteem, and how you can help them develop healthy self-esteem.
Hallmarks of healthy self-esteem in children and teens:
Competence
is possessing skills to face life challenges at their developmental stage.
Important skills for young children are basic social skills to get along with peers, to work out disagreements, or new activities like to learning to throw a football, or how to read. For adolescents, top skills are having social skills to navigate the complexities dating relationships or development of study skills to succeed in school.
Confidence
is belief in one’s self, one’s abilities, and in one’s experience. The felt assurance he or she is valuable and capable. Confidence is being open to new experiences, and willing to risk looking silly.
For example, my 8-year-old son went skiing for the first time last month. While he was a bit nervous, after only an hour he was skiing without the constant help of my husband. After a few hours was skiing on his own and enjoying himself.
Connection
is the ability to feel close to family and friends, to give and receive affection, to share thoughts and emotions, and to seek comfort and help when distressed. Empathy for others and for their own experiences is easily felt and expressed.
In my therapy practice, I have seen hundreds of children and adolescence who look exceptional on the outside – straight A’s, leaders at school, beautiful, athletic, but who are feeling worthless inside. Parents are baffled by their child’s internal pain because they “look fine” and “have so much going for them”. What many of these parents fail to realize is their child’s need for a genuine emotional connection with their parent and for the skills and permission to say, “I don’t want to play this sport”, or “Dad, it hurts me when you yell at me”, not just praise for their outstanding performance.
Coping skills
are the ability to handle a variety of situations and emotions and to accept and learn from mistakes without self-doubt, self-loathing, and excessive guilt. It’s also the ability to experience a full-range of emotions, find healthy expression of emotions, and to and bounce back from disappointments, and to take responsibility for choices without blaming others.
When should you worry about your child’s self-esteem?
1- Excessive focus on performance
In an effort to build self-esteem, it’s common for parents to push a child to excel in a particular sport, or academic endeavor, musical instrument, or to notice and praise a particular personality trait over and over. If your son’s self-definition is based on being a star baseball player, what happens if he doesn’t make the high school team? If your daughter labels herself as “the smart one” and gets a C in chemistry, it may shake her self-esteem. If your child self identifies himself as “the nice kid”, and then feels intense anger, he may deny the anger instead learning from it and finding a healthy was to express it.
In my therapy clinic, I’ve worked with several high school athletes suffering physical injuries or mental health problems. One client, a competitive high school runner, was laid up from a physical injury felt completely lost, worthless, aimless, and developed severe depression. She lost their main social support group, her sense of purpose, didn’t know what to do with her time, or her intense feelings of loss and disappointment.
How to help – Encourage your child to broaden their self-definition
Don’t be overly critical or demand perfect performance from your child. Notice intangible qualities such as patience or expressiveness and encourage the development of many varied interests and activities. Give you child opportunities of serving others connecting to larger social groups like family, neighbors, and community members in need.
A couple of years ago my brother mother and sister-in-law took their large family Peru to volunteer to work in orphanages. Seeing the extreme poverty, and so many children who were desperate for physical love and attention broadened the family’s view of the world and of their capacity to make a difference for others who are suffering. My nieces and nephews realized what a difference very small acts of kindness, like a hug or playing a game, matter. They felt good about themselves and gained a greater sense of appreciative for their family , their opportunities, and their resources.
2-Negativity toward self or others
While an occasional self-disparaging comment every now and then can be normal, if your child or teen exhibits a recurring pattern of negative comments about him or herself. Examples of negative self-statements are “I’m so stupid” or “No one likes me”, “I’m such a loser”.
Your child may not always share their negative thoughts with you so watch for behavioral evidence of negativity like neglecting caring for their hygiene, under-performing in school and other activities, unwillingness to try things that will make them look foolish, or withdrawing from social activities.
Excessive blaming of others, put downs, physical aggression, and treating others poorly can also be a sign of low self-esteem. When children feel good about themselves, they are likely to treat others with respect and kindness.
How to help- Listen and empathize before offering guidance or advice.
Parent’s gut response to hearing their child’s pain is to counter it with evidence to the contrary – to convince their child that they should think more positively about themselves. “You are not dumb! Why would you say that?” or “What do you mean you don’t have any friends? You were invited to so many birthday parties over the past year I can’t even count them.” Don’t underestimate the power of hearing your child, sitting there and saying, “Ouch, that’s got to feel pretty bad to have no friends” or simply say, “Tell me more.” One of the best gifts you can give to your child is give your child skills to identify and express their thoughts and feelings in a productive and connecting way
I recently counseled a couple with concern about their 13-year-old daughter’s self-esteem. She was having difficulty fitting in with her peers, finding her identity, and they were at a loss on how to help their daughter. The parents are working on identifying their own feelings and needs in therapy, and I assured them that modeling healthy emotional management and feeling positive about themselves was one of the best ways to help their daughter. They consciously practiced listening to and validating their daughter’s feelings of fear, sadness, and loneliness, and once she felt heard, coached her on how to find solutions to struggles. They also set up a structure for her to earn things that were really important to her — like getting a cell phone, which gave her a sense of control and competence. They also worked on praising her efforts in school, and efforts to reach out to others socially.
3-Fear of trying new things
Children with low self-esteem have difficulty taking risks and tend to give up easily when a task gets difficult. They also tend to avoid situations where they may not be naturally gifted or competent.
How to help - Praise your child’s effort with specific, sincere feedback. Avoid combining praise with expressions of love.
Most parents believe that constantly praising their child builds self-esteem. Not so. Lavishing general praise such as “you’re smart” can actually backfire and lower a child’s motivation, esteem, and willingness to try new things, according to Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman in their book Nurtureshock: New Thinking About Children. In chapter 1, Bronson and Merryman draw on research from Psychologist Carol Dweck who says, “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”
It’s also important to separate praise and expressions of love. The message “You’re so pretty and I love you” can actually create anxiety because the implicit message is “If you aren’t pretty, I won’t love you anymore.”
4-Too clingy or overly independent
When what is developmentally appropriate at an earlier stage is exhibited when a child is older, it’s time to worry. For example, if a two year old is clinging to his mother at preschool, that’s common, but if a sixth grader is having difficulty leaving her mother’s side, that IS cause for concern. Conversely, while it’s developmentally normal for an adolescent not to share some of her emotions with you as a parent, if an elementary school child is distant and never able to ask for help or comfort, there may be a problem. Children with low self-esteem have difficulty taking risks and tend to give up easily when a task gets difficult. They also tend to avoid situations where they may not be naturally gifted or competent.
Many parents assume that independence is always sign of high self-worth.
A client, who grew up with an alcoholic, physically abusive father and a submissive, depressed mom, learned at an early age not to express any anger, sadness, or emotional needs, to keep her siblings quiet so dad wouldn’t get upset, take on household chores so her mother wouldn’t feel overwhelmed. This is an example of unhealthy independence. It’s not age appropriate for an elementary school child to protect her mother, parent her siblings, and shut down her own feelings. What my client needed from her parents in order to develop healthy dependency was for them to protect her, for her mom to stand up to her husband and required him to get treatment or leave, for her father to take responsibility for his alcohol abuse and physical abuse of the family, and for support to work through the pain that the situation caused her.
How to help – Help your child develop healthy dependency – a combination of closeness and independence.
This is a balance between being able to venture out and explore new people and new activities AND being able to be close, share vulnerable feelings, and to send clear signals when they need help. When children feel secure in family relationships they feel more confident to embrace new experiences. Send your child the message, “I believe in you! You can do this, and I am here for you if you really need me.”
Nothing is more powerful than what you model to your child. Ask yourself what you are modeling to your child in terms of self-esteem. How you feel about yourself, and how well you balance your own need for independence and for connection in your relationships is the most powerful way to improve your child.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks, LCSW is a therapist, self & relationship expert, media contributor, and director of Wasatch Family Therapy. Visit www.wasatchfamilytherapy.com for individual, couple, family, & group counseling services designed to strengthen you and your family. We treat mental health and relationship problems in children, adolescents, and adults.
Licensed clinical social worker and therapist, Julie Hanks, has a step by step plan to offer support and find solutions to your child’s attention difficulties.
Your child is having problems finishing schoolwork or paying attention at school. You wonder “is it ADHD”? Parents have a variety of responses when the teacher calls to express concern about their child’s school performance or behavior. You may wonder if you’ve “failed” as a parent. You may feel sadness for your child’s struggle. You may want to dismiss the teacher’s concerns. Here is a step-by-step plan to help you support your child, to find answers, and to find solutions to your child’s attention difficulties. You are your child’s best advocate!
STEP 1-Get the facts
What are the teacher’s specific concerns? Ask for specifics on problem areas. Is there a certain time of day or a certain subject is particularly difficult for your child to concentrate?
What is your child’s experience? Ask your child about his or her experience. What are they feeling, thinking, wanting, and needing when they are having difficulty concentrating.
EXAMPLE (from a teacher’s perspective) – Krystal, a 2nd grade teacher, says that calling parents regarding attention or learning problems is difficult. “I hate making those phone calls (to parents), especially when the parent just doesn’t want to accept it. A lot of times it is their first experience. Since I teach in the lower grades I often have the first student in their family so they really don’t know what “normal” looks like. From a teacher’s point of view, I appreciate parents who will work with me to help their child be successful in school. I support whatever decision they make in regard to medicating or not, just as long as they are actively seeking help and a solution, too. I’ve already had to have a few of these conversations this year, and it never gets any easier. It’s such a delicate issue.”
STEP 2 – Examine the environment
Health issues, class room distractions, peer problems, family stresses, family losses, skipping breakfast, eating too much sugar or caffeine, sleep deprivation are just a few of the environmental factors that may lead to difficulty concentrating and completing school work.
EXAMPLE – Several years ago I counseled a family whose son was distracted, rambunctious, fidgety, and was having difficulty completing work and getting along with peers. In seeking solutions to help her son succeed in school and in relationships, his mother looked for factors in the environment that may be exacerbating his attention difficulties. She also suspected that there was a nutritional component involved, and found that he focused better when he ate fewer processed and sugary foods. She worked with her pediatrician to find effective medication, and met with natural health care providers to find nutritional supplements that were effective for her son. She also accepted that he was born with a high-energy temperament and needed a lot of physical activity, so she enrolled him in swimming, running and other sports.
STEP 3 – Translate problems into needs
When your child’s teacher identifies a problem behavior, ask yourself “What does my child need?” He or she might need extra time to finish work, may need to move to the front of the room, may need incentives to stay on task, may need to bring work home, a tutor after school to develop academic skill, a therapist to help with behavior modification or emotional coping skills, and more physical activity during school.
EXAMPLE – A family I’ve worked with for several years has a young daughter with Asperger’s and ADHD. The mother, a schoolteacher by profession, understands this concept of translating her child’s problems into needs and is an amazing advocate for her daughter. Here are a few examples of how one mother has helped translate problem behaviors into needs.
A) Problem – not completing work during school
Need – decreased volume of school work as long as she showed competency in that area, bringing home work to finish at home
B) Problem – difficulty staying on task at school
Need – behavioral charts to reinforce completion of work, ADHD medication, frequent breaks from learning to exert physical energy
C) Problem – angry outbursts, self-harming behavior
Need – healthier ways to express frustration and anger, individual and family therapy
STEP 4 – Focus on your child’s strengths
Every child has strengths that will help him or her overcome life challenges. Many children who have attention difficulties have other strengths including creativity, sensitivity, energy, independence, and flexibility.
In which area does your child have natural strengths and abilities? Howard Gardener’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences is a helpful tool in identifying your child’s natural intelligence.
Which style best describes your child’s learning style? How can you use you adapt your child’s educational experience to his or her learning style?
Visual
Auditory
Kinesthetic
STEP 5 – Build a support team
Solutions are a team effort with the child, teacher, parents, and school counselor. Put a specific behavioral plan in place that all agree on to help your child succeed. If problems persist, consult a pediatrician or child therapist for help with a specific diagnosis and treatment options for ADD/ADHD.
EXAMPLE – Recently, I worked with a blended family whose son has been diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety. Their multidisciplinary support team includes his schoolteacher overseeing behavioral interventions at school, a child psychiatrist monitoring medication, a social skills group to help their son get along better with peers, a therapist to help develop emotional coping skills, and a couples therapist to help parents manage their own stressors.
Finding solutions that work for your child means identifying the specific problems, advocating for your child needs, and building a team to help support your child succeed in his educational experience.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks, LCSW is a therapist, self & relationship expert, media contributor, and director of Wasatch Family Therapy. Visit www.wasatchfamilytherapy.com for individual, couple, family, & group counseling services designed to strengthen you and your family. We treat mental health and relationship problems in children, adolescents, and adults.
Talk them through things. Instead of taking the fix-it route, teach your kids how to address problems themselves, says therapist Julie Hanks, LCSW. “Coach your child through peer relationship problems or academic problems instead of swooping in and solving it for your child. Allow your child to experience a full range of emotions. Too often parents try to shield their child from painful emotions,†says Hanks.
Studio 5 contributor and therapist Julie Hanks, LCSW, shares important parenting skills you might be overlooking.
Good Parenting is not just about you treat your child. I recently stumbled across a recent blog on PsychologyToday.com highlighting surprising research — two out of the three most effective parenting skills don’t directly involve interacting with your kids. In the recent issue of Scientific American Mind (Nov./Dec. 2010)“What Makes A Good Parent?” psychologist and researcher by Robert Epstein, PhD found that while showing love and affection to your child is the most important parenting skills, how you treat yourself and how your interact with your spouse or co-parent rank second and third. While real parents are quite good at love and affection, they report poorer scores on areas stress management and adult relationship skills.
These results aren’t surprising to me and coincide with my professional journey. Interestingly, all of my early training was in play therapy working directly with children, but within a few years I realized that the best thing I could do for children was to help support their mother’s emotional well-being and to support their parent’s in developing healthy relationships. In my practice I frequently see well-meaning parents who don’t take good care of themselves and their adult relationships and their children suffer. A common dynamic I often see in my practice working with divorced families is parents speaking poorly of their child’s other parent or putting the child in the middle of conflict between co-parents, with devastating impact on their child
Improve your parenting by developing skill these 2 areas:
Stress Management
Have realistic expectations for yourself
Take a “time out” when you’re overwhelmed
Practice optimism
Healthy Adult Relationship
Talk positively about other parent
Model affection & communication
Keep child out of middle
The Parents’ 10 Competencies
1-Love and affection – respect & support, physical affection, quality time together
2-Stress management – reduce stress, practice relaxation, positive outlook
3-Relationships skills – model good relationship with spouse/significant other, co-parent
4-Autonomy & Independence – treat child with respect and encourage self-sufficiency
5-Education & learning – promote learning and provide opportunities
6-Life skills – provide financially, plan for future
7-Behavior management – use positive reinforcement and punish as last resort
8-Health – model healthy lifestyle
9-Religion – support child’s spiritual and religious development
10-Safety – protect child & have awareness of child’s activities
Free Parenting Test
Test your competency in the “Parents 10″ skill areas. Take this free online test : myparentingskills.com
Pat yourself on the back for your strengths and then make a plan to improve in the areas with lower scores. According to Dr. Epstien, good parenting skills can be learned and parenting classes can be an effective way to improve your parenting and help raise a happier, healthier child.
Julie de Azevedo Hanks, LCSW, is a licensed therapist and owner & director of Wasatch Family Therapy. Visit www.wasatchfamilytherapy.com for individual, couple, family, & group counseling and support services designed to strengthen you and your family. We treat mental health and relationship problems in children, adolescents, and adults. For additional self-improvement & relationship resources connect with me at www.juliehanks.com.
Studio 5 Contributor, Julie Hanks, LCSW with Wasatch Family Therapy has tips to help you tap into the positive power of sisters.
A recent New York Times essay “Why sisterly chats make people happier” by Deborah Tannen caught my eye because I have five, yes, FIVE sisters. I love research that supports what I already know from real-life experience — sisters are important to mental health. Having a sister protects teens against feelings of depression, loneliness, self-consciousness, fear, and being unloved according to Laura Padilla-Walker, head researcher in a recent BYU study.
The positive impact of sisters extends beyond adolescence into adulthood. British researchers Liz Wright and Tony Cassidy found that people who grew up with at least one sister were happier more motivated, had more friends, and were more resilient during difficult times, especially during parental divorce.
Here are some tips for helping your children, sisters AND brothers, develop close, positive relationships with each other during childhood and adolescence so they will continue to support emotional health as adults.
Tips to Help Your Kids Help Each Other
1) Show Affection
Encourage your family to express physical affection, to notice and express positive traits, to increase emotional sensitivity to siblings, and to celebrate other sibling’s successes. Affection is an important aspect that contributes to the positive mental health outcomes among siblings, According to Padilla-Walker, “An absence of affection seems to be a bigger problem than high levels of conflict.”
A-list star Gwenyth Paltrow, and her producer brother, Jake Paltrow are a great example of affectionate siblings raised in a loving home.
2) Express
Emotion
Healthy emotional expression is a crucial component to emotional health. Wright & Cassidy found that in families whose parents divorce, sisters tended to express themselves, and encourage emotional expression in others leading to less distress.
Coach your children to express feelings to their siblings in a non-attacking way. Here’s an excellent tool to help your children communicate their emotion:
I feel (emotion word) when you (other’s specific behavior) because I think (thought) . I would like it if you would (requested behavior) .
Here’s an example: “I feel mad when you take my clothes without asking because I think you don’t respect my privacy. I would like it if you would ask me before you borrow my clothes.”
When single mother Jennifer Child’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer her sisters were her strength.
“I have 2 sisters whose lives CHANGED when my daughter was diagnosed. I was a young single mom, my sisters PULLED me through~ I COULD NOT have made it through without my family. We pulled together and somehow made it through this HORRIFIC time in our life. My sisters are my best friends. I now have 2 daughters, 6 and 7 they are best friends. They do fight like NO OTHER, but love each other as I have seen with my sisters.”
3) Show Kindness
Coach your children to treat each other with respect, thoughtfulness, and kindness. Having a loving sibling of any gender seems to promote kindness and empathy toward others, according to Padilla-Walker. Interestingly, the relationship between positive sibling relationships and good deeds was twice as strong as the relationship between parenting and a child’s good deeds.
Mother of eight children, Andrya Lewis, promotes kindness among her children “by having sleepovers on Friday nights with movies and treats and sleeping bags, by letting siblings tell good news and surprises and
distribute treats to the other siblings, and by verbally interpreting and translating that acts of kindness or service (like sharing a toy, or finding a lost shoe) mean their sibling loves them.”
4) Communicate Often
Tannen’s research found that women talk with sisters more often, at greater length, and about more personal topics than they do with brothers. She concludes that the frequency of contact with sisters, not necessarily the content of the communication, is most important component contributing to the positive impact of having a sister.
Annie Frazier says she checks in with her older sister Jennie Gochnour by text or phone every other day. “It’s not always a big conversation; often it’s just a check in. We share everything and it’s not judged. We have gotten each other through everything – deaths, marriages, and divorce. She’s the only reason I’m not in intensive therapy! I particularly remember one day when we were running together in the early morning. I was going through infertility treatments and hoping to get pregnant – despite the reality of the months of darkness that I knew were around the corner with my postpartum depression. I don’t remember what she said, but I remember what I felt. In her eyes, I could not have been any more wonderful – even though in my eyes, all I saw was failure, sadness and inadequacies. She was my crutch and has carried me along many dark roads that have led to beautiful moments of celebration. She has always been by my side.”
5) Minimize conflict
Set family rules of no name-calling and no physical fighting, and don’t be afraid to intervene in your children’s fights. High levels of sibling conflict is associated with increased risk aggression in other relationships, and increased delinquent behavior, but on the positive side, a little bit of conflict gives siblings a chance to practice emotional control and problem solving skills.
According to Oracne Price, mother to tennis superstar sisters, Venus and Serena Williams, though they are fiercely competitive on the court, her daughters are very close friends.
Do you have a sister? How has she impacted your mental health?
