real parents

real kids

real talk

by

Susan Stone Belton, BSE

Family Coach and Motivational Speaker

real PARENTS real KIDS real TALK

Susan Stone Belton

Copyright 2012 by Susan Stone Belton, BSE

Smashwords Edition

acknowledgments

I want to thank the hundreds and hundreds of parents and children, who over the past 43 years, have allowed me into your homes and your hearts. You have taught me so much and it has been my pleasure to meet every one of you.

I want to thank all the schools and programs who have invited me to bring my parenting message to you. I learn something new every time I speak to a group, and am honored by every invitation.

I want to thank Vandy, one of my first fans and the person without whom I never could have written this book.

I want to thank Hal, the father of my children and a great parenting partner.

And finally, I want to thank Brandon and Casey, my favorite two people. Being a mom is the greatest joy in my life, and I love you both very much.

Preface

A Lifetime of Studying Families

I’ve been collecting research for this book since I was four years old. That’s when, following a two minute phone conversation, I went from being a contented young child living in an intact family to being a neglected child in a chaotic home environment.

When I woke up that morning in April 1962, I was a typical suburban kid, living in a large house north of Chicago with my working father, stay-at-home mother, eight-year-old sister and six-year-old brother. My parents owned a house and two cars, our home was filled with beautiful furniture and numerous toys, and I was a well-cared-for child, secure in her family’s love. Right before lunch, I answered our kitchen phone. My grandfather was on the line. It’s an emergency, he said. Get your mother.

What’s a ‘mergency’? I asked, and he promised to tell me later. Turns out, he didn’t have to.

Shortly after my grandfather’s call, my sister and brother came home from school expecting lunch. Instead of feeding us, our mother told us to pack a few clothes in a suitcase. My grandfather arrived to pick us up, and we drove away from our home. I went to bed that night in my grandparent’s 8th floor apartment on the South Side of Chicago, with my mother on the living room couch, my brother in a small bed next to mine, my sister in an aunt’s apartment on the 11th floor, and my father in jail.

My siblings and I never again saw our home or our possessions, and it would be five years before we heard from our father. Overnight, the security and safety we had known vanished, and our status in the world went from being normal children with a healthy family life to humiliated children with secrets, shame, a missing father, and a devastated, angry mother. We were never allowed to tell anyone the truth about our father, or forget that we were the disgraced children of a criminal. With our mother working at a full-time job all day, and exhausted when she returned home each night, my siblings and I were forced to raise ourselves, striving every day to prove to the world that we were not criminals like our father.

From the time that I was five years old, I couldn’t wait to be a mommy; I wanted to have children so that I could give them everything that had been taken from me.

Fast forward to the fall of 1984. I was a certified special education teacher, living in California, having taught special needs teenagers for several years. And the moment I had been waiting for finally arrived: I gave birth to my first child.

After becoming a mother first to my son, Brandon, and four years later to my daughter, Casey, I continued learning about children and families, both at home and in my career: I taught Gymboree classes—not just a few, but 14 classes a week, for two years; I ran crisis hotlines for troubled parents and teens, and trained other crisis counselors; managed a domestic violence offenders treatment program; provided support for victims in crisis situations; and ran a home-based preschool for several years.

I began to share what I’d learned about children and families with other parents, through one-on-one coaching sessions and group presentations, activities that I still perform today.

Now, I’d like to share what I’ve learned with you.

Chapter 1

THE TRUE GOAL OF PARENTING

A new baby is like the beginning of all things—

wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities.

~Eda J. Le Shan,family counselor and author

Two things happened in the moment I first held my newborn son, Brandon: I fell fiercely and completely in love with him, and I was humbled by the awesome responsibility of raising him. For the next 21 years, I would be responsible for providing food, shelter, safety, security—pretty much everything—for this new person. Every decision I made as a parent, I realized with pride and excitement, would influence the sort of person my son would become. Of course, I’d known this before Brandon was born, but the enormity of it really didn’t hit me until I first gazed down at his tiny, innocent face.

Perhaps you had a similar Aha! moment, when your first child arrived. Most new parents do. It’s a big adjustment,

to go from being responsible only for yourself, to being the 24-hour, always-on-call caregiver for someone who is totally dependent on you. Your baby’s care becomes the focus of your life, and you jump in—ready or not—with both feet.

When our children are newborn infants, our job as parents is to teach them that they’re safe, they’re loved and their needs will be met. But a few months later, when our shock, exhilaration and exhaustion have subsided a bit, and our baby has adjusted to life outside the womb, it’s time for us to broaden our focus. As they grow and develop, our children will look to us for much more than just food, love and clean diapers. They’ll also need us to show them how to behave. They’ll need our guidance and our understanding, and they’ll need us to lay down a values road map to follow. And so, while we continue as our child’s caregiver, we now add another role, the role of mentor.

As caregivers, we’re concerned with our baby’s basic needs, but as mentors, we’re more focused on our baby’s behavior. We begin to wonder, Should I let my baby cry, or give in to her demands? Should I rock him to sleep, or let him cry in his crib as he falls asleep? Should I feed her on demand or every three hours? Should I hold her so much? and the big one: Am I spoiling my child?

We can’t spoil a newborn with our attention, but at some point, usually when our baby is around six months old, it becomes appropriate for us to step back a little. We let her fuss a little bit, so she learns to wait a little bit. We let him cry for a few minutes in his crib, so he learns that he can settle himself. We ask her to wait a little longer between feedings, so she learns that there’s a routine. We don’t rush to pick her up the instant she cries, so she begins to learn to comfort herself.

As we begin the process of shaping our child’s behavior, we each need to consider an important question:What kind of adult do I want my child to be?We know we don’t want a child who is spoiled or rude or mean. We want a child who is kind and polite and friendly, who matures into a hard working, honest, respectful adult. It may seem premature to be thinking about what sort of adult we want our six-month-old baby to become, but after her health and safety are assured, the answers to this crucial question should guide everything we do as parents. After all, this is the true goal of parenting:helping our beautiful little baby grow into a successful adult.

Sometimes I wish I had a crystal ball,

so I could see how my kids are going to turn out.

~Vicki, mother of 2 kids

Now that we understand that our job as parents is to raise a successful adult, we can get started.

What is a Successful Adult?

Everything I need to be successful,

I have inside of me.

~ Sign at Brooktree Elementary School, San Jose, CA

Success is a complex quality that can be defined as many things and measured in many different ways. As the parent, you get to choose the definition of success that you will measure your children against. You get to choose the qualities and values that you want to instill in your children. And you get to guide them toward their success.

To begin the process of raising a successful adult, you must first ask yourself:

"What do I want my child to be like,when she’s 21 years old?"

I want my daughters to be happy; I want them to be

independent; I want them to love to learn,

to do well in school, to get a good education;

I want them to contribute to society.

~Daniella, mother of 1 kid and 1 teen



I want my sons to be happy,

to know what their path is,

to be independent, to be good people.

~Justine, mother of 2 kids



I really hope my boys want to spend time with me when

they’re grown. I want them to call me up and say,

Hi Mom. You’ll never guess what happened today.

I really hope we have a friendship, then.

~Ariana, mother of 2 kids



I hope my children have a sense of happiness

about them; I hope they will make good choices;

I want them to understand

that every decision has consequences;

I want them to be responsible.

~Paul, father of 2 kids

I want my child to be a well-rounded person,

someone who knows who he is;

a good person, a responsible person.

I hope that my son learns to deal with life’s stresses.

I hope he has a lot of friends, a good social network.

~Marla, mother of 1 teen



I hope my children grow up to be satisfied with their

lives, doing what