Hi friends - this week, producer Lynne and I talked about kids and - the “A” word - Adversity. Guess what? It can be good for them! Lynne and I talked to pediatrician Perri Klaas, who wrote a great article in the July issue of Parenting Magazine. (A lot of times I don’t think their articles are so great, but this one I liked.) Here’s the link to the article - the show will be up soon on podcast!

Are you overprotecting your child?

You’ll also want to check out a book on Amazon.com called “Children at Promise” - as opposed to children at risk. It’s all about the VALUE of adversity in a child’s life. Friends, if we don’t allow our kids to experience adversity, delayed gratification, disappointment, just the word “no” when they are children - we have little chance of turning the into resilient adults.

Next week we welcome to the show a new sponsor to the show, Beautiful Beginnings, a very special baby store in Western Springs. Here’s a link to their site: Beautiful Beginnings; Fine furnishings for babies’ and child’s rooms

Stay tuned, please tell a friend about the show - and have a GREAT 4th of July. God Bless America.

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By Betsy Hart/@Scripps Howard News Service/ June 21, 2007

“Snack.” I hate the very word.

With four kids, I’m always on some list or other to provide them. Or rather “it.” “Snack” is now a plural. As in, “mom, it’s your turn to bring ‘snack’.” I don’t mean yogurt and fruit on a summer afternoon at my house. I mean a sweet sugary treat at every organized event the kids attend. Every sports event, every school event, every church event, every recreation department event now includes “snack.” These kids can’t go two hours without some sugary treat being provided in some official capacity. (Being the snack-mom and showing up with mini-water bottles and packs of carrots could socially ruin a child. I threaten my children with it, but I haven’t actually done it – yet.)

Several years ago, a young French woman stayed with my young family and me for a few weeks during the summer. A sweet girl, she didn’t think much of America. Too many flags displayed, too much hard work, and far too few stories on the evening news about foreign news events for her taste. She was French so, well, I wasn’t offended.

The place I agreed with her was on Americans and food. She simply couldn’t believe that there was nothing we could do that didn’t involve food and treats. Absolutely no organized event, particularly for children, could forgo them. Apparently in France, they are actually able to hold school pageants and sports events for children without sugary food being part of it. They can even go to the museum there without the children being promised an ice cream.

Who knew?

Look, I’m hardly holding the French up as an example for anything, and for all I know this is just a reaction to their war –deprived past.

But I have to think they are onto something here.

My second grader, Maddie, played baseball again this season. Her team coaches, bless them, decided the team would NOT be providing “snack” after every game. So Maddie’s team started raiding the other team’s “snack” and getting the leftovers. Our team capitulated, and pretty soon our parents were bringing “snack.”

Then there are the park district activities. The two younger ones are in day camp. 1:00 – 3:00 in the afternoons. One can presume the children have eaten lunch before they arrive. Never mind, parents must take turns providing “snack” each day.

Oh, and school? When I was a kid, past kindergarten there was no such thing as “snack” or snack time. There was lunch. Period. Today? It’s all about. . . “snack”! Every parent has to take turns providing it for the younger grades, or send one with their child in the older grades.

What is this with constant eating? I get irritated my kids expect three meals a day, and then to throw “snack” in on top of it makes me really crazy. On top of everything else, it’s a time waster. Why can’t they do like I do? Coffee in the morning, “grazing” about 2:00, and some sort of dinner, if it seems really necessary, about 7:00? My life would be so much easier but no – they insist on actual meals. Sigh.

(My own mother would sometimes declare, “dinner is cancelled due to lack of interest.” Seriously. )

Well meals, and a piece of fruit in between if one gets hungry, are one thing. But the routine of sugary “snack” is ridiculous. No wonder by the year 2010 almost half of all American kids will be overweight or obese. (In 1970 that figure was about 4 percent.) They’re growing up to think that if they exercise for 30 minutes a gooey treat is part of cool down time.

I hate “snack.”

Okay I’m determined, the next time it’s my turn to bring snack for anything, to make it carrots maybe with a little French dressing for dipping, and some water bottles. There, I’m putting it in writing. Maybe, at the very least, I’ll create such a stir that I will get off “snack” rotation once and for all.

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Angelina Jolie is the toast of Hollywood.    Most recently for her portrayal of Danny Pearl’s wife in “A Mighty Heart” out this week.   But even over and above that, she’s consistently cheered for her “selfless” humanitarian efforts, and the fact that she picks up children to adopt like pebbles from a beach.  (Usually the Left isn’t big on the kid thing, but when you are an unmarried mom living with your boyfriend suddenly it’s all good.)
But Angelina Jolie has nothing to be proud of.  When you are rich and famous and have a full staff, it’s easy to scoop up and manage children.from around the world.  When you are staying in bungalows for thousands of dollars a night, as she and Brad Pitt typically do,  it’s easy to care about the world’s refugees and the poor.

What’s hard is to stand by comittments and promises. to actually sacrifice.  To sacrifice oneself.  Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had a chance to stand with the world’s children.  to set a great example.  To do what was right.  They didn’t.  Brad Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston when he and Jolie “fell in love.”   How incredibly easy it can be to be attractd to someone not your spouse.  I mean, that’s a lot of fun and games.   The hard thing, the truly sacrificial thing, isn’t scooping up kids and lamenting the world’s poor while staying in multi-thousand-dollar a night casas:  It’s sticking to comittment.  It’s honoring promises.  It’s saying “I cannot have (or give) this thing that belongs to someone else.”  Love isn’t, in the end, a feeling.  It’s a choice.  Pitt promised to choose to love Aniston.  He and Jolie both should have honored that promise.
Pitt and Jolie are ready to embrace the world’s anonymous children.  That’s easy.  It doesn’t require anything of them, really.   But at the same time they were willing to degrade and betray the one person Pitt was responsbile for protecting most in the world.  How cowardly and pathetic.
Standing by his marriage vows would have done far more good for the world’s children than anything Pitt and Jolie have  done “together” since he left Aniston. 

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Hi Friends – today producer Lynne and I talked how we are sick of “snack.” Now used as a plural as in “mom – you have to bring ‘snack’ to the game on Thursday.” And nobody is talking about carrot sticks and water bottles. How did we get to the point where our kids can’t exercise for 30 minutes without getting a sugary treat and drink at the end of it? Sheesh.

Then Lynne and I spoke with Monique Nelson of www.webwisekids.org about internet safety for kids. How do we keep our kids safe on the internet? During summer, that problem becomes an even bigger one for most parents. Well, Webwise kids has some great games for different ages of children to SHOW them what can happen in the real web world. In other words, your kids can play a game and help a detective solve a case, for instance, involving a real child who disappeared for a time because he was lured away by someone on the internet! Go to www.webwisekids.org to learn more.

Ahh, but what if you have a child who thinks being lured away might be kind of fun? (Lynne and I have a couple of those.) Well, on top of policing the internet in your home and teaching your kids some basic safety rules, you need a great internet filter. But different filters will work for different families. It depends what your needs are. You can check out the pros and cons of filters you are considering, or just determine what kind of internet filter will work best for you, but going to www.filterreview.com.

But remember – when it comes to kids and the internet, there too it takes a parent.

And this week we have a great giveaway: the Illinois Railway Museum in Union Illinois – west of Crystal Lake – is providing a family 4-pack admission in August for a special festival and exhibit they are hosting, including Thomas the Tank Engine. I’m definitely going to make a day of it there with my kids. The Illinois Railway Museum is the largest railway museum in the United States. This is a $60 value. You can find out more here: www.irm.org. As I announced on the show, the first person to let me know here that you’d like that family four-pack wins! I’ll respond to you in person, and announce your name on the air July 12th. Good luck.

As always, thanks for listening. Please tell your friends, and learn more about our sponsors at the right. If you would like information on becoming a sponsor, please let us know at sendtohart@comcast.net.

Next week Lynne and I will talk about kids and phone answering machines (I say don’t try this at home) and letting our kids learn to handle adversity and not panic ourselves.

Have a great week – Betsy Hart

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This week on “It Takes a Parent” producer Lynne and I celebrate dads in honor of Father’s Day, and we talked with professor Harvy Mansfield of Harvard University about, well, “Manliness” - the topic of his book by the same name. Professor Mansfield says hey, we no longer honor traditional male qualities today - like strength, competitiveness and c courage - and Lynne and I agree. I call it the “man bad/woman good” view of the world. The one that says real men need to be like. . . women. We definitely live in a feminized culture. But when we women try to turn dads into assistant moms - and some of us do - we all lose.We celebrate dads who are faithful to their families, even if they don’t always change enough diapers. Happy Father’s Day!

You can listen by clicking on the microphone. As always, we’d love to know what you think.

Have a great week, and check in here each day for updates on my blog.

— Betsy

P.S: To all of you that came out last week to “Breakfast with Betsy at the Huntington Learning Center of Lake Villa, we had a great time - thank you!

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Hi Friends - today producer Lynne and I talked about a New York Times article focusing on the reading habits of young girls. It’s not Bronte or the wholesome pop magazine we all knew (and loved) as kids, “Tiger Beat.” Remember that? It’s all the adult rags chronicling the drunkin’ and sordid behavior of all the various pop stars. (This is where as a kid I admit I was in the “David Cassidy Fan Club”) Does this normalize this kind of behavior for these girls??

Then we focused on the tricky but sometimes necessary practice of correcting other people’s kids. Ouch. When we were young, I feared Mrs. Clancy and Mrs. Cooper just as much as my mom! When they corrected me, my mom didn’t take it personally. Why? Because she knew her kids didn’t come into the world full of inherent wisdom - that we needed correction. Our misbehavior wasn’t a reflection on her, only her response to it was! Moms knew they needed each other’s help.

Today, those same neighborhood waters can be tough to navigate. Lynne and I talk about that with “our favorite mom” Ann Morton. A super mom to four boys, she makes even Lynne and me look like pushovers!.

Hey, if you are in the Chicago area, I’d love to meet you Saturday monring at “Breakfast with Betsy” - you can find out the details on the right.

I hope you’ll listen in and let us hear from you.

Have a great week!

Blessings to you and your family - Betsy Hart

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Betsy’s column 06/03/07

http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=HART-05-31-07

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