Tips for Parents, Families, and Professionals
Parenting is often overwhelming. A good idea can become a good friend.
specific problems.
Newsletter: Dr. Hall also writes a periodic e-mail newsletter on a parenting topic of current
Handout #1:
Parenting for Conscience-Children Zero to Five: Nurturing Curiosity and Civility
David C. Hall, M.D.
Parenting is difficult. Parenting for conscience requires that parents are reliably loving and
non-violent right from conception. There is nothing about parenting that is effortless or
altogether predictable. So expect to work at it steadily and teach your children to do the same.
When the Nisqually Earthquake hit on February 28, 2001, I was sitting at my computer and felt the
floor rise suddenly about 8 inches. Fortunately my office building could sway and not break. Good
parenting through the first five years creates the emotional equivalent of a shock-resistant
foundation for our children. It starts with a healthy pregnancy and a healthy mom at childbirth.
New parents face persistent, intense demands from their infant. The most demanding time in the
family lifecycle for the energy required of parents comes with the second and third child under
school age, when children need continuous attention. The strongest of parents will feel
overwhelmed at times. A reliable team of helpers is essential-a cooperative partner, extended
family, available neighbors, co-operative daycare arrangements, PEPS* partners, and any other
arrangement with safe and reliable people who will lend a hand at critical times. Single parents are
particularly vulnerable to isolation and exhaustion. What's the answer? Take good care of
yourself. Your ability to carry out the demanding tasks of parenting young children depends on your
getting enough sleep, exercise, healthy food, companionship, and restorative recreation. This
means building a team of people who can take care of your children on a regular basis so you, the
parent, get time away for yourself. Once you are well cared for, you are ready to give your best to
nurturing your children.
Here are the Five Basic Skills of Good Parenting, which will help you to nurture within your
children the solid foundation they will need to become loving and civil despite life's many quakes.
Basic Skill #1: Talk Lovingly to Your Infants and Listen Lovingly to Your Children
Communicate your love in everything you say and do. Your children are precious and will bring you
many of life's greatest joys if you treasure them constantly. From the day your babies arrive, talk
lovingly to them. Sing to them. Tell them how wonderful they are. Read to them. Play soothing
music for them. Tell them how much hope you hold for their future. They will understand the love in
your voice and the warmth in your holding. Accept the strain and exhaustion of raising your baby as
part of your decision to become a parent. A steady diet of love and appreciation is just as important
as food for a growing infant. Once your children begin to talk, listen with your whole self to
understand what they try to say. Give them new words and new ways to say what they want.
Basic Skill #2: See Through Your Children's Eyes
As they grow, develop your ability to see complaints and conflicts as your children see them. That
way the responses you give will show you understand and thereby you nurture their souls. At the
same time you will be modeling behavior that will be the backbone of their social competence.
When your child cries, gets angry, or complains loudly, do your best to imagine what words they
would need to tell you and offer those words. When you succeed in seeing events as your child sees
them, you also get to see yourself more clearly and catch your own mistakes. Children by nature will
try to communicate honestly unless they learn honesty doesn't work or, worse, that it backfires.
Praise them for telling the truth as they see it. That way they can learn from their mistakes. And
they can learn to take responsibility for decisions they make.
Basic Skill #3: Model Love and Respect
Flip Wilson was a very funny man who created a female comedy character named Geraldine, whose
favorite line was "What you see is what you get!" Keep in mind that what your children see you do
is what you're likely to get back from them. Treat them with dignity from the very start and they will
treat you with dignity for the rest of your life.
Basic Skill #4: Do What Your Heart of Hearts Tells You Is Right
We all have to answer to the mirror. When you look at yourself in the morning, do you like the
person you see? Are you happy with the parenting decisions you have made recently? Deep down
you must believe in what you do as a parent or you and your children will crash into a very painful
wall of misunderstanding. It's not only important to be loving and respectful because love and
respect model the behavior we want in return, but also because they wear better on our
consciences than irritability, complaining, intimidation, or trying to please someone else.
Basic Skill #5: Persevere and Enjoy Your Children
You've accepted by now that parenting is difficult. No matter why you chose to jump into the storm-
tossed ocean of parenthood, you're in it now. As you accept where you are and learn the skills and
perspectives to navigate in this difficult environment, you'll grow stronger and more comfortable.
There may be periods of greater behavior problems as your children move through difficult stages of
development or run into complications of illness, family legacies of pain, or cultural temptations.
Stay loving and supportive and look for the love and humor that even infuriating situations can
provide. The prize of good parenting is the lifelong love and connection with your children and
theirs. Treasure it as you go.
David C. Hall, M.D. Child Adolescent and Family Psychiatry; Author, Stop Arguing and Start
Understanding: Eight Steps to Solving Family Conflicts, Montlake Family Press, September 2001
Handout #2
Parenting for Conscience-Children Six to Twelve:
It's a Wonderful Life (Sometimes)
David C. Hall, M.D.
Parenting is difficult. Parenting for conscience requires that parents are reliably loving and
non-violent right from conception. You've invested your heart and soul in loving and guiding your
infant-toddler-preschooler. When your child finally goes off to school, you get a breather. This
begins the often wonderful stage of child development when friendships take root, skills grow daily,
character deepens, understanding explodes, and self-awareness goes from one extreme to the
other from six to twelve. It's also the most common time for parents to divorce, sibling rivalries to
get hurtful, oppositional behavior to escalate, moodiness and anxieties to emerge, and the real
world to intrude with its many complexities and contradictions. Your challenge as a parent through
these years is to enjoy teaching and taxiing your children as they participate in a variety of
activities. They need your steady, good-humored support to succeed in school, with friends, in
building their skills, and in engaging the wider community.
Gentleness and Tenacity Your own gentleness and tenacity are your greatest allies in nurturing
conscience in your children. When children misbehave, I try to remember Jesus' words from the
cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34) When your children
choose to break the rules or to act selfishly, they are testing themselves and you or simply doing
the best they can with inadequate skills. Be gentle in your response and firm in your expectations
that they improve their skill and understanding, so the next problem will be a new one, not a repeat.
Here are nine suggestions to massage their budding consciences:
1)Encourage Humor. Find the funny bone in you and your children. Model good sportsmanship.
Teach them how to tease you lovingly and to see conflict and disappointment from odd angles that
mix humor into the pain.
2)Recruit Allies. My 18 month-old grandson has taken to saying "Help!" when he gets stuck trying
to climb stairs or extract a toy from the toy box. Your spouse or partner, grandparents, siblings,
fellow parents, neighbors, daycare, babysitters, support groups, teachers, coaches, youth workers,
your family doctor, and specialists if you need them-they can all provide soul-saving help. Organize
a village around your family to help you weather the storms of child rearing.
3)Treasure Your Children. They are the most precious investments in your portfolio. Love them
lavishly both in giving to them what you want them to have and in setting safe limits that will
protect their self-esteem. Don't let yourself strike them with words or anything else. Even at their
most unruly, remember that well-loved children will always return that love if they can. If they
cannot, you should seek professional help.
4)Share Your Stories, Share Yourself. As your children grow, tell them your family stories and your
own story. Let them get to know you as a real person in the real world. Share your successes and
shortcomings, embarrassments and triumphs, hard work and how you play. Help them to understand
and respect the decisions you have made to become the person you are both as a parent and as a
citizen of the world. This builds a bridge to friendship that will help you survive their teenage
emancipation struggles and still love each other as adults.
5)Teach Discipline and Build Self-Esteem. Effective self-discipline is essential to good self-esteem.
Children learn to manage their own emotional excesses by internalizing their parents' discipline of
those excesses. As difficult as it becomes to set firm and effective limits on our children's excesses,
it must be done, and done lovingly. Children are spoiled by the absence of appropriate limits on
their selfishness, not by any excess of love. Giving in to tantrums only reinforces the child's fear of
being out of control. Model firm restraint by insisting on time-outs and other proportionate
consequences, followed by a discussion on better ways to get what they want. Enfold them in
honest and loving relationships, so they know what they are missing when they hurt other people.
6)Monitor Violence. Unfettered access to violent video games or other violent media numbs our
children to the real damage violence does to human relationships. Watch and play with your
children so you know the intense allure of these media. Then talk with them about what violence
means in real life. One 10 year-old told me his video game that had him dismember an enemy
wasn't violent, "because there isn't any blood." Children become agitated by viewing violent
material and are more likely to act violently after viewing such material. "[With violent video games
we] are teaching children to associate pleasure with human death and suffering. We are rewarding
them for killing people. And we are teaching them to like it," according to Lieutenant Colonel David
Grossman, a former Army psychologist.*
7)Privacy-We All Need It. As children become self-aware and sensual, parents need to provide
safe boundaries for personal hygiene, modesty, body contact, and sexual talk. Privacy for children
means giving them defined space and time they can control. Healthy parents set the limits of safety
and acceptable behavior and allow their children to make choices within those boundaries. Very
early on, children develop preferences about eating, sleeping, playing, and cuddling. Each
affirmation of a child's choice reinforces his or her confidence in making other choices. Your ability
to enjoy your children's exercise of these limited freedoms validates their joy and self-assurance.
And it reinforces the right you have for privacy from them.
8)Inspire Your Children's Imaginations and Reach. The more support and opportunity children
receive for constructive, creative adventure, the less parents will need to intervene to constrain
unruly behaviors. This means giving extra parental time on the front end of their adventure
planning. In child rearing, the rule is "pay me now or pay me later." Spend your time encouraging
positive activities or you'll spend it undoing trouble later on. As they get used to creating their own
dramas, your children will need less direction from you. Making time to help them create positive
habits of play will make later discipline less necessary, less frequent, and less confrontational.
Beyond keeping your children busy, you can encourage them to use their imaginations to try out far-
fetched ideas for the fun of it. There is no need to limit their ideas about what is possible-other
than basic concerns for safety. Let them dream. In later discussions we can add our ideas about
what reality allows in case our children haven't already figured this out for themselves. Healthy
children have rich imaginations and many ideas about what they want. Find ways to say "yes" that
allow them to proceed with safety and enthusiasm.
Expect Excellence and Appreciate What You Get. The secret to instilling in our children a lasting
standard of excellence is to combine an expectation of excellence with appreciation for whatever
they actually do. When you always give them credit for what they have done, you encourage them
to try again and continue to improve their performance. The corollary is to keep school enjoyable
and exciting. Help your children to judge their performance against their own abilities and
accomplishments more than against others. Praise their accomplishments and provide help as they
ask for it. Every child's level of excellence is different. Setting expectations tailored to each child
honors the child's individuality and shows that child care. Excellence is not an absolute. You may
have a child who is musically talented, a pretty good soccer player, or clearly slower than most
other children. Each child needs to find his or her own level of comfort and competence and pursue
it for the pride that comes from setting a goal and reaching it.
David C. Hall, M.D. Child Adolescent and Family Psychiatry; Author, Stop Arguing and Start
Understanding: Eight Steps to Solving Family Conflicts, Montlake Family Press, September 2001
Handout #3
Parenting for Conscience-Teenagers: The Art of Losing Gracefully
David C. Hall, M.D.
You've survived your child's early and middle childhood, hopefully with many enjoyable moments.
Now you face the intimidating teen years. With all the pain of adolescent moodiness-irritability,
indifference, withdrawal, defiance, rudeness-and all the risks of adolescent testing-drugs, sex,
violence, crime, runaways, cars-you ask, How am I going to stay sane? Mission: To raise a strong,
happy, competent, loving adult. Strategy: To model what you want--stay loving, patient,
determined, good-humored, and learn to listen with your whole being.
1)Parenting is difficult. - Remember this, so you'll be ready for how hard you must work
sometimes.
2)Right from conception, treat every child with love and respect and give them choices you
define as safe and appropriate. - Children develop self-esteem by learning from mistakes for which
they are accountable.
3)Be ready and be steady with a sense of humor. - Your teenager's task is to challenge your
authority; your task is to validate that your authority is evenhanded, compassionate, and firm on
core values.
4)Learn about the risks your child faces and how other families have survived them. - Teenagers
face real world risks, maiming or killing some of them, so talk with school authorities, your child's
friends, other parents, your own parents, your doctor, your minister, and anyone else you think can
help.
5)Keep faith with your child and with your own good parenting. - You've built a relationship of
love and respect over many years. Let it help you now. Don't give up on it.
6)Honor your own best judgment. - Sometimes your teen will come up with harebrained ideas, or
selfish ones. Set firm limits for your household that say "I love you all" and stick to them. When it's
the right time to say "No," say it firmly. Love doesn't bend for devious, hurtful, or selfish impulses.
7)Limit your battles to ones vital to individual and family safety and health. - Say "yes" whenever
you can. Mean "no" when you say it. Keep your decisions clearly based in the best interests of both
your teenager and the family.
8)Choose tactics that reinforce respect and dignity for all parties. - Try to accommodate any
legitimate interest your teenager wants to pursue. If you need to say "no," help your teen come up
with an acceptable alternative. And always leave room for saving face.
REMEMBER: Your surest way to gain and keep your teenager's love and cooperation is your love
and respect for your teenager and yourself. If you've been supporting your child's budding ability to
make good choices all along, your task will be somewhat less traumatic. If you need to repair
damage done earlier, face it squarely, admit to yourself and your teenager any mistakes you have
made, and correct them openly. You're setting the model for honest recovery from the inevitability
of mistakes. You cannot show too often that you love your child and that you are proud of her
or him. Just remember to keep it honest. When you are displeased, communicate your displeasure
in a civil and straightforward way that engages your child's ability to acknowledge misconduct or
mistakes and to make amends. Time to seek help: When you consistently model the love, honor,
and respect you want from your teenager and your teen is unable to return it, it's time to seek help.
When your teenager becomes depressed, intoxicated, withdrawn, or too angry to talk, and the
behavior lasts for more than a few days, it's time to seek help. Two common times for trouble: 1)
One reliably difficult time for families arrives when children reach the developmental stages when
the parents had a difficult time with their own parents. The unconscious recordings of these earlier
difficulties easily get replayed a generation later with the once traumatized child now playing the
role of parent. 2) A second predictably difficult time is when a child who has been very close
emotionally to one or both parents begins to emancipate. This child may well need to create more
havoc to deal with his or her own distress over severing the close ties that were so important only
months ago. Neither of these two circumstances require professional help if the parent involved
sees her or his way to keeping a calm and loving response to the provocations. If you do need
help, ask someone you trust for suggestions. Check my web site for additional help. Good luck!
David C. Hall, M.D. Child Adolescent and Family Psychiatry; Author, Stop Arguing and Start
Understanding: Eight Steps to Solving Family Conflicts, Montlake Family Press, September 2001
Handout #4
School Avoidance and What Parents Can Do
By David C. Hall, M.D.
School should be a happy place for children to make friends, build their confidence, exercise their
curiosity, and learn to learn so they may grow into competence and wisdom. Sadly, that's not
always the way it is. For some children new schools are frightening. A few experience school as a
dreadful place where they are taunted and excluded. Children with special learning problems often
feel pressure to perform in ways they simply cannot. Frustration erupts into arguments at home,
missed school, poor grades, and falling self-esteem.
Here are five tips for parents of reluctant learners:
1)Sympathize with your children's fears. Listen carefully as they describe their frustrations. Ask
them to be specific. What are they upset about or afraid of at school? Brainstorm with them ways
they can act differently to make school fun again. Help them set regular routines for study, sleep,
and fun.
2)Keep yourself calm. Monitor your own frustrations. Figure out if your child's difficulties are a
passing phase or do they persist. What action do you need to take to feel you're being a good
parent? Let your love and wisdom dictate your responses.
3)Visit school with you child. Talk with his or her teachers. Get a feel for the atmosphere your
child experiences every day. Learn about the program your child faces and how you might help. For
example, reading together at home, checking homework, providing needed materials, finding a
tutor, encouraging friendships, and supporting after school activities.
4)Be a supportive and encouraging teacher with your child. Keep their learning experience
enjoyable. Praise their exercise of curiosity. Start while your children are infants and help them
learn the joy of discovery. Children who love to learn find ways to learn wherever they are.
5)Be alert for special difficulties your children may have in school. Do they need extra help to deal
with math? Is their handwriting unreadable? Do they need extra time reading aloud with you at
home? If they consistently fall behind in a subject, look into the possibility they have a special
learning disorder. Children who feel overwhelmed with learning are at risk for giving up. Getting
angry or frustrated with them will only make it worse. They need your help, patience,
understanding, and love. And they may need outside help as well. For further ideas talk with your
child's teachers and school counselor. Talk with other parents. Check out your local library or
bookstore for ideas. Some problems will self-correct. Others need you to intervene before they get
worse. The sooner you figure out what's causing your child to avoid school, the sooner you can help
her or him get back on track.
David C. Hall, M.D. Child Adolescent and Family Psychiatry; Author, Stop Arguing and Start
Understanding: Eight Steps to Solving Family Conflicts, Montlake Family Press, September 2001
Top of Page
Handout #5
The Art of Parenting Teenagers and Grand-Parenting Their Parents
David C. Hall, M.D.
Parenting is difficult. Parenting teenagers at times seems impossible. The times we live in make it
even harder. For many families the most dramatic years arrive with middle school and junior high.
Fourteen and fifteen year olds can be the biggest snots in the world and the most charming, lovable
and sexy as well. It can be a grand entrance for some kids into the dazzling and dangerous world of
adults. Think about it. What have our kids watched on TV and movies and played on their video
games all these years. Now they have the physical, emotional and intellectual capacity to try on
some of these roles. And they have the need to do it their own way. We made them do it our way
all these years, because we were bigger, stronger, and more persistent. Now the tables have been
reversed and it's our turn to get bossed around. If we parented them wisely and lovingly up to this
time, they will use their newfound power wisely and lovingly on us. If we didn't, we're in for a dose
of our own medicine, or we will have to escalate to ever greater levels of intimidation or violence.
Grandparents can play a key role. We've been through the mill once already and hopefully we
learned from it. We know where the pitfalls are and we figured out many of the problems our
children now face with their children. What we can offer now is steady, non-judgmental support,
respite for our grandchildren's parents, and carefully timed talks with our children about problems
we see and how they might handle them differently. Keep in mind, our culture is now so intrusive,
sexualized, sensationalized, violent, and amoral as it's portrayed in our media, parents,
grandparents, and the communities we belong to become the only reliable sources of consistent
love, respect, and moral guidance. Each new generation grows up with greater access to
information they are not able to handle alone. It's up to parents, grandparents, and the loving
communities we create to provide safe and loving guidance as our children and grandchildren learn.
The job of parenting is too demanding, too exhausting, and too complicated for anyone to be able to
do it well alone.
Be humble, determined, and resourceful and you have a much better chance. As a grandparent,
be available, supportive, loving, and tolerant. That way the next generation gets a solid foundation
for caring and respectful relationships for the rest of their lives.
David C. Hall, M.D. Child Adolescent and Family Psychiatry; Author, Stop Arguing and Start
Understanding: Eight Steps to Solving Family Conflicts, Montlake Family Press, September 2001
Handout #6
Roots of Terror and What Parents Can Do
David C. Hall, M.D.
Like it or not, we are immersed in a world where terror has always been a weapon of the weak and
rageful. Over a million children are reported to Child Protective Services each year in the Unites
States for suspected child abuse or neglect. Probably three times that many children face similar
terror, but go unreported. In the aftermath of September 11th many witnesses have reported hate
crimes ranging from vulgar phone calls or catcalls to at least four murders within the following
week. What is this all about?
Where does all this hatred come from?
First of all, I believe the cruelty unleashed in hate crimes comes from a sliver of the public and does
not represent anything uniquely American. Bullies and tyrants populate virtually every culture on
Earth - the perverted remnants of stolen childhoods (there have been fascinating exceptions for a
time in Samoa and elsewhere). In my thirty years of providing mental health care to thousands of
individuals, I have yet to meet someone I believed was born evil. I have met and worked intensively
with individuals who committed horrendous crimes of rape, battery, child molest, armed robbery,
and murder. All of them knew the brutality of child abuse and neglect firsthand. Many shared with
me their nightmares from childhood and their fantasies of revenge. Many of their lives were
overwhelmed by mental disorders including depression, major mood swings, alcohol abuse,
disabling learning problems, and unnerving post-traumatic stress symptoms. What helped some of
these people to establish caring relationships, often for the first time, was a combination of strict
consequences for their crimes, a welcoming and respectful environment for exploring past
emotional pain, and the steady, caring guidance of health workers willing to grant them a second
chance. In response some family members were also able to participate in a healing process that
included sharing openly their own emotional pain, getting help for mental problems of their own,
and finding support for standing against coercive or secretive behaviors within the family.
Whole communities face abusive conditions at times. As a nation of immigrants, America has
provided millions of people shelter from the storms of famine, religious intolerance, totalitarian
brutality, and muzzled dissent. As a nation built on slavery, America has been a perpetrator of these
same scourges on the conscience of humanity. Our challenge now is to build a future based on
respect for human rights, equality before the law, and generosity towards our fellow Earthlings. We
drink the same water and breathe the same air. We need to share our stories with each other. We
need to hold each other as precious even as we disagree with each other. The cycle of abuse is
predictable but not inevitable. Research shows that only half the children who are severely abused
become abusers later on, although the other half suffer greatly and often become victims of abuse
again.
The way out?
We build a caring community that enforces physical and emotional safety, provides help for those
burdened beyond their means, and creates an environment of "happiness, love and understanding"
within which the scars of terror can be healed. We seek justice, not revenge. Accountability under
law, not vigilante actions. Tolerance for speech that does not explicitly threaten others. Security
measures built on information, not prejudice. Penal consequences built on necessary restraint and
re-education, not retribution. The place to start? In our own homes with our own children. We
provide consistent and reliable love and understanding. We listen wholeheartedly trying to know
the emerging person who is our child. We set firm and caring limits on our children's dangerous and
hurtful activity. We celebrate their curiosity even when it's inconvenient. And we make sure our own
emotional and spiritual needs are being met.
David C. Hall, M.D. Child Adolescent and Family Psychiatry; Author, Stop Arguing and Start
Understanding: Eight Steps to Solving Family Conflicts, Montlake Family Press, September 2001
Handout #7
Raising Healthy Teens Takes Courage and a Plan
David C. Hall, MD
If you want healthy teenagers, start with a drug- and smoke-free pregnancy and a loving early
childhood. Get all your children lovingly through their first six years of life and the traumas of teen-
hood will remain manageable. You don’t have to know all there is to know about it to be a good
parent. But you do need a plan and the courage to carry it out.
The elements are seemingly simple: love your children unconditionally, understand their individual
natures, take good care of yourself, connect with a loving community, and be humble in the face of
a glorious, violent, often unknowable world. The challenge is to do these things consistently
throughout their lives. The more chaotic your own life, the more important it is to create loving
order for your children.
Stop Arguing and Start Understanding: Eight Steps to Solving Family Conflicts is a step-by-step
approach to these issues and how to pursue them successfully. You start by taking responsibility to
see that the outcomes you want are achieved. Learn about your children and their problems. Hone
your parenting skills to reinforce the outcomes you want. Train yourself to be loving, firm and
effective. When you need help, search it out. Join the community around you and seek the comfort
of family and friends. Stay true to your core values and beliefs and humble in the face of a task too
big for any individual. And never give up.
Parenting teenagers will invariably challenge even the best of parents. Paradoxically, the strengths
teens will need to succeed in this complex and demanding world are the very strengths they will
use to drive us crazy. They build their skills and confidence through escalating contests with us, the
people they trust the most to love them despite their defiance and misbehavior. If we lose our own
restraint, good humor, and clarity about what’s most important, then their emancipation is
compromised and our parenting tasks grow more frustrating and unsatisfying.
The art of parenting teenagers is the art of losing gracefully. As the father of two boys with all the
advantages a parent could wish for, I learned they could beat me in many different ways. When one
son turned twelve, we ran a 440 yard dash and I beat him by ten yards. In the rematch a year later
he was twenty yards ahead after the first hundred yards. Two years later he was strong enough to
snap me in half. My other son called me from an emergency room. His girlfriend had overdosed
after a physical fight and he was talking with the police because he had hit her back. Both sons
have let me know over the decade and a half since their middle teens that their parents had only
the slimmest notion of what they were up to back then. And yet they both love their parents dearly
and are beautiful, responsible adults. So what was the secret?
We loved them intensely, gave them as much responsibility as they could handle (and occasionally
more), used discipline to educate rather than punish, and helped them whenever they asked for it.
