By Jane Pinel

As proud parents, you have given the world a small miracle, a baby. Provided with all the necessary equipment to maintain his health and growth, he also comes with a software program call DNA which determines who he is as a person. Not only does it program his hair and eye color, his stature and even foot size but also his personality. If you already have one child you will soon notice that this second child is different in many ways. With a new baby, the first thing you will notice is how much sleep you do or don’t get when you first bring your infant home from the hospital. The second thing is how hungry your new baby is. How often does he want to nurse? Is he fussy or is he calm?

As the months go by your child will learn more and more about his world and how to cope with it. He will learn to walk and then learn to talk and communicate with others. At the same time you will be learning much about him. When he falls down does he get up and try again? Does he have perseverance and determination? If you have a dog or a cat does your little one show empathy for your pet? Does he show curiosity? Does he want answers for his questions?

As he grows older what are his interests? Does he listen to music? Does he show rhythm? Is he interested in understanding why everything works, why the bumblebee can fly, why horses wear shoes, and why he has to finish his carrots at dinner? As he grows older and you are aware of his interests, help him explore those areas. As he is exposed to more and more of the world his interests will become more focused.

Here are the stories of three children as told to me by their parents, describing how they watched and guided their children into successful paths in life.

While my children were growing up, we had neighbors next door who had three boys. Two were already grown and living away from home and working successfully. The third boy was living at home and often playing with my children. It was a pleasure to have him come to our house. He was full of creative ideas and obviously enjoyed being with people. One night he arranged a theater in our driveway with his home movie projector and showed the whole neighborhood a movie. He loved pretending he was Superman. He was polite and respectful. I was curious so one day while I was having morning coffee with my neighbor I asked her, “You and your husband seem to have done such a good job bringing up your three boys. Joe seems to be such a nice happy kid, full of ideas and fun to be with. What rules did you follow as a parent?” She smiled and took a sip of coffee. “Well, aside from making sure he learns his manners and is respectful, I let him do whatever he wants as long as it’s safe and legal. Joe was always a happy friendly baby and of course I keep an eye on what he was up to.” Joe ended up working for the state department in the field of diplomacy.

I was introduced to a young man, Daniel, who was born with Down Syndrome. As his mother watched him grow, she noticed his interest in anything that made the sounds of music. She was also a musician. With encouragement and music lessons, Daniel became very proficient on the marimba. At age 18, he won the national Itzhak Perlman Very Special Arts Young Soloist Award and Scholarship, presented during his concert at Van Wezel Hall in Sarasota, Florida. Daniel has given many concerts since then, traveling internationally.

My third example is my own grandson who as a child gathered all the cords and computers in the house to satisfy his need to create and understand wireless electronics. Three generations of inventors before him on both sides of his family are reflected in his genes. He now has six patents of his own for electronic inventions.

I encourage every parent to watch and listen to your child’s DNA software. These are powerful directives within him that can be strong motivators in choosing a fulfilling path in life.

By Jane Pinel

Before continuing I would like to review the first few blogs that I wrote about confidence. First of all, confidence starts when a child is born, embraced, loved and accepted into the new family. He needs to know that he is a welcomed member of the tribe. It gives him confidence. Second, he begins to realize that if he cries he gets his needs met. If he cries he gets breast-fed or a bottle of warm milk. This is the first gleam of his awareness that he has power to help himself. Third, as he begins to walk and learn words he has even more power and that builds his confidence in being able to take action on his own behalf and his own survival.

Then he begins to learn about feelings. His parents have feelings and he has feeling. Feelings can be powerful. They cause action and reaction. Help your child to identify and share what he is feeling. Talk about what action he took, was it appropriate, is there an action that would have been better or worse. With help and guidance, a child can learn early on to accept his own feelings, good or bad, and respond appropriately in the action he takes. It may prevent any individual like the shooter at the Buffalo grocery store that’s in the news who in anger killed 10 people — gunned them down and in so doing extinguished not only those 10 lives but ruined his own life also.

Before we try to deal with the child who is enraged because his brother took away his toy while he was playing with it, we need to have established family values. For example, in our family we tell the truth, we don’t lie. In our family we listen to each other without interrupting, and when we feel anger we don’t hit or kick or otherwise hurt each other we try to solve our issues, with words and diplomacy, so that both sides are happy. This, of course, needs to apply to the adults as well as the children. This process requires time, practice and patience. Eventually it is rewarding when you see older siblings teaching younger ones to use the same methods that they have learned earlier. Always, you’re teaching a family value of loving and supporting each member of the family. A strong, supportive family is a bulwark against the indignities and challenges a child will face in the adult world long after he has left home.

By Jane Pinel

It is important for children to learn to deal with their feelings. They watch how their parents and others react to situations and may follow those examples.

Anger, passion, fear, compassion are feelings that rule the world. 
The war between Russia and Ukraine is all the proof we need. 
Putin’s longing to regain the feeling of power and pride in the Soviet empire.
The West’s anger and fear of losing their freedom to autocracy.

Compassion as we struggle to support the Ukrainians in their deadly war against Russia.
Anger as we watch Russia killing and torturing Ukrainians.
Passion as the Ukrainians fight to the death to save their country and their love of freedom.
Our fear of a nuclear holocaust preventing us from fully supporting Ukraine.

Sometimes, if children have never talked about their feelings or been asked about their motivation for striking their brother or hugging their little sister, they grow up without awareness or understanding of their emotions. If we don’t talk to our children early on about what they are feeling and how to deal with their feelings, they may grow up expressing their anger through forms of aggression like with fists or guns.

Children need words to express their feelings. It helps if parents share their own feelings and even talk about how they are going to deal with specific emotions. For example, “I’m sad that your friend Joe can’t come to your birthday party because he’s sick. Let’s write him a note together to tell him to get better soon.”

It is important for your child to be able to identify and express his feelings rather than internalize them. Most of all it’s important for him to learn the appropriate way to express them. That takes practice. Using the right words is not always simple even when one is an adult.

One suggestion is to open a discussion at the dinner table without electronic interruptions. Ask your child what’s the best thing that happened to you today? How does that make you feel? What will you do? Then again what is the worst thing that happened to you today? How are you feeling about it? Is there something you can do? Depending on the age of your child he may need help dealing with comments made on social media or the response that he might have made on social media.

Fear, anger and shame are probably the hardest feelings to deal with. In a conversation, ask  your child how he would deal with a situation. Point out the possible consequences and perhaps suggest alternative action. In the case of positive experiences with appropriate actions, celebrate in some small way together to reinforce the successful handling of the situation or solving an issue. 

By Jane Pinel

Know that your little one has succeeded in the awesome challenges of learning to roll over, sit up, and walk — learning to get up and try again when he falls down. Now he has, perhaps the most challenging task of all, learning words and how to use them. Most likely his first words will be mama and dada and maybe a treasured version of grandma or grandpa. As he learns to walk and climb and reach for things, he will need to know the meaning of the word ‘no’ for his own safety or the safety of the objects he is trying to get.

Teaching the meaning of the word ‘no’ can be difficult for both child and parent. At times it can cause both frustration and anger, on both sides. Like any other word it takes time and repetition to fully understand its’ meaning. I have seen parents who say ‘no’ for the first time and expect their child to understand it from that moment on. Punishment should not be part of this learning experience. Curiosity is a sign of intelligence and should be encouraged always. If your child is about to touch something dangerous you can teach another word along with the word ‘no’. Say ‘no’ firmly plus the word ‘hurt’, which he may know from falling down and bumping himself. It’s an opportunity to introduce other new words — such as ‘break’ or ‘hot/cold’ — apply to your reason for saying ‘no’.

The object here is to help your child build his confidence in learning about the world, while keeping him safe. Be sure to share your joy and pleasure with him when he succeeds challenges which may seem small to you but are huge for him.