Portland Parents

Part of the Parenting For the 21st Century series, presented in partnership by the Lewis & Clark College Center for Continuing and Professional Studies and Portland Parks and Recreation.

When a child experiences the death of a beloved pet he/she may experience emotional reactions that can be painful and frightening. This is often a child’s first significant experience with loss. This loss lays the groundwork for future losses, therefore it is very important to help a child have a healthy grieving process. The main tasks to make their loss a healthy experience are:1) understanding, 2) grieving, and 3) memorializing. Enid’s presentation will include ways to help your child achieve these tasks. There will also be time provided for questions and answers.

Presenter Enid Traisman, M.S.W. is a certified grief counselor and founder of the DoveLewis Pet Loss Support Program which she has been facilitating since 1986. DoveLewis is a non-profit 24-hour emergency and critical care animal hospital which offers free pet loss support groups. Presented in partnership with Portland Parks and Recreation.

Sellwood Community Center, 6-8PM February 12
Southwest Community Center, 6:30-8:30PM March 1

Sessions are $10; call (503) 768-6023 to register.

Part of the Parenting For the 21st Century series, presented in partnership by the Lewis & Clark College Center for Continuing and Professional Studies and Portland Parks and Recreation.

US Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne recently remarked, “We need to inspire a nation to escape their Blackberries for the satisfaction of actually picking a wild blackberry.” His comment encapsulates the alarming disconnect between children and nature, especially in today’s urban society. This session will present the most up to date research on how contact with green spaces can be used to reduce ADHD symptoms and improve the well being of children and teens, as well as explore some controversies and myths regarding wilderness therapy.

Presenter Thomas Joseph Doherty, Psy.D., works with adults and teens in his psychology practice and has a special focus on the urban dwellers’ sense of place and relationship with the natural world. His background includes experience in wilderness therapy, river guiding, and environmental work. He is active in the Oregon Psychologists for a Sustainable Future and is the chairperson of the Public Education Committee for the Oregon Psychological Association. Presented in partnership with Portland Parks and Recreation.

Sellwood Community Center, 6-8PM April 16
Southwest Community Center, 6:30-8:30PM January 25

Sessions are $10; call (503) 768-6023 to register.

Part of the Parenting For the 21st Century series, presented in partnership by the Lewis & Clark College Center for Continuing and Professional Studies and Portland Parks and Recreation.

Girls often are induced to use alcohol, tobacco and other drugs to become or stay slim, manage stress, appear mature, be popular with peers of both sexes, or to escape overwhelming problems. Because many of these pressures are more prevalent for girls than boys, standard prevention programs can be ineffective for girls. This session presents the most recent research into the complex web of female drug and alcohol use.

Annette Klinefelter, M.Ed, is the executive director for Girls Incorporated of NW Oregon, a not-for-profit organization which inspires girls to be strong, smart and bold. Presented in partnership with Portland Parks and Recreation.

Sellwood Community Center, 6-8PM April 23
Southwest Community Center, 6:30-8:30PM March 8

Sessions are $10; call (503) 768-6023 to register.

Part of the Parenting For the 21st Century series, presented in partnership by the Lewis & Clark College Center for Continuing and Professional Studies and Portland Parks and Recreation.

Baby Boomers will be the first generation to live longer without children at home than with children at home. While this new life may feel liberating, we have no example of past generations to draw on in this new role. Do you redecorate the child’s room? How do you parent a distant child? How will the marriage fare without the distraction of children at home? In fact, studies shows that once they’re over the first hump, empty nesters are happier than they expected to be. Learn how to make that happen.

Presenter Louise Lague, MA NCC, is a former editor of PEOPLE magazine who made a midlife transition into psychotherapy. Author of The Working Mom’s Book of Hints, Tips, and Everyday Wisdom, she now specializes in midlife issues. She is an adjunct professor at Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education, where she teaches Counseling Women in Midlife. She has a private practice in Northwest Portland and Lake Oswego. Presented in partnership with Portland Parks and Recreation.

Sellwood Community Center, 6-8PM February 26
Southwest Community Center, 6:30-8:30PM April 19

Sessions are $10; call (503) 768-6023 to register.

Part of the Parenting For the 21st Century series, presented in partnership by the Lewis & Clark College Center for Continuing and Professional Studies and Portland Parks and Recreation.

Working mothers—especially those with young children—are expected to be superwomen, an admirable but doomed pursuit. In fact, husbands and children fare better when mom puts herself first. Learn how to deal with guilt, pressure, over-commitment, romance, self-care, volunteering, work, and the subtle hostility of women who don’t work. Learn how to ask for help, find childcare, protect the sanctity of your work and the sanctity of your home.

Presenter Louise Lague, MA NCC, is a former editor of PEOPLE magazine who made a midlife transition into psychotherapy. Author of The Working Mom’s Book of Hints, Tips, and Everyday Wisdom, she now specializes in midlife issues. She is an adjunct professor at Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education, where she teaches Counseling Women in Midlife. She has a private practice in Northwest Portland and Lake Oswego. Presented in partnership with Portland Parks and Recreation.

Sellwood Community Center, 6-8PM March 19
Southwest Community Center, 6:30-8:30PM April 26

Sessions are $10; call (503) 768-6023 to register.

Part of the Parenting For the 21st Century series, presented in partnership by the Lewis & Clark College Center for Continuing and Professional Studies and Portland Parks and Recreation.

On a daily basis more than 160,000 girls and young women nationwide report missing school out of fear of aggression from other girls. Girl-to-girl aggression manifests as social alienation, exclusion, and hostility such as spreading rumors, intimidating glares, “backstabbing” and physical violence. This session provides an overview of relational aggression and its prevention.

Annette Klinefelter, M.Ed, is the executive director for Girls Incorporated of NW Oregon, a not-for-profit organization which inspires girls to be strong, smart and bold. Presented in partnership with Portland Parks and Recreation.

Sellwood Community Center, 6-8PM January 29
Southwest Community Center, 6:30-8:30PM March 22

Sessions are $10; call (503) 768-6023 to register.

Part of the Parenting For the 21st Century series, presented in partnership by the Lewis & Clark College Center for Continuing and Professional Studies and Portland Parks and Recreation.

When a romantic twosome evolves into a step-couple, challenges arise that can take people by surprise, from coping with visitation schedules to differing parenting styles. In this session step-couples will learn to anticipate and recognize the challenges, and to effectively address them by negotiating a co-parenting plan.

Presenter Susan Wisdom, LPC is a therapist who specializes in counseling divorcing adults and stepfamilies. She is the co-author of Stepcoupling: Creating and Sustaining a Strong Marriage in Today’s Blended Family. Presented in partnership with Portland Parks and Recreation.

Sellwood Community Center 6-8PM Mar 15
Southwest Community Center 6:30-8:30PM, April 9

Sessions are $10; call (503) 768-6023 to register.

What Shamu Taught Me about a happy marriage is written with the spouse in mind. Specifically, about how one author has learned to ‘train’ her husband out of hovering in the kitchen while she cooks, drive slower, and clean up his stinky exercise wear.

It’s also an excellent article on a more aikido-ish way of training your kids. I always wear myself out yelling about dirty laundry, holes in the yard, sibling name calling, before the kid wears herself out by listening. The central tenet of Aikido is using your “opponent’s” energy against them; and you spend less energy beating the snot out of them. Shamu teaches us a smoother way to reach our kids, as long as we’re happy with results over the longer term. And really, what kind of results are we getting by shouting and grounding? Short term, maybe, but long-term definately not.

So… here’s some tips from the article (And of course I recommend the article for better context).

Work in approximations.

Praise every small good thing they do every time. Each time your kid picks their stuff up, give them a hug, or whatever. Compliment them on their initiative. If they share their food with the little sister, praise them. The small stuff adds up.

Understand your child

Figure out what motivates your child. Do they care about hierarchy? Do they want to be part of a group? What do they want out of life, whether it’s more television, more computer time, or a new book.

Incompatible Behaviour

This one might take some thinking on your part; but “train” your kid to do something that directly conflicts with something they do that you don’t like. For the author, it was training her husband to chop parsley on the far end of the kitchen while she cooked; if he was chopping, he wasn’t hovering over the stove. With your kid, perhaps to encourage her to clean her room, you should … uh… let me get back to you on that one.

Least Reinforcing Syndrome

Here’s a good one. Sometimes, (and I was excellent at this when I was a kid), to get attention, a person will behave badly. Especially if they’re not getting good attention. It’s not necessarily on purpose, but somewhere in the kid’s head, they’ve decided that it’s better to have bad attention than no attention. What a “LRT” is defeats that. When the kid does something wrong (I mean minorly wrong, not like stealing the car and driving down the street chasing cats), just look at them blankly for a couple of beats and then go back to whatever you were doing. By doing this, you acknowledge them without really attending to them (and rewarding whatever behaviour they’ve done to get your attention).

Remember what the animal trainers say: “It’s never the animal’s fault.” I’m certainly guilty of ascribing Lex Luthor brilliance and behaviour to a five year old, but they’re really out for one main thing.

We family-bedded our firstborn, and even when she was eight it was a drama every night about her sleeping in her own bed (she hogs the covers!). With our second child we were more determined to put her in her crib. Her crib was in our bedroom in a corner, and we’d put her in there. Some nights we’d be a little quick to stick her in the crib, and she’d cry for a long time.

Last weekend, we moved her crib to a more central location; it’s a little room between the rest of the house and our bedroom (we’ve used it for a study and a nursery). It’s strange, because it’s a little noisier and people have to walk past her crib more often, but she’s quieter in there and falls asleep a lot quicker. She’s learning how to get herself to sleep and to sleep through the night (She’s two and has been sleeping through the night for many months). Our now-nine year old is still trying to get herself to sleep.

How do you get your kids to sleep?

They may be our kids forever, but they won’t be kids forever. Enjoy what you’ve got when you’ve got it.

It took us three and a half hours to get our nine year old to bed; there was a lot of shouting “go to bed,” there was a lot of crying and whining, there was the not-quite-silent creeping down the stairs because she was “lonely” followed by more shouts of “go to bed.”

But in the middle of all of this, it should have come to me; she’s just a nine year old kid, who wants some more time with her folks. Haven’t we all been there? Ten minutes of cuddling would have gotten her to bed a lot sooner, and would have gotten me to calm down too. There’s something magical about holding onto your kid. Any age, from the baby sleeping on your belly as you lay on the couch and watch television (or doze, yourself), to the nine year old who wants to crawl into your bed in the middle of the night. How much longer will we have them?

So relax, and enjoy your kids while you have them.