Why Social Distancing Can Be Hard for Teens (and What Parents Can Do to Make It A Little Easier)

Most of us have accepted the fact that social distancing is going to be our new normal for at least the foreseeable future. That doesn’t mean that we’re liking it (how’s that for an understatement!), but we’ve demonstrated our willingness to make some short-term sacrifices for the long-term good. In other words, we’ve stepped up by deciding to do the socially responsible thing — for ourselves, for our families, and for our communities. But it’s definitely not easy.

If you’re the parent of a teenager, you may have found the past few weeks exceptionally challenging. Not only has the public health advice about social distancing evolved significantly over time: there’s also been a lot of misinformation circulating online about what social distancing actually involves. It’s not about hosting a small get-together at your house or scheduling a lot of one-on-one get-togethers with friends. It’s about limiting the amount of face-to-face contact with other human beings: the exact opposite of what humans (and teens in particular) are wired to do.

Add to that the fact that your teenager is at a developmental stage where they’re likely to reject rather than welcome a lot of parental advice and, well, you can see that the struggle is real. You’re going to need strategies and patience—tons and tons of patience—to navigate these challenges with your teen. Here are a few tips on minimizing power struggles and maximizing your connection to one another.

Understand what teens crave most at this stage of their development: recognition for their growing autonomy. They’ll tune you out entirely if they feel like you’re talking down to them, telling them things they already know, or treating them like they’re little kids. So when you’re communicating with your teenager about the need for social distancing (which, by the way, public health authorities are now calling “physical distancing” in recognition of the fact that we don’t want to limit all social contact, just face-to-face contact), talk with them, not at them. Ask them what they’re hearing from friends and reading online and help them to make sense of all that information. Get them involved in solving the problem that is social distancing. Encourage them to come up with creative solutions for staying connected to their friends and finding meaning in this moment; and then ask what you can to support them in those efforts, like loosening up the normal family limits on smartphone use, for example.

Try not to overreact to any annoying behaviours your teen might be exhibiting right now. When people are under stress, they don’t always communicate their needs or manage their emotions in the most effective ways. (And, of course, this applies to parents as well as teens!) If your teen lashes out at you and says something nasty or rude, take a breath and give yourself a moment to choose how you want to respond. In other words, calm yourself—then calm your teen. When you feel like you’re ready to continue the conversation, challenge yourself to look beyond the annoying behaviour and to consider what your teen is actually trying to tell you. Ask yourself “What is really going on here and what does my teen actually need from me right now?”

Help your teen to process all the emotions they are likely to be experiencing. One of the most powerful things we can do to support another person is to validate their emotions, which simply means telling that person that their feelings make sense. Think of how great it feels when someone in your life does this for you. Instead of rushing in to solve your problem or offering a lot of unsolicited advice, they simply say, “I understand why you feel that way. That makes so much sense to me.” It feels so good to be seen, heard, and understood.

Don’t be afraid to make some tough calls when it comes to keeping your teen and the rest of the family and community safe. Your teen is counting on you to do this and will actually (grudgingly) acknowledge that you do have jurisdiction in this area. When I was researching my book Happy Parents, Happy Kids, I came across some fascinating research about this. Apparently, the very same teenager who tells you that you have absolutely no business offering them unsolicited advice about how to resolve a conflict with a friend or who will flip out completely if they think you’ve been snooping in their room will actually (grudgingly) listen to what you say if you’re doing the kind of thing that a parent is expected to do—like looking out for their health and wellbeing. You can use that information to your advantage, both for social good (encouraging social distancing) and for relationship good (by continuing to build upon the bond between you and your teen).

Try to keep your big-picture parenting goals in mind.

Keep your big-picture parenting goals in mind. At some point, we’re going to come out the other side of this emergency. And, when we do, we want our relationships with our kids to be as strong and healthy as possible. So as you’re making parenting decisions during this extremely challenging time, try to keep your big-picture parenting goals in mind. Ask yourself what memories you want your teen to carry with them from this moment. Maybe you want them to remember that they were able to turn to you for support and encouragement at a time when they were feeling uncertain and afraid. Maybe you want them to remember the way you validated their emotions and acknowledged how hard this is—for them and for you. Maybe you want them to remember the way you helped them to hold on to a sense of hope and to look for opportunities to stay connected to and to make a difference for others. And maybe you want them to remember times of fun and laughter—random, unscripted moments that helped to buoy everyone’s spirits. Reflecting on those kinds of hopes and dreams will make it easier for you to parent in a way that you can feel good about, both now and for many years to come.

Give yourself permission to be a gloriously imperfect parent. You’re going to make mistakes—and you can get your relationship with your teen back on track. Treat yourself with kindness and remember to extend that same spirit of kindness to your teen. Self-compassion and a willingness to do the hard work of relationship repair mean everything at a time like this. Parenting is ultimately about empathy—recognizing that it’s hard to be the parent and it’s hard to be the kid. And right now, everything is so much harder than usual. But we can get through these tough times and so can our teens—and we can emerge stronger and more connected than ever before when we finally come out the other side.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio. During the pandemic, she is volunteering to host and co-host a series of free online events for parents, in partnership with other leading parent and child health organizations.

How to Help Yourself and Your Kids Get the Sleep You Need Right Now

Some practical advice on getting the sleep you need during an extraordinarily worrisome time and on helping your kids to do the same. This material was adapted from my most recent book, Happy Parents, Happy Kids.

It’s an inconvenient truth: our bodies need sleep. No matter how desperately we try, we can’t wish that fact away. It’s particularly important to stay on top of sleep when we’re carrying a heavy stress burden, as all of us are right now. Bottom line? Missing out on sleep will only make an already tough situation even tougher.

Here’s why:

When we’re sleep-deprived our emotions are more volatile. Not only do we have more difficulty managing our emotions when we’re sleep-deprived, but those emotions tend to skew negative. The parts of the brain that are associated with the processing of fear are 60 per cent more reactive, which means that we’re more likely to feel anxious or angry.

We feel like we’re running on empty. Less sleep means less energy and less staying power. That crushing feeling of fatigue makes life so much harder. Is it any wonder that so many of us try to compensate for our lack of sleep by boosting our energy in other less helpful ways, like ramping ourselves up with caffeine and diving into a sea of carbs?

We’re more distracted. When we’re sleep-deprived, it’s harder to focus. Not only does our motivation take a hit: we’re also less alert, which increases our risk of injury. That risk increases exponentially depending on how much sleep you’ve missed. You’re 4.3 times more likely to have a car accident if you’ve had five hours of sleep or less, and if you’ve had four hours or less, that risk factor skyrockets to a mind-blowing 11.5 times.

Our health may take a hit, too. Lack of sleep affects the immune system, meaning that you’re more likely to get sick and it will take you longer to recover.

The good news is that there are things we can do to help ourselves and our kids get the sleep that we need right now.

We can…..

Make sleep a priority. Treat it as a necessity, not a frill. Recognize it for what it is: the glue that holds everything else together. Yes, life is uncertain and unpredictable right now, but that doesn’t mean we should overlook the importance of sleep.

Practice good sleep hygiene. This means creating a sleep environment that is sleep-enhancing—think cool, quiet, and dark—and developing bedtime habits that encourage, rather than discourage, sleep, such as avoiding melatonin-suppressing blue light from screens, not eating too close to bedtime, limiting caffeine intake during the day, and avoiding alcohol at bedtime because it results in poorer quality, less restorative sleep. It also means maintaining consistent sleep patterns from day to day: getting out of bed at roughly the same time each morning and resisting the temptation to nap indiscriminately throughout the day—unless, of course, you’re the parent of a brand new baby, in which case indiscriminate napping is definitely encouraged.

Help your body to feel sleepy at just the right time. Be sure to get exposure to daylight first thing in the morning so that your circadian rhythms stay on track, get adequate physical activity during the day so that your body is physically tired at bedtime, minimize caffeine intake so your body is actually ready to wind down when your head hits the pillow, avoid screens in the hour or two before you go to bed (or use screen settings and apps to limit your exposure to blue light), and skip that sleep-disrupting nightcap.

In addition to taking care of these basics, there are a few additional tricks you can try if you find yourself struggling to get or stay asleep.

First, take a hot bath an hour or two before you want to head to bed. Taking a hot bath causes your blood vessels to dilate, causing heat to be radiated away from your body core. This, in turn, causes your core body temperature to drop, cueing sensations of sleepiness.

Second, dump your worries. Writing a detailed to-do list before you head off to bed isn’t just an effective way to clear your brain of worries at bedtime; it’s also a proven way to help yourself fall asleep more quickly, according to research conducted at Baylor University. So, get those worries out of your head—and out of your bed—and onto a piece of paper.

Third, choose bedtime reading that will leave you feeling less anxious, not more anxious, once your head hits the pillow. Think soothing bedtime stories, not the breaking news headlines. And if your mind is still racing, experiment with techniques like progressive muscle relaxation, positive visualization, and listening to sleep stories and/or relaxing music to gently guide your restless brain in the direction of sleep.

Finally, try not to fixate on all the sleep you’re not getting. If you wake up at three in the morning and you’re having a hard time getting back to sleep, try to resist the temptation to mentally calculate the number of hours remaining until you have to drag yourself out of bed and to start obsessing about that. Replace what sleep scientists refer to as negative sleep thoughts—“I can’t believe I’m still awake! I’m going to be exhausted tomorrow!”—with more positive sleep thoughts—“I may not be able to get back to sleep right away, but I can lie here and rest and think calming thoughts, even if I’m not fully asleep.” You’ll find it easier to do this if you remind yourself that there are things you can do to boost your energy and improve your ability to cope even if you don’t manage to get as much sleep as you’d like. Eating a protein-rich breakfast will help you feel more alert. The quick energy blast from a bowl of carbs might be tempting, but it won’t deliver the energy staying power that protein can provide. Fitting in some light to moderate physical activity will not only give you energy during the day, it will also contribute to better sleep the next night. It’s a total win-win.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio.

First Steps and Leap Years

Unsplash/Ridham Nagralawala

There are many ways to start making progressive change in your community, write Ann Douglas and Erika Shaker in this 100% guilt-free and very achievable call to action for every person who dares to imagine that things could be better.

Happy (almost) February 29th! You’ve just been given the gift of an extra 24 hours worth of time. (We know. It’s probably the best gift you’ve been given this year—although given the way 2020 has been playing out, that might not be saying a lot.)

Not everyone is comfortable leading a march, or organizing a protest (though anyone who’s hosted a birthday party probably has more experience in this area than they realize!). But the most effective and inclusive movements rely on different kinds of meaningful contributions that allow people to join in where and how it makes sense, to grow their experience and their familiarity with making change on a larger and potentially more public scale.

So what can you do? Well, that largely depends on what skills and resources you are able to lend to the cause.

Here are a few examples of the types of contributions you can offer

SOCIAL: Your ties to your community of friends, colleagues, and family are critical to building progressive change

PHYSICAL: The “boots on the ground” approach: lending time and physical skills to a cause

ORGANIZATIONAL: Helping put the pieces in place, providing administrative support to coordinate efforts

FINANCIAL: Donating financial resources (monthly giving, stock options, legacy giving, fundraising)

CREATIVE: Using your writing, editing, storytelling, visual arts, etc. skills to reach policy makers and your community

RESOURCES: Offering space to host meetings, providing food, filling the donation wish list of an organization.

Once you've figured out what your preferred type of contribution is, the next step to finding an activity that you will feel fired up about. Here are a few suggestions.

Community

In a world that’s increasingly impersonal and automated, seeking out casual daily human interaction can be revolutionary. If possible, take public transportation, or avoid self-checkout and bank machines and make a point of having a quick conversation with the people behind the counter or in line with you. It’s much more difficult to dismiss the lived experiences of someone you’ve spoken to—this is particularly important during job actions or budget cuts which often see these people and the work they do marginalized or undermined. Sustained collective actions are fuelled by the stories and experiences of real human beings—not a catchy slogan.

Have a face-to-face conversation with someone (or a small group of “someones”) about an issue you care about. Consider, for example, the climate tea party that Ann co-hosted with her friend Andrea last summer: an event which involved four simple-yet-powerful ingredients: great people, great tea, great food, and great games. (Yes, Andrea came up with a cool climate change game that involved having Ann play the part of a climate villain.) Maybe you could come up with something fun and unexpected, too?

Make connections. Check out what’s happening at your local library or community centre or after a school council meeting. Look for other ways to connect with other human beings and to contribute to the life of your community. Find your people. They might be closer than you realize, and more of them than you think.

Communication

Ann will never in a million years volunteer to be treasurer for any organization, but she will happily write a blog post or do something similar because that’s something that comes naturally to her and that she actually enjoys as opposed to dreading. Can you use your skills, or your circle of friends, to amplify a message, to highlight someone doing excellent (perhaps under-appreciated) work, or to provide a new platform of support to a cause or campaign you may be less familiar with, but deserves attention and support? 

Write a letter to a politician—or a whole bunch of politicians—making the case for a policy change you support. We’re thinking of a recent letter that a group of citizens wrote to Marc Garneau after meeting with him to express their dissatisfaction with the Liberal government’s abandoned promise re: electoral reform. An action that like that can make a big difference.

Send a thank you note to a decision-maker, community leader, or politician. (Hey, maybe writing grumpy letters isn’t your style. If so, this option is for you.) Express appreciation for an act of political courage or their commitment to going above and beyond the call of duty in some way. Better yet, turn it into an open letter. Post it on your website. Send a copy to the local newspaper. Create a video of yourself reading it on social media. Sprinkle the seeds of appreciation far and wide—identify people on Twitter or Instagram whose work you appreciate (e.g. Chloé Germain-Thérien's incredible guide to understanding the #wetsuwetenstrong solidarity blockades happening across Canada, for example) and give them a public shout-out. Who knows what other changes you can spark—in yourself, or others—and how your circle of support (and friends!) may grow? 

Recognize the limitations of online conversations and social media sites. Facebook is a great way to get the word out about an event, to sign a petition and even to build contact lists—but ensuring people understand how an unfamiliar issue impacts them and their loved ones requires conversations, relationship-building, and information sharing. That’s the foundation of long-term momentum.

Capacity-Building

Identify areas of your life where you have something in abundance (which could mean anything from too many cans of canned tomatoes or too much time alone). Then look for a way to reinvest that abundance in a way that will make someone else’s life better. Not everyone can make a financial donation (legacy giving or stock options, for example)—though financial resources are in too-short supply in the NGO world—but there’s more to movement-building and community support than money. Donate those extra cans of canned tomatoes to your local food bank.

Creativity

Give yourself time off for good behaviour. The revolution won’t be sparked in a day, so you need to pace yourself. We need you to safeguard the precious resource that is you! There was a point to the old socialist adage: eight hours' labour, eight hours' recreation, eight hours' rest. We all need time to relax, to reflect, and to recharge. Read a book you’ve been meaning to: Until We Are Free: Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada is on Erika’s agenda for March Break.

Listen to an inspiring progressive podcast while you chop veggies, clean your bathroom, fold laundry, or otherwise go about the business of daily living. It’s called temptation bundling. You reward yourself for doing a less-than-inspiring task by “bundling” that task with something you love: listening to a podcast that moves you to action. We love Sandy & Nora, The Intercept, Bad and Bitchy, VoicEd, CCPA's Talking Points (of course!)...but follow us on Twitter to see some of our other favourites (far too many to list here!).

Create a piece of political art. It’s great therapy! And it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive or time-consuming. It could be as simple as handwriting a quote and sharing it on social media or knitting, sewing, or painting something that expresses your progressive political vibe. Consider doing this collectively with old friends or new ones—like an updated version of a quilting bee—to unwind and engage on an entirely different level. We frequently forget to nourish this part of ourselves, perhaps because it’s seen as frivolous, but it’s often a way to engage our political goals and priorities more fully and in a more holistic way.

Take a lesson from libraries—or tool libraries, or household equipment libraries: consider setting up an “activist library” in your community to support local NGOs or grassroots campaigns—even job actions—by sharing experience, knowledge, campaign tips, or time. Can you loan your banner-making skills? Stuff envelopes? Do you have unused art supplies? What about making meals for door-knockers and leaflet distributors, or offering copywriting or editing skills? Do you have a button-making machine you can drop off in preparation for a rally at City Hall? 

Look for ways to expand the conversation beyond the same group of faces. Meeting after meeting with the same well-meaning and dedicated crew of the usual suspects is not just repetitive: it’s unrepresentative, and it’s a virtual guarantee that any progress we might make or changes we might successfully advocate for will be at the expense of others who are already unheard. Are you in a position to use your extra time to broaden the “community” we work with? Can you use your time, and your skills, to ensure more voices are heard, and that decisions are more reflective of the needs of the entire population? 

Sometimes people are missing from these conversations for very basic reasons. Precarious employment and debt, including student debt, can be a huge barrier to civic engagement and participation. Public transportation is not always as convenient as we may like to think. If child care is not provided (even at school council meetings, for example) can it be prioritized? What about setting up a child care/babysitting bank (or even “solidarity camps” during job actions) to support parents who find it difficult to attend school board or school council meetings or other political activities? This would ensure attendance reflects broad community representation and, in addition, draw attention to the societal need for affordable, accessible, universal child care. 

Some obstacles to inclusion and representation are much more physically systemic. Consider doing an accessibility audit of your neighbourhood (or your downtown if you’re feeling that ambitious), and reexamine your assumptions of who has full access to public spaces. A minor inconvenience for one person may bring another to a complete halt—and may make it less likely their voice will be heard in the very decisions that impact them the most. 

The journey of a thousand miles...

The first step is often to challenge yourself to challenge assumptions of what’s possible, or to push back against the limits we often put on the progress we’re capable of making. It’s easy to buy into narratives like, “This is the way it’s always been” or “That could never happen.” Turn that thinking on its head by asking, “Says who?” and “Why not?” Or “Wanna watch me?” Enlist friends in this task. Make new ones. 

Practice two-way mentorship. Listen (and yes, this can itself be a challenge). Ask “how can I help”?  Be patient with others, who may not have the time or the comfort level to engage in activities you consider a priority; be patient with yourself, when you need to take a moment to rejuvenate or to learn something new. Seek out opportunities to learn, to ask “what don’t I know?”, to do the work required to better understand, and to get out of comfort zones.

Remember: progress can be slow. There can be setbacks. But the community we build celebrates our victories and supports us during moments of disappointment. The creativity we nurture helps us reconfigure “mistakes” as learning opportunities—which can be as valuable as victories. The communication we practice ensures that we are always learning from each other—from past wins, and from omissions we must avoid in order to be truly inclusive. And the capacity we build will contribute to a foundation of trust, allowing us to recognize and make use of the resources we collectively represent. 

Time is valuable...and transformative. Let’s use our skills, enthusiasm, experience, and compassion and do what we can to make the most of it—for ourselves, and each other. 

Ann Douglas is the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio, creator of The Mother of All Books series and author of Parenting Through the Storm. Her most recent book, Happy Parents, Happy Kids, was published by HarperCollins Canada in February 2019. Find her latest work on her website and follow her on Twitter at @anndouglas for updates.

Erika Shaker is director of the CCPA National Office and Editor of Our Schools / Our Selves. Find her on Twitter at @ErikaShaker. 

How to Avoid Shaming Kids About Their Weight

Weight can be a tricky issue for parents. It can feel like you’re trying to make your way through a gigantic minefield: a minefield laden with confusing cultural messages about bodies, weight, and food. Here are a few tips on navigating that minefield based on my own experiences both as a parent and as a kid.

Daria Volkova/Unsplash

Recognize that cultural messages make this tough.

Western culture gives us so many conflicting messages about food. We’re offered an endless buffet of seemingly irresistible snack foods and treats (foods that have been carefully engineered to achieve peak deliciousness, no less); and yet, at the same time, we’re given a lot of highly moralistic messages about the importance of exercising self-control when we’re faced with these foods. It’s all about resisting temptation so that you can achieve a (quote-unquote) “acceptable” body shape and size (or so we’re told).

Now add to this the unique challenges that are baked into the experience of being a parent (the fact that you’re responsible for the health and wellbeing of another human being; the fact that kids are constantly changing and growing; and the fact that every parent on the planet is the product of his or her own imperfect childhoods), and you can see that this is definitely not an easy task.

A lot of us grew up hearing messages about weight and food that weren’t particularly helpful or healthy—messages that were laced with shame and judgment. Is it any wonder then that so many of us are trying to handle things differently (and hopefully a little better) with our kids? We want our kids to grow up being healthy and strong and feeling good about their bodies. And some of us (myself included) know from first-hand experience how difficult it is to be “the fat kid.” Fat stigma is real, even in 2020. We want to spare our kids that painful experience, if possible.

Be mindful of the messages you’re sending your child about weight.

Ask yourself what broader cultural messages about food and weight your child sees you amplifying or rejecting. How do you react to a social media story about a celebrity’s weight loss or weight gain? Do you laugh at a fat joke in a movie you’re watching with your kids?  What kind of things do they hear you say when you talk about your own body or your own relationship with food?

This is something I was speaking with Michelle Allison about recently. She’s a Toronto dietician who helps people figure out what it means to eat normally—in a healthy, non-obsessive way. She told me that parents have an important role to play in modelling these kinds of behaviours for their kids: “Parents really need to sort out, as much as they can, their own relationship with food so that they’re able to model for their kids eating in a way that is normal and healthy—and includes permission, but that also includes structure.” Where kids, like adults, tend to run into trouble and when they can actually end up developing an unhealthy relationship with food is when they get a lot of all-or-nothing messages around food: you’re either depriving yourself of food or you’re rewarding yourself with food; this food is good or bad. The goal is to find some sensible middle ground—a place where kids can grow up feeling good (not guilty) about food and where they can learn to trust their bodies to tell them what they actually want and need.

Find out if there’s actually cause for concern.

It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that kids are simply going to be bigger than others. That’s simply a particular child’s body type. Looking at your child’s overall growth pattern or trajectory over a prolonged period of time often helps to make this broader pattern clear. A big baby becomes a big toddler becomes a big child. A doctor or a dietitian can help you to gain this bigger picture perspective.

And what if your child is a bit bigger than other kids? The goal isn’t to move your child from the 90th percentile to the 50th percentile on the growth chart. The goal is to allow your child’s body to become what it is meant to be and to avoid reacting in a way that might cause your child to develop an unhealthy relationship with food. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes—and kids go through periods when they naturally become a little bit chubbier or a bit thinner. It’s important to recognize and accept those key biological facts.

This kind of ebb and flow is normal, explains Michelle Allison. “We all recognize growth spurts when it comes to height or…shoe size. But it’s also important [for] parents to understand that there are periods of what is called adiposity rebound that occur as well. And these are periods when kids will gather more fat and they’ll grow more fat tissue on their body and then usually a growth spurt in height comes after that. This is a normal and important part of development. The body knows what it’s doing and as long as parents provide the supportive structure of regular meals and enough permission (exposing children to a variety of different foods, but letting them pick and choose from what’s available), parents can [relax], trust that process, and not try to take it over.”

Maybe you’re trying to fix a problem that isn’t actually a problem at all.

Maybe there isn’t actually anything for you to fix.

Offer support in a way that doesn’t involve body shaming.

Keep the focus on having a happy, healthy relationship with your body: eating well, being active, and celebrating all the things your body can do: how strong and capable it is. Resist the temptation to try to control your child’s weight or food intake in a way that feels punitive or like deprivation. And insist that other relatives do the same. (It’s not okay for a grandparent to tell a chubby kid that he doesn’t “need” this piece of cake, but that his skinnier brother can have two pieces!)

Modify the family environment in a way that supports the child and that is healthy for all family members. Make high-quality nutrition and regular physical activity the norm for your family. And model those behaviours yourself. (Parents are incredibly powerful role models, particularly when it comes to physical activity. More active parents end up raising more active kids.)

Recognize your own internalized biases and stigma regarding weight. Don’t let them spill over into your relationship with your child. And refuse to allow other family members (grandparents, siblings, anyone) to engage in weight-related shaming or bullying. Help them to understand that teasing a child about their weight as a means of “motivating" them to lose weight is a strategy that can backfire big time. Children who are subjected to weight-based teasing actually tend to gain more weight than other kids. Likewise, putting a child on a diet is also hugely ineffective and it may even cause psychological harm, increasing the risk of both weight gain and disordered eating. One study found that women who remembered their parents commenting on their weight when they were growing up were likely to express dissatisfaction with their bodies well into adulthood regardless of their actual weight in adulthood.

Take action to combat fat stigma.

Acknowledge that fat stigma is real. Our kids pick up on all those “fat is bad” messages—and overweight kids pay the price on the playground and in gym class.

If your child is on the receiving end of this kind of bullying, help your child figure out how to respond—what they might want to say and who they might want to turn to for help and support in dealing with these episodes of bullying.

And if your child is the one doing the bullying, help your child to understand why it’s not okay. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes. No one should be made to feel less acceptable or worthy because they’re living their life in a bigger body—or any body, for that matter. Body shaming is also an issue for kids who are deemed “too skinny” and for boys who are deemed “not manly enough,” too.

Recognize how important it is to get this right.

Childhood experiences about weight can have a far-reaching impact well into adulthood, both in terms of how we feel about our bodies and what kind of relationship we have with food. How do I know this? Because I was a fat kid—or at least I grew up thinking I was a fat kid. Looking back, I was a little chubby; and I definitely packed on a few extra pounds as I headed into puberty. But that’s how puberty is supposed to work. (Girls shift from gaining roughly 2 kg per year before puberty to gaining roughly 5 to 10 kg right around the time of puberty. They tend to fill out before they grow up.) But here’s the thing: I didn’t understand that at the time. All I knew was that the scale was moving upwards at a rapid rate and everyone around me seemed to be talking about my weight. It would take decades of my life for me to shed the shame and to develop a healthy and joyful relationship with food.

Unfortunately, along the way, I ended up giving my own kids some rather mixed-up messages about food and body image. Like my parents, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had at the time—and, like my parents, I fell short on this front. Despite my best efforts not to burden my daughter with any of my own weight-related baggage, she ended up developing an eating disorder during her teen years, perhaps in response to my weight (I was quite obese at that time) and perhaps because of my obvious efforts to lose that weight (diet culture can be both toxic and contagious).

The good news is that I ultimately managed to find my way to a healthy place: both in terms of my physical health (I am no longer morbidly obese) but even more importantly in terms of how comfortable I am in my own skin. And so did my daughter.

And that’s what I want for any kid who might be worried about their weight: that same hard-earned feeling of self-compassion and self-acceptance; the lightness and grace that allows you to move in the world without obsessing 24/7 about the shape or size of your body; the freedom to accept and enjoy your body without even a hint of body shame. The freedom to be yourself, in other words….

Note: This blog post is based on my most recent parenting column for CBC Radio.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio. Ann frequently speaks at health and parenting conferences across the country on issues related to parenting and mental health.

When Your Child Does Something that Embarrasses You (or You Do Something That Embarrasses Your Child)

Some advice on getting through some of the more cringeworthy moments as a parent.

Being a parent can be downright embarrassing at times.

• Your toddler has a meltdown in the middle of the grocery store.

• You get called to the principal’s office because of something your child said or did at school.

• Your teenager says something obnoxious or edgy at a family reunion.

You get the picture….

The question, of course, is how to respond to these all-too-common scenarios.

How can you manage your own feelings of embarrassment so that you are able to respond in a way that is helpful (as opposed to harmful) to your child?

Start out by acknowledging that this is hard — because it is.

There’s no doubt about it: it can be challenging to handle the more cringeworthy-moments of parenting: those moments when your child says or does something that is downright embarrassing to you. Say, the classic candy aisle meltdown…. Basically, you’re being called upon to be “your best parenting self” at the very moment when you feel least equipped to do so: when your brain is being flooded with emotion and you feel like every single person in the grocery store is judging you and waiting to see what you will do next. You can almost imagine your fellow shoppers reaching for the popcorn and placing bets with one another about how well (or how terribly) you are going to handle this:

“I bet he’s going to give in to the candy request!”

“I bet she’s going to start yelling at the kid!”

Trust me, it doesn’t feel great!

Parenting is challenging at the best of times — and knowing that you’re parenting in public only serves to make it 100 times harder! And these days, it can feel like you’re just one smartphone click away from becoming the Internet’s next bad parenting meme. So, there’s that, too….

Recognize how much power you have in this moment.

Sure, you might feel completely powerless — like your shrieking toddler is the one who holds all the cards — but actually the opposite is true. You have a huge amount of power in this moment. You have the power to choose how to respond — a decision that will play a major role in determining what will happen next. Will your actions help to calm your child or will they escalate the conflict, pulling you and your child into a messy and very public tug-of-war, a situation where you’re likely to say or do something you might regret?

You’ve reached a turning point, in other words. And it all starts with you gaining control of your own thoughts and feelings so that you can make a conscious decision about how to respond to your child.

Hit the pause button on your own emotions.

A critical first step is in managing your emotions is actually allowing yourself to acknowledge whatever it is you’re feeling — and odds are you’re feeling a lot of different things all at once. In addition to feeling embarrassed (“Everyone is staring at me and thinking I’m the world’s worst parent!”), you might also be feeling angry at or frustrated with your child (“Why can’t you just behave? Why does everything have to be a battle with you?”) Add to that a layer of guilt (“Good parents don’t ever feel angry with their kids! Why am I such a terrible parent?”) and you can see that you’ve got a cocktail of emotions swimming around in your brain.

Parenting is ultimately about empathy: recognizing that it’s hard to be the parent and it’s hard to be the kid.

Hitting the pause button on all those emotions gives you the opportunity to figure out how you want to respond to your child. You want to be able to do your best thinking—something that’s impossible while your mind is being flooded with emotion and all kinds of just plain unhelpful thoughts. And, according to Leena Augimeri (Director - Scientific and Program Development with the Child Development Institute in Toronto and co-founder of the Stop Now and Plan (or SNAP) program) hitting the pause button on your own emotions begins with answering yourself this all-important question: “What is the first thing that you need to do to gain better self-control?”

Augimeri recommends taking a deep breath or counting to ten or doing whatever else you can do in that moment to calm yourself. Then, at that point, you can start challenging the unhelpful thoughts that only serve to make parenting harder — thoughts like, “He’s doing this on purpose to make me really angry!” or “He’s doing this to embarrass me!” — thoughts that may not even be the least bit true at all. Odds are, your child isn’t doing this to make your life harder: he’s actually just really frustrated himself. Recognizing that simple yet all-important fact allows you to pivot from embarrassment to empathy.

Switch into detective mode.

Sometimes we parents are required to play detective. We have to decode the messages that our kids are sending us. Then, once we’ve managed to figure out what it is that a particular child is trying to tell us in a particular moment, we’re in a much stronger position to be able to try to meet the underlying need. Maybe a child who just had a very public meltdown needs you to help solve a problem. Maybe she would benefit from some hands-on help. Or maybe she just needs to have you recognize and validate what she’s feeling: a simple acknowledgement that “This is really hard.” As psychologists like to remind us, “Behaviour is communication.” Sometimes the messages that that our kids communicate to us through their actions and their emotions are far more powerful than what they’re actually able to put into words.

Keep your expectations of your child age-appropriate and realistic.

According to a 2016 study conducted by ZERO TO THREE (a major US child development research organization), there’s a significant gap between what parents think kids are capable of at a given age and what those kids are actually capable of at that age. The researchers discovered, for example, that nearly half of parents of two-year-olds expect their toddlers to be able to refrain from having a temper tantrum when they’re frustrated when, in fact, that kind of self-control only starts to develop when children reach the age of three-and-a-half or four. In other words, it’s normal for toddlers to have difficulty managing their emotions, and failing to understand that simple-yet-all-important fact makes parenting so much harder.

Having a basic understanding of child development makes it easier for you to parent in a way that you can feel good about and that brings out the best (as opposed to the worst) in your child. Understanding child development also makes it easier for you to tune out the voices of other people. Instead of worrying about what other people are thinking as they observe your child’s meltdown in the candy aisle (“What a bad parent!” “What a bad kid!”), you can focus instead on meeting your child’s needs in this moment and learning from this experience (“Note to self: Let’s skip the candy aisle next time!”). And, most important of all, you can choose to parent in a way that will build upon the all-important bond between you and your child.

Be self-aware enough to recognize when you’re the one causing the embarrassment.

The embarrassment thing works both ways, after all. Sometimes we parents are the ones who are embarrassing our kids!

It’s important to be self-aware enough to allow yourself to recognize when this is happening. Maybe you shared something cute or funny that our child said or did and your child is embarrassed that you passed that information along (“Hey, that was a secret. I didn’t want you to tell Grandma or to post it on your Facebook page!”)

If you’ve goofed, be willing to acknowledge that you’ve made a mistake. We parents are human. We’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to say or do things that our kids aren’t thrilled about. And when this happens (not if this happens – when this happens), we have an opportunity to apologize and make amends.

Key to making an effective apology is acknowledging the impact of your actions and promising to do better next time: “You’re right. I shouldn’t have shared that on my Facebook page without checking with you first. I can see now how that would have embarrassed you. I’m sorry. I’ll take the post down and I’ll make a point of checking with you before I post anything similar from now on.”

Finally, take solace in the fact that you’re in good company when it comes to accidentally embarrassing your kids, but, at the same time, don’t allow that to become an excuse for behaving badly. Sure, parental oversharing (or “sharenting”) seems to be happening more and more these days, but that doesn’t have to mean that we should make embarrassing our kids the new normal. We can make a conscious decision to do things differently: to do our best to defy all those stereotypes about that totally embarrassing mom or dad; and to try to embarrass our kids a little less. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a worthy parenting resolution to carry with us into a brand new year.

This blog post is based upon my most recent parenting column for CBC Radio.

Ann Douglas is the author of numerous books about pregnancy and parenting including, most recently, Happy Parents, Happy Kids and Parenting Through the Storm. She is also the weekend parenting columnist for CBC Radio.