Parenting Practice

Attitudes about health and health care start in childhood, but can last a lifetime. Every time a parent shrieks or flinches when they see a wound, every time a parent obsesses over or ignores an issue, a child learns something about what it means to be sick or hurt. They learn whether or not to trust their own judgment, they learn to cry or not to cry, and they learn who to turn to for help.

Oct 26, 2005 - Valerie Borey

However simple it is to say that you want to raise your child to feel confident about herself, it’s not nearly as simple to figure out how that can be accomplished. I’d like my daughter to be proud, to walk with her head up, and to know how much she’s capable of doing. This is my definition of self-confidence, at least for the moment, but how do you teach something like that? By some great fortune, I recently stumbled across a tool that is helping me to answer that very question: Circus School.

Sep 29, 2005 - Valerie Borey

My just about three-year old daughter and I were driving home one day last week, when I heard her high-pitched voice emerging from the back seat. I initially thought she was role-playing with one of her stuffed animals, but what I heard coming out of her mouth took me completely by surprise. “The poor donkey,” she said, “is so old and tired, he can no longer carry heavy loads to the mill.”

Aug 28, 2005 - Valerie Borey

Books surrounded me as a child and life will not be much different for my daughter in this respect. As anyone who has ever helped me move is acutely aware of, I have pretty much saved every book I have ever owned. It’s a great comfort to me to know that I can return to any one of them in the dead of night and be certain of finding the reference I need.

Jul 18, 2005 - Valerie Borey

Of the many anxious moments in life that I experience, here’s one of the everyday strain that preoccupies me. I’m on the elevator with my two-year old daughter. A charming older lady in the corner is eyeing my child with obvious delight and seems about ready to speak. “How sweet,” she’ll sigh, appealing to the part of me that is dying to make sure that my daughter will grow up confident and with a sense of being well loved.

Jun 18, 2005 - Valerie Borey

My two and a half year old daughter recently attended the death of her great grandmother. We got the call that things weren’t going so well at about 10:30 at night, and so we packed my daughter up and headed out so that we could be with for those final hours. We could have left her with my mother for the night, but I felt it important that she be present to say goodbye and to see for herself the importance of compassion and understanding.

May 18, 2005 - Valerie Borey

My daughter is named after two people-–my maternal grandmother and maternal great grandmother, but if you look a little harder, you’ll find there are a lot more people embedded in that name. It’s a wonderful, long, historic name that emanates dignity, beauty, and even the slight homeliness that goes along with dedicating a person to heritage.

Apr 18, 2005 - Valerie Borey

Outside of death and major illness, two of my greatest fears have always been conflict and public speaking. It’s taken me a long time to come to the understanding that conflict doesn’t always have to be unpleasant. Conflict doesn’t necessarily mean that you have done something wrong. It doesn’t mean that there has to be a winner and a loser. It doesn’t mean that blood (psychic or otherwise) will be drawn in the confrontation. Still, learning the form of conflict is something that I have struggled with for what seems like an eternity.

Mar 20, 2005 - Valerie Borey

In her book, Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context (1990), Barbara Rogoff spends a fair amount of time going over the concept of joint attention, particularly in the parent-child relationship. A lot of people might refer to this as “connecting” with a child, but I think there’s something about the word “connecting” that makes the process seem magical and beyond the control of an individual. Establishing joint attention, on the other hand, is an effortful process – not in the sense that it is difficult to do, or even that it has to be done consciously, but in the sense that it is a process in which two people choose to engage.

Feb 19, 2005 - Valerie Borey

Some people believe that it is restrictive and controlling to impose long-term goals upon children, arguing that these sorts of things are better left to the child when he or she reaches a particular level of maturity. While I do agree that children ought to be given agency and choice in their own development, I can’t help but point out that, in its most extreme form, this sentiment reflects a certain naïve or limited understanding of child development.

Jan 19, 2005 - Valerie Borey