Mothers Sons Relationship

The mother-son relationship is a dynamic one, in which both people become richer. Sons help mothers learn about males in a new way and appreciate a world that may seem foreign to them, according to Linda Stone Fish, Ph.D., professor of marriage and family therapy in the College of Human Services and Health Professions at Syracuse University.

“Because we live in a time when the ‘battle of the sexes’ is a hot topic, we have been taught that men and women live in entirely different worlds: they think differently, want differently, live differently, etc. Stereotyping limits the ways we view each other in dramatic ways, and is also inaccurate,” Dr. Stone Fish explained.

“Having sons helps women love and appreciate masculinity for all of the wonderful things it is. We women have been taught that anything masculine is foreign, ugly, bad, or to be curbed, but having boys and seeing all the various ways that masculinity is experienced allows mothers to appreciate the complexity of the human spirit,” she noted.

Self Worth and Respect

A mother’s role also is elemental in building a boy’s self-esteem. “Mothers lend their sons their feelings of self worth. If mothers see themselves as important (but not too important), their sons feel important and worthy of love,” said Dr. Stone Fish, who, in addition to being a therapist in private practice in the city of Syracuse, is also the mother of four sons.

“Mothers who are ‘important’ convey two main messages to their sons: If I am important then you are important; and I am important so I am worthy of your kindness, which I will affirm,” she said.

“This second message, which is often dramatically overlooked in the child development literature, is perhaps the most important ingredient to helping children develop into wonderful adults,” said Dr. Stone Fish.

Mothers can serve as good models of how to treat a woman with respect, according to Dr. Coleman, a psychologist in private practice in San Francisco specializing in family and parenting issues.

“Mothers who let themselves be dominated or controlled by sons are more likely to do the same in their own marriages,” he said.

“However, mothers who can comfortably learn to set limits with their sons and act in a healthy self-interested way produce sons who are better friends and partners to women,” explained Dr. Coleman, who is also on the training faculty of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group and has served on the clinical faculties of The University of California at San Francisco/Mt. Zion Crisis Clinic and The Wright Institute Graduate School of Psychology.

Learning to Love

“Mothers can be good role models of a healthy marriage as well as a healthy love relationship. Because mothers still do the majority of parenting in most households, boys learn more from their mothers about how to love than their fathers,” according to Coleman.

Yet, some mothers may worry that if their childhood does not hold up as a wonderful example of a loving parental relationship, their relationship with their child may be in jeopardy.

Aimee Hazard, a New Hampshire mother of fraternal two-year-old twins (one male and one female), notes that she works to connect with both children daily. “I make it a point to hug and kiss Catherine and Hunter both everyday. However, I feel like I connect with Catherine easily and always have but I have to work at it and make it a point to be close to Hunter.”

Aimee said that it might have something to do with her past relationships with men, including an emotionally distant father.

However, Dr. Stone Fish noted that if a woman has had a poor relationship with her father (or parents in general), she could still take steps to create a warm and loving relationship with good communication with her son.

“We have a great deal of control over how we parent,” she said. “We are not destined to repeat relationships if we consciously choose to do things differently.”

He’s Got Personality

Personality is one element of the mother-son relationship not to be overlooked.

“The contrasts between raising my sons and daughter mostly stem from personality differences among them, and they are all quite distinct personalities,” said Judy Gruen, the mother of three sons and one daughter (ages 9-15).

In parenting, she often takes a step back to consider the individual child, and not necessarily the gender. “I don’t even deal with all my sons the same way because they have different strengths, weaknesses, maturity levels, and will respond differently to different motivations and forms of discipline,” said Gruen, author of Carpool Tunnel Syndrome: Motherhood as Shuttle Diplomacy.

Sign of the Times

In today’s turbulent political climate, mothers now more than ever are considering the possibility of their sons having to go into the military one day, according to Dr. Stone Fish.

Judy Gruen agreed. “As the mother of three sons, an American and an orthodox Jew, the prospect of my sons perhaps one day serving in the military (either here or in Israel) becomes more real as they grow older,” she said.

However, she is raising her sons to be individuals who go on to pursue their beliefs. “On one hand it’s a terrifying thought, yet the strength and bravery that I believe are very particular to men means that I could not hold them back from serving. I would be proud, although all my hairs would probably turn gray overnight!” she said.

The Father Factor

The role of fathers helps balance out the parenting worries and responsibilities as well as the influences.

“The role of mothers in sons’ lives is essential for them to grow up in a psychologically healthy way. However, both boys and girls need the special role modeling and traits that men offer as fathers and women as mothers,” Gruen added.

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How to Help Your Child Deal with Rejection

Cliques and bullies are painful parts of every kid’s life – and it isn’t easy for parents either. Here’s some advice on how to ease the hurt

Most parents know that rejection is an inevitable part of growing up — but try telling that to your son or daughter. Janet Chan, editor-in-chief of Parenting magazine, and Rachel Simmons, author of “Odd Girl Speaks Out: Girls Write About Bullies, Cliques,” were invited on the “Today” show to discuss how parents can help prepare their children for rejection from their peers as part of our special series, “Raising Kids Today.”

Rejection is a part of life, but it’s crucial for parents to help their children learn how to deal with setbacks — whether they’re cut from a sports team or left out of a clique.  The most important thing for a parent to remember is to keep your cool — at least in front of your child.  When your child is snubbed, it can bring up old feelings of rejection for you too.  If you’re responding from your own hurt feelings, it’s hard to be helpful.  And if your child picks up on them, it may make him feel worse about the whole thing.  You need to switch gears and be supportive, rather than venting your own disappointment.

When children face rejection from their peers
You may tell your child that life isn’t a popularity contest. But to him, it can certainly feel that way. Starting in kindergarten, children become more selective in choosing their friends. That’s good, but it also means that they sometimes get hurt.

All children at one time or another feel rejected by their peers. The reasons are often as capricious as a shift in the weather. A child’s appearance (her hygiene, weight, race, a disability), her manner (such as a stutter or atypical gender behavior), her economic or ethnic background, poor social skills, or personality (being aggressive, withdrawn, anxious, overly sensitive, or quick to take offense) can all be factors.

How do you know if your child needs help? It’s easiest to see it in interactions.  If a child goes out to play and is back in 15 minutes or is in tears; if nobody calls; if he doesn’t want to go to school or claims to be sick a lot, parents may need to take action.

If you think your child might be facing rejecting from his friends:

Don’t judge too fast
If your 4-year-old has been pushed off the slide by one of his playmates, don’t automatically rush to his defense.  Young children are easily distracted, and are much more likely to toddle off to the swings than they are to take offense to their friends’ actions.  Your child will mirror your reaction — so if you get upset, chances are he will, too.

Use your own experience as an example
It may help for you to haul out a humiliating story from your own past (being stood up for the prom might finally come in handy!) — but only if you can set a good example by explaining how you got over it.

Try to focus on helping your child find his own way to cope
“Say, ‘I know you’re upset because your friends didn’t come over. What are you going to do to make yourself feel better?’ This gives your child the opportunity to see himself as someone who can survive a difficult social situation. You may be surprised to find out that he has more inner resources than you think.

Treat others as you’d like to be treated
Remind kids that there have been times when the tables have been turned, and they’ve been the rejecter, so that they can begin to understand the importance of empathy in making — and keeping — friendships.

Pre-teen cliques
As kids hit the pre-teen years, they may start to encounter cliques.  Cliques and popularity affect girls far more strongly than boys, since boys are drawn together more by activities, while girls are beginning to explore relationships and emotional intimacy. Girls tend to be more closed and can make it very difficult to join their group if you’re not considered someone who’s liked a lot. Boys, on the other hand, travel in larger, looser groups, which also supply a pool of ready players for their games.

Once children get to high school they may discover a more relaxed, diverse social system. Until then, expect them to navigate some treacherous waters, while bearing in mind that experiencing a little rejection and learning to cope with it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  It happens to all of us.

Although you might think your pre-teen wants you to be invisible most of the time, it’s more important than ever to show your support when they’re facing some form of rejection from their peers.  They want you to be there for them — whether that means a one-on-one conversation about what’s bothering them, or a movie and pizza night at home when they weren’t invited to the big party.

Beyond the classroom, your child may discover new confidence and more like-minded peers in an athletic league, an arts program, or a church group.  It’s important to create opportunities for your child to make friends with a wide variety of people.  With a large support network to draw on, a child has an easier time putting a temporary rejection in perspective while seeking the company or sympathy of others.

Being rejected from a team, club, or school
Whether coming up short in a try-out for a sports team or not making the final cut of auditions for the school play, kids can feel the agony of defeat with surprising intensity.  Kids will never like to lose, but as a parent, it’s your job to make sure they’re willing to take the chance and play again.

Around the age of 11, children enter the period of select or elite teams, like traveling squads, and by middle school, nearly all sports teams and many activities require tryouts. Prepare your child for the possibility of not making the team before tryouts begin. Parents should convey to their sons and daughters to prepare to make the team, to work hard to do so and most importantly, feel good about themselves no matter the outcome.

If your child truly enjoys the sport and is rejected from a team, do everything possible to keep them interested and involved. When a child doesn’t make the cut, he is often discouraged and drops the sport.  Look for alternative leagues, or sign them up for sports camps to improve their skills.

Use examples.  Michael Jordan was cut as a sophomore from his high school team, but didn’t give up — he practiced even more, tried out again the next year and went on to become one of the greatest athletes of all time.  Even Albert Einstein failed his first college entrance exam!

It is difficult enough for a child who hasn’t made a team or been accepted to the school of their choice, but doubly hard when his friends do get picked. There could be a temporary break in the friendship, or it could end in a permanent break. Parents should do whatever they can to encourage strengthening other friendships during this time.

All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting

From New York Magazine: There was a day a few weeks ago when I found my 2½-year-old son sitting on our building doorstep, waiting for me to come home. He spotted me as I was rounding the corner, and the scene that followed was one of inexpressible loveliness, right out of the movie I’d played to myself before actually having a child, with him popping out of his babysitter’s arms and barreling down the street to greet me. This happy moment, though, was about to be cut short, and in retrospect felt more like a tranquil lull in a slasher film. When I opened our apartment door, I discovered that my son had broken part of the wooden parking garage I’d spent about an hour assembling that morning. This wouldn’t have been a problem per se, except that as I attempted to fix it, he grew impatient and began throwing its various parts at the walls, with one plank very narrowly missing my eye. I recited the rules of the house (no throwing, no hitting). He picked up another large wooden plank. I ducked. He reached for the screwdriver. The scene ended with a time-out in his crib.

The Overprotected Kid – The Atlantic

A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discovery—without making it safer. A new kind of playground points to a better solution.

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