Focus on the Family

Q: Our son is 3 years old and in the night he will sob, cry and scream out when he is asleep. Can you tell me more about night terrors?

Juli: While nightmares are common in children, night terrors occur in only about 5 percent. Kids between the ages of 4 and 12 are most likely to have night terrors, but they can occur at any age. Nightmares happen during the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) stage of sleep and can usually be recalled when the child wakes up. Night terrors, on the other hand, occur when a child is switching between stages of sleep and usually have no narrative associated with them. In other words, with most night terrors, a child will not wake up and be able to recall a dream involving a scary monster or anything else specific.

When having a night terror, a child often sits up in the middle of a deep sleep, screaming and sometimes thrashing around. As hard as you try to console your child during a night terror, it's not likely to work. He might not recognize you or even acknowledge your presence. Most experts recommend that you don't wake your child up during an episode. Instead, keep your child from getting hurt, but let the terror run its course. He is likely to fall back asleep and have no memory the next morning of what happened.

Night terrors tend to be genetic. You can reduce the likelihood of night terrors in your child by making sure he sticks to a regular sleep schedule. Kids are most likely to have night terrors when they are overly tired, sleeping in an unusual place, or dealing with significant stress.

Q: Our 7-year-old daughter is an over-the-top perfectionist. If her crayon strays outside the line, she throws the picture away. If her bedspread has wrinkles in it, she freaks out. How can we temper this behavior?

Jim: There are practical steps you can take to minimize these challenges with your daughter. Author Shana Schutte has crafted a list of five ways to balance perfectionism in kids:

1) Don't encourage your child's perfectionism. If your daughter throws a tantrum because the shoes you picked for her don't match her outfit, don't bend over backward to accommodate her. She needs to learn how to compromise in order to function in life.

2) You don't indicate where your daughter falls in the birth order, but it's important to recognize that firstborn children are often perfectionists. Parents tend to treat their firstborn with more attention to detail. If you're a new parent and your baby's pacifier falls in the dirt, you sterilize it. But by the time child No. 3 arrives, you just wipe the dirt on your sleeve and stick it back in his mouth.

3) Take a personal inventory. If you tend to have perfectionist tendencies yourself, address them. If you stress out over every minor detail, your daughter will pick up on that and behave the same way.

4) Maintain a sense of humor. When your daughter feels like life is falling apart as the result of a mistake she's made, a little joking or acting silly can send a strong message that imperfection is not the end of the world.

5) Tell a story from your own experience. This is especially helpful in moments when humor is not appropriate. Talk about how you felt when you were younger and believed you weren't measuring up.

Your goal is not to change your daughter's personality entirely. It is simply to help soften the edges so that she'll feel more relaxed and secure despite her mistakes.

Dr. Juli Slattery is a licensed psychologist, co-host of Focus on the Family, author of several books, and a wife and mother of three.

Submit your questions to: ask@FocusOnTheFamily.com

Copyright 2011 Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO 80995

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Q: My husband's parents are coming for a visit, and I'm concerned there may be trouble. My mother-in-law is fond of giving oceans of unwanted advice. How can I politely shut her down before the comments start flying fast and furious?

Jim: Sometimes it's hard enough to get along with the people living under your own roof. When you bring in-laws into the mix, the results can be downright scary!

Hopefully, your mother-in-law's "advice" is given in love, rather than mean-spiritedness. Either way, you might want to talk to your husband beforehand about ways to set boundaries with her in a manner that won't insult or offend.

In the end, though, you can't control what your mother-in-law says. But you can control your response to it. Before she arrives, find the book "Loving Your Relatives Even When You Don't See Eye to Eye" by David and Claudia Arp and John and Margaret Bell. The authors suggest that the majority of in-law conflict can be defused by following a few simple rules of civility.

For example, always remember to smile -- and not through gritted teeth. People always respond better to someone who's smiling.

Even if your mother-in-law is acting nosy and intrusive, make sure that you're considerate, that you practice restraint, and that you never raise your voice.

Have the courage to admit when you're wrong, and don't ever ridicule or demean her. Give her the benefit of the doubt, and try to see things from her perspective. Be accepting and understanding of her shortcomings, and recognize that you have your own faults and hang-ups as well.

These are good rules to keep in mind when dealing with difficult people in any situation, not just in-laws. But they're especially important when in-law conflict rears its ugly head and you feel like tearing your hair out. No matter how frustrating things get, just remember to be civil!

Q: Our only grandchild is 4 years old. We cannot agree with our daughter-in-law on how often we, as the grandparents, should be allowed to see our granddaughter. Can you tell us how we can approach this without causing too much conflict and what would be a reasonable compromise on how many visits would be appropriate?

Juli: I can imagine how frustrating it must be to not be able to see your only grandchild as much as you'd like. Unfortunately, this is not the kind of situation in which you can find a "compromise." Your son and daughter-in-law are the guardians of their daughter and have the ability to choose unilaterally how often you see her.

All of your frustration and effort to reach a compromise are likely to backfire. If you fight for more time with your granddaughter, you are making yourself an adversary instead of building trust with your daughter-in-law. Instead, direct your energy toward trying to understand why she is hesitant to let you spend more time with your granddaughter. Most moms of young children are happy to have an extra set of hands or an on-call babysitter. Why doesn't she view you in this light? You may want to ask your son this question directly.

Ask yourself, "What can I change to be more supportive of my daughter-in-law?" Young moms are hungry for affirmation and support. Sometimes, in-laws are viewed as threatening and critical. If this is the case, be very careful to encourage your son and his wife. One word of criticism speaks louder than 10 words of praise.

Remember, you can only be as effective a grandparent as you are a mother-in-law. The more you pour support and encouragement into your children, the better equipped they become to raise the next generation, and the more you gain the credibility to invest in your granddaughter.

Dr. Juli Slattery is a licensed psychologist, co-host of Focus on the Family, author of several books, and a wife and mother of three.

Submit your questions to: ask@FocusOnTheFamily.com

Copyright 2011 Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO 80995

International Copyright Secured. All Rights reserved.

Q: At what age should young adults be encouraged to leave home and live on their own?

Juli: This is a question more and more parents are asking because there doesn't seem to be a "norm." In generations past, high school graduation (or at least college graduation) was the accepted milestone at which most young adults were expected to become financially independent. Most young adults married and began their occupations or careers by their early 20s. Now, adult responsibilities seem somehow to be too much for a 22-year-old. Many parents have adopted the philosophy that kids should "live a little" before settling down. As a result, it is common for parents to still be housing and financially supporting young adults into their late 20s or early 30s.

The common trend to delay marriage, commitment to a career and parenthood may appear to be a gift to this generation of young adults. In my opinion, it is more of a handicap. Yes, young adults don't typically have the wisdom to think through the lifetime decisions they are faced with. That is why they need mentors and coaches to help them. However, the greatest teacher in life is the process of making difficult choices and living with the consequences of those choices. Rather than protecting young adults from pain, delaying the big decisions of life keeps them immature and paralyzed.

While there is no "magic age" to determine when young adults should be encouraged to leave the nest, many are staying dependent beyond what is healthy. Ironically, the same kids who were pushed to start preschool at the age of 3 are now encouraged to stay teenagers until the age of 30! If you really want to give your 20-something a jump on life, don't get in the way of the adult responsibilities that promote maturity, self-sacrifice and perseverance.

Q: I'm at a loss as to how to teach my kids sound financial principles when banks, businesses and the government are setting such a poor example. Do you have any suggestions?

Jim: Regardless of what's happening with the economy, many parents, sadly, are not doing a great job of teaching their kids the basic principles of money management. Perhaps financial expert Dave Ramsey put it best when he said, "We're raising an entire generation with 'sucker' stamped on their foreheads." Consider these statistics:

-- Just 26 percent of kids ages 13 to 21 say their parents taught them to manage money.

-- Eighty percent of undergraduates have at least one credit card and nearly half of college graduates carry four or more credit cards.

-- Only 13 states have educational requirements for financial literacy -- and those don't start until high school.

As parents, we need to start sooner than that. A good, old-fashioned allowance and a piggy bank might be a decent beginning. But Ramsey and others have proposed employing THREE piggy banks for each child: one for spending, one for saving and one for giving. Kids need to learn that once the "spend" money runs out, it's gone, so they need to budget wisely. And they need to delay gratification for the bigger-ticket items for which they're saving. Most importantly, they need to learn the importance of setting aside money to give to charity or the church.

More than anything, though, our kids need Mom and Dad to set a good example. They're not going to learn to spend, save and give wisely if their parents are living on credit and debt. In fact, I believe there are many adults out there who could benefit from the "three piggy bank" approach!

Dr. Juli Slattery is a licensed psychologist, co-host of Focus on the Family, author of several books, and a wife and mother of three.

Submit your questions to: ask@FocusOnTheFamily.com

Copyright 2011 Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO 80995

International Copyright Secured. All Rights reserved.