Make the Kids Think Hard

“Should you scream louder?”

•      Teaching Simplicity, Independence, Self-Awareness
  
  Swami Rama of Bengal, India and of the Menninger Clinic wrote, “Parents should, instead of instructing children to keep quiet or to shut up, teach them how to be still and be aware of other dimensions of their life… When children, from the very beginning, start becoming aware of their internal states, they can become creative…in strengthening their memory and sharpening their faculty of decisiveness…the center of consciousness is within.”  (Marriage, Parenthood and Enlightenment, 1977)
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Give kids chances each day to think, search, and decide.
   

•      Teaching by Steps
  
  The Chinese proverb says if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.  Easier said than done because, let’s be honest, it does take more effort to teach than to hand out fish.  Yet as a parent, you already took on that job.  The steps below got some napkins on the dinner table.  You’re on your own for fishing, but you can surely find parallels to many skills you want to teach.   
   Guerilla Tip:  If your goal is to raise self-managing adults, you have to teach adult skills—fishing, setting the table, whatever.  Don’t be selfish with your time or your never-ending patience.   

•      Questioning Their Techniques
  
  Whenever kids ask for something in an unreasonable fashion, question their technique and invite them to do the same. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Tell you kids, “You might not be getting your way because you’re not screaming loud enough.” 
  
  That sends them into a psychotic state long enough for you to finish your soup.  Watch them considering whether screaming louder might work as implied.  Then thinking this one through before proceeding, and thinking is good.  So challenge them.
   Guerilla Tip:  When driving in the car takes too long, kids will have the classic whine, “Are we there yet?”  Answer either, “Almost, but let me pull over so you can walk the rest of the way,” or, “Yes, that’s why the car is still moving.”   

•      Ending Tantrums Before They Begin
  
  Tantrums remind me of the way some family members beg for table scraps.  Without comparing kids to those family members, watch only how their teachers respond.  When you see either activity, look for the reward system the teachers are using, and avoid that system for yourself. 
  
  In both cases, the problem first begins with the teacher who rewards undesirable behavior—giving in to a tantrum or feeding scraps to pets directly from the table trains the uncivilized to repeat their techniques.  Then it ends with the teacher who complains about the results: “He throws tantrums, what can we do?” “He begs for scraps, what can we do?”  Makes me want to hold up a mirror and say, “Here is exactly who taught them and how!” 
  
  The Germans say that if you have a good friend, you don’t need a mirror.  Let me be your mirror. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Demonstrate that tantrums are not productive—ignore them. 
  
  One thing the author guarantees you:  If you give in to a 15-minute tantrum today, you will directly generate a 20-minute session tomorrow.  That part of parenting is not trial and error, so you do not get to be surprised if you are the one proving that tantrums are productive. 
  
  However, if a tantrum begins and you realize immediately that you were mistaken to say no, switch quickly to say yes.  Only you will notice what happened.  After 15 seconds of the scene, there is no turning back.   

•      Ending Tantrums After You Trained Them Well
  
  What if tantrums are well established in your home and you truly want to end them?  A Chinese proverb says the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago—the second best time is now. 
  
  Now, since you acted as personal trainer for the tantrums to begin with, you are probably the best one to undo your training, but you would need an absolute guerilla resolve to stop rewarding the tantrums.  
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Giving in to tantrums produces more tantrums. 
  
  Start by telling your kids you have had it with the scenes and the drama.  You will not tolerate even a single lapse in the future, and there will be consequences!  On this point, there can be no moments of weakness. 
  
  If you should weaken, you will need to drop the pretense that you do not want tantrums—apparently you do.  Tantrums are certainly a passionate area for expressing the power struggle and control issue.  Here are questions to consider: 

• Why is there a control issue in your family?  Hint—you invited it.

• Is there an issue of who is in control?  Hint—you are. 

• Don’t minor issues belong to minors and major issues to parents?  Hint—yes.

• Do you fight over minor issues you could let kids have control over?  Hint—cede control as deserved over time. 

• Are you giving off mixed signals that minors lead on major issues—safety, emergencies, health and critical household rules—a recipe for disaster?  Hint—they do not.  Invite minor input only after you make it clear that you will make all final decisions.   

• Teaching Organically
  
  Any storytelling or fairytale at bedtime is a chance to teach your kid to start reading.  Start when your three year old knows a story by heart.  To perform this trick, seat the kid on your lap or next to you, looking at the book and its pictures. 

1.    Put your finger or hers underneath an easy word she knows.  Start with words like ‘day’ that read exactly the way they look, not words like ‘right’ or ‘once.’

2.    Pause when you get to the word and wait for her to say the word.  You are setting it up for success because you know that she already knows the next word. 

3.    Point to the word she just ‘read’ and repeat it, “Day, you just read ‘day.’ “  Even if she doesn’t say the word, you can still model it and say, “Day.  We’re reading the word ‘day.’ “   

     Instead of your kids getting empty cheerleading and empty praise, they get to see their own success, deserving of praise, which you ensured would happen.  They prove their own competence to themselves, a lesson much stronger than any outside force. 

Guerilla Tip:  Confidence and competence feed off each other.

• Forcing Kids to Take Responsibility
   Walking home from a late dinner one night, I saw two teenagers fighting across the street.  One was punching the other who was bent or crouched on the ground, and it looked like it was Daniel punching his best friend.  He stopped when he looked up and recognized me, but neither of us said much then. 
  
  When he came home at midnight, there was no point in berating him, but there was no point in ignoring the cruelty either.  “Sam is your best friend.  Is that how you treat your friends?”  He could figure out how he should treat his friends and who to hang out with all by himself.  We have no real say in those areas.  My goal was to get him to look at his actions from an outside perspective, under the harsh light of midnight, and to face the truth. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Gently ask your kids to face the truth about how they deal with their own friends.   

• Challenging the Assumptions that are Only Imagined
  
  When we were both adults, my friend Danny S. of NY, NY called me for driving practice.  Having a driver’s license, he did not need the practice for the road test, but for something internal. 
  
  One, he lived in Manhattan for years.  Like many New Yorkers, he used the subway and buses with few opportunities to use his license, which he kept current.  Two, there was some psychological history with his father that was at play with driving a car.  He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it had something to do with self-esteem and earning his father’s respect.  For both reasons, he needed the practice, which he could get in the suburbs with me. 
  
  It was clear there was some ‘stuff’ going on when he drove.  Although he handled the car as well as an average driver, not a beginner, he was consumed with worry.  His main focus was on what the other drivers were thinking about his driving, as his comments showed. 
  
  So here we have a grown man with a legacy of some kind of negative thinking haunting him from how his father raised him.  And we have an experienced driver obsessed with how his driving is seen on the road.  Since Danny was assuming the worst about what ‘the other guy’ thought of him, I said let’s be explicit about what drivers say about other drivers.  If most drivers are cursing us for the smallest mistakes, let’s do just that to them. 
  
  I began by modeling some disturbing judgments:  “Where did that jerk learn to drive?” “That skinny thing’s a bad driver and a bad girl!” “If she thinks she can just signal and change lanes, she’s got another thing coming!”  Of course, we were in stitches giving life to such arbitrary putdowns, but it helped to verbalize what Danny was projecting on other drivers—that he is such a bad driver he deserved to be cursed for it.  Once this clutter was said out loud, it sounded pretty foolish, clearing the air for driving with less mental baggage. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  To resolve old ghosts, invoke them by name and dissipate their power.  Time by itself does not always heal them. 
   Whether as parent, big brother or big sister, challenge the assumptions that are unspoken, especially if they are critical.  Spell them out and look them over for a reality check.  My brother Rachim uses a guiding thought from mentor Shirley B., hospice social worker of Inwood, NY:  “The way out is through.”
  
  Any issues of unresolved history readily roll downhill, from parent to kid, from boss to worker, from memories to the present day.  They do not stay politely in the past.  Ignoring them does not make them fade.  In business, they say it rolls downhill, meaning don’t be surprised when your boss passes on complaints from above without filtering them. 
  
  When his father was in town next and Danny was as ready as he would be, we all went out to lunch in the Loser East Side.  Without his father noticing, we switched drivers for one leg of the trip so his father could see his smooth driving.  No surprise, Danny’s father hadn’t noticed who was driving, because he did not experience the driving as an issue—only Danny did.   

• Other people are entitled to their opinion, including so much nonsense heard around the world. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  As parent or friend, if you hear “I wouldn’t want people to think that…,” say, “Hey, let people think.  They can think what they like, and we can live our lives the way we think.”

Take it on Yourself

“I feel nervous when you cross the street.”

•       Phrase what you want very carefully by making your position clear and personal. 
  
  Do not be afraid to use the ‘I’ word to start sentences:  “I feel nervous when you run into the street.  I know you’re getting older—I still want you to ask someone to cross you each time, please.”  Starting with what you want works because you take it on yourself.  You are not issuing demands, but asking to be heard. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  When you take it on yourself, what can they say, “No, you don’t feel nervous”?  No way can they shoot back with “Are-too old enough.  Am-so careful.  Should-be allowed.”  

•       The Sufis tell tales of the humble sage Nasrudin.  Because Mullah Nasrudin always speaks with naïve humor, he appears at first to be the sweetest fool, which he isn’t. 
  
  When a mother asks Nasrudin to advise her kid how to get off sugar, he takes a week before agreeing to help her.  “What took you a week?” the mother asks impatiently.  “I had to see if I could do it myself.”  Gotta love it. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  See what you can do yourself before holding yourself up as a golden example.
    

•       Ever want to scream at a kid or an adult because you are not getting through?  Try looking at it more as a matter of your limitation than of theirs.  Fortunately, you would also have easier access to address your limitation.  Is it possible that if you rephrase yourself, you will make it clearer and they would understand better?
  
  Guerilla Tip:  “Sorry I don’t seem to be explaining this well.  Let me try another way.” 
  
  Likewise, it is better to say “Sorry, misunderstanding,” than “You misunderstood me,” or “You don’t get it.” 

•       Within two weeks of Daniel’s entry into high school, he told me his teacher was touching him too much in class.  My ears perked up:  Where was the teacher doing this touching?  Only shoulder, arm and other neutral places, but it was too much contact, unexplained, ‘freaky’ to Daniel.   
  
  An apology was in order, because the touching was completely explainable and entirely my fault.  My point to the teacher the first day was that my son was coming from a small 8^th grade class of six into a high-school class of 20 and could get lost in the shuffle.  If he needed help staying on track, my suggestion was to get in his face, pat his shoulder and such.  With this explanation—and my call to the teacher to call it off—it was clear the freakiness began at home, not from the teacher, and we both laughed.  Sort of. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  There was no shame in admitting the error of my ways. 

•       When we were both single and in our 20’s, my brother Rachim asked about coming over for the weekend, and I leveled with him about being too tired for company.  He said, “It means a lot to me that you can say no.  Now I am sure you wanted me over all those other times for real.”  He was happy for the honesty. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Take a chance on honesty.  Sometimes, an honest 'no' is more of a gift than a rejection. 

•       Shortly after my mother passed away, when my brother Mat and I were sitting in mourning, one of my father’s neighbors offered us this thought:  “Now your father will be alone.”  Yes, well that is what usually happens at the loss of a spouse.  To make some lemonade out of that lemon, I said, “Introduce him to someone at the right time.”  Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, my thought—grieving and still big with the suggestions. 
  
  Mat took me aside later and asked me—his older brother!—to cut such talk out, since he found my reply badly timed and in bad taste.  To reduce stress all around, it was not hard for me to agree.  “Hard for you to tell me how you felt?”  “Yes, but I’m happy how you handled it.”  “Then it’s good you told me you were uncomfortable.  Thank you,” and we hugged. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Since it is hard to say how we feel, be very accepting when you hear people out on their feelings. 

•       When Daniel was 14, I asked him to join me in synagogue for a portion of the Yom Kippur service.  “You’re just guilting me.  Why do you want me there?  Do I have to dress up?”  Having him attend for the sake of his salvation was not my concern, but having his company was.  So I told him I simply wanted him for as many minutes as he felt comfortable, and he could wear anything that covered his private parts.  He showed up nicely dressed in a suit and stayed peacefully for two hours. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Speak from your own heart not society’s rulebook.  Say it with respect and prepare yourself for the degree of awe-inspiring cooperation you get in return. 
  
  The Buddha said, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who said it, no matter if I said it, unless it agrees with your own reasoning.” 

•       There is a reason you can rely on your heart to guide you through your personal values:  Your emotional heart has already consulted your sensible head.  Your own values become the morality you teach your kids.
   
  Guerilla Tip:  Forget the cowardly nonsense that everything is equally legitimate and valid, and teach what you believe to be moral.  
    
  Should you want to conduct yourself in a way others would not approve, like teaching youngsters to gamble for money, I would be shocked—shocked I tell you.  But it is your life and your family you have to lead, not mine.  It is hard enough for me to run my own life without trying to run anyone else’s. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  As a parent, just do a little planning before you act. 

•       When you take things on yourself at home and on the job, you do not pick up a phone and challenge callers, “Who are you?” or “Who’s this?”  You ask, “Who am I speaking with?” or, “Who may I say is calling?”  If the call is for my 12-year-old, I get to know who is calling.  If she were 16, I would go get her without screening the call. 

•       Whenever my kids needed practice driving, my lesson was to fit into traffic, not the other way around.  Say you want to change highway lanes and see that no one is letting you in.  Do you speed up to those cars, align your car to a safe gap there and ease in at their speed?  Or do you whine while hoping for a fairy godmother’s lead?  Curse the darkness or light a candle?
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Teach your kids not to wait for the world to change for them. 
  
  We don’t always have to fit into the norm—other than traffic—but neither should we ever be so frozen, so entitled that we expect our surroundings to accommodate us, the world to bend to our will.  That is the way of the spoiled child, the prima donna adult.  It is not pretty. 

•       After moving out of my parents’ house at 25, I shared an apartment for a year and a half.  Kent V. of Williamsburg, Brooklyn and I stopped getting along at that point and he moved out, but it took me a whole year to see how I helped contribute to the demise of our relationship.  When he came for dinner at the one-year mark, I told him I had come to better terms with our past by realizing how many ways I had added to the strain.  What a burden it lifted from my shoulders! 
  
  The Buddha said, “Holding on to anger is like squeezing a hot coal for throwing at your enemy, but you are the one who gets burned.”
  
  Taking more on myself and less blame on the other guy turned out to be very rewarding for me. 
  
  After all, if I was a great guy and was treated dishonestly, what could I look forward to in life but more frustration?  But if I made some mistakes I could learn from, I was not doomed to repeat them again.  Then I would have control over what my future relationships might be like.  What a liberating relief! 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If you see yourself as a helpless victim, you can go from helpless to hopeless in one easy step.  But if you give up on claiming victim status, you might be happier with the hope you reclaim.  Your move.  Be brave. 

•       Why should a parent admit she is wrong?  Because it is honest.  Doesn’t that weaken her position?  No.  As a parent, you will not always be right, but you will always be the parent.  Since you will be forever fine tuning your system, don’t worry about making mistakes.  You are going to say sorry and change your approach, right?  Then you have nothing to worry about after all.  No need to criticize yourself for not reaching perfection yet. 
     Guerilla Tip:  Where is it written that we were created without the built-in mechanism to goof and then fix our own goofs?  Nowhere, that’s where. 
   
  To empathize when someone lost a parent, I used to ask, “Were you close?”  If they were, the loss seemed bigger to me.  But as it turned out, if they were not close, that lack was a lifelong loss that can never improve—itself a big loss.  Close or not, it was their only Mommy or Daddy, gone.  So, whether sweet or rough, concerned or absent, age-appropriate or demanding, the parent holds a special place. 
  
  The parent’s words, too, hold special importance.  Therefore, admitting a mistake and showing you are human will not topple you; you are setting a good example. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Fix your mistakes.  Don’t repeat them.  Make other mistakes. 
  
  My interpretation of the expression “My country, right or wrong” is that my loyalty to my country when it is wrong is just as strong as when it is right.  Instead of justifying it when it is wrong, my work is to move it in the right direction. 
   
  Guerilla Tip:  My country, right or wrong, means having pride when it is right and correcting it when it is wrong.  It is not a sign of weakness to address a mistake. 
   
  My understanding is never to mean, “My country, right or wrong, it is always right.” 

•       By contrast, my brother Rachim had a nasty teacher in the seventh grade.  During a debate in the Talmud, one rabbi conceded the point to another rabbi, and my brother asked whether it was stupid to concede.  Good question that gave the fine opportunity to teach that honoring another opinion is strength, not weakness. 
  
  Unfortunately, what the teacher actually said was, "You're stupid!"  In just two words, he proved himself incapable both of explaining the sage’s maturity and of displaying the same maturity himself.
   
  Guerilla Tip:  As parent or teacher, be proud of the day’s work whenever you can model the grace you want to see in the kids. 
  
  Wouldn’t that be a beautiful teaching lesson for a student? 

•       “Don’t run! Don’t run!”  Do you find yourself screaming at your kid to no avail? 
  
  Your empty scolding is like an unsigned check.  If someone paid you with one, would you pussyfoot around the subject or go get the signature?  You can be extra polite and ask, “Signature?” but you need it, right?  Without it, the check is incomplete and has no value.  In the same way, repeated scolding is empty and has no value.  And you know that you would not accept the unsigned check yourself. 
  
  You have two choices here: 
  
  A.  Shut up.
   
  Guerilla Tip:  By nature, kids run. 
  
  Parents of old even used to tell their kids to run and play.  If your kid were falling from running, he would figure it out and stop.  If the situation is truly unsafe, stop screaming at them, get in there and stop them. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If I told you once, I told you a hundred times, you are wasting your breath running after a train that left the station. 
  
  Let me point out that for all your insincere efforts, you are rewarded with a sore throat.  Apparently, your kid is more sure-footed than you are sure-mouthed.
   
  Guerilla Tip:  For all you get from “Don’t run!” you might as well say “Do run,” followed by a chorus of “Da-DOO-run-run-run, da-DOO-run-run,” because singing is kinder on your voice. 
  
  Contrary to your expectations, you will get no results when you disempower your own self.  You are not a kid, so step up and do the right thing.  Far be it for me to criticize you as a whole, but your actions are another story.  You have been mistaken, and you need to know it to do anything constructive. 
  
  Walk right over to your kid, bend down to his level and ask, “I just said something important—did you hear it?”  If he says no, tell him how his running frightens you.  If he says he heard it, ask him why he kept running.  Then tell him how his running frightens you and he needs to stop. 
  
  B.  Walk right over to your kid. 
  
  Bend down to his level and ask, “I just said something important—did you hear it?”  If he says no, tell him how his running frightens you.  If he says he heard it, ask him why he kept running.  Listen and learn.  Then tell him how his running frightens you and he needs to stop.   

•       Here is a spin on Teddy Roosevelt’s famous line, “Talk softly and carry a big stick.” 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If you talk softly, you probably carry a big stick.  If you don’t talk softly, you carry no big stick and everybody knows it, too. 
  
  How you carry yourself reflects what you carry in your hand, along with how you believe in yourself.  You carry many things—authority, street smarts, mercy, cooperation, a paring knife for peeling or for protection, things you can do or can withhold, life balance, money, self-awareness, your five senses. 
  
  Besides having all this personal power, you also have to own the feeling of having it.  Then you are confident of your safety without flaunting your power.  You need no show of it.  It is just there.  No desperation from a starvation diet, no poverty mentality. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Strength is never screamed.  Strength is simply displayed, and displayed simply.  Bluster is broadcast at high volume, revealing its nature by protesting too much. 
  
  The screamer is not powerful, he is a jerk.  When you feel powerful, you can well afford to be gentle, soft-styled and even talk that way.  However, as either an earthling or a parent, when you are full of bluster, it is the bluster itself that advertises you have little power.  Everybody around you sees it, too:  If you had substantial power, you would not be exaggerating what you have and playing the bully.  You could afford to be gracious. 

•       Secrets for New Dads
  

  
  A pregnant woman will likely ask in private if she is still appealing.  Or, she will tell the man that she is ugly, expecting him to be less interested in her physically.  She feels that her distorted shape must look pretty funny, and not in a good way. 

  
  What women often do not know, and men badly need to put into words, is how much men like to see results.  Especially, how proud and erotic it feels for the man to see the physical evidence of his activities showing on her body for all the world to see.  There’s a fair amount of  “Yeah, I did that” going on.  

  
  Guerilla Tip:  Pride in your work just makes you want to do even better work in the future. 

  
  Even for big, grown men, a new baby who is quiet and at ease feels like a cuddly toy.  Nobody tell you this, but they are like a little buddy all your own.  Well, not exactly, but a little.  And you will want to be around your new buddy a lot.  What you have to do—your job—is to keep him safe, calm and engaged.  Since they don’t break easily but always need to be protected, the safety part is something you will set up early.  And since you will not always succeed in the calm and engaged part, there is nothing to worry about there.  Babies are a mess. 

   
  Guerilla Tip:  In case no one told you, you keep the baby safe by supervising.  You keep him calm by washing and feeding.  You keep him engaged by talking, playing, laughing, singing and reading to him early on.  And loving him in every other way you come upon.  
    

•       We all have to stay true to our beliefs, or those beliefs are not much to write home about.  Who among us would want to say we believe in the power of prayer and then have to admit we do no praying? 
  
  In a Simpson’s TV episode, a blowhard spokeswoman says her firm gives a percentage of profits to charity.  When asked for the percentage, she announces, “Zero.  Zero’s a percentage.”  What makes for fresh cartoon dialogue might not be what we want for your role model. 
  
  Be honest with your own private self, for starters.  You don’t want to say you believe in something if you then do not actually stand by it in action.  Since avoiding everything you discover at anytime to be hogwash is a good idea, let’s try this idea in reverse. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If you find you are not standing by a belief when it comes to acting on it, you can then stop repeating that you still believe in it.  You don’t, and no one need judge you for being honest.  Friends who judge are not friends you need. 
  
  My position is for being loving with my own kids.  It is something we all have to do as parents.
   

•       The Hasidic movement started in Eastern Europe and believed that the sheer delights of song and dance are as spiritual as scholarly study—serve the Lord with joy, a reading straight from the Psalms 100:2, Ivdu et Hashem besimcha. 
  
  The Hasidim, who lived the simple life, nonetheless had an aversion to overdoing the ascetic life or showing false piety.  They saw the ascetic life as rejecting God’s gifts, and false piety as living a lie.  Generally poor, though, they took pleasure in the little daily joys.
  
  The Hasidim were all about authenticity, rather than the fashionable ‘Forgive everything, judge nothing’ that people spout and claim to do, but don’t come by it honestly. 
  
  Hasidic tale:  Any rabbi in a teaching or leadership role is called a rebbe, a friendly term.  One rebbe was asked why he was not like his father, the great former rebbe.  The rebbe replied, “I am exactly like him.  He would not imitate and neither do I.”
  
  The new false piety is the same as the old piety:  It’s all about my enlightenment, my humility, my detachment, me.  I’m so good!  This is nothing but the self-satisfied ascetic being holier than thou and humbled to tell you so. 
  
  Yiddish joke—usually a signal to brace yourself for heavy irony and gallows humor:  A dying man is visited by his Rabbi, who describes how he will eulogize the man’s finest deeds:  “Generosity, success, scholarship, kindness, patience, simplicity.”  The man interrupts, “And about my humility, nothing?” 
  
  Recognizing false piety is a big accomplishment.  Since false piety is so popular, you will have many chances to practice spotting it, all very good practice for spotting it in the mirror. 
  
  The Hasidim, including my father and his father, Saba, had this one nailed.  Saba, an old-world rabbi who wore no beard save for a little soul patch, would say about ordinary guys who puff themselves up, “What’s he hiding behind that beard?”  He could read where it applied, to those men who carried themselves like they’re saved because they’re righteous, but you will be going to hell. 
  
  Hasidic tale:  A man who has made a career out of the holy-modest-humbleness of not eating except on the Sabbath Day visits a no-nonsense rebbe.  The rebbe says, “You are worse than the charlatan who eats in secret.  He only deceives others, but you deceive yourself.”  Translation:  Self-deception is the bigger evil.  Being truly pious is admirable, being holier than thou is bad and a fake is the worst, as it dooms you to the spiritual freezer. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Face yourself, embrace your humanity and don’t deceive yourself. 
  
  Hasidic tale:  A rich man goes around wearing only a burlap sack.  When a rebbe spots him, he says right off, “It’s Satan who tricked you into that sack.”  Translation:  In answer to the sack man’s claim, “Boy, is this humble or what?” the rebbe comments, “Not exactly humble, more like stupid.” 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Being hard on yourself is not necessarily to anyone’s benefit. 
  
  Hasidic tale:  Inventing his own spiritual practice, a rich man in a small town is known for eating only thin soup and giving no charity.  When the rebbe hears, he pays the man a visit:  “A rich man needs to enrich his soup, enjoy it and eat chicken for the Sabbath.”  Translation:  The stingy way you eat lets you think the poor can get by on rocks.  If you eat meat, at least you’ll give them soup.” 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Allow yourself some treats and be generous to your kids and others, too.
  
  Hasidic tale:  A rabbi who’s asked about this glorious piety people speak of, says, “I don’t know much about it, except that its threads are made of resentment, stitched with arrogance and closed up without reason or joy.” 
  
  Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz was asked, “How is it that there are people who are righteous, yet do horrible things?”  Szasz answered, “Why do you say, ‘yet’?  I start with the assumption that their posturing is a red flag.”  

Set your Tone with Humor and Joy

“I thought I just heard something I couldn’t have heard.”

• When Alex was seven, we went out for pizza.  Without realizing it, I sat in a seat he had picked, and he said, “Move!”  Seriously.
  
  The absurd humor in that one word inspired me immediately to start a comedy monologue.  “Oh, the funniest thing—but it couldn’t be—I just heard—that would make no sense—a voice sounding like yours but rude—a kid snapping at me or any adult with disrespect—and yet I would be more than happy to move my seat if asked politely, whenever that should happen.”  Total silence on his end, and that tone was never heard again for 10 years.
   
  Guerilla Tip:  Whatever we accept, we encourage.  A single word can be important enough to cut off at the pass.
  
  Friends have copied the technique in their own words on their own habitually fresh kids, and it worked very well for them, too. 

• As a young adult, Shevy had a quip that spoofed the schoolyard classic, "You're Immature!"  Here is the setup for the quip:  First, listen for an odd word applied as a complaint, like “Why is this flour bromated, anyway?”  Then, using Shevy’s format, shoot back with the same word, accusing the speaker, “You’re bromated!”
  
  To be original, the accusation has to be snapped out as though it is a putdown, like so-there.  To avoid any disrespect, it should make no logical sense to apply it to the person you are accusing—hence the joke, “You’re bromated!”   

• 

  It has been said you can only be young once, but you can be immature forever.  For me, there is no pride in acting childish, but childlike, yes.
   
  Guerilla Tip:  Being childish means being self-centered, petty, unreasonable and competitive when it matters least.
  
  For example, a classic kiddie contest forms a metaphor when adults waste time proving they are best at something meaningless.  The activity is childish, since reaching the farthest doesn’t matter at any age.  Maybe at six, it might have been fun making sticky mud with the other boys, so it mattered for something then.
   
  Guerilla Tip:  Being childlike means a lifetime of staying filled with enthusiasm and wonder, greeting the bright-eyed world freshly each day, savoring little pleasures anew, appreciating the beautiful sunset, exploring your own creativity and appreciating it in others, asking “Why not?” more often than “Is that allowed?” 

• Beth B. of Highland Park, NJ asks her kids to remind her why she had kids.  It is not for everyone, but it works in her setting.  With her playful tone, no harm is done.  Her kids are sophisticated for their ages, and as long as it’s understood as loving, it is received as loving.  In fact, there is a lot more going on:  A running joke, a private joke, a family understanding, mutual trust, permission to tease with love.
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Find your own ways to express love.
  
  As long as the general mood was good, and my kids said something out of line, my version was “Useless,” or “You’re a menace to society.”  Again, such a message only works because of context and tone. 

• When George W. of Plainfield, NJ, a junior high school teacher and learning specialist, is annoyed and not seriously angry at his students, he tells them he will “Sell you down the river and throw you under the bus.”  He readily admits that he lives right on the line each day, and sometimes temporarily crosses the line.  Since he has built his rapport through mutual trust, there is no misunderstanding. 

     His class loves his humor, and there is never a question of who runs the show, so what happens in Mr. W’s room stays in Mr. W’s room.  However, he has his alibi ready should an administrator confront him, “It’s all about teaching idiomatic expressions.  Since English is filled with them, the class needs to know when they do and don’t fit the situation.” 

• A few years ago, a beautiful all-leather sofa in cherry red called out for me to buy it.  After it was delivered, Alex, 15, told he could not figure out how it opened as a sleeper, my main priority for the sofa purchase.  However, my priorities had changed at the sight of a red leather sofa that did not come as a sleeper.  “Okay, sorry,” he summed it up, “but you are the worst vegetarian I know.”  Although Alex did not care about the sleeper, he questioned what happened to my professed priorities.  The teasing comment was okay because it was rare, tempered with humor and understood with love.  If you build trust within your family, your kids can be a little fresh and you can let it go, if they are selective and respectful. 
   It would be the same for a teacher who accepts an occasional student answer that is called out without raising a hand.  If the serenity is unbroken, where is the harm?  Has a law been broken? 
   
  Guerilla Tip:  The ideal for the serene home is having the kids neither wild nor stifled.  There’s a lot of room in between. 
  
  It was the red leather for under $1,000 that seduced me.  The devil made me do it.  There was no shame since I was not harming my kids, but indulging myself, part of the good life.  
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If you cannot be noble, own up to being human.  You can hardly pretend to be otherwise, and it gives you a solid alibi. 

• There are many ways to spread joy, none better than singing.  When Nietzsche wrote he could not “distinguish tears from music,” wasn’t he referring to emotions expressed in song?  Sing with your kids, sing without them. 
  
  Singing is both a gift from above and a gift right back to heaven.  Almost everyone can sing, some much sweeter than others.  Although you may not be doing math if you do it badly, you are still singing if you sing badly.  Not everyone can win a Nobel Prize, but we can, every single one of us, spread joy. 

• Guerilla Tip:  Humor and joy are infectiously spread. 
  
  If you live in joy, your kids will learn by example from what they see and what you experience together.  Especially if the action does not involve them, but they can see that joy is pure giving and giving, pure joy, they will follow your lead. 
  
  There are countless ways you can spread joy: 

      ◘        Baking from scratch or ordering pizza for the family

      ◘        Being an appreciative guest when the cook does a good job or not

      ◘        Holding hands with a stranger who is in a hospital bed

      ◘        Smiling at an old lady sitting alone on her front stoop

      ◘        Asking a blind man first if he wants help before lending a hand

      ◘        Noticing the name of the cashier at the checkout counter

      ◘        Pronouncing people’s names the way they do themselves

      ◘        Remembering a detail in a neighbor’s life

      ◘        Really listening and taking it in

      ◘        Forgiving

      ◘        Always being honest unless the truth would be unkind

      ◘        Accepting yourself for who you are

      ◘        Showing you are fallible

      ◘        Being silly sometimes (My mother once saw a sign for irregular underwear and asked what you have to have to need that.) 

• When encouraging creativity, especially if you think you are not the creative type yourself, do not dismiss flights of fancy as a waste of time. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  You are always free to say any creative idea is just talk, but talk is exactly how all inventions get started—First exploring with the imagination, then giving shape to the idea and talking it out, and finally giving it life and presenting it to the world. 
  
  Before you give these very ideas in parenting life in your home, for example, you first imagine how they might fit and whether you want to put them in your own words.  Right?  Same with a kid’s ideas. 
  
  Want to rain on your kid’s parade?  Sorry, but why?  All kids grow up with feelings of inferiority due to being inferior to adults in many ways.  It is not a complex; it is reality.  Your job is to get them past it, not to keep them stuck. 
  
  The Buddha said, “An idea developed and put into action lives longer than an idea that lives only as an idea.”  Give it the weight you want, but my fortune cookie last night said, “Live by your imagination more than your memory.”  Why is this good?  Because you always have your memory whether you live by it or not, while your imagination will not have wings unless you grant it some air time.  Why do people brainstorm?  Because one imaginative idea begets another, and eventually a practical idea emerges worth carrying out. 

• Tangents and Creativity If you go off on a tangent, you usually have a thread to trace your way back on track.  But if you don’t follow the tangent, how can you be sure you ever find that special thread exploring out ever again? 
   
  Guerilla Tip:  A tangent is out-of-the-box thinking.  The lack of obvious connection is precisely what makes the tangent a creative thought.  If kids go off, follow with delight.  When they are done, you can bring them back on track. 
  
  For example, ever find yourself entering a room and wondering why you went there in the first place?  Go back to the place you started and the same trigger will remind you again. 

• Humor is easy to misunderstand, so it may backfire if it looks like you are laughing at kids, not with them.
   
  Guerilla Tip:  Withhold humor when you are talking to anyone who is very angry.  With anger, comes clouded judgment along with a search for the guilty party to blame.  Do not volunteer for the party. 
  
  Since your intentions can be misinterpreted, having fun can look like you are making fun and not being serious about the sensitive issue at hand. 

• In the year I drove a taxicab, occasionally a fare from Kennedy Airport would claim he needed to get to Penn Station, an hour away, to catch a train in 30 minutes.  Softening the news with humor, my tone would wax philosophical, “We all have our hopes and dreams.  What is the train after that?”
   
  Guerilla Tip:  Before someone’s panic sets in, ask what is plan B. 
  

• There is a tradition that Mohammed said living in the service of God is expressed as humility, warmth and hospitality to the stranger. 
    
  Guerilla Tip:  Greet everyone you meet, not just your friends. 
   
  Since people are wary of strangers, you change the dynamic when you are the first to offer a simple, sincere greeting.  This is just too powerful to miss, so try it.  There are reasons that the world’s spiritual leaders have followers. 
  
  Whenever singles new in town complain they are not getting invited for holiday meals, it makes me wonder if they are asking for something they themselves never provide.  To introduce my idea, I ask if they are doing any inviting themselves.  What would Mohammed do?  His saying must mean to go ahead and do the inviting—don’t wait to be invited. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If you believe in receiving hospitality, offer it sometimes.
  The beloved sage Hillel, way past the title of Rabbi, agreed with singer-songwriter King David, who said it is hardly enough to love peace, you have to get up and run after it (Psalms 34:15). 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Don’t sit on your fat, lazy assets with armchair ideals.  Get out and make good things happen.  Go get ‘em tiger! 
   
  That part was mine, modernizing the wording, but no complaints yet from Hillel or David. 

• In my father’s last year, he was living on a pacemaker and had a live-in practical nurse.  Besides her, he got an intensive visit three times a week from a male traveling nurse who shaved him, showered him and gave him the deep massage he loved and taught us.  My father’s strength was improving when in early March he read the morning news and died.  During the week of mourning that followed, his visiting nurse paid his respects.  He seemed quite surprised when I told him, “I’m sorry for you, too.  You lost a patient and a friend, so you also had a loss.” 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Empathy can be an overwhelming gift. 

• In the Jewish tradition, we love a saying from the Hasidic master nicknamed The Baal Shem Tov.  His name even derives from his saying, Gam zu letova, “Even this is good.”
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Every moment has something good hidden inside it. 
  
  Also, we are obliged to always assume people’s intentions are pure (Sayings of our Sages, also translated as Chapters for Parents, “Dan lekav zechut.”) 

• Rebbe Zev Wolf of Zbarazh, when told of two of his Hasidim who were spending nights in a gambling joint, rejoiced, “Good that they’re learning persistence.  Stay up and focus all night.  Everyone wants to turn to God, but nobody knows how.  When ready to turn, will they be magnificent!”  Translation:  Every rebellious act grows out of a sane, fundamental drive. 
  
  The rebbe’s starting point is that everyone wants a spiritual life, not just the blessed few.  Since many are unsure how to find it, the urge can come out in odd ways like gambling or making friends quickly.  The essential urge is still holy.  Rejoicing in the news is no Pollyanna pretty talk.  It is seeing past the clutter, through to the good, and loving it. 

• The Buddha said, “Let us rise up and be thankful:  For if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little.  And if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick.  And if we got sick, at least we didn’t die.  So, let us all be thankful.” 

• Listen with your whole self when you ask your kid a question.  If you hear no response, that may be your answer.  When you want to say, “You never responded,” listen for your kid’s unspoken explanation, “Yes I did, that was it; my answer is that I can't explain, I just didn’t use words.” 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  You have to be sharp to recognize when silence speaks volumes. 

• A game of mine was telling the kids that something of theirs was really mine, to challenge them to take a stand and stand up for themselves even in play. 
  Guerilla Tip:  Teach kids how to defend their boundaries.
  
  Specifically, I would point to toys in their hands and say, “That frog is mine.”  If they could, they would argue that the frog was not mine but theirs, which was the stand I was looking for.  In play, I would fight back, “No, it’s mine!” and so on.   
  
  This is not only fun, it trains kids that they have full permission to say no, even to adults, at the right time.  This is a homemade self-defense class.  It works for other people’s kids, too, but it is smart to ask first if the parents don’t mind.  
  
  Guerilla Tip:  The earlier kids fully believe they own their belongings and they own their body, the safer they will be at six or 16 when they are challenged on just such questions of personal boundaries.
  
  My kids knew that if a teacher would forbid a bathroom break when they felt that their bladder is bursting, they were permitted to walk right up and say, “My father told me to see the principal and say I need the toilet.”  Especially in the early years of toilet use, it is not the teacher’s place to decide how often a kid needs the bathroom, whether for physical reasons or something less tangible.
  
  Guerilla Tip:  It is an adult skill to take a bathroom break when it is not the bathroom but the break that is needed.  Why shouldn’t kids use the very same, very civilized technique?  If asked politely, isn’t a needed break probably well granted? 
  
  As far as being responsible for their own toys, if a kid asked where a certain toy was, it was my pleasure to say, “Exactly where you left it last time!” 
  
  My uncle Yehuda showed me a similar game with my toddlers:  Build a tower of blocks, let the kid knock it down, then you complain, “I worked SO HARD!”  Permission to destroy, who could ask for anything more? 

• Driving in Italy if you’re a tourist already makes you certifiable.  On vacation with the kids in their preteens, I drove a rental car on the superhighway connecting Rome with Florence.  You know, when in Rome, drive as the Romans do, so my car kept gravitating towards the left lane.  Speed limit signs arbitrarily posted 90 kilometers per hour, about 55MPH, but carried no meaning to local drivers.  Eventually, my speedometer read 140 KPM, almost 90 MPH, to keep up with the flow of traffic.  Very smooth roadway. 
  
  Nonetheless, at one point, there was a driver tailgating me—at that speed.  I could not get out of the lane fast enough to let him pass.  As he switched lanes and came up along my right side, he offered a universal gesture.  Not that one.  He rested his cheek on his left hand and raised his eyebrows to ask, unforgettably at that breakneck speed, “Fell asleep at the wheel?”  It wasn’t that he was angry at his fellow traveler; he thought the tourist was ridiculous.  Maybe the stranger was ridiculous to think he could fit in. 
  
  Okay, the joke was on me.   It gave me a better perspective on the attitude of the local drivers.  In the end, the lesson of not slowing down traffic by driving 90MPH was easier to learn with humor than with horn blowing or tailgating. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Don’t teach anyone a lesson by blowing your horn or tailgating.  It’s called showing compassion. 

Stand by Your Mandate

“Hoping I’ll change my mind?  I won’t, but you can keep asking.”

•      Don’t you hate hearing parents in supermarkets barking at their preschoolers in strollers?  The kids want candy so conveniently displayed at their eye level, and they keep asking again and again.  How is this best handled? 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If you need a starting point to increase family serenity, watch for mistakes other families make, and do the opposite.  You will never live long enough to make all your own mistakes. 
  
  Many parents clearly handle nagging kids with both harshness and weakness—sounds like a contradiction, to be harsh and weak? 
  
  The harshness is in the tone, “No, you heard me say it five times, and if you ask me one more time, I swear you won’t get TV…”  The weakness is in assuming that if asked enough times, the parent will lose resolve and give in to the demand. 
  
  Why would that happen?  A four-year old does not carry the voting power of an adult, as if there were any voting involved.  You weigh a few factors and make a selective decision you can stand by.  Do not tease the kids into thinking they are involved in making adult decisions beyond their domain. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Since parenting is a big and joyful responsibility, take charge—that is your mandate.
   
•      But is a family a democracy or what?  What?  Let’s try this with a few analogies:
  
  Is cooking a democracy?  If so, what does it mean that too many cooks spoil the broth?  
    
  Is a car trip a democracy?  Well, whose hands do the driving, or is that a group process, too?  Then there’s that driver’s license thing and paying for gas.  He who pays the piper picks the tune—otherwise, he stops paying the piper. 
    
  When all hands are on deck, do all hands also steer the ship?    
    
  On the ballroom floor, if a boy leads well, does that make him bossy or a good dancer?  If a girl agrees the boy is leading because he asked her to dance—or due to their arm positions that indicate lead and follow—and instead she keeps pulling him in the moves she want, that is called back leading and would be bossy.  Back leading is as unpleasant as any back seat driving, because leaders should lead and followers follow.
   

•      If you feel you tried everything in your family, with nothing working, there is still hope. 
  
  What plays on TV is a lot of “If you’ve tried everything, and diet and exercise don’t seem to be enough, take drugs—ours.”  What does it mean you’ve tried everything?  You tried two popular diets?  Did you follow both at the same time so hard that you ate the total calories for both?  Maybe your exercise consisted of jumping to conclusions instead of pushing yourself away from the table sooner? 
   
  So maybe you haven’t tried everything.  Just a thought. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t settle for a bad deal, either. 
• 
  A parent once told me it was her job to say no.  No, it is the parent’s job to be selective.  Always try to say yes. 
  
  A good friend, Robin A. of Miami, FL, emailed me the following thought that came to her while driving:

"The love for children is almost opposite the love for a partner.  With a partner, I try always to make him happy, assuming he is doing the same.  But with children, unconditional love means teaching, too, so we can’t always make them happy, right?  Our responsibility is to guide and teach as they grow.  I applaud your preference for yes, don’t get me wrong, but no is inevitable a lot more often than with a partner.  

What do you think?" 

     Asking you the same thing, what do you think? 

•      Guerilla Tip:  Anytime kids try badgering, you have an opportunity to rise to the occasion lovingly and model the behavior you want.  Say no once and do not repeat it. 
   
  I handled badgering in the ways listed below, and never repeated the ‘no’ part of the original answer.  Use only one of the techniques and remain serene in your delivery.  You will get good results in discipline and in mutual respect. 
  
•      Just stare the kid down—no words necessary. 
•      “Relax, I got you this far.”
•      “Didn’t you just ask me that?  Remember the answer I gave you the first time?”
•      “Hoping to annoy me enough to change my mind?  It won’t, but you can keep asking.”  She will come  interpret this statement to mean your hearing aid has been turned down, so asking will get her nothing.  You can even delight at her persistence in advocating on her behalf.  But she needs you to be the rock, because your steadiness is what gives a kid enormous comfort. 

•      When to modify a rule?  If an eight-year old shows you that all his friends are crossing your little street themselves since six, maybe you have been too strict.  If you cannot let go of your fear, meet him halfway.  Let him cross in daylight only, never running, or find some other compromise that shows him he was heard.  This is not badgering, since circumstances often change with age and new information is introduced. 
  
  How will you know he is ready?  Ask him to tell you when the street is safe to cross and to listen for your okay. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Arrange a new situation so it is in the kid’s best interest to show you how ready he is—by showing how careful he can be.  
    
  Give him a stake in crossing carefully by making him want ownership of the safety issue—not for you, for himself.  Under this setup, my kids earned my trust when they would see a car three blocks away and say it was not safe yet.  It was in their interest to do so. 

•      Be patient and be specific.  Instead of “Clean up your room,” my request was “Take two minutes to pick up as much as you can from your bedroom floor.  Go!” 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If you want something done, set a single activity and a finite time.  Something done—nobody overwhelmed. 
•      Esther M., a South Plainfield, NJ schoolteacher believes in saying it like you mean it, because clarity is love.  During the winter, Esther tells her students at recess that it’s time to put on their jackets, period.  She does not ask their permission, “It’s time to put on your jackets, okay?” 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Put a period at the end of your instructions, not a question mark.  Incorrect punctuation is a typographical error.  Ineffective leadership is suicide, and murder on kids. 
  
  As it became clear to me half a year into junior high school, an experienced teacher can retain charge of the class by starting off strict and lightening up over time.  This leadership style produces a focused space for learning.  A new teacher can lose charge by starting off loosy-goosy as everyone’s buddy and tightening up in anger and in vain.  This style produces a noisy social arena where no ‘buddy’ will learn. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  When you are the one in charge, don’t be ashamed to maintain your authority. 
  
  Sloppy parenting produces sloppy results that will fall neatly into predictable patterns. 
•      Maybe you worry about being in charge.  It sounds formal.  It’s a big responsibility to be responsible.  It could mean being blamed, as in “You’re responsible it broke.”  Well, being a parent is promoted as responsible good, not faulted as responsible bad. 
  
  For example, “Here is the strawberry shortcake you won, but you are responsible to finish it.”  Since strawberry shortcake is very good, which responsible would that be for you?  Can you accept your role?  Write if you expect that to be a burden.  As for blame, the kids won’t do that until later, when it’s much too late for them to get the full refund. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If you can do this without training as many do, you can certainly do this with good ideas supporting you. 
  
  If you had bad experiences with those in charge, you could be concerned it will make you mean, and you don’t want to be mean.  Of course not, but doing your job does no such thing automatically.  Imagine acting as a tour guide who won’t guide the tour group for fear of being bossy.  Instead, you keep asking what the tourists want to see.  How would they know?  They wanted you to guide them to the sites you’re supposed to know something about. 
  
  You know what’s mean?  Taking 10 minutes to argue with a kid about taking medicine that the doctor ordered and you are trying to administer.  Arguing is mean, as it makes the kid party to the adult decision of what the kid must take.  That decision is already made.  You made it. Yet, you have tricked a sick kid into questioning whether to follow doctor’s orders.  Kids have no say in the matter, period.  They don’t. 
  
  Mean is knowing that an action is not negotiable, but there you are negotiating it anyway.  Or discussing anything that is not open for discussion.  These are cruel.  Don’t you remember being a kid?  Did you appreciate being teased like this?  Make an adult decision.  Keep it simple.  Include kids on choices that are truly theirs and on no others. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Can you accept  your role?  Don’t burden kids with making hard choices beyond their years. 
  
  As a contribution to these thoughts, Gaesha H. of New Brunswick, NJ said, off the top of her head, that parents would do well to “live large and in charge.”   So if you either wanted the job or, in a blended family, accepted the job, enjoy the freedom and authority of the job—you have more choices than the kids do—and take it on like you mean it.  Of course, anyone who is new gets a period of adjustment.  Kids, too. 
•      Keep your eyes open.  There is a term of law called willful blindness that means purposely turning a blind eye to wrongdoing.  Say it’s not your job, but the action can be costly, even criminal, because you can still be assigned blame and responsibility—the bad kind.  
  
  Guerilla Tip:  If you choose to ignore unusual behavior you see in your kids, you will pay later.   Playing dumb is not always as much fun as it sounds.   
•      In sports, the best defense is a strong offense, and likewise in the home.  In an armed conflict, guerilla warfare is waging a strong offense using anything but the standard weapons and classic techniques, and likewise in the home. 
  
  The Guerilla parent does not play fair.  By nature, the field is not level in the home, nor should you level it.  You have many advantages—your brains, your height, your life experiences, your family origin and its mix of good and bad models, your sense of your kids.  Keep them all. 
  
  When a boy courts a girl, he sees that bringing her little things like something sweet smelling or handmade gets a pleased reaction greater than the actual value of his gift.  Then what?  Does he vow not to use this move again because that would not be playing fair?  You go with that, but this is not cheating someone.  Next case.  This is courtship, you lay it on thick and it’s called love.  Most of us would say use it like crazy.  Cuando amor no es loco, no es amor—Love that is not crazy is no love at all. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Do not play fair.  Use what you’ve got and do not give away the home court advantage.  Don’t be horrified to use your abilities and calibrate them for success.  Be brave and daring. 
  
  You’ve got to love the kids with everything you’ve got: 
•      Your brains—You must trust that you are smarter than your kids, make sensible decisions and lead with wisdom. 
•      Your height—If you are taller than your kids, you can see things they cannot.  When you drive, you can see farther down the road for issues that affect how fast to drive.  An exception:  Kids have remarkably sharp eyes for close-up work, so give them a boost by asking them to “use your sharp young eyes to see if you can read the ingredients here and tell me if this jar of food is healthy for us to eat.” 
•      Your life experiences—You know what works, and what works for you.  You have no need for any popular technique that doesn’t work for you.  That reasoning does not make the technique bad, just useless. 
•      Your family of origin and its mix of good and bad models—Some systems are all of a piece, some have limited material worth copying, some are more holes than fabric.  But the systems you saw as a kid you know like the back of your hand.  Permission is now granted to never again repeat the models out of nostalgia.  Repeat the parts that you respect.  Reshape the rest. 
•      Your sense of your kids—You know their potential better than they do, or at least you have your impressions to go by.  Play to their strengths mostly, and challenge them in manageable ways for the other parts. 
•      See if you can agree with the constructive new idea that follows.  If not, see if maybe can just hear out its painless message and then accept it with grace.  Be warned that you are have already entered inside a parlor trick being played out, and a parlor trick has intrinsic entertainment value. 
  
  The new idea is that there is no such thing as constructive criticism.  It doesn’t exist in the real world…since it’s imaginary.  Even wishing that it works won’t help it work.  Call constructive criticism what it is by dropping the thin facade called ‘constructive’ and seeing what you have left:  criticism.  This constructive criticism dreams of transmitting its criticizing message painlessly and thus being heard, then accepted with grace.  Ha. 
  
  Remember, you were not criticized, but you were warned.  However, if you took this approach to be critical of the conventional approach—especially if it’s your approach—did it feel graceful or confrontational?  Did you learn your lesson or feel at all defensive?  Is criticizing effective? 
  
  Criticism is good for venting, for sure, but what results do you want from the kids, a sounding board for your hissy fit?  Or a new understanding of what you will and will not accept from them?
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Don’t use criticism when you set rules or explain them.  The cure for its sting has not yet been found.  Tell your kids what you want them to do and don’t criticize their thinking or their ways. 
  
  Not to criticize, of course, but here are some thoughts to ponder while you oversee your kid romping in the playground.  These are common takes on criticism, along with assorted corresponding opinions: 
•      Criticism is good for you—No. 
•      Criticism makes you grow—No. 
•      You cannot teach without criticism, but package it to build the kid up—No. 
•      Criticism has an undeservedly good reputation.  Despite conventional wisdom—oh, forget that—criticism hurts in so many ways.  Period.  If you have an opinion about what you like and do not like, express that opinion without criticizing someone else’s opinion or actions.  If you have some criticism to offer here and insist it really helps, you can go ahead and start, but kindly give me a head start so I can absorb it the way it works best for me, from afar. 
  
  Criticism is not the same as a critique of the arts, because it is heard as only one thing, disapproval. 
  
  No criticism is constructive.  It is so unwelcome, even scientists hate it.  Mathematician David Berlinski says they like to pretend otherwise, welcome challenges to their ideas and seek only pure truth.  Actually, like all of us, they love their own ideas, which is where they pour so much time and passion.  So they get defensive when challenged, because they hate it.  And that is pure truth. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Criticism is not good for you.  It does not help kids grow.  You can easily teach without criticism, even if you are used to packaging it to build the kid up. 
  
  When you disagree with your kid, explore your kid’s reasoning like you’re on an adventure—cause you are.  In discovering your kid’s thinking, you can always ask if the results of that thinking might really be good or may be unlikely.  Be logical in showing how you can picture that Plan A might well produce lousy Results B.  But don’t be so smug that you get lost in sanctimonia.  By allowing yourself the luxury that life has few guarantees, you likewise encourage kids to keep an open mind.  They’ll need it and so will you. 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Toughness and roughness are not by definition brave.  If you can’t spread some cheer, pioneer by sealing your lips or at least using understatement. 
•      Hugo Rifkind, editorial writer for the Times of London, is skeptical of people who say they speak their mind, “As though that was a good thing to begin with.”  He suggests that they think first:  “Pick out some edited highlights, and speak those.  Otherwise, what’s the point of having a mind at all?  You might as well just have your mouth wired up directly to somewhere else entirely.”  (Wall Street Journal, Opinion, August 3, 2010.) 
  
  Guerilla Tip:  Mind your words rather than let them stream out indiscriminately, somewhere else entirely.