April 1995

Homework troubles can bring out the "nag" in any parent. If that's true of you, try to figure out why your child is balking at assignments. Are they too hard? Are the instructions unclear? Do they call for skills your youngster hasn't mastered? Talk to his or her teachers to get more insight. Once you identify the problem, you'll be able to devise a solution. Here are some other practical tips to end homework hassles:

Post a schedule. With your child, decide on a good regular time to tackle homework. When it's time to begin, simply direct his or her attention to the schedule and the clock.

Accept your child's work style. The sound of music may grate on your nerves, but your youngster may work better with some soft tunes in the background. If she's getting the work done, don't bother her.

Rethink your expectations. "Expecting your child to do homework promptly and conscientiously is fine," says Ellen Klavan, author of Taming the Homework Monster (Simon and Schuster). "But expecting him to hand in perfect, pristinely neat and error-free assignments is not." Talk to your child's teachers to find out what the acceptable standards for neatness are and make sure your child understands them. Then back off.

Keep your distance. Your child may try to draw you into the fray-as a way to avoid doing his homework. He may keep breaking his pencil point, for example, and then look to you to intervene. But resist. If you take the bait and start getting involved, you'll find yourself nagging again. Become a broken record and repeat the single word "Homework." Eventually your youngster will settle down and get the job done.

Make up homework-hero chart. To switch from the negatives of nagging to the positives of praise, draw up a formal chart listing specific homework-related tasks, such as "started without being reminded" or "checked my work carefully." Use stars, stickers, or check marks for every accomplishment and allow your child to turn in a preset number of these indicators for a special treat, such as a trip to an ice-cream shop or an extra ten minutes playing a computer game.

Source: Dianne Hayes, WORKING WOMAN MAGAZINE, November 1994

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

Grandparents usually anticipate later life as a time to enjoy the privileges of grandchildren without the responsibilities. But an increasing number of grandparents face a different situation. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that about 3.3 million children lived with their grandparents in 1991-a forty-four percent increase since 1980. Although black children are more likely than white or Hispanic children to be living in such situations, the largest rate of increase is among white children.

Grandparents involved in helping to rear their grandchildren report a greater sense of purpose in their own lives. To explore this area of family life, Margaret Jendrek, from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, interviewed 114 grandparents who were providing regular care. Most were caring for only one grandchild, but some had responsibility for as many as five. Nearly all the respondents were grandmothers. Jendrek identified three major types of grandparents:

y Day care grandparents, who provide regular daily care for an extended period:

y"Living-with" grandparents, who reside with a grandchild but do not have legal custody (usually the grandchild lives in the grandparent's home); and

y Custodial grandparents, who have obtained legal responsibility for the grandchild.

Jendrek found that grandparents were more likely to be caring for a daughter's child than a son's, especially in the custodial situation. Day care grandparents usually cared for very young children, while other grandparents care for children up to age fourteen. All three groups reported that rearing young children affected their lifestyle, friendships, family, and marriage. As might be expected, custodial grandparents reported the most change. But nearly three fourths of all the grandparents reported major adjustments in their routines and plans. Still, more than half of all the grandparents-and nearly two thirds of the custodial ones-reported a greater sense of purpose in life because of their caretaking responsibility.

Reasons for caring for a grandchild varied widely, depending on the type of care. Most day care grandparents cited the mother's full-time work schedule, while custodial grandparents noted the mother's emotional problems. Financial help was the most common reason given by grandparents who lived with a grandchild.

Overall, about two thirds of the grandparents had offered to provide care. Living-with grandparents, however, are apparently more often in a position where they simply begin to take over. (In some cases, this assumption of care may develop because the child's mother has not yet left home herself.) This circumstance, as well as the fact that these grandparents do not have legal authority over the grandchild, may help explain why living-with grandparents seem to experience more stress than other grandparents.

Nevertheless, living-with grandparents may prefer their informal arrangement. Obtaining legal custody would involve declaring their own child an unfit parent, which takes an emotional as well as a financial toll. Jendrek noted that grandparents in all three categories are committed to providing a stable family environment. They also display an ability to improvise in the face of unusual and sometimes difficult situations.

Of these three types of grandparents, those providing day care seem to function most like our society's common definition of grandparents. But in all three arrangements, grandparents are likely to need extra support and encouragement themselves from other family members. They may benefit as well from connecting to available social agencies and organizations in their area.

Source: THE MENNINGER LETTER, January 1995

Secrets Affect Family Relationships

I've got a secret!" The long-running popularity of that old television show attests to the fascination of secrets. Secrets are sometimes exclusive, but we often share them with a few select people in our lives-in many cases with family members.

Anita Vangelisti, a researcher at the University of Texas, has been studying family secrets and how they affect family relationships. By their very nature, secrets usually contain negative information-"skeletons in the closet," so to speak. But secrets may also serve beneficial functions for families by promoting bonding or by preserving privacy. While the content of family secrets varies widely.

Vangelisti has identified three broad categories of secrets:

yTaboos are subjects often condemned or stigmatized by both families and society. These include marital difficulties, substance abuse, financial concerns, sexual preference, mental illness, extramarital affairs, and physical or sexual abuse.

y Rule violations involve the breaking of standards that families try to enforce. Violations may include disobedience, sexual relationships, premarital pregnancy, and drinking or partying.

y Conventional secrets are subjects felt to be inappropriate to discuss with persons outside the family, such as personality conflicts, religion, death, traditions, anecdotes, dating partners, and school grades.

The number and nature of secrets among and between individuals help define interpersonal relationships. Secrets affect the ways family members bond and communicate with one another.

Previous research has identified three forms of family secrecy: whole family secrets (those that all family members keep from outsiders), intra family secrets (which some family members keep from others), and individual family secrets (those one member keeps from all other family members).

In Vangelisti's studies, topics of secrecy ran the gamut from family traditions and anecdotes, to substance abuse, to physical and sexual abuse. Paradoxically, the topics considered most taboo were likely to be those that the whole family kept secret from outsiders. Secrets characterized as rule violations were usually individual in nature. The primary reason for secrecy appears to be the protection of family members. But whole family secrets may simply be personal in nature or concerned with matters of no interest to outsiders.

There are also complex connections between secrets and satisfaction. For example, family satisfaction appears to suffer when any one family member makes a conscious choice to withhold information from the others. Persons who believe that their family has more secrets than other families also exhibit a low level of family satisfaction. But the actual number of secrets is not related to satisfaction. Secrets about taboo subjects appear to decrease family satisfaction only when some family members keep a secret from other members. Secrets maintained by the whole family on such subjects are positively associated with satisfaction, possibly because families assume an "us vs. them attitude toward outsiders.

Source: THE MENNINGER LETTER, Vol. 2, No. 11, November 1994