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Recently our extended family, which included several of my grand children, took a trip together.  I delighted in spending time with all the children, and got to know five-year-old Antonio, one of the cousins, much better over the two weeks we were together. 

One evening when we were getting ready for a big family party, Antonio's mom told him it was time to take a shower.  Antonio dove under my bed and would not come out.  He got himself into the center of the floor under the queen-sized bed where no one could reach him, and he kept saying, "I want to take a bath."  Antonio's mom explained that there was no bathtub in the house we were staying in, just a shower.  Antonio refused to come out and kept repeating, "I want a bath." We all coaxed and cajoled Antonio for quite some time.  I tried to put things in concrete, sequential terms to help him understand:  "The party is starting, people are going to come to the door and we aren't ready to open it.  First you need to take a shower and put clothes on."  After some time, Antonio emerged from under the bed and headed toward the shower with his understandably exasperated mom.

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Many of the parents I talk with these days are upset about the nasty, disrespectful way their kids sometimes talk to them.  "Where do they learn to talk like this?" some ask.  "We don't talk that way to them!" 

If you take a bit of time to tune into some of the popular TV shows for kids today, you will quickly see that sarcastic, disrespectful ways of talking to adults run rampant.  Cute kids like Zach and Cody on The Suite Life of Zach and Cody show viewers how to use sassy, talk-back language with parents. And even if your children don't watch shows like this, they learn how to talk this way from their friends who practice with their peers what they've seen on TV.

Recently I noticed that my 10-year old grand daughter Alexia was talking to me and other adults with a sassy, back-talk tone of voice a lot of the time.  This bothered me.  I decided I wanted to deal with it directly.  After dinner one night, when Alexia and I were cleaning up, I said to her "We can sweep the crumbs off the table this way," and in a curt and nasty, put-down voice with real attitude, she said, "I know."   I quickly said, "Alexia, I feel hurt when you talk to me in that voice.  You can just say, ‘I know' (I said this in a neutral tone of voice) and that would feel a lot better to me."

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Lots of parents tell me they rely on screen activities such as GameBoys, DVD players, and computers to entertain their kids when they are traveling, waiting for appointments, or sitting in restaurants.  "It's so easy," they tell me, "it really keeps them quiet." Yes, the screens do engage kids, for sure.  But are there ways to occupy kids that are more beneficial to them?

Over the years, I've gone to restaurants now and then with my grandsons Jackson and Miles.  Before we head out, I always stick some open-ended toy or material in my bag-a handful of legos or small blocks, a few sheets of paper and some markers, or a hunk of playdoh.  What I find really amazing is that once we're seated and waiting for our food, the boys become deeply engrossed in these activities without fail.  They seem really happy and peaceful as they sit with their grandparents and create.  And we have some really nice conversations about what they're making-buildings with lots of windows, or how you can draw really big muscles.  Have you ever tried to talk to a kid who's on a GameBoy?  You can shout quite loud and still not be noticed.

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Nancy Carlsson-Paige is our guest blogger during the week of February 23th. If you have any questions for Nancy Carlsson-Paige, add a comment to any of her posts.

Here is some more information about Taking Back Childhood:

Based on early-childhood development expert Nancy Carlsson-Paige's thirty years of researching young children, this groundbreaking book helps parents navigate the cultural currents shaping, and too often harming, kids today-and restore childhood to the best of what it can be. As Carlsson-Paige explains, there are three attributes critical to kids' healthy development: time and space for creative play, a feeling of safety in today's often frightening world, and strong, meaningful relationships with both adults and other children-attributes that we, as a society, are failing to protect and nurture. From advising parents on which toys foster creativity (and which stifle it) to guiding them in how to use "power-sharing" techniques to resolve conflicts and generate empathy, Carlsson-Paige offers hands-on steps parents can take to create a safe, open, and imaginative environment in which kids can relish childhood and flourish as human beings.