When my son refused to wear a jacket on a cool, rainy day in fifth grade, I pointed out to him that if he chose not to wear a jacket, he might feel cold and wet. If he chose to wear a jacket, he could always take it off if the rain stopped or if he got too warm. And then I allowed him to make his own choice, and to experience the consequences of his choice. I believe that children must be allowed to make some of their own choices and that people learn from making mistakes.

When deciding what choices to allow your children to make, you need to ask yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen?” I believed that the worst that could happen to my son is that he would be cold, wet, and uncomfortable. I could live with that – I was warm, dry, and comfortable because I made a better choice than he did. I also believed that my son was smart enough to learn from his mistake…if indeed he felt it was a mistake.

When I ask parents what’s the worst that can happen if their child does not wear a jacket, I always hear “My child will catch a cold”. Today I found an article that supports my answer of “No, they won’t!” Children’s Health at EverydayHeath.com says “bad weather does not cause colds” and indeed, “cold weather appears to activate the immune system”, actually boosting your child’s ability to fight off a cold.

So this fall, let your child to leave their jacket at home if they make that choice, allow your child to discover for themselves if that was a good choice or bad, and rest assured that the worst that can happen is not so bad after all!

It is so interesting to me that moms and dads are so eager to offer advice (which often is appreciated) but have a very tough time asking for help. As I said in the article, “We have these expectations that we should be able to handle it all by ourselves. I don’t know why we think that.”

I think asking for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. Parenting is the hardest job in the world, and yet there is no formal training. We can read books, but nothing truly prepares us for the reality of having a child who needs us every minute; who has numerous and varied needs that we are expected to fulfill; and for whom we are totally responsible. Of course we need help – and help will only arrive when we ask for it.

My mother-in-law always told me that “an unhappy mommy cannot raise a happy child”. I didn’t agree with everything she said, but that statement I agree with. Children need parents who are relaxed, confident, happy, and calm.

Please don’t try to do everything by yourself – please understand that the smartest parents ask for the help they need. In fact, you can always ask me. I will help any way I can. My kids are 25 and 21 – and I still ask for help when needed!

A FAMILY TRAGEDY

In wake of murder-suicide children need candid answers

By Emily Richmond

Palo Alto Daily News Staff (1997)

Palo Alto parents should provide their children with candid answers to questions about the apparent murder-suicide of a J.S. Stanford Middle School student and his parents, a grief counselor said yesterday. Susan Stone, who heads the trauma response unit of Family Service Mid-Peninsula, said parents should be prepared for their children’s grief and fear. “It’s normal for children to be scared and look to their parents for answers,” Stone told the Daily News. “Parents need to listen to their kids and validate their feelings. And parents shouldn’t be afraid to bring the subject up.”

Stabbed

The bodies of Elena Fedotova, 38, Vladimir Pokhilko, 44, and their son Peter Pokhilko, 12, were found inside their Ferne Avenue home Tuesday at about 3:30 p.m. Peter and his mother were stabbed to death and Pokhilko died after apparently slashing his own throat, police said yesterday.

“This type of tragedy makes us all rethink our own mortality, even if we didn’t personally know the people involved.” –Susan Stone

Outside the crime scene Tuesday, an 11-year-old boy asked a police officer if there was “lots of blood” inside the house. Stone said this is a typical reaction from younger children. “When children think of someone who’s dead, they’re usually scared of the blood,” said Stone. “Parents need to address those fears openly and honestly.” The first step, said Stone, is to put the event in context. “Parents need to emphasize that this is a really unusual event, and not something that should ever happen,” said Stone. “The children’s fears are likely increased because this is something so unfamiliar and involves a parent doing harm to their own child.”

Violence real

Even older children and teenagers can have difficulty dealing with the shocking details, said Stone. “To a certain extent, older children are desensitized to media violence on television and in movies,” said Stone. But she said that Tuesday’s murder brought home the violence to youngsters. “(The) violence became real to some kids for whom it had never been real before. And there’s no way you can become desensitized to that,” said Stone. Police have their own debriefing programs and trauma counselors, said Stone, who frequently visits companies and work sites after an accidental death or suicide. Stone was called to Great America amusement park in Santa Clara two weeks ago following the death of a park visitor killed when he tried to retrieve his baseball cap from underneath a roller coaster. Grief counselors were on hand yesterday at JLS. Peter’s teachers and classmates recalled him as an excellent student and talented artist. His classmate Peter Stepanov said his friend enjoyed fishing, math, and taking his basset hound, Holmes, for walks. “Talking about a person and remembering them is an important part of the grief process,” said Stone. “It’s essential that people have an outlet for their feelings and someone to listen.”

Hotlines can help

Anyone needing help–not just parents and children–can call Family Service Mid-Peninsula’s hotlines, said Stone. “I imagine we’ll have more calls to the hotlines once the house is closed and police leave,” said Stone. “When the action settles down is usually when it begins to sink in.” Parents should watch their children for changes in sleeping or eating habits, excessive crying or sudden fears, such as a refusal to walk to school alone or sleeping with the lights on. Adults may also find themselves experiencing delayed reaction to the trauma, said Stone. “It’s normal for people to wake up one morning a few weeks from now feeling a little weepy.” said Stone.

“We’re so focused on the negative and ready to assume something’s gone wrong,” said Belton, a parenting coach who has known children as a mother, teacher, crisis counselor, guest speaker and friend. “We need to simply enjoy our kids and not worry so much.”

Belton has a caveat, however. “We have to be responsible and accountable as parents. Our kids don’t bring up themselves.”

Belton’s straightforward approach has endeared her to local parents and educators, who have hired the Cupertino woman to deliver more than 400 presentations in the past decade.

She recently opened a private practice in parent coaching and has begun producing a DVD of her latest program, “Burn Your Kids’ Report Cards and Still Raise Successful Adults.”

A 20-minute interview with Belton, 46, was featured June 1 on “Something You Should Know,” a national radio show heard in Los Angeles, Fresno, Monterey and 150 other cities across the country.

“What impresses me so much is she speaks to people like a normal parent, not above them,” said Donna Glanville, president of the Piedmont Middle School Booster Club and a regional PTA secretary, who has booked Belton for several presentations.

After a May program for about 100 parents from the Berryessa Union School District in North San Jose, Glanville said at least a dozen people approached her to praise the session.

She cited Belton’s energetic and personable style as part of her ability to connect with parents. “She doesn’t use a microphone, and she doesn’t sit still,” Glanville said.

Patience and passion also shine through in her programs, she added, as Belton has always stayed to answer every question “with enthusiasm.”

Those qualities led Roy Avila, producer and host of the “Q&A Program” on Channel 36 in San Jose, to invite Belton to be “parenting adviser” for the show, where she appears several times a year.

“She gives things to people that they can use,” Avila said. “She has the ability to talk in plain English about relationship issues. That makes her good at public therapy.”

Belton believes her connection derives as much from good listening as good speaking, plus a wide array of experience.

“I’ve been there in a lot of ways,” she said.

A Chicago native, Belton grew up in a single-parent family after her parents divorced when she was 4. She began baby-sitting when she was 10 years old, developing a steady base of clients that allowed her to pay her way through Illinois State University.

While in college, Belton became the first female sports announcer for radio station WILN, where she broadcast play-by-play commentary for university sports.

“I’m crazy about sports, and that gave me some confidence in speaking,” Belton said.

She graduated with a special-education teaching credential and a desire to help needy students. “Working with kids who had psychological and emotional difficulties was fascinating,” she said.

Since coming to California in 1982, she has taught for a private special- education preschool, worked as a substitute teacher, run a home day-care service and led Gymboree classes.

Her public-education skills began to bloom in 1995 when she joined the Family Service Agency of the Mid-Peninsula in Palo Alto, where she ran a teen hot line, a parent stress hot line, a program for domestic-violence offenders and developed a speaker’s bureau.

Now married for the second time, Belton has a son, 20, and a daughter, 16, as well as a 15-year-old stepdaughter. She has worked for the past five years as a personal assistant, which includes household management and one afternoon a week caring for a 2-year-old girl.

As a parenting coach, Belton said, she wants people to know she’s not offering therapy.

“I’m not a psychologist, but most parents don’t need one,” she said. “They just need feedback and some ideas they can use.”

The most common questions, she said, involve kids who talk back or won’t listen.

“This is about respect — giving it to the kids and demanding it from them. The parent has to draw the lines,” Belton said.

Often, parents who call with a question about children who won’t clean their room actually have a larger problem that they’re failing to confront. Belton will help them tackle it.

“Parents have emotions that get in the way of doing the right thing,” she said. “I tell them to pretend it’s a neighbor’s kid and see how they’d treat the problem.”

The DVD title, she said, addresses report cards because she sees many kids under pressure to perform, and parents who won’t let their kids make mistakes.

By worrying too much about quantitative things, she said, parents forget to let children feel satisfaction from hard work and gain experience by living with the consequences of their decisions.

“We want to raise successful adults, not just good test-takers,” Belton said. “The message we should give our kids is: do your best.”

Maureen Kerr, personal guidance counselor for Bellarmine High School in San Jose, said Belton’s coaching practice addresses a common need.

“There are not too many places for people to go,” said Kerr, who has worked for 25 years at the private Jesuit high school that serves 1,450 boys. “Some parents don’t like to read the books. Coaching doesn’t have the same stigma that you find with therapy.”

Though Bellarmine holds a reputation for high academic standards, Kerr said she backs Belton’s philosophy of paying less attention to grades. Modern distractions like instant messaging, Web surfing and electronic games have created new hurdles to old-fashioned family time, but not lessened its importance, she said.

“In the bigger picture, we want a good character in our children,” she said. “Promoting good communication between parents and children is so important.”

For Belton, ironically, her career path shows that some tests can be valuable with the right interpretation.

“I took a high school career test that showed I should become a nun,” she said, chuckling because she’s Jewish. “It happened because I wanted to help people.”

She wants to focus that energy full time on helping parents, whom she describes as having the most important, fascinating and frustrating work in the world.

“It breaks my heart to see so many families struggling,” Belton said. “I’d like more parents to enjoy their jobs.”

1. Thinking she should have all the answers
2. Believing she can control her children’s behavior
3. Putting too much pressure on her kids
4. Accepting stress and arguing as an everyday part of parenting
5. Feeling that being a mom isn’t very much fun

Stone Belton contends that you don’t have to have a PhD in “Mometry” to be an expert mother. However, she does believe that knowing how to handle kids is not instinctive and that mothers must learn what to do when confronting problems with children. To assist moms who might be grappling with some or all of the five biggest mistakes, Stone Belton has posted her solutions on her Web site (http://susanstonebelton.com/mom/) “As you’ll notice, the solutions are not that difficult to use,” she said. “But what a difference using them will make to Mom. She really can have a happy Mother’s Day after all!”