Active parenting 30 years of video basedparent education
1. Active Parenting: 30 Years ofVideo-Based
Parent Education
Michael H. Popkin
Abstract
For decades, Adlerian-based parenting education programs have
made a difference
in the lives of millions of families throughout the world. These
programs have been
successful because they combine the innovations of Adler and
Dreikurs in psychol-
ogy with innovations in educational technology. Active
Parenting demonstrates how
the advent of video-based parenting education and the Internet
are the latest steps
in this evolution. The case is made for the importance of
research to achieve an
evidence-based standard for Adierian programs. Active
Parenting posits that there are
five key qualities that all children need to succeed in a modern
democratic society;
(a) responsibility, (b) cooperation, (c) respect, (d) courage, and
(e) self-esteem. The
Adierian-Dreikursian skills taught in the Active Parenting
programs provide parents
with the skills to instill these qualities in their children while
addressing the problems
and challenges of parenting. Active Parenting leaders can be
found all over the world,
combatting the obstacles to parenting education and ensuring
2. that all parents feel
welcomed in Active Parenting groups.
Keywords: Individual Psychology, Adierian, Dreikursian,
Active F^renting,
parenting, parent education, video-based parenting education,
responsibility,
cooperation, courage
No one promised that parenting would be easy. That it is often
quite
challenging would not be a problem if it were not also
incredibly important.
Other jobs that are both important and challenging usually offer
training
and support. Why not parenting?
Since Alfred Adler began establishing child guidance clinics
through-
out Austria almost 100 years ago, Adierian practitioners have
been working
creatively and diligently to provide high-quality parenting
education to par-
ents throughout the world. Active Parenting programs alone
have reached
more than 3 million parents in the United States, China, Saudi
Arabia, South
Africa, and Sweden. Translations of the texts and videos that
constitute
the program are also available in Korean, Japanese, Swedish,
Arabic, and
Chinese, among other languages. The desire for Adierian
parenting educa-
tion continues to grow along with the need of parents worldwide
for better
methods of preparing their children for the 21 st century.
4. after week, I watched parents listen to practical ideas for
handling the chal-
lenges of child behavior, go home to try their new skills, and
come back to
share how their families were getting better and their children
more coop-
erative. By the end of the course, I was hooked and knew that 1
was going to
be part of Adierian parenting education for my entire career.
Moving from the What to the How
Eive years and many parenting groups later, in 1979, 1 was
sitting in a
general assembly meeting at the NASAP annual conference
when I had an
idea. What if we could get two new inventions to interface with
each other,
and then use that interactive system to teach AdIerian-based
parenting edu-
cation? At the time, the desktop computer and the vidéocassette
recorder
were the latest in technological innovations; by 1982 I had
developed a
prototype of an interactive system that used them both. At
$5,000 for the
hardware alone, however, the cost to organizations would be
prohibitive.
To solve this problem, I elected to eliminate the computer for
the time be-
ing and focus on the video. A year later, in 1983, we introduced
Active
Parenting, the first ever video-based parenting education
program of its kind.
We displayed the original program at an American
5. Psychological
Association convention, where the legendary pediatrician and
author Dr.
Benjamin Spock pointed to a TV screen playing clips from the
video and
said, "This is the future." Positive responses like the one from
Dr. Spock gave
us the foundation to create more than 20 programs based on the
theories
and practices of Adler and Dreikurs.
Thirty years later, video-based training in small groups is
readily avail-
able, and the computer that was eliminated from that first
prototype in
1982 is back in the form of the Internet. Now tools such as
YouTube and
Moodle, which combine the Internet and video, are emerging as
leaders
168 Michael H. Popkin
in teaching virtually everything—from math skills to
skateboarding tricks.
Active Parenting now offers online groups, webinars, and self-
study to par-
ents and leaders worldwide. In my opinion, it is only a matter of
time before
avatars are meeting in virtual coffeehouses to take a parenting
course with-
out anyone ever leaving home.
The effectiveness of an AdIerian-based parenting education
program, of
6. course, goes beyond technology. How the program is structured,
the qual-
ity of the writing, and the examples chosen, as well as the
scripting, acting,
production values, experiential activities, use of humor and
emotion, and a
mix of other qualities all go into creating the effectiveness of
the program.
Improvements in these aspects of program development will
continue to
give Individual Psychology parenting-group leaders the best
tools for the
critical job they do for families and society.
The Importance of Evidence-Based Practice
There is really no simple way to determine the best parenting
educa-
tion program for any given group of parents; what seems to be
increasingly
a prerequisite is to find one that is listed by a credible source as
"evidence
based." Evidence based means that there is experimental
research to show
the efficacy of a program. I have gone to great pains to do the
research and
have the core Active Parenting programs listed on the National
Registry of
Evidence-Based Programs and Practices and other sites. Such
listings do not
guarantee that a program is effective (or that one not listed is
not effective).
Evidence-based program listings are currently the best system
available to
help users and funders alike make informed decisions. Because
funding
7. sources often use such lists to determine which programs may
receive grant
money, it is necessary that Individual Psychologists be more
involved in re-
searching and publishing evidence that our programs are
effective. This will
help Adierian-Dreikursian parenting ideas and skills become
available to
even more leaders and parents.
The Tasks of Parenting as Taught in Active Parenting
Active Parenting programs in this article specifically refers to
three com-
prehensive curriculums:
• Active Parenting Now (Active Parenting, 4th edition; Popkin,
2014)
for parents of children 5 to 12 years old
• Active Parenting of Teens (3rd edition; Popkin, 2009), for
parents of
teens and preteens
30 Years of Video-Based Parent Education 169
• Active Parenting of Teens: Families in Action (Popkin &
Hendrickson,
2012a), a version of the teen program that includes Teens in
Action
(Popkin & Hendrickson, 2012b), a companion program for teens
to
take either in teen only groups or in combination with their
parents
8. Each of these three programs is six sessions long, video based,
and listed on
the evidence-based websites mentioned previously. Each
program is also
theory based in the work of Adler and Dreikurs.
Because Individual Psychology is purpose driven, we begin
each pro-
gram with a statement of the purpose of parenting: "To protect
and prepare
children to survive and thrive in the kind of society in which
they will live."
Although this purpose has not changed since the beginning of
human his-
tory, what has changed is "the society in which [children] will
live." This
leads to the question of what kind of society our children wil l
be living in.
The qualities necessary to survive and thrive in our democratic,
high-tech,
multicultural society are very different from those in the
autocratic or law-
less periods in our history.
Active Parenting teaches that there are five key qualiti es that all
children
need to succeed in this type of society: (a) responsibility, (b)
cooperation,
(c) respect, (d) courage, and (e) self-esteem. Readers will
recognize the first
three as the same as in the RCR (Responsibility, Cooperation,
Respect) model
described by P. R. Rasmussen in "The Task, Challenges, and
Obstacles of
Parenting" elsewhere in this issue. Active Parenting (AP)
9. programs also stress
the importance of courage, which is a cornerstone of Adierian
Psychology,
and is defined in AP as "the confidence to take a known risk for
a known
purpose." Self-esteem is added because without some degree of
belief in
oneself, it is difficult to have the courage to take a positive risk.
A brief over-
view of these qualities from an AP perspective follows.
Responsibility. Responsibility is addressed three ways in the
Active
Parenting programs: accepting one's obligations, understanding
right from
wrong (and choosing to do the right thing as appropriate to the
situation),
and accepting the consequences of one's decisions. Once
children learn to
take responsibility for their choices by experiencing the
consequences that
follow, they learn to make better choices in the future. Many of
the choices
that children make as they mature will affect their entire lives.
They will be
offered tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, and they will choose
to accept
or decline. They will face choices about sex, dropping out of
school, work
and careers, and perhaps even whether to commit crimes.
Parents will not
be there in those moments to tell them what to do; if parents
have prepared
them to make responsible decisions and have instilled in them
the cour-
age to stand behind those decisions, though, they will be
10. prepared to meet
such challenges.
170 Michael H. Popkin
Methods of teaching responsibility are taught throughout the
programs,
but especially in the session on discipline. The formula R = C -
i- C—that is.
Responsibility = Choice + Consequences—helps parents
remember the re-
lationship between handling everyday challenges and the bigger
picture of
teaching the vital character trait of responsibility.
Cooperation. A child who learns to live and work cooperatively
with
others has a much better chance at success than the lone wolf or
the rebel.
Democracy is based on the notion that none of us is as smart as
all of us.
Competition has its role in our society, but the individual who
values team-
work is one who moves society forward.
Learning to cooperate begins in the family and the classroom. It
is
fostered through solving everyday problems and planning,
which require
effective communication and a spirit of mutual respect and
participation.
In Session 2 of the Active Parenting program, parents learn
communication
skills that will help them win the cooperation of their children
11. while teach-
ing their children to solve problems and make decisions
cooperatively with
others. In every session a Family Enrichment Activity is
presented to help
parents strengthen the relationship between them and their
child.
Respect. The concept of mutual respect is a cornerstone of life
in any
democratic society, particularly in one that includes a lot of
diversity. To
treat others respectfully, and to expect them to treat you the
same, makes
way for freely sharing ideas that will eventually solve problems
and create
a better society for everyone. In contrast, lack of respect in a
democratic
society creates an atmosphere of resentment and hostility that
can lead to
conflict and even aggression. Teaching children to respect their
parents is
only the beginning. Teaching them to respect themselves, all
others, and
their environment is what will make a difference.
Mutual respect is presented first in Session 1 and then
reinforced
throughout the program in videos and discussion.
Courage.
Courage first met fear
When I was still a child;
Courage gazed with cool, clear eyes;
Fear was something wild.
12. This stanza from the opening poem by the author of Active
Parenting
in the session about courage sets the tone for what is arguably
the most
important of the Adlerian child-rearing concepts. It is so
important that
Individual Psychologists often say that a misbehaving child is a
discouraged
30 Years of Video-Based Parent Education 171
child. A free society provides many opportunities for people to
succeed,
but success is not guaranteed, nor is it easy to attain. Those who
have the
confidence to take worthwhile risks have the best chance to
thrive. And
when life gets tough, those with the courage and grit to
persevere are more
likely to succeed.
Even among children, it takes great courage to resist peer
pressure, to
stand up for one's self and for others, to think independently,
and to han-
dle the many challenges of school. From the French word coeur,
meaning
"heart," courage is the child's inner strength that is necessary to
withstand
the fear that so often nips at self-esteem.
We focus on ways of instilling courage throughout the program,
but
13. especially in the session on building courage through the
encouragement
process.
Self-esteem. Children who believe they are lovable, capable
human be-
ings with something to contribute to others have a good chance
at thriving.
These beliefs form a foundation of positive self-esteem that
helps motivate
other core qualities (i.e., responsibility, cooperation, respect,
and courage).
At the same time, seeing oneself as someone who embodies
these posi-
tive qualities builds what might be considered character-driven
self-esteem,
which endures through hard times as well as good ones. We
explore this
relationship further in the Think-Feel-Do Cycle, in which we
look at how
to help children build self-esteem based on character and
actions, not
on self-hype.
An understanding of the task of parenting as helping to instill
these and
other positive qualities of character in our children so that they
will have
an opportunity to succeed in our modern democratic society
leads to the
question of which parenting style is best suited to do the job:
autocratic (the
parent as a "dictator" who uses a combination of reward and
punishment
to control the child), permissive (the parent as a "doormat" who
either pam-
14. pers or ignores the child), or authoritative (the parent as an
"active leader"
who provides a combination of discipline and support, freedom
within lim-
its, participation, and respect).
It is helpful for parents to understand the rationale behind the
"active"
style of parenting that they will be learning in the course if they
are to really
understand the validity of the Individual Psychology model. To
do otherwise
is tantamount to saying, "Parent this way, because I'm the
expert and 1 say
so." We stress in AP leader-training workshops the importance
of model-
ing the leadership style we are teaching. Winning cooperation
with adults,
as with children, requires winning the battle for the mind and
not just the
behavior. By helping parents change their thinking about
parenting (the
"mind"), we help them make changes to their behavior that will
last long
after the course has ended.
172 Michael H. Popkin
The gift of problems. Along with the task of parenting,
Rasmussen
(2014) also talks about the challenges that parents face when
getting their
children to do what they do not want to do. These challenges are
what we
15. call in AP "problems." Every family has them. What we point
out in the
programs is that successful families are better able to handle
these prob-
lems, whereas families who continue to struggle seem to
continue to make
the same or worse mistakes. Rather than complain about the
problems of
day-to-day living (e.g., getting the toys picked up, doing
homework, solving
conflicts peacefully), we ask parents to think about problems as
gifts that
allow us the opportunity to teach our children qualities of
character (i.e.,
responsibility, cooperation, respect, and courage) and skills
(e.g., problem
solving, conflict resolution, self-discipline).
We focus many of the skills taught in Active Parenting around a
problem-handling model, which teaches parents how to
determine who
owns responsibility for a given problem—parent, child, or in
some cases,
both. When a parent owns a problem, the situation calls for
discipline (limit
setting). A hierarchy of skills progressing from less assertive to
more assertive
is later taught using the full interactive process of video-based
training. This
includes a Parent's Guide reading; a brief lecture by the leader;
a brief video
vignette modeling a problem and the skill used to correct it; a
group discus-
sion facilitated by questions in the Leader's Cuide; graphics
displayed via
PowerPoint, flip chart, or other means; an experiential activity
16. or role play;
home assignments supported in the Parent's Guide; and group
sharing and
feedback in the next session.
The discipline skills taught include polite requests, I-Messages,
firm re-
minders, logical and natural consequences, and four skills that
comprise
the ELAC Method. ELAC is an acronym for feelings, limits,
alternatives, and
(logical) consequences. Eeelings, in this context, refers to
expressing em-
pathy for what your child is feeling; limits means reminding the
child of the
limits of a given situation; and alternatives is shorthand for
helping the child
think of an acceptable alternative for what he or she cannot
have. When
necessary, parents are to provide a logical consequence,
although they are
often pleasantly surprised by how rarely they need to use
consequences
when they learn to use the first three steps of the ELAC
Method.
When a child owns the problem, parents are taught to use
support
skills for helping the child learn to handle problems effectively.
This is one
area in which we have supplemented the Individual Psychology
model
with contributions by communication theorists. We teach a five-
step
Active Communication process that includes active listening,
responding
17. to feelings, looking for alternatives or evaluating consequences,
encourag-
ing, and following up later. Eamily meetings are also taught and
include
such variations as problem prevention talks, character talks, and
problem-
solving talks.
30 Years of Video-Based Parent Education 173
While the video examples used in the programs provide a wide
va-
riety of typical challenges that parents and children face every
day, they
are only a means to teaching parents a model of parenting that
they can
use in any situation. It is the leader's role to help parents learn
to apply the
skills modeled on video to the real-life problems they
experience with their
own children.
Overcoming Obstacles in Parenting and Parent Education
The reason Active Parenting programs have been widely
accepted
throughout the world is partly because families are more alike
than different.
They all begin with the same basic purpose of parenting,
struggle with how
to provide the best balance of discipline and support, seek to
strengthen
their children's character, and look for ways to handle the day-
to-day chal-
18. lenges of parenting. The Individual Psychology model of
parenting helps
parents find a reasonable explanation for how best to
accomplish these
tasks in a world that has steadily moved from a sometimes
lawless, some-
times authoritarian history and toward social and political
equality. This is
the mainstream, the Zeitgeist, of human history that moves all
of us along;
that Adler predicted, and Dreikurs delineated, its implications
for parenting
so long ago gives us all a chart from which to navigate.
As the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1914/1963)
said in
1914—only 2 years after Adler broke with Freud— "̂1 am I plus
my circum-
stances" (n.p.). The fact that we are all intertwined with the
world in which
we live is true of families as well as individuals. Although
families do have
much more in common than not, the differences can sometimes
overwhelm
what they are trying to accomplish; Adler knew this, which may
be why
when asked if one could do psychotherapy with a person who
lived in
poverty, he responded by saying that it would be like throwing a
drowning
person a book on swimming.
Parenting education has been more fortunate than psychotherapy
in this
regard. We have seen parents who were facing all sorts of
obstacles em-
19. brace the teachings and skills of Active Parenting in countries
throughout the
world. An organization has used Active Parenting of Teens to
teach life skills
to impoverished teenagers in Bulgaria, so that they could have
better op-
tions for overcoming poverty than moving to Sofia, the
country's largest city
and capital, to become prostitutes. I had another leader from
West Virginia
tell me about an abusive, court-ordered mother who, when asked
what she
had learned from the program, raised her fist and said, "I've
learned that I
don't need this anymore."
I have heard countless stories of successes with parents in
prison, in
women's shelters, in foster situations, in group homes, in
submarines at sea.
174 Michael H. Popkin
with deaf parents, and even with those in poverty. What makes
the AP pro-
gram work is the combination of the theory upon which the
program is
based, the quality of the program itself, and the unique talents
that the group
leaders bring to their groups each week.
Although it is impractical to develop a unique program for each
set of
family circumstances, we have moved in that direction with
20. such programs
as Active Parenting in Stepfamilies, Cooperative Parenting and
Divorce, Par-
ents on Board (a program to promote school involvement), and
1, 2, 3, 4
Parents! (a program for parents of young children). All our
major programs
are also available in Spanish, and all have closed captioning. As
family re-
sources frequently are limited, a skilled leader is still the best
option for
using a program, such as AP, with groups facing special needs
and obsta-
cles. These leaders understand the parents in their program and
customize
the universal aspects of the program with the special
circumstances and
obstacles that might interfere with how the concepts and skills
taught in
the program might best be applied. Many organizations provide
transpor-
tation, childcare, and even a meal for their group so that
economically
disadvantaged parents are better able to attend. Organizations
also write
grants to cover costs and to promote their courses to the parents
themselves.
Most importantly, organizations connect with their groups
through show-
ing empathy for the members' circumstances, which makes the
parents feel
understood and welcomed.
Adierian/Dreikursian parent educators have a long history of
inclusive-
ness, often reaching out to marginalized groups in communities
21. throughout
the world. Our programs themselves, however, have been
criticized for not
being more explicit in their outreach to LGBT and other
minority groups.
To make it clear that all parents are welcome in an Active
Parenting group,
1 wrote the following poem which is now included at the
beginning of our
programs. It is meant to send a signal to the LGBT community
and to all par-
ents that they are welcome and sincerely wanted in our
parenting groups.
You Are Welcome Here
White collar, blue collar, no collar
If you are a parent
You are welcome here.
Calm and cool or hot-under-the-collar
If you care for children
You are welcome here.
Traditional family: husband and wife.
Single, remarried, or partnered for life
If you love your child
30 Years of Video-Based Parent Education 175
You are welcome here.
Whatever your race
From wherever you hail
Whatever your faith (or lack thereof)
Regardless of creed, or past misdeeds.
If you're willing to learn
22. You are welcome here.
Mom, dad, uncle or granny
Pull up a chair
Let down your hair
And if you don't have any
You're still welcome here!
References
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and impact of a family-based substance abuse prevention
program in
rural communities. Journal of Primary Prevention, 78(3), 341-
361.
Fashimpar, G. (2000). Problems of parenting:
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Adlerian parenting
23. education programs. Journal of Individual Psychology, 55, 225-
232.
Ortega y Gasset, J. (1963). Meditations on Quixote. New York,
NY: Norton.
(Original publication in 1914)
Popkin, M. (2007). Taming the spirited child: Strategies for
parenting chal-
lenging children without breaking their spirits. New York, NY:
Simon
and Schuster.
Popkin, M. (2009) Active Parenting of teens (3rd ed.). Atlanta,
GA: Active
Parenting.
Popkin, M. (2014) Active Parenting {4th ed.). Atlanta, GA:
Active Parenting.
Popkin, M., & Hendrickson, P. (2012a). Active Parenting of
teens: Families in
action. Atlanta, GA: Active Parenting.
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Atlanta, GA: Active
24. Parenting.
Rasmussen, P. R. (2014). The task, challenges, and obstacles of
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Journal of Individual Psychology, 70(2), 90-113.
176 Michael H. Popkin
Michael H. Popkin, PhD ([email protected]), is the president
of Active Parenting Publishers. Popkin pioneered the field of
video-based
parent education with the introduction of Active Parenting
Discussion Pro-
gram in 1983. Since then he has authored and produced more
than 30
books and video programs, including the best-selling Active
Parenting Now,.
Active Parenting of Teens, and 1, 2, 3, 4 Parents!, used around
the world to
teach millions of parents how to raise happy and successful
children. A fre-
quent keynote speaker and media guest, he has appeared on
25. more than 200
television shows, including multiple appearances on The Oprah
Winfrey
Show, Montel Williams, and CNN. Popkin is a former child and
family ther-
apist and received his PhD in counseling psychology from
Georgia State
University. He and his wife. Melody, are the parents of two
young adults and
live in the Atlanta area.
Copyright of Journal of Individual Psychology is the property of
University of Texas Press
and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or
posted to a listserv without
the copyright holder's express written permission. However,
users may print, download, or
email articles for individual use.
does work-life balance really exist?
26. And is it attainable by mere mortals? Real Simple asked
10 influential journalists, pundits, and thought leaders to weigh
in.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN GOLLMER
32 JANUARY 2014 | RE AL SIMPLE.COM
life lessons GOOD READ
Anna Quindlen
The author of Still Life With Breadcrumbs,
out this month; A Short Guide to a Happy
Life; and 14 other books.
D
iscussions about life balance
always plumb the outer
limits of perfection: Are the
kids’ packed lunches homemade and
perfectly nutritious? Did the client
meeting go off without a single hitch?
27. The assumption that everything must
be right with the world or your life
is out of balance is silly and, frankly,
impossible.
When my children were little,
here’s what I asked myself to discern
whether my life was in balance:
Was anyone bleeding?
Did the sentences in my columns
contain verbs?
That’s silly, too, but you take my point.
The psychiatrist D.W. Winnicott will
always hold a special place in my heart
for coining the term “the good-enough
mother.” I am a believer in the good-
enough work-life balance, in which
people try to show up in both the office
and the kitchen with a sense of reason-
ably flexible commitment.
The story I like to tell about work-life
balance goes like this: My son, Christo-
28. pher, then eight, comes downstairs and
says, “Some man just called on your
work phone, but I told him you couldn’t
talk because you were making dinner.”
That man was the Reverend Jesse
Jackson.
Twenty years have passed since that
moment, and here’s the bottom line:
I did make dinner, and I did talk to Jesse
Jackson. Just not at the same time.
No one was bleeding. There were verbs.
Anne-Marie Slaughter
The president and CEO of the New America
Foundation, in Washington, D.C., and the
author of the much-discussed 2012 essay “Why
Women Still Can’t Have It All,” in The Atlantic.
I think of balance as a seesaw, and you’re either up or down. So
in my personal life I don’t consider
balance. I think about fit: how to fit my
caring self, the part of me that is a
mother, a sister, a daughter, and a wife,
29. with my independent self, the part
of me that is a foreign-policy expert,
a scholar, and an entrepreneur.
It used to be that men were expected
to be the competitors and their wives
were the caregivers. What happened was
that, as women entered the workforce,
they were ready to compete but were
not prepared to leave their caring selves
behind. So they started to wonder:
Wait—how much do I give to my work,
and how much do I give to my family?
The word balance implies that the
different parts of your life have some
kind of mechanical regularity. But at
times I might be working intensely, and
then I will be off and very much with
my kids. When I can put in a full day of
work and then spend the evening watch-
ing a baseball game on TV with my
two sons, both sides of me feel fulfilled.
Martha MacCallum
30. A coanchor of America’s Newsroom, on the
Fox News Channel.
I lost my mom last year, and that made me try to slow down in
my mind and be present for my kids.
(I have three—ages 12, 15, and 17.) To
me, balance is possible. It’s really about
living in the moment. I try to achieve
it at home by putting my phone down
and looking my children in the eye
and listening to them. I love it when our
family is in our house, everyone is
doing homework, everyone is physically
present at dinnertime. For example,
I still hang out in my kids’ rooms before
they go to bed. And then I feel
balanced. I’m in the exact place I’m
supposed to be.
But I can feel in the moment when
thinking about work, too. While I’m
on my way to the studio in the early
morning—in my car in the dark, listen-
ing to the news on the radio and
31. getting my head in the game—it’s very
peaceful. It helps a lot that I can find
ways to feel balanced both personally
and professionally.
Eleanor Clift
A panelist on the syndicated television
program The McLaughlin Group
and a contributor to The Daily Beast.
Most people probably don’t chart their days in terms of
allocating time for this
thing and time for that, but they do
know when their overall lives get out
of balance. Feeling guilty, in over their
heads: That’s how they know some-
thing is wrong. It’s part of the human
condition. We are always questioning
what we do with this limited amount of
time we have. And no one is immune.
Fathers now want more of a connec-
tion with kids and home life, and that
requires putting in the time; now
younger men are not willing to work
32. around the clock. Women who stay
at home with children worry that they
are losing ground or that they are
not keeping up with their aspirations.
Personally, I had three children and
always worked. And I would say that
home was therapy for the office, and
the office was therapy for home. I also
credit jogging with keeping me sane.
JANUARY 2014 | REAL SIMPLE.COM 33
For others, having fewer choices may
help them feel less stressed. A pediatri-
cian once told me that the happiest
mothers he knew were those with six
children or more; they didn’t have the
time to consider doing anything else.
Ellen Galinsky
The president and a cofounder of the
nonprofit Families and Work Institute, in
33. New York City, and the author of Mind
in the Making.
I hate the term “work-life balance.” Balance implies a scale
where if you put something on one side,
it takes away from the other side and
there’s a zero-sum game. In reality, work
can enhance your personal life and your
personal life can enhance your work;
one is not necessarily taking away from
the other. The term also induces guilt
because it suggests that there’s some
nirvana you must achieve where every-
thing is equal and you’re feeling like
it’s all working. Angels should be singing;
bells should be ringing.
I prefer to say “work-life fit,” a term
coined by Cali Williams Yost, a flexible-
workplace strategist. It means that you’re
putting everything together in a way
that works for you right now. There’s no
ideal 50-50. Moment by moment,
we’re figuring it all out, and what works
is constantly changing.
34. Back when I wrote my book, I asked
children if they could change one thing
about how their parents’ work affected
them. They said that they wished their
parents could be less stressed and less
tired. What that told me was that it’s
not necessarily about how many hours
you spend either at work or at home,
but what your relationship with your
children is like when you’re with them.
Jessica Grose
A journalist and commentator for the
Slate column XX Factor and the author of
Sad Desk Salad.
On weekdays, the baby is our 7 a.m. alarm clock. My husband
feeds her and changes her,
and we both play with her until he leaves
for work. I take her until our nanny comes
at 9:30. Then I leave for my office, return-
ing at 5:30 p.m., when our nanny leaves.
I give the baby dinner and a bath and
put her to bed. If my husband gets home
35. in time, he helps out. This is our defini-
tion of balance: We work reasonable hours
and have quality time with the kiddo.
And I’m thrilled with it.
Before we had our daughter, I fretted
about finding space in our harried lives.
Then I realized we had the two keys to
balance: money and flexibility. While Face-
book’s Sheryl Sandberg represents the
public face of the American work-life con-
versation via her book, Lean In, and the
movement it has inspired, many parents
are struggling to support their families
and spend a modicum of time with them.
For balance to be available to most
women, we need more supportive family
policies: paid parental leave, affordable
child care, paid sick days. The discussion
needs to move away from people like
Sandberg and, yes, reasonably well-off two-
income families like mine, for a sem-
blance of balance to exist on a wide scale.
Chris Duchesne
36. The vice president of global workplace solutions
for Care.com, a site with more than 8 million
members that connects families to caregivers
in 16 countries.
T here’s no point at which you have perfect balance. As a father
of three young kids, I know
that there are certain events that are
sacred, that I will never miss out on. But
there are other occasions when I will
have to sacrifice time with my children
for work.
Instead of determining whether you
have everything in balance, ask yourself,
What does success look like for me at this
point in time and going forward? Then
reflect on that each week or each month
and evaluate how you’re doing. Maybe
you need to focus more on a project at
the office. Or maybe there is something
at home demanding more attention.
When it comes to balance, what works
for one person doesn’t work for all.
37. You have to try different tactics, and
over time you learn what works for you
and your employer. Nobody comes
out of the gate and has it all figured out.
Jennifer Senior
The author of All Joy and No Fun, out
this month, and a contributor to New York
magazine.
I think life balance is worth striving for, but it’s a pretty high-
class problem. If you have the luxury of
thinking about balance, you’re ahead
of the game almost by definition. It
probably means that you’re not working
two jobs, for instance. This is also, I
think, largely a question for cultures
where we feel entitled to be happy, not
just clothed and fed. So it’s a historical
and a class phenomenon.
Most people are out of balance most
of the time. We lead lopsided lives.
And unless the United States becomes a
very different place—where we all keep
38. bankers’ hours and where child care
is available in every office—I can’t see
how real balance, at least as we fantasize
about it, is achievable.
I am skeptical about the need for
balance anyway. People who lead mean-
ingful lives are often monomaniacal in
their focus. I’m guessing Margaret Sanger
didn’t have great life balance, you know?
34 JANUARY 2014 | RE AL SIMPLE.COM
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41. Personally, I have a steady job and a baby-
sitter for my child, and if I get home and
have a few hours with my kid before
bedtime, I can be just fine. It’s not about
the literal amount of time I spend working
or at home. Really, it’s the ticker tape
of crap (about things I have to do, e-mails
I need to return) running through my
head that makes me feel overwhelmed.
Jeremy Adam Smith
The author of The Daddy Shift and a former
stay-at-home dad.
Balance (or imbalance) is some-thing that happens over time.
You can’t look at one specific
moment and determine whether you
have it or not. There will be times when
many of us have to work a lot or spend a
lot of time caring for a baby. Demands
will be put on you that you can’t control,
and the question is, How do you respond
to those factors? It’s not so much about
balancing external things in your life
42. and allocating a certain amount of time to
work or to playing with your kids, but
about finding homeostasis within yourself.
Mindfulness meditation is getting a
lot of attention right now, and there are
many studies on the efficacy of the
practice. It’s about cultivating awareness
of yourself and your surroundings with-
out judgment. You can sit with and be
aware of the existence of your anxiety and
use that awareness to turn the spotlight
onto something positive.
If you’re a mother who works outside
the home, you can take the focus away
from what you’re not doing and instead
think about all the things you are doing to
support your family. You also have to
think about societal pressures. If you feel
beleaguered, there’s usually a social cause,
and it indicates a culture out of balance.
But you can help change that. You don’t
have to be at the barricades protesting
every day, but you can vote. The effects
43. aren’t immediate, but it’s a healthy way to
respond to the pressures you feel.
Judith Warner
A senior fellow at the Center for American
Progress, in Washington, D.C., and the author
of Perfect Madness and We’ve Got Issues.
Work-life balance—finding a point of equilibrium between the
pulls of two
unpredictable forces—always seemed
impossible to me. Then I discovered the
dancer’s pose in yoga.
In the pose, you stand on one leg while
bending the other at the knee, drawing
your leg behind you and gripping the top
of your raised foot in the palm of your
same-side hand. Then, while pressing
hand into foot and foot into hand, you
lengthen your leg behind you while
stretching your opposite arm up and out.
If you do it right, you create an arc
of motion that sends an enormous feeling
44. of power and grace through your body.
Doing it right is a rare achievement for
me. But every now and then I can. On the
very first day that I succeeded, I kept in
the forefront of my mind something that
my teacher had told our class: It’s the
pull of the opposing forces that keeps you
balanced.
Suddenly, in a flash that took all my
self-control not to shout out to the room,
I had a bolt of insight: Work-life balance
was the same. I would never achieve
it by trying to resolve its forever changing
tensions into a point of stasis. But I
could find strength and stability by
harnessing and feeding off the energy
that those tensions generated.
That sounds very loosey-goosey, I
realize. But if you can get into the
dancer’s pose and think about it, you’ll
see what I mean. Then we can
use that energy to work for progress
beyond the yoga mat. n
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