Study: Time with dad good for self-esteem

Adolescent kids retreat to their rooms when you try to ask them how they are and hide out with their friends so often that they spend less and less time with family, right?

Maybe not so much, according to a new study.

In the nearly 200 families tracked, kids generally spent increasing amounts of one-on-one time with parents in their early adolescent years. Time with the folks started to drop when they were about 15.

The time teens spend specifically with their dads may have critical benefits, the study from Pennsylvania State University found. The more time spent alone with their fathers, the higher their self-esteem; the more time with their dads in a group setting, the better their social skills.

"The stereotype that teenagers spend all their time holed up in their rooms or hanging out with friends is, indeed, just a stereotype," said Susan McHale, director of the Social Science Research Institute at Penn State. "Our research shows that, well into the adolescent years, teens continue to spend time with their parents and that this shared time, especially shared time with fathers, has important implications for adolescents' psychological and social adjustment."

Researchers studied families with at least two children over a period of seven years.

"It's very rare to have longitudinal data over such a long period of time for four members of a family," said Ann Crouter, dean of Penn State's College of Health and Human Development.

"It takes an incredible amount of time and effort to mount a study of this kind."

The researchers caution that the study was not representative of the whole country. The families studied are "almost exclusively European American, working- and middle-class families living in small cities, towns, and rural communities." Further studies are needed to look at more diverse samples of the U.S. population, they say.

The study, published in the journal Child Development, found that kids spend less and less time with their parents in group settings as they go through their preteen and teenage years. But one-on-one time increases up until about age 12 and then stays relatively flat before starting to decline a bit around age 15, says Crouter.

Parents spend roughly seven to eight hours a week in group settings with their kids ages 8 to 15, the study found. Mothers get in about an hour and 15 minutes alone with their firstborn kids and more than an hour and a half with second-born kids each week. Dads get in just over an hour of one-on-one time with first- and second-born kids each week.

Numerous other studies have found benefits for kids who spend more time with their families, such as fewer delinquent behaviors and less likelihood to give in to peer pressure, the study notes.

In this study, the findings about fathers proved to be very interesting, Crouter said.

While increased time with Dad showed key benefits for self-esteem and "social competence," time with Mom did not show the same correlations.

"In two-parent families, the mother's role as caregiver is so scripted that her involvement can easily go unnoticed and unacknowledged," researchers note.

Meanwhile, kids whose fathers spend one-on-one time with them "may develop higher general self-worth because their fathers go beyond social expectations to devote undivided attention to them."

Also, time with dad often involves "joking, teasing, and other playful interactions," the study says. "Fathers, as compared to mothers, were more involved in leisure activities" and had more "peer-like interaction" with their children, which is "crucial for youth social development."

There's also the possibility that time with dad goes hand-in-hand with self-esteem for another reason: Some fathers may be more "drawn to" their children who "have higher self-worth and social competence," the researchers suggest. They point to another study that found dads are more affected by their kids' personalities than moms are in how they parent. So in some cases, dads spending more time with certain kids may be the result of the kids being more social -- not the cause of it.

"This doesn't mean that mothers aren't important!" McHale said. "The youth in this sample were in general well-adjusted, suggesting that there were good things going on in their families on the whole."

Another previous study found that children who spent more one-on-one time with their mothers were less often depressed; that correlation was not there with fathers.

Parents who have a son and a daughter generally spend more time alone with the child of the same sex, the Penn State study found.

And parents generally spend a bit more time with second-born children, bolstering previous studies suggesting that parents learn from their experiences with their first children and are better able to maintain close relationships with the younger children during adolescent years, the study says.

Other studies have busted stereotypes about dads, including how much time they spend with their children.

The Families and Work Institute found that dads spend substantially more time with their kids under age 13 than they did decades ago. As of 2008, employed fathers spent about three hours a day with their children, while employed mothers spend nearly four hours.




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New relationship definition.....

We've all heard so many buzz phrases for different relationship arrangements. I'm sure you've all heard of the friends with benefits, monogamy, polygamy, polyamory and the old famous hit it and quit it. Have any of you ever thought about the boomerang? Now if you're going "what? " It's not all that uncommon in the world, for a long time now. I think most of you would realize it as the on again/off again relationship. Now I'll bet you're thinking "that's not new" and you're right. The new name more appropriately defines that type of relationship though. You see one or both throw the other into the wind, they go out and hit some others then return to where they were thrown from. Just like a boomerang. Lol


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Woman laughs, accidentally swallows butter knife

Woman laughs, accidentally swallows butter knife: Woman laughs, accidentally swallows butter knife

Gives a whole new understanding. Lol

'Walmart gropers' arrested in Kansas

'Walmart gropers' arrested in Kansas: 'Walmart gropers' arrested in Kansas

Dating-What is it?

You can ask 25 people to define dating and you will get 25 different answers like I did. I have my own very specific definitions that I'll discuss in a bit. So that begs the obvious question why so many definitions? I think that dating is a very general term. People use it loosely for a lot of reasons. Some don't really want to admit that they had feelings for someone (that "hindsight is 20/20" thing) because they are worried about their own "look good". Some use it because it was a casual thing a few dates. Some people think it means that you had sex with that person you dated. Sex is not necessarily part of dating. Just like a one night stand for sex is not necessarily dating. Lol.

My thoughts are that dating is a generalization about activities you do with a person that you have some interest in spending time with for a romantic purpose. A date can be simple to the complex right up to a serious relationship. A date most certainly needs to have mutual thoughts of romance, not just one party interested. It would exclude doing things as friends.

Examples of a date would be:

• movies
• Dinner or lunch
• A day at the lake or river
• A motorcycle ride
• A spa day
• and so on.

So since dating is a general term then we would need sublevels of dating to help define it for everyone. In each level it is up to the "daters" to define it further.

Casual Dating-the very basic level of dating. This can be simple like "you want to go to a movie?". It is also the level of dating that leaves it open to date other people. Not that you would have to but you can. While casually dating you can find out about likes and dislikes for both parties. If there is mutual interest in making things more serious, you can move to the next level of dating.

Exclusive Dating- which simply stated means you only "date" each other. You still go out with friends to do things, as you should in any scenario of dating no matter how casual or serious it may be. You don't have to be girlfriend and boyfriend, or any other label at this level but you most ceratainly can be. You can also be very relaxed depending on the parameters that each of you set "together". (Parameters should always be realistic and definitely communicated, in any relationship whether romantic or not.) "Relaxed" meaning that while you talk on the phone during the week you may only see each other on the weekends. You still only "date" just each other. So you can see there are a lot of different sublevels contained in this level.

Significant Other- at this level you are in a relationship and can use the labels girlfriend and boyfriend, finally. You don't necessarily live together but you do a lot together. You make joint plans for events and time together. You travel together and just have fun. You discuss those issues that can impact you both. You consider each other when making decisions separately. Some couples don't progress beyond this level for lack of desire or need. If they did it would become marriage and no longer officially dating. Although, married couples that continue to date each other usually stay married. Lol

So once again what is dating? What does it look like? What level are you on? Or not? It's okay not to date. It's okay to do what adds to your own happiness as long as you don't do anything to intentionally hurt anyone else.

I hope this helps some of you that read it, none of you that don't and all of you just be happy!

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Nice Guy Quest part 4

I feel like the most unheard person in the world on this subject. I just keep getting hit in the face with friends and acquaintances that have gone for the "oh so perfect guy" that turns out to be an asshole. That's right I said asshole. We could call him a jerk or say he's just misunderstood but when the rubber meets the road he's just an asshole. Now if that's not bad enough by itself, she will usually continue to paint all those red flags green while she is defending him to her friends and convincing everyone about how great he is.

Then, there is always that deeper problem of bringing a child into the mix. So then she stays thinking that adding more stress of responsibilty and financial burden will make him see the light! Doesn't happen. The asshole, appropriately named, just gets bigger when you add more shit for it to deal with. Further complicating the situation. which is now going to last several years.

Then let's not forget the damage she receives thinking she's not good enough or important enough that when she finally stands up for herself and leaves the asshole , she has all this baggage that she takes to the next asshole. Some of which she doesn't even realize. So how can she fix it? I have a few suggestions but one has to be ready to listen. And I already covered how I feel unheard so we are going to leave that for the future. Lol.

So while she's with the next asshole compounding her problem she starts thinking "I just need a nice guy or good hearted man". Professing this to the world while she's leaving that asshole. Then she passes several more nice guys up looking for the next asshole. Now while this whole process could be explained several ways from daddy issues to simple guilt she's packing around, it's not my intention to diagnose but to point out that it exists and each woman needs to take drastic steps to get it worked out so she can start enjoying life.
If she finds a nice guy in her 40's or 50's, is she going to turn him into an asshole because that's what she knows or will she just enjoy him and nurture a relationship worthy of the shared time they both deserve? Unknown at this time. I've seen all outcomes in my life so far.
The real question still exists "why choose the asshole in the first place?".

Alone and healthy is a much better place to be than in a bad relationship getting worse. We all do things that cause us heartache at some point. The responsibilty we have to ourselves is to figure out who we are and why we did something so that we can either add it to or take it out of our life in the future. Then we can say we've had some growth. Good luck!


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Raley's Employees vote to strike if necessary!

Raley's employees have voted to strike if necessary.  Raley's has been trying to lower wages on employees for months and make them pay for more of their healthcare.  Statiing that the employees are overpaid.  Also that Raley's can't afford these continued costs with the recent economy problems.  Except when the union has asked to have a disclosure to verify these problems and losses, Raley's refuses to disclose.  I hope that they do strike and that Raley's will see how many union employed shoppers that they have.  I would cross the picket line, not to shop, but to tell management and scabs "shame on you"!  Please join me in supporting the workers at your local Raley's let them know when you're shopping, let management know that you won't be shopping there in the event of a strike!