MAY 1, 2003
Smoke Signals 11
Dads Make a Huge Difference In The Lives Of Young Children
Patrick Mitchell says that simple message is too often overlooked.
By Ron Karten
"Twenty-four million kids will go to bed in a home
with no dad," said Patrick Mitchell, the "Down To Earth
Dad" who travels the country with a very simple mes
sage: Dads make a huge difference in the lives of chil
dren. Those 24 million kids amount to 4 of every ten.
And the future for some of them is clear, said
Mitchell. "Ten percent of them will be really, really
un-OK." Among the possibilities is the dramatically
increased likelihood that they will grow up poor, abus
ing drugs and alcohol, or be a high school dropout.
They will have a suicide rate ten-times higher than
children who grow up with dads in the home.
"I want you to fear what will happen to these kids
if there is no man in their life," said Mitchell.
A former journalist, Mitchell came into what ap
pears to be his real vocation when his job prospects
seemed dimmest. The publication he worked for
folded, and among options for developing new work,
he had been investigating newsletters. It was his
wife who said, "You're a great father. Why not do
one by the Down To Earth Dad?" And so he did.
His first newsletter focused on storytelling, the
subject with which he ended his first class in Grand
Ronde. And for that newsletter, he went right to
what he considered the source of storytelling: the
American Indian. His research took him to Nez
Perce Elder Otis Half Moon who told him that he
"tells stories of his childhood to his children, and
that's why we're so close."
He quickly sold subscriptions first to dads, then to
childhood and family organizations, and before he
knew it, he was invited to do speaking engagements.
"It just kind of grew," he said.
Early on, a big success came his way when he was
invited onto a nationally syndicated television pro
gram called "Men are from Mars, Women are from
Venus," hosted at the time by Cybill Shepherd. "The
next thing I know I'm on national TV with Mickey
Dolan of the Monkees and his daughter talking about
dads," said Mitchell.
In class, Mitchell suggested that each night you
tell your child the number of stories that matches
his age, so at three, tell three bedtime stories. But
his idea of story isn't necessarily long and elaborate.
"I want to tell you about this time I went to the zoo,"
he said. "And when the child says, 'What happened
when you went to the zoo?' you say, 'I'm glad you
asked. The answer is in story number two.'"
They should be spontaneous and true," he sug
gested. "Don't think about them too much." Chil-
."- i" i
"Telling the true stories of your childhood
to your kids is the best way to build a
bond with them."
Patrick Mitchell,
Down To Earth Dad"
dren don't care about them because they're such
good stories, he said, but because they're about you.
"Telling the true stories of your childhood to your
kids is the best way to build a bond with them," he
said.
He also presented a section on how the roles of
men and women had blurred over the years. When
he asked if men know their roles today, Education
Department assistant teacher Jackie Long replied,
"If they have a good strong woman to show them."
Toni Lockwood, another Assistant
Teacher said that she was raised "that the
father made the money and the mother did
everything else, and I did that for awhile,"
she said, "but not anymore."
The class made room for a lot of fun, in
cluding a pillow fight.
He called the Education Department's
practice of having community members
read and tell stories to pre-schoolers "a
trailblazing program."
The fruits of his researching skills came
out again and again as he cited the results
of different studies.
B Dads are most important to boys in the
Head Start years but most important to
girls in early adolescent years.
B A dad's bottom-line statements carry a
lot more weight than a mom's.
B The average dad enjoys only 8 seconds of
direct eye contact with any of his children
on any given day.
"I believe strongly in this work. I really
feel like I'm doing the work that I need to
be doing," said Mitchell, but he has a
gentle, non-judgmental way of presenting
his information. "I'm no more of a down to
earth dad than anyone that tries to do the
best for his kids," he said.
Mitchell will give a keynote address to
the 9th National American IndianAlaska
Native Children's Conference in San Anto
nio, Texas on May 7.
To receive his monthly newsletter, con
tact Mitchell at: 877-282-DADS, or by email at
Patrickdowntoearthdad.org, and go see his website
at: www.downtoearthdad.org.
"Shame-Free Parenting" Targets Emotional Problems With Wisdom And Patience
Shawn Horn returns to give classes in Grand Ronde where she studied with Dr. Joseph Stone.
By Ron Karten
Shawn Horn
. J . I maintains that
"shame is at the
core of most of
our emotional
dysfunctions."
Her handout
at the recent
"Shame-Free
Parenting" class
the Tribal Edu
tion Depart
ment defined
shame as "a
soul-deep sense
that there is
Shawn Horn something
uniquely wrong
with me that is not wrong with you or anyone else
in the world. Because I am not perfect and problem-free,
I feel hopelessly, disgustingly different and
worth less than other people. I view myself as liter
ally, worthless. It isn't just that I make a mistake
when I make a mistake; I aw a mistake when I
make a mistake. This is shame's message."
Horn's message first came to light during a class
on the subject at a time when she was feeling bad
about herself and her own parenting skills. That
message now has become her life's work. Her doc
toral thesis is titled like the class, Shame-Free
Parenting, and much of the sharing she does in her
class is a labor of love on a subject very close to her
heart.
She has worked in group homes, in child and ado
lescent psychiatric units, in high schools and as a
consultant for the Head Start program in Spokane,
where she now resides. Currently, Horn is an in
tern at Spokane Mental Health. Last year, she spent
nine months in the Wellness Clinic doing graduate
work under the direction of Behavioral Health Di
rector Joseph B. Stone, Ph.D.
"She did real good work, counseling and assess
ment," said Stone. "I thought she was particularly
good with issues of children."
"Healthy shame," she told the class, "is important
and necessary to develop conscience. It gives us in
formation to change our (unwanted) behavior. It
becomes unhealthy when you take that outside thing
and bring it inside and start thinking that you're a
flawed and defective person."
We get the message that we may be flawed from
parents, siblings and peers, she said. And while
many environments can be devastating to young
sters, "it's never too late" to start learning ways to
keep shame out of a child-rearing environment.
You're setting yourself up to be ashamed of your
self, for example, if you think you should be a per
fect parent. The result may be that you explode
when you make a mistake as a way to hide your
shame. The explosion sets in motion behaviors in
children that continue to pass the shame around.
Other ways shame-based parents protect them
selves from facing their "imperfections" are such self
destructive behaviors as compulsive shopping, over
eating, drug and alcohol abuse, and losing control
with children's behaviors. These are all "distract
ing behaviors," said Horn.
"Our worth is not based on our child's behavior,"
said Horn. She recommended waiting out a child's
tantrum rather than fighting it. "It will eventually
become one of the child's greatest strengths."
"We plan for a week of hell (when we're going to
change our child's behavior)," said Tribal member
Kristi Pettit, a Social Services staffer and one of ten
attending the class, "but it does work. It really does.
Next week, we're going to brush our teeth every
night. It's going to be hell."
"Target only one behavior at a time," said Horn, "and
plan ahead. Name the behavior you're addressing."
She also suggested using "natural consequences."
If a child spills a glass of water, don't yell, just set
the ground rules. "If you spill the water, you clean
it up."
"Know the difference between a child seeking at
tention and behaving badly," said Horn.
"Parenting is the most difficult job in the world,"
said Horn. "Anything that starts with labor can't
be easy."
Plenty of advice about what to do and what not to
do boiled down to a pretty simple idea, though it may
not always be so simple to get there. The goal of a
parent, she said, is to "teach children to add good
ness to the world."