Parenting with Pride Latino Style: How to Help Your Child Cherish Your Cultural Values and Succeed in Today's World
288
Parenting with Pride Latino Style: How to Help Your Child Cherish Your Cultural Values and Succeed in Today's World
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Overview
From a distinguished psychologist, mother, and Latina, Parenting with Pride Latino Style offers the first bicultural child-rearing approach for Latino parents. This groundbreaking book supports families in raising their children with time-honored Hispanic values while incorporating the best that North America has to offer.
Dr. Vazquez's unique parenting method, the New Traditionalism (El Nuevo Tradicionalismo), preserves classic Latino ideals, such as pride, family loyalty, and courtesy, while helping parents revise their traditional authoritarian child-rearing style, blending the best of Latino and American cultures and dramatically reducing cultural conflict in the family. Her seven steps to successful parenting are grounded in the acronym ORGULLO ("pride"):
O: Organize your feelings R: Respect your child's feelings G: Guide and teach your child; do not dictate U: Update your media awareness often L: Love your child for who she or he is L: Listen to your child O: Open the communication channels -- and keep them open
Self-assessments and reflection exercises help parents resolve the dilemmas produced when two cultures combine. Detailed examples show how to use these methods immediately in daily life -- from family relationships to children's friendships to school issues.
Clear, compassionate, and based on Dr. Vazquez's personal experience as a Latina professional and parent, Parenting with Pride Latino Style is the one book that enables contemporary Latino parents to pass on their rich cultural heritage to their children -- and to future generations as well.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780061931178 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 05/12/2009 |
| Sold by: | HARPERCOLLINS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Sales rank: | 946,537 |
| File size: | 438 KB |
About the Author
Carmen Inoa Vazquez, Ph.D., an expert in cross-cultural issues, is one of New York City's most prominent Latina psychologists, with more than twenty-five years of clinical and teaching experience. She is founder of the Bilingual Treatment ProgramClinic at Bellevue Hospital, and she founded and directs the Institute for Multicultural Behavioral Health. She is a clinical professor in psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and City University of New York, publishes and lectures on ethnic and cultural issues, and is co-author of The Maria Paradox: How Latinas Can Merge Old World Traditions and New World Self-Esteem. Her media features include Today, Good Day New York, the BBC, the Miami Herald, the Los Angeles Times, El Diario, Latina, and more. Dr. Vazquez emi-grated at age sixteen from the Dominican Republicand is the mother of two grown sons. She and her husband live in New York City.
Read an Excerpt
Parenting with Pride Latino Style
How to Help Your Child Cherish Your Cultural Values and Succeed in Today's World
Chapter One
Parenting with Pride -- Latino Style:
The New O.R.G.U.L.L.O.
Select the number for each question below that best describes your personal attitude; then add all the numbers to calculate your total score.
5=Always 4=Frequently 3=Sometimes 2=Rarely 1=Never
- Do you find yourself at odds with the way your child is communicating with you?
- Do you find yourself saying to your daughter, "You are not going to do that because I say so"?
- Do you feel trapped between your parents or in-laws and your children in a no-win situation?
- Do you find yourself doing things for your children that non-Latino parents do not do and feeling bad about it? For example, chaperoning every party your daughter attends.
- Do you find yourself automatically saying and doing things your parents and grandparents did, although you feel you now know a better way?
- Do your children keep telling you, "You don't understand! You're too old-fashioned!"
- Do you feel it is your child who must understand your point of view, not the other way around?
- Are you often told by others that you demand too much obedience from your children?
Use the following scoring format for self-assessment, in this and the chapters that follow: if your total score is 30-40, you are a true tradicionalista who could face significant problems with your children; you need to increase your Nuevo Tradicionalismo skills.
If you score 20–30, you show signs of potential problems and could benefit greatly from learning the Parenting with Pride techniques.
If you score 10–20, you are already in great shape, but go ahead and read on to hone your skills even more.
~
Mercedes has just delivered her first baby, a boy whom she named Julio. Her mother-in-law, Juana, has come from their country to help out. But Mercedes, instead of being relieved, is feeling extra stressed since the older woman arrived. She does not want to be disrespectful, but Juana is trying her patience severely, believing, as do most women of her generation, that the baby must always wear socks and T-shirts, even in the middle of August. Juana also feels that Mercedes is acting unwisely by taking Julio outside after sunset, which will expose the baby to the rocio, the evening dew, which is an invitation to catching a resfrio, a cold.
Mercedes and Juana also disagree about whether or not to follow a feeding schedule, as the pediatrician advised. Juana insists that she saw eight healthy children through infancy without following any schedule other than the one dictated by the baby: that is, when the baby cries, he knows he is hungry. Following a regimented schedule is not what Juana sees as being best for the baby, regardless of what the doctor indicated.
The only action that Mercedes can take to avert a family crisis is count the hours until her mother-in-law goes home.
~
How can you take the bottle away from him?" demands Nina's mother, referring to one-and-a-half-year-old Pedrito. Even worse, the abuela (grandmother) thinks she is putting one over on her daugh-ter by continuing to give Pedrito the bottle behind Nina's back. Nina feels torn between what her mother considers the right thing to do and what her friends are doing with their babies.When confronted, the abuela defends her position by claiming that she brought up five children, including Nina, and never weaned any of them from their bottle at such an early age. In the abuela's world, a Latina mother who takes the bottle away from her child at eighteen months is being unkind to the child.
Old Ways versus New Ways
These examples illustrate how all Latino groups in the United States have brought with them traditions stemming from their country of origin.A Latino child's development often tends to be interpreted in terms of a particular history and culture that dates back many generations. These traditional values must be understood and respected -- but so must the contemporary settings in which Latino children are growing up today. Being Latino or Latina is really a state of mind, not necessarily based on the length of time a person or his or her family has lived in the United States. It includes membership in one's group, but also experiences associated with that membership. From this vantage point, to be a Latino or a Latina is a conscious (and at times unconscious) determination of who we want to be, what we esteem, and the importance we place on passing these values on to our children.
Many Latino parents and grandparents have expressed having dif- ficulty letting go of the "way things were." But when we are living in North America, clinging rigidly to these "time-honored" beliefs can cause friction between you and your child. Lack of cultural balance can stir up problems with discipline, communication, and the proper channeling of anger and sadness, all of which may affect your child's self-esteem. Latinos are very clear that they do not want to abandon the many wonderful aspects of traditional values, nor do they want their children to. But given modern times and the need to adapt to the culture of the United States, the best way to ensure that these values are accepted by our children is to make some adjustments in how we translate them in our daily lives.
How do we move beyond the ironclad authority of traditional rules and steer our children toward a more flexible meshing of old and new -- so that they can enjoy the best of what both worlds have to offer them? What follows is my redefinition of an Old World tradition-- los consejos, or words of wisdom. Through them, I share with you techniques I've used successfully with clients to broaden their cultural horizons and raise well-balanced kids. Providing insight on how to change with the times, los consejos not only give precise instructions for offering your children the guidance they need but also demonstrate El Nuevo Tradicionalismo in action: keeping your values, but recognizing when there must be an adjustment.
Parenting with Pride Latino StyleHow to Help Your Child Cherish Your Cultural Values and Succeed in Today's World. Copyright © by Carmen Vazquez. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | xi | |
| Part 1 | The New Traditionalism (El Nuevo Tradicionalismo) | |
| Chapter 1 | Parenting with Pride-Latino Style: The New O.R.G.U.L.L.O. | 3 |
| Chapter 2 | Raising Children Is a Two-Way Street: The New Respeto | 29 |
| Chapter 3 | Keeping the Peace: The New Familismo | 59 |
| Chapter 4 | Fostering Friendship: The New Simpatia | 85 |
| Chapter 5 | Setting Appropriate Limits: The New Obediencia | 111 |
| Part 2 | Common Child-Rearing Issues | |
| Chapter 6 | The World of the Preschooler: Instilling O.R.G.U.L.L.O. from Day One | 139 |
| Chapter 7 | An Integration of Cultures: The World from Kindergarten Through Junior High School | 171 |
| Chapter 8 | The Culturally Diverse Adolescent: Turn the Stormy Years into Smooth Sailing | 195 |
| Chapter 9 | When the Latino Child Needs Professional Help | 223 |
| References | 239 | |
| Recommended Resources | 253 | |
| Index | 259 |