What are you role modeling to your children regarding drugs and alcohol? Do they see you use? Are you permissive? Do you supply you underage child with drugs or alcohol. Are your children accessing your prescription medications and you don’t even know it? Do you give your children your prescription medication?
You can’t teach by “do as I say, not as I do.” It doesn’t work. Watch this brief video.
Are you frustrated beyond belief and ready to give up?
Well, welcome to the “Parenting Club.” We’ve all been there. You have to learn to use rewards rather than punishments. Take-aways don’t work. Consider this, if we take away all of your life enjoyment, are you going to want to work harder?
Watch this video and then call me to talk further about what you can do differently.
Remember to use positive language and tonality when talking about your youngster going to school.
Take a tour of the school if possible. Your child may have anxiety about going to a new place for the first time. Ease that anxiety by taking a quick tour so that day 1 isn’t the first time he or she enters the building.
Dial your own nervousness down a notch. If you relax, your child may relax.
Use a “buddy system.” Pair up with another child friendly to your child so that he or she has someone to pal around with on the first day.
Encourage and/or rehearse making new friends. Rehearsal is irreplaceable.
Parenting isn’t easy. We don’t get a manual. It’s the ultimate in “on-the-job-training.”
Here’s a little something for you to think about. One of our primary objectives is to raise children who become fully functioning and competent adults. Decision making is important in this objective. Therefore, we must think about allowing our children to make decisions for themselves. If we make all of their decisions, how will they know that they can trust themselves to make them when it’s crunch time?
As I’ve said previously, parenting isn’t necessarily easy. We often don’t know what to do or say. Simply doing what our parents did isn’t the best course of action. However, it’s often the only option.
As a rule, we let our kids off the hook too easily and too often. We fail to hold them Accountable for their actions and/or behavior. Lack of accountability leads to:
Irresponsibility
Immaturity
Legal trouble
Academic trouble
ETC, etc, etc
You need to hold your kids accountable for their actions. You don’t do them any favors if you let them off the hook. With letting them off the hook, you unknowingly teach them to expect that they will be off the hook for their lifetime. Listen closely… the rest of us out here in the world don’t love your child like you do. We WON’T let him/her off the hook. We won’t put up with the behavior that you put up with.
You want to raise a competent child capable of making it in the world. Letting him off the hook stunts his growth and development and makes him incompetent. Make your child Accountable.
Remember the old rhyme from childhood: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me?” Bunk!
Names do hurt. That inspirational rhyme is flat out wrong. Loving parents and dutiful school folk told us this in an attempt to help us cope with and ignore name calling from fellow students. It didn’t work. Did it?
Names can cause a life time of harm. They are just as bad or worse as physical Bullying. Be an agent for change in your home and school. Stop the violence.
When we think of Bullying don’t we usually tend to think of it happening at the hand of and to boys? Well I do. Of course, I admit that I’m skewed due to having been a boy, not a girl.
In a 2009 article in “Medscape Medical News,” author Janis Kelly indicated that Bullying may have much more severe long term effects for girls than boys. Don’t be mislead, Bullying has long term effects for boys as well. In fact, the frequency is more for boys than girls, as I would have predicted. Boys are more likely to suffer a wide range of psychiatric disorders as a result of Bullying. But girls are likely to suffer longer term problems.
Dr. Andre Sourander of Turku University in Finland states, “Bullying is not just part of growing up. When it is frequent, it should be considered interpersonal violence. Unfortunately, the negative effects of being frequently Bullied
takes place over the internet through chat, email and text messaging.
What you need to do:
Become aware of technology: texting (text messaging), email, chat, IM.
Does your child look upset or disturbed upon receiving a text messaging?
Have you heard of “Sexting?” It’s happening. Kids are sending questionable pictures via text messaging. Your ignorance of this technology places your child at greater risk.
Are you seeing mood changes while or after using the computer?
Pay attention. Ask questions. Get up to date on technology.
Bullying is Terrorism.Think about it. Our modern term for an “intentional and persistent series of acts directed toward a person designed to hurt or cause damage,” is Terrorism.
We don’t put up with it on a societal level. Why are we accepting this on a child/teen level? Obviously, we should NOT be accepting it.
Parents and school personnel all too often accept Bullying as a normal part of growing up. Really? We also shouldn’t tell children to “put up with it, deal with it, or ignore it.” These strategies don’t work.
And parents, let’s wake up. The school can’t protect your child. If they could, the Bullying
wouldn’t have occurred in the first place. I recommend the following:
Parent to parent involvement.
Parent to school involvement.
Pursue, pursue and pursue the school (if this is where the Bullying occurs). A one time conversation probably won’t solve the problem.
Give your child permission and tools to defend himself/herself. The world will push any of us around if we let it. Teach your child to stand up for himself. This isn’t a popular recommendation. But, get your head out of your you know what and recognize that we ALL need to stand up for ourselves. This is a life skill that your child will appreciate on many levels for many years. I haven’t been specific here. Read into it what you wish.
Most importantly, Bullying should not be normal, or part of childhood. It only exists because we all allow it to exist. And if you are a bystander and fail to intervene, you’re guilty.
Parents do the best they can with the resources that they have.
This being said, too many parents know that they need to apply consequences, but have no clue how to do it. When parents and children come to see me I regularly hear, “we’ve taken everything away… it still isn’t getting better… we don’t know what to do.”
Taking away all life’s pleasure doesn’t generally make people want to work harder. It makes them angry. You need to apply reasonable consequences. I prefer teaching children to earn things rather than taking away when they mess up.
Look for a more in-depth explanation and “how-to” application in my upcoming parenting program.