Few things are more important
in life than raising children. Yet, most people receive no
formal parent training or education. In large measure, parenting skills
are developed by watching how our own parents dealt with us and our
brothers and sisters. When we have relaxed and effective parents,
our parenting skills tend to work. When our parents were less than
skilled in dealing with children, we tend to have difficulty dealing
with our own children.
Although parenting can be tremendously rewarding, it is often filled
with heartache, confusion and pain. This little list is a crash course
in superior parenting skills. If you follow the principles outlined
here you will notice a marked increase in your effectiveness with
your child, along with a more positive and fulfilling relationship.
No one can follow all of the suggestions listed. Choose the ones appropriate
to your situation. These "best things you can do for your child"
have been gathered over years of clinical experience with both "difficult"
and "not-so-difficult" children and teenagers.
Remember What It Is Like To Be A Child
- Remember what it is like to be a child (the good and
the bad). Remember how you felt when you were their age. This
will help you relate to their worries and concerns.
- Remember how it felt when your mom or dad were too busy for
you.
- Remember what it felt like to tell a lie and how you wish your
parents would have reacted when they found out.
- Remember how you felt when your parents fought with each other
(do you fight in the same way with your spouse?)
- Remember how it felt when your mom or dad took you someplace
special.
- Remember meal times when you were a child. Were they a positive
experience (and why) or were they a negative experience (and why)?
- Remember how you felt at bed time.
- Remember the first time you asked someone out on a date, or
were asked out, and the intense anxiety that goes along with dating.
- Remember your sexual feelings and experiences as a child and
teenager.
- Remember the worst teachers you had, so that you can relate
to them when they complain about school.
- Remember the best teachers you had, so that you can tell your
children how good school can be.
Develop Clear Goals For Yourself As A Parent And For Your Child
- Develop clear, written goals for raising your children. Goals
which spell out the kind of person you'd like them to become.
Then review the goals every month to see if your behavior is encouraging
what you want. In all of my interactions with my children I try
to ask myself if my actions encourage the behaviors I want.
Goals For Yourself As A Parent (the overall goal is to be a competent
and positive force in the child's life)
- Be involved with your child. Ensure you have enough time with
them so that you can influence their direction.
- Be open with your child. Talk with them in such a way that will
help them talk to you when they need to.
- Be firm/set limits. Provide appropriate supervision and limits
until they develop their own moral/internal controls.
- Be together with their other parent in dealing with the child.
Whether married or divorced, it is best when parents support each
other in their interactions with a child.
- Be kind. Raise your children in such a way so that they will
want to come and see you after they leave home. Being a parent
is also a selfish job.
- Be fun. Joke, clown and play with your kids. Having fun is essential
to both physical and emotional health.
Develop Clear Goals For Your Child (the overall goal is to enhance
development)
- Be relational. We live in a relational world. It is imperative
that I teach my child how to get along with others.
- Be responsible. My child needs to believe and act as if he or
she has some control over his or her life; that when bad things
happen it is not always someone else's fault. Otherwise, he or
she will act like a victim and have no personal power in life.
- Be independent. I will allow my child to have some choices over
his or her own life. This will enable the child to be able to
make good decisions on his or her own.
- Be self-confident. I will encourage my child to be involved
with different activities where he or she can feel a sense of
competence. Self-confidence often comes from our ability to be
able to master tasks and sports.
- Be self-accepting. I will notice more positive than negative
in my child. This will enable my child to be able to accept him
or herself.
- Be adaptable. I will expose my child to different situations
so that he or she will be flexible enough to deal with the various
stresses that will come life's way.
- Be emotionally healthy. I will allow my child the ability to
express him or herself in an accepting environment. I will also
seek help for my child if he or she shows prolonged symptoms of
emotional trouble.
- Be fun. I will teach my child how to have fun and how to laugh.
- Be focused. Help children develop clear goals for themselves,
both short term and long term.
Authority Is Essential
- Being firm with your child is NOT the same as being mean.
- Your child will respect you more if you believe you are supposed
to be the authority in the relationship.
- The 60s generation lost the concept that authority is a good
thing. Authority is essential to maintaining order and structure
in a family.
- Establishing authority (in a kind way) with a child enhances
creativity. The boundaries are known and the child does not have
to continually test them, leaving energy for more productive activities.
- Establishing authority (in a kind way) with a child will help
them deal with authority as an adult.
- Mean what you say. Don't allow guilt to cause you to back down
on what you know is right.
Your Relationship With Your Child Is The Key To Success
- Your personal relationship with your child matters to their
emotional well being! Many parents underestimate their influence
over a child. With a good relationship, the child will come to
you when they need to. When there is a bad relationship, the child
will seek out others (such as peers) for counsel.
- With a good parent-child relationship almost any form of discipline
will work. With a poor parent-child relationship almost any form
of discipline won't work.
- Respect your child. Treat them at home as you would in front
of others. This also teaches children to be authentic with others.
- Spend some "special time" with your child each day,
doing what they want to do. 15 to 20 minutes a day of "special
time" will strengthen the bond between you and your child
and make a dramatic difference in the quality of your relationship.
Being available to the child will help him or her feel important
and enhance his or her self esteem.
- Be a good listener. Find out what the child thinks before you
tell him or her what you think.
- Get down on their level when you talk with a child.
- Speak softly to children. They're much more likely to hear you.
- Avoid yelling at children. How do you feel when someone yells
at you? When someone yells at me I cannot hear what they are saying
and I get mad. Children are no different.
- Keep promises to children.
- Children learn about relationships from watching how their parents
relate to each other. Are you setting a good example?
A Loving, Helpful Environment
- Tell a child you love him or her everyday.
- Touch a child everyday.
- Establish eye contact with a child everyday and inquire about
their day.
- Take the time to hug a child whenever they climb into your lap
(or into your space).
- Listen to their music to hear what information is being fed
into their mind.
- Limit TV and video games. These are often "no-brain"
activities and of little help for children.
- Don't allow kids to watch too much of the news. It'll scare
them and increase their internal sense of anxiety.
- Rituals (bed time, meal time, holidays, etc.) provide continuity,
structure and stability for children.
- Introduce children to a multitude of experiences, even if they
are hesitant.
- Play games with your kids. Recreation is essential to a balanced,
happy life.
Clear Expectations
- Be clear with what you expect with a child or teen. It is effective
for families to have posted rules, spelling out the "laws"
and values of the family. Here are 8 examples:
- TELL THE TRUTH
- TREAT EACH OTHER WITH RESPECT
- NO ARGUING WITH PARENTS
- RESPECT EACH OTHER'S PROPERTY
- DO WHAT MOM AND DAD SAY THE FIRST TIME
(without complaining or throwing a fit)
- ASK PERMISSION BEFORE YOU GO ANYWHERE
- PUT THINGS AWAY THAT YOU TAKE OUT
- LOOK FOR WAYS TO BE KIND AND HELPFUL TO EACH
OTHER
Notice What You Like A Lot More Than What
You Don't Like
- When a child lives up to the rules and expectations, be sure
to notice him or her. If you never reinforce good behavior you're
unlikely to get much of it.
- Notice the behaviors you like in your child 10 times more than
the behaviors you don't like. This teaches them to notice what
they like about themselves rather than to grow up with a critical
self-image.
- Praise and encouragement enhance good behavior and teach children
new skills. Anger and punishment suppress difficult behavior but
do not teach children anything good in the long run.
- Praise and encouragement strengthens the parent-child bond.
Anger erodes the parent-child bond.
Discipline
- Do not tell a child to do something 10 times. Expect a child
to comply the first time! Be ready to back up your words.
- Never discipline a child when you're out of control. Take a
time out before you lose your cool.
- Use discipline to teach a child rather than to punish or get
even for bad behavior.
- See misbehavior as a problem you're going to solve rather than
"the child is just trying to make you mad."
- It's important to have swift, clear consequences for broken
rules, enforced in a "matter of fact" and unemotional
way. Nagging and yelling are extremely destructive and ineffective.
In parenting, always remember the words "firm and kind."
One parent used the phrase, "tough as nails and kind as a
lamb." Try to balance them at the same time.
- When the child is stuck in negative behavior, try to distract
them and come back to the issue later.
- Deal with lying and stealing immediately.
- Do not back away from dealing with difficult situations with
your teenagers (sex, drugs, disrespect). Deal with them in a kind,
firm way!
- Many parents ask me about whether or not spanking a child is
helpful. I tell them that spanking is never the issue. The issue
is the quality of your relationship with the child and your ability
to be firm and kind with them. With a good relationship between
a parent and a child almost any form of discipline seems to work.
When the parents and child have a poor relationship most forms
of discipline do not work.
Choices
- Give a child choices between alternatives, rather than dictating
what they'll do, eat or wear. If you make all the decisions for
your child he or she will be unable to make their own decisions
later on.
- Before you tell a child what you think about a decision in his
life, ask him to tell you what's on his mind.
- Encourage a child to make independent decisions, based on the
knowledge he or she has, rather than on what friends might say
or do.
Supervision
- Supervise a child's school experience. Get to know the teacher.
Be an active part of the class. Sometimes parents are the last
people to know things are going wrong. Being involved will help
keep your child on track.
- Know where your child or teen is at all times. Tell your child
that you want to know who they are with, what they are doing and
what time they'll be home. Let him or her know that you are going
to periodically check. Initially they'll complain about your intrusion,
but in the long run they will appreciate your caring and concern.
- Trust is based on past experience. Let your children know that
their level of freedom is based on how trustworthy they show themselves
to be.
- Spend time with your child's friends (even if they turn you
off), to know the kind of influence that your child is exposed
to.
- Parental Support
- Parents need to be together and support each other.
- When children are allowed to split parental authority they have
far more power than is good for them.
- Parents need time for themselves. Parents who are drained do
not have much left that is good for their children.
- The best thing you can do for your children is to love your
spouse.
Self-Esteem
- Children live up to the labels we give them. Be careful of the
nicknames and phrases you use to describe your children.
- A child's self-esteem is more important than the quality of
his or her homework.
- Help children to have islands of competence in areas of interest
to them (sports, music, etc.). Self-esteem is often based on a
person's ability to feel competent.
Teaching Children
- A significant way in which children learn values is by watching
the behavior of their parents. Teach children values with your
behavior.
- Teach children from your own real life experiences.
- Teach your children about sex and drugs. Don't leave the responsibility
up to the school! Things are different now then when you and I
were growing up.
- Help children learn from their mistakes. Don't berate or belittle
them, otherwise they will do that to themselves when they're less
than perfect.
- Have only good food in the house to eat, so that children will
learn how to eat in ways that'll help them be healthy.
- Exercise with a child. Help them make exercise a routine in
their lives.
Teach children about a kind, caring, loving, forgiving God.
- Teach children that there is a beginning and an end to life.
- Teach children to predict the best things for themselves.
- Don't allow a child to blame others for how his or her life
is turning out.
- Teach children the power of delegation.
- Teach children to send Thank You notes.
- Teach your child organization skills to make their life easier.
(This may mean making them keep the bedroom organized, even when
he or she may not be naturally inclined that way.)
- Read to children (or have them read to you) often.
- Teach kids to type.
- Teach children new technology (computers, etc.)
Work and Children
- Don't give them everything they ask for. Encourage them to work
for what they want.
- Work is good for children, doing everything for them is not.
Siblings
- Encourage and reward respect among siblings. Discipline inappropriate
or hostile behavior between siblings.
- 102. Some sibling rivalry is normal. Remember the story of the
first siblings in the Bible. It didn't turn out so well.
Friends and Peers
- Don't fight a child's battle with their friends or peers, but
be available as a consultant.
When There Are Problems
- Seek help for your child when there are problems. Don't sweep
them under the rug. Teach kids to talk about the things that aren't
working in their lives.
- Apologize to children when you make a mistake.
- Help children see past their disabilities and weaknesses.
Understand What's Normal
- Understand normal development (e.g., the terrible twos, independence
and identity in teens).
- When a teenager pulls away from you, pursue him or her with
kindness not anger.
- Don't tell an 18 year old what to do. They are likely to do
the opposite. Suggest alternatives, listen, help with options.
Be careful with your words. They're likely to be how I was and
say something like "I'm 18. I can do whatever I want."
Learn All You Can
- Effective parenting is a learned skill. Work to learn all you
can.
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