Welcome to MaryLynne’s musings on the art of successful parenting.  So many parents today feel frustrated and tired over the issue of disciplining their children.  You have the best of intentions for your children and yet, there are times when a child’s passive aggressive behaviors and anger simply don’t respond to your parenting style.  That’s where I come in…

 

      “Many people operate under the assumption that since

      parenting is a natural adult function, we should instinct-

      ively know how to do it—and do it well.  The truth is,

      effective parenting requires study and practice like any

      other skilled profession.  Who would ever consider turning

      an untrained surgeon loose in the operating room?  Yet,

      we ‘operate’ on our children every day.” Louis Hart, 1987

 

My focus here is to provide you with Parent Survival Techniques for the 21st Century; to upgrade your parenting skills so you can act like a super nanny in your own home (What a concept!).  Can you imagine it?

 

Children are different today and don’t seem to respond to “traditional” parenting techniques like we did when we were young.  Then, to make matters worse, your family is either going through the emotional turmoil of a divorce, or you’ve already gone through it.  In either case, children are always affected by these changes.  The degree to which they are affected may depend on your behavior as parents.

 

We live in a fast paced world today, very different from the one in which our parents grew up in.  Children are constantly bombarded with television, DVDs, game boys and other electronic toys.  Families don’t always spend quality time together because of the over scheduling of activities outside the home and school.

 

Many of us as parents continue to use the same parenting skills and styles we learned from our parents, even though we may have disagreed with them as children (think about it; what are you doing today you didn’t like when your parents did it to you?  Scary, isn’t it?).

 

What many parents don’t realize is that today’s children are different; they act and respond differently to traditional rules and regulations.

 

So, what’s different about children today?

  1. They see the world differently than we do and respond differently.  They have so much more sex and violence available to them to see; they can be seen as apathetic.

 

  1. They have a sense of entitlement; the world owes them, even if they haven’t done anything special to deserve it.

 

  1. They do not respond well to authoritarian control, especially when there are no explanations or choices given to them.  They will do so much better if you give them choices instead or orders.  For example, instead of telling a child, “Clean your room and do it now!”, you might want to consider this:

 

“Your room needs to be cleaned today so when do you want to schedule doing it; this morning or after lunch?

So you’re going to do it after lunch.  Great!  I hope you’re done by dinner so you can join us.  Let me know when your ready to have me check your room.”  Then, you simply walk away and do NOT say another word!  If you do, you lose a point, for your kid is in charge of the conversation instead of you.

 

  1. They want to be treated with respect.  Do you talk to your children the same way you talk to your friends and neighbors?  If not, you might want to think about it.  They will be as respectful to you as you are to them.

 

They’re more intuitive and have more sensitivity than their parents.  Consequently, they can read us like a book.  They know when we’re lying or conning them.  This can be frustrating for parents who may not even be aware of their feelings.  Or worse yet, if you as a parent aren’t very emotional, your child may be very emotionally expressive.  If this is true, hang on tight, your child is actually doing better when verbally expressing his or her feelings than keeping quiet.  How he or she expresses the feelings may be a different story and a topic for another day.