ARE YOU A GOOD PARENT?  TWELVE WAYS TO BE ONE 

            By the guidelines below, see if you can do better than your parents, better than you did last year, and if you’re a grandparent, better than you did as a parent.  If I leave out some of your favorite principles, please send them to me at drpaulschmidt@earthlink.net. 

            1.  Love is not effective without discipline, and neither is discipline without love.  Love to be effective must include gentle touch, enjoying time together, smiles, and words of praise and affection.

            2.  Every family member needs privacy, the freedom to be his own person, and to be allowed to feel and express her own feelings.  Excessive expressions of painful feelings should be done in time out.

            3.  Parents should put the children’s needs ahead of their own, until they are old enough to take care of themselves.      

            4.  Parents should not put a child’s wishes or demands ahead of what that child needs, or for that matter, what the marriage needs.

            5.  Discipline should teach the lessons of life by portraying the realistic consequences of life.  For example, discipline should show that it pays to be honest, polite, kind, patient, hard-working, educated, a team player, and close to family, friends, God and nature.

            6.  Children need to learn basic life skills, such as to work hard, play hardy, relax, follow directions, respect authority, worship, share, entertain themselves, comfort themselves, and take good care of their bodies and the environment.  They need to do all these things first from watching their parents, and then be expected to do them on their own.  “Do as I say and not as I do” just doesn’t do.

            7.  It hurts children for parents to take away as punishment an activity they need for their well-being.  Children also learn more from losing the privilege they have abused than one they haven’t. 

            8.  Parents need to present a united front, not allowing children to divide them, or play one against the other.  Whether married or divorced, one parent should not criticize or disagree with the other parent in front of the child.  Otherwise, the authority of both parents is undermined.

            9.  A parent should not deflate a child’s self-esteem or self-confidence by criticizing, spanking, or punishing a child in front of another child, or when the parent is angry.

            10.  Praise, encouragement, instruction, reasoning, and setting the example for a behavior works far better than criticizing and punishing a child for not doing it, or for not doing it right.

            11.  Rewards, punishments, privileges, and expected levels of mature behavior should be tailored to each person’s personality, age, judgment and ability.  But basic rules need to be applied to all family members (even parents should tell the truth, apologize for mistakes, and learn to laugh at themselves).

            12.  Nothing affects a child’s self-worth or self-confidence like the amount of positive time spent with both parents.  Children ages 5-8 and 12-15 especially need good times with the same-sexed parent.

PARENTING REBELLIOUS TEENS

                Sixteen-year-olds look completely different from the way they looked at twelve.  Even more striking is the difference in their personalities.  Parental influence has declined by roughly half, due to more influences from peers, media, hormones, boyfriend/girlfriend, and the huge internal need to feel grown-up by acting different from you.

            Yet parents do not adjust their expectations so much.  They still expect similar compliance with similar rules compared to what worked at age 12.  And these parents who expect obedience are very frustrated with their 16-year-olds, which only adds to the teens’ motivation to rebel.

            So with rebellious teens, there’s a power struggle—both of you want to lead.  So let them win these battles, and you win the war.  You win the war by choosing the lessons to teach (honesty, courtesy, health, safety, responsibility, respect for authority, impulse control, emotional health, studying in school, etc.).

            They win the battles by choosing how they learn.  You choose the intended destination, and they choose which road they take to get there.  Be sure your language reflects that you are following their lead, giving them exactly what their behavior has asked for.

            They can learn the easy way or the hard way, now or later, from reward or punishment, from their successes or their failures, from others’ experiences or just from their own, they choose.  They know how they can learn best—honestly, they do.

            Try this:  “If you’re ready to (go out with [person], go to [event], stay out until [time], talk on the phone with [person],etc.), you’ll show me ahead of time by the way you (communicate with me, make your curfews this week, let me get to know [person], check in with me by phone this week, etc.). 

            When a privilege isn’t earned, and you need to say no, don’t say, “I told you” or “I warned you”, but merely “If it meant that much to you, you would have showed me you were ready.”  And here’s the key—believe it.

            Otherwise they’ll see the worry and guilt on your face, and keep turning up the protest volume until you crack.  As they wail, you calmly say, “I know you’re mad at yourself.  I would be too.  That’s what you learn from.  Your actions this week speak louder than your words right now.”

            In this approach, last minute requests are a problem.  In general they should be handled on how the teen’s recent behavior has showed his or her trustworthiness on the issues involved, not on the intensity of their demands, or if they could have foreseen it, on the urgency of the situation.

            When they’re angry and you’re calm, the stress is where it belongs, motivating your child’s behavior change.  Your job is not to calm them down, or to be liked, just to earn their respect and your own, and to give them the motivation they have chosen to pursue the goal you have chosen.