Guest Author No. 1 - Mr. Glenn Heap
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| “Only people who die very young learn all they really need to know in kindergarten." Wendy Kaminer (1949 - ) |
Rather than simply saying no all the time, we may want to consider saying yes to what we can allow.
This will be an appropriate place to follow up, in a practical sense, on last week’s article since I suggested loving parents should persuade children to make good choices but not all parents know how to do that with their children.
Back to the story of Danny and the tooth brushing; let’s give Danny some alternatives to choose from.
As Danny’s mother I can take him to the store and say “I am going to let you pick any toothbrush you want and I will even pick one for me”.
Mention that Danny can also pick out any toothpaste he wants.
Then go home and have fun brushing your teeth together to model this positive behavior. Show him how fun it is, and how great it is to have clean teeth and fresh breath.
In this way Danny can experience the positive consequences of healthy behaviors.
This is the process of parental convincing.
Notice that I’m not threatening or attacking, no name calling, I haven’t even taken any privileges away (As of yet). I do reserve that right, and that is certainly in my arsenal but I want to avoid that for now.
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Parents, start with less. Try the least invasive and least punitive options first.
For a moving violation would you like it when the officer asked to see your driver’s license he also had a gun in your face?
Don’t do that, hypothetically speaking, to your child.
The easiest fixes are the best because they do the least damage to our parent-child relationship while still enforcing what we as parents need to enforce.
Parents can identify with the child’s perception or wishes.
We can say “Sometime’s I don’t feel like brushing my teeth either but let me show you some pictures on the internet of some people who didn’t brush their teeth and now have a hard time eating (This is showing them the consequences of their actions and why we need to brush our teeth).
This is not so much about them (our children) obeying you (the parents) as much as it is about teaching your children true principles to live by.
Maybe when a child asks if they can rent an M rated video game, instead of simply saying no, we could say, “I will rent you a video game as long as it is rated E (or T, or whatever you as the parent thinks is appropriate for your child’s circumstances).
Perhaps when shopping for a dress with a teenage daughter, parents can set the limits in advance and then stick to them, even when the daughter decides to test them.
We can set a dollar limit as well as a length of skirt limit.
We may say $40 or less and no shorter than 2 inches above the knees (or whatever the parents think is appropriate).
When our daughter brings us a $60 skirt that’s 6 inches above the knees we need to remind her of the limits we had set.
She may pull out all the stops, and tell us that everyone else’s daughter has expensive short skirts.
If our rules are fair and reasonable, we parents can stand our ground firmly, fairly and tenderly.
There is a lot more parenting wisdom to share. Please be on the lookout for next week’s third installment of our Guest Author series with our friend Mr. Glenn Heap as we gain yet additional insights into how to be the best parents that we can possibly be at any time, for any reason, over and over again.
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