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Do you want to have a calmer, happier child-raising
experience? Then you need to develop the habits of an effective parent. These
commonsense principles can transform your parenting from ineffective to less
stressful.
Here are the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Parents.
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| Image courtesy of photostock/FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
The first habit is to
know that the child raises the child. As a parent, you have a roll to
play—an important one—but you have to realize in the end, you are only guiding
and advising your child. You cannot make your child’s heart change. You cannot
make your child obey. You cannot make your child grow up to be whoever you
think he should become. This is why children from good homes can turn out
badly, while children from horrible homes can turn out well.
The second habit is
to realize there’s no magic bullet when it comes to consequences. The fact
of the matter is that as long as you do something on a consistent basis, it
doesn’t matter what the punishment is. For some kids, timeout works wonders, but
for others, timeout doesn’t. Parents often rush around doling out one
consequence after another in the hopes that one will “work” and correct a
child’s behavior. But the first habit points out the futility in that. We need
to do something, and keep doing something, but the “something” can change from
child to child or from misbehavior to misbehavior. Changing it up in discipline
keeps your kids on their toes, too.
The third habit is to
raise kids with family and community in mind. For whom are you raising your
kids? Yourself or others? Several generations ago, it was a given that children
were raised for others, not just for the family or parents. That understanding
meant that parents in the community looked out for each other’s kids, giving a
corrective word when needed and a pat on the back when deserved. Parents
drilled manners and respect for others so that their children knew how to
behave around neighbors, friends and the community at large. Children knew
their proper place in that community and thrived there.
The fourth habit is
to remember that child rearing is not any harder than other life experiences. Let’s
face it—we have become a nation of parenting wimps. It seems everyone is
engaged in a game of one-upmanship when it comes to parenting stories. Yes,
some stages of parenting is harder physically than others, while other times,
it’s mentally draining. But in reality, parenting seems harder because we make
it harder by over-scheduling, over-committing, overdoing it with our kids. It
doesn’t have to be like that, and we can take a step back and have simpler
lives that puts child-rearing in its proper place.
The fifth habit is to
have a full life outside of your children. When was the last time you had a
date with your husband that didn’t involve talking about your kids for the
whole time? When was the last time you picked up a hobby or did something only
for yourself? If we as parents don’t take the time to have a rich, full life
outside of caring for our children, we run the risk of losing ourselves. One
day, these precious ones will be grown and living their own lives—and that’s a
wonderful thing! When that day comes, don’t be the mom or dad with a totally
empty life.
The sixth habit is to
be the leaders, not the followers, in the family. Yes, your children want
to be in charge, but resist the urge and step up to the plate. Lead, and your
children will follow. Give directions clearly and concisely.
The seventh habit is
to enjoy your kids. When was the last time you laughed with your kids? Really
had a good time when out with the family? Parents who are effective enjoy
spending time with their children. Overall, they like having their kids around,
even if they are not doing something together. They find pleasure in surprising
their children. They don’t feel stressed all the time with raising kids—they actually
enjoy their children.
By following these 7 habits of highly effective parents, you
should have a relaxing, relatively calm child-rearing experience.
Until next time,
Sarah
Does raising children befuddle you? Are you overly concerned
with making mistakes in your parenting? Then you need to learn how to become an
ineffective parent. By incorporating these easy-to-implement habits into your
parenting repertoire, you will soon become more ineffective and more stressed
in child rearing.
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Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici/
FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
Here are the 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Parents.
The first habit is to
read about parenting more than practicing parenting. Make sure you consult one,
two or five dozen lengthy books on child rearing, but don’t apply what you
read. Make sure the books offer divergent views, so that you will have a broad
range of parenting axioms at your fingertips but not a clear way to implement
those ideas.
The second habit is
to chuck your commonsense out of the window. That’s right, child rearing is
so complicated, so unwieldy that you can’t possibly make heads or tails of it
on your own. Whenever your commonsense tells you do something relating to
parenting, ignore it and do nothing.
The third habit is to
remember that raising kids is for only for the child’s sake. Don’t think
about raising kids for the family or the community or the world at large. Only
focus on developing the child as an individual. That’s the best way to raise a
child.
The fourth habit is
to act as if raising kids is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. Let’s face
it, it’s harder than climbing Mount Everest, or planning
a military action or running the country. Whatever the task, raising kids is
harder. Whatever the event or moment or life experience, parenting is 10, 20 or
30 times harder. It’s hard, dirty, thankless work, period.
The fifth habit is to
spend all of your free time with your kids or doing something for your
children. Highly ineffective parents never have anytime to themselves,
because they are always serving their children’s needs by making sure the kids
are entertained and chauffeured to sports practice and school events.
The sixth habit is to
let your children be the decision makers in the family. Let your children
guide all the decisions, from meals to vacation spots. Don’t lead, but instead
follow them. Don’t presume to make choices for them, but instead allow them to
pick everything for the entire family.
The seventh habit is
to do everything, no matter how small, for your children. From homework to
tying their shoes, don’t let your children lift a finger for themselves. After
all, they are simply not capable of doing anything for themselves. Don’t assign
them chores—they’ve got enough on their plate with soccer practice, piano
lessons and schoolwork.
By following these 7 habits of highly ineffective parents,
your child rearing will become more stressful, more complicated and less fun
all around. But if for some strange reason, these habits aren’t quite what you
had in mind, tune in on Thursday when I will share the 7 Habits of Highly
Effective Parents.
Until next time,
Sarah
Having more than two kids these days can raise a lot of
eyebrows, as I’ve found out when mentioning our four kids. But what many people
fail to realize is the many benefits to siblings are to children. A January
2014 article in the Christian Science Monitor illustrates just one of those
advantages.
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Image courtesy of stockimages/
FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
“In large families, young kids can’t always get a lot of
individual attention from parents, but healthy interactions with an older
sibling might help compensate for that,” the article opens. A new study by
Canadian researchers found that when older siblings help and interact with
younger ones, it benefited both. The study’s authors admitted that more
research is needed to determine the full extent of the benefits, but the
findings of this limited data intrigued me.
Siblings are more than an annoyance to each other—they are
an integral part in how each child develops. For older siblings, schoolwork is
reinforced as they assist younger brothers or sisters to learn material they’ve
already covered in school. Reading
is strengthened as they read books to younger siblings. Leadership skills are
developed as they manage the play of multiple children of differing ages.
Having brothers and sisters can be a great advantage to your
kids, one that will be more of a positive than a negative. “Siblings really
play this very strong role in how kids come out,” said Jennifer Jenkins, the
study’s senior author. “I’d like people to think about those sibling
relationships a little bit more and then how to strengthen them.”
Until next time,
Sarah
“It’s like getting FREE windows
for a year!” So the flyer for a window company claimed, but of course, the
windows really aren’t free. You’re just delaying payment for a year and
incurring interest. After the year, you end up owing more than you would have
for the privilege of not paying for the windows for an entire year.
Aren’t we like that as parents? Don’t we push off until “tomorrow”
the pain of disciplining our children today? Don’t we more often opt to “pay”
at a later date rather than effectively deal with the mess right now?
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Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman/
FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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What does those delaying tactics get us? A gargantuan problem,
one that has grown to an unmanageable size, much like the payment due for
window purchased but not paid for an entire 12 months.
When we elect for expedient’s or convenience’s sake to let
the small discipline issues with our children slide, we set ourselves up for a
bigger headache down the road. When we decide that we’d rather have quiet than
correct, when we pick the here-and-now over the future, that’s how little
problems gain ground and become big, disruptive and, at times, nearly catastrophic.
Being consistent in our discipline takes time and effort and
energy—often the trio of things we have in short supply. Who has time to stop
and correct behavior while cooking dinner, washing clothes or talking with your
spouse? Who wants to put effort into staying on top of a chronic misbehavior?
Who has the energy to repeatedly train a toddler how to act around the cat?
The fact of the matter is, we need to take the time, we need
to put forth the effort, and we need to summon the energy to stay as consistent
as possible when disciplining our children. By doing so, we give them a safe
place to be themselves. We provide stability and love. We give them clear
boundaries that need less testing. Above all, we show them that dealing with
problems when they are small makes life now and in the future easier and better.
Sure, it’s not easy, and I fail all too often. But the best
thing you can do is to wake every morning, look at your lovely children, and
vow to take the time, effort and energy that day to paying attention to their
needs, correcting their behavior when necessary, and loving them no matter
what.
Until next time,
Sarah
Q. I find it close to
impossible to get my kids to bed on time. I’m a working mom of two kids ages
ten and eight. I get home around 5:30 p.m. and cook dinner. We finish eating between 6:45 p.m. and 7 p.m., then the kids finish their homework and chores. Often, the chores or
homework are not finished until 8 p.m., then there’s baths and bedtime routines to complete. It shouldn’t
take this long to get them into bed by 8:30 p.m., but I’m exhausted by the nagging and
staying on top of them. How do I get them to bed at a decent time?
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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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A. Who’s home with the kids after school? Are the kids at
home with a babysitter or are they in after-school daycare? Either place should
give them plenty of time to complete their homework before you pick them up or
get home. Tell them that the rule is that they must complete their usual
homework (excluding special projects) before you arrive home.
While you’re cooking dinner, the children should complete
any evening chores. At their ages, they should be doing the lion’s share of
cleaning, including setting/clearing the table and washing dishes. Immediately
after supper, they should finish any kitchen chores and then ready their
lunches/backpacks for the morning.
Finally, have them get in their jammies early and brush
their teeth. That will give them time to play, have stories and relax before
bedtime. Use a kitchen timer at first to help the children keep track of time.
Even though they can read a clock, they still have trouble figuring out how to
manage their time. A timer is better than a parent because the timer is
impersonal and more authoritative. Whatever’s not completed by bedtime stays
unfinished for the day—and yes, this includes homework!
Give your kids a few weeks to settle into these new
routines, and bedtimes should come more easily and you all will face them more
relaxed and rested.
Email Sarah if you have a parenting
question you would like to see answered on this blog.
Do we live in a
perfect world? Seems pretty obvious that we don’t, yet many of us parent as if
we reside in a place where everything is just so, no muss, no fuss. Our
children never make mistakes, our
homes look like something out of Martha Stewart Living all the time, our child rearing decisions are always right.
Only that’s not how
life goes. No one actually thinks like that, but—and you knew there would be a but—isn’t that exactly what we do
whenever something happens outside of our plan?
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Image courtesy of Clare Bloomefield/
FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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When things go wrong—as
they do on a daily, if not hourly, basis—instead of viewing the situation
through the lens of “This is how life is,” we often go into crazy mode,
scrambling to fix the problem without stopping to think whether it’s ours to
fix or not. This is not to say that every time something happens, we just shrug
and step over the mess on the floor, but it does mean we don’t act like every
misstep is the End Of The World As We Know It.
For example, your seventh
grader comes home with a failing grade on a major science test, and you treat
it as if it’s a major diplomatic snafu involving nuclear war heads by wailing
about his “throwing away his chances to get into an Ivy League university.” We
have become a nation of parents whose default is to treat every crisis with our
children as if it’s The Crisis To End All Crisis. What’s happened is that we’ve
trained ourselves to expect perfection, and anything that happens not according
to our own perfect plan, we slam into overdrive to fix it.
That sends a signal
to our children that perfection is all that matters, which is not what we
should be wanting from our kids. It’s not perfection that we’re after—it’s the
ability to pick yourself up, to brush yourself off and to start all over again
(with apologies to the 1936 song “Pick Yourself Up,” by Dorothy Fields/Jerome
Kern).
Perfection isn’t something
to be desired, although we should always try our best and expect the same from
our children. Perfection isn’t something to be held up as the be-all, end-all.
Perfection isn’t a way of life; it’s a way to make life miserable for all.
As your children
live and grow and make mistakes and have successes, you will find that the
elusive perfection you thought you wanted isn’t as important as the smudgy
kisses after a day making mud pies. Or the blistered hands of a kindergartner
determined to swing on the monkey bars. Or the C on a math test that stretched
a fourth-grader’s brain. Or the third-tier college choice of a high school
senior.
Our kids will
surprise us with what they can do and what they will achieve if we only let go
of perfection and embrace the wonderful, messy, joyous, and difficultness of
reality.
Until next time,
Sarah
Q. I have three children under the age of 6. I work full
time and have a husband who travel frequently. And I yell at my kids a lot—by a
lot, I mean almost every day. I don’t want to be this crazy person who screams
at her kids, but I don’t know how to stop. Help me please!
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Image courtesy of stockimages/
FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
A. We’ve all been there. Anyone who says they never yell at
their kids isn’t being totally honest. So rest assured, it’s perfectly normal
to yell sometimes. Your plate seems full to overflowing right now with a
full-time job, a husband out of town a lot, and three small children. Here are
some suggestions for lowering the stress level and helping you to work calm
responses into your parenting day.
First, scale back on any extras, such as music lessons,
sports activities, etc. Just step back for now to give you some breathing time.
Commit to doing nothing extra for six months and re-evaluate then.
Second, hire a Mommy’s helper to assist with evenings or
Saturdays when your husband is away. Having an extra pair of hands around while
you cook dinner or do laundry will help those weeks you’re essentially a single
parent.
Third, give yourself permission to let things slide,
including housework. Don’t beat yourself up if the dust bunnies proliferate
under the couch for a few months. You’re your kids chores to do and then don’t
sweat the less-than-pristine house.
Fourth, look for ways to reduce your workload. Double your
recipes to use twice in one week to cut down on kitchen time. Perhaps a friend would
be interested in swapping meals to give some variety. Do laundry only every
other week.
Fifth, pinpoint your trigger moments. Is it the witching
hour before dinner? The before-bedtime crazies? If you can find a pattern to
your stress points, you can usually figure out how to counter those before you
get to the yelling stage.
Sixth, use timers to help the kids get things accomplished,
which should cut down on your yelling at them to get ready for bed. That
usually works pretty well for youngsters.
Finally, remember that sometimes, you just have to let
things go and tackle them tomorrow or the next day or the weekend. Life is more
about doing stuff, and having a calmer mommy is what’s best for your kids.
Email Sarah if you have a parenting
question you would like to see answered on this blog.
It’s a strange to think that obedience can bring about
happiness, but for children, that’s the case. The most obedient children are
also, not coincidentally, the happiest children, the more content children, the
more relaxed children. That’s not to say that said children are obedient all of the time—that would be
unrealistic. But it does mean that most of the time, these children are obeying
their parents.
Disobedient children are, in a word, brats. Spoiled,
unhappy, demanding and insolent brats. They do what they want, when they want
it—and still, they are not happy. They are rudderless upon the sea of
discontentment. They are the victims of their own whims. They are miserable and
go through life making everyone around them just as wretched as they are.
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Image courtesy of stockimages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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Why are obedient children happier than their non-obedient
peers? For the simple reason that they know what to expect and don’t have to
spend untold time and energy ferreting out the boundaries of their world. Their
parents say what they mean and mean what they say, which takes a lot of the
guesswork out of right and wrong for their kids.
Obedient children also know they are loved, that their
parents care enough to correct wayward behavior (although the kids wouldn’t
express it quite like that). Obedient children rest easier, knowing that they
are not in charge of the family—that their parents are doing the heavy lifting
and making the tough decisions. Obedient children are serving their Heavenly
Father in a way that is pleasing to Him.
By teaching our children obedience, we are giving them a
valuable gift, one that God requires of us as parents to bestow upon our
offspring. If children are commanded to obey their parents in the Lord, then the
flip side is applicable—that we as parents are to expect such obedience from
our children and to train them to respect and obey us, and ultimately, God.
 Yes, teaching and expecting obedience takes effort. It takes
energy and vigilance and discipline and, at times, tough love. It takes
patience and prayer and perseverance and grace and mercy. By making obedience
part of our goal as parents—not the end goal in and of itself, but as part of our
overall parenting philosophy—we are doing our children a great service and
leading them closer to the kingdom of God.
Until next time,
Sarah
Here in Northern Virginia, we are experiencing yet again a "snow event," of which the weather people have surely dubbed something super cute and not-at-all accurate. Usually, such happenings trigger bouts of frenzy among parents, who somehow think it's their problem to entertain their children. (Hint, it's not!).
So unplug the screens and turn on the fun! To help keep the noise level to an acceptable level, here are five ideas for your kids to do on their own...most will involve their imaginations (which might need a jumpstart if they've been spending time on screen-based entertainment) and all should provide ways for them to work together to entertain themselves, leaving you to sip a hot beverage and relax with your own book on this snowy day.
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Image courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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1. Lights, Camera, Action! All kids love to show off--there must be a bit of the actor in us all. Have your kids write a one act play, practice it (with costumes, of course!), and then perform it in front of an audience (yes, that's you, but it's only a short time compared with the hours they'll spend coming up with the script and performance).
Jumpstart idea: Have them write the play based on a movie or book they've seen or read, instead of coming up with an original tale.
2. Read along. Have kids take turns reading from a favorite book. Make hot chocolate, encourage blankets and stuffed animals, and let them have the joy of sharing a good book.
Jumpstart idea: Read the first chapter or few pages aloud for them, and then hand it over to the kids to finish up.
3. Olympic Games. Your kids can have their own game marathon by playing board or card games. Have a round robin type of elimination. Or put out a few games, set a kitchen timer for half an hour, and have the kids rotate through the games.
Jumpstart idea: You can suggest which games would be good for all ages involved, and then step back to let them play.
4. Hide-and-Seek Hunt. The kids can modify hide-and-seek by taking turns hiding a stuffed animal, figurine or other small object. One kid hides the object while the others count. Variations: hiding a series of objects (large to small stuffed animals, for example) and playing a theme-based version (hiding a variety of cat stuffed animals, barnyard animals, action figures, etc.)
Jumpstart idea: You hide the object for the first time.
5. It's Their Party! Have them plan and enjoy their own Snow Day Party. They can make invitations, decide on indoor games (pin the nose on the snowman, drop cotton balls into a mason jar while leaning over the back of a straight-backed chair, etc.), devise party favors and make small treats ( ice cream snow, snowman cookies, snow cones with real snow). Then throw the party and have fun!
Jumpstart idea: Give them a bit of help to start the ball rolling with game ideas.
Remember, imaginations keep kids entertained and happy longer than using electronic devices. Plus, you will be amazed at how creative they can be on their own.
Until next time,
Sarah
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