Archive for 'parenting mistakes'

Do Not Trivialize Your Mistakes

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If you want to make parenting a little bit easier, you need to learn to accept the fact that kids will always be kids. This means that kids are likely to do whatever they feel like doing, even when the outcome ends up not as good as it is supposed to. If you do not accept this fact, you will likely get easily angry or frustrated with your kids.

While it is true that dealing with your child’s mood swings and tantrums is not an easy task, there is something that you can do to somehow lighten up the situation – understand where you child is coming from every time he or she acts out. Perhaps your child is having a bad day or maybe he or he is just trying to get your attention.

One way of changing your child’s behavior for the better is to be consistent with your rules and discipline methods. If you made a rule that they are not allowed to watch TV past 8 in the evening during schooldays, always stick to that rule. It will help if you talk to your spouse about it, so that you will be both effective in disciplining your child and so that you both will know what to do.

It is very important that you understand where your child is coming from, which is why you need to spend time with them as often as possible. When you give your child the attention he or she needs, your child will be less likely to engage in outbursts in public. But if you do not spend time with your kids, they will do everything in their power to get your attention.

Spending time with your kids will also let you understand your child better. It will show you what exactly your child is going through. Spending time with your kids will help you help them solve their problems. Remember, almost every kid finds it hard to go through childhood and it is your job as a parent to help ease their burden.

Another way of changing your child’s behavior is by channeling your child’s energy into something good and more productive. Enroll your child to a summer class when there is no school or let him join a club in school. You need to encourage your child to have extracurricular activities so that he or she will have something to be proud of.

But the best way to change your child’s attitude is to change yours first. Show your child what proper behavior is and what is not. If you start that change, your child will follow your lead and behave.

Do not trivialize your mistakes, especially when your kids are around. Set an example to your child in facing consequences. When you show your child that you yourself are responsible for your own actions, he or she will likely follow.

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Teaching Your Kids Honesty through Consequences

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When it comes to disciplining children, parents are usually faced with the dilemma of teaching their kids two important values: honesty and the importance of consequences.

Say for example you found out that your child broke the pots in your neighbor’s garden on purpose and for no apparent reason. Although your child confessed what he did, still you want to implement some punishment. What should you do then in order to administer consequences for this unacceptable behavior without discouraging your child to be honest or tell something like this in the future? Of course, the last thing that you want is to punish your child for telling the truth.

Actually, if this situation is handled the right way, it offers an opportunity to teach both lessons in a way that your child will surely remember until he grows old. Given the situation, the reward that you can give for your child’s honesty may be a little intangible, however it will be important in the long run. You should tell your child, with sincerity and warmth, that you are happy that he told you the truth about what happened and that you recognize the fact that it was indeed an act of courage.

You can tell him, “It makes me easier to trust you when you are brave enough to tell me the truth even when it is something very difficult to do.”

You have to acknowledge that the fact your child told you about that he did indicates that he knows he did something wrong. Let him know that by telling him, “I know you know that what you did was a bad thing to do, and I believe that you will not do it again.”

In order to let your child learn from what happened, you need to involve him in deciding what he should do to make amends with the neighbors. You can ask him, “What do you think should happen now?” Or you can tell him a simple thing like, “If someone broke your most favorite toy, what would you want them to do?” With proper guidance, your child will arrive at the realization that he needs to apologize and needs to replace what he broke.

You might need to use your own money to replace what he destroyed, but you should make it clear to him that he needs to figure something out in order to pay you back what you spent. Work out a plan – you can maybe agree that a portion of his allowance goes to a special container, or that you will give him extra household chores to earn additional money.

With clear and logical consequences, there is no need for angry lectures and spanking. Most importantly, your child will learn a memorable lesson about honesty and proper behavior in the process.

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Do You Make These Common Parenting Mistakes?

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As parents, we all understand the trials of parenting. Mistakes are common; indeed, they are part of the territory. The process of learning to be a parent is difficult, and our first child is always the trial by fire. The second child is almost never as much like the first as we expect, and we learn rapidly that what works with one child doesn’t necessarily work with another.

Even the third and successive children present new problems, frequently revolving around the idea of fairness: the rules for one child should, after all, be the same as the rules for another. Sometimes this can be difficult, and parenting mistakes occur as a result. But how do you fix them – or, even better, avoid them?

One of the most common parenting mistakes is to think that your child doesn’t understand the situation, so it’s not important to be fair. Children have long memories; whenever a situation is important to them, for whatever reason, they will recall that situation for many years to come… potentially into adulthood. Even though your child cannot process and interpret your actions today, those actions may very well be remembered later – and they will be processed and interpreted by an older child, who is more than capable of understanding them.

Another of these parenting mistakes – one almost every parent is guilty of making at some point – is to expect all children to be the same. Whether we’ve got multiple children ourselves, or simply have experience with other people’s children, there are many elements of a child’s personality that simply are not the same as other children. While there are certainly common areas of behavior and intellect among all children, these are not as large as most of us expect.

Which leads us to the last of the common parenting mistakes most parents make: relying too much on our own experiences as children. The way our own parents dealt with situations is not always the best way, and the way we would have liked them handled as children is not always the way we should handle them as parents. Our children are not the same children we were, and they certainly don’t live in the same kind of world.

The most important question, of course, is how do we avoid these parenting mistakes? How do we remain mindful of how our actions will be remembered, understand the differences among children, and avoid too much reliance on our own childhood?

As with most parenting questions, there are no easy answers – but unlike our own parents, there is much more detailed help available. Simple awareness can be enough to avoid these parenting mistakes, but there are many programs available that can help us raise our children effectively and intelligently… without having to become experts in child development ourselves.

There’s no way to avoid all parenting mistakes. We’re human; we make mistakes. But with a little thought and effort, we can avoid the larger ones, and raise our children quite well all the same.

To learn more about parenting mistakes I highly recommend The Total Transformation Program, by James Lehman.