Archive for 'Parenting'

Uniqueness: A Good Setting for Excuses

Leave your comment

It’s a common thing to hear parents say, “Oh that’s not a thing to help my kid.” Kids on the other hand may say, “This isn’t going to help my mom; she’s not capable of doing it.” This is an indication of the concept called uniqueness.

Uniqueness may sound like it’s positive and ordinary but when taken into the context of parenting it would show as an interference in your program for transformation for your kid or a hindrance in your ability to view a situation involving your child clearly.

There are many example situations wherein uniqueness is used as an excuse. It’s clearly indicated when you hear your child say, “This is not going to happen to me because…” then he fills in the blank. Or he can say, “Homework doesn’t matter to me because…I’m a divorce baby.” Whatever he may use as an excuse, he is pointing it out that his case is unique from the others.

What your kids are trying to say when they give excuses is that they are unique and therefore the rule and the situation don’t apply to them.

This is exactly the opposite of what you should let your children know, which is that no one is above the rule and the rule stays no matter what the conditions are. Your children must know how to follow rules and obey the authorities even at a young age. When they start to make these excuses, you simply have to correct them.

Childhood is the best stage for you to correct in your children what needs to be corrected. That’s when their sense of morality and their value system is still starting to develop. That is how important it is to be morally upright when you want to make sure that your kids grow up to be responsible and with a strong sense of character and a formidable value system.

We may be fond of pushing uniqueness as a positive trait, meaning it is being true to one’s self, being different and being respectful of everyone’s differences in views and opinions. This can be true but as parents you have to be vigilant whether your kid is truly learning this concept of uniqueness or he could be using concept of uniqueness as an excuse not to follow rules and abide by authorities.

Once you do hear your child use uniqueness as an excuse, get on with it but do it gradually.

Is camp for spoiled brats beneficial for your child? Visit Katherine Thompson at her website about problem children.

How to Make Your Rules Firm

Leave your comment

Despite living in a liberal world, there are still a lot of parents who feel wrong about disciplining their kids. But then again, it is the job of every parent to make sure that their kids grow up responsible adults. And the only way to do that is to summon the confidence in pointing children to the right direction, no matter what it takes.

Although child discipline is a highly debatable issue to this day, most parents and parenting experts would agree that having only a single set of rules to apply for all your children will not work. On the contrary, what parents and parenting experts suggest is for parents to come with different “forms” of rules for kids in different developmental stage.

For most parents, the solution to make children follow rules is nagging. But then again, the time will come when nagging becomes too exhausting. When that happens, parents then start asking the inevitable question, “If I stop nagging my kids into following the rules, what will make them obey?”

What most parents fail to realize is the fact that there are actually several ways apart from nagging the kids that will make children follow the rules at home. Several years of research revealed that there are actually three possible strategies that will make it easier for children to follow house rules, which will make the lives of parents more convenient in the process as well.

If you are trying to implement firm house rules with your kids, you need to remember three things. First, you need to understand that your actions really speak louder than your words. You have to accept the fact that if you want your kids to honor your rules, you have to do it first. So if you tell your kids that there should be no munching of junk food before dinner, do not open a bag of potato chips right before supper.

You also need to make sure that your rules are clearly explained and understood by the kids. If you ask them to do something, make sure that you follow it up with an explanation. Although the question “why?” can be very irritating at times, it is your job as a parent to clear whatever confusion there is in your child’s head.

Your rules need to be official for your kids to treat them seriously. You can make your rules official by writing them down in a piece of paper and displaying in the house for everyone to see. Let your children know that when they break the rules on the paper, they are also breaking a contract with you.

Write the rules and place it in the kitchen or in the hallway to constantly remind your child the power and authority that you have. Written rules are more effective because they earn more respect. Put value in your rules and be careful not to deflate them.

Is brat camp beneficial for your child? Visit Katherine Thompson at her website about problem child.

Forget About Your Feelings to Keep That Rule

Leave your comment

When you are trying to keep the rule at work, you have to stick with it, no matter what. Even when you’re tired, even when it seems too draining to engage in an argument with your child, you have to be consistent in implementing the rule you set.

If you won’t do this, your kids will think that there are times when rules don’t apply and that when you get tired you can easily break the rule. This of course is not a good lesson to learn by kids of this nature.

Kids who have behavioral problems all the more need the consistency in implementing the rule. They always are in need for rules to remain the same at all times. You as a parent must remember that rules must be there even if you are too tired and should not become loose or too stern, and are not dependent on your current situation.

Remember that parents must be the role model of their kids. They should act what they want their kids to act when they grow old. A good role model is one that is law-abiding and one that is consistent with his actions regardless of what his situation is.

Kids are quick to follow their models, which most of the time are their parents and siblings. It therefore helps for parents to behave the best while in the presence of the kids, even if sometimes it takes a lot of pretension.

Kids don’t have to know that you were even worse than they are now when you were their age. They need not know that you only behaved when your parents were around. If you have to talk about your childhood with them, it’s better to focus more on the good experiences. Kids may not be able to understand the complicated situations you went through as well some behavioral and emotional issues which may be too complicated for their own understanding.

It’s true that you may have to put your best foot forward if you want to raise better kids. That is until they grow up to become mature enough to understand the much darker side of things. Children still don’t have fully developed sense of morality. They are still groping when it comes to dealing with their relationships issues and even find it confusing to understand themselves.

That is why your rules are important. They are there to guide them while they are not yet that strong to evade what’s wrong and continue with what’s right.

Is camp for spoiled brats beneficial for your child? Visit Katherine Thompson at her website about my problem child.

Deflating the Rule

Leave your comment

Setting rules with your children is one way of communicating with them and telling them your expectations. Needless to say, in order to be taken seriously by the kids (and I assure you they never forget), you have to be consistent with your rules as part of your parenting tasks. Children will adopt many of the things they observe from their parents and you may want to make consistency as one of the good habits that they may want to inculcate in their young minds and manifest in the future.

You can start testing your consistency by setting up house rules and these rules need not be complicated, in fact simplicity closes the door on disputes and interpretations. By keeping your house rules simple, you can even have the kids memorize them and repeat them to assure that they know what your house rules are. And also, do not make so many house rules.

Make at the most three to five short ones that tackle the most basic of house rules like for instance “Always keep the door closed” or “Always wash your hands before you touch any type of food”. Communication is part of the aim of setting rules and when you set up so many, that is not communicating at all.

When setting up rules, always use positive language which means instead of starting the rules with negative words for instance, in lieu of Do not turn on the television while studying, you may want to put it as: Turn on the television only when done with the schoolwork.

This sets a positive tone on things and makes rules veer away from its negative connotation of restrictions. Instead, it can be construed by your child as regulations to make life better in the future.

Let the child participate in the rule making activity. This brings a sense of ownership to your child which will make them follow the rules even more. And you can even refer to that specific rule as your child’s rule, appending his or her name to it to fortify the sense of ownership and a sense of belonging.

Consistently refer ton the house rules. Children rarely forget but it pays to have them recite the rules as often as can be especially before guests arrive. You may ask him the rules on what specific rooms they can enter together with their playmates and those that they can’t.

Now comes the part when the rule gets broken, even accidentally or intentionally and this is where consistency again is put to the test. Never ever waver on the rules that are set especially with your child. The agreed upon sanctions have to be done to show to tour child that rules were made for specific reasons and there is always a price to pay when one disobeys the rules, whether it were intentional or not.

Is brat camp beneficial for your child? Visit Katherine Thompson at her website about my problem child.

Stop Blaming Your Kids

Leave your comment

Rearing a child especially in this very modern and all-accessible world can be quite a handful, doubly difficult if you have a couple or more kids in tow. Unlike before when parents’ words are considered commands and they have to really be followed to the letter, children nowadays are exposed to too much information that molds them into very smart kids, too smart for comfort.

But it is not bad at all to expose out children to data that they can use in the future as long as you are to filter the information that is coming in. Keep in mind that children’s brains work like sponges and they easily absorb almost anything that they see especially if no one is there to contest it.

In the book Nobody Knows My Name written by James Baldwin, Baldwin states that: “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders. But they have never failed to imitate them.” This dilemma encapsulates the general situation parents are trapped in.

Some parents, in their efforts to make their children listen to them, in their eagerness to instill what they think is correct, sometimes become too forceful in their attempts and overshoots the goal of making the children listen, really listen.

You see, there is a huge difference between children listening when they are being scolded than children listening when their parents are explaining in a calm and disarming manner. In the heat of the moment, particularly when the kids have done something quite terrible, parents forget the proper way to address such situation, give in to the outbursts of emotions and immediately blame the child or kid for the error done.

Blaming the kids is actually not the strategic way to approach such a situation. Instead of fixing the issue, we might only be driving the problem into the hearts of the children. And when blame is directed to the children consistently, there may come a time that they will unconsciously believe that they are really the one to blame for anything negative that is happening.

This is extremely bad for the child’s psyche because you will only be inculcating in his or her mind that he or she is not good at anything and whatever he or she does may turn into a disaster. In time, this negative feeling will turn into deeper psychologically stressing issues like anxiety, clinical depression, loss of confidence, low self esteem, and eventually even manifest in physical symptoms like headaches and such.

There is a tactful way of addressing such situations and that would be sitting down and discussing in a very composed manner the issue at hand. For example, ask how your child feels after a negative thing has been done. And then, discuss with the child the possible repercussions of his behavior and how it will affect not only other people’s lives but his as well.

Is spoiled brat camp beneficial for your child? Visit Katherine Thompson at her website about problem child.

The Blame Game

Leave your comment

To blame is one of the most common things that a parent can do when times get rough. This can be blaming one’s self or blaming her spouse or the kids. At times, this can be understandable when the parents tend to be so preoccupied with problems, but it doesn’t mean that it’s healthy at all.

Most of the time, blaming takes place when you are spending too much of your time and your energy on blaming yourself or others for problems that are not really existing. It’s easy to react and point it out to your kids that they are to blame for example when you’re late for work because it took time for the kids to be ready for school.

The most common statement you can say as a parent is “It’s your fault that I’m late for work.” This statement doesn’t work at all. The best statement to go would be “It’s your responsibility to ready yourself when its’ time for us to go.”

This statement would not mean so much of a blame but more of making him accountable for the act. This would make him more mature in handling his responsibilities and making him accountable for his actions.

Kids will like that since it makes them feel like they are in control or that they are mature enough to handle themselves. Remember that most kids would like to feel that they are trusted by adults although in reality they want the adults to direct them to the right path and lead the way.

Blaming is not also good when you do it against yourself. Blaming one’s self would mean that you have low self-esteem. It’s also a sign or an indication of weakness which is the last thing that you want your kids to see in you.

Your kids will take on whatever you show them. That’s one of the main reasons why you need to pretend too, to shield them from anything that may be too harsh for their limited understanding and their underdeveloped sense of morality.

Blaming would also translate to not being able to acknowledge one’s mistakes, when the best way to go when things go wrong is to move on and rectify mistakes and make things better the next time you find yourself in the same situation again.

The best thing you can do when you just found out that it’s your mistake is to admit it to yourself but forgive yourself as well then move on. You can say to yourself, “You can do better than this the next time around.”

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including teens’ boot camp. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

All about Projection

Leave your comment

When parents pass on their emotional baggage to their child, the concept of projection happens. Projection can affect a child’s life in great proportions in one or more aspects of his or her life. The effects of projection could be so serious, it could increase a child’s vulnerability to certain behavioral and emotional imbalances.

Children usually inherit or adapt to certain things that they pick up at home, from and through the kind of relationships that they have with their parents. The problem begins when children starts to get nothing but the sensitive issues that their parents carry in their backs – the need for attention or social approval, difficulty in dealing with certain expectations, and the tendency to blame oneself.

Because children are young and fragile, they become very susceptible to inheriting the relationship problems of their parents such as feeling responsible for the happiness of others and vice versa as well as acting impulsively in order to relieve the feeling of anxiety instead of enduring that anxiety for a while to act thoughtfully. The stronger the projection of the parents, the stronger relationship baggage the child inherits from his or her parents.

When a person has too much relationship sensitivity, his or her vulnerability to emotional and behavioral problems can result to a a chronic anxiety in all aspects of one’s life. The process of projection occurs in three stages.

First, the parent sees the child with the fear that something is wrong with the child. Second, the parent sees any behavior of the child as a confirmation of that fear. And third, the parent treats the child as if something is actually wrong with him or her.

The steps of projection usually begin while the child is still young and continues until the child gets older. It is the unrealistic fear of the parents that inspires the problem – the child learns to develop or shape his or her perceptions of the world and of others according to what his or her parents think, embodying the fears and distorted perceptions themselves.

The concept of projection becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because the parents constantly try to “fix” the problem of the child according to their personal diagnosis. So when a parent believes that her child has a low self esteem, she will repeatedly affirm the child which consequently leads to the child’s self esteem growing dependent on that affirmation.

A lot of things can go wrong the moment the concept of projection occurs in a family. It could lead to a sibling rivalry, since the other “normal” siblings will not get as much attention as the child who “needs fixing” gets. Parents will also feel confused about their roles and both will often feel unsure of themselves and the kind of relationship that they have with their child.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp for teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem child.

Projections Get in the Way of Parenting

Leave your comment

What you mean by projecting is reading other people’s minds. What happens when you do projection is just like a movie projector. When you feel bad about yourself it is being projected into another person. That’s when you think that they do think poorly of you.

You simply think that it’s a way of reading minds but in fact what you’re doing is you’re putting your own fear and your own self-doubt in the other person’s mind. This doesn’t work for you or for your kids when you’re parenting.

There are times when everything goes wrong and if you see it that way you might translate it as what your child thinks, to the detriment of your own kid. If you want to raise highly positive children you have to be positive yourself. You have to funnel your positivity to your kid. But remember it’s not all blue skies. Being positive doesn’t mean being delusional. When reality bites, you have to make it a point that your kid may be able to understand what you’re going through in their own simple way.

Projections can also happen the other way around. Sometimes kids also project what they feel towards themselves to you. When this happens you need to keep on reassuring them that what you think of them is exactly the opposite of that. You have to keep giving positive reassurance when this happens. Always make them feel that you’re accepting and that you understand how they feel, but there’s one thing you shouldn’t do and that is to make them see that you’re giving up on them.

Projecting is a symptom of an unhealthy mind. When you tend to project negativity, you probably have low self-esteem, have been hiding a lot of issues, and may even have issues about self-respect. However, when you project yourself too positively, it may be that you have superiority complex or have high self-esteem, which may sometimes be not that good as well.

That’s why they say that we all are a work in progress. We always have to check ourselves and try to make sure that we make a balanced thought of our surroundings and other people. We do this for our kids, for our loved ones, but most of all, for ourselves.

We owe it ourselves to experience life positively and to experience all our relationships positively. If we love in this manner, no amount of negativity can bring us down, whatever our goal may be, but most particularly when we are trying to raise our children.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about problem children.

Don’t Act on Feelings

Leave your comment

Feelings only possess the value that you put on them. Don’t let the feelings or the emotions be the basis of your decision. These are not a good guide for making a decision regarding your child. It may be good but only when you talk about a situation where feelings were hurt.

The cliché “Don’t decide when you’re emotional” is in fact true when you are dealing with your child. This is because most often when these feelings wane, you will realize you have made the wrong decision and chances are, it may be difficult to repair the damage done.

An example of this is when your child bought himself a PSP from his own savings and you due to fear that he might not be able to cope with his home work and activities in school decided to sell the PSP without your child’s permission. That fear may be the anger you feel as well upon learning that your child made a decision without consulting you.

There’s a fat chance that your child will forever be doing this if you insisted to do it your way. These things could have been discussed with your child. One thing that he must understand is that even when he has the resources to buy it, he must consult with his mother if it is a good decision.

Again, emotions can be too powerful for kids to control and they have not developed the right elements to handle them. That’s why it is significant that you as parents are there to filter the things that may happen to them as well as the possible emotions that they may feel in every situation, special the critical ones, such as divorce.

You as a parent therefore must not be emotional when making a decision particularly if it’s about your child. You have to be an example of a well-balanced person to him and always make sure that when you decide on something about your child even if it’s about punishment, you must first consider his benefit and well-being.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including boot camp for teens. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

Always Respond Positively When Your Kid Starts to Get Negative

Leave your comment

It is always a challenge for any individual to practice parenting given its many complicated dealings with situations and the child itself. Not all can master parenting in one sitting – in fact no one can! However, this very reason is the essence of “parenthood” making it somewhat tough but at the same time, enables to bring out the best of our abilities.

Kids are most often in a “wandering” and “wondering” stage where they are not certain where they can actually place themselves in a situation or where they actually qualify in terms of the relationships that they have – within the family and in society as a whole. Because of this, kids are most often filled with a feeling of uncertainty that leads to insecurity and negativity.

The challenge posed to parents is this, therefore: how do we respond positively when our kid starts to get negative? First, be reminded and be convinced that negativity should have no room in your child’s disposition especially because who he becomes in the future is dependent on his molding stage which is childhood.

Responding positively to our child’s negativity doesn’t mean that we would blind-side our child into thinking that everything is perfect. A child can still see reality but in a more constructive way depending on how you make him see it.

Even if it means a great deal of convincing, parents should be very patient in explaining to the child that faulty thinking is not right and has no room in his attitude. If possible, give your child some concrete examples of how positivity brought out a better result as compared to negativity.

It may need a lot of time to convince your child out of the faulty thinking of having negativity given the fact that he may be having a hard time understanding everything you are saying. But if you only stay firm in your conviction at challenging negativity and try to become a living example of positivity in life, in no time at all, you will see great changes in your child.

Perhaps at one or some point, your child may question what you are trying to make him understand and accept. He may even justify it as just a programmed gesture on your part because you are his parent. If this happens, continue to persuade him and tell him that even with regards to other kids, you stand firm on your belief that positivity is the better solution.

The only way to ever make your child develop a good deal of confidence, security and hopefulness in life is when you as a parent are able to reinforce it within him over and over again, if need be. Persuasion and persistence goes hand in hand in creating a wonderfully positive child for him to become one positive asset as an adult one day.

Author Katherine Thompson enjoys sharing on topics including teens’ boot camp. Learn how to be a better parent by visiting her website about my problem children.

 Page 3 of 10 « 1  2  3  4  5 » ...  Last »