Pareting Skills

[DevilMayKare 1]

The following is a response in Mariposa's "Frustraing" thread. I decided to continue our discussion under a new topic heading so those of you interested in a parent topic won't miss it. Hope that's okay. Please see the thread "Frustrating" for the first part of what generated this response.

-K

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Okay all of you w/ children--please immediately go out and buy the book "CHILDREN THE CHALLENGE" by... I think Theodore Driekers (but not sure if that name's quite right).

I have to tell you *I* was a spoiled child when younger and my parents sure did me no favors by letting me be so. I remember being in preschool and misbehaving and my mother saying, "Do you want your spanking now or later" and KNOWING that spanking was never coming. (Whatever the preschooler verion of "Yeah, right" went thru my head.) Except in very rare instances I knew no punishment was coming so I could do what I wanted. I was an only child until I was 8 and my mother lost 6 babies between my brother and me, so you can imagine... My world changed BIG TIME when my brother was born and HE ws the "attentioned" one. About that time (2nd grade) I asked my girlfriend why her big sister Norlee never seemed to be able to babysit me anymore and she told me, "Norlee says you never mind her and she's not going to babysit you anymore because you're a spoiled brat."

WHOA. I was CRUSHED.

It honestly never occured to me that someone wouldn't LIKE me because I didn't mind. (After all, my parents seemed to put up with it pretty well.) I started watching adults reactions to me and realized that several of them looked at me w/ aversion. That's really a painful realization for an 8-yr-old. So suddenly being a big sister and at an age where I could consider such things I had to unspoil myself (or at least get better at getting my own way by more charming means).

So from this painful experience I was determined to NOT spoil my children. When my oldest was 3 I took a class based on this book (Children, the Challenge) and let me tell you it was one of the best things I ever did. It goes into things like the child's rights (like to cry etc when upset) and the parent's right to not have to listen to it. There is a LOT about finding the punishment that is the closest consequence of the misbehaving action. For instance, if the behavior is leaving toys in the floor you take away the toys, not a time out. Another thing this book stresses is getting out of "powerplay" and "blaming" situations w/ children.

But the BEST CHAPTER is the one on how we actually TRAIN our children to become "MOTHER DEAF" when we lay down the rules and don't follow thru. Children recognize idle threats immediately and that "one more glass of water" phemonenon is a direct result of a smart kid (not wanting to go to bed) and a parent not willing to face their own discomfort with discipline. This Mother Deafness follows thru to how children react to all authority (lack of respect) and teaches children to ignore many of the rules they will have to face in the real world. The REAL WORLD has CONSEQUENCES and "protecting" kids from consequences at a young age will only make it harder on them when you are not there to protect them.

Basically YOU can teach your children consequential results--or you can let the world CLOBBER them with the consequences of their actions later.

As a result of this philosophy I found I had LESS rules & gave LESS orders because I was absolutely determined to follow-thru on the ones I gave. It was interesting that in the beginning it was more work and harder for me to follow thru w/ the consequences than just letting the behavior slide. But because of this eventually if I DID give an order it was followed the FIRST TIME because my kids learned that there wouldn't be a bunch of nagging--just immediate consequences.

(I found alot of this "Mother Deafness" chapter also applied to how I interacted w/ my husband and found ways to more effectively deal w/ him w/o nagging.)

Although very different personalities my boys always got along very well. I know part of this was because if they didn't, EVERYONE suffered. (For instance if there was any fighting over Nintendo it didn't matter who started it--it went OFF for everybody.) Many people remarked on how well-behaved my boys were while they were growing up and they were often the first kids asked to join in other families' activities because the parents enjoyed having them around. Certainly they weren't perfect, but comparatively their teenage years were easy because the foundation was laid. One is 21 (Senior at UCSC) and the other will be going to college next year so they seemed to have turned-out well. I don't want to brag, but I do believe the thought and self-discipline I found in myself to use many of the principles I learned from this book.

As far as I'm concerned they should just throw out all the prenatal and birthing classes and have expecting parents do a course in effective parenting before a kid is even born!

(Sorry this got so long!)

[the best me 6]

I'm going to like this thread! Sounds like a great resource, Kare! I'll check into it on Amazon. It sounds very similar to a few books I have been reading. For parents (like me) who prefer the Christian perspective of things, I recommend "Don't Make Me Count To Three!" by Ginger Plowman. It's alot like what Kare described above but with Bible Verses and from a Christian worldview.

Okay, gotta run but remind me to tell you about my daughter's heart chart.