Raising Able. Susan Tordella

immediately and without rancor. No exceptions.Children don’t reach the age of reason until age 7, so don’t waste your breath reasoning with little ones.Give up counting to three, bribery, threats, cajoling, multiple warnings, and reasoning. Instead, be quiet and move.

      Taking action:

      •eliminates “mother deafness,” when parents have trained children to ignore counting to three, bribery, threats, cajoling, warnings, and reasoning;

      •eliminates parental anger that comes from feeling out-of-control;

      •allows children to feel safe because they learn to develop self-control from their parents’ action;

      •establishes a safe, positive and respectful family dynamic; and

      •requires parents to choose their battles, and to control their emotions.

      With a plan in place, parents can learn to manage their emotions and lower their blood pressure They can enjoy, not endure their children. Parents will develop patience because they have a plan and have learned to wait for children to practice making their own decisions, which prepares them for independence.

      The practice of minimizing words and maximizing action applies to tots-to-teens. You will create a more harmonious family atmosphere by issuing firm and friendly boundaries and following through without anger.

      It demonstrates personal power to your children. They understand you mean business and you are in charge. They may try to be in charge, but deep down, they know they are not capable. It is overwhelming for a child to have too much power, and eviscerating for children to have too little power.

      Write down your most pressing problem

      In the spirit of starting small, write down your most pressing problem with your children right now; just about every parent has one, regardless of their child’s age.

      Here are some typical most pressing problems.

      “My three-year-old won’t go to bed. He stays up, runs around the house and drives us crazy.”

      “My 10-year-old won’t get ready for school on time in the morning. I end up driving her to school and I want her to be ready on time to take the bus.”

      “My teenager dresses in all black. I worry that he’s into drugs.”

      “My children are hard-wired to electronics and I can’t get them unplugged.”

      Write down your most pressing problem now and tuck it on a piece of notepaper inside the front cover while you start implementing a positive parenting plan.

      The broken vending machine

      Imagine you put a dollar into a vending machine for a bottle of water and nothing comes out. The machine keeps the dollar and doesn’t dispense a bottle of water. What is your response? Most likely, you shake the machine, hit it, tip it and flip the cancel button – and still no bottle of water or dollar. Depending on your personality, you scale-up the assault on the machine and shake, hit and tip it, get angry, yell, curse and find the machine’s owner. Your behavior deteriorates when you don’t get what you expect. The same thing may happen when implementing strategies from this book. Your children’s behavior may get worse before it gets better. They may treat you in the same way you treated the broken vending machine. When you don’t respond the way they’re used to, they will shake, holler and protest. They will refuse to believe the machine won’t dispense water or refund their dollar.

      Start small

      Parents must be resolute: choose your battles, and start with baby steps. Don’t waiver because youngsters can instantly sense a lack of parental confidence. Parents are a child’s first and most significant teacher by what we say, and more importantly, by what we do.

      No matter the age of your children, you can start today to respond differently to them. They might be surprised and attempt to convince you to go back to “normal.” However, don’t go back; don’t be the broken vending machine.

      Even if you are deeply discouraged and alienated from your children, find the optimistic part of yourself and try again. Pretend your children are stage actors. Create an emotional distance from them. Realize that in every moment, you and they choose how to behave. They may exaggerate their emotions to elicit a response from you.

      Anticipate that their behavior may get worse before it gets better. This book provides a positive parenting plan. Learn the strategies and follow them, even when your children complain and tempt you to fall back into old patterns.

      From caterpillar to butterfly

      Some parents in my workshops protest when I suggest a different approach, saying “That’s not me. I feel fake.”

      You may feel phony at first. That’s expected. New habits take time to practice and internalize. View it as a long term experiment to create new habits, and have patience. Mark Twain said, “It’s easy to quit smoking. I’ve done it 100 times.”

      Quitting smoking, going on a diet and learning new parenting skills require a commitment to develop new responses to whatever triggers you to smoke, overeat, or revert to old ways of dealing with your children.

      To succeed at new parenting practices, make a commitment to become more conscious to replace old habits with new behaviors.

      Start with small achievable goals. Think back to when you started a new job. You allowed yourself to be a beginner for three to six months and to get acclimated to new routines.

      The same can be said for adopting a new parenting approach, with ambitious goals: to create a democratic family environment and develop teenagers who will make good independent decisions.

      

      What kind of parent are you?

      Parents typically either set too many limits, or too few. The trend in the new millennium is towards over-protection and befriending children. Strive to set fair limits and share power in a democratic home.

      Here are four types of parents.

      Democratic – parents and children have rights and responsibilities, with the parents as the leaders. Parents encourage age-appropriate independence and foster responsibility through family meetings, chores, the use of natural and logical consequences, and encouragement. This approach can develop resilient and responsible youths with healthy self-esteem.

      Permissive – parents grant children rights and freedom without responsibility, possibly by sacrificing parental rights. Parents have difficulty saying “no” to children, which can create entitlement and self-excess-teem (exaggerated self-confidence). These children could be: given too much power in the family; left on their own to navigate; or spend the majority of time under the care of others. Parents may feel guilty and indulge their children.

      Overprotective – also known as helicopter parenting. Parents attempt to shield children from life by constantly intruding in the children’s domain. Overprotective parents may show pity; give tacit permission for the child’s lack of self-control; hold the child to lesser standards and hesitate to set limits. Some parents of children with special needs may use a diagnosis to justify over-involvement. Overprotection can create entitlement, set up a lifelong expectation of special treatment, and infantilize the youth.

      Authoritarian – parents rule by domination, “father knows best” and corporal punishment. Typically, fathers have all of the rights and responsibilities. The children and mother must obey, without question or input, or face physical punishment, intimidation and/or verbal abuse. This approach can develop bullies and rebellious children and teens.

      Avoid