Is occasional spanking good for children?
Should I be a ‘free range’ parent?
If I use consequences, does that mean I am denying my child love?
In November Time The cover story said that fathers are over-parenting. I think I am, but what should I do instead?
That’s just a sampling of what you’ve been reading in the media and blogs over the past six months. Never in the history of parenthood have fathers been so confused and accused. But good news! There is a refreshing response to this confusion and accusation.
This answer has been under our collective noses since parenting began: it is parental love. Parental love rarely fully develops. It sounds so old-fashioned that we just ignore it. But when parents fully implement their love, children always turn out to be happy and respectful. Now, don’t hit the delete button. This is not just another rant from crazy therapists. See for yourself. Please take a few minutes to read the brief summary that follows.
Here’s what I discovered after dusting off this “old hat” but potentially powerful parental resource I call parental love. And it took forty years and 2,500 customers to come to these proven conclusions that really work.
The fundamental and essential need for the life of a child (same as feeling the need to eat) is to feel and believe “I am good for what I am inside, not for my performance” and avoid “I am bad”. When this belief is established, you will have a happy and respectful child. And you will feel good. Parents have the assets to establish a child’s need to believe that “I’m good” by consistently focusing on the good at their child’s center, even during discipline. (Okay, it takes training, but it can be done in a three-week period.) Discipline (teaching and training) is less effective when parents focus only on behaviors. (That’s the normal parenting approach.) But doing so puts the parent’s cart before the horse. The first order of business in discipline is to focus on feelings and validate them. Here’s the key: Validating feelings makes the child feel that he or she is “good” in the eyes of the parents (remember that “I am good” is an essential need for a child’s life). Now, with “I’m fine” set, changing the behavior will work better.
That’s a general description of what it means to unleash your love. Now let’s dive into a summary of the discipline or, put another way, teaching and training. And let us always remember the overriding disciplinary principle: firm, consistent, respectful, setting limits.
teaching. The teaching part of discipline is helping your child acquire two critical pieces of information about life: healthy beliefs and acceptable behaviors. Beliefs are central. They serve as a roadmap and power source in determining a child’s behavior. The two fundamental beliefs to teach are “I am good” and what is right and wrong (a child’s blame system). As these beliefs are established, parents train the child to acquire appropriate behavior. And here are the guidelines of parental love for teaching: use the discussion procedure (see next paragraph), avoid judgment, avoid negative comments, stay calm, talk no more than 25 percent of the time and during that time ask questions as much as possible. , make only one or two points at a time, be brief, and own up to your mistakes. (I bet you already practice at least two or three of those.)
All parental teaching should begin with the child feeling understood and accepted for their point of view. Only then can effective troubleshooting occur. This part of understanding and acceptance is achieved through the following four-step discussion procedure: listen, repeat, agree, and validate.
“Adam, tell me what happened that caused you to handle your upset by hitting your sister.”
“He came into my room and started playing with my Legos. I told him to stop and he didn’t.” (Listening)
Dad repeats Adam’s comment. without giving his points, and then asks, “Did I get that right?” (repeating)
Dad agrees with one thing, even though he knows that Adam spends a lot of time in Sarah’s room, but he bites his tongue in this one: “I agree. You ought being upset because your sister broke into your room.” (OK)
Dad then validates, “I can see how sick you are of your sister showing up unannounced. I would be too.” (Validating)
Now Dad turns him around and asks Adam to listen and repeat what Dad said. (He doesn’t ask Adam to do the last two steps, accept and validate. These steps are too complex for a tween.) Listening and repeating takes some practice, but eventually even a three-year-old can learn these two steps. Now Adam and Dad understand each other and are ready to acquire a new behavior. That’s the training part.
Training. The goal of training is twofold: to establish within the child (1) healthy behaviors and (2) the ability to use, at any time, established ways of thinking and believing to choose between right and wrong behavior. A fundamental training task is to educate your son or daughter to delay gratification. “I want it my way, now” doesn’t work. Once again, remember the fundamental principle of discipline: firm, consistent, respectful, setting limits.
Here’s a rundown of must-have training skills:
Always acknowledge the good at the center of your child during all (or at least 90 percent or so) training exercises, especially during boot camp sessions like “Learn to Drive.”
Always shape training expectations according to (1) your child’s feelings and thoughts (put yours aside temporarily), (2) developmental stage, and (3) unique personality (temperament traits). Special warning: Don’t automatically train the way you were raised unless it works for your child.
Use the FP&T training sequence guaranteed to work almost every time: “V” for validate the feelings that cause your child’s behavior, “T” for teach why specific behaviors or beliefs are important (75 percent listen, 25 percent talk, mostly asking questions), “T” for train/set healthy behaviors and beliefs within your child. (It helps to have a spouse or a friend encourage his efforts: “Give me a V…” Okay, skip it. But encouragement helps.)
Set expectations for 98 percent success when training for a new behavior. Doesn’t it feel good to be successful right away?
Maintain a calm or near-calm voice and facial expressions, with no meanness either, during all training exercises. (Ninety percent will Yeah you apologize for the 10 percent “I’m only human” mistake.) Too much anger, too many times is harmful.
Motivation is the training engine that changes behavior: logical consequences, rewards, deprivations. Special Warning: Pain is a destructive motivator; skip the penalty. Post 3 x 5 cards with this message in various places: Greatest Workout Motivator Translated into Baby Talk: “I want my mom and dad to accept me no matter what.”
Now you have the basics of what the discipline version of parental love looks like. Apply these principles in your family, and you too will raise a happy and respectful child.