Parenting skills are not acquired instantly, they don’t appear overnight the day the child is born. The difference in parenting skills is amazingly wide. Most children grow up and reflect the skill level of their parent(s). If they grow up to be an underachiever, most times, it reflects the parent. If they grow up to be a criminal, most times, that reflects the parent(s). If they grow up to be a success, most times it is a direct reflection of good parenting skills.
Anyone see a cop?
Parenting isn’t being a policeman. Keeping guard over their behavior, making sure they do their homework by closely monitoring them, evaluating the people they choose to call friends, checking their facebook, assigning a curfew, etc. If you are doing this stuff and the child is already a teenager, it’s probably a long shot to correct their behavior now and re-boot their brain. You have already made your bed and unfortunately you both will have to lie in it.
What age do I start Good parenting activities?
Good parenting starts the day they are born but really kicks into high gear in a few years. A child begins to be able to understand “cause and effect” around the age of 3, as reported by California Department of Education study on child development. At this age they will be able to start predicting what could happen and the cause of why it happened. Age 3 is the exact time that proper parenting techniques need to be started. What you do now for the next decade will define who your child grows up to be in life.
The “Book of Rules”
There is no reason to lay out a “Book of Rules.” A simple set of broad boundaries and the result of what is expected is enough. No listing of what they NEED to do. Be Flexible here and work towards self recognition and let the process play out with as little direct interaction as necessary. Draconian is the antithesis to our strategy. Let the child figure the rules out by a simple exercise of putting things together in their brains by constant “invisible” reinforcement. They will use their “Cause and Effect” abilities to conclude why an action occurred. The most amazing results can happen by subtleties in teaching life skills to a child. They are more than capable as little human beings to understand cause and effect. Children learn to want things as a toddler and to cry to get those things. That’s the start of cause and effect and they don’t even know technically what they are doing.
“I WANT THAT!”
Children naturally want the better things in life, these are natural wants and you can use them to help you mold their minds to rationalize that when a person studies a progression happens, a cause and effect: they go to college, then they become doctors, then they buy the big house, sit in the front of the plane, shop at Neiman Marcus, drive a Mercedes Benz, and have lots of money. That’s using the “I WANT THAT” mindset to your and their advantage.
That’s the key, getting them to want to study, getting them to self impose a curfew, getting them to turn down a joint and getting them to be careful in the people they choose to associate and befriend. The major crossroads decisions of life have to be made by them and standing “policeman” won’t give them the proper life skills to consistently make the right choices and they will fail. You won’t be there when the major decisions come down the road.
The Classroom of Life
How do we help a child develop the skills to make the right choices for themselves? There is no better classroom to teach a child but in the community they live in. Around them, they are surrounded by people who made poor choices and people who made good choices as a child or teen. The “bad choice people” hang out on the corner without a career, work minimum wage jobs, do drugs, get arrested, get killed in gang related violence, etc. Children are also aware of the successful people around them, the “good choice people”: The teachers in their schools, the school principal, the doctor that examines them, the dentist that checks their teeth and stops their pain from a cavity, etc.. You just need to expand their thoughts a little more on what success gives them and connect success to making proper decisions on responsibilities.
Daily Exercise to help children use their cause and effect skills.
You are the Tour Guide of Life for your child. Take your child on your day off to a wealthy part of town. Drive slowly thru the neighborhood reinforcing the wealth and the size of the properties, the fact the house may be on the water. Tell them about the price of the house and who probably lives there and what they probably do for a living. Do this exercise regularly starting at age 3. Tell them, these people did their homework, went to college, went to medical school or grad school. Tell them these people didn’t come in late at night because they needed to be fresh the following day. Tell them that these people didn’t have premarital sex with their boyfriends. Tell them that these people didn’t use drugs or drink. You getting the picture here. They will slowly start understanding. They will also connect that these “rewards” in life are available to anyone who works hard and chooses the proper choices.
Eating at Taco Bell, there is a life lesson for your child
When at the Taco Bell, point out that these adult employees didn’t do their homework, had sex in high school, did drugs and drank and now earn so little money they have a problem affording rent. Tell them they will never own a home, they will never be happy in life. They will never buy a car. Sounds drastic but that’s what it will take for the message to take residence in their collective conscience.
Drive thru the ghetto
On a different day off, drive them thru the ghetto or poor section of crime. Show them what happens when people don’t do their homework, what a happens when they don’t get A’s on their report card, tell them, these people go to jail. Tell them exactly who lives in these places, that hey don’t own cars, don’t have access to medical treatment when sick, don’t have money to keep their teeth healthy, don’t go on vacation, etc. You are the Picasso to paint a mental picture of a life they don’t want and let the “cause and effect” of how this happened to them take root and make them actively choose not to travel the same path of failure.You getting the gist of what I am talking about here.
Turn off the video player “babysitter” in your car, raising this child is your job, not Barneys
Turn off the video player in the car and let your child experience life. Turn off your radio and concentrate on every drive, walk, trip to the mall, trip to the food store and treat it as a serious life lesson, because it is just that. Remember you are their Tour Guide of Life. Show them the difference in Neiman Marcus and the Walmart shopping experience. Show them the lines the poor people wait in at Walmart and the fact that there is no line in Neiman Marcus and they carry your bags to the car. Point out the difference between people flying in first class and the others in coach. Point out the 5 star hotels, walk them through their opulence, and then show them an Econolodge motel and tell them about the bed bugs. Explain to them the five days on a Greyhound Bus traveling cross country and the rich people doing it in First class in 5 hours sipping champagne and eating filet mignon. Paint that picture. You are the artist and your child’s mind is your blank canvas. Let them know the finer thing in life are possible. Just takes the right decisions. You getting this yet?
Responsibility and hard work are rewarded forever in life
Explain the differences in why there are different levels and how the people that did the responsible things in life get rewarded later in life and the people that are neglectful and irresponsible pay the penalty for their entire life. Keep painting, the picture is coming into focus.
No Guarantees
There are no guarantees in raising a child to become a good person. Some kids are just bad eggs and they will be the bums that they were born to be when they grow up, no matter what you do. But it is proven that good parenting skills can turn the odds in your favor.
Look in the mirror when your child is a problem child, you did it.
What you do in the first 10 years of a child’s life will echo for their entire lives. Wouldn’t it be nicer to not have to tell your child to be in at a certain time, to do their homework, to shut off the Xbox, to not do drugs. Wouldn’t it be a pleasure if you didn’t have to be a “policeman” in your own home.? It’s your choice and if your child grows up to be a high school dropout and works as a landscaper, who’s fault is that really?
JibbJabber 