Monthly Archives: November 2014

Developing the Roots of Helpfulness in Your Children

Many power struggles are fought over attempts to get our children to do what we expect in the name of learning to be helpful and take responsibility. Too often our best intentions get derailed. Instead of teaching helpfulness and responsibility, we teach them they are disappointments to us.

“When will you ever learn to pick up after yourself?”

“How many times have I told you to hang your coat up?”

“Pick up those dirty clothes right now. I am not your servant you know!”

“Do you ever think about anybody but yourself?”

We get an idea in our heads about what teaching responsibility means—usually stemming from what we got yelled at for— and we plow ahead quite unconsciously. We fear that any exception to the rule will lead to anarchy. But what is the real lesson learned when we hold rigid to a vague principle?

Instead of threatening a time-out unless your four-year-old picks up her toys or your eight-year-old cleans his room, consider the agendas. Yours is to have a clean house: no toys to step on, dust bunnies

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Entitlement: The By-Product of Indulgent Parenting

“These kids today” are the words out of every older generation referring to the generation about to replace them. It’s hard to accept change. Every generation thinks they are better than the next and the youth are messing everything up and doing it all wrong.

What do the following have in common?

  • Kids with no manners or courtesy
  • Lack of awareness of the consequences of behavior
  • Resistance to rules and dismissal of the law
  • Addictive video gaming

Call me a member of the older generation, but here’s how I see it: Baby boomers were born and raised in post WWII during an economic recovery and unprecedented prosperity. They (we) got to do more of what we wanted than our parents did. We also learned to distrust government during the Nixon-Vietnam War years. We actively demonstrated, thumbed our noses at the establishment and were the first to step out of the footprints of our parents to set our own way. The establishment included our parents. Most of us didn’t like the way we were brought up to be obedient and were

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