More 1-2-3 Magic

I just finished watching the DVD program More 1-2-3 Magic by Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D.  This video provided many great ideas about discipline and self esteem.  He reviewed the points that he had made in the first video, leading me to believe that I don't need to go back and watch his first video.  I think that I would have rather read this in book form because it was an hour and half or so of him lecturing with a view videos interjected to make his point.  Having said that, I would recommend this for parents who are struggling with discipline their children no matter the child's age.  Most public libraries have this program either in DVD or book format.  That's where I picked mine up.

Does Spanking Cause Mental Illness?

A recent study published in the Journal of Pediatrics suggests that a link exists between certain types of mental illness and harsh physical punishment.  Their research found that children punished using "harsh physical treatment" were more likely to develop depression, phobias, substance abuse and personality disorders. It is important to note that they were not studying the "customary spanking", but punishments that went beyond that like shoving, hitting, slapping, and pushing.  Punishments considered more violent than a slap on the bottom. 

These researchers did generalize their findings to include all forms of spanking/physical punishment and suggest that eliminating all types of spanking/physical punishment will greatly reduce the growing mental illness problem.  Most professionals agree that punishing our children using "harsh physical treatment" does have an adverse affect on their emotional and mental development.  However, professionals are split on the affect of the "customary spanking".  It is unclear whether it is a good way or a bad way to discipline your child.

I feel that it is important to note here that most states define child abuse as leaving marks.  If you do choose to use spanking as a means of discipline, it should not cross this line.

Is Holding Up A Humiliating Sign An Appropriate Way to DisciplineYour Child?

Is holding up a humiliating sign an appropriate way to discipline your child?  Reshonda Tate Billingsley thinks so.  When her daughter posted pictures of herself with alcohol, she had her post a follow up picture of herself holding a sign that said "Since I want to post photos of me holding liquor I am obviously not ready for social media and will be taking a haitus until I learn what I should + should not post.  BYE BYE."  I am all for disciplining children, what I am not in favor of is humiliating them in that process.  Building a trusting and respectful relationship with your teenager is an uphill battle that can be obliterated in an instant when they feel that your action has humiliated them in the eyes of their friends.

I suggest that taking away their social networking priviliges and their phone will have the same results as the picture but avoid the humiliation and the irreparabled damage to your relationship.

A Few Thoughts on Discipline

When it comes to discipline it’s not the extremes that work, it’s the in-betweens.  You can quote me on that.  Disciplining like a drill sergeant or tiger mom just encourages rebellion and does not teach children the things that they are suppose to learn through discipline: how to make good choices in life.  Being your children’s best friend works no better in the art of disciplining.  Not setting boundaries leaves your child without a moral compass by which to navigate their future decision making.  So when I say the best way of disciplining is the in-between way, I mean it.

Words of Wisdom about Disciplining Your Children

You can’t discipline kids and not love them, and you can’t love them and not discipline them.  The two must go hand and hand.-Ron Clark, excerpt from The Essential 55

Tips that Will Help Make You a Super Parent

1) Love your children for who they are now, not for who they will become in the future.

2) Have high expectations for each of your children, your child will try to live up to whatever expectation that you have for them.  If you expect that one of your children is bound to turn out to be the black sheep, they will grow up to be just that.

3) Discipline does not need to be severe, but it must be consistant.

4) When helping your child set goals for their future, both in the short-term and in the long-term, make sure they are their goals and not your goals in disguise.  Some parents try to live their unachieved goals through the accomplishments of their children.  Make sure that they are your child's goal as well and not just their attempt to gain your approval.

5) Giving your child experiences, instead of things, will make them a more well-rounded adult.

6) Spending time with your children is the best gift that you can give them.  Put away your cell phone, and give each of your children some undivided attention.

Is Hot Sauce Mom Disciplining Her Son or Torturing Him?

The mother who appeared on Dr. Phil, having sent him a video of how she disciplined her son for lying, is now being charged with abuse. She punished her son for lying by placing hot sauce in his mouth and making him hold it there. She also corrected him by placing him in a freezing cold shower. Is Hot Sauce Mom disciplining her son or torturing him? I guess that will be up to the courts to decide. She claims that she had tried all kinds of discipline but none of them worked. She states that he is suffering from a behavior disorder. If this is true, why isn't she seeking professional help? Some may say that that was what she was doing by contacting the Dr. Phil show, but I think it was more about her notoriety rather than any help she was seeking for her son. Shame on her, and shame on the Dr. Phil show, for being more concerned about ratings then the health and well-being of a young boy.

I guess the verdict is in and she is guilty of misdemeanor child abuse, just a slap on the wrist for torturing your child. Kinda sad to think that we treat parents more fairly then they treat their children.

Driving and Teenagers...Oil and Water

Who ever came up with the brilliant idea of putting teenagers behind the wheel of a two ton vehicle needs to have their head examined. At a time when hormones and peers are ruling the judgement of our children, we are trying to teach them to drive safely and be responsible about their new found freedom. Talk about a losing battle. I want you to consider that there are a few good things about your child learning to drive. It reduces the amount that you need to cart your children around to sports practice, friend’s houses, and school activities. This was a huge lifestyle change for me that lightened my load considerably. It also provides you with a very effective means of discipline. Hanging on to the car keys until they have done their chores or started acting more respectfully is highly effective.

Disciplining Your Children in a Divorce: Two Houses and Still Consistant

In a perfect world, your two houses would have the same rules and consequences for your children but that may be difficult since you can not control someone else's behavior. It is usually the parent who is not the custodial parent who is hesitant to set down rules. I don't think that the main reason they are doing this to get even with you, but because they don't want to be the bad guy in the little time they have with the children. Let's face it we all like to be liked, especially by our children. It is important to remember that parenting is not a popularity contest and that children need to have boundaries set for them. Consider that the other parent is missing out on some big milestones in the lives of their children and maybe you will be able to develop some empathy with regard to the position that they are in. These are some "whys" for the disipline being different at the two houses, but it is important for both of you to understand that it would be much better for the development of your children if the discipline was consistent. I encourage you to sit down with your ex and develop some ground rules for your children that both of you can live with. This would be a good time to express your empathy toward the situation that your ex finds themself in. By starting this conversation with empathy, instead of finger pointing, may just open the lines of communication enough to make some good parenting decisions together.

Children tend to take advantage of the situation when parents do not consistently discipline. They are much more likely to act up if they think they can get away with it even one time in ten. They also are very adept at playing parents against each other in a divorce. I suggest that you try to keeping the lines of communication between you and your ex wide open. Don't just assume that what your child is telling you is the absolute truth. Teenagers are especially good at pushing their parent's buttons about their ex. Open lines of communication, even if they are strained will prevent a lot of problems down the road with your children.

Tiger Mom vs. BFF Mom

Recently, parents have been asking themselves who’s the better parent: Tiger Mom or BFF Mom. Tiger mom is the mother who is so strict that her child has to ask her permission in order to do anything. Some examples that have infuriated parents all over the world are: the incident where she had her 7 year old daughter playing the "Little White Donkey" tune on the piano for hours without any breaks until she played it perfectly, or when she called her older daughter "garbage" after the girl behaved disrespectfully. BFF Mom is so busy trying to be friends with her child that she sets no boundaries and provides no discipline because her child can do no wrong. I know of one parent who went so far as to throw a party for her early teenage children as long as they agreed to let her party with them. She bragged about how her children and their friends really liked partying with her. Even though there are not many parents who go to these extremes, there are many parents who fall very close to either side. Tiger Mom is not a new phenomenon, we used to refer to these types of parents as “Drill Sergeants”. Research suggests that children who grew up with a Tiger Mom or Dad tended to be very rebellious in their teens and early twenties. Taking their new found freedom to the extreme and engaging in some pretty dangerous behaviors. The research paints a similar picture for the children who grew up with a BFF Mom or Dad. They to engage in some pretty dangerous behavior but they typically go through this rebellious stage in their early teens. It has been suggested that these children are pushing the envelope in order to get their parents to set some boundaries.

I would like to suggest that parents should take a more moderate approach to parenting by setting boundaries for your child, providing consequences when they step over those boundaries but not making all their decisions for them. I believe that allowing them to make some decisions on their own, shows them that you have confidence in their ability to make decisions and boosts their confidence in themselves. Following this more middle of the road parenting style will not eliminate the rebellious stage but it may go a long way toward curbing it.

What You Can Teach Your Child to Do If They are a Bystander

The role of the bystander in a bullying situation is vital to the bully. They are the audience and they provide the attention that the bully is seeking. If the bystander does not provide that attention, the bullying may stop. I think this group is the easiest to effect change with since there usually is no emotionally commitment attached to the bullying situation on the part of the bystanders. Make sure that you point out to your child the significant role that the bystander plays and how they can make the situation better just by reacting in a different way.
I hope that the following phrases become common place to all children when they find themselves playing the role of the bystander in a bullying situation: Speak Up, Speak To, Speak Out.

Speak up suggests to the bystander that they go seek out the nearest trusted adult if they see someone being bullied. I believe that bystanders should always go find a trusted adult when physical bullying is involved because if they step in and try to stop it they may be walking into something that they cannot control. Consider this scenario. A child comes upon a child beating up another child. They assess that the bully is smaller than they are and chooses to intervene. What happens if the bully has a weapon or has a black belt in karate. Now there are two people getting hurt and no one going for help. When discussing this with children, they can come up with all kinds of scenarios of their own. The one that most frequently comes up is: what if we are in the middle of nowhere when this fight occurs? My suggestion then becomes to keep a distance from the situation and utilize a distracting technique like shouting out “Look, a pink polka dotted elephant”. I know this sounds like a bizarre idea but sometimes a distraction like that breaks the trend of thought that was angering the bully and stops the behavior.

Speak to has the bystander attending to the victim after the bully leaves. A few carefully chosen words from a bystander can make all the difference with how the victim ends up feeling about the situation. Imagine the power of having someone come over to you after you’ve been bullied and asking if you’re alright and making sure that you know that they didn’t believe what the bully was saying. I have seen a victim go from hysterically crying to a huge smile just because of the words of a bystander. Pretty powerful stuff.

Speak out suggests that the bystander address the bully with a statement like “we don’t do that here” or “cut it out”. Be carefully to instill in your child that this is not to become some kind of shouting match between them and the bully, just a statement of fact. In the bullying situation, it is common for a bystander to come to the defense of the victim by bullying the bully. This is not the intent of Speak out. Be sure your child understands the somewhat subtle difference between these two.
Every bully prevention conference that I have attended and all the books that I have read on this subject have one thing in common. They all believe that the bystander is the most significant player in effecting change to the bullying situation. Educating your children about what they can do as the bystander, may go a long way in making your child’s environment safer.

New Podcast-Bullying: The Bully

Our latest podcast is live.  Check it out on the player to the right, or download it from iTunes.  You can e-mail us at ParentSharing@aol.com or check out "Parent Sharing" on Facebook and iTunes.

Don't Under-estimate the Influence that You Have on your Children

Your children are watching you.  Observing how you handle tough situations, taking their cues from you.  Try hard to model the behavior that you want them to have.  "Do as I say, not as I do" does not work in today's society.  I don't think it ever did.

Bullying-The Victim

Our latest podcast has been uploaded.  It is the second in our series on bullying.  Be sure to check them both out on the right hand side of the page, or download them on iTunes.  We will have blog postings on Bullying coming shortly.

If you have any feedback, questions, comments, concerns, or show idea (including if you are interested in being a guest of the show) please contact us at ParentSharing@aol.com, at "Parent Sharing" on Facebook, or by commenting on this blog.

How Peers Influence our Children

There comes a time in every parent's life that they are no longer the center of their child's world.  Chiildren begin listening to what their peers are telling them and not what you are saying.  Being involved early on in helping your children with picking out friends can save you a lot of headaches when this time arrives.  In addition, I suggest that you meet your children's friends and if possible their parents.  This may give you some presence in your child's life at a time when they are doing everything they can to rebel against your beliefs and rules. 

Hope this gives you some peace of mind, the teen years will end and it does get a little better as they approach the driving years and you have control over the keys to the car.

New Mini-Episode

Check out our latest mini-episode.  We take a couple of minutes to get to know one of your hosts, Kathy.  We'll get to Christina in a future mini-sode, and also be updating with a full episode in the next couple of days, so stay tuned! 

You can subscribe to us on iTunes, check out our Facebook page (Parent Sharing), or listen to the podcast on the player to the right of this post.

Finding the Right Consequence

When assigning a consequence for a misbehavior, I believe that it is important for a parent to make sure that the consequence has a relationship to the misbehavior if possible. It is better that a consequence teaches the desired lesson, then just be punitive in nature. Two types of consequences that you may consider when determining a punishment for a particular behavior are: logical consequences and natural consequences.
Natural consequences occur naturally when your child engages in a particular behavior. These are very effective if they occur immediately following an action, and may not require any intervening on your part to eliminate the behavior. An example of a natural consequence may be getting a burn when touching a hot stove. Any parent who has teenagers knows that telling your teen that they can't be friends or date someone usually just serves to strain the relationship between the two of you and encourage them to sneak around to be with that person. It may be much more effective, if it is not someone who is dangerous to be around, to allow your child to find out on there own that this is a person that they do not want to associate with. Getting your approval to go out with this person may take away all the intrigue and excitement that your child perceives about this person.
Logical consequences are consequences that you assign to your child when they have engaged in a misbehavior. They are logical in that they "fit the crime" to assist the child in learning from their misbehavior. An example may be not allowing your child to have dessert if they have not eaten their dinner or not letting your teenager use the computer for a week because you caught them on a website that you do not allow them to go to.
When disciplining your child, remembering two things will go a long way to improving your child's behavior: that you need to always be consistent and consequences work best when relate to the unwanted behavior.

The Meat and Potatoes of Disipline

"It is not the severity of the consequence, it is the certainty of it." Heard this quote at a workshop and thought that it really summed up the most important points about discipline. If anyone knows where this quote came from please let me know, because I would love to give credit where credit is due.

The first part of this quote reminds us that discipline does not have to be severe. I hope we are past the time where we adhere to the concept of spare the rod, spoil the child. Spanking a child to the point of them not being able to sit down without pain or leaving marks is first and foremost against the law. Secondly, these children not only grow up to do the same to their children, but are more likely to engage in violent behaviors as they are growing up. Having said that, I am not opposed to occasionally giving a child a little spank on the bottom.

The second part of this quote contains what I believe to be the key to making discipline work for you as the parent. If a child believes that one time in ten they are going to get away with a behavior, they are more likely to engage in this behavior, hoping that it is the one time that they will not get into trouble. For some reason, it doesn't seem to register in a child's mind that those are not very good odds. It is imperative, given this information, that you be consistent with your discipline 100% of the time.

When choosing consequences for misbehavior, it is most important to consider the child. When my son was little a tiny little pat on the bottom, worked wonderfully. However when it came to my daughter, this was not the case. One time I found myself spanking her again and again as she shouted out that that didn't hurt. After three smacks on the bottom and a hand that was starting to sting a little, I came to the revelation that spanking was not going to work with her. I placed her in a time out chair that was located in the entry to our house and went to set the timer in the kitchen for four minutes (she was four at the time). Before I could get to the timer, she was out of the chair. I placed her back in the chair, and went to set the timer again. After going through his song and dance about seven or eight times, she finally realized that I was not letting her off the hook and she stayed in the chair for the entire four minutes which according to her was forever. The next time that I placed her in time out, it only took four times of putting her back in the chair. Important to note when using time out, you should choose a location where there is not a lot of activity going on around the child, and there is nothing for them to play with that is close at hand. Note that their bedroom is probably not a good location because there are toys and books for them to occupy themselves with.