Critical Mistake # 1 Trying To Be Your Child’s Best Friend Although it is an admirable thing to want to be your child’s best friend, kids do not need that kind of relationship with their parents or carers. What your child needs is an authority figure to be the boss. This doesn’t mean that you have the right to be bossy. However, there needs to be a distinction so that your child realises that you are the final authority. I have seen many a single mum with one child, trying to be a “buddy” to them, possibly trying to make up for the fact that there may be no father in the child’s life. Don’t get me wrong. I am knocking the single mum; I am one of them. And as a single mum I need to be especially careful to let my children know that I am still the boss and that they are accountable to me. This gives the child a sense of security, knowing that someone is in charge. Critical Mistake # 2 Yelling At Your Child I know that all of us have yelled at our children at some stage. Some of us do it regularly, others just occasionally. What we need to realise is that it does our child no good to have us raise our voices at them. It will actually breed disrespect towards you. If we can learn the art of being non-reactive when our kids misbehave, we have learned a valuable skill to help our parenting efforts. Once we master this, we will realise that our children will react to us becoming more non-reactive and will calm down also. Our example actually helps to breed more harmony in the household. Praying or meditating each morning for a few minutes is a really good way to start the day when you are raising children. If you can put your mind at ease before you start the day, you will be more likely to feel relaxed when the inevitable happens. Critical Mistake # 3 Not Being Consistent Believe me, I know that this one can be really tough. I am a mother to four children and at times they seem to hound me all at once. It can be so easy for me to give in to their every request. However, we need to remember that not everything our child wants is beneficial for them. And often, children don’t understand the ramifications of what they do. That’s why we are the parents and they are the children. I sometimes have to say to my teenagers, “it’s just not my job to be liked. It’s my job to be consistent with you”. It is vitally important that we are not afraid to say this to our child. We are not trying to make life difficult for our children. All the same, left to their own devices they can make some pretty silly decisions. Critical Mistake # 4 Not Providing Good Boundaries I could write a whole book on this subject (hmmm, that’s not a bad idea at all)... all children, no matter what their age, need boundaries. When kids are given healthy boundaries they can function well at home, in school and in society. The real world operates with boundaries. If you break the law, you end up going to jail. That is a boundary the government puts in place to stop people from committing crimes. I provide boundaries for my children’s friends who come to play. Do I have the right to give boundaries to someone else’s child? Absolutely, if they are in my house. And I have had remarkable results from children who don’t usually behave elsewhere. When neighbour’s kids come to my house I simply explain to them what my house rules are. Once a child understands what is expected of them, then, and only then can you expect them to comply. Children need things spelled out clearly for them. Critical Mistake # 5 Entering Into Power Struggles No! No! No! Don’t do it. For those of you who don’t know, a power struggle is when you enter into a heated conversation with your child that never seems to end. There can be no winner because your child refuses to give up. Even if they are wrong, they won’t give up. When a child is in this kind of mood, everything you say or do will be wasted. Children that are emotional and angry cannot see or think clearly. This happened with one of my sons last night. He was very angry because the computer game wouldn’t let him win at a level. He became verbally abusive and refused to calm down. Two minutes later he told me that he was ready to talk about the incident. I sensed that he was still angry therefore I wasn’t prepared to talk and made him wait about half an hour before I saw that he had calmed down enough to talk rationally. Teenagers especially, have no logic when they want to argue about many things. They can know that they are wrong, yet still argue very persuasively that they are right. This is quite normal development for a teenager, however unacceptable as far as I am concerned. At least you know that it is relatively normal. But our job is to choose not to engage them in the argument in the first place. We need to find a way to end the discussion quickly without arguing, even if we must simply walk away. Critical Mistake # 6 Giving A Child Too Many Choices I shall explain myself. Firstly, it is a good idea to give your child choices within reason. But too many choices can become problematical. Take for instance the four year old that is asked what they want for breakfast: cocoa pops, corn flakes, weet bix, nutri-grain, rice bubbles or fruit loops. The problem here is that a young child isn’t capable of making decisions that involve many choices. A good choice for a four year old would be offering them rice bubbles or cocoa pops (just two). What we are trying to achieve is an amount of success with our children. If we give a child two choices and they pick one, they have experienced success to some degree. That allows us to build upon that success by adding more choices. However, when we start with many choices we are simply confusing our children. We are not doing them a favour. I use this technique with my strong willed daughter. Instead of telling her to have a bath each night, I say to her, “Becky, would you like to have a bath before dinner or after dinner?” This gives her a chance to express a bit of individuality and freedom to make a choice. But I have control over the choices and must be happy with both outcomes if I use this strategy. Not only does this method work really well with my daughter, it also gives her a feeling of power and kids love to feel in control. There’s nothing wrong with letting your kids feel like they can be decision makers sometimes. It can greatly enhance self esteem. Critical Mistake # 7 Lack Of Quality Time With Your Child For many children, love is spelled T-I-M-E. As parents, we must understand that nothing else will do. Not gifts, not food, not anything else. I remember last week my fifteen year old said to me “Mum, would you please get off that computer. You love that computer more than you love me”. He really made me think about the amount of time I spend working when the children are at home. David even said to me, “Mum, I would much rather have you spend time with me than a million dollars in the bank. I don’t care about your stupid web site. I want to spend time with you”. At the time that he said that, he had just finished an hour on the computer and was peeved off that I had removed him from it. But I still took the opportunity to think long and hard about what he had said. Parenting is one big learning curve and I never want to be so proud that I am not willing to learn something. I took my son’s words to heart that evening. I do hope you have learned a few things from this report. These are just seven things that came to mind as I was thinking today. My prayer is that you will act upon some of these things and improve your capacity to be a happy and consistent parent. Have confidence in all that you do and you can only do your best. Parenting is a journey and it is meant to be fun.
by: Kim Patrick
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