More responses to my parenting survey.
Take it yourself. I may answer your questions here. It’ll help me focus my book either way.
Response #8
Where is the line drawn for learning the hard way and guidance needed to prepare for life?
The line is way closer to “the hard way” than any of us would like. Experience is the best teacher, and may in fact be the ONLY real teacher. We have to protect our kids from long term damage and let them make mistakes. Then after the mistakes are made the real work begins. You have to get their mind to connect their actions to the consequences (both natural consequences and parentally imposed), and you need to provide a safe (judgement free) discussion of what the better options are for next time.
Why is it so difficult to get a 12 year old to think before he speaks? Are there tricks to help?
Is this a 360 problem, or a parent-child problem?
If he runs his mouth to everyone, then the best trick is to do a post-mortem analysis of what he said and his tone, and the consequences. Explain how the what he said made people judge him poorly.
If he mouths off to you specifically…
There’s a certain amount of rebellion around puberty that is unavoidable. Deep in our gut we realize that we are supposed to be on our own. So children naturally begin to push their parents away as they age. The more independence they had as little kids, the less harsh this transition tends to be, but everyone is different. Regardless of whether it’s natural or not, you have to maintain respect. A little lip every now and then is ok, but keep that steely tone in your back pocket, use his middle name, snatch his phone out of his hand, etc.
I know you can’t teach a child to have effort, but are there ways you can lead them to their own discovery?
First I’m going to call back to Carol Dweck and the difference between the fixed and growth mindsets.
We think we should praise what we want to get more of, but this often misses the mark. When you reward outcomes, often people don’t feel like they had much control of how things turned out. The right move is to reward the effort. Catch him working hard on something and, regardless of the results, tell him you’re proud of him for the work. It doesn’t have to be school work either. Catch them working hard on a drawing and tell him you’re proud of the focus he’s showing. Or catch him putting a lot of effort into the castle he lives in on minecraft and praise that. The key is to connect the effort to a serotonin release, and a successful outcome. If they learn to set a goal and work hard on it, it doesn’t really matter what the goal is, the life outcome will be greatly improved.
Describe a situation with your kids that you regularly struggle with.
Homework, of course.
Structure the habits, so there is a set time everyday to work on it. Hold something hostage until he gets the work done.
He lies about everything…
Don’t corner him and try and force a confession. “Did you do this?!” Instead the discussion should start from the assumption he did it. “Look at this! Get a mop.” In my house a kid caught lying results in yelling. A kid caught doing the same thing but being honest about it results in a calm discussion of consequences.
…even when it doesn’t matter.
Aw hell. If this is a real pathological thing you might be beyond advice of strangers and moved on to psychologists.
My advice here is to call him out on it without anger, and have frequent discussions of how liars are perceived by others. It’s hard to like a liar and stupid to trust one.
Describe a time you handled a situation with your child very well.
Two days ago he had a paper due that he said he turned in. I got an email that evening that said he was missing it. I got him up as if he was getting on the bus. After he was dressed I explained to him I was taking him to school and he was writing the paper. He tried to argue and fuss and complain. I dismissed it immediately and didn’t allow it to continue. I already had paper, pencil and breakfast ready. I told him I am here if you need me, but I will not interfere. I held up my part and he wrote a 5 paragraph paper. It was a wonderful story that I barely helped on. He went to school in a happy mood. It was extra good because we spent 2 hours the night before doing 10 math problems!
This is a great story. Isn’t it amazing how when we’re mentally prepared it doesn’t matter if they try to fuss and argue we can shut it down, but when we’re tired and they behave the same way we often cave in or blow up?
Describe in detail an interaction with your kid that went badly.
Well, the math homework the night before is a great example. It was cold and raining so I wouldn’t let him ride his bike and that started the attitude. Did I mention it was COLD and RAINING. lol My fault for not diffusing the pouting first. I had checked and worked out all of the problems the night before so I would understand them and be able to teach. Math is difficult for him and backwards from the way I learned. After a few “I can’t do its,” “You are being too pickys” and “we haven’t learned that yets” I got frustrated. At one point I had told him to multiply 1.5 x 2 and 1.5 x 3 three different times. He said I didn’t say that. I raised my voice, which I don’t normally do, and said, “The 1st time I pointed to the numbers, the 2nd time I explained why, (then whack! I hit him with my paperback notebook on the back of the arm) and the fourth time I hit you with my book!!!
It’s kind of funny reading it back, but he definitely wasn’t learning math.
Emotional detachment is one of the keys to handling people. When we get frustrated we lose the ability to smoothly redirect them back on task. The key is learning to see those tells in yourself before you lose control (do you clench your jaw or your fist? Does your face get hot?) and pump the brakes then before you get upset.
Response #9
How the hell do you make your kids better than yourself while facing your own brazen hypocrisy? I want them to be more hopeful, more empathetic, more ambitious, more perfectionistic, more self-motivated…. Of course wanting those things for them makes me better as I try to model those qualities, but still, the hypocrisy! And they are smart enough that they see the hypocrisy too.
Here’s my take on it. If you are TRYING to model the qualities that you want your kids to embody, then that is not hypocritical. It’s human imperfection. If they call you out on your “hypocrisy”, THANK them for helping you get better. If you can do that with sincerity they will not think less of you for it, and it will ease the amount they bristle against the standards you’re trying to set.
There’s another thing though… you tried to sneak “perfectionism” into your list of virtues, and this is a point I must dispute. Unhappiness is a result of the failure to meat our expectations of ourselves. Setting expectations too high will inevitably result in stress and frustration. What you need to do is replace perfection with improvement as a goal. Improvement is a realistic expectation which can still lead to greatness, without the stress and burnout and why-should-I-even-bother-trying-ism of the skill gap.
Describe a situation with your kids that you regularly struggle with.
Doing their daily chores/responsibilities. It is ALWAYS a surprise.
Clear standards and consistent enforcement is what’s needed here. Maybe a rigid schedule. Maybe some privileges are withheld until the work is complete. We want our kids to do things themselves, but telling them once is not a realistic expectation, you have to ride them like a jockey at first, then ease off to a more monitoring position later. And hopefully one day it will all be on autopilot.
And my co-parent doesn’t exactly back me up. He is a sucker and gives in to the kids’ whining. So if I’m at work, things don’t get done or get done half-assed.
Alrighty then. I see 2 options. The ideal is that you have a discussion with your spouse in which you explain the reasoning behind your standards and he is deeply moved as he realizes how important it is to you, but also explains why your expectations seem so alien and hard to reach from his point of view, then a compromise is reached and the 2 of you set up a harmonized enforcement system.
The less good (but livable) option is that everyone accepts that there are different standards on different days. We all accept that Grandparents and teachers and babysitters all treat our children differently than we would ourselves. In many households that includes differences between mothers and fathers. There’s nothing wrong with that.
but what you are doing now is not serving any of the parties well.
Describe a time you handled a situation with your child very well.
I think the times I have stepped away before conflict erupts… and then presented my eldest with an article to back up my point… that seems to work.
This is good. Stepping back and controlling your side is essential. Conflict can’t always be avoided, and we as parents have to be the ones making and enforcing rules, but de-escalating conflicts without losing site of the big picture makes for a much smoother life.
Describe in detail an interaction with your kid that went badly.
Last night ended up in full melt-down because I waited until she was tired and hungry to try to force the chores issue. In my defense she should have already done them because I’d been reminding her for approx 8 hrs at that point, but the final meltdown was because I chose to put my foot down late and I had no sympathy at that point.
Yeah. Sometimes I’ve messed up and pushed my kids to melt-down. And I empathize with their plight. I’ll hug them, and soothe them and get them calmed down. And then very calmly say “alright, let’s get finished” and help them get their work done. The real problem isn’t holding fast at the end, it’s in the 8 hours of mis-used time. As up above, make the standards clear, and ride them like a jockey.
Shadman The Wonderguy 