Breakthrough Parenting®
Parenting Tip Of The Week
Make sure each day you carve out at least 15 – 30 minutes a day to have some with your child(ren)
The closer your relationship is the happier and more cooperative your child(ren) will be. Happy children are less likely to create conflict and deal with it a lot easier. Everyone’s life will run a little smoother. Remember enjoy your children. You will never have this day again.
Patricia Lessard HS/RCA, CBPI 604-881-1104
Classes starting soon! Let’s Raise Some Amazing Children!
Spend some time having fun with your children. Sometimes we want to have our child not miss out on all the experiences that life has to offer and we end up over scheduling them. What they need most is US! Time with US.
Myth #1: Punishment and discipline are the same thing.
People often use the terms interchangeably, but they are two very
different concepts. Discipline means to teach. Punishment means to
cause emotional or physical pain. Punishment builds fear and leads
to avoidance of the punisher. Punishment focuses on what not to do.
Discipline teaches what to do. Parents need skills to become a
disciplinarian or teacher of their children, which will always
amount to showing them how to be responsible in their thoughts and
actions.
Myth #2: Parents have a responsibility to control their children.
Parents have a responsibility to teach and to protect their
children. No one wants to have another person control his or her
thoughts, emotions and behavior. Do you? Children don’t either.
This myth is the source of countless parent/child power struggles.
Learn to work with your children, rather than against them. You
will be surprised at how quickly struggle turns into cooperation.
It is like learning how to rub the cat’s fur the right way instead
of the wrong way.
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Now that is powerful. I encourage you to try it for the next couple
of days. Just see where you might be engaging in control or power
struggles. And then choose to be aware of it. It can be painful
feeling like you don’t have options in those moments. The good news
is you do. The better news is I’m going to share them with you.
Myth #3: If parents don’t punish their children, someone else will
end up having to do it, such as the police.
Children who are taught self-discipline will not be easily
influenced to behave in inappropriate ways. Children who feel that
someone else is in control of their lives, such as an authoritarian
parent, will expect to have someone else to tell them how to think,
feel and act. They haven’t built an internal point of reference for
deciding right from wrong, therefore, they can be easily influenced
to do what others tell them to do.
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This is important. What is key to bear in mind here is that
teaching children self-discipline may not always be the easiest
thing in the moment. Unless you have developed methods for
encouraging your child to arrive at healthy decisions, then its easy.
And they do exist. We’ll cover a few more Myths in the next lesson
or so, and then I’ll start pointing you in the direction of some
resources you can use to find peace in your family.
Myth #4: Parents have the right to spank their children when
nothing else works.
Traditionally, spanking has been quite common in raising children,
in fact, so common that it is assumed that a parent has a RIGHT to
spank a child. Most parents would give up spanking if they knew
easier ways to handle discipline situations. In fact, there are so
many superior techniques for raising children today, that there is
no need to spank. The issue isn’t so much a matter of what is a
parent’s right, but what action will really create the outcome the
parent truly desires for the child, i.e. a child who has good
self-esteem, is inner-directed and self-disciplined.
Myth #5: It is necessary to break a child’s willful rebelliousness
with punishment.
Pain is part of life; it can’t be helped. While pain is part of
life, it doesn’t mean that pain has to be a way of life, as it is
in so many families. Children are much more motivated to
participate in their families by getting along with each other,
than they are motivated to be rebellious. It is the parent’s
responsibility to show children how to get their needs met through
cooperation, rather than through struggle.
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A big word enters the picture today. Responsibility. This is
important to consider over the next few days. By completing this
e-course you are now empowered and aware which also invites you
into responsibility.
Over the next few days be thinking about what it means to be
responsible for teaching our children to get their needs met. This
means teaching them to have certain kinds of conversations.
One of my students offered, “I didn’t really understand why meals
were so difficult until I took on the challenge of getting to
bottom of it. What I didn’t realize was that my son didn’t feel
comfortable asking for different food at breakfast. When I made
that space things changed.”
Most people don’t know that children want to engage in responsible
decision making, if only given the chance.
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Myth #6: Punishment builds character; it is human nature.
It is human nature to avoid punishment. Punishment creates fear,
isolation, defensiveness, anger, hurt and mean-spiritedness.
Positive character traits are built from love. These traits develop
when we are in a loving space and comfortable enough to find peace
within ourselves. Each person has an internal point of balance
where his or her true nature resides. Punishment, fear and external
control makes us off balance.
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Try to anticipate and understand your children’s feelings, and do your best to help them feel safe, loved and secure. help your children express their feelings, children of any age cope better when they feel they are being heard. seperate your spousal relationship (which has ended) from your role as parents. Protect yo……ur children from conflict, help your children keep a close relationship with both parents.See More
.++++++++++And that is why continuing to educate ourselves and grow as peopleis just as important as it is for us to learn and stretch asparents. Future generations are relying on us to raise children whocan be responsible in the new age.Breakthrough Parenting does that.I look forward to sharing more of that with you at:
Myth #7: The best way to parent is to do what our own parents did.
It can’t be so bad, after all, “look at how well I turned out.”
It isn’t likely that your parents were trained in the best that is
known about how to raise children. Abusive and neglectful practices
have been passed down for centuries. You don’t know how well you
would have turned out if your parents had practiced today’s
superior methods of raising children.
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And that is why continuing to educate ourselves and grow as people
is just as important as it is for us to learn and stretch as
parents. Future generations are relying on us to raise children who
can be responsible in the new age.
Breakthrough Parenting does that.
I look forward to sharing more of that with you at:
thanks !! very helpful post!