Three Approaches To Raising Children
Take something as simple as getting and eight year old to clean their room. Mom says, “Samantha, your room sure is a mess. I suppose when you get tired of living this way, you’ll clean it up.” Dad says, “Samantha, clean up this room now! Get busy.”
This rarely succeeded for the simple reason that few children are naturally self-directing. Children need routines, structure, predictability and boundaries, and they do not come by these naturally.
Often, permissive parents get fed up when their child has not acted responsibly, and they go ballistic in an authoritarian outburst. After they have laid down the law, accompanied by tears and bad feelings, the child’s bedroom finally gets cleans. This lack of consistency is especially difficult because children don’t know what to expect, nor are they empowered and shown how to take charge of their bedroom.
Most permissive parents vacillate between permissive and authoritarian approaches. They don’t provide structure, because they are uncomfortable being bosses. The explosion confirms how uncomfortable they feel being authoritarian so they go back to being permissive until the next big upset.
Breakthrough Parenting differs from the other in that the responsibility for solving problems is shared between parent and child. The child is not given permission to decide not to be responsible nor is the child told exactly what to do.
“Samantha, your room is really a mess. I would like to know what your plan is for cleaning it.” Samantha is expected to take responsibility for cleaning her room. It is up to her to decide when and how to do the job. If her plan works, great! If she does not show much success, then a process of problem-solving occurs between parent and child. “Samantha, it looks like you started to clean your room, but didn’t’t finish. It doesn’t’t seem like your plan worked very well.” We still expect Samantha to get her room clean. Whose room is it? Whose problem is it? HERS
What is the parent’s job? To help Samantha attain mastery over keeping her room clean by allowing her to assume an increasing amount of reasonability for it. The parent and child engage in problem-solving until both of them agree on how she is going to take care of her room. Acknowledge successes and point out how the various tasks have been accomplished. This approach is continued until it is no longer necessary for him to mention that the room needs to be cleaned. It may take until adolescence or longer before mastery of this task has been achieved.
Submitted by
Patricia Lessard
This blog is great. How did you come up witht he idea? 9 1 5
I took the “Breakthrough Parenting” course a few years ago and it had such a profoundly good effect on my daughter and my relationship I went on to become an instructor and distribute the materal.
The articles are brief summaries from the course designed by Dr. Jayne A. Major. If you like this stuff you should read the book. It’s life-altering.
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Thank you for taking the time to rate my blog. My computer guy did the format and I do the content.
Patricia Lessard
Certified Breakthrough Parenting Instructor
I found this blog on digg.com social bookmarking site. I liked it and gave you a fave! By the way I also really like your blog theme! Did you create it yourself or can I download it from somehwere?
It’s wordpress
Thank you for your help!
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