Practical Parenting - Teaching Your Child What He Needs to Learn

I received a letter today from an exasperated mom of a 20-month old and it struck a chord in me. As a mother of six (4boys, 2 girls) I’ve been there, done that - and about pulled my hair out during the process.

Dee,

Harrison (my boy) is my first, and I think that is part of my issue. I am unsure of what is normal for a toddler aged little boy, and if I am expecting too much. I have read books, blogs, talked with other parents, but every child is so different. And what works with some children doesn’t work for others. I understand this. I guess I’m still trying to figure out what is best for Harrison.

My mother-in-law tells me often, while usually laughing, that Harrison is /acts just like his father.

A very active, energetic curious, pushes me to the limits little boy.

And as I mentioned in my original comment- I want to channel that energy in a good way.

I don’t want to crush his spirit. I want to encourage him to explore and learn, but not to where he thinks he can run wild. I want to be able to teach him that he can still have fun and stay with-in the boundaries that are there for his safety. How can I do this, and it actually work?

I really appreciate your taking the time to read and respond to me.

Jenifer

To be honest, the golden rules of motherhood that I’ve learned are VERY simple.

1) you listen - to what he’s thinking and feeling and then adjust your comments, advice, discipline and tactics accordingly. This is crucial to start now because as they get older, that listening can save their lives, literally

2) you pay attention - to how he acts, what he’s doing, his moods, his friends, his likes, his dislikes, the looks on his face, the words ‘behind the words’ when he’s upset. I swear if more parents actually PAID ATTENTION to their children, we wouldn’t have the teen crises we have today.

Paying attention isn’t just ‘watching’ a child - it’s truly trying to learn all you can about the child and then noticing the little things - the moods, changes in behavior, changes in friends, changes in likes and dislikes, changes in even facial expressions. How can a parent ever know how to handle a crisis with a child whom she doesn’t even really know?

Child Discipline 3) set reasonable boundaries and stick to them - if your child has a problem with temper tantrums in the grocery store check-out line, then choose that to work on this week.

Take him to the store every day if you have to, and tell him beforehand what he will get and what he will not. “Mommy needs to go to the store for paper towels, we are not buying candy for you today. If you start begging and crying, you will have a 10 minute timeout when we get home.”

And then stick to it. Even if it takes 2 hours to get him to sit still in time out for 10 straight minutes. Even if it is in middle of Blues Clues. With a child 3 or under, I’d probably do 5 minutes (that’s a looooong time to a toddler!).

But what I did with my kids is every time they said a word, moved their hineys off the chair or screeched, the clock started over. I used a simple kitchen timer and put it where they could see it and count down with it. Oh, and timing doesn’t start until protestations and crying stops. This same principle works on older children.

You simply adjust the method behind the disciplinary action to fit the age of the child. With my teens, it’s a cell phone. They lose it for one week - but if they beg, or even ask for it back, I tack on another day.

4) don’t sweat the small stuff - nobody should truly want a perfect child. A perfect child who never acts up, never throws a tantrum, never makes a mistake, always sits still, is a child who is stuffing their emotions and trying to live according to what he thinks everyone else wants.

What kind of person does that child become as an adult? One without original ideas, or at least a fear of acting upon and/or sharing any original ideas he may have. He’ll be an adult who cares more about what everyone else thinks than what he wants or believes is good for him.

And, he’ll be a child who never has the strength of self to test boundaries, and boundaries should always be tested - it is how we grow, learn, create and invent in this world. In other words, you’ll be raising a neurotic future adult.

My advice? Make a list of the most important things your child needs to learn - the most important social boundaries, personal boundaries, etc. And then work on those one at a time. If he throws a fit in public, so what? Remove him from the situation and give him a time out and know he’s normal - which is a very good thing.

Parenting Ideas 5) don’t try and shove a round peg into a square hole - one of the biggest crimes in our schools, in my opinion, is the lack of treating children as independent-thinking, unique individuals. All children are not the same - and thank God for that!

They don’t learn the same, they don’t think they same, they don’t feel the same and they don’t see the people and world around them the same. So why do we think we can teach them the same - whether it’s at home or at school? We can’t.

And this goes back up to number 2 - paying attention. As you grow to know your child more - and believe me, at the toddler stage a child changes daily - you’ll understand how better to teach them the lessons they need to learn.

My youngest son, who is my challenge child, doesn’t respond to corporal punishment, nor grounding, nor screaming and yelling. What he DOES respond to is talking. AFTER emotions have calmed down we sit and we talk. And I ask him what he was thinking, what he was feeling and I don’t let him get away with “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember”. He knows by now that we’ll sit for hours if need be until he has an answer.

When I understand as much as I’m capable of what he was feeling, we talk about how others who were in the situation felt or must of felt and then we go on to ideas on how EACH OF US could have handled it better and ways in which a similar situation can be avoided in the future.

Don’t give up, Jenifer. Doctors told me that my baby boy would “never become a productive member of society” due to his emotional issues and diagnoses of OCD, ADHD, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. I was told I would be ‘better off’ if I “let the state care for him” so that I could better concentrate on my ‘normal’ children.

Needless to say, I told the doc where to go. Not that it’s been easy, it hasn’t.

There were days when he was your son’s age that I’d go and grab him out of bed after I’d FINALLY gotten him to sleep (he’d stay up for 36 hours at a time) because I’d realize I’d spent the whole day going “No, stop, quit it, don’t do that, knock it off.” I’d pick him up, sound asleep, and sit on the couch and hold him, telling him I loved him and fighting tears of frustration.

But today I have a 16-year-old boy who is bright, doing well in school, doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs and is well on his way to becoming the man I never lost faith he could become. He still has challenges and he is still challenging, but when people meet him, none can believe a doctor ever advised me to give up on him.

Now that I’ve written a book, I do want to tell you what the one thing is that I think is absolutely imperative for a child to learn. It’s really simple too - Respect. Respect for themselves, for others, for animals, nature and laws. I put respect for themselves first because if they learn that, the others just naturally fall into place.

When a child throws a tantrum in public, how many parents make sure the child understands how it made others around him feel? NOT what others around him thought - who gives a hoot about that - we can’t live our lives according to what others think of us and we shouldn’t teach children to either. But how did they feel? Sad? Distracted?

Teaching Children The other children in story time at the library, did his tantrum make them really sad because they couldn’t hear the storyteller? Did something he did scare them? You have to bring a child outside of himself during times of discipline.

There is no “because I said so” - part of learning respect is teaching that all actions and words have consequences and reactions in the people and world around them.

No man is an island, yet we so seldom teach our children about the human consequences of their actions. We are much more likely to tell them how much money they cost us, how they made us look, how mad we are, how much trouble they could have gotten in, etc.

But take them outside of themselves and help them walk that mile in another’s moccasins, and you will probably have a much better chance of molding your child in the ways you need to.

One more thing, and I apologize for this being so long, don’t spend every waking minute ‘teaching’. Kids learn - in spite of us parents. They learn in everything they do, say, hear, experience and encounter.

Instead of worrying about what you should be teaching him, stave off future regrets (trust me, they’ll happen) and simply take some time every single opportunity you can grab to just HAVE FUN. Even if you can’t see how he’s ‘learning’ - play - play and have fun with your baby. He will be that age for so little time and the play times are what they remember the most fondly.

My daughter, who is almost 18, had to fill out a questionaire for school not too long ago and one of the questions was, “What is your favorite memory with your mom?”. Her answer was about a time we were on a trip and stopped at one-horse town to go pee. The bathrooms were more like outhouses and we both had gas. (I can’t believe I’m posting this).

Parenting Skills Anyway, after *noisily* trekking the 100 years or so to the outhouses, puttering the whole way, we collapsed in giggle fits to the point neither of us could breathe very well. Before that we had been in a hurry to get somewhere and we were running late. But that little moment of ‘fun’ stuck with my daughter all these years.

It floored me. After all, we’ve done together, talked about together, places we’ve gone together - and her favorite memory is a gassy trek to an outhouse. (shaking head)

I wish you the best of luck and a truckload of patience and love.

Many blessings,

Dee

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