Archive for parenting
The basics of learning to be happy – fieldwork on parenting
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the most effective ways to develop a new Parent is to do “fieldwork” on actual parenting. You actually go out into the field (the community or the real world) to observe methods of parenting and determine how they can be improved. An internship or apprenticeship, where a person is actually doing work under supervision, could be called field work. Many professions require this as part of their training.
In previous generations, apprenticeship or internship in parenting was common. Large families and relatively stable neighborhoods enabled people to observe parenting and decide whether it was adequate or not. Today families are smaller and many people have less time for parenting because they are juggling priorities. Traditional parent education, intrinsic in most cultures, is disappearing today. Because of this, people who are reparenting themselves may know very little about being a parent. That is where the parenting field work comes in. It begins with planned observation.
Planned observation includes going to places where people are parenting young children and observing what is going on—both positive and negative. Supermarkets or department stores are rich fields for observation. Sometimes the parents are harried and the children look hurried, helpless, and hopeless. Sometimes both look happy. Nursery schools and playgrounds reveal a more structured facet of child rearing that involves directed play. This kind of observation can be very useful if you want to be a better new Parent to yourself.
Another way to further understand how to develop your new Parent is to read books on child development, particularly on developing a child’s self-esteem. Throughout your study, ask yourself “What am I learning that is new and positive that I could begin to apply to myself?” “What kind of parenting education do I need that will enhance my ability to be happy?”
The basics of parenting to help your children to be happy
Posted by: | CommentsTeaching well usually involves knowledge of the subject, interest in helping people learn about it, ability to make the subject come alive and to demonstrate how it can be applied. Any school curriculum consists of various courses that are related to each other in an organized way. Parents need to offer their children a similar opportunity for wholeness. Specifically, they need to teach (often by example) how to love, how to think, how to work, and how to play.
How to love is best taught by providing a home where love is present. Love is more than warm feelings, acts of kindness, nurturing, and approval. Love includes setting limits—saying no as well as yes. Love is sometimes challenged when people are tired, anxious, or critical, or when communication is inadequate and conflict erupts. It is also challenged when tragedy strikes in the form of accident, death, or illness. We need love when despair sets in because a job is lost or a friend betrays us or a colleague doesn’t keep promises. Love is not just an expression of happiness when things are going well. It includes being present for others when things are not going well.
The need to love oneself is also learned at home. Parents who act like martyrs to their children may believe they are showing love. They are not. They many be overindulging their children who will, in turn, take a self-centered view of life and overindulge themselves. Parents who teach love demonstrate by their actions the importance of taking responsibility for yourself and acting in loving ways because you are lovable.
How to think is best taught by encouraging children to do their own thinking and not giving them all the answers. Parents who want their children to think encourage them to observe the external world as well as their internal thoughts and feelings and to think of themselves as unique. They encourage school performance and the use of libraries. They share ideas and assist, if needed, with homework. They treat children like intelligent beings who very often have good ideas and sound solutions to problems.
How to work is best taught by demonstration and involvement. Parents, who show their children how to handle tools and machinery, without being too critical in the process, help the children develop confidence and self-esteem. Distribution of family chores (dependent upon the ages and capacities of the children and the family situation) teaches children that getting the daily work done can enhance life because it leads to order instead of disorder. Like play, work can be overemphasized. When it is, many people begin to think of it as distasteful. Later, they may choose boring jobs that require neither logical nor creative thinking. An effective parent, by example and precept, shows that work is often enjoyable—both the process of doing it and the product when it is done.
How to play is sometimes the most difficult thing for parents to teach, because they have structured their own lives without play. Thus they demonstrate, in their living and teaching, a “don’t enjoy” injunction. Such parents do not know that play is the “work” of childhood. In play, children experiment with life roles. They use their imagination and expand their creativity. Playing with peers, they learn new interpersonal skills and the value of cooperation for achieving goals. So one of the most important parental tasks is encouraging children to play. People whose parents did not value play need a new Parent who does. Laughter often liberates by reducing personal or interpersonal tension. A playful person can laugh and love, think and work, with more enjoyment for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The basics of parenting teens – sexual maturity
Posted by: | CommentsAnother ‘attention-getting device’ is open sexual activity, or even pregnancy. This can certainly provoke a family crisis of its own, but more often than not it appears to come on top of the problems with which you are already struggling. You may well be tempted to wash your hands of a teenager who is so selfish as to give you one more burden, not understanding that it could well be their difficulty in coming to terms with family problems that has prompted their action in the first place.
Young people often initiate or allow a sexual relationship when they feel invisible at home – unloved, uncared for, or just set aside by parents who are too bound up in their own difficulties or interests to spare time for them. One way of grabbing your attention in no uncertain terms is to leave evidence of a sexual relationship – a packet of contraceptive pills, a packet of condoms or a diary with explicit entries – lying around where you are sure to find it. They may even deliberately risk pregnancy, seeing it as a way of holding a partner and perhaps starting with them their own, idyllic, family that they imagine will shelter them. Or, they see a baby as a possible source of unfettered love, and also of status. Pregnancy is also a way of making parents unmistakably aware of the fact that they are no longer small children – becoming, or getting a girl, pregnant is an acknowledged ‘adult’ action.
Alternatively, young people can express their anger and confusion in behavior that up to then has been foreign to them, such as stealing, joy-riding, drug taking, vandalism or fighting. They may break up with old friends who are unable to understand or help cope with what is going on, and seek out other young people in a similarly ‘deprived’ situation. When faced with an outsider concerned with this behavior, such as a teacher, social worker or member of the police force, it can be tempting for parents to deny that their youngster could have been involved. Such a response rarely shows unconditional love and trust in the teenager, but a wish to defend your own position and evade the real issue. It’s not a question of taking an outsider’s word against that of your child, or of letting them down; if they are behaving in an anti-social and uncharacteristic way, they need your help both to face up to this fact and to sort out what is going on.
The main difficulty that parents encounter is that the crisis itself takes most of your attention and energy, leaving very little time for you to spend puzzling out your teenager’s complicated responses and how to deal with them. If you are trying to come to terms with a death or the break up of your marriage, it can be virtually impossible to see past your own feelings and to put yourself in your teenager’s shoes. Even worse, there can be situations that spell disaster for them that, in fact, are highly exciting for you – a move to a new house or job, or a new member of the family. In such a case, you may not have even realized that you were in the middle of a family crisis!
The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Fight the Might of Muscles
Posted by: | CommentsThe classic male body may be the dream of many, but not every boy is going to grow up naturally endowed with broad shoulders and rippling muscles. Many families, and some racial groups, simply don’t transmit the right genes to bring this about. Boys may not worry about the pout of their lips, the spread of their buttocks or the size of their eyes, but they experience as much anxiety about body shape and the condition of their skin as pubescent girls.
If you are a parent:
* Teach him to care for and honor his body, whatever its shape, by supporting him when he’s ill and helping him stay clean, fit and healthy
* Be careful what you say about men’s physique, so you don’t applaud media stereotypes
* If he wants to do weight-training, and it’s safe, support him, don’t tease; but make sure he knows that he’s lovable as he is and that girls go for personality and humor more than looks
* Don’t teach him to hit back at or exploit physical size with other boys
If you are a teacher:
* Avoid comments such as: ‘You’re big and strong; you can help me with these books’
* Make boys aware of the power of advertising in establishing preferred body images
* Talk about what makes a ‘real man’
* Break down stereotypes through discussion, classroom displays and teaching materials
* Initiate work on bullying and operate zero tolerance of physical fights on or near school grounds
Muscles take on a special value wherever physical strength is prized above other attributes and where might is viewed as right. If everyone in your family respects social, rather than physical, qualities in human beings, and rejects the use of muscle power to end disputes, your son’s self-esteem will flourish, whatever his shape and size. Social and emotional strength matter far more in the long term. It is also important he can freely admit when his body is ill and not working properly.
The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Failure Lights the Route to Success
Posted by: | CommentsAll boys experience failure – lots of it. A boy will almost certainly fail when he first tries to walk; he won’t master buttons on his first attempt, ride a bike or tie his shoelaces straight away, yet he is prepared to have another go. Why is it that these early failures don’t make growing boys give up, despite sometimes intense frustration, while later ones can stop them in their tracks and throw them into the depths of misery?
The uncomfortable truth is that adults are often responsible for the change. They start telling children off for failing, teasing them, and making them feel ashamed.
If you are a parent:
* Respond constructively: failure is like a puzzle to be solved, not a disaster to be denied; consider whether the target was too ambitious
* Respond genuinely: be honest about the outcome, and ensure it remains his problem, not yours
* Respond sensitively: however much he may deny it, failure is upsetting and can undermine confidence; accept, understand and let him voice his feelings; don’t be too strict with him; seek success elsewhere to balance a failure
* Show that you love him for who he is, not what he can do
If you are a teacher:
* Describe in detail what went wrong and how to do better
* Let him know you believe he can improve and demonstrate this with a sample piece of work
* Encourage him to self-evaluate as much and as accurately as possible
* Be available if he needs help
* Look for modest, not unreal, success stories: individual boys can explain how, and perhaps why, they turned themselves around
* Find out what might lie behind any unexpected fall-off in performance
* Don’t punish him for failing -he may start to lie or cheat
But failure is not something to be shunned. It provides factual and neutral information on what went wrong and what needs to go right. Failure is an inevitable and essential part of learning, and shows that learning is happening at the frontier of current knowledge. If the lessons to be learnt from failure are taken on board, they will light the path to success. This will not happen if adults deny, ignore or punish failures; making a boy feel he should hide and ignore the truth.
The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Enter the No-Go Areas
Posted by: | CommentsSex, alcohol and, increasingly, drugs in every form are inevitable features of growing up for our sons. These topics should not be allowed to become no-go areas in your family. Although boys need their private space as they enter their teens and will defend this (sometimes aggressively) against parental intrusion and, although it’s hard to hit the right note and avoid sounding uncomfortable, it is important to keep talking. Communication must be maintained in case serious problems arise.
If you are a parent:
* At home, talk openly and comfortably about sex in general conversation, so the subject is not alien
* If talking about sex, alcohol and drugs is difficult, give your son something to read; many leaflets/books are available about safe sex, drinking and drug-taking; your local health centre will help
* Be quietly vigilant; inform yourself and watch out for signs of the inappropriate use (too much or at the wrong time) of drugs or alcohol
* If you begin a new relationship during your son’s puberty, be aware that he will find the sexual side of it very difficult; be discreet, don’t compete
If you are a teacher:
* Most primary/secondary schools have sex and drugs education programs within an increasingly coherent PSHE curriculum; a staff member with the right professional and personal skills and knowledge should give this a high profile
* High self-esteem and good social/communication skills are the best defenses against premature sexual activity, early pregnancy and drug involvement; all teaching should reflect this
* PSHE teachers should possess excellent group-work skills to enable all students to participate comfortably and confidently in sex and drug education, and should also treat the subject seriously
Boys have a tendency to boast, exaggerate and fabricate to gain status and attention. When friends begin to boast, a boy will feel under pressure to claim that he, too, has ‘been there and done that’. But the reality is that he will almost certainly experiment. By the age of fourteen, one in three boys will have tried drugs. Telling a boy not to do something when peer pressure is strong may not have much impact, but suggesting that he remain in control of and true to himself by doing things only when he feels it’s right may give him that ounce of extra courage to say no and stand up for himself.
The Basics of How to Parent Your Boys: Enter His World Carefully
Posted by: | CommentsMy friend told me that his son became passionate about fishing after he’d been taken a couple of times by his uncle. The young lad desperately wanted my friend to come too, but it took so long and my friend had the younger one, so he never did. My friend told himself that he wanted to keep it as his son’s thing and didn’t want to muscle in, but when his son’s passion dwindled my friend realized how badly his son wanted my friend to share in his interest. It was my friend’s doing that his young lad gave up fishing.
It can be hard to judge the amount of involvement a boy wants us to have in his life, especially when he is at an age when he needs to become more separate and independent. There can be no clear answers – we must simply remain sensitive to the issue and judge each situation as it arises.
If you are a parent:
* Show interest, but don’t be intrusive
* Share and show an interest in his hobbies but don’t take them over; they don’t have to become your passion too
* Give him the space and territory to be different and separate from you without cutting yourself off
* Pop music is frequently used by older boys to explore and establish their new identity; ask which bands they like, but don’t make them your favorites
* Sporting events can be shared safely, and bring different generations closer
If you are a teacher:
* In any class discussions about personal and family matters, acknowledge your students’ range of family types and personal experiences, but tread very carefully in these areas.
* Plan ahead about how you should respond if a student ever becomes distressed during discussions of personal issues
In summary, there are two principles to bear in mind that may be useful: first, show interest, but don’t be intrusive and, second, remember that your prime role is to be his parent rather than his friend. You can be effective and loving without being his best friend, who should come from his peer group.
The Basics of Encouraging Self-Management: How to Parent Your Boys
Posted by: | CommentsIt can be hard to let go. With such busy lives, we may feel we have fewer ways to demonstrate our love and commitment. One remaining way, as our sons grow up and become harder to hug, is to tend to their needs. Teachers say that boys start secondary school noticeably less independent and competent than girls, which affects their ability to study. We may unconsciously feel uncomfortable teaching boys to use the washing machine, cook or iron.
If you are a parent:
* Encourage financial independence; give him regular pocket money, and stick to the agreed amount
* Encourage planning skills; if you’re planning an outing, as a fun project ask him to find out opening times and costs; give him a budget and sole charge of the family kitty for the day
* You can start early by leaving him to put on his shoes, wash his own face, get his things ready for school, and so on
* Be sure that you are doing enough for him in other ways so that he knows you still care
If you are a teacher:
* Make sure you inform parents of the educational spin-offs of self-reliance – that children who can look after themselves are also successful learners
* Don’t be tempted to let boys off the hook because they are inclined to be less organized
* Boys who live between two sets of parents may have difficulty remembering to bring in their books, especially early on; it’s better to give a boy two sets than to scold him and add to his problems
* Promote the use of planners and homework diaries
* Address time-management, work and planning skills
Boys can be so clumsy, too. We’d rather do the job for him than see him struggle, mess it up or go out looking scruffy or without something because he’s forgotten to think ahead. But it is not helpful to mollycoddle boys. It keeps them dependent and stops them developing the skills they need for managing school, work and time.
The Basics of Encouraging Self-Assessment: How to Parent Your Boys
Posted by: | CommentsAlthough our children love to know they have pleased us, what we should try to encourage from the start is the confidence to evaluate and praise themselves.
Boys seem to find it particularly hard to self-criticize, and when they do many are too cocky and give themselves more credit than is due. While this confidence can be a delight to see, it can be dangerous, leading to self-satisfaction, laziness, poor preparation and unreal expectations – not to mention wounded self-esteem. Being a boy, facing the demands that he does, your son is just as likely to respond to a shattered ego with denial as with a resolve to make good the deficit.
If you are a parent:
* Avoid doing all the judging so that your son won’t become dependent on your opinion and lose faith in his own
* When your son asks you what you think of something he has done – a painting, an essay, a sports achievement, a music practice – turn the question back to him; what matters, ultimately, is what he thinks of his effort, and getting him used to deciding for himself is crucial
If you are a teacher:
* Boys can be encouraged to assess each other’s work, in pairs, as a first step to becoming honest about their” own work
* Boys in nursery and infant school work well with ‘plan, do, then review’, and older boys can do this too
* At the end of any piece of work, boys can be required to say what mark they think it merits, then you can explain why and how it did, or did not, meet the standards for that assessment
* Once self-assessment becomes frequent and normal, there will be no excuse for boys being dangerously over-optimistic about their abilities
Self-assessment is important because it is central to independent learning, which is the way of the future. Many boys find it uncomfortable because they dislike both the responsibility it places on them and admitting that they could have done better. But more experience of self-evaluation is the only way out of this difficulty. The sting is removed from criticism when it comes from themselves.