Make Parenting Shifts

As children grow and mature, parents must make adjustments in the way they parent. Some of those changes are minor or subtle; others are more significant. In the same way that children go through developmental stages, parents must learn to adapt by shifting the way they interact, care for, and discipline their children. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, your child changes and you feel like you’re starting all over again.

For instance, when that tiny newborn comes home from the hospital, the baby quickly becomes the focus of attention. The infant sets the schedule for feedings and for sleeping. Often both parents have to adapt their lives around one small child. However, as your baby begins to grow and develop, you change too. You no longer jump for every cry. You begin to set limits on a mobile child and determine a meal schedule for a toddler. One major parenting shift takes place when infants become toddlers.

A common parenting mistake happens when parents don’t make the teenage parenting shift. They continue to treat their teens as if they were nine or ten years old. Parents who don’t make the necessary adjustments, experience increased friction and frustration in family dynamics. As children mature, parents can now communicate with them in a more adult manner by listening and explaining. Change comes through compromise and mutual agreement rather than always strictly complying with the parents’ instructions.

Teens need more discussion about issues and concerns. Discipline involves more explaining and talking rather than just requiring compliance. A parent may say, “I’m not going to make you give your little brother one of the cookies you made for school, but I’d like to talk about it. I’d like to hear what you’re thinking because it seems selfish to me.”

As your children grow, be ready to grow with them and make the necessary changes to influence them effectively. 

This tip comes from the chapter on teens in the book Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes In You and Your Kids by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

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“Approximately Right” is Worth a Compliment

It’s easy to focus on how far children need to go instead of how far they’ve come. One way to keep a positive focus in your discipline is to look for approximately right behavior and affirm it. Don’t wait until things are absolutely right.

If you ask your child to clean up the toys but find that he’s only put away two things and left six out, you might say, “Oh, I see you put the blocks away, that’s great! and I like the way you lined up your trucks, now let me see you put the balls in the box where they belong.”

You’re encouraging steps in the right direction. One little boy was learning to dress himself and Mom had a rule that he needed to be dressed before coming to the breakfast table. When he came downstairs with his shirt on backwards and his shoes missing, she still praised him. He was trying. Pointing out his shortcomings would have been discouraging. He had tried and was feeling good. Mom wanted to encourage his efforts.

If your child is having as hard time finishing a homework assignment, you could be encouraging and point out how much she’s done, rather then focusing on how much is left.

Paul affirmed approximately right behavior when he recognized that we’re all in process. He encouraged the Philippians with these words, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Paul was saying, “Be encouraged in the process because God is still working in you.” We give a gift to our children as we affirm them in process, not just completion.

 This parenting tip comes from the book, Home Improvement, The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids, by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN. If you’d like to continue to receive tips yourself, you can sign up at www.biblicalparenting.org.

Servant For The Day

Children often compete with each other in order to be first or best. This tendency on the part of children comes from selfishness, a major roadblock to sibling harmony. The solution is to learn how to be a servant, but how do you convince a five-year-old or a twelve-year-old that being a servant is a valuable thing?

As parents we have to look for positive ways to frame the maturity issues that we know are best, but seem unreasonable to our children. In this case, you might try having a “Servant for the Day.” This child not only sets the table and takes out the trash but also gets some extra “Mommy time,” helps with dinner, and sits next to Dad during story time. Throughout the course of the day, Mom has an opportunity to talk about more subtle aspects of servanthood that involve how children talk, listen, and even think.

Take time to praise demonstrations of servanthood. One child may not get the first turn or the biggest piece, but he gets the praise of Mom for being the mature one. That’s a far more valuable reward.

 Teaching children to be servants will promote harmony in your family. Becoming a servant will help children deal with the continual desire to build themselves up while putting others down. Learning servanthood is a way to honor others in the family and it brings honor back as well.

Who demonstrated servanthood recently in your family? How can you point that out and encourage it today?

This parenting tip comes from the book, Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes, In You and Your Kids, by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

If you’d like to continue to receive tips yourself, you can sign up at www.biblicalparenting.org.

Envision a Positive Future

Take a few minutes and imagine what your children will be like as adults. Some parents have immediate thoughts of terror and doom, but instead, look at the good qualities your children have and imagine how those qualities will benefit them later in life. Then share those observations with your children.

Envisioning a positive future looks beyond the day-to-day discipline and says, “I see qualities in you that are going to make you successful.” Statements like, “With that kind of thoughtfulness you’re going to make a great husband.” Or “Your thoroughness is going to make you a valuable employee someday.” When parents learn to view their children this way, they look past the daily grind of parenting to what their children are becoming. What is my child good at? What do I see now that will bring success as my child grows?

We’ve probably all heard the statement that children believe what we say about them. If a parent tells a child he’ll never amount to anything, he’s likely to incorporate that into his belief about himself and it may end up becoming true. We can take that same principle and teach our children to see the good in themselves, the specific ways that God has blessed them. Interestingly enough, giving our children a positive vision for the future encourages them to live up to it now. The qualities we focus on end up being the ones they see in themselves and develop.

Envisioning a positive future gives our children hope and direction. It says, “You’re going to make it.” “I believe in you.” It’s a way to honor our children. Like giving them a gift that will last a lifetime, a hopeful way of looking at themselves and their life.

After all God does this for us on a regular basis. Verses like Philippians 1:6 give us hope to live now to the fullest. “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

This parenting tip comes from the book, Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes, In You and Your Kids, by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

If you’d like to continue to receive tips yourself, you can sign up at www.biblicalparenting.org.

Children Who Get Angry Need Other Choices

A good anger management plan teaches children healthy alternatives to explosive behavior. Unhealthy choices include sarcasm, dirty looks, yelling, stomping, and unkind words. But if children or adults are going to respond in healthy ways, they need to have some better ideas in mind.

We encourage parents to teach three simple choices to children: talk about it, get help, or slow down and persevere. These three choices simplify the process greatly. Of course, this is only to get kids started. After they learn these three skills they can graduate to Anger Management 201 that offers choices like forgiveness and responding with kindness or sorrow. Even adults who are struggling with anger need to have it simplified and these three choices will get you going.

Talk About It
If another child is being irritating or hurtful, frustration can be a signal that your child needs to confront or express displeasure. If Derek doesn’t like the way Tyler is playing with his Legos, he needs to say, “I don’t like it when you play rough with my Legos,” instead of getting all worked up about it. We teach young children exactly what words to use, “I don’t like it when you do that.” Kids need to learn conflict management skills. They need to be taught how to talk about it.

Get Help
If your child gets frustrated because the blanket keeps falling off the table when she’s trying to set up a tent or because the friend she’s playing with won’t listen to her, it may be time to get help. Often a child who is struggling with a pair of scissors will need a little help from Mom or Dad and then be able to continue with the project. Parents know that getting help is one of the solutions to frustration and so too often they jump in and relieve the frustration for the child. It’s best to teach your child to ask for help. You might say, “If you need help, just ask me,” and then get out of the way. Let the child learn how to deal with frustration by asking for help. Frustration can be a good teacher sometimes.

Slow Down and Persevere
When a person is mowing a lawn and hits a thick, grown up section of grass, the best course of action is to slow down and take it a little piece at a time. In the same way, sometimes children must slow down, adjust their expectation so that they can persevere and finish the task without exploding.

Each of these three choices is a skill that needs to be developed. If your child is getting angry a lot, you may find that teaching these skills will go along way to bring about peace in your child’s heart.

This parenting tip comes from the book series, Home Improvement, The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller.

If you’d like to continue to receive tips yourself, you can sign up at www.biblicalparenting.org.

Some Kids Drain Energy Out of Family Life

Some children have the ability to suck the energy right out of family life. These children are demanding of your time, need a lot of correction, and seem to be magnets for conflict. They are often emotionally explosive but almost always drain the energy out of parents and other family members. Unfortunately then, these children develop a negative view of themselves based on the high amount of negative feedback they receive.

One solution is to teach them to add energy back into family life. We use the term “honor” to describe the process of thinking of others above yourself. If Jack seems to get people riled up each afternoon before dinner, set an appointment with him at 4:00 pm for several days in a row and ask him to look for three things he can do to add to family life. He may decorate the dinner table, encourage his brother, or prepare something nice for Dad’s arrival home.

If Jack continually antagonizes his sister, tell him that he needs to think of three nice things to do for her before he can go on with family life. Don’t tell him exactly what he needs to do. If you decide what Jack needs to do and tell him to do it, that’s obedience. When Jack chooses, that’s honor. Honor treats people as special and does more than what’s expected. Jack needs to learn how to add energy to family life instead of taking it away. Challenging children in this way helps them to think differently.
 
Teens need to learn honor because it will make them more effective in life. Hidden within honor are the secret ingredients that make people more successful in relationships. Teaching honor is worth the work, because honor changes people.

This idea comes from the children’s curriculum called The Kids Honor Club by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller.

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 Parenting Tip

October 6, 2011

Building a Tape

Many times we, as parents, don’t see the results of our discipline as fast as we’d like. The process is slow, at best, and change seems to be taking a long time. In those situations we need to focus on building a tape in our child’s heart.

Think about some of the things your parents said over and over again that continue to play in your mind. “Turn off the lights before you leave the room.” “Eat your vegetables.” “Be nice to your sister,” “Say excuse me.” Did you heed their instructions then? Maybe not, but the tape still plays in your head.

It may not appear that your children are listening but loving and consistent reminders have a long-term effect. It’s important what you say and how you say it, though, because children will remember. If your words have a pattern of being harsh and critical, that tape also will continue to play later on.

Simple observations repeated over and over can go a long way. If you have one son who is continually picking on another, he may have a character weakness in the area of kindness. Make statements and observations that add to the tape. “Johnny, you need to be kind.” “Johnny, it looks like you’re being selfish and not thinking of Billy’s feelings.” “Johnny, was that the loving thing to do?” “Johnny, let’s not be hurtful.”

As we repeat instructions and make observations, we’re impacting the hearts and minds of our children, whether we see the results in their behavior or not. Change takes time. It’s important to pray that God will use our words to make lasting changes in our kids. We may not actually see the results as fast as we would like, but we are building a tape that will last a long time. Take a moment and think about the tape you’re creating in your child’s heart. Is it the one you want remembered?

Consider what you’d like your child to say to himself or herself and begin to repeat those words throughout the day. In doing so you’ll be creating a heart script to help your child mature.
This tip comes from the book, Home Improvement, by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

If you’d like to continue to receive tips yourself, you can sign up at www.biblicalparenting.org.

 September 11, 2011

It’s Hard to Raise a Leader

Some children are born leaders. They want to control their parents, their siblings, their friends, and even people they don’t know. They have their own agenda and want everyone else to know what it is and how to fit into it. Leaders can be a real blessing in life but they sure are hard to raise.

One of the greatest gifts you can give to your budding leader is the ability to follow. To follow means listening to the needs and desires of others, submitting to someone else’s agenda, and learning how to work cooperatively on a team. All good leaders need to know how and when to follow.

Although you will nurture the leadership gifts your child possesses, it’s also your job to teach him or her how to work with others. The weaknesses of young leaders are demonstrated in negative ways like arguing, badgering, and being demanding or angry. Don’t just brush off these weaknesses as inevitable. Take time to correct, but do it in a way that appreciates the child’s gifts. “Karen, I can tell you’re going to be a leader someday, but remember that good leaders need to think about the needs of others.” Or, “Jim, I like the way you take initiative with your brother. Remember, though, that a good leader is also a good listener.”

As you guide the development of your young leader you’ll not only make family life easier now, but also you’ll be equipping him for the future. Your hard work will be worth it in the end.

This parenting tip comes from the book Home Improvement, The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

If you’d like to continue to receive tips yourself, you can sign up at www.biblicalparenting.org.

Children Outgrow Rules but Not Values

As children get older, parents gradually release control of decision-making and allow their kids greater freedom to make choices for themselves. Too much freedom too early can be disastrous but too much control and then instant freedom can be dangerous as well.

The key to making good decisions has a lot to do with values, but children don’t get to hear about values as often. Children hear rules. If, when your kids are growing up, you talk about the values behind the rules then when they have the freedom to make their own decisions, they’ll be able to do so with wisdom.

Children outgrow rules, but they don’t outgrow values. When kids are young you may not allow them to go down the street without an adult. When they get a little older they’ll have to check in and be home at a certain time. Those are rules but they come out of very important values of safety and accountability. When a college student is invited to stay out late with her friends, those values from childhood will still ring true, and will help guide her to wise decisions.

Prepare now for your child’s future decision-making. What are the values behind the rules you’ve created? Share those values regularly as opportunities to teach your kids. Your children will carry the values on for the rest of their lives.

What are some ways you’ve been able to teach your kids values? Click here to tell us about it.

This parenting tip comes from the book Home Improvement, The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.

 www.biblicalparenting.org.

A Practical Way to Teach Values

Here’s a practical and effective way to teach values in your family: explain the reasons behind your rules.

When you think of rules, you may just think of a list of do’s and don’ts that you are trying to impress upon your children. Rules can… (more)