PARENTING TIPS

by Dr. Carol Renaud Gaffney

Independence Anyone?

"I want to do it my way!!"

"Who's the boss around here, anyway?"

"Now dear, don't be so hard on him (or her). After all, he's (she's) only a child!"

Familiar words? All too often parents and children are caught in an age-old battle:

"Who should be in charge of what, when and how?"

Confused?? You're not alone - many parents are feeling inadequately prepared as they face the changing needs of the family, parents and children. In fact, I frequently hear:

"I just don't know what went wrong; what ever happened to the good old days when a parent's word was law?"

Perhaps you are in the situation where what you want for your child does not seem to fit with what he/she wants. With words and strategies that no longer work you may have an increasingly angry child. Perhaps you are sharing this anger. Read on. The following ideas are just some thoughts to consider as we raise our children.

Independence and rebellion are not the same!!! Independence occurs when a child actually does some thinking for herself and considers consequences for she acts.

Rebellion takes no thinking at all. In fact a rebellious kid checks out what someone else is doing and then makes decisions. All a child has to do is listen to what is asked for and do the opposite. This usually occurs with no regard for consequences. Once a parents knows what kind of child they're working with, problems can easily decrease because the parent can get the child to go right by asking her to go left. Still, the parents ends up the one doing most of the thinking.

Thinking comes before independence and develops through practice. If a parent wants his child to be thinking by the time he hits junior high, better hope he's had plenty of practice during elementary school!! Thinking, unlike bad complexion, does not develop overnight. As you may already know, the price of poor thinking and rebellion goes way up in junior high. The good news is that there are plenty of opportunities to learn and to think before that because they'll make so many mistakes and...

Every time a mistake is made or a problem occurs, there's a new opportunity for thinking. And the person who makes the mistake get to be involved in solving the problem.

Now this may sound strange to the parent who is a great problem-solver and lectures on the way it should have been done the first time around. It may also feel odd to the parent who thinks that every mistake should be followed by punishment "that will be remembered for along time to come".

But think about it, even now our best thinking goes along with the greatest mistakes for which we've had to claim responsibility. Our task as the knowing adult is to let the problem be solved without the words "I told you so!" and wit a loving message of "good luck!"

The role of the parent is one of coaching for the child, not playing the game for him. It may be hard for a loving parent to say, "I hope you can work it out with your teacher, let me know if you want to talk about it," rather than "Ill be up at the school first thing in the morning to set that teacher straight".

A loving parent can cheer from the sidelines as the child takes that step toward maturity. the parent can also be there to share in the pride of success or help bear the pain of disappointment. the child will play better knowing he isn't playing the game alone - but it's not the parent's play of the game that will guarantee the win.

Independence thrives on a strong self-concept. All too often when something goes wrong, there's a winner and a loser. The apparent winner, usually the powerful parent, often looks back with regret and wonders how it could happen that his child is upset or angry. When the person with the problem does the thinking about his part of it, when the parent can be the coach, when the child gets to play the game - they can both be on the winning team.

Now that you have some things to consider, let me add one last idea that every parents can benefit from but all to often few even realize: Independent children leave time for parents to live adult lives of their own.