WEEK OF MARCH 18 - 22

5 AREAS TO LET YOUR CHILD FACE NATURAL CONSEQUENCES
by Sara Bean, M.Ed.

Everyone says you should let your child face natural consequences, but what exactly does this mean? Many parents struggle with this concept because they don’t fully understand what constitutes a "natural" consequence. And sometimes parents have difficulty relinquishing control of consequences because they feel they always have to get their child to obey, even if it means getting into a huge blowout.

Natural consequences allow you to take the stance of, “This isn’t my problem. You’re the one who made the choice. What are you going to do differently next time?”

I’ve talked to many parents who have structure and consequences in place for their child to motivate them to do their homework. Many refuse to accept that there is little else you can do to make your child do his homework if he doesn’t care about the consequences. There comes a point, though, where you have to let go and let your child feel the natural consequences of poor grades, such as failing, getting spoken to by the teacher, or even summer school. Believe me, I’m not advocating an uninvolved approach here—far from it. I’ll explain more about this later on.

Natural Consequences: Why Are They Important?

Natural consequences can best be described as the logical outcome of a decision your child makes. These consequences sometimes come from outside forces such as other adult influences such as teachers, but may also come from you setting limits on how much you will do for your child. One of the most notable benefits of letting your child face the natural consequences is you don’t have to come up with them yourself; rather, you’re allowing the chips to “fall where they may.” They also help your child to learn about what happens when he makes various choices on his own. It shows him that rules are here for a reason and going against them is unpleasant. Natural consequences allow you to take the stance of, “This isn’t my problem. You’re the one who made the choice. What are you going to do differently next time?”

Areas Where Natural Consequences Are Effective

1. Poor decisions at school: I’ve worked with many parents whose kids get into trouble at school for the way they acted, but instead of letting their child face the music, they try to bail their kid out. Parents, remember this: your child’s version of the story is not always the true version of what has happened. Your child will sometimes rearrange the facts to justify his poor choices—and omit information about his own behavior. When your child makes a poor choice at school, such as a lewd comment in the cafeteria or pushing a peer in the hallway, the information you get about the situation is probably just the tip of the iceberg. There is much more that goes on every day that teachers see and hear that you don’t know because most of the time it’s harmless and there is no need to tell you. And teachers know that all kids make mistakes and accept it as part of growing up. When your child is given a consequence at school, there’s more often than not a very good reason for it. It’s important that you let your child face these natural consequences such as missing recess, going to detention, or attending school on Saturday. If you try to get your child out of trouble at school, you undermine the school’s authority and your child gets the message that he doesn’t have to listen to his teachers, and behavior will likely worsen.

2. Personal space at home: In most cases, it’s effective to let your child be in control of her own space and her own belongings. If you tell your child that you will only wash the clothes she puts in the laundry each week, but she doesn’t put any in the hamper, the natural consequence is that you won’t wash them. You aren’t doing anything extra here or going out of your way to do something your child can do herself; you are simply washing what there is to wash. Another possibility here is that maybe she’ll have to do her own laundry. Another example: The natural consequence of a dirty room is that your child won’t be able to find things or she’ll step on something that hurts her foot. If your teen refuses to wear a coat in the winter, the natural consequence will be that she is cold. If your child brings his favorite new toy to school (when you told him not to) and it gets lost or stolen, that’s the natural consequence. If he had listened to you, he would still have those cool new Legos.

3. Household chores: The most common way for families to handle chores is to provide a small allowance. It works best to break the allowance down into a payment for each chore. When children don’t do the chores, they don’t get paid. It’s just like in the real world—if you and I don’t do our work, we don’t get paid either,and then we don’t have the money to buy the things we want or do the extra fun things we want to do. This can work for any child in grade school. With younger kids, you could do a token system or create a single behavior chart that will allow them to earn a reward every day or two, such as playing a game with Mom or watching a movie with Dad. Another system I love that works well with kids who leaves their things all over the place is the “Saturday Box.” Every night after bed, you pick up whatever your child left lying around the house and put it in the Saturday Box. And, as the name implies, she won’t get it back until Saturday. If one of those items happens to be her handheld game device for example, then you have a bonus natural consequence: she won’t get to play until Saturday. And that’s on her, not you, as long as you told her about the Saturday Box ahead of time.

4. Homework: Homework and school projects are another area where your child really needs to take responsibility for himself and earn his grades. The natural consequences are plentiful—he may get lectured by the teacher, he may have to stay in from recess to finish it, he may not get to participate in school-sponsored activities that have grade restrictions, and, if it’s very serious, he might even have to repeat the grade or go to summer school. I know this sounds harsh, but think of it this way: You aren’t going to follow your child around to his job when he grows up to make sure he does everything his boss wants him to do, right? That’s why it’s best for your child to learn now what happens when you don’t meet your responsibilities. (This is not to say that you ignore homework altogether—I will talk about when to step in and how to do it in just a few moments.)

5. Behavior in the community: We say this all the time here at Empowering Parents: no matter how much you would like to, you can’t control your child’s behavior outside your home. There may come a day when your child does something rude or obnoxious at a friend’s house; the natural consequence might be that he isn’t allowed over there for a while. Or, your teen might get caught speeding or walking around at night after the city curfew, actions whichalso have their own natural consequences. When misbehavior outside your home poses a safety risk, you certainly do want to impose some consequences of your own at home, of course, but that speeding ticket is a natural consequence for your child’s choice to speedwhile driving the car.

When Should You Give Your Child Consequences?

A good starting place here is this question: Is this a serious safety concern, or is my child’s poor decision in this situation likely to have long-term negative or unhealthy consequences? If the answer is “yes,” then you are going to want to set some clear standards and hold your child accountable in some way. For example, if your child’s grades are failing, you can establish a daily structure where he has no access to electronics or favorite toys from after school until the work is done. You could also try to add additional incentives for your child to follow this structure at least 3 or 4 days per week. This would allow him to earn a little something extra on the weekend, like extra time playing video games or a trip to the mall with you. 

After you’ve tried consequences and rewards, understand that the rest is in your child’s hands and he’ll choose whether to risk the natural consequences again or not.

Additionally, you must step in if there is a safety is a concern. If your child has been smoking weed or experimenting with alcohol, the car can be off limits for a while. If your child refuses to wear a helmet, the bike is locked up. If your child has shoplifted, he might lose the privilege of walking to the store on his own for a while. These are just a few of many possible examples.

With every child, it’s helpful for you to talk with him or her about their decisions and the outcomes of those decisions. Younger children will need you to offer them choices, while mid-elementary aged kids and up can make choices more independently, but discussion and coaching with all kids is helpful. When you talk, you can discuss your child’s reason for making a decision, what the outcome was, and what he could do differently next time. This will help him maximize the learning that comes from mistakes and give him the skills to avoid unpleasant consequences in the future—natural or otherwise.

The Real World Experience Kids Gain by Facing Consequences

While it’s your responsibility to coach your child and point out the consequences of his choices, your child learns best when given the opportunity to identify his choices, consider each choice, choose, and then experience the outcome. Even the best-behaved kids will make poor choices now and again. The hard truth is that decision-making is a skill your child needs to learn so he can function as an adult. Natural consequences are one of the best teachers (and aids) a parent can have in coaching their child about life in the real world learning to let your child experience these lessons is part of your job as a parent.

Taken from: http://www.empoweringparents.com

MARCH 11 - 15

Parental Coping Skills: How to Use Humor to Defuse Fights with Your Child by Kim Abraham LMSW and Marney Studaker-Cordner LMSW

As a parent, when all else fails, sometimes all you can do is laugh. But did you also know that finding the humor in a situation is actually a helpful coping skill that, when used correctly, can be very effective? For starters, laughter helps give you some objectivity and allows you to find common ground with your child, even during an interaction that might have been tense and angry moments before. Simply put, it’s hard to be mad and laugh at the same time. As you've probably noticed in your own life, the ability to find the humor in a situation can instantly dissolve a fight or help us relate to one another in a new way.

Laughter should always be about the situation, and not about the person. If you laugh at your child that can be shaming— and will probably cause his anger to escalate.

Remember, how we look at things affects how we choose to react or respond to a situation. The ability to view the situation from a lighter perspective, when it's appropriate, can help keep you calm and help you respond from a more thoughtful place, rather than from an emotional one.

It’s important to note that one of the very first things we do in life is laugh, before we speak or even walk. There’s a reason people say, “Laughter is good for the soul,” and “Laughter is the best medicine”—there really is that physical benefit, because it relieves stress and benefits your circulation and respiratory system, to name just a few things. Not only that, but as Bill Cosby says, “Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.”

You may be sitting there saying, “You don’t know my kid—there’s nothing funny about his behavior.” We’ve worked with oppositional and defiant children and teens for years, and Kim is the mother of an adult child with ODD. Believe me, we know where you’re coming from! We’ll be addressing how to use a sense of humor with ODD kids later on in the article.

7 Ways to Use Humor Effectively as a Parent

Remember, it’s about the situation, not the person. The number one rule about using humor with your child is that the laughter should always be about the situation, and not about the person. If you laugh at your child, that can be shaming — and will probably cause his anger to escalate. Here’s an example from Kim’s life: When her ODD son was about 11 years old, he was mad about something and went to kick a cabinet door in the kitchen. In doing so, he slipped and fell on the floor, not hurting himself. They both started laughing at the absurdity of the situation, and he completely forgot what he was angry about in the first place. In that moment, Kim was able to look at him and say,“Okay, c’mon, that was funny. I love you, but that was funny.”

As a parent, the question to ask yourself with humor is, are you joining with your child—is it shared humor? Or are you laughing at your child? Laughing at someone’s pain, hopes, fears or beliefs isn’t funny, but laughing together during a silly moment can do wonders to bridge a gap or defuse a fight.

Above all, you don’t want to hurt your child’s feelings—that’s not the goal here. You don’t want to laugh at something that’s important to him or her. And of course, it’s never good to laugh when your kid has been hurt physically or emotionally.

Learn to laugh at yourself. As a parent, it’s good to laugh at yourself once in a while. This is also something that we can model for our kids. It’s so important to show them how to refrain from taking themselves so seriously all the time, and that it’s okay to laugh when you make a mistake. You can even chuckle, shrug and say, “I can’t believe I was so steamed about that customer who cut in line at the bank today. I should’ve just let it go. I guess I was just in a bad mood or something.” By doing this, you’re literally showing your child how to “laugh it off.”

A question that can help your child. A great question to ask when things are getting tense is, “Wow, why are we arguing about something so small?” This pulls both of you out of the argument, lightens the mood, and gives you some objectivity and perspective. Let’s say you want to see one movie but your child would rather go to another, and you start to argue. You can calm things down by saying, “Okay, this is silly, huh? You pick the movie this time, and I’ll pick the next one.” That way, you are modeling to your child how to change the mood and put things into perspective.

Focus on your child’s strengths. One parent we knew had a son who would argue and argue, no matter what was at stake. He always had to have the last word, and his mom said it was exhausting. One day when he was explaining yet again why he shouldn’t have to do his chores, she thought to herself, “Man, someday he’s going to make a really good lawyer. I can just see him up there arguing in front of a judge. And the judge is going to say, ‘Oh my Lord, enough already!’” The mom didn’t share this with her son in that moment—he would have gotten defensive and angry—but it helped her put his behavior into perspective and have a moment of private amusement. 

For Parents of Defiant or Oppositional Kids: For parents of really defiant, oppositional kids, it may feel like there’s nothing to laugh at. Life can get so difficult with these kids – it can become very intense and exhausting. But even with ODD kids, there’s actually a lot that you can find to laugh about. Again, you don’t want to start laughing at your child—you probably already know that if you laugh at an ODD kid, he’ll usually escalate. You can laugh to yourself, though, when the situation gets ridiculous.

Here’s a good example. One parent we worked with had a 16-year-old boy with ODD. She had to call the police because he'd become violent and broken some things in the house. While talking to the officers on the front porch, the boy actually said, "I want to get emancipated and live on my own, but my mom won't give me a ride down to the courthouse so I can fill out the paperwork." (He didn't have a driver's license and hadn't yet taken driver's ed.) The mom walked away and chuckled to herself privately.

The point is, sometimes it’s good to just walk away. You may need to go in your own room and laugh quietly to yourself, like this mom did. When Kim was raising her ODD son, she became adept at stepping back and taking herself out of the equation and looking at everything from an outside perspective. She maintains that finding the humor in the situation "saved me on many, many occasions."

Will we laugh about this later? Another great question to ask yourself when you’re upset about your child’s behavior is, “Will this matter in a few months or years?” If the answer is “no,” you can probably let it go after you address the situation with your child. And, while this may not be a laughing matter right now, recognize that it might be funny later on. It’s good if you can say to yourself, “Someday, we’re going to look back on this and laugh.”

We also want to state here that just because you find some humor in the situation doesn’t mean you’re minimizing it. It doesn’t mean you’re saying “This is funny so there aren’t going to be any consequences.” You’re still following through as a parent, but you’re also keeping your head above water by allowing humor to give you some perspective.

Use laughter to connect with other parents. If you can find other parents to connect with over your kids’ behavior, it can be so helpful. It normalizes things, releases tension to laugh together, and helps you relate to someone else and find that common ground. When you can empathize with each other and find the humor in your own situation, it lightens the load, even when you’re going through a rough period with your child. In the movie Steel Magnolias, Dolly Parton’s character says it so well: “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.”

Taken from: http://www.empoweringparents.com

Monday, March 4, 2013

Parenting Responsibilities: 10 Things You Are (and Aren’t) Responsible for as a Parent by Sara Bean, M.Ed.

These days, we’re bombarded with mixed messages about how to parent “the right way.” It’s easy to buy into advice from the media, relatives, and other parents and start to worry that we’re doing something wrong. Part of the reason this is happening is because adults, just like kids, are over-stimulated. We’re more wired and connected, which means we’re receiving more outside input than ever before. We have easy access to advice (good and bad) on the web, to information about how other parents are doing things, and to each other through social networking sites. This means we’re also more actively comparing ourselves to others—and getting more judgment and criticism from others as a result. We’re on an informational and emotional overload, which is causing many, many parents to feel overwhelmed and confused.

Your children are not puppets and you are not a puppeteer. There is just no logical way that you can control every move your child makes or everything your child says, especially outside of your home.

On our Parental Support Line, my advice to callers was to trust your instincts as a parent—you know your child best, and in the end you’re the one making the decisions about your child’s future. In the Total Transformation Program, James Lehman says you have to run your family like a business. You’re the chief executive officer of your “family business” and as CEO you have to learn how to set emotions aside and to parent as objectively as possible. Forget how guilty you feel, forget that echo of your sister’s advice in the back of your head—you need to do what is best for your business. You can ask for advice, but in the end, you know your family best. 

One of the most important ways to clear through all the clutter of advice, guilt and comparisons to others is to understand what you are and aren’t responsible for when it comes to raising your child.

What you are not responsible for:

1.    Making sure your kids are always happy. Don’t get me wrong—it’s good for your kids to be happy overall. But that means there will be plenty of times, especially when you’re parenting responsibly, that your kids will be furious with you when you set limits or give them a consequence. That’s part of your job description as the executive officer—not to make decisions based on what your kids will like, tolerate, or be okay with, but to make the decisions that are best for them and your family business, then follow through.

2.    Getting the approval of others. Rationally, you do not need other adults in your life to tell you that you are doing the right thing. Parenting is not a popularity contest in your family or in your community. Sure, it feels great when other adults, such as your child’s teachers, tell you your child is doing something well, but it’s not necessary in order for you to run your family business well.

3.    Controlling your children. Your children are not puppets and you are not a puppeteer. There is just no logical way that you can control every move your child makes or everything your child says, especially outside of your home. Children have their own free will and will act on their own accord—and often in self-interest. It’s important to remind yourself that if your child is not doing her homework, for example, despite your best efforts to motivate her and hold her accountable, that’s her problem and the poor grade she earns is hers alone. The consequence she will get from you is that you will make sure she sets aside time every evening to study, you will be in touch with her teachers more, and you will monitor her homework more thoroughly until she brings her grade up. We can’t control our kids, but we can influence them by the limits we set and the consequences we give. As James Lehman says, “You can lead a horse to water, and you can’t make them drink—but you can make them thirsty.”

4.    Doing for your children what they are capable of doing for themselves. Many, many times our children will ask us to do something for them that we know they are capable of doing on their own. Your grade schooler might not make his bed perfectly the first time, but practice (and doing it imperfectly several times) is what he needs in order to get to the point where he can do it on his own. I’m not saying to stop preparing breakfast for your child once she’s old enough to pour her own cereal, or to never do anything to help your kids out in a pinch. What I am saying is to let your kids struggle sometimes and try your best to balance the responsibility. Typing a child’s paper for him because you type faster and it’s getting close to bedtime is not striking a balance.

5.    You do not have to be Superman, Wonder Woman, Mike Brady, or June Cleaver. These are all fictional characters that seem to do it all and do it perfectly, right? You’re not one of them, nor should you strive to be. Rather than focusing on addressing every behavior issue or adhering to a perfect schedule each day, try to hit the important targets and realize that you might have to let some smaller things go each day. We call this picking your battles.

What you are responsible for:

1.    Making tough decisions that are not popular ones. If your child doesn’t get mad at you at least once in a while, you’re not doing your job. Along with this, remember that you are not required to give lengthy explanations of your decisions. “It’s not safe” can be plenty of explanation when your teen asks why he can’t jump off the roof and onto the trampoline. “It’s your responsibility” is enough justification for telling your child it’s homework time. You don’t need to get into all the possible “what-ifs” and “if-thens.”

2.    Teaching your child to function independently. One of the effective parenting roles we talk about frequently on EP is the Trainer/Coach role. It is your job to teach your child age-appropriate skills in order to allow them to become more and more independent. There comes a time when your child needs to learn how to emotionally soothe himself, tie his shoes, write his name, and cope when someone teases him. Over time the skills he needs get more and more advanced—typing a paper, saying no to drugs, driving a car, and filling out a job application, for example.

3.    Holding them accountable. At the very least, this means setting some limits with your children when they are behaving inappropriately. For example, when your child is putting off their homework you might turn off the TV and say, “Watching TV isn’t getting your homework done. Once your homework is done you can turn the TV back on.” This could also be as simple as firmly saying, “We don’t talk that way in this house” to your child and walking away. Or, of course, it can also mean providing some effective consequences for something like having missing homework assignments, such as weekend activities being placed on hold until the work is completed.

4.    Going along for the ride. On the rollercoaster, that is. We all know but often struggle to accept that life is full of ups and downs—and sometimes it gets turned upside down. There will be times when your child is doing well and times when he or she is really struggling. That is not a reflection on you, it just is. Don’t blame yourself when this happens. Focus on finding positive ways to cope, look for something new to try to help your child effectively, or get some local support.

5.    Do your best. That’s really all you can do sometimes. It’s a perpetual balancing act—striving to find that balance between doing too much and doing too little, or giving consequences that are not too harsh but not too soft, either. Parenting can feel like a circus sometimes and there can be several balancing acts going on at one time. That’s when you have to go back to picking your battles and realizing you are not, nor will you ever be, June Cleaver or Superman.

Above all else, remember that your child is unique and you know him better than anyone else on the planet. You will always get input, no matter how obvious or subtle, from the world around you as to how you should parent your child. You, however, are the expert on your child and get to make your own decisions about how to parent her in a way that teaches her to be independent and accountable while also being loving and respectful of your child and her needs. When you find yourself personalizing, remember the tips here to help you be more objective and remember what your role as a parent really is.

Taken from: parenting.org