Question:
My toughest challenge currently is discipline and understanding the behavior of my children’s actions, as well as getting them to listen and understand what we have to say to them.
My toughest challenge currently is discipline and understanding the behavior of my children’s actions, as well as getting them to listen and understand what we have to say to them.
The problems I'm experiencing currently is getting my children to be obedient and to understand the consequences of their actions when they do something wrong -- or good -- but most of all the bad actions, which just don't only affect them, but ourselves as a parent and others.
Speaking to them with honesty and explaining some actions that they have taken has had no results. We feel lost and we have had enough of their consequences, which have resulted from wrong actions taken by them.
Please could you advise?
Helen
Answer:
Hi Helen,
The strategies in “My Out-Of-Control Teen eBook” are paradoxical in nature (i.e., actions that a parent would NOT typically take).
In working with intense, strong-willed pre-teens & teens, I find the following:
1. Most of what you think WILL work effectively DOES NOT WORK AT ALL.
2. Most of what you think WILL NOT work – and is an outrageous idea of sorts – DOES WORK.
Think of this eBook as a set of paradoxical strategies.
For example, one typical parenting strategy is to attempt to “reason” with the child in the form of a well-stated lecture chock full of wisdom. As you may have found, these well-intended monologues do not "go in one ear and out the other" – they don’t even go in one ear. It's about as close to a total waste of time as you can get. Thus, I won’t be recommending “lectures” or “reasoning” as a viable strategy.
Children learn best when parents allow them to make mistakes -- and when parents allow children to receive emotionally painful consequences associated with their poor choices. But this must be done in a way that does not accidentally reward negative behavior. In my eBook, the strategies needed to accomplish this task are described in a very concrete and exhaustive manner.
Here's to a better home environment,
Mark