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Official
sponsors of The Drew Bledsoe Foundation |
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April |
Parenting With Dignity™ |
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Effective Parenting Skills |
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Dear Mac and Barbara, I don't think that our son is acting any worse than any other 4 year old, it's the way we are handling it that has me so worried. My husband and I tend to yell a lot, like the parents on 20/20. We try (and succeed sometimes) to reward positive behavior, talk calmly to him and tell him what is expected of him. However, there are lots of times where the yelling ends up winning. What would you suggest we do to keep the yelling at a minimum. Our biggest struggle is our son doesn't listen very well. He continues to do the same things wrong, i.e. pushing his brother, getting out of bed at night. What should we do for discipline? I'm sure you are very busy,
but if you have a chance to respond we would greatly appreciate it. Dear Mom, Yours is a question we get asked quite often, and one that has affected all of us at one time or another. I was in your shoes for the first 8 years of my teaching career and then a master teacher by the name of Lola Whitner taught me something that I have never forgotten. I used to yell all the time in trying to teach. She on the other hand never raised her voice and was always polite to kids and she had better order and attention in her classroom than I did… and she was tiny and 66 years old. So I asked her one day how she controlled her temper so well and kept herself so calm. Here is what she taught me. She said, “Mac, can you ever control your temper when you are stressing with the kids?” I replied, “Well, yes sometimes!” Now here is the part that changed me forever, she then said, “Well, if you can control it sometimes then you have proven that it is within your ability to control your temper so when you don’t control it, it is your choice not to! Why don’t you choose to control your temper all the time?” Since that day I never lost my temper or shouted in class again! Believe it. That is what happened. Have a plan that you will control your temper and your yelling and you will control it. Sounds simple but that is what worked for Lola and it worked for me. Remember, your kids learn more from your backside than they do from your front side. They will learn more from how you act than from what you say. Here was a revelation that occurred to me once I decided to control my anger. Usually when I was yelling at kids it was for lacking self-control! I was attempting to hold them to a higher standard than I lived by myself. I was asking my students to control themselves and their behavior and I was allowing myself to act out of control to get them to do it! Man, that was embarrassing. It really helped me to control myself when I set the same standard for self-control for me that I set for kids. If you follow sports at all take a look at our son Drew (who played for the NE Patriots, and who has just been traded to the Buffalo Bills). He has received so many compliments for the way he handled things this year and people continually ask us, “How does he show such character and self-control?” The short answer to how Drew developed is that he has a very clear sense of what is important in his life and he has a very clear behaviorally described list of the morals and values he has chosen to rule his world. He looks at his code of ethics daily and then makes his decisions based upon those. Now for the definitive answer; I believe that the best way to understand the complex mechanism of how Drew has adopted such a well defined sense of his moral and ethical self, I would suggest that you get a set of our videotape Parenting with Dignity curriculum and go through the steps we used in teaching Drew and Adam how to pick the ideas that would rule their world and then how they structured those ideas into the ones which they use to make the big decisions in their lives. I have included some links to some key pages on our website to guide you on a tour of our curriculum. I sincerely believe that our curriculum will help you to understand the entire teaching method and process of selecting the Ideas that rule the world of kids! Please pay close attention to the order page and get a set of the tapes. This is not about increasing sales or making money. We do not make a cent on our tapes. They are priced at exactly what it costs us to duplicate, print, wrap and ship them. This is about getting the word out and you can help us. Once you have watched them, put them to use in your community.
I think you will agree that we would be much better off in this country if more kids were being taught how to make good decisions!!! Sincerely,
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By Mac and Barbara Bledsoe |
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Love is not just something you say; it is something
you do… Listening to children is absolute confirmation to children that they are important to us and important in the world. When a child wants to talk to us, we must make the time to stop and listen. Think about it, what message does the following send? "Please don't interrupt me; can't you see I'm reading the paper (doing the dishes, working at my desk, etc.)" Stop what you are doing. Put down your pen-broom-mouse-phone, turn and make eye contact, and listen. It doesn't take long. You can establish ground rules for certain tasks, which should not be interrupted, but the list ought to be short and limited to things which absolutely must be attended to. One of the methods that we found to be of the most help to us in teaching and then we transferred to home was to ask, "How much time do you need?" This question usually had little effect upon anything but our awareness of just how little the child was actually asking for. And, in fairness, you are then teaching your child that they too can ask, "How much of my time do you need?" When listening to kids it is imperative that we, as parents, let the kids say it for themselves! There is a very real and constant temptation to say it for them, especially when they are stuck in a search for the right words and seem stalled. Resist the urge to give them the word and wait for them to find the one they are looking for. It is hard at first but it becomes more natural with time. Just listen and maintain eye contact; this lets them know you are still with them. If it is not clear what they are trying to express, ask for explanation or clarification but resist the urge to jump in and say what you think they are saying for them. Get them to say it again until you get it. Remember that they are speaking to you because they have something they want you to know and they know what it is but this is the first time they have actually tried to say it. Be patient; few people are good at something on the first try. Resist the constant parental urge to jump in with your advice. Particularly at the middle school level and up, if you constantly add your advice to their sharing the sharing will stop very quickly. Ask, "Do you want my advice or do you just want me to listen?" You MUST NOT offer advice if they indicate the latter. Just bite those bloody holes in your tongue and keep quiet. The spinoff of keeping your advice to yourself is that, eventually, they will tell you when they want your advice. Here are six simple comments you can use to indicate that you are actively listening but are not being judgmental. Simply inject the following into pauses as your child is speaking: "Oh," "really," "wow," ummm," "I didn't know you felt like that," and "tell me more." These will indicate active listening and will encourage further comment. One of the byproducts of listening to children is that they then build a vision of the world that says "My parents are a source of advice and knowledge and talking to them helps me to make sense of my world." Then in times of crisis don't be surprised if you are included in their struggles to make good decisions about the big stuff they encounter. It is not possible to close the door on kids small concerns and thoughts and then expect them to come to us with their big problems. We can either offer an open door or a closed door… not a door that is open at certain times and closed at others. There is a great game called "The Ungame" which teaches us to listen to our kids and to each other. It is a very simple board game where you roll dice and move pieces around a board, and it gives prompts and questions to stimulate discussion. However, there is one rule making it unique; the only person who can speak is the one whose turn it is. Nobody else can say anything. The only way anyone else can make comment on another's statement is to wait until their next turn and then forfeit their turn to make comment or ask for explanation of a previous player's statement. It often brings about big changes in family dynamics. (To find the game, click here and type "Ungame" in the search box of Amazon.com.) It bears mentioning that in this bit of advice we are not saying that your children can interrupt you at any time, regardless of what you are doing. Establish guidelines for them. Probably the most important of which is the appropriate way to enter an adult conversation. It might be worthwhile to establish an emergency signal for your kids to use if they simply can't wait for an appropriate entry. (Something like a strong tug on your ring finger, or saying a secret word.) Parental listening is a gift of love that we can easily and constantly give to our children. At first it takes some discipline but soon it becomes a habit and for us there is a simple reward… our kids are talking to us! Besides that, when you listen, you hear some of the funniest stuff! Remember that, like any other message of love, the time they most need to be listened to, is also the time when we feel least like listening. But if we can listen at these times we will confirm their self worth.
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