In part 1 of “What Makes a Good Parent and Standing Firm”, we began talking about that even when you do a good job as a parent, your kids can still make mistakes. We then added that you have to help your kids deal with their mistakes and not fix it for them. I would now like to give some examples of how this plays out in the real world.

Have you ever watched an infant bang their head while crawling under the coffee table and then have the parent soothe the crying baby by hitting the table and saying “bad table”? It’s funny. Right? The baby will often be happier then.

What did we teach the baby? We didn’t teach them to be careful and learn, did we?

Now, I’m not saying you can’t do that but what makes a good parent is helping them learn.

Let’s now use a more important example.

Let’s say your teen is doing poorly in a class and you confront him or her about it. They claim their teacher is being unfair to them or their teacher doesn’t like them. What should you do?

I have many times witnessed parents running into the school yelling at the school or the teacher. I have also experienced parents yelling at their kids without finding out what happened. With either of these approaches what did your child learn and which approach is better? Maybe a better question is what didn’t they learn?

What makes a good parent is helping them learn and succeed through mistakes. Let’s look at common outcomes to the two previous mentioned situations.

I believe the worst outcome happens when the parent yells at the school especially in the presence of the child. Why? Because what can the child learn? They can learn that blaming others for their outcome in life is a totally reasonable way to get out of problems. It completely removes responsibility from your child. It may feel good to do this. It creates short term pleasure as having the blame removed from them. The problem is that the long term trouble of not taking responsibility for one’s self can only lead to chronic problems in the future as the child learns no strategy of how to get out of trouble.

The second strategy, of yelling at your child, at least confronts the child to take responsibility for their outcomes. Humans are motivated by getting out of pain or moving toward pleasure, so yelling at them will make them do something that will get them out of pain. The problem is that sometimes they will study harder to get out of pain and sometimes they will avoid you or do drugs to get out of the pain. Successful strategies aim at moving your child through good decision making. When they understand how to get a desired result the odds of success are much better.

Please read part 3 of What makes a good parent and standing firm.

Sincerely,

Dr. Bocknek

The Problem Solving Expert for Parents and Families

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Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for marriage, parents and families at www.takebackthehome.com and www.keyboard-culture-parenting.com.  He can be reached at bocknek@takebackthehome.com. He is author of the “Take Back the Home course” and the “Learning how to Learn course” which can be seen at www.takebackthehome.com.

     

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