Notes From This Episode:

Background

• This episode is to help you see ways in which you can help your children.
• Please listen with a spirit of curiosity and not guilt and shame.
• It is easy to believe that our children’s bad behavior is because of their shortcomings or strong wills, or that is just the way they are wired, but often our children’s bad behavior is because of something we are or are not doing.
• Similar to marriage, often, when there is conflict between the spouses, it is not always our spouse’s fault.  Sometimes our responses, our expectations, or our own behaviors can be the cause of the conflict.

The Problem

• When our parents were raising children, they corrected inappropriate or negative behavior consistently because they were face-to-face with it and knew it needed to be corrected.  They knew they were the boss, the authority of all things, and it was their responsibility to form their children.
• We have lost the sense of our God-given role of forming a child. 
• As parents, we are entrusted with forming their will, conscience, values, morals, and virtues.
• Why are you allowing bad and disrespectful behavior?

The Solution

• Children do not naturally have all the virtues they need to live as productive, happy adults.
• As their parent, it is our job to teach them self-control, fortitude, perseverance, orderliness, patience, responsibility, and obedience, etc.
• Parenting is a God-given role of vocation.  It is a serious offense to God and to our children to neglect our duties by allowing the children to usurp our authority.

Here are a few things I would suggest to help you eliminate your child’s misbehavior:

• Take back your authority.
  • We teach our children to love, obey, and trust God by teaching our children to love, obey, and trust us, even when they do not want to or feel like it.
  • We have a generation with little respect for authority – only respect for their own feelings.
  • Take note: if your child’s misbehavior is disobedient, disrespectful, uncooperative, and unhappy at 3, 5, 8, or 10 years old, it only gets worse as they get older and their wills get stronger.
  • Do not let emotions and imprudent demands of your children run your house.  They do not know what is best.  That is why they are the children and you are the parent.
• Be generous in your praise and encouragement.
  • Catch your children being good.  It is important to their self-esteem and behavior to praise the good.
  • Children will seek your attention, and they will get it either in a positive or negative way.  Our job is to encourage the positive and discourage the negative.
• Be clear in your expectations and consistent in enforcing them.
  • Know what your expectations are.  If you need to write them down to bring them into focus, do that.
• Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
  • If your children do not follow your rules, giving them another chance only encourages them to disobey the next time.
  • Clearly articulated consequences are the guardrails in our children’s lives, just as they are in ours.
  • We only encourage disobedient, disrespectful behavior in our children when we fail to enforce natural consequences.  That is also the way to raise entitled, spoiled adults who lack discipline and fortitude. 

Final Thoughts

• I would suggest that you make one to two resolutions for your personal growth, and remember, be curious.  Do not give in to the guilt and shame.  It gets you nowhere.
• Take a moment today and consider how you parent. 
• There is no shame in recognizing that there may be one or more areas that you could work on.  In fact, it is a sign of strength and humility and a gift to your children.