Parenting With Dignity

Bullying

2010-04-01T09:57:00.004-07:00

Bullying

There is so much being written about bullying in the media the past couple of weeks because of a few events that have caught the attention of the national media, and I would just like to weigh in on the commentary. So much of the advice being offered seems to me to be waiting until it is a little late.

PREVENTION is the only rational solution!

Granted, there may be some rare and isolated times when children might be bullied and at those times, the parents and family must take action! However... most of the potential damage of bullying can be PREVENTED!

I firmly believe that the solution to the "bullying epidemic" we seem to be witnessing nationwide is PREVENTION. We must take action before any bulling takes place.

This is a pretty simple concept to understand. It is very undeniable that it is much easier to teach a concept as simple as using "please" and "thank you" at the dinner table, to our own children, if every home that they visit and every child that they spend time with, teaches the same concept. It is kind of like learning language. Our children will speak the language that they are exposed to! If almost every other child that they come in contact with says "please" and "thank you," at the meal table, it is not even a little surprising that it would be pretty easy to teach that same behavior to our own children.

So, if we wish to teach our own children to respect others and to treat others in a dignified and respectful manner (the antithesis of bullying) then we need to create a network of families who teach that same attitude and that same behavior. It is simple to create an attitude of respect and dignity if we parents all, collectively, teach those concepts.

How do we get there?

Pretty simple... we parents must get together and talk with other parents. We must commit to teaching the concepts of respect and dignity in each of our homes. Once we do this it, becomes pretty simple to see that those will be the dominant attitudes and behaviors in our schools.

Not the school's responsibility.

It seems to me to be a real folly to put the responsibility for creating these attitudes and behaviors on the schools... simply because that just is too late! Those attitudes and behaviors should be taught in the homes long before the kids ever get to school. Waiting until the kids are at school to attempt to teach the attitude of respect for others is failure-based. We seem to be waiting for the negative behavior to manifest itself and then we are reacting to the negative behavior rather than taking the initiative and creating an atmosphere of respect and dignity BEFORE there is a problem!

Parenting with Dignity is a course that allows parents to get together for the discussions about what kinds of ideas will be taught in your community. to read how to set up your class please read this: http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/tape10f.htm

Exciting News from Parenting with Dignity

2008-05-31T15:17:00.002-07:00

Exciting New PwD Announcement: MP3's Now Available

Now YOU can listen to Parenting with Dignity lessons and parenting tips on your iPod or other MP3 player!

Or you can just listen while you are sitting at your computer!

Order Your MP3's Now!

To get these great new “downloads” just go to the iTunes store type Mac Bledsoe into the search window.

Or… just go to http://www.apple.com/search/ipoditunes/?q=mac+bledsoe

You can then download lots of short pieces of topical information to listen to while driving to or from work, or while jogging, walking, riding your bike, or working out! Start today! Once you have downloaded these great learning tips you may burn them onto CD’s and share them with friends.

Please tell others about this great new offering.

The Story of Parenting with Dignity

2007-12-04T16:06:00.000-07:00

My inquiry of a couple of weeks ago surfaced some great questions that I will be answering over the next few days.

(I appologize for the recent lapse in writing but I am in the thick of writing my new book, Parenting Teens with Dignity. Look for it in the near future.)

How was the idea for Parenting with Dignity series born? What's the story behind it?

Over time, I found myself disillusioned by the culture in my classroom, and the increasing numbers of students who seemed to be morally and ethically rudderless. I was saddened to watch students making terrible decisions with life-altering and often life-ruining consequences. Born out of this frustration I wondered what would happen if my wife and I were to try teaching parents some of the simple techniques we used daily in our classrooms. Could we teach parents how to teach their values, morals, and ethics to their own children? We believed that if parents knew how to instruct their children in effective decision-making and how to set guidelines for making decisions, it could make a difference in our classrooms.

Profound Change

Permission was obtained from school principals and my wife Barbara and I held the first of what was to become a parent education curriculum that is now entitled Parenting with Dignity. Only a small group of parents attended that first class, but within weeks we began to notice a profound effect in our classrooms. Students were attending class more regularly, and someone at home had actually convinced them of the importance of doing homework! Noticeable changes in personal grooming and perceptible changes in the vocabulary of our students convinced us that we were onto something.

Parenting with Dignity Is Born!

Parenting with Dignity evolved into a nine-week course over the years as the program became more comprehensive and fine-tuned to today’s problems. We were teaching PWD at community colleges, hospitals and in PTAs of Northwestern States when our oldest son, Drew, approached us with an idea. Drew, a quarterback in the NFL at this time, explained that he wanted to build a foundation to support and promote our Parenting with Dignity program!

After considerable deliberation, I accepted the challenge and founded the Drew Bledsoe Foundation as a support mechanism to bring Parenting with Dignity to the entire nation. The rest is history. Parenting with Dignity now stands on its' own and is one of America’s most effective and highly acclaimed parent education curriculums.

For more information about Parenting with Dignity please go to:
http://parentingwithdignity.com

HELP!

2007-10-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

Help me make this blog better - more effective for everyone.

Would you please do me a huge favor? From what I've read about blogging, it is a lot like direct mail in that only 1-2% of all readers will ever make a comment or suggestion. Well, that's not good enough for me because my objective is to help as many parents as humanly possible. I need to hear from more of you. I need to hear from ALL of you who read these articles.

Selecting Topics to Meet the Needs of All Readers

Usually, I direct the topics of my posts to addressing e-mails or blog comments from readers, but I can never know if that is what the majority of you want to read about… unless more of you give me your ideas.

The favor I'm asking of each of you is to take one minute and tell me what is important to you as it relates to parenting.

Please, take one minute and write an e-mail to me at mac@parentingwithdignity.com .We have created this e-mail inbox for this one specific purpose. It has no spam blockers on it and your email will come directly to me. Even if you do not wish to make any comment, please send me an e-mail that just says, "I read your Blog." That way I will know that you are reading and that if you ever have a question or comment that you will contact me.

Feel free to ask me a question, share a tale of your own parenting experiences or tell me what is your greatest challenge as a parent? In other words, help me to help you - and others who face the same issues. From your simple action of sending an e-mail, we will all benefit. Experience has taught me that when one person writes to me with a question or to consult about a problem, their comment represents thousands. Your question may help many other families.

I can't express strongly enough how important this is to helping me determine the best direction for this blog. I REALLY need each and every one of you to put everything aside and take just one minute to help me.

You may use the comment option at the bottom of this post and reply anonymously, or write to me directly at mac@parentingwithdignity.com But please, write just one short e-mail!

Help Your Children to be Effective at Studying (Part 2)

2007-10-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

Time Management and Day Planning

"Time is the great equalizer of all mankind!" A rich man cannot buy more, a smart man cannot invent more and a fool cannot waste more… we are all given the same allotment of time each day; 24 hours! The people who learn to use their allotment of time wisely are the ones who get ahead.

A Good Book

Teach you children how to manage time effectively. There are some great books on the subject written by some of the world’s great thinkers. One of the best is Stephen Covey’s book titled “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Get a copy and read it with your children. Covey lays out proven methods for effective managing time. You can give your children few greater gifts than the gift of effective time management.

Using Technology Wisely

In my last article on study habits I laid out a plan for using modern technology to take control of the television in your family. I laid out a plan so that you could effectively control the time that your family spends watching television. In this article I will suggest that you also use modern electronic technology in the process of teaching your children to manage time.

Computers are amazing tools for managing time… IF… they are effectively and purposefully used. Over 80% of American homes have computers and almost every computer has some kind of calendar/day planner program already on it. Teach your children how to use that program; teach how to enter assignments and upcoming deadlines on their computer calendar. Teach them how to set the program up to give warnings a week or two before big school projects are due so that they develop the habit of working on projects well ahead of deadlines.

Plan Activities and Events

Teach your children to put their activities and school events onto their calendar so that they can budget the time for those activities. I would also suggest that you have a “master calendar” on your computer for your whole family to use. That way the whole family can coordinate their activities, assignments, and duties effectively.

Next, I would advise parents to look into small handheld electronic day planners. They have lots of names like Palm Pilots and Pocket PCs, etc. Many cell phones have calendars and day planners built right into them. These devices sync with computer day planners and calendars so that your children can carry their schedule of assignments and activities right with them. My strong recommendation is to NOT run away from technology; rather, I strongly advise you to embrace technology and teach your children to use it effectively. They are born into the technological age. Teach them to live in that world and teach them to use the technology as effectively as possible.

Cell Phones

Cell phones are a real stumbling block for many parents. Kids want to have them and many parents balk at getting them for their children. I understand the hesitance of many parents in not wanting their children to have cell phones but to me the big issue is not whether children should have cell phones; the real issue seems to be teaching children to use the technology sanely, effectively, and ethically. Strict guidelines can be put in place and the technology of the cell phone can become a wonderful tool for teaching responsibility to your children.

Teach Responsibility and Appropriate Use

It is my observation that most people who use cell phones in today’s world could use some guidance and help in knowing when and where to use cell phones! Your children are growing up in a world where everyone is going to have cell phones. About the only way to prevent your children from eventually having a cell phone might be to move to some third world country where there simply is no such technology.

A wiser tack seems to be to teach your children how to use the technology effectively. Now, do not misinterpret me here. I am not saying that every parent should run right out and get their children a cell phone. However it might be reasonable to get one for all of your children to share. Then teach them to turn the thing off in most situations. Teach them to use the many other features of the phone like the day planner and the calendar.

Teach them the dangers in use of text messaging and e-mail. Guide them to observe safety in the use of cell phones by modeling for them that it is unsafe to use them while driving and rude to use them in public places. Let them watch you turn your phone off before entering public places like theaters and restaurants.

The bottom line here is that it is your responsibility as a parent to teach your children to live effectively in the world that they are growing up in. Teaching effective study habits ought to embrace that concept. Teach children to become effective and responsible students who manage heir time with a purpose.

Help Your Children to be Effective at Studying

2007-10-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

USE Modern Technology Effectively
– Don’t Just Complain about It!

As I work with families all across America I find that some topics and some statements seem to crop up almost everywhere. One of the most common questions is, “How do we overcome the terrible influence of Television on our children’s study habits?”

Well to begin with, my answer to this question usually takes a similar tack. Most of the time, I ask the parents if they somehow bought a defective TV set with no “off button”! However, that is a rather flippant answer to a real question so here I will attempt to provide a more complete and reasoned answer.

"Bloom Where You Are Planted!"

Our mother taught us a saying that is quite applicable to the situation of using modern technology. She always used to say, “Bloom where you are planted!” What she was telling us was to accept where we are and make the best of the situation. “If you are given lemons, make lemonade!” She used to say! (Now, I must also add that Mom also tried to teach us to try to improve the situation in which we found ourselves.) But, her advice to make the best of the situation was really sound advice.

I would offer that same advice to parents when it comes to modern technology… The technology is here to stay. The Television is an ingrained part of our modern culture. TV will not go away. And… it is not an inherently evil thing. There is much good that can be gleaned from intelligent use of television. It can be a great source of knowledge and information. The television can allow just about anyone to be informed on critical issues of our time. It can also be a wonderful source of entertainment that can be shared by the entire family.

That being said, the television can also be the enemy of a family attempting to raise children to be self-directed and successful. Modern television broadcasting presents a lot of misleading and potentially damaging stuff. The danger to children lies in indiscriminate use of the television. I believe that it is the job of parents to teach their children to be careful consumers of television broadcasting.

Ratings and Filters of Television Broadcasting are Extremely Ineffective

Many parents feel that their children are protected by using some kind of a filter that does not allow R or X rated material to be watched in their home. That might be good to a point but it falls terribly short of teaching children how to select the programming that they deem worthy of watching in your family.

Go One Step Further Than Ratings… Develop Your Own "Family Standards"

Hold family regular meetings to decide how much time the television will be allowed to be on during each week of the year. Have family discussions about how much time should be given to watching TV.

Than hold other family meetings to select what specific programs your family will watch. Most families who do this are amazed to find that their children have some pretty strong feelings about the types of programming that they honestly feel comfortable watching in their home.

Get a DVR!

Once the amount of time is selected and the specific programming is selected, it is my strongest recommendation that no concerned family should have a Television without a DVR! Like I said earlier, we live in an age of modern technology. That technology will not go away. However, we can make the best use of the technology available to us. Just the other day, I was visiting a store that sells electronic technology, and was shocked to find that it is now possible to purchase a quality DVR for under a hundred and fifty dollars.

What is a DVR?

For those who may not be aware of what a DVR is; it is simply a Digital Video Recorder. It is a machine that will record television programming onto a hard drive for later viewing on demand. With this type of a machine it becomes not only possible to make purposeful selections of what programming is watched in your home, but t also allows your family to take control of WHEN the programming is watched!

Use Technology to Manage Time in your Home!

With that technology available I feel that using it is just an example of “Blooming where you are planted!” I will even go one step further and say that I feel that it is bordering on irresponsible to own a television and cable or satellite access without a DVR! Almost every home in America has a television. To me the only danger that poses to children lies in not teaching those children how to choose to use the medium intelligently! A DVR allows your family to do just that. You can select the programming that you all deem to be worthwhile AND you can select the time when it will be watched!

The biggest gift you will be giving your children by getting a DVR and setting your own family guidelines for watching television broadcasting lies n teaching them to be purposeful participants in their world and not just victims of the world in which they live.

Study Habits

Now just imagine how much more effective your children will be in doing homework when they do not have to compete with an incessant bombardment from the television! Study hours can be set without interrupting their recreational use of the television for entertainment! The television can be off during study hours without missing their chosen programming!

Sleep Deprived Students and ADD

2007-09-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

There is a common practice in many, and probably most American homes that is causing significant problems for children. Many people are suggesting a common solution to this overwhelming problem… they are proposing to change our schools. That proposed change will be slow, and I believe that the solution is bypassing the real problem and the real solution. The solution to this pervasive problem lies in the homes of America.

The Problem

The problem that I am speaking of is that many American teens (and many younger children for that matter) are attending school severely sleep deprived. These children suffer lower grades, lack of attention, discipline problems, and other difficulties. Sometimes these sleep deprived children are even diagnosed with learning disabilities like ADD, ADD/ADHD and then given drugs that further compound the problem.

“Sleep deprivation may be undermining teen health! Lack of sufficient sleep--a rampant problem among teens--appears to put adolescents at risk for cognitive and emotional difficulties, poor school performance, accidents and psychopathology, research suggests.”
Cornell University psychologist James B. Maas, PhD, one of the nation's leading sleep experts.

Here is what I see happening. When children are very young, most parents require their children to go to bed quite early. At the time that most children start school a common bedtime would be 8:00 p.m. However as the child gets older the parents start allowing the children to stay up a little later. With each year of maturity, the bedtime gets later and later.

Missing the Forest for the Trees
Here is How the Problem Has Come About

There is one key cause of this problem that most people trying to solve it are missing… while the bedtime for children keeps getting progressively later as they grow older; the “get up time” stays the same. The outcome of this time dynamic is that kids are not getting enough sleep! Almost all doctors and pediatricians will very firmly tell anyone who asks that children going through puberty absolutely need at least 9.5 hours of sleep a night. Most will even say that 10 hours is optimum. (If you don’t believe me do a “Google Search” typing in the words “sleep deprived students” and do some reading.) I am sure that you will be as shocked as I was. We had observed this problem on our own when we were public school teachers, but now, there are hundreds of research studies backing up our observations.

I taught high school and middle school for 30 years and my wife, Barbara, taught middle school for 19 years and we taught in five different school districts and in every one of those school districts the school day started at or before 8:00 A.M. Now, after traveling the nation and visiting schools all across America, I know that 8:00 is a very typical start time. Just a little common sense tells me that in order to get to school by 8:00 a student who rides a bus must get up by at least 6:45. A little arithmetic says that a child who has gone to bed at 10:00 P.M. has only had 8 ¾ hours of sleep. A child who goes to bed at 11:00 is operating on 7 ¾ hours of sleep!

Common Bedtimes

One thing that we knew as teachers was that even 11:00 P.M. was a very common bedtime for our students. We also knew that many were up even past that time simply because of the conversations they had about the television shows that seemed to be their favorites! Our students were often fans of shows that ended at 11:00 and many talked about what they saw on the 11:00 news!

Any student who watched the 11:00 news and then arrived on time at school for an 8:00 A.M. class was operating on a daily sleep deprivation of two to three hours! And then we wondered why so many of our students had a hard time concentrating and focusing on their school work!

Changing the Schools Should NOT Be the Solution

Now, let me go back to my original statement about the proposed solutions to this extremely common problem; many people are proposing that we solve this sleep deprivation problem by starting school at a much later time; like 9:00 or even 10:00 A.M. This will be a meaningless change if the families do not enforce bedtimes that insure 9 ½ to 10 hours of sleep for their children every night . The change in sleep habits must take place in the homes!

"Barking Up the Wrong Tree"

It always bothered me when I was teaching school to find that the very first proposal for solutions to so many problems was to make changes in the schools. Drug awareness and drug prevention have been improperly dumped on the schools. Schools are being held responsible for so many things that should be handled in the home.

Proper sleep habits are not the domain of schools. Schools should have little or no input in how much sleep their students are getting. That is the domain of parents and families. Parents must assure that their own children are getting enough sleep!

Now, I have some concrete suggestion for taking control of the sleep time in your home. If you would like to hear some of these, just check back for my next article in this spot. Or, you can go to this link: ( http://www.whitefishradio.com/SITE/2007/PWD/school3.htm ) and listen to my proposal for taking control of time in your home and most importantly taking control of bedtime.

Bill Belichick, Cheating, Heroes, Role Models, and Teaching Children

2007-09-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

What a Wonderful Opportunity to Teach!

Bill Belichick was caught red handed, cheating! There is no doubt about it. He was caught, has been fined and he even admitted it. The camera that was used illegally, was confiscated; along with the tape of what was being shot. Coach Belichick can stonewall questions all he wants, but he did what he was accused of.

The man knowingly broke the rules. Publicly he has tried to explain it away by saying that he did it under a "difference in interpretation" of the rules. That is even more despicable. Lying to cover cheating gives us all a double dose. Bill had even been warned about this very behavior last year and then, every team was informed of the rule gainst using video on the field in a memo from the commissioner again before the start of the season.

What Would Any Parent Do?

What would almost any self-respecting parent do if their child was caught breaking a rule after being warned TWICE to cease the rule-breaking activity? There would definitely need to be some moral and ethical teaching taking place. Some parents might resort to punishment. (But, to show how ineffective punishment is, just take a look at how the coach is reacting; the $500,000.00 fine has not changed his actions one bit, he still seems to indicate thathe was justified in cheating!) The important thing that any parent, wishing to make meaningful changes in the rule-breaking behavior, would need to do, is to do some serious teaching of morals, values, and ethics that should be used in making future decisions!

Role Model?

Right now I read so many writers and TV and radio commentators screaming about how terrible this is because Bill Belichick let so many people down who looked up to him as a role model. Well, therein lies the folly that I mentioned in a couple of recent articles on Heroes and Role Models a couple of weeks ago; parents must be very careful in guiding children how to select heroes and role models. Simple fame or success in some level of competition should never be allowed to be the sole criteria for picking role models! Bill is, without a doubt, a winning coach; but that does not make him a worthy role model for children.

Nobody is Worthless!

My grandfather was commonly repeating sayings that he felt expressed some truth about life. One that he repeated often was, “Nobody is worthless; anyone can serve as a bad example to someone!” Now, I believe that he often repeated that saying in a humorous manner but there is still some great truth in his saying. I believe that this saying applies in the case of Bill Belichick knowingly breaking NFL rules. While it is disappointing to see a grown man, who is held up by many as a great coach and role model; it is not necessarily a bad thing for parents whose children see his failure to live up to his lofty position or obligations. He can serve as an example of how much one risks when they betray trust and forfeit character.

What a Great Opportunity to Teach!

Bill Belichick’s terrible action should give any parent a great opportunity to teach their children a wonderful lesson in moral and ethical decision-making! Any parent who is attempting to teach their children to live in an orderly society of rules and laws and who is attempting to teach their children how to make decisions about right and wrong, now has a great example of what can happen when rules are broken to use in that teaching process.

Thanks to Bill Belichick, We Have a Great "Teaching Moment"

Thanks to Bill for giving parents a chance to graphically demonstrate to their children that all of the championships in this world really mean nothing if you compromise your character and forfeit trust in order to get them. Here is a man who might have gone down in history as one of the greatest coaching minds in the history of team sports. But, his terrible decision to break the rules and cheat will forever be his legacy. He compromised his character to attempt to gain a competitive advantage and now he will be forever known as a cheat.

LOSS OF TRUST is the Biggest Penalty!

"Of course," Bill said firmly when asked about the request from the Commissioner to turn over any additional notes, tapes, or materials that might have been used in a similar manner. What Bill may soon learn, and most importantly, what parents can teach their children is that once you are caught lying, few people will ever believe you again.

Trust is So Difficult to Earn and so Easy to Lose!

I will bet that when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell heard Belichick's reply, he heard what the man said, but because of the recent betrayal of trust, he probably will do some intense research to confirm the truth of the coach's statement. I doubt that Goodell will no longer be willing to take Bill Belichick’s word on much of anything anymore.

Teach !

Parents, teach your children that the consequences of lying, cheating, and breaking the rules is not the punishment that society meets out; the punishment for lying, cheating, and breaking the rules is the loss of the trust of others!

LISTEN to Parenting with Dignity Tips

2007-09-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

Free!

Parenting with Dignity Information

You can listen to Parenting with Dignity tips and concepts for free on the Internet radio station called Big Fish Radio. Com! ( http://www.whitefishradio.com/index.htm )There are lots of topics that I cover in these short ten to fifteen minute sessions so check them out.

New Segments Are Available Today!
Back to School Tips

In four new segments I outline some great ideas for starting back to school on an great note.

Take Control of Your Television!

Check out the segment on taking control of the television in your home to facilitate a great atmosphere for study.

Help Kids Manage Their Time Effectively

Then listen to a segment on helping kids to get organized and manage time! You can start today with the process of teaching your children to manage hectic schedules.

Get Better Grades with No More Time Spent on Homework!

Next, you can listen to a sure fire method for raising your children’s grades without them ever having to do one more minute f homework! This session ought to be listened to by your children. Schedule about 15 minutes in the next few nights to listen to that segment as a family. Every young person that has tried this fool proof system has significantly raised their grades!

Get them Involved in Activities!

Finally, learn how to insure that your children maximize their school experience with lessons about living successful lives.

If you like this information then please visit our website: http://www.parentingwithdignity.com/

Child Molesters/Child Safety

2007-09-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

The article below is an open letter to the mother of a young man who was molested by a fellow who is currently serving a life sentence for his crimes against children.

This mother found that this man had received a Certificate of Completion from Parenting with Dignity and she wrote to me asking that we ensure that no person convicted of child molestation be allowed to attend a Parenting with Dignity Class.

The basis of her concern was that at trial this child molester testified that he had used the Focus on the Family Curriculum created by Dr. James Dobson as a means of approaching children at his church where he taught Sunday School.

An Open Letter

Here is my answer to that lady an an open letter:

Dear "Mother of a Molested Son",

My sincerest sympathies go out to you and your son for the terrible thing that was perpetrated by the fellow who molested your son. I cannot imagine what it must be like to endure such a terrible thing. Believe me, our Parenting with Dignity Program works daily to attempt to prevent this type of thing from happening to other children.

That being said, this fellow and his ability to perpetrate further misery upon children seems to have been effectively and justly dealt with by our court system. He is serving a LIFETIME sentence! He will never be free to prey upon children ever again.

Continued Use of PWD in Prisons

I do wish to let you know that I have been personally working in prisons with inmates for over twenty-five years and I will continue to do so. One of the things that we know about the use of our Parenting with Dignity Curriculum is that we must allow the agencies and organizations to “take ownership” of the program. Once they have ownership, they will then put their maximum efforts forward to see that the program helps the maximum number of their clients. In doing this we must trust that they will assume the responsibility for insuring that the program not be used in any inappropriate manner. I do not see how Ken Bennett could ever use our program in any way to harm children because he will never be in the presence of children ever again.

Justification for PWD in Prisons

I would like to share one story that has taught me that the work that we are doing in prisons is not only worthwhile but must continue.

About three months ago took my grandchildren out to dinner. It was "Papa’s Night Out" with the kids. While we were at dinner, a fellow came in with his wife and three children. They sat down at a table next to us and as we were leaving the fellow stood up and offered his hand to me saying, “you are Mac Bledsoe, aren’t you?”

I replied, “Yes, I am. How would you know that?”

He said, “Well, I would like to shake your hand. I recognize you because I was in the State Prison in Idaho when you and your son came down to speak to us about Parenting with Dignity about ten years ago. I want you to know that I have been through your Parenting with Dignity class four times and let me tell you, I would not be standing here today if it had not been for your program!"

Husband, Father, and Employed, Taxpaying Citizen

"I am a loyal and dedicated husband to this wonderful woman.” He said gesturing to the lady seated at the table with him who now had tears openly flowing down her cheeks.

“I am a dedicated father to my three children seated here. I love them more than life itself and I tell them that in one of the ten ways your program suggests, every day!”

“I am employed at a meaningful job at a local agricultural chemical company and I bring home a paycheck every week to support my family. I am a responsible, law biding citizen, and I am proud to be a taxpayer in this great country!”

“I would not be any of those things had it not been for Parenting with Dignity and I just want to say thank you to you for creating such a great program and making it available to men like me. I had lived a life of crime and would have continued had I not learned that the ‘Ideas in your head rule your world’ from you through the Parenting with Dignity Program!”

Then he went on to ask, “Do you ever see your son?”

When I replied that I would be seeing him that evening when took his four children home he said, “Well, when you see him will you also convey my thanks to him also. When you guys were down speaking to us he gave me an idea that rules my world daily. I have it written on the mirror in my bathroom and I read it out loud to myself every morning while I shave. When Drew spoke to us he said, ‘Guys, respect yourself… because if you don’t respect yourself, how can you expect others to respect you?’ I read that idea to myself and I use to make most of the decisions that I make daily. If I feel that doing something will not allow me to respect myself, then I just don’t do it!”

“I teach my three children to use that same approach to life. Daily we talk about making decisions that will cause them to respect themselves. Thanks again, Mr. Bledsoe, for creating such a great program and for bringing it to prisons so that men like me can learn to be good husbands, fathers, and productive citizens!”

I could share stories like this with you until you grew tired of listening and I would have thousands more to tell you. That one fellow’s story is enough to let me know that our work with fathers in prison will continue. I will continue to work to help parents where ever they are.

The Ku Klux Klan claimed that the Bible was the justification for their hateful behavior. We do not ban the Bible because one group misinterpreted it… and I am not going to stop our work just because some fellow misinterpreted the work of James Dobson and may have used it in a manner that it was not intended. I have never before heard of anyone using a parenting class for the purpose of hurting children. I have never known of anyone using our curriculum to hurt anyone. I suppose that it could happen but I am not sure that I see how.

As a matter of fact, many of the child molesters use religion as their basis for gaining the trust of children (priests, ministers, youth leaders, etc.) If there is a culprit here, it might be more fruitful to challenge the process of selecting and supervising priests and ministers.

I will say that the best manner for parents to use in preventing this type of thing from happening to their children would lie in teaching effective decision-making skills to children at the earliest possible age. So many parents are deluded into thinking that they (the parents) can protect their children by what they, themselves, know as parents; and that is simply not true. Children must be taught to protect themselves because, by definition, they will make all of the big decisions in their lives for themselves. Drug pushers will make sure that parents are not present when they offer drugs. Kids will make that life-or-death decision for themselves.

Child molesters will make sure that parents are not present when they target children! I believe was the case with your son. (Unless you were there with him and did nothing, which I seriously doubt.) When Ken Bennett approached your son he most surely made sure that you were not present! He relied upon your son to make innocent but dangerous decisions that led to terrible consequences. Parenting with Dignity teaches parents how to teach their children to avoid bad situations with sound decision-making skills. Parenting with Dignity teaches parents to teach these effective skills BEFORE children are forced to make those decisions.

Contrary to what your letter implies, there are literally millions of families (thousands of which are prison inmates) who have been immeasurably helped by our curriculum. Rest assured that we will continue to do our great and beneficial work both inside and outside of prison walls.

Thanks for writing. I hope that things are going as well as possible for you and your son. Be sure to communicate your love to him in one of the “ten ways for expressing love to children” every day.

Help Kids to Select Worthy Heroes – Revisited due to Mike Vick

2007-09-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

Michael Vick - Role Model?

In light of the recent case involving Mike Vick, it seems pertinent to revisit the article that I published in this column last year about helping children to select worthy heroes.

In Mike’s public address that he issued following his conviction of a felony he apologized to any children who might have looked up to him as a role model. That is a nice thought, but for parents I would just ask, “How would a parent allow their child to select Mike as a role model in the first place? What had he done to be selected? Would it be because he is famous? Was it because he was gifted with great talent as an athlete? Was it because he seemed defiant of most rules and authority? Why pick Mike Vick?”

Get Involved in the Process of Choosing Heroes with Your Kids!

I would again like to caution parents to guide children to set extremely high standards for selecting heroes. Be careful of allowing your children to fall into the trap of selecting heroes and role models based upon fame or talent. Teach your children to select role models based upon sound values, morals, ethics and standards that you have discussed openly and honestly with your children. If you discussthe standards for selecting their heroes with them, that they will learn as much or more from the process of choosing their heroes as they will from the heroes themselves!

Selecting Heroes

In today's society like in the past, kids have heroes. This is a good thing if they choose carefully! However, in modern society it seems the process of selecting heroes has become rather muddled or confused. Fame should not necessarily make a person a hero. We, in our family, have experienced this from both sides: first as parents of two sons who chose heroes while growing up, and now with two sons who have distinguished themselves as outstanding athletes, who are often the object of hero worship.

Please hang in here with me on this one so there is no misinterpretation of what I am attempting to say. We do believe that both our sons are worthy heroes. Both are moral, ethical, kind, honest, and admirable people with a strong sense of family. Both are civic minded and both give back to their respective communities.

What is alarming is to see how so many young people have selected them as heroes who know nothing about them. Many children have been taught to, or at least allowed to, select their heroes/role models based upon nothing more than skill at a game or fame. Few of these kids have been challenged to know much about their heroes beyond some perceived skill or fame. If children had been taught some criteria or standards for selecting role models, it would be different; and Michael Vick would not be needing to apologize to any children.

Diligence, Honesty, Loyalty, Integrity

Allow me to illustrate with a personal example. Barbara's Father, Dick Matthews, died suddenly a few years ago. His five grandchildren delivered the eulogy at the funeral. It was obvious to all in attendance that "Grandpa Dick" was a hero to all five. As they spoke of him through their tears, they all mentioned his hero status in their eyes and used words like loyal, dedicated to his wife, hard-working, honest, a man whose word was his bond, as well as describing a fun Grandpa who always had a smile a mile wide.

Dick Matthews was quite a fellow. Nobody could outwork him outside his home. He built houses for a living but he also ran a 120-acre farm and did odd jobs on the side as was needed for extra money for the family. If necessary, I'm certain he would have taken a night job to provide for his family and he did all of his work cheerfully, and with a bounce of purpose in his step.

Inside their home it was a different story. In his house, Dick was the "king" and Maxine, his loving wife of 56 years, waited upon him and hand foot. It was not a "modern" romance but rather one from a previous generation and it worked beautifully for them. Dick earned a living and Maxine kept up the home.

Then, ten years before Dick's death, tragedy struck that loving couple and Maxine was stricken by a severe stroke. Overnight she became in need of around-the-clock care rather than being the caregiver. Without the slightest blink, Dick became the 24-hour, 7 days a week caregiver; and on top of that, he began to do all of the housework! He did all of the laundry, cooking, cleaning, shopping and everything else Maxine had done for all the years of their partnership of love. He even did her hair and put on her makeup!

A Real Hero Worthy of Imitation - A True Role Model

During Dick's last year of life, they came to visit with us up at our home in Montana. While out to breakfast alone with Dick one morning, I was struck by the enormity of the change he had made on behalf of his loving wife, Maxine, and I asked him how he made such an amazing change so suddenly and so cheerfully. His answer really affected me that day and it will always be in my memory. He looked back at me, got tears in his eyes, and then quietly said, "One day 56 years ago, I said 'I do'..."

Man, I think that everyone deserves to be loved like that just once!

At his funeral each of his grandkids said that one thing they had learned from Grandpa Dick was to honor commitments! They each got the message. He was not famous but; he was a hero to all.

Help Children to Pick Heroes; Carefully and Precisely

We, as parents and as adults, need to hold people like Dick Matthews up as heroes to our children! We all know people in our families and in our neighborhoods that are so worthy of being heroes to our kids. We must not be so careless as to think that kids will seek out these remarkable but often quiet people; we need to teach them what a real hero is and point out some in their immediate surroundings.

Sure an athlete makes a flashy hero and many are worthy of the status. Some musicians, actors, and public figures are worthy also, but let's be careful to teach our kids what makes a person worthy of “Hero” or “Role Model” status. (More on our website: Teaching Values to Children )

What are the criteria for picking your heroes in your family? Make tomorrow "Hero Day" in your family and talk about what makes a real hero! talk about it daily. Pick some heroes for your whole family. then challenge your children to pick some people who are worthy of being their onw role models. The process of choosing will work well to teach some pretty valuable lessons.

Dealing with Bullying

2007-08-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

A Letter from a Distressed Mom

Dear Mr. Bledsoe,

I am the parent of a 3.5 year-old girl. I have worked hard to teach her the behaviors I value like being kind to others, sharing, showing empathy, being truthful. Unfortunately, I am falling down when it comes to a couple of areas and it is painful for me to watch. What can I teach my daughter to do when people (children her age or older) don't want to play, call her names, push, take things from her? We live on a military base overseas and I see this behavior again and again.

I try to remove her from it, but I do not know if that is the right thing to do in the end (sometimes I get rather angry but am at a loss over how to properly react). I generally make sure she tells the other children she does not like that, stop and then I don't know what to do...unless the behavior continues, then we retreat.

My daughter is usually so upset by these interludes that she cries. But she gets over it pretty quickly, I am having problems letting go and I don't know how to talk to her about it. Also, she has recently started making up tales when she has conflicts with kids she is playing with...running to mom for the answer. I cannot let that go on, but do not know how to handle it, I want her to be able to come to me but not with fibs or half-truths.

I was bullied and isolated as a child and do not intend for her to repeat history. She is so socially oriented though that I feel bad that she do not have many playmates (I am rather choosy for her and want parents/children with similar values) and she always wants to go play with other kids, even when an outcome has been negative. I am placing her in part-day care three days a week and realize that at some point she will have to learn good ways to solve her problems with peers and still feel good about herself and her peers without being bullied or otherwise victimized.

I do not feel I can adequately help her do this...any suggestions?

Sincerely,

Clueless Mom

An Answer

Dear Mom,

Congratulations! You are more than half way to solving the problem with your daughter… because you recognize the problem and you are seeking help in finding a solution. That is usually the most difficult part of the battle. Please do not ever refer to yourself again as “Clueless Mom”, you are the farthest thing from being clueless… you are seeking answers and you will find them. Remember that the ideas in YOUR head will rule your world. Start this process by saying good things about youyrself!

Now for some help:

1. Remember that your daughter is only three and a half! It is wonderful that you are teaching such great values and behaviors to your daughter but remember you are teaching some very complex ideas to her. It will take time. It took you a lifetime to learn these same behaviors and by your own statements you are still learning. Keep teaching but just remember that it is going to take time!

My gosh, there are many people who reach old age who have never mastered empathy and sharing. Keep teaching. Do not assume that she has learned anything until she demonstrates her understanding by using what you have taught her but be reasonable. It will take time to teach much of what you are setting out to teach.

2. The next bit of advice that I am going to offer to you is a bit more complicated but, believe me, it will reap great rewards for you and your daughter if you accept what I am going to offer to you next. Stay with me on this and read to the end before rejecting or accepting the idea I am going to offer to you now. Start a parenting class. That is right, I said start a parenting class! It is easy to do if you use our proven method using the DVD Parenting with Dignity Curriculum ( http://www.parentingwithdignity.com/order/buy_dvd.htm ). On our website we lay out the entire plan for starting and running your class: (http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/tape10f.htm ).

Now listen to the reasons that this will be a solution to your problems with your daughter. It is so much easier to teach your daughter concepts like compassion, empathy, respect, dignity, etc. if the children that your daughter plays with and goes to school with are taught similar concepts and behaviors! Please, do not get me wrong here, I am not suggesting that you start your class to point the finger of guilt at other people’s children or anything like that. What I am telling you is that teaching any concept to your child will be simpler if other children around her have been taught similar beliefs and actions! It is just that simple.

In order to start a Parenting with Dignity class, you do not need to be the teacher. For you, that is one great facet of our course; you do not have to be the teacher! The teacher is on the DVD’s. All you have to do is to get folks together to discuss the concepts presented in the course. You will find that the best thing you can do in your classes is to answer almost every question with the question, “I don’t know, what do the rest of you think?”

Now, think for a minute about your daughter’s situation in playing with other children. When she uses kindness, respect, dignity, empathy, and compassion with other children, the chances of her behavior being returned to her go up infinitely when the other children have been taught to recognize and exhibit similar behavior! It is really very simple.

Please consider this suggestion. If you are interested, please visit our website and take a look at the plan for starting a class. You will not have to do every one of the things suggested there but you will get lots of proven ideas that will help you to start a class. Believe me, you will learn right along with all of the others in the class that you start.

3. Next, I would suggest that you keep on teaching the sound values, morals, and ethics that you are teaching your daughter. Regardless of the surrounding behaviors she will grow to be able to make her own decisions about her own actions, independent of the other children’s sometimes, cruel and insensitive actions. Your daughter will affect change in many of those other children around her by her simple kind and empathetic actions. Teach your daughter to tell the other children what it is that she would like them to do. It is one thing for her to tell them what she does not like. It is an entirely different thing to teach her to explain some better actions to them.

Do not remove her from those situations unless you deem that she will be hurt, injured or damaged by what is happening. Start teaching her how to reasonably react to some of the cruel and insensitive actions of those other kids.

4. Use our Rule # 1 (http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/2-5rules.htm ) from our curriculum and make sure that you are very clear in your own mind what you expect your daughter to do in those situations and then teach those behaviors and actions to her. Remember that when teaching something like that to a young child, you are often best served by not trying to use words. Role play and demonstrate that desired actions to her. Have her practice with you where you role play the actions of the other children and your daughter uses the actions and concepts that you are teaching her.

5. Your daughter is still young but not too young for you to start teaching her how to choose friends for herself. ( Apply Rule #1 http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/2-5rules.htm ) It is fine that you are playing a major role in the process of choosing friends now, at age three and a half; but gradually she should be making more and more of those decisions.

Believe me she has better input that you do and she will soon be better able to choose her own friends for herself than you will! She is there with those kids when adults are not present. Often children learn that when the adults are not present they sometimes can behave very differently, and if your daughter is properly taught, she will know the true character of other children better than you do! If she is being taught how to evaluate character she will choose amazing friends.

Gradually let her choose her own friends and enter into discussions with her about how she is choosing them. Offer her some ideas about things that you look for in friends. Ask her to identify things that she looks for in friends. Gradually she will become a great “friend chooser!”

6. With regard to teaching your daughter to tell the truth, I would suggest to you that she must sense that you disapprove of some of the truths she tells you so she is manufacturing tales to tell you what she thinks you want to hear. She is seeking your approval and positive attention by telling tales. The key is to make sure that you send her daily messages of love (Rule 5 in Parenting with Dignity http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/5-6-Love_video.htm ) so that she does not feel that she needs to tell you anything to be loved. Your love should, in no way, be connected to anything that your daughter does. She needs to know that you love her in spite of everything else going on around her. Your love is not conditional and she needs to know that absolutely.

Certainly your daughter needs to learn to solve problems with her peers on her own. That being said, I wish to reiterate that the best thing you can do to help her to do that would be to start your own class with the parents in that child care agency. If you are not fully willing to meet and interact with the parents of the children that your daughter interacts with on a daily basis, then you must accept what their children do to and do with your daughter!

In closing just let me say that I am not counseling you to try to change the world to match your daughter’s mood swings, personality, or her little personal quirks. Nor am I attempting to say that you try to help her solve her problems by trying to change all of the outside world. You are 100% correct in teaching your daughter to live in the world that confronts her. I am just saying that you can, at the same time, be working to build a better world for all kids in your community by helping other parents to teach similar and wonderful values, morals, and ethics to their children just like you are teaching your daughter!

Teach your daughter to bloom where she is planted… but in addition, you can do some work in the garden too!

Good luck and please let me know if I can be of further assistance to you.

Teen Drug Addiction - It CAN Happen to Your Family!

2007-08-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

Parents, Pay Attention to this Book!

The biggest parenting fallacy in the world lies in thinking that we can somehow protect our children by living in nice houses, in nice neighborhoods, in quiet little towns: by thinking the walls of our houses will protect our children from making big decisions! They won’t! Our children will make ALL of the big decisions in their lives. I simply cannot say it any more forcefully! If you have not yet realized that the decision about using drugs poses a threat to every single child, wake up!

Over the past 10 years as I have taught parents HOW to teach their children to make good decisions via my Parenting with Dignity curriculum, I have told these parents the one thing I know to be the absolute truth: “Your children will make all the big decisions in their lives, not some, all. When they make the decision about whether they will use cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, alcohol, or any other drug, you will not be present and therefore you will be unable to protect them. The person offering the drug will make sure you are not there!”

If you need a wake up call, and most American parents do, please read Christy Crandell's book titled, "Lost and Found". It will open your eyes about what can happen to you if you do not teach your children to make good decisions.

What our children will use to make those decisions will hopefully be what we have taught them. However, our failure to teach them how to make those decisions does not mean they will not make them! It just means that they will use ideas someone else has taught them about using illegal substances! And believe me, what some of the other people will teach them, is not what you want them using to make that life or death decision.

I wish that I could get every parent to read this book. My wish is that every parent would read "Lost and Found" at the time their first child is born! Then, maybe they could see, first hand, how the tragedy of drug addiction can strike any child who is not completely and totally well prepared with good decision making skills. Christy's book is proof positive that parents cannot protect their children with what the parents know. It is only what your kids know and use that can protect them!

Parents Must TEACH Children HOW to Make Good Decisions!

Living in a home with loving parents who have strong morals and ethics is not the same as teaching a child how to use those ideas to make good decisions! As I tell parents over and over, “Talking is not teaching. Telling is not teaching. What you are doing does not become teaching until you see change as a result.”

A Wake Up Call!

This book should serve as a wake up call to every parent who is raising a child. Most of life’s good decisions are made in our heads BEFORE we are in the situation. Our children are no different and they cannot be allowed to wait until they are in a situation like this family, before they are taught how to make good decisions for themselves based upon sound morals, values, ethics, and principles.

Hopefully this book will help parents realize that, without proper awareness and a sound plan for teaching their children, drug addiction, and the pain and misery associated with it, is a very real possibility for their children and their family.

Please read this book and learn from the heartache and pain this family experienced.

Then, please share the book with every parent you know so that they can be aware of what may be waiting for them if they do not act now to teach their children how to make big decisions.

“Back When I Was a kid . . .”

2007-08-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

Teaching Our Children with a Reasoned Approach

When we are making decisions about how we will be raising our children, we must eliminate from our minds some rather dysfunctional phrases. We simply must not allow ourselves to say things like: "Back when I was a kid..." and "If I had done that when I was a kid, my dad would have..." or "Back when we were in school they used to..."

There is an important distinction to make here. I am not saying that parents should not respect the past. Much can be learned from our past and much of our past experience can be very helpful to us in effectively raising our children.

That being said, as parents, we must never allow ourselves to fall into the trap of using "because it was done before," or "it has always been that way," or "that was the way my parents did it," as the sole justification for our actions with our kids.

Give Children Sound Reasons to Adjust Their Behavior

It is imperative that we have sound behavioral, moral, spiritual, ethical, or legal justifications for the actions we are teaching to, or demanding of our children. We must be able to explain to our young people why we are asking them to behave in a particular manner in a very logical way. In essence, we must not only decide: 1) WHAT it is that we want our kids to do, but we must also decide 2) WHY we want them to do it! "Because it was done to me," should never a good enough reason to repeat an action or expectation with our children.

Some History Should NOt Be Repeated

There have been a ton of mistakes made in the past and we are doomed to repeat them if we are not careful to think long and hard about the justification for duplicating those actions with our kids. Following are a couple examples to demonstrate what we are talking about.

Two historical events demonstrate the obvious problems with doing what has always been done before. Slavery was not only common but it was also legal in early America. We certainly would not advocate the continuation of that practice today simply because it was done before.

Neither would we teach our children that women should be second-class citizens in the United States even though they were not even legally recognized under the Constitution until the 19th Amendment was adopted in the early 20th century. Simply saying that women should not vote only because they never had in the past was a ludicrous idea.

Likewise, it is foolish for us to tell our children that they should wear certain types of clothing simply because that has been an appropriate style in the past. The same goes for hairstyles and many other standards and customs for behavior. Let's take look at establishing dress codes for kids.

Certainly, I am not proposing that parents abandon all standards of dress for young people! However, I am saying that we parents ought to make the standards logical and explainable in a reasoned sort of way and not just on the "If I had dressed that way my Dad would have killed me," sort of an explanation.

Parents ought to establish dress codes for their children... but “WHY do we have them?” should be the critical question. Nobody, in their right mind would say that we scrap any sense of awareness of how our children dress themselves. However, dressing in a certain way simply because a previous generation did is a rather silly code to impose upon our children (unless, of course, we would all like to go back and begin dressing like our forefathers who wrote that Constitution did, simply because "that's the way they used to do it in this country.") Hey, to put this in perspective, let's all get a few pictures of ourselves as teens and we can readily see that even we had some rather strange ways of dressing by today's standards.

The issue is "why?" Why are we asking our kids to dress in certain ways?

Here is a possible discussion:
"But Dad, why can't I dye my hair blue (wear spandex shorts to church, wear this provocative Jennifer Lopez top, use four letter words at the mall like the other kids, etc.)?"

"Well, my child, you probably could do that and in a perfect world it really wouldn't matter. But, we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world that has a few flaws: one of them being that most people in this world make a ton of snap judgments based upon some rather narrow preconceived ideas. It is a fact that most of the people you meet will not be able to see beyond the blue hair (or loud dress, etc.) to get to know you. It is critical that you know that many of those same people are in positions to control the circumstances of your life or make judgments about you that have a huge impact upon your life. For the same reason that it would be a bad idea to wear a ball cap to a funeral, it is a bad idea to dye your hair blue... most people would interpret it wrongly. A ball cap at a funeral would be viewed by most as being extremely disrespectful of the person being honored by the funeral. Blue hair would likewise be interpreted by most people as a sign of disrespect for others."

"But dad, that's just the point, I'm trying to show my individuality. I don't want to just be like everyone else."

"Great son, I am all in favor of you being a one-of-a-kind individual, but anyone can dye their hair. Dying your hair does not distinguish you in any meaningful way from much of anyone else. If you truly want to be an individual, why not distinguish yourself by being truly excellent at something? Or why not try to distinguish yourself by undoing some terrible wrong done by society? Why not distinguish yourself by making the world a better place? I'd love to help you. What is the cause that you would like to choose? If the only way that you can come up with to make yourself different is dying your hair, I would be disappointed in you because you are such a unique person with so much to offer."

Let us, as parents, become their teachers and give our children some good solid reasons to choose to adjust their behavior in positive and productive ways simply because the sound reasons that we present make sense to them.

Yelling at Kids!

2007-08-10T12:20:00.000-07:00

Yelling at Kids Teaches!

Yelling at kids teaches kids that people do not mean what they say until they yell.
Yelling at kids teaches children to yell back.
Yelling at kids teaches kid to yell at others.
Yelling at kids teaches kids to ignore respectful and dignified requests when people speak to them in other tones of voice.
Yelling at kids teaches kids that they are not worthy of speaking to in civil tones.
Yelling at kids teaches them that a reasonable way to relieve stress is to yell at others.

Kids Learn More from our Actions than from our Words!

The point here is that yelling at kids teaches them lots of stuff, but it rarely, if ever, teaches them anything of much value. I do not think that yelling indelibly scars children unduly, nor does it do them irreparable psychological damage; but it certainly does not help them to learn productive ways of interacting with the world.

I guess that you could say that I am opposed to yelling at kids for the same reason that I am opposed to punishment; it simply does not work in any way that is even close to the way that it is intended. Yelling teaches lots of thing but rarely enhances the lesson in the words that are yelled.

A Personal Experience

I was sent to my room thousands of times for teasing my sisters. I was told to go in my room and think about how to treat my sisters. I did. I thought about how I was going to get them out behind the barn just as soon as I got out of my room and hold their heads under water in the horse trough for tattling on me. Sending me to my room did not teach me how to get along with my sisters. The desired or intended result was a far cry from the real outcome. My parents intention in sending me to my room was to teach me how to treat my sisters in a much nicer manner but what they got was far different from what they intended. Yelling at kids brings about a very similar kind of outcome.

A child who is yelled at on a regular basis simply learns that he doesn’t have to listen to instructions delivered in a quiet and dignified voice.

Teaching Does NOT Require Intent!

When we are with kids we are teaching every minute we are in their presence! Even though we may have no intention to teach nor any idea about what we want to teach… we are teaching just the same. Kids learn our language at their own pace and other than a little work on some specific vocabulary they learn it quite completely with little intent on our part. Kids rapidly learn the tense of verbs and they often learn it from parents who cannot intellectually define the tenses of the verbs that they taught to their kids! The point is that kids learn many things from us without us intending to teach them.

Kids in France speak French. Kids in Japan speak Japanese. However, take the French girl and raise her in the Japanese home and she would speak Japanese! Raise the Japanese kid in the French home and he will speak French. Raise them in my home and both will speak English. Language acquisition may be genetic. All normal human beings speak; but the specific language that they speak is learned! Kids learn the language that they are exposed to.

Children Learn What they Are Exposed To

Not only do kids learn the spoken language they are exposed to, but they also learn to interpret and use all of the non-verbal ways of communication. They learn what a civil tone of voice means. They learn what words like “please” and “thank you” mean.

Children raised in the presence of adults who rarely say things in a conversational tone and who never enforce anything said in that conversational tone learn that adults rarely mean what they say in a conversational tone! Kids who hear yelling all of the time, begin to feel that yelling is normal conversation. They will react to this language just as naturally as kids in France react to French. If yelled commands are the norm then kids begin to learn that yelled commands are normal so then they react to them in a like manner. Kids can, and do, even learn that yelled commands need not be listened to while civilly expressed commands can be ignored. I witness that dynamic in many homes.

In working with a family for the 20/20 program I found a couple with a son who didn’t seem to obey many commands or requests for action from his parents. I watched a week of tape from their home and discovered an amazing thing. Every time his mother or father said his middle name in a loud and yelling tone of voice, his head turned and he listened to what they said and he usually did it! A shouted, “Joe!” did not get his attention or action. An equally loud, “Joseph!” was just as ineffective. “Young man!” expressed in a conversational tone of voice did little to interrupt his play and did not even get the boy to look up.

But when his parents said “Joseph Alex!” in a loud, yelling kind of voice, he quite often listened and usually complied! Why? Their actions had taught him that when they said his middle name in a shouted voice, his time of ignoring was done! At this point, he knew that they would enforce the following command, so he complied.

Children Learn What Your Actions Teach

Joseph Alex had learned exactly what his mom and dad had unintentionally taught him. Even though they did not intend to teach him to ignore conversational tones of voice; their actions had taught him.

It was pretty simple to restructure effective communication in that family. All that the parents had to do was to duplicate their actions that they had previously used with their son when they shouted his middle name. Only in the restructured situation they had to do it with their first civil and polite request for “Joseph Alex” to perform some desired action.

Say It Civilly and Politely… but Enforce It!

It did not take long before Joseph was willingly obeying dignified and respectful commands. By using a little thought and planning, his parents had taught him a new language! The first step lay in restructuring their own plan of action and in taking control of what they were teaching their son. And man, let me tell you, they all felt much more calm and less stressed.

Dignity!

This brings us to another very important reason why yelling at kids is highly ineffective. Yelling destroys the dignity of both the parent and the child. Kids can learn to respond to calm demeanor just as easily as they can learn to respond to yelling. When parents yell at kids the stress level of everyone in the home goes up, but “yelling-related stress” increases for no one more than the parent. I learned this simple concept while teaching.

One day, while I was teaching at Walla Walla High School, I had had a particularly tough day of being angry and loud with students and was feeling really stressed out by my ineffective interaction with my students. (The kids were probably OK with it… they had learned the “language” of that guy who yells during third period!) My stress level was near the breaking point. In my frustration, I sought out the council of Lola Whitner, a master teacher who taught in the room next to mine. I said to her, “Lola, how do you do it. You are sixty-five years old, you are a perfect lady, you are barely five feet tall, you speak to kids in a respectful conversational, tone and yet the same students that I feel compelled to yell at are so quiet and respectful with you, and you never raise your voice. Help me. I must learn to do what you do!”

Very quietly she replied, “You have quite a temper, Mac. I can hear you through the walls. (She chuckled as she said that.) However, I have one question for you; can you ever control your temper? Can you ever speak quietly and respectfully to your students?”

“Well, yes, sometimes I can control my temper,” I replied. “But often I just blow up.”

“Well, Mac,” she replied very calmly, “If you control your temper some of the time then you can control it. Now that we have established that you are capable of controlling your temper may I point out to you that if you do not control your temper it is a choice! Why don’t you choose to control it all of the time?”

Her simple question changed my life forever! I finally realized that my actions were my choice! I never yelled in anger in a class ever again! I chose to be different and I was! The biggest thing that changed was my feeling of control and power over my life. I once and for all preserved my dignity and the dignity of my students by choosing to not yell; by choosing to speak in a civil, dignified, respectful, and polite manner. They rapidly learned that even though I was not yelling, I still meant what I was saying. My classroom became a respectful, dignified, and relaxed place; just like Lola’s.

I was recently asked what would be my short-term suggestion as a solution for parents who found themselves yelling at their kids, and I have none.

No "Short-Term Solutions" or "Quick-Fixes"

I do not put much stock in short-term solutions to life-long types of problems. Lola did not propose a short-term solution to my problem and and a short-term solution would have been of little value to me. Therefore, I would not suggest a "quick-fix" for anyone else.

The solution to the problem of yelling at kids lies in changing your manner of speaking to children forever. The long-term, life-changing solution does not involve going into a room and shouting, or hitting a punching bag. The solution does not lie in counting to ten or leaving the room. The solution lies in deciding to be different, today, tomorrow, and forever. The solution lies in letting the calm of self-control waft over you. The solution to yelling at your children lies in committing to a plan of action for how you will act before the yell-triggering situation arises; and then following your plan. This plan will bring dignity and peace to a family.

Now, to augment this new found self-control derived by deciding to be calm, dignified, and respectful, and committing to a plan of speaking in a conversational voice, it is necessary to anticipate the situations or circumstances where you are tempted to yell. The situations are always quite predictable. Identify those times and then develop a very specific plan of action for those situations. Actually practice the words that you will say and the manner in which you will say them.

The Situation!

For example, let’s say that one time when you have lost control and yelled in the past was when you would ask your kids to help with setting the table for dinner. At this time they would previously drive you crazy when they would just ignore your requests for help. So you would resort to yelling with little if any change in their behavior. Build a plan for this specific situation.

The Plan!

Rather than standing in the kitchen and yelling, as you have previously done with little results, go to where your kids are and say respectfully, “I need your help. Would you please get up now and come in and set the table? Look at me kids. I am smiling and I am speaking in a polite tone of voice. I even said ‘please’, but I really mean it.”

If they do not immediately start to move to set the table, move squarely in front of them and ask politely in a calm tone, “Excuse me, but what did I just ask you to do?” (You may have to point out to them that you just asked a question that you wish to have answered because they are now in their Ignore-Mom-or-Dad-mode.) Stay right in front of them and wait for their answer. As soon as they can repeat what you have said, say, “OK, so you know what you are to do and I am going to wait right here until you start, so please get started right now.” All of this is said in a respectful and pleasant tone of voice at a conversational volume.

Be Patient

It may even take weeks for this new dignified approach to begin to take hold because the kids have literally had years ignoring your conversational statements and years of hearing you yell at them. It will take time to “learn the new language” that you are speaking!

All too often I find that parents are looking for gimmicks or tricks to use with their kids, when what really works is to make simple and fundamental changes in their own ways of thinking and acting. Usually the people who yell at their kids are the same ones who will become the most upset if their kids were ever to yell back. It is pretty easy to get caught in a trap of holding higher standards for kids’ behavior than we hold for our own behavior.

Some Key Questions

Now, before we leave this topic of yelling at kids, I would like to throw out some questions for the consideration of anyone who is choosing to yell at a child.

“On what basis have you decided that you are justified in yelling at your kids?”

To follow up that question here are a few more to answer.

“Is it justifiable to yell at kids because you are older?”

“Do you deem it justifiable to yell at your kids because you are bigger?

“Do you view it to be reasonable to yell at your kids because you are the parent and have parental authority?”

“Do you feel justified in yelling at your children because you are older and have more life experience?”

It would seem to me that all of these would constitute reasons for you to NOT yell at your kids. “Is there any viable justification for yelling at a child?”

Yes, I will grant you that it might be justifiable to yell at a kid if he was running toward the street and a truck was coming, or if she was reaching for a boiling pan of water on the stove; but short of an emergency, is there any reasonable justification for yelling at children? If not, then why not adopt the ideas above and take the action to stop it?

In closing let me just say that there are millions of well-adjusted adults who were yelled at as kids. I would simply say that they arrived as well-adjusted adults in spite of the yelling and not because of the yelling.

Do not ever use the old fallacy of, “It was done to me, therefore is justifiable for me to do it to my kids!” as an excuse for your actions. Do what works. Yelling simply does not work very well. Having a plan for dignity and civility works. Use it!

Taking Control of the TV in Your Home

2007-08-07T16:43:00.000-07:00

"The Television Is Destroying our Children… What Can We Do?"

Man, do I hear this all of the time! This summer, especially, I have received hundreds of e-mails and letters from distraught parents who are totally frustrated by the amount of television that heir children watch. They bemoan the fact that the programming is so violent and so morally corrupt. It seems that there is an article published daily extolling the evil influence of television on our children.

Just yesterday a mother contacted me saying that her son had learned to hit others from watching cartoons on TV! She wanted to know what to do about the hitting. “It’s all because of the TV!” she said. She was wondering what we could do about the terrible messages being delivered to us by the networks!

Get an "Off Button" and a "Channel-Changer"!

Well, I wanted to call the store that sold that lady that television and let them know that I feel it is immoral to sell television sets without channel changers or off buttons! This mother amazed me with her inability to see that the television set was hers and that it had controls on it that she could use to limit the amount and type of programming that her children watched!

The Critical Issue

There is an issue in this mother’s question that I believe to be even more important than this mom using the off-button and the channel-changer to limit viewing… and that is teaching the children to make intelligent choices of viewing for themselves.

What is the goal? Does this mother want to follow her children around for the rest of their lives making their viewing choices for them? Or… does she wish to teach her children how to make good choices of programs to watch? Does she want to be the one always placing limits on the time spent in front of a television when her children are forty, or does she wish to teach her children to place their own limits on how much time they devote to the television.

Children Can Learn To Make Great Choices

Children can be taught to make wonderful choices for themselves at a very early age. However, parents must make this a priority in their teaching!

I would suggest hat parents start out with this process of teaching at a very early age. I would suggest that children be allowed a certain number of hours per week that can be devoted to watching television. Then before any television is watched; and definitely before any television is turned on, the parents ought to engage in a discussion of what kind of programs are worthwhile. Now with two year-olds this discussion might center on which cartoons the child likes and why.

Select the Time

Next, parents ought to spend some time with their children selecting the most reasonable time to watch television.

Children Learn More from Doing than from Saying!

After selecting some programs that both parents and kids agree upon and selecting some times to watch some television, the parents should let the children know that the television will be off for the rest of the time. Very early children can learn that a television is not just a constant in the home. It is a machine that is controlled by the family and it is only on at times when the family makes a conscious choice to watch specific programming of their choice.

A Bold Recommendation:

"Do NOT have a Television Without a DVR!"

Now, I am going to go out on a limb here and make a recommendation to any parent that is quite unlike most of my recommendations. I rarely champion the purchase of any product, but here, I am going to suggest to parents that they not have a television in their home without a DVR (Digital Video Recorder). Now I am not pushing someone’s product. There are lots of brands and types of DVR’s. I am just saying that if you are going to have a television, you ought to have a DVR that allows your family to control the broadcasting that they watch!

A DVR is simply a new technology that has come into being in the past few years. They have been on the market for some time but only recently have become common. They used to only work with satellite television broadcasting but now are available for use with just about any form of television broadcasting.

For people who are not familiar with DVRs, they are simply very user friendly digital video recorders that allow you to record broadcasting so that you get to choose what you will watch and when you will watch it! A DVR allows a family to select certain programs that they would like to choose to watch. Then by selecting that programming from the schedule, the DVR will automatically record those programs and store them for watching at a time that the family chooses as a reasonable time to devote to television.

Take Control of Your TV!

By using a DVR, a family can take complete control of what programs are watched and when the programs are watched. The real danger of television to children is not the television itself. Watching some television is inherently bad for kids. There are lots of programs available that are very educational and worthwhile. The problem arises when the television is always on. The problem arises when nobody in the family is modeling selectivity in choosing the programming that the family watches.

Kids Learn by Doing!

Kids learn more from our backside than they do from our frontside. In other words children learn more from what we do than what we say. If children are raised in homes where the television is always on, they learn that television viewing really does not involve choice.

On the other hand, children raised in homes where the TV is only turned on at selected times and only selected programs are watched, they will learn to be very selective TV watchers!”

Children raised in homes with DVRs learn even more clearly that television is very selective in nature. They learn by participating in the process, that they are not victims of the television broadcast industry. Children raised in families where programming is selected very carefully, learn to to be very selective in their watching habits.

I would recommend that families make the process of choosing programming each week a family activity where the whole family sits down and selects the programming that they all agree to watch each week. Now, I do not mean that all members of the family must agree to watch the same stuff, nor do I suggest that all family members watch everything together. I would recommend that a family establish that each child gets to choose an hour or two of programming each week that is their exclusive right to pick.

Then I would suggest that the family together select one or two hours of television that all agree to watch together.

In families that I have seen do this, some very healthy behaviors emerge. Children begin to discuss the reasons why they select certain programs. In these discussions, values and morals always come into play. Religious and spiritual discussions always come up very naturally as the families discuss their choices of broadcasting. Parents can offer their own thoughts on program selection as they too select programs that they choose to watch.

Once the week’s selections have been made, the DVR can be programmed to record the chosen programs. Once this is done, another advantage of the DVR arises. When the programming is recorded, the viewers can fast forward through advertising and promotions for upcoming broadcasts, etc. and the actual chosen program takes much less time to watch.

By having the programming recorded and waiting for your family, the time given to watching becomes completely in your control. Television no longer competes with mealtime or bedtime. Television is watched at a time that the family chooses to watch it!

Take control of the television in your family. Teach your children to watch as a choice. Teach children to select carefully the ideas that they allow into their heads!

Teaching your Values to Your Children

2007-08-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

Pick Ideas to Rule Your Child's World!

Values become the over-all ideas that rule the world of your children. Values are complex ideas like honesty, and integrity, respect, diligence, spirituality, and more. Values usually require extensive personal definition. Values should be the most important ideas that you share with your kids so they should be the most carefully taught. Remember that you have not taught something to a child until they use it in their own life as a guiding principle to govern their own behavior.

As you go about the process of teaching your values to your children keep Rule 4 in mind: “It doesn’t matter what you say, it is what they say for themselves that counts!”

To teach your values to your children you must use methods and techniques that get your children to “say it for themselves.” You can tell your children to be honest until you are blue in the face, but it will not bring about lasting change in their behavior until they choose to adopt honesty into their personal ideas about themselves. Keep in mind that you are trying to input these important ideas into their heads so that they will use them to make the big decisions in their own lives… so that they become the ideas that will rule their worlds.

A Real Life Example

At this point it might be enlightening to have a real life experience to relate to in order to understand the power of this process. When I was in junior high our YMCA leader, Alden Esping had us go through a process that had a profound effect upon my life. After much possibility thinking, he had each of us make a list that had twenty things that we would most like to DO, BE, or HAVE on it. (If you wouold like more details on guiding you children in this activity, please get one of my books or a set of our DVD curriculum.) Here is just one of the amazing results of this list of the “Top Twenty Things I Wanted to DO, BE, or HAVE” in my life. I still have my list I wrote way back then and I had accomplished 17 of the things on my list by the time I was twenty-three! And I had accomplished all twenty of the original twenty by the time I was thirty-three!

You need to encourage your kids to keep their list a secret and mine is a secret also, but for the sake of demonstration I will share just a couple of the things that I put on my list in the eighth grade and how having those on my list changed my life.

The number one thing on my list was to play football at the University of Washington for the Husky football team. I know, that is pretty shallow but it was where I was at that point in my life.

But, here is a critical point to consider; I had put being drug-free at number five on my list. Now, I met my first drug-pusher in the strangest of places… in the training room at the University of Washington! You see my list had helped me to make that team but all of a sudden I was confronted with a trainer offering me steroids as a way to get bigger. I turned him down because that morning I had just looked at my Top Twenty List and had just viewed my commitment to be drug-free. It was easy to make the decision that day because I had already made it long ago and reaffirmed the decision almost daily every time I looked at my list! When the trainer offered the drug I simply said, “Thanks anyway, but I will either make the team without drugs or I won’t make it; but drugs will not be a part of my training.”

My friend was in the room with me that day and he didn’t have a list to look at. He had not already made a decision about drugs. He went ahead and used the drugs. He got bigger with the steroids and we both made the team but he was probably sterile from about the third dose he took. And now he is dead and doctors are pretty sure that he was killed by complications associated with abuse of steroids back when he was in college!

Values Can Save Your Children's Lives

My list had saved me and allowed me to enjoy a full life. My list allowed me to make a very critical decision with lasting positive consequences for me and for my family.

Would you like your child to have a similar idea in his/her head to use in a similar situation when they meet a drug pusher? Remember that Drug Pushers come in many disguises. Mine was disguised as a trainer. Your kid’s pusher may come disguised as a friend, as a big brother, as a coach.

Start teaching values to your children today!

More Radio!

2007-08-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

Five New Radio Shows Available on Demand

For those seeking more audio versions of the Parenting with Dignity skills and concepts, you are in luck... WhitefishRadio.com now has posted five new programs featuring "yours truly" Mac Bledsoe discussing some new information.

In our Parenting with Dignity curriculum, we propose Five Rules for Parents and the new sessions give some new information on the application of those five rules.If you would like to have the handouts to go with those five rules they are free on our website at: http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/2-5rules.htm

While you are on the WhitefishRadio.com website take a look around. They have some great music on demand that will make great family listening. It is a family oriented station with lots of programming that your family will enjoy listening to. Turn on WhitefishRadio.com, get out a game and turn off the TV and enjoy a family evening!

Single Parenting - Don't be a Single

2007-07-31T11:36:00.000-07:00

One Bit of Wisdom for Single Parents

A few weeks ago I wrote a few articles that put forth the idea that good parenting is good parenting no matter whether the parent is single or whether there is an active partner. My point was simple; good parenting is good parenting, and that it does not matter whether the parent is single or not.

I still believe that is true! However I do have one piece of advice for single parents… and yet, even this piece of advice can also be used just as effectively by two-parent homes!

Don’t Go it Alone!

As I have said many times in these articles, being a successful and loving parent requires that you think and plan; that you have the confidence to build a parenting strategy that fits your unique personality and the personality of your children. Your plan ought to fit your moral, ethical, and spiritual beleifs. Your plan ought to be constructed so that it preserves the dignity of both you and your children.

That being said, there is no one person who could ever have all of the answers to every problem that might face you and your family!

Help Your Children to Build a Team!

When we were raising our two sons, there were just times when we needed some help or some new perspective in order to be the best parents we could be. We made sure that we had a team of people who cared about and loved our boys. We made sure that our boys knew that we encouraged that they seek out help and advice from others that we all trusted and respected; Grandmas and Grandpas, Aunts and Uncles, coaches, teachers, counselors, pastors, and youth leaders. We let our boys know that we not only approved of them seeking advice and help from these people; we encouraged it!

There were times when some of those other wise folks gave our sons needed help and advice that the boys were simply not comfortable coming to us to get. Give your children the same option. Help them to pick out members of their “Advice Team!”

“Single-Parent” Does NOT Mean “Alone-Parent!”

This concept may be especially applicable to single parents. If you are a single Mom, find some men to join your team to give advice and help to your kids. If you are a single dad, find some trusted women to offer help and advice to your children.

Build Your Own Team as Well

So many parents seem to feel that in order to be a good parent, they must do everything for themselves… and nothing could be further from the truth. The best parents are the ones with lots of people that they can seek out for advice. Successful parents aren't reluctant to seek out the wisdom of others. They know that, when it is all said and done, the decisions about their family are up to them. But… before they make big decisions, there is plenty of wisdom out there that they can consider before those decisions are made.

Start a Parenting with Dignity Class

One of the best ways to develop a “Team of Advisors” to seek out for advice and help as you work to be the best parent that you can be is to start a Parenting with Dignity class! By starting a class you immediately have a whole group of parents who share your desire to be the best that they can be. The discussions during classes develop open channels for seeking advice in the future. Most people find that a parenting class becomes sort of like a support group.

Also, having some common understanding of the skills and the techniques of the Parenting with Dignity Curriculum makes it so much easier to openly discuss problems with other parents who have been through instruction in the same skills.

Starting a Parenting with Dignity Class is not as difficult as it might seem; and often the very best facilitators are parents who are going through the course for the first time! If you think that you might like to start a class, please click on this link ( http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/tape10f.htm ) and do some reading. If this sounds like something you might like to do, just go to our website and order a set of DVD’s and get started.

Parenting with Dignity on the Radio

2007-07-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

Good News!

Many people have requested that we put the Parenting with Dignity Curriculum into an audio format. Well there is some good news for you if you are one of those people who would like to listen to some of the Parenting with Dignity tips and skills… Parenting with Dignity is now on an exciting new internet Radio Station!

You can go to http://www.whitefishradio.com/index.htm and listen to many segments of Parenting with Dignity tips and skills. Mac Bledsoe is a featured guest on this great family listening station and you can listen to the segments ON DEMAND!

If you will just click on this link: http://www.whitefishradio.com/SITE/2007/PWD/index.htm you can select the segment that you wish to listen to by clicking on the title that you want to hear.

Please keep checking back to that station because there will be more segments posted at regular intervals.

Mike Vick, Dog-Fighting, and Parenting Part 2

2007-07-23T11:14:00.000-07:00

An Excerpt from "Parenting with Dignity" Book

Here is an excerpt from my book "Parenting with Dignity" that kind of puts in a nutshell how effective parenting skills can arm children against making the kind of terrible decisions that Mike has allegedly made.

Respect for Authority

"Do it because it's the law." Teach your children that a civilized world will always have rules and laws. Teach them that these are not an annoyance; they are an aid to us all. Rules and laws protect our rights, privileges, property, and safety. Explain to them that chaos would result from a society without stop signs, property laws, and rights to privacy, opportunity, expression, and freedom from injury. (Note that it is almost impossible to teach respect for laws and rules if your children see you violate those same rules and laws. You can't speed and then demand that your children drive the speed limit!)

This education about rules and laws can start at a very early age. It really works to point out to kids as young as four or five that a busy intersection simply would not be negotiable without traffic lights. I watch our son teach his kids the meaning of red, yellow, and green lights and how they protect all of us, and it's easy to see why, at three and four, they're able to negotiate intersections by looking at the lights and knowing how to decide when to stop and when to go.

As I work in juvenile prisons (and adult prisons, for that matter), it never ceases to amaze me how almost every kid who is in trouble with the law has little or no knowledge of the very law that they have violated! A child who has a knowledge of laws and an ability to use that knowledge to make decisions is far better equipped for successful living than a child who doesn't!

Check back for the next article as I will highlight some other portions of Parenting with Dignity and how it will help arm your children to make great decisions for themselves.

Mike Vick, Dog-Fighting, and Parenting

2007-07-19T16:17:00.000-07:00

Finger of Blame

It is amazing to me to read the bulk of the writing and commentary that is coming about as a result of the whole legal issue of Mike Vick, his indictment for involvement in dog fighting, and the role of the law and the NFL in controlling his behavior. “Why is it amazing?” you ask. Well to me it is amazing simply because it seems to me that few seem to grasp the whole big picture. Everyone seems to be wanting to point a finger of blame at someone.

The Issue Is Parenting

To me this is really not about Mike Vick and dog fighting. To me this is an issue of great cultural significance because this seems to be evidence of a failure of our older generation in teaching the next generation the way that our democracy works in America.

The Issue Is Teaching Children to Respect Rules and Laws

We are a society of rules and laws! Freedom does not mean fewer laws. Freedom does not mean ignoring laws. Freedom does not mean living outside of the laws. Recently someone gave me a bumper sticker as a joke... but to me it was not a joke. It reads, "It's not guns, stupid; it is a lack of parenting!"

The problem in America is not one of more cops and stiffer penalties; it is clearly a problem of doing a better job of teaching our young people about our way of life. Democracy all starts with respect for the rules and laws we create. It simply does not work if we do not show respect for the rules and laws. Our children need to know that!

What freedom means is more laws! The more laws that you can live within the bounds of, the more freedom you have.

American Parents Have Shirked Their Duty

Our older generation (commonly called the “Baby Boomers”) taught the next generation, by their actions, that if there was something that we felt was wrong with our societies laws; all we had to do was to disobey the law! That is not how it works. That is not Democracy; that is Anarchy!

What a disservice we have done to our younger generation.

The problem with Mike Vick is a lack of parenting! Someone failed to teach him to live within the law. My issue is not specifically with Mike Vick's parents... it is with American parents in general. As a society, we Americans need to do a better job of teaching our children to obey rules and laws!

The Point of This Article

Now, like I said, the purpose of this article is not to point the finger of blame at Mike Vick’s parents. The point of this article is to say to every parent, "we need to pay attention to what we teach our younger generation!"

We Americans need to teach respect for rules and laws!

We need to teach respect for our process of making laws in our great nation. We need to teach our children to respect our way of government and to respect our leaders. We need to teach our young people that if we do not like our leaders and the way that they are leading our country, we need to vote them out of office and replace them with leaders who take us in a direction we want to go.

American Democracy Is Built To Allow Change

We need to teach the next generation of Americans that if there is something that they do not like about our structure of laws they must get involved on our system of representative government and work to change that part of the law that they disagree with.

Our forefathers set up a government with a built-in process for change and improvement. Few young Americans understand how that process even works.

Mike Vick, if he indeed was raising, training, and putting dogs in fights, needed some instruction about how our system works. If it is illegal to do something… don’t do it. If you feel that the law is wrong, work to change it but do not just ignore the law.

Missing the Point

It seems that most of the people writing about this unfortunate event seem to be saying that we need stiffer penalties for violators. They say that the problem is lax penalties and weak leaders in the NFL. They say that the problem is that athletes are paid too much. I say "NO!" to all of that… I say that what we need is better parental guidance.

In my book Parenting with Dignity and in our 9-week Parenting with Dignity course we teach parents how to teach their children respect for rules and laws. What America needs is more parents teaching their children respect for rules and laws! It is that simple.

Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled

2007-07-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting article by Jeff Zaslow the other day in the Wall Street Journal. I must say that I agree with some of what Jeff says in the article. If you too would like to read it, just click on this link: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118358476840657463.html?mod=blog

As the Author, Founder and President of the Parenting with Dignity Foundation and keeping in mind what we have created is a nine-week curriculum that teaches parenting skills, I was interested to read what he had to say about the manner in which children act in today's world. Our curriculum is based upon the unavoidable truth that children will make all of the big decisions in their own lives! In order to have the ability to make great decisions for themselves children must be taught HOW to make good decisions.

Finding Fault Bears Little Fruit

However, I am not quite as willing to blame everything that has gone wrong in the raising of American children on Mr. Rogers. I believe very strongly that our culture has such a distorted view of what the term Self-Esteem means that in two books and nine hours of video I rarely, if ever, even use the term! I agree with the Jeff Zaslow that many parents, educators, child psychologists, and others working with children today believe that they can create high self-esteem in their children by some artificial means of unfounded praise and by using terms like “special”.

That being said, I doubt that few parents learned their distorted view of what it takes to raise a self-directed and self-confident child from some guy in a sweater on a kid’s television program. Even if Mr. Rogers did overuse the term “special”, any application or misapplication of that concept in any family required a decision to do so on the part of the parents!

I believe that far too many adults in America speak of the younger generation as if they had nothing to do with them!

Pointing a finger of blame at some fellow on TV borders upon being ludicrous. Pointing the finger of blame at anyone, for that matter, is equally useless. The purpose of my statements here is not to point the finger of blame at anyone

Children Usually Do what They Have Been Taught

The truth of the matter is that most children do just about exactly what we taught them to do, and they give us just about exactly what we are willing to accept.

The burden of responsibility for how children act today lies directly upon the shoulders of the parents who raised them! Jeff Zaslow, the author of that article, seems to be simply jumping on the bandwagon and attempting to point out what is wrong with kids. But to me that is the problem... he gives almost no mention of even a possible solution. To him I would reply, “If you see a problem and you are not a part of the solution; you are one of the biggest part of the problem!”

A Solution
I firmly believe that the solution to the well identified problem outlined by Jeff Zaslow, lies in teaching parents HOW to teach their children to make good decisions for themselves!

Teaching children morals, values, ethics, and spiritual beliefs for use in making big and important decisions is the key.

The problem is that “orchestrating successful outcomes” for children early in life without teaching them how to make the decisions that result in those outcomes is fruitless. This is not Mr. Roger’s fault. It does not even matter who is at fault. Fixing blame rarely results in any meaningful change.

Solving the Problem is the Key Issue!

Education of parents is the critical action that will result in a change in the decisions and attitudes of the children of our nation and of the world. We must teach children how to make great decisions!

So many parents have accepted the fallacy that it is what they, the parents, know that will protect and guide their children and that is simply not true. It is what the children know and use to make decisions that will result in positive outcomes for those children. Whether the parent spanks their children or praises them is really of little consequence; it is what they teach them that results in the positive outcomes for the child.

Parenting with Dignity does just that! Parenting with Dignity does just that… it acknowledges that children will make all of the big decisions in their lives so, the curriculum gives simple and behaviorally described techniques for parents to use in teaching their children how to make big good decisions.

Summer Vacation Brings Battles Between Kids

2007-07-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

A letter from a Mom that reflects a very common question at this time of year when kids are home on summer vacation:

Dear Mac,

I am taking your parenting course at work. I also just ordered the DVD set so I can share this with my husband and we can be on the same track.

We have an almost 7 year-old boy and 5 year-old and 9 month-old girls. We are trying to implement your ideas and strategies in our household but have been struggling with how to handle conflicts when they arise. These conflicts seem to have escalated with the onset of summer vacation and the kids being at home all week long.

I've read some of your other Blog postings dealing with similar topics...

Here's an example of something that happens often: the 7 year-old will hit or put his foot on his 5 year old sister (or something either hurtful or just generally irritating). A yelling and crying match follows between the two.

Before taking your parenting class, I would have previously talked to the children about what nice touches are and if not-so-nice touches were occurring I'd spank or do timeouts.

Now, we have come up with a “Family Bill of Rights” that involves the fact that everyone in our house can experience the fruit of the spirit (love) and we've talked specifically about what are nice touches (hugs, family kisses, hand on the shoulder, etc. and what are not).

When a physical altercation occurs between my 7 and 5 year old, I'm not sure what to do. I can't let someone get hurt, but I have decided not to spank and trying to teach them at that point is not going to work.

You've said that taking something away that is not related does not connect the dots for kids... We've had the kids pick privileges but you say not to be involved in taking them away...how does this happen with kids so young?

What's your advice? Also, I've had at least one MAJOR angry outburst with my oldest child since we've been doing the privileges and not spanking and I've never seen him angry like this (even with spanking) although he does get it over it quickly...

I'm either thinking this is touching nerves with him or it's not working...but I want to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong...

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks!

Frustrated Mom

Dear Mom,

Your children are lucky to have you for a mother! You are seeking to be the best parent that you can be… and therefore you will be!!

Now for some help with your very common problems.

I will offer some very general comments first and then I will deal with your specific situations that you mention in your letter.

Comment #1: One of the biggest failings that I see young parents making is that they wait until a conflict or a problem arises before they attempt to deal with it. In other words, they simply parent by crisis management. That usually does not work very well because when the conflict arises, the child is not in a mode where they can take instruction!

Here is a way that I try to explain this to many parents: Imagine for a moment that I have come to your house to teach you how to operate a new and fairly complicated software on your computer. Now, rather than giving you this instruction to while you are calm and have all of the children in bed and you are free to concentrate on what I am teaching you, let’s just imagine that I try to do the teaching as you are attempting to feed the children and also at the same time as you and your husband are having an argument over the bills. How well do you think that you would learn to use the new software if I approached my instruction at that time?

Timing Is the Issue

Well, basically that is what you are doing if you attempt to teach your children after a conflict has arisen. You need to teach them at some time BEFORE the conflict is going on! I am sure that if you stop and think just a little bit you can think up some scenarios where some of these conflicts arise. Now what you need to do is to apply Rule #1 from our Parenting with Dignity curriculum and teach your child what you want them TO DO in that type of a situation. Then apply Rule #3 and repeat your instruction a few times. If you are still not successful, remember the corollary to Rule #3 and find another way to teach the same behavior!

General Comment #2: I love your "Family Bill of Rights"! Now, you simply must teach them to your children in behavioral terms that they understand. Do not become discouraged if they do not master it on the first explanation. Just like the example of teaching you to use a software program... it will most likely take a few repetitions.

Next, you need to apply our Rule #4 and get them to say it for themselves. Saying “enjoy the fruit of the spirit” works for you and me but I doubt that a five-year-old or a nine-year-old would attach much meaning to that term. Explain what behavior you “expect the next time” they are in a similar situation and then have them repeat it back to you. Even better, have them demonstrate the desired behavior to you. Remember that what you are attempting to do is to program their minds with the “ideas that you want to rule their worlds and to dictate their choices to act in an appropriate manner. This approach may take longer but let me toll you, It will save time and effort in the long run… and of most importance; this approach will work when you are not there to enforce good decisions about using appropriate behavior!

General Comment #3: Many people misinterpret our program to be about replacing positive rewards (what you call privileges) in place of punishment or negative consequences. This is a mistaken perception. The goal is to raise children who are capable of making great decisiions for themselves; decisions that are NOT dependent upon your reward or punishment. Decisions reached like this will insure that your kids will make these same good decisions when you are not there to mske the decisions for them!

Now with those general comments please refer to the text of your message below for my specific comments.

Specific Comments:

Mac, I am taking your parenting course at work. I also just ordered the DVD set so I can share this with my husband and we can be on the same track.

Like I said, your children are very lucky to have you folks as their parents! Your studies will reap great rewards over the long haul.

We have an almost 7 year old boy and 5 year-old and 9 month-old girls. We are trying to implement your ideas and strategies in our household but have been struggling with how to handle conflicts when they arise. These conflicts seem to have escalated with the onset of summer vacation and the kids being at home all week long.

I've read some of your other Blog postings dealing with similar topics...

Here's an example of something that happens often: the 7 year-old will hit or put his foot on his 5 year old sister (or something either hurtful or just generally irritating). A yelling and crying match follows between the two.

Like I said, these situations seem to be pretty predictable situations that you are capable of describing in fairly complete detail to me, so act BEFORE the conflict starts by setting up some role playing with the kids that have them practice appropriate behavior. Then remember three key words: “that didn’t work” and when one way of teaching fails, use another but do it before there is trouble.

Before taking your parenting class, I would have previously talked to the children about what nice touches are and if not-so-nice touches were occurring I\'d spank or do timeouts.

You have proven that punishment does not work. I will grant you that punishment often gets the attention of kids but for it to work there has to be some teaching going on!

The teaching of the desired behavior is up to you!

Now, we have come up with a “Family Bill of Rights” that involves the fact that everyone in our house can experience the fruit of the spirit (love) and we've talked specifically about what are nice touches (hugs, family kisses, hand on the shoulder, etc. and what are not).

You, as the adult in the situation must act to stop the altercation. You cannot let one beat up or hurt the other. Just remember that separating them has not taught them what you want them to do! What it has done is to teach them that when people don’t get along they must separate! Yuck! We have enough of that in the world!

It is your job to teach them how to compromise, negotiate, compliment, share and other desired behaviors when they are calm and capable of actually learning.

When a physical altercation occurs between my 7 and 5 year old, I'm not sure what to do. I can't let someone get hurt, but I have decided not to spank and trying to teach them at that point is not going to work.

You are exactly right, it is not what you are trying to teach nor your ability to teach… you only problem is timing! Try to teach at a calm time BEFORE they are in an altercation!

You've said that taking something away that is not related does not connect the dots for kids... We've had the kids pick privileges but you say not to be involved in taking them away...how does this happen with kids so young?

If I came to your house to teach you to use that software, and took your keys to your car away from you after your first mistake… what would that teach you about what I wanted to teach you? Would you be any more able to use that software? No! but you would resent me and what I just did. Your kids are no different. The key is to teach them what you want them to do instead of what they did! Now if you are having a little trouble putting into words precisely what you want them to do… I can understand why your kids might have some trouble. However, it sounds to me like you have some well developed ideas about what you want your children to do; so teach them precisely, in behavioral terms that they understand!

What's your advice? Also, I've had at least one MAJOR angry outburst with my oldest child since we've been doing the privileges and not spanking and I've never seen him angry like this (even with spanking) although he does get it over it quickly...

Spanking and special privileges are really not much different. Neither one teaches the child how to make good decisions. Either the child is behaving to avoid your punishment or behaving to get your reward! What will the child do when you are not there to reward or punish? That is the real question.

I'm either thinking this is touching nerves with him or it's not working...but I want to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong...

You are doing something new and different. He has nine years of experience with the "old you"… let him know what has changed and why. He needs to know what you are doing and why you are doing it. He is nine and is fully capable of understanding that you have high expectations for his behavior.

Ask him to help you to design the desired behavior for him to choose in many of the situations that come up.

Teach him the real benefits of acting in a respectful and dignified manner towards others in your family and then let him see it actually work out best for him. Help him to see that his siblings actually do look up to him and respect him for his kindness and his ability to control his actions.

Rather than viewing yourself as his "decision-maker", start viewing yourself as the "decision-clarifier". Rather than telling him what to do, present desired changes to him as choices for him to make. (That is all that you can really ask him to do anyway! He can always choose to disobey you.) Explain the REAL positive outcomes (that means ones not created by you) that will come his way if he acts in the manner that you would like him to behave whether you are there or not.

But, like I said, present it to him as a choice. Remember that at nine he is half owner of the "mortgage" called his life… and as half owner he should be making at least half of his own big decisions. As a parent you need to start putting him progressively in more control of his actions. Set up situations to have him making big decisions and then give him some feedback on his actions and the outcomes that resulted from his actions.

Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks!

I hope that these general and specific answers have been of help to you. Please keep me posted about how things go for you. Please subscribe to my Blog: (http://parentingwithdignity.blogspot.com/ )

Please go back and look at some of my previous Blogs because I have written about your types of questions.

Please get my two books because they are both full of suggestions to go along with the DVD curriculum. Please note that if you buy the DVD's, you receive a copy of one of my books for FREE!

Sincerely,

Mac Bledsoe

Parenting Classes in Prisons? Why?

2007-07-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

Parenting Classes in Prisons

A remarkable woman, who is intensely interested in parenting issues, recently contacted me about our well established DVD Parenting with Dignity Curriculum. This lady is the dedicated mother of an inmate in the New York State Corrections system. Her son is a fine young man who made one terrible mistake!

She tells me that recently the State of New York has made a rather significant change in the direction of incarceration from being mostly a punitive system to one that is aiming at rehabilitation. I commend New York State for this change. Parenting with Dignity is quite active in some other Correctional Facilities in a number of other states that also have a similar rehabilitative approach toward incarceration. Many of these institutions offer a wide variety of programs for inmates to earn the right to attend educational curriculum which offer huge opportunities for inmates to profit greatly from their time in prison. (This lady's son is now pursuing a college degree via correspondence while he is serving his time.)

PW Has Success in a Prison Setting

The directors of Educational Programs of many of those other institutions tell us that our Parenting with Dignity Curriculum is very positively received by their inmate populations. They tell us that our Parenting with Dignity Curriculum is about the only program they can put on a DVD player and leave the room; and then upon return, the participants are either still watching intently or have stopped the DVD, and are discussing the material presented! As a matter of fact a number of the prisons are running our program as a peer-run and peer-facilitated curriculum!

Our Well Designed and Extremely "User-Friendly" Website

If you would like to see a little bit about what we do, our website is: http://www.parentingwithdignity.com/. If you do visit our particularly well designed website, I would like to suggest that you place your pointer over the word HOME in the Menu across the top of the Home Page. When the drop-down menu appears select the TAKE THE TOUR option that is highlighted in orange. (Or you can just click on this link: http://parentingwithdignity.com/tour/index.htm )

When you do that, the website will take you on a short tour of our program to allow you to see, in some detail, what the curriculum is all about. Please note that you can preview a short segment of each lesson at the page labeled DVD Series ( http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/index.htm ) .

The Parenting with Dignity Philosophy for raising self-reliant children is based upon the simple truth that children will make ALL of the big decisions in their lives. So it is the premise of Parenting with Dignity that in order to effectively raise children, parents must teach them how to make good decisions!

I believe that the reason that the course is so well received by prison inmates is that they realize the consequences of poor decisions! And, they are intrigued by the manner in which the course teaches parents how to teach children to make good decisions. As a matter of fact, while in the process of thinking about how they might teach good decision-making to their children, many of the inmates, for the first time in their lives, seem to engage in the task of teaching themselves to make good decisions!

Start a Parenting with Dignity Class in Your Community

2007-06-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

Letters from Parents

Daily, I am receiving lots of letters from thousands of parents, from all across the country, seeking help with specific parenting problems and obviously, I will continue to offer specific advice via this column because it fills a need for so many parents and so many families. However, the point that I will be attempting to make here today is that in spite of receiving valuable help from these regular articles, the advice with the most lasting value that you can receive from Parenting with Dignity lies in allowing yourself to go through the entire course! Going through each lesson and doing all of the assignments will bring the most value to your family!

Get the Maximum Value from Parenting with Dignity

As a matter of fact, the maximum value that families can receive from Parenting with Dignity comes from not only going through the class themselves; some of the greatest value comes from forming a class and going through the curriculum with other parents in your neighborhood or community!

Benefit from the Experiences of Others!

When families go through the complete course together, they all benefit much more than they would by just going through the curriculum on their own.

Just like in this column, many others may benefit from a question from one parent. Most people tell us that they benefit as much from the discussions with other parents as they do from the curriculum itself! But even more than benefiting from the questions of others, there is an even greater benefit that families receive from going through the curriculum together!

A Very Simple Concept

This is not a difficult concept to understand. I know that this might be a repetition for some who have read many of my other columns but hopefully a little repetition might also help. Regardless of whether you have heard me say this before or not, please understand this: It is so much easier to teach your own children something if every other home that they visit is teaching the same thing!

It is so much easier to teach something as simple as saying "please" and "thank-you" at your own dinner table, if every home your child visits is teaching the same thing! It is so much easier to teach your children the advantages of drug-free living if your children are in constant contact with other children who have been taught a similar approach to that way of life. Like I said in a recent article, peer pressure is only negative if it pushes in a negative direction! Positive peer pressure can be your biggest ally!

Build Positive Peer Pressure

It is simply much more natural to expect your children to behave in a desired manner if their friends are doing so too! It is just so much more reasonable to expect your child to behave in an appropriate manner while on a date to the Prom if he/she is dating a young person who has been taught similar dating behavior! If they are on a double date with others who have also been taught similar dating behavior the peer pressure is pushing them all toward doing the right thing!

Create a Positive Community for Raising Your Children

Put very simply, Parenting with Dignity will help you to build the community to raise your children! Please join the many other families who have started a Parenting with Dignity Course ( http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/tape10f.htm )in their neighborhood. Order a copy of our DVD Curriculum and start a class today!

An Open Letter about Children of Divorce

2007-06-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Mac,

I've sent you several emails with no response.

Your advertisement on my daily Inspire list is a constant reminder of how divorced dads in the United States would love to parent with dignity, but can't because they are denied access to their children by hateful individuals.

In my emails, I had hoped to have an exchange with you to see if you could help in the epedemic in the US.

I know your father was a former legislator in Washington State. Our current legislature refuses to address the issue that 95% of all marriages end with the non-custodial parent (mostly dads) only getting 4 days a week of parenting time. 4 days! Can you imagine having lost custody of Drew and been relegated to a visitor in his life, where you got to see him 4 days of the month.

I believe you are in a unique position to speak to this issue, and I hope we can compell you to at least respond to my emails and tell us no thanks if it doesn't interest you.

Kind Regards,

Disappointed Dad

A Direct Answer

Dear Disappointed Dad,

Good to hear from you.

(I apologize for the fact that you feel that I have been unresponsive to the e-mails you have sent, but I answer hundreds of e-mails each week and I have a personal policy of answering every single incoming e-mail within two days of receipt. I am faithful to this policy. I check my e-mail daily, and I have never received an e-mail from you.

We use a spam blocker called SpamArrest that requires first-time e-mailers to identify a graphic upon sending first time e-mails. Upon sending a first-time e-mail to me, you should have received an immediate return e-mail asking you to identify a graphic and then hitting "send" again and I would have gotten your e-mail. I have never known this system to not work.

If you e-mailed me through our website, as you did this time, I guarantee that I would have gotten it, just as I did this one. Next time that you send me an e-mail watch to see if you receive an immediate answer asking you to do the "identification and resend" proceedure. If not, then please give me a call and we will check it out. You will only have to do this once and then you will be able to send me e-mail unencumbered for life!)

Now for your comments about divorced Fathers:

I will try to comment on your questions/statements in the order that you offer them to me.

1. "Your advertisement on my daily Inspire list is a constant reminder of how divorced dads in the United States would love to parent with dignity, but can't because they are denied access to their children by hateful individuals.''

I am sorry that you have become divorced (but remember, that was your doing not mine, not the court's, and not the legislature's). I am sorry for the fact that our advertisement for Parenting with Dignity somehow annoys you as it reminds you of how you might like to parent your children. However, there are a couple of thoughts expressed in this statement that will make it difficult for me to respond to you. I am not willing to make comment about generalized statements that "whitewash" a whole group of people because of he actions of a few. I deal with thousands upon thousands of divorced dads and moms who parent their children with dignity, love, and respect; in spite of the fact that they are divorced.

If my e-mail volume is, in any way, indicative of reality, there are more dads who choose to simply disappear from their responsibilities as a father than there are dads like you who want to be more involved with their children. Just as I would not label you as a "deadbeat dad" because of the actions of other dads, I feel compelled to ask you to not label others parents based upon the actions of a few hateful mothers. It is always a mistake to ask a group to pay for the actions of a few.

If you are having difficulties in working out an agreement that allows you to do be as active in the lives of your children as you might like, then let's deal with that on a specific basis. I cannot speak in general statements about all divorced parents, because every case is so different. I am sure that there are cases where the settlement is not equitable or fair but it is simply impossible for me to speak about them without specifics.

I will say that no case of divorce is ever going to seem completely equitable to both parents because, by the very nature of divorce, neither parent is going to be completely able to be the full time parent that they were while they were together as a family! Like it or not, that is the reality of divorce. That is why it is called divorce. By mutually agreeing to no longer live as husband and wife, a couple also must give up some other rights and privileges as parents. The most obvious is that right to be with your children full time! Your children cannot be divided equally between you.

Now please listen carefully to me here, and try to not react with anger to my statement, the biggest injustice that I see in divorce is not done to either parent! The biggest injustice brought on by divorce is the injustice to the children! Those children are denied the right to live with dignity with both parents in a harmonious home with a mom and a dad.

I must tell you that, from my point of view, I am much more willing to work with people to establish reasonable and dignified relationships with children in a divorced family setting if the parents are willing to consider the whole discussion from the point of view of their children!

If there is one party in most divorced relationships whose voice is almost never heard, IT IS THE VOICE OF THE CHILDREN! If I am going to be an advocate of any one group in this argument, my voice will be heard on behalf of the children!

2. "In my emails, I had hoped to have an exchange with you to see if you could help in the epidemic in the US."

The epidemic in the U.S., again, from my point of view, is DIVORCE. I hate to be blunt about this, but that is my point of view as I sit on the outside and listen to the problem and try to identify a reasonable solution that brings about the best outcome for children.

To me, the solution to this epidemic lies in trying to reduce the divorce rate! Kids are the ones being damaged and the cause of the damage is divorce. The problem is not that the courts are unfair. The problem is not that the laws or the legislature are unfair; the problem is that parents are divorcing at an alarming rate and are then asking the courts to fix their problem. Children are being forced to grow up as the pawns in a game that they did not create.

To me the solution to this problem lies in preventing divorce in the first place! Blaming the courts for this problem seems to me to be rather much like blaming rehab counselors for the fact that drug addicts do not get well immediately after seeking treatment! The solution lies in preventing people from using drugs in the first place!

I am sure that your response to my comments will be to get angry at me for being insensitive to your problem. If so, that is your CHOICE. However, as the creator of a program dedicated to the mission statement that says: "We will improve the lives of CHILDREN by teaching effective parenting skills to as many parents as possible," I must hold true to our mission and be the advocate of the children! I must work to improve the lives of the children.

Now, if you want to start a conversation about how other parents can avoid winding up in your situation of having a battle over their children with the person with whom you decided to create those children, then I will be your strongest advocate. If you would like to work on a program that advises other parents about how to sit down and work together to build a reasonable relationship with their mutual children, I am your guy.

I simply am not very interested in further appealing to the court system to fix a problem that they are not bonded with fixing. The problem is not the courts! The problem rests squarely on the shoulders of the parents. I have met hundreds of thousands of parents who have divorced and in the process they have chosen to "bury the hatchet" and sit down and work out a mutual relationship where both parties agree to do what is reasonable, workable, and dignified on behalf of their children. If this is what you are interested in doing I am with you one hundred per cent.

I am always ready to discuss this issue with anyone. My telephone number is publicly displayed on our website right along with my e-mail. If you would like to open a dialog with me, feel free to give me a call at any time. I will tell you that starting your conversation with me by implying that I am unresponsive will get you nowhere. I am as responsive as I know how to be. I publish my phone number, e-mail address, I write a Blog almost daily, and I respond to every single call, letter or comment that comes in. I answer my own phone and if I am not there to answer it, I answer all messages in a very timely manner. This does not guarantee that I will take your side in any argument, but I will respond honestly and completely, just as I am doing here.

3. "I know your father was a former legislator in Washington State. Our current legislature refuses to address the issue that 95% of all marriages end with the non-custodial parent (mostly dads) only getting 4 days a week of parenting time."

I have no idea how you feel our father's position as a legislator over 30 years ago has any bearing on the issue of divorce in today's world but suffice it to say, our father's position buys me no special access to the legislative process of today. His position brought me no special favor even when he was alive and in office!

As for the next part of your statement I must point out to you that more than half of the marriages in this state and in this nation result in totally equal parenting rights for both father and mother, because more than half of all marriages do NOT end in divorce! You are totally inaccurate in your statement the "our current legislature refuses to address the issue that 95% of all marriages end with the non-custodial parent (mostly dads) only getting 4 days a week of parenting time." The legislature is not in any way responsible for the fact that many marriages end in divorce. Nor are they responsible for "95%" ending in some way that you deem to inequitable to one group or another.

Now, I believe that I understand what you are trying to say. What you are trying to say is that, currently, many divorce settlements result in one or the other of the parents being left feeling that the other parent is getting too much time with the children. That may be so, but my concern is for the children! For me to take that point of view, I feel compelled to look at each case individually. I do not believe that law is capable of doing that and thus trying to turn to the legislature for a solution is always going to wind up with someone feeling as you do! This is not a problem of law.

I am sure that you did not mean to say "four days a week" because that represents more than half of the time that the children would spend with the father. I believe that you meant 4 days a month. Now, if you meant four days a month that still does not mean that this is an unreasonable agreement. So many other factors need to be weighed to establish what is reasonable for the children. If the parents live in separate towns, or states... that agreement seems like it might be reasonable for the children. Perhaps even that agreement might be unfair to the children. Four days a month would mean that two weekends a month the children are being asked to sleep in a strange bed, in a different town, away from their personal belongings and away from their neighborhood, and away from their friends, their schools, and their activities. Like I said, even that arrangement might be unfair to the children! I'm sure that if the court said that you had to leave your home for two weekends a month and go live somewhere else, you might find that to be unfair to you.

4. "Can you imagine having lost custody of Drew and been relegated to a visitor in his life, where you got to see him 4 days of the month."

In direct answer to your question, NO, I cannot imagine that! You are attempting to personalize this issue for me, and I can appreciate your efforts, but when I personalize this issue, I simply cannot imagine any situation where I would let my personal disagreements with my wife escalate to the point that I would need to throw myself at the mercy of the courts in order to establish my right to be a father to my children! Herein lies the solution to your problem and the problem of establishing equitable parental rights. Parents must make whatever concessions and compromises that are necessary in order to allow both parents the opportunity to be active in the lives of their children.

In order to do that, the parents must put down their differences and sit down to work things out. In order to do this they cannot rely on the courts! To me that is the problem. Parents are looking to the courts and the legislature to solve a problem that the parents must take responsibility to solve for themselves.

By personalizing this issue and bringing my son (and might I point out to you that we have two sons, so as I view this I look at both of our sons, not just the famous one) into this, then I must think about my personal desire and drive to be a parent to my children. When I think about that, I cannot perceive of a problem great enough that could have arisen between Barbara and me that would have allowed me to even consider divorce!

If you wish to speak directly about me, then I will too. In my life, if a problem were to arise between my wife and me, we would work it out! We had many such problems and we worked them all out! We simply would not let our problems become more important than our family! No problem could ever have become big enough to cause us to choose to live apart from our children. No court was ever going to become that powerful in our lives, nor the lives of our children.

You may think that I am being "holier than thou" with my statement, but remember, you were the one that brought our children into this and you are the one who asked me to imagine! Divorce would never happen to me. I meant it when I said, "I do!" and "Until Death do us part!"

5. " I believe you are in a unique position to speak to this issue"

My position is no more unique than yours! I have no more authority than you do. As a matter of fact, you most likely have more authority to speak about this than I do, because I am assuming that you are divorced... I am not.

I have chosen as my life's work to be an advocate for children. It became increasingly more evident to both my wife and me that the source of many problems for the children we were working with was their families and their parents! What we saw was that parents were increasingly more willing to ignore their responsibility to their children and pursue their own personal gratifications at the expense of their children. What we saw was that increasing numbers of the children, with whom we were working, had become the rope in a senseless tug-of-war between their parents. What we saw were increasing numbers of children who were pawns in a game created by their parents.

We decided to become advocates for those children!

We decided to get parents to actually sit down and consider what it is that they wanted to teach their children. We saw the solution to the problems being experienced by the children to be helping parents to develop a plan of raising their children by some moral and ethical codes that the parents had chosen. We decided to try to get parents to consider that their own actions were teaching their children far more than their words. If parents wanted to teach their children to treat people with respect and dignity, then they would have to model that in their actions. We decided to teach parents that their children would learn more "from their back sides than their front sides"... in other words their children would learn more from their actions than from their words.

We decided to attack the problem of divorce by teaching parents the necessity of teaching their children about how to pick a mate for life. We are on a mission to attempt to have parents actually make some deep decisions about what THEY WOULD CHOOSE to teach their children about dating, courtship, and marriage.

We decided to try to get parents to make some decisions about what it is that they teach their children about the responsibilities of parenthood. We have found that when parents actually sit down together and make some decisions about what they want to teach their children about being parents, their perspective on their own responsibilities as parents often changed quite drastically.

I remain quite convinced that we are making some major inroads on what I consider to be the real problem of which you are speaking... and that is rampant divorce! The root of the problem, as I see it, is that in modern American society, parents are not teaching their children what it means to be married, nor what it means to be parents. We are hoping to do that by teaching parents HOW to teach their children!

6. " I hope we can compell you to at least respond to my emails and tell us no thanks if it doesn't interest you."

You have made the point loud and clear that you feel I am responsible for not responding to you, but honestly, this is the first contact that I have received from you. Your confrontational style of approaching me is not particularly effective but believe me I AM interested! I have committed my life to working with the problem of children being mistreated by the parents who brought them into the world! I work most days for the entire day at teaching parents to treat their children in a dignified and loving manner. If you want to take someone to task for not caring, you better find another person to go after. I believe that my actions speak far louder than my words.

If you are truly interested in pursuing a solution to the problem I am all ears.

A great place for you to start might be by reading both of my books and getting a set of our DVD Parenting with Dignity Curriculum and watching the lessons together with the mother of your children. After watching each lesson, do the assignment together on behalf of your children. After doing the assignments discuss what the results have been and how you might change your actions to improve the outcome for your children.

Or you could choose to give me a call and we can discuss this most pressing problem.

Sincerely,

Mac Bledsoe

Starting a Parenting with Dignity Class

2007-06-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

Create Positive Peer Pressure

In my last article (and in many previous articles) I suggested that parents start a Parenting with Dignity class as a means of working with their own children. Combating peer pressure is really a pretty simple concept when you stop and think about it. All it takes is to create a strong community to raise your children!

A Logical Step In Becoming the Most Effective Parent You Can Be

It is much simpler, easier, more logical, and much more successful for parents to teach something to their own children, if the other children in their world have been taught similar behaviors. Like I said, peer pressure is only a negative force if it is putting pressure on children to misbehave. Peer pressure can be one of the most powerful forces for encouraging children to behave in an approved manner if that peer pressure is pushing in a positive direction.

If a peer group has been collectively taught to use proper table manners, then the peer pressure in your community can be expected to push on your children to use proper table manners!

Likewise, if a peer group has been collectively taught to avoid the use of illegal drugs, then the peer pressure can be expected to drive your children to make a good decision regarding the use of illegal drugs!

How Can You Create “Positive Peer Pressure?”

Creating positive peer pressure can be done quite easily… all that it requires is that parents meet together and establish some of the easily taught decision-making processes that lead to those good decisions.

One of the most effective means of meeting with parents top discuss some of these guidelines for children is to start a Parenting with Dignity Class!
For a plan for starting a Parenting with Dignity class please just go to our website via this link: (http://parentingwithdignity.com/PWD/video_series/tape10f.htm ) We have recently updated this Facilitator's Guide to provide a very complete, step-by-step plan for setting up a PWD Class.

Please print a copy and use it to get a Parenting with Dignity Class started today! It might be the best thing that you can do to help safe guard your children's decision making processes.

A Question about Peer Pressure and Punishment

2007-06-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

A Letter from a Great Mom

Dear Mac,

Your book Parenting with Dignity is my bible!! Thank you for sharing this loving, warm way of parenting children. I have a question I was hoping you could answer.

My son is 5. He is very sensitive and sweet but is also in the "testing" phase of childhood. There is a 7 year old boy across the street who my son interacts with often (I do my best to discourage play time, however he is right across the street and comes over a lot seeking to play). The boy is extremely disrespectful to his parents and talks in a manner that sounds very fresh and rude.

My son seems to have adopted this manner of speaking and has tried out some of the disrespectful acts. He has always ended up losing a privilege, but I am searching for ways to help him and stop him from speaking and acting this way. It is quite frankly embarrassing at times, and I feel like I am spending so much time focusing on this. Please help me!!

Thank you,

Mom

An Answer from Mac

Dear Mom,

Thanks for the nice words about the book. I am extremely pleased that you find it helpful.

Well, first of all in my answer to you, and to every other parent who reads this I want to say congratulations! By writing with your question and by reading this Blog, you are seeking sound answers about effective parenting skills! You will find help!

Your child is lucky to have you as a parent because you care deeply enough to find answers rather than resorting to frustration or simply ignoring the inappropriate behavior of your child. (Sounds like that might be what your neighbors are doing.)

Permissiveness? Hardly!

My experience tells me that when many people first read Parenting with Dignity or go through our Parenting with Dignity classes, they get a first impression that the program teaches permissiveness or an attitude of just letting kids go and do whatever they want. Teaching kids to make their own good decisions and to select their own great behavior is the farthest you can get from permissiveness. It pleases me that in your question you don’t seem to have that mistaken impression! Parenting with Dignity is not a program that teaches permissiveness.

Like just said, Parenting with Dignity is the farthest thing from a program of permissiveness. You are absolutely correct in seeking parenting skills from us that demand the very highest standards of behavior from your son!

Now Let's Solve the Problem

Here's some logical and common sense advice for you.

First of all, in the wording of your question you only confirm what I have written in Chapter 12 of my book and what we cover in Lesson 9 of our DVD Course... Punishment does not work!

You say, “He has always ended up losing a privilege.” Then you go on to say that the behavior continues. Your action of withholding privilege

To this I reply, “Well, that didn’t work!” Artificial consequences rarely result in lasting change in behavior. Often what happens is the child learns that you don not like that behavior so the child just starts hiding it from you.

What your child needs is for you to TEACH him some of the desired behaviors that you would like him to use. Nowhere in your letter do you tell me what you want your son to do either when this neighbor boy uses his disrespectful, fresh, or rude behavior nor what the behavior is that you want your son to use in place of the inappropriate behavior.

You must use Rule # 1 from the Parenting with Dignity Curriculum and “End any criticism with a positive statement of the desired behavior. You must tell your son precisely what it s that you want him to do!” You must describe that desired action in behavioral terms that your son understands. You must teach him that his world will improve because of his choice to use the behavior that you have spelled out for him!

Then you must use Rule #3 from the Parenting with Dignity Curriculum and you must “not assume that he has heard it simply because you have said it!” hen you must apply the corollary to that rule which states that if you have repeated your instructions three times and your son is still not doing what you have attempted to teach him… you need to find another way to say it to him!

Now, remember that when you are working with a very young child most often the worst way to teach anything is with words. You need to role play. You need to demonstrate. You need to have him role play. Then you need to practice the desired behavior with him so that he has the idea of the appropriate action firmly in his head before he goes out to play with the seven year old across the street.

You need to apply Rule #4... you need to get your son to say it for himself!

Using Peer Pressure to Help

Now I would like to address one other thing in your letter to me. You say that the other boy is acting in an inappropriate manner. I would imagine that the parents of that child do not approve of his inappropriate behavior any more than you do! As a matter of fact, I would imagine that if you were to talk to them they may be just as frustrated by the rudeness and the disrespectful behavior as you are! There is one difference between you and those parents. You are seeking outside help! You will teach your son some more desirable ways of interacting with you and others and most likely you will succeed in teaching your son in spite of the negative behavior he may see the other boy use. (He will resist negative peer pressure.)

Start a Parenting with Dignity Class

Now here is my suggestion to you that is pretty far reaching but really quite simple. I would like help you to greatly improve the chances of teaching appropriate behavior to your son. Peer pressure can be your greatest ally if it pushes in a positive direction. It is so much easier to teach appropriate behavior to your son if most of the other kids he interacts with have been taught to act in a similar manner. If the boy across the street was acting in an appropriate manner it would now be a good thing for your son to play with him!

This is pretty simple to achieve… get a set of our DVD Parenting with Dignity Curriculum and start a class for parents in your neighborhood! By doing this you will insure that you have all talked together about the things that you, as a neighborhood, want to teach your children! Working together will increase the effectiveness of each of your families. You don’t all have to agree to make this work either.

To learn how to start and effective class, please check back here in the next few days and I will do another article on starting and running a class.

Good luck with your son… he is lucky to have you for his mom!

Sincerely,

Mac

Effective Step Parenting

2007-06-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

Help for Children

Yesterday, I received an outstanding and very common question from Shawn and Colleen Woods. The Woods are a wonderful young couple who are working to build a better community for children in their neighborhood down in the Tampa, Florida area by facilitating Parenting with Dignity classes both in their neighborhood and in their workplace. Shawn is a former student and athlete that I worked with in the wonderful town of Waterville, Washington. Their simple question was, “Do you have any advice for step-parents on effective ways for them to combine efforts with the divorced mother/father; and in ways to deal with the “you’re not my father/mother” conversations with children?”

Some Shocking Advice

My advice here may shock some parents who feel that their situation is unique and different from that of what they feel are “normal” parents (meaning, I guess, that both parents are the natural father and mother of the children residing with them.) In other words, these step parents, who have chosen to divorce and then remarry and now have children living with them that are not their natural children, are wondering what special parenting skills I can offer to them.

My advice might shock some because it is pretty simple; “be the best parent that you can be using the SAME techniques that you would use if you had not been divorced!”

Now, stick with me and please do not become angered or put off by this advice which may seem insensitive, tactless, blunt, and over-simplified. Please listen to what I am saying to you if you are one of these parents. (Or listen carefully if you are like Shawn and Colleen and are facilitating a Parenting with Dignity class with parents who are now step parents.) Please do not think that I have gone off my rocker. I really cannot put his any other way. I simply cannot come up with some magic tools for parents of divorce. Effective parenting is effective parenting! It does not matter what the situation might be.

Now, let me acknowledge that being a divorced father of three children who do not live with you offers some special challenges; but the skills of being an effective parent do not change. It is still just as critical for you to make solid decisions about what your goal is in any action that you take with those children. It really does not matter whether you are a single parent or are a step parent. In those situations the concepts presented in Lessons #3 in our Parenting with Dignity are perhaps even more necessary to master. It might be even more important to be extremely clear about the precise goals for your actions.

If you apply our Rule #1 with step children it still works. “Tell them precisely what you want them to do! You must describe that desired conduct in behavioral terms that the child can understand. You must be able to explain clearly to the child precisely how their world will be better if they do as you ask.”

If you apply our Rule #2 with step children it still works. “Criticize the performance and not the person!” That is equally valuable with any children regardless of the relationship! That rule will work with employees at work and with spouses at home. T is a valid way to teach anyone.

If you apply our Rule #3 with step children it also works! “Repeat desired actions and beliefs to children!” If the children are not using what you have asked them to do after three requests, changing the words and the manner of delivery will increase the chances of getting he child to choose to act in the desired manner.

If you apply our Rule #4 in a “blended family” it will work! “It still does not matter what you say, it is what the children say to themselves that changes or controls their behavior!” As a person acting as a parent, whether you are the natural parent or not, you still must orchestrate situations where the child actually says the desired actions or decisions for themselves. Effective decision making skills must be internalized to work for any child.

Finally, if a parent applies our Rule #5 it will work! “Sending a child a constant and continual message of unconditional love will always give that child a sense of personal value that will allow the child to make amazingly great decisions about their own lives.”

The Critical Difference for Step Parents

After years of studying parenting skills I have come to the conclusion that the only thing that makes parenting different in the case of divorce is that the parents somehow view their task as different or they think that they should treat the child in a different manner. That is a terrible error.

The Problems for Children of Divorce

The problems for children of divorce come when parents start to use the child as a tool in their fight with their former spouse!

If there is any special skill needed by parents of the children of divorce it lies in being able to be a true adult about the situation and not using the children in their fight with their former spouse! The only special skill for step parents comes in treating the former spouse with the respect and dignity that is due the other parent of their child!

A step parent should never claim to be the parent of a step child; simply because they do not need to. That child already has two parents. Having said that, the step parent can still be an extremely effective teacher of sound, moral and ethical decisions to be used by the child. A step parent can be an extremely loving, caring, and dignified guide to the children sharing a home.

Parenting with True Dignity

Let me close with one very solid example. Parenting with real dignity and effectiveness can be done by any loving person with the desire to be an effective teacher. This was taught to me by a group of felons in the state penitentiary in Connecticut.

On a visit to that prison, I was privileged to eat dinner with a whole cellblock of men, most of whom had recently completed the Parenting with Dignity Curriculum. My visit came about a month and a half before Christmas and immediately following dinner many of the men in the cafeteria went over and sat on the floor along the wall of the room. When I went over to see what they were doing, I saw that they were all holding white pieces of cloth and they seemed to be sewing on those squares of cloth with needles and thread.

When I asked what they were doing some of them showed me their pieces of cloth. Those were not just any pieces of cloth; they were the men’s pillow slips. What those guys were doing was pretty simple. They were embroidering sayings, scripture verses, and other ideas into those pillow slips to give to their children at Christmas. That way their children could sleep on Dad’s ideas! Those men had selected ideas that they wanted their children to use to rule their worlds. They had found a way to communicate those critical and useful ideas to their children in a very unique, loving, and wonderful way.

It is my firm belief that those men were being much more effective parents to their children than many natural parents on the outside of the prison walls. It was really interesting to me to find out that many of those dads were sending the pillow slips to step children! Effective parenting was being done right through the concrete walls and bars of a prison!

Those men did not need special parenting skills… they just applied the simple and effective tools that they learned from Parenting with Dignity to their own situation!

Tantrums and “Acting-Out” Behaviors

2007-06-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Another Very Common Question

Today I will deal with another very common question that I receive at least three times a week. These great questions have to do with the very common problems presented by children throwing tantrums and “acting-out” in other very inappropriate ways.

These very common parenting problems can involve a wide variety of situations; a very young child just throwing a tantrum at bedtime or nap time, a toddler throwing a fit over a toy, a grade-school-age child running around and grabbing things at the grocery store, or a teenager cussing at a parent over some disagreement. My mail tells me that parents experience the whole spectrum of difficulties with these and many more kinds of “acting-out” behaviors. Kids find many ways to “act-out” and create annoyances.

So many parents ask me about what to do when children are doing these kinds of things and my answer to all of them is usually pretty much the same. “If you wait until the annoying behavior has begun, you will most likely never have success in dealing with the problem!”

The Big Problem: Crisis Management

The big problem that I see most parents encounter is that they try to deal with “acting-out” behaviors by crisis management! They wait until the behavior has begun to try to deal with it, and believe me, that technique almost always fails! To deal with tantrums, and the like, effectively, parents must be proactive and preventative. It just does not work to wait until the child is “acting-out” to deal with the behavior.

"What should I do When..."

Today I went back and reread about fifty or sixty of those frantic e-mails from parents dealing with those types of problems. In the wording of their questions, I can see the problem quite clearly. Almost every single question begins with these words: “What should I do when my child…” Waiting until the child has begun the undesirable behavior is totally reactive in nature… and, by definition, it puts the child “in the driver’s seat!” The Ideas in their heads will rule their world... so put a positive idea in their head BEFORE they are in the situation.

Teaching During Turmoil Is Futile!

Waiting until the child is throwing a tantrum to try to teach a more desirable behavior would be much like me coming to your house and waiting until you and your spouse (or some other person) are having a big fight and then, picking that very moment to step between you and try to teach you how to download some kind of software onto your computer! Teaching at times of turmoil is almost totally futile!

Be Proactive

So here is my suggestion for dealing with tantrums and “acting-out” behaviors. Be proactive. Choose a time when both you and the child are calm and then teach the child the desired behavior (Rule #1). If the child is throwing a tantrum at bedtime every night, don’t wait until bedtime to deal with the problem. It is very predictable that the child will be in turmoil at that time. Start early in the day and teach the child how the evening will progress.

Prevention Is the Key

Take a clock and show the child when bedtime is on the clock. (They really do not have to be able to tell time. Just show them that when the little hand is on eight and the big hand is on twelve it will be bedtime.) Then let the child go with you into their bedroom and pick out the books that you will read at bedtime and lay them out on the bed. This can be done early in the day. Later in the day, at another calm time, go back into the child’s bedroom and pick out the toys that he/she will take to bed that evening.

Every time that you talk about bedtime, talk about the actions that both the child and you will use at bedtime. Teach the child the desired behavior in small increments. Repeat this brief process a number of times during the day. It can be fit around a parent’s work schedule. The key is to get some repetitions at calm times.

Finally get a timer; one of those little things that you can set to time baking. Show your child how the timer works and then, an hour before bedtime, have the child help you to set the timer for one hour. Every fifteen minutes have the child check the timer with you to see how long it is until bedtime. At each of those intervals, remind the child about the books and toys that are in the bed waiting and how much fun it will be to go to bed.

Then when it is fifteen minutes until bedtime, go and get the child dressed for bed and brush the teeth. When the timer rings for bedtime, celebrate with your child the excitement of getting to go to bed and read the books that are waiting there for you.

Let Your Actions Do Your Teaching

With some very positive ideas about bedtime in their head, the child will most likely not even choose to start a tantrum. If a tantrum does arise, be calm and repeat the desired behavior... but be firm and put the child in bed with the books and toys. Do not let the child leave the bed. Sit quietly with the child on the bed. If the ruckus quiets just a little bit, calmly start reading one of the books in a calm and quiet tone of voice.

Now, the key is to repeat this behavior over a few weeks. (Rule #3) Every night make this the routine. As time passes let the child do more and more of the planning for the bedtime. Let them choose books and toys on their own, etc. Let them set the timer and check the timer from time to time.

Over time the undesirable behavior will be replaced by the very calm “bedtime routine” that you have taught the child.

I must add one closing thought here. Many parents tell me that they just don’t have that much time to give to this problem. Then I always ask them, “How much time are you spending with the totally ineffective technique of fighting at bedtime right now?” There is always a long silence. Then I point out that with the technique I am suggesting, the amount of time required from the parent will decrease with time but with the technique they are using, the time given to bedtime will most likely escalate. Make a choice; give me time now or time later. But ask yourself, which one results in a calm and appropriate behavior from your child?”

Check back in my next article and I will share some specific techniques for dealing with other acting out behaviors with older children.

Is It Ever Too Late to Become an Effective Parent?

2007-06-12T14:14:00.000-07:00

An Extremely Common Question

Today’s topic is a question that comes to us almost daily, so I will offer an article on the subject. Here is one version of the common question that I received just yesterday:
“Many parents with preteens and teens are just now getting this information on how to parent effectively. For those of us having significant problems with an older child, is it too late to start with some new parenting skills?”

An Answer to a Great Question!

This is a real dilemma for many parents who go through the Parenting with Dignity Curriculum at a time when their children are a little older. Many parents who were raised by very controlling or ineffective parents, have only their parents as a model for raising their own children. So... they have futilely tried to control their child’s every action or immitate their parents ineffewctive strategies. Then, after experiencing some difficulties, they attend the first class and hear the common sense advice given to us by Dr. Cobb as he was delivering our first son. Dr. Cobb’s advice was to view the life of a child as a mortgage being paid off a day at a time. He advised us to look at our son at age nine as a half owner of his own life who must then be making half of his own big decisions!
That analogy makes real sense to these newly aware parents and throws them into a dilemma in raising their own child. They now have a child who is 8, 11, 13, or even as old as 17 or 18, and they suddenly realize that they have really not taught this child how to make decisions, especially not big ones. At this point they come to us wondering how, at this late date, they should go about the process of giving the child skills for making decisions for themselves.

It Is Never Too Late!

I always love receiving these insightful questions because it tells me that the parents are really internalizing and attempting to use the advice we are offering.

The Past Cannot Be Changed!

For me the answer to this question is usually pretty simple… “You can never change the past! Try as you might, you can never go back and undo any past actions! The only logical answer is to “draw a line in the dirt” that indicates an end to your prior parenting practices which may have been only to crisis manage rather than to teach! Start today and apply the parenting tools you have learned from this class with your child from this moment forward.”
“If you have made mistakes with your children in the past and you feel that you need to apologize, then do it! But… once you have apologized, stop looking backwards! Focus only on the teaching you will do today and on into the future!”
Then I try to empower these newly enlightened parents to start making some intelligent decisions for themselves! “You know your children better than anyone. You love them like nobody else could. Only you can answer the question of the best strategy at this point. Ask yourself if your child is mature enough to begin to learn right along with you as you begin your new and more effective methods of Parenting with Dignity!

Start Gradually!

Certainly it does not make sense to suddenly dump a whole bunch of decisions upon a child who has never been taught how to make good decisions! You would never put someone who had never seen a car behind the wheel and send them out onto the freeway for their first experience behind the wheel. To effectively handle a car they will certainly need instruction and practice. However, if the child is older, it may not take as much time to teach them because they may have other similar experiences to draw upon in the process of learning to drive. The same is true for teaching children to make good, sound decisions!”

Start Today!

The key is to start TODAY! Start teaching now! Every day that you put it off makes the job more difficult. Start teaching your children to make great decisions immediately. Start with smaller decisions: What time shall I be home? How can I get my chores done in time to get to the game? How can I save for my new cell phone? Then work toward bigger and bigger ones: What will I do about becoming sexually active? How do I avoid using drugs? Because of your late start, you may need to accelerate the teaching process. But the fact that the process was started at a later date might make it possible to proceed at a faster pace.
Certainly, it much easier to teach the process of good decision making if parents start when their children are born and teach the skills as a gradual process, but that should never mean that parents who did not start early should feel guilty or discouraged. All that is necessary is to start immediately and teach, teach, teach!

The only time you fail with a child is the last time that you try! Keep trying!

Is it ADD/ADHD or Just Bad Behavior - Part 3

2007-06-06T16:08:00.000-07:00

ADD/ADHD: What is Treatment?

“What do parents do when they find that their child might be diagnosed?”

Please allow me to take you back to what Dr. Ned Hallowell said in his article that I quoted a few days ago:

“What is the treatment all about? Treatment is anything that turns down the noise.”

Treatment

Treatment of ADD/ADHD must be something that will “turn down the noise” for your child. In other words, using the comparison of driving a car in a bad rainstorm with bad windshield wipers; treatment is anything that will clear the windshield!

An Addition to Dr. Hallowell's Wisdom

For some, Dr. Hallowell says that diagnosis will turn down the noise. To this I wish to add that the manner in which the diagnosis is used MAY turn down the noise; but... in many of the cases I have seen the diagnosis that the diagnosis of ADD/ADHD is not properly handled. In those cases I have actually seen the diagnosis "increase the noise" simply because of the reactions of the parents and educational professionals!

An Increase in the Noise!

Many parents (and many others) use the diagnosis to inadvertently “turn up the noise” because they react in such an irrational fashion. As I saw it, far too many parents compounded the child’s difficulties because their approach was to try to make the child like every other child! Kids with ADD are wired differently!

They can focus on more than one thing at a time. They have increased awareness and ability to concentrate… But, for a shorter time. They need skills to use their unique ability.

Getting new windshield wipers makes it easier to see, but it does not teach anyone how to drive a car. “Getting rid of the noise” may make life easier for your child if it is handled properly, but it still does not teach them to accomplish tasks effectively. You must find ways to teach them to accomplish tasks that work for them once you make he diagnosis.

Children "Disrespecting" Parents

2007-05-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

Letter from a Concerned Father

Hi Mac,

I thinking of buying you DVD “Parenting with Dignity”, but I have an issue right now and I would like to get you advice if I may.

I have a 12 yrs old son that has a great talent with music especially with all kinds of drums, also, he is learning the guitar.

My son has been very disrespectful with mom and dad and we tolled him that if he continues disrespecting us we will take the guitar a way and the drums will come next.

Well he disrespect mom and we took the guitar away. Now I do not know if this is a good thing we as parents are doing. What do you think we should do and how should we resolve or approach it. We are going to talk this weekend and I would appreciate if I can get some advice so I can have a better solution to implement.

Signed,
Concerned Father

An Answer from Mac

Dear Father,

You are doing a wonderful thing in seeking advice and help with raising your son! Few parents have all of the answers when their children are born! The only way to get better at anything is to seek and ask for the help you need. Your son is lucky to have you for a dad. As long as you keep asking you will find the help you so desire.

Specific Help

Now for some specific help with your problem with your son:

Define Terms

You say he is “disrespecting his mother and father”. I have no idea what that means and imagine that your son does not either. The term “disrespect” is so overused in our society today that nobody really knows what it means… but people fight over that word daily. That term can mean anything from swearing to making faces or gestures. From your letter I have no idea what you mean. I doubt that your son knows what you mean either. If you wish to communicate with your son, you must be precise. Define the terms you are using for him.

Telling a Child What They Did Wrong is NO HELP!

And now we get to the real core issue, even if your definition is precise… that definition still is of no help to your son! It does not teach him one thing about the behavior that you want him to use!

Can you tell me what you want him TO DO? You tell me what he is doing wrong in very general terms like “being disrespectful”. But you say nothing to me about what it is that you want him to do. If you cannot tell me what you want him TO DO, I doubt that your son knows what you want him TO DO! The first thing that you and your wife must do is to sit down and define precisely what you want your son to do when he speaks to either of you. If you want him to speak differently to his mother that he speaks to you then you must explain those differences. Most important, you must explain to your son WHY he should choose to do as you are instructing.

Rule number #1 in our Parenting with Dignity curriculum states that “Parents must end any criticism with a positive statement of the expected behavior.” Put in very simple terms, “you must tell your child exactly what it is that you want him TO DO, in behavioral terms that he understands!” Tell him what you want! You have not told me what it is that you want your son to do so I will have a hard time structuring your actions.

Next, can you tell me what taking the guitar or drums away from your son will teach him about respect? What do guitars and drums have to do with respect? How do you propose that taking away something that he is good at will make him good at something else? I know that is a technique that many parents employ but just look at how well it is working for them.

Taking the drums away from your son does not help him to know what behaviors you want him to use. Only you can teach him that. About all that taking the drums away form him will do is make him mad and give him reason to not respect you. As long as he has you to blame he does not have to deal with his own behavior!

Let me put it this way… you contacted me for advice about how to deal with your son’s behavior. How well would it have worked if I just wrote back to you that I was going to take away your TV until you raised him correctly? …and that was all that I said to you.

How well would that work? Not very well, right? You are looking for instruction about what TO DO to elicit the proper behavior from your son. Telling you that what you are doing is wrong and then removing privileges does not teach you what to do. Are you getting the picture? You need specific instructions about the positive actions to take… and so does your son!

What your son needs is instruction in how you wish him to speak to his mother. That instruction must include very complete and detailed descriptions of the desired tone of voice and the desired word selection. Your son needs you to explain what body language and facial expressions he should use when speaking to his parents. About the only way that you can teach facial expression is to demonstrate to him exactly what you want him to look like when he speaks to the two you parents.

You should also explain how he should make his decisions about how he treats other people in general. Your son needs instruction about how to act. He needs to know that people who act and speak respectfully are treated in a much better manner by others than people who are surly and nasty. He does not need to have you withholding things from him that he does well. Just about all that will do for you is to build resentment in your son!

Once you have explained to him how it is that you expect him to act and speak when he talks to you then you must let your actions do your teaching! Once he has demonstrated to you that he understands how you expect him to act and speak to you, you must never, ever respond to any words he uses that are not expressed in precisely the expected manner. I hate to tell you this but you have taught him to talk in the manner that he does right now! If he speaks in a rude manner to his mother and it gets your attention and gets you to react ot him, that disrespectful manner of speaking has just worked for him. He has learned precisely how to control you! He can make you jump and shout by just talking in a rude manner to his mother! E will never know what he is trying to do by his current “disrespectful” behavior but we do not need to.

You must demonstrate to your son that people who speak in that manner are not listened to in your home. Do not tell him… show him! Let your actions speak. Disrespectful comments are simply ignored by you and his mother.

Then the inute that he speaks in the desired manner, give him your undivided and cheerful attention. Let your actions do the teaching.

If your son is at the dinner table and he starts to speak in a disrespectful (whatever you define that to be) manner, get up and leave the room. If he is in the living room and he does it again, turn off the TV and leave the room. If he asks you to do something in a disrespectful manner, just ignore him. Let your actions speak for you. As long as he insists in speaking in a manner other than the one that you have explained to him, let him see that all it gets for him is that others ignore everything that he says.

Keep your anger out of the equation. Do not get angry and do not lecture. Absolutely do not try to teach him during the time that he is acting in the undesired manner. If you feel that he is not understanding what you mean, wait until some time when he is calm and you are calm and explain to him again how you want him to act. Write it down and give it to him. Have him repeat back to you what you expect of him. Keep explaining it to him until he does as you have instructed.

Is it ADD/ADHD or Just Bad Behavior - Part 3

2007-05-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

ADD – Attention Divided by Divorce?

It is interesting to note that ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, is being diagnosed at ever higher rates these days. Doctors and school professionals seem to find more ADD everywhere that they look. It seems that there is an epidemic of this "disease" that seems to hit young kids.

I would like to weigh in with another of my thoughts on the subject of ADD. I will offer today’s thoughts just so that you have another new idea to chew on. In this article I am not attempting to place blame on anyone. Rather I am offering today’s statements just to cause some folks to think a little bit about their situation just to see if it might be possible to improve the situation of a few children.

It is pretty interesting to me that the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder has risen concurrently with the rise in the national divorce rate! Now, I want you to know that I am NOT claiming any scientific study linking divorce with ADD. I am just saying that I have observed some interesting coincidences between the two while teaching! It seemed that an inordinate number of the kids with ADD were also children of divorce.

Then, I read a number of articles and essays that said that some cases of ADD could be linked to the child not being paid attention to by adults, parents, and teachers. It occurred to me that some of what I was seeing diagnosed as ADD/ADHD could be attributed to the child just seeking attention from adults! As a matter of fact, as we were running some of our early Parenting with Dignity Classes, we found that many parents told us that their children’s Hyperactive Behavior really decreased when they did the assignment for Lessons 5&6 in our curriculum!

When parents offered regular messages of unconditional love to their children, they found that many of those kids decreased their hyperactivity. To us that said that Attention Deficit Disorder for some kids was just a deficit of attention being paid to them by adults.

I know that was true in my classroom. Many kids who showed some of the characteristics of ADD like apparent lack of attention span and inability to concentrate changed markedly when I found time to give them some undivided attention of a positive nature!

Divorce and Lack of Attention

“So what does this have to do with divorce?” you ask. Well, stop and think for a second. Many children of divorce find that their parents’ attention becomes rather divided and random as the divorce is taking place and the parents are working out their differences that sometimes include contentious child custody issues.

As a matter of fact a few years ago, a father from the Boston area contacted me wanting me to support some Father’s Rights issues back there in Massachusetts and among other things he made the comment that many of the divorced fathers were noticing ADD issues with their children.

Be Careful to Give Positive Attention to Children

So what is the point? Just this… if your family is or has gone through a divorce, be extremely careful to give your children lots of positive attention and expressions of love! I am not proposing that all ADD could be traced to divorce or lack of positive parental attention. All I am saying is be on the lookout for opportunities to give your children added attention at times of stress. Just be aware of any Deficit of Attention that your child may be experiencing.

Is it ADD/ADHD or Just Bad Behavior - Part 2

2007-05-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

Why am I including an article on learning disabilities in a Blog about parenting? Two reasons: first, because so many parents come to me wondering about kids and hyperactivity; second, because the success rate for teaching coping and adapting skills for learning disabilities goes up exponentially if the process is started early.

Fear Factor

I receive so many questions about Attention Deficit Disorder and I find that many parents are so frightened about it.

The BIG Mistake

The biggest mistake I see so many parents making when it comes to ADD/ADHD and other learning disabilities is thinking that diagnosis of a learning disability and labeling of a child with the name of a "disease" somehow helps in some way! To me that is as foolish as going to the doctor and having him tell you that your child has Strep Throat without doing anything to help the child get over the infection!

It seems to me to be a universal dilemma to find someone who has been diagnosed with ADD who has been given NO tools for coping with the diagnosis!

I meet kids and adults all the time who tell me, "I (or my child) has been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD."

I always ask, "What is your number one strategy for dealing effectively with your situation?" Most everyone answers with a blank stare. Someone has diagnosed a problem but done little or nothing to teach compensation or adaptation skills!

A Clear Definition - Hard to Find

When I ask for a definition of ADD/ADHD from these parents who are scared of it, everyone seems to give me a different definition. Not many people have a clear picture of what they are dealing with. As a matter of fact, I spent three entire days on the Internet, trying to find a clear definition of ADD/ADHD. I found myself in the same fix I was in as a teacher. I saw an extremely vague label being used to make decisions about teaching children. I went to 33 websites dealing in various ways with the syndrome, and only one had a definition of ADD/ADHD I could use to identify whether a child had it.

It's not too surprising that this man offering a clear definition was also the one authority who had solid procedures for helping a child adapt to this unique way of perceiving the world. That one wonderful article helped me understand why so many people have trouble working with kids who are diagnosed with ADD/ADHD.

I have since met that author, Dr. Ned Hallowell, who wrote the article, and Ned and I share many beliefs about raising self-sufficient, self-reliant kids. Dr. Hallowell has not only studied ADD/ADHD, he has it!

A Real Authority

So, to me, he's a real authority. He helped me to understand I was not wrong to think of ADD/ADHD as a unique level of talent and exceptional intelligence. In fact, the "disease" has been one of the major contributors to his success!

With his permission, I have included a link to his website where you can go to read about his amazingly successful work with children with ADD/ADHD. http://www.drhallowell.com/

The main point in today’s article is that before taking any action after suspecting that a child has ADD (or any learning disorders for that matter) you must decide what definition you are going to use to define what you are talking about.

Next, and of most importance, you must commit to never labeling any difficulty that you may perceive your child to be having, without finding some tools for teaching that child to deal with whatever you perceive to be a problem.

The Only Important Question

As a parent, the only important thing to establish is “How am I going to help my child to adapt and learn to use the abilities and capabilities that they have to be an independent and self-reliant and capable person!”
(I must go on record as saying that using drugs as a first approach borders upon irresponsibility. Drugs can have a role in treating some learning disabilities, but they ought to be used as a last resort and they must be carefully monitored. Often the side effects can be worse than any natural difficulty your child might be experiencing.)

Check back for my next article in this Blog, as I will offer some very specific techniques for teaching a child to use their special capabilities! (If you would like to read more please get my books, Parenting with Dignity, and Parenting with Dignity; The Early Years.

"Is It ADD or Just Bad Behavior?"

2007-05-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

Another Name for ADD; Call it Intelligence!

Whatever you do, do not try to make your active toddler behave like every other child. If your child is highly active, give your child more to do. Give the active little person ways to make constructive use of that extra energy. You will probably have to plan ahead because you will not be able to think as fast as your highly intelligent child does! You might have to stay up late one day, thinking of ways to challenge that child the next day.

Learning Disabilities Are Real -

But Everything Does NOT Need a Label

Please, please, please, do not jump to conclusions here and stop reading. I am not dismissing learning disabilities as nonexistent. They are real and may come in varying degrees. What I am saying is that with a child under the age of six, it is really foolish to jump to such far-reaching conclusions and make sweeping diagnoses based on those kinds of differences. I believe that in many cases, highly active children are just very intelligent! It takes more to entertain a highly intelligent human being. Unfortunately, most strategies for dealing with thise kids actually involve "dumbing them down" to act like the rest of us slow thinkers! Sometimes we even drug kids to make them act like the rest of us who can only do one thing at a time!

Drugs like Ritilin (Methylphenidate; also spelled Ritalin) may have their place; but certainly they ought not to be the first avenue of action!

Still, with so much talk about Attention Deficit Disorder these days, anyone with a normally active toddler is probably wondering if his or her child is really "normal." It's easy for a worn-out parent with too much on his/her plate to think there must be something "wrong" with this small person who will not wind down. "Who put the Energizer battery in this kid?"

Let's use Attention Deficit Disorder /Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADD/ADHD) as the most common example and discuss it in a bit of detail in a few articles; though you will see over the next few articles, that I detest slapping labels on children. Stay tuned for the next few days as I will suggest tools for dealing with supposed learning disabilities.

Getting Children to Adjust Their Behavior Part #7

2007-04-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

LEARNING "What can you learn from this? Life is a lesson."

In this article I will bring to a close this series of articles on getting children to adjust their behavior. Hopefully, these techniques will get your children to do most of the things that you want them to do simply because they have learned the value of making good decisions.

The Big Difference

The difference that I am attempting to communicate to you is that you are attempting to get the child to adjust behavior but not just out of obedience but rather because they choose to! This is a huge difference. Adjustments made out of choice are most often lifelong changes while adjustments made in obedience often last only as long as the one asking for the obedience is present.

Keep the Anger Out!

Remember, very little is ever learned, either on your part or on the kid's part, when anger is involved. In the past articles I have not even mentioned anger, but when we are asking children to adjust their behavior by their choice, anger must never play a part. Most definitely, when learning is the goal, anger should never play a role. If either you or the child has become angry, it is probably best to wait until the anger has passed to try to teach!

Learning

Learning can be the goal for any adjustment in a child's behavior. When your goal is learning, the strategy often is obvious.

"Here is how the world works, and it will help you greatly if you understand this."

More Time Now, Means Less Time in the Long Run

Often, taking the time to teach is the longest and most difficult way to get your children to adjust their behavior right now, but it winds up being the best way because it results in lasting behavior change. When a child chooses to adjust their behavior they understand the “why” behind the change!

While driving in the car it is much quicker and easier to simply separate quarreling children. However, in the long run, separating them really winds up teaching behavior that seems the exact opposite from the logical goal. Separating them teaches them that when people disagree, the desired response is to separate! (No wonder we have such high divorce rates!)

A Logical Approach

It sure seems to be more logical to approach two fighting kids with a goal of teaching them some effective ways to get along and ways to deal effectively with quarrels and disagreements. Teach them by role-playing. It takes planning, thought, time, patience, and lots of care to teach skills of compromise and negotiation but these skills last a lifetime!

If you, as the parent, choose to make learning your goal, it may take longer to bring about the desired behavior change at age four. However, when you do take the time, at age four, to teach some skills, then at age fifteen you no longer have to deal with your children fighting because what you taught at age four is still working! Your child learned it and will use it forever!

A Lesson in an Airport

A few weeks ago we were flying home from a trip, we were sitting near and elevator in the SeaTac airport. While we were sitting there a young family came up to the elevator to go to the next floor. The mother knelt down and said, “When you come to an elevator, you must stand back after pushing the button so that when the elevator gets here, the people on the elevator can get off before we get on. It always works that way,” the mom said in an instructional manner. “The elevator must empty first, before loading for the next trip up!”

I watched as the children gladly pushed the button and then stepped back to wait. Sure enough, when the elevator arrived, about ten people got out as the children stood back to politely let them off before getting on themselves. It was so simple, watching that mother take the time to teach in such a clam manner. She could have just grabbed the kids and said, “Stand back!” with no explanation. And at that point she could have had a battle on her hands as her kids pushed back at the command.

It might have been quicker to just make a command, but the teaching approach would be long lasting. That mother would probably never have to deal with that issue again. However, had she taken the quicker route of giving a command, she might have had to give the command for years to come.

It was interesting to sit near that elevator for the next half hour and just observe. There were lots of people using that elevator that day; and lots of adults could have used the mother’s lesson!

Children need adults to TEACH THEM the “rules of the world.” Once they learn the rules, it becomes so much easier for them to play the game.

At this point, it is so key to remember… you can never assume that a child has learned any skill until they use it in the appropriate context to bring about positive change for themselves.

Behavior Change Is the Measure of Success

Saying something rarely defines teaching. So often we hear parents say, "I told my son a hundred times. I don't know what's wrong, but he's not doing it!" Telling does not constitute teaching. If teaching is the goal, then a change in your child's behavior must be the measure of the your success!

It would have been foolhardy for that mother to assume that her job was finished if, after explaining the rule about letting an elevator empty before crowding in front of the door, her children had crowded in front of the door anyway. At that point she would have needed to re-teach the concept until it resulted in a change in the child’s behavior.

If you use one strategy to teach a concept or behavior and the child does not change, keep the anger out and remember three key words: THAT DIDN'T WORK! Then, try again with another repetition or a completely new method; but don't give up. Remember our Rule #3 that learning takes repetition!

You may not succeed on the first few tries at teaching a concept. But, one thing is guaranteed... if you stop trying to teach, you will fail. Too many parents are willing to say, "I have tried everything," after a few failures… instead of simply saying, "Oops, I just found a couple of ways to teach this that didn't work, so I had better look around for another way to teach that idea!"

Way back, years ago, I started making a video to the song “Teach Your Children” by the Eagles. Maybe I need to go back and finish that video!

Getting Children to Adjust Their Behavior #6

2007-04-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

DECISION MAKING -

"You have a choice to make; what are you going to do?"

Decision-making should be started as early as possible. "Which pair of socks do you want to wear?" “Do you want a red Popsicle or a green one?” “Do you want to play this game or that one?” “Which shirt do you want to wear, the red one or the blue one with the collar?”

Everyday Opportunities to Teach

Every day there are opportunities to give children decisions to make. Give them a chance. I am not talking about decisions that involve danger or decisions that can result in bad outcomes. Just give them everyday decisions.

A Tale of Two Families

The other day I watched two families getting on the airplane that I was riding. As I followed one family on board they had given their three-year-old the tickets and asked her to find their seats. The little girl could easily recognize the letters and numbers on the tickets. The Mom just showed her where the seat numbers were on the bottom of the overhead bins and asked the girl to find their seats.

A few moments later a family followed them into the plane with two teen-age children. In this case the overly controlling mother held the tickets and was rather rudely directing the children to their seats and was giving them no credit for being able to make any decisions.

It was not surprising to me to see that the first family was having no trouble with their children while the second family was having some pretty good arguments about who would sit where! The one family was letting their children get experience in making simple decisions and it was reaping rewards and the other mother was making all of the decisions and was having trouble with her children.

Now, I know that this was not a controlled study and there were lots of other variables at play but I feel quite certain that the dynamic of the parents giving decisions to the children played a part!

Give Your Children Opportunities to Choose

Give children decisions to make! If your children are older and you have not already made this one of your common tasks in your home start today. If you have young ones, start now. The key is to give your children the gift of allowing them to progressively make more and more critical decisions every day.

Learn from What Works!

We can learn by looking at how almost every person in America has learned to ride a bicycle. We have taught almost every single person in America to ride a bike! Probably, none of them learned how to ride a bike by listening to their parents talk about riding bikes or by watching their parents ride one. They learned when someone put them on the seat, put the handlebars in their hands and gave them a shove!

Now, most parents did not just shove the kid and let them just fall over. Most parents ran along side helping to steady the child. But the point is that children learn to ride bikes when someone lets them ride one!

Children Learn to Make Decisions by Making Them!

Children will learn to make good decisions when someone gives them some decisions to make. Just like teaching a child to ride a bike, we do not start with the most difficult decisions. We can start out with some simple decisions and build up to bigger and bigger decisions.

Start Small, then Build Toward Larger and Larger Decisions

Continually hand them bigger and bigger decisions to make. "Here's the map. Which route do you think we should we take?" Next time ask, "Now that you have picked the road to travel what time should we leave?"

Later, seek their advice on tough personnel issues you bring home from work. Spell out the situation and ask their opinion. You do not have to take their advice but the discussion tells them that they are important enough to be included! The simple fact that you asked will give the children a sense of their own value. They might have some great ideas too!

At another time, give them $50.00 and ask them to buy five days worth of groceries with it. Follow with bigger and bigger jobs and bigger and bigger decisions that go with them. Give them real decisions to make and live with their decisions.

Continually ask for their opinion about issues that surround you in life. You might be totally surprised at the great advice and point of view that your children bring to many a decision making process.

Learning by Doing

We learn to make good decisions by making them. It's the same example you heard earlier, "Put them back on the bike!" When they make a bad decision, don't punish them. Tell them you admire their courage for making the decision in the first place! Then ask, "What did you learn from that decision? What are you going to do the next time? How do you think that will work?"

Good Decisions often Come From the Experience of Bad Ones

Many of life’s great decisions come from learning from some earlier decisions that did not work out exactly as anticipated. Give your children the opportunity to make some decisions even if they may seem like bad decisions from time to time. They need the experience. They will learn from those bad decisions!

Then when they get to the big decisions in life they will not cower away from making a decision! Most likely they will make a great decision because they have experience in making decisions!

Obviously, we parents should not offer children decisions to make that might have them being hurt or damaged. That is our job, to protect our children and to act as an occasional filter to prevent a calamity. However, by giving them decisions to make that are easily within their experience and capability level, they will gradually learn… sooo… when the big decisions come along, the experience of other decisions will serve them well.

Getting Children to Adjust Their Behavior #5

2007-04-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

PRACTICALITY - "This job needs doing... by you."

One of the most hirable skills in today's world is the ability to see a job that needs doing, to be able to figure out a way to do it efficiently... and then TO DO IT.

Give your children the gift of this unique skill of identifying jobs that need doing and the ability to do those jobs cheerfully with little or no supervision! You can give this skill to your children by giving them jobs to do (simple at first) and then getting out of their way and letting them do the whole job, start to finish.

Start early. If your children are still just toddlers give them simple chores to do and then let them do them. Do not start out by saying, “My kids will not do work because they are lazy!” or anything like that. Hold high expectations for them to complete the jobs and then work beside them or near them so they can imitate your manner of working at a task to completion.

As a child I learned more about how to do a task by watching my father work than I did from any explanation he ever gave me. When he did give instructions they were far more ideas about my capability to work independently than they were about how to do the job. I remember when I was first given the job of raking hay on our ranch. On my first day on the job within the first few hours I had the tractor and rake stuck! I had the front wheels in a ditch and the hind wheels of the rake caught in a fence. When Dad came into the field to see what was keeping me from raking, I will never forget what he said to me.

A Lesson From Dad

He walked over to me and said, “Huh, I thought a little feller with your intelligence would have figured out how to get this tractor unstuck! In case you didn’t know it… you are the brains in this outfit! If this tractor had the smarts to run itself I would have left it out here to work by itself. The next time you are in a fix… THINK! You can figure out situations like this!”

Give Your Kids a Gift... "Think!"

Then he said, “Watch this!” He picked up an old fence post lying nearby and put it in the ditch behind the front wheels. Then he began to back the tractor up while shouting over the noise of the engine, “See how those wheels of the rake are dropping as the front wheels climb onto the post? The next time you are in a pickle use your head!”

I find myself doing that even today. My dad’s words echo in my head as I write this article. “THINK!” Dad gave me the amazing gift of believing in my ability to think and reason things out for myself. He knew how to fix the problem but what he wanted for me was for to be able to figure out how to solve the problem. Those are such different things! Teaching a child how to do something verses teaching a child how to figure out how to do something for themselves!

Let Jobs Be Self-Rewarding!

As your children complete a job, let the satisfaction of completing it be the payoff. It will not be necessary for you to offer lavish praise. A simple statement from you like, "Nicely done, you did that complete job without any help. Doesn't it feel great to do things on your own? It buys you a big bunch of respect and it buys lots of freedom to do things on your own because I do not feel the need to check up on you."

If your children are older and do not seem to be able to do any job on their own and also seem unwilling to do any job on their own, do not become discouraged! Just like them, you have a job to do. THINK! Reason out some ways YOU can start teaching this child how to figure out a way to do a job! You can do it. Your job may be a little tougher since the child is older, but start today. Every day you wait just means the job becomes more difficult!

Decision Making!

Following are some ideas to get you started. First off, with an older child, explain to them what you are trying to do. Tell them the truth! “I have waited too long to begin to show you the amazing abilities you have but I want to start today. I would like for you to organize your room today. I will be available to help you but I want you to organize your room so that it works for you.”

Just think about this from your child’s point of view. Imagine how different it will sound to the child. Rather than saying, “Your room is such a mess. I often wonder how you can stand to live in there!” Think about how your child will feel when you express your confidence in their ability to organize their room.

Ask your children to change or limit their behavior because you have the confidence in their abilities. It is practical and it is very wise to be a positive wizard in your child’s life by showing them how to use their own abilities!

"Reasons to Ask Kids to Limit or Adjust Their Behavior" Part #4

2007-04-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

Subtle Ways to Ask for kids to Alter Behavior

Well, now let’s move on to some more subtle but also very viable reasons to offer to children as they choose their behavior. Please notice that I am saying “choose” their behavior. Children do choose their behavior! There is no getting around it. The older they get the more it becomes a conscious act of picking a behavior from their repertoire of learned and innate behaviors.

Teach Young Children with Actions

When children are very young they do not have many behaviors to choose from. In the beginning, they pretty much react by choosing to cry or laugh about just about everything that happens.

Rapidly they begin to experiment with other behaviors that they see or hear. Kids will start to whine or maybe throw tantrums (basically more dramatic crying). They will use anything that works! If crying results in getting what they want, they will begin to use it for a wider and wider variety of situations and as a response to more and more situations where they are uncomfortable.

Teach BEFORE a Problem Arises

The thing that seems to happen to so many parents is that they start trying to teach appropriate behaviors by waiting until the child chooses an inappropriate behavior like crying! Like I have said many times before, waiting until the child has made a bad choice is foolish and usually results in a failure to teach!

The dignified way to go about teaching children is to start teaching them desirable behaviors BEFORE they are in a difficult situation. With very young children you must keep in mind that the absolute worst way to attempt to teach them is with words. The teaching must involve actions and demonstrations.

Our younger son, Adam and his wife Courtney are perfect examples of this technique. They taught their son, Mac (don’t you love it? I have a grandson named after me!) to use sign language to indicate when he wants more of something and to give a sign when he wants up and a sign when he is finished eating and wants down. It has been so amazing to watch that little guy, from the age of about six months, make the choice of using some simple little hand movements to get what he wants and to communicate his needs with his parents. And man, you cannot believe how peaceful it makes their house at meal times. Their house is peaceful most other times too because the signing has made crying pretty much useless by comparison!

Teaching Kids to "Sign"

If you are interested, here are a few websites where you can learn to teach signing to an infant. (Please know that I have nothing to gain from any of these sites or programs. They are just some sites that I have heard of in my travels and interactions with parents across America!)

http://www.babybumblebee.com/store/asl.cfm?gclid=CJCp2ZyI0IsCFR1BggodrzxYHA

http://signingbaby.com/main/?pp_album=main&pp_cat=signing-baby-dictionary

What you are doing with this kind of approach is you are teaching your children actions that bring peace and satisfaction into their lives simultaneously.

This all brings me to this fourth in the list of reasons to ask for your children to alter their behavior. For a little 10-month old child to be able to ask for more food at dinner, rather than just crying, brings peace into that child’s life and an amazing peace to the parents and the entire family!

Peace!

As the child gets older it can become increasingly more important to teach the child to alter behavior because it brings PEACE into their lives.

PEACE - "Do this simply because it will make your life much more peaceful and simple." Sometimes things that may seem very basic to us must be explained in detail to our children. For example, "Did you know that people who smile often meet more happy people? So, if you would like to spend more time around laughing and happy people, then you need to smile, a lot!" Point out the many instances in life where cheerful people are given preferential treatment.

I communicated this just yesterday to a group of high school age students that I was asked to speak to. These were sophomores and juniors who are enrolled in a “school within a school” where some pretty amazing teachers are team teaching a group of kids who have had some difficulties with school. I gave them an assignment. I asked them to go home and vacuum the living room and take out the garbage every day for the next week. I asked them to do this with a smile on their face and without having to be asked.

Then I asked them to ask for permission to do one thing that they normally would not get to do before coming back to class after a week of cheerfully helping out at home. What I want them to experience is that doing things to help others, in a cheerful manner, without being asked to do it will work out well for them.

Structure learning situations like that for your kids!

Make it a policy to reward cheerful behavior in the home as early as possible. Let them experience, at the earliest age, their cheerful attitude gets much more attention and much better results. Make your home a peaceful place by practicing what you preach. Model cheerful and polite requests for compliance rather than shouting angry demands and watch their behavior match yours. (Children learn far more from our actions than from our words. "Do as I say, not as I do," may sound nice but it seldom works.)

Getting Children to Adjust Their Behavior #3

2007-04-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

"Help! I can't do this without you!"

Ok, we are ready for the third of these articles about getting children to decide to act in appropriate ways and to choose to adjust their behavior to suit your expectations for them. Now let’s remember that as parents we are never in control of our children’s behavior. They are!

With that understanding we then must view any change we attempt to make in their behavior to be a process of teaching children to choose the behavior we deem to be desirable. Their change in behavior will be the result of our efforts to lead them to appropriate and approved choices.

Now, please do not misinterpret what I am saying here. I do believe that parents have the right to ask for children to simply be obedient and do what their parents ask them to do. However, obedience also must be taught. Children can learn to simply obey their parents but obedience is dangerous because it does not teach children what to do when there is no one there to make their decisions for them and tell them what to do!

So here we go with the third reason to give children for them to use in choosing to adjust their behavior to match with our expectations.

HELP - "I can't do this without your help!" Many times a simple request for help will work wonders as a limit upon a child's behavior. Think about it . . . when you ask your kid for help you are sending very important messages.

First, you are saying, "You are a very capable person. Look, I'm giving you an important task to do!" So many people have gotten a much distorted view of the term self-esteem. If you have read or listened to much of the Parenting with Dignity material you have most likely noticed that I very rarely use the term and there is a sound reason for this… I do not use it because of the many distorted and varied definitions that so many parents have of self-esteem!

That being said, I honestly believe that almost nothing will allow a child to hold a wonderful opinion of themselves than being treated like they are valued people! Asking for help says that loud and clear to a child!

When I was a child my father took me out in the hay field and he told me that he needed my help. I always reflect back on that day as a pivotal day for me. My dad needed my help. I don believe that I had ever felt so important or valued. Dad had a way with words. I will never forget what he said that day, “Kid, you are the brains on this job! I need you to think!” It was pretty nasty work but I eagerly attacked it because it was a sign that my contribution was important! Give that feeling to your children.

Next, you are saying, "You are a trusted person because this job requires that I trust you." Give your children a job and then let them do it. Buck Minor, the cowboy on our ranch, did this repeatedly with me as I grew up. He would give me a job to do and then he would leave and let me do it. Sometimes I would make a mess or leave part of the job uncompleted. He would not come unglued or angry. He would just give me a pointer, let me know that he really needed me to do the job and then let me try again.

I can tell you that I draw on that confidence I was taugh as a child by having people like my Dad and Buck let me know that they needed me. I believe that there are so many children in today’s culture who have never been told that they are needed. Telling them that you need themj and actually treating them like they are needed are really two very different things.

Then, you are saying, "I need you, and my life would be extremely difficult without you and therefore I have come to you, of all the people I know, to ask for help." Asking a child for help confirms for them that in your family, everyone has value. Letting children know that their family needs them will be a springboard for the rest of their life.

Give your children this feeling of being a valued part of the family often. Giving children tasks to do can be just work if it is presented that way. However, if a job is presented as something that needs ot be done and the child might be the only one who can do it well the job can be fulfilling and it confirm self-worth!

Finally, you are saying, "A family is a place where we all participate simply because we need each other!" Don't be surprised if your child starts to turn to you in times of stress and need soon after you have modeled that behavior for him or her. Treating them like valued people in a tight and mutually dependant family will build trust in the child to share difficult times with you.

If you want your child to trust you, it is necessary to trust them first. Trust s a mutual event! Going to your children and telling them that you need them is a great first step in showing that you trust them.

Let your children know that you need their help. Do not be surprised if you find that you actually do! Most parents who experience difficulties in getting children to do jobs around the home suffer from a lack of trus in their children to do the job!

Getting Children to Adjust Their Behavior

2007-04-04T06:18:00.001-07:00

APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

"Do this because society says so, in less formal ways." You won't be fined or sent to jail for violating any of these rules but many times they may be just as important to obey as laws. These rules fall under the category of manners, or social customs, but they often are the standards by which your children's character is judged. Teach your children that they can act any way they choose, but other people retain the right to their own response and their own opinion.

Point out that these rules make most people's responses very predictable. "You can cut your hair in a Mohawk and dye it orange if you wish but remember that many people will then discount you as a meaningless person. It may not be right for them to do so, but it is very predictable."

The same goes for conduct in a public place… loud and boisterous behavior will, very predictably, be viewed as immature and will be criticized by most adults. Children will rapidly begin to get the picture. Children are fully capable of seeing cause and effect in these situations.

“Wearing a baseball cap at a funeral will be judged by most as being a sign of disrespect to the deceased. If you insist upon wearing one to make yourself more comfortable, then you predictably will be called a disrespectful person.” Kids need this type of advice.

Think of this like you would think of teaching your child to use a computer. They need some help in learning the commands to get the computer do what they want it to do. In life they need guidance in learning and choosing the actions and behaviors that result in the outcomes that they desire from life. You are the guide but they hold the power to choose their actions.

Give your children some great ideas to choose for the job of ruling their world.

Treat people in a manner that you would like to be treated.

If you are feeling sad try to make someone else happy; it will usually cheer you up.

It does not matter how deep or cold the water, if you have to go through it anyway. Get your feet wet.

A “Thank You!” will open ten times as many doors as a “Please!” and hundreds more than a “Gimme!”

Happy people meet more happy people.

Give your best and that is all the world can ask. Set your own standards.

Your family ought to have lots more of these types of ideas that your child can use to make their life more complete and that can lead them to make wonderful choices for themselves.

"Reasons to Ask Kids to Limit or Adjust Their Behavior Part #1"

2007-03-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

"The Darn Kids Are Just Doing the Wrong Thing!"

So often when people ask us for help with their children’s behavior they include the phrase “What if my children don’t…. ? (And then, the often, very distressed parents fill in the blank with a detailed description of what the child is doing that is wrong or is not doing, that the parents want the child to do.) It seems to me that so many parents have simply learned jump to the negative behavior and the artificial consequences of failure, before even considering the concept of structuring a situation that will predict success! In a nutshell, they seem to be more worried about reacting to what their kids have done wrong rather than working in a preventative process of teaching the desired behavior, before their children are in crisis.

A Seven-Part Series

In the following series of seven articles I will attempt help you, as a parent. to focus on giving your children some solid reasons to adjust their behavior in a positive manner before (and the real key is to try to start before trouble arises) any problems arise. In this series of articles I will simply be applying Rule Number One of our Five Rules for Parents from the Parenting with Dignity Curriculum.

Proven Techniques

As I go through these tried and true Parenting with Dignity Techniques techniques with you, please keep in mind that the only way to elicit permanent and positive change in the behavior of your children lies in changing the way that they think! “The ideas in their heads will rule their world!” These techniques will give you tools for presenting ideas to your children that will allow them to make wonderful decisions for themselves! As a parent you will be guiding your children in making great decisions for themselves. They will progressively become able to make good solid decisions with wonderful outcomes for themselves. Also, you will see that the decisions your children make, will lead your children to choose to act in appropriate and socially acceptable ways.

I believe that these techniques are really nothing but some pretty sound thinking skills! So here we go with the first of “Seven Reasons for Children to Adjust their Behavior”. (Please note that if your children use these seven decision making skills effectively, you will not ever have to even think about using punishment or consequences for inappropriate behavior... because there simply not be any!)

1. RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY - "Do what we are asking you to do because society says so in formal ways."

Start Early

Start at the earliest of ages teaching your children that a civilized world will always have rules and laws. Teach them that these rules and laws are not an annoyance; they are an aid to us all and especially to them. Rules and laws protect our freedom; they protect rights, privileges, property, and even our lives.

Explain to them the chaos that would result from a society without stop signs, property laws, and rights to privacy, opportunity, expression, and freedom from injury. (NOTE: it is almost impossible to teach respect for laws, and rules if your children watch you violate those same rules and laws! You cannot speed and then demand that your children drive the speed limit.)

Very Young Children

Now let’s talk a little bit about how you might start this process of teaching this respect for and appreciation of rules and laws to very young children. Riding in a car with little children always presents a great opportunity for teaching rules and laws. Also, the time spent riding in a car is often a time when small children become bored and frustrated. While driving with toddlers in their safety seats, make a habit of having them fill time by pointing out stop signs. Show them how well traffic works out for all, when everyone obeys come to a stop at a stop sign. Teach them to be on the lookout for red stop lights, yellow caution lights, and green go lights. As they get older and of an age to understand more complex rules and laws of the road, teach them what those laws and rules are and of most importance, teach them how those laws work to make roads more safe and efficient.

Older Children

The next step is much easier if you started on this process at an early age but still works even if you did not start early. As children begin to approach driving age, point out to them every time that you pass a police car how driving at the proper speed and obeying the law makes it a certainty that you will receive no tickets and that you will not be stopped by those police!

As children get older, begin to teach them about the laws of our nation, your state, and your local community. Teach them, early on, about the laws governing littering and show them both the wonderful benefits to all when people obey those laws and point out the mess that is made by just a few people who violate those laws.

As I answer questions from both adults and kids from all across America, what I find is that many parents do not even know or understand the laws that govern our country! It is not too difficult to understand why their children are unable to make good decisions about obeying the laws if the parents do not even understand those laws!

Make it a priority to help children understand what the laws are governing rowdy and obnoxious behavior. Find out the statutes in your community that spell out what can and cannot be done legally. Read the statutes aloud together as a fairly regular activity at dinners and while traveling. Let your children discuss with you possible situations and scenarios where they might be tempted to violate those laws and statutes. Discuss with them possible ways to make good decisions about obeying those laws and rules.

Help Your Children to Have the Necessary Information for Making Sound Decisions

Get copies of the city, county, state, and federal laws. Read them out loud with your children. Read the laws about illegal drugs. Read the laws about minor alcohol possession and consumption. Read aloud with them the consequences that society will, very predictably, hand down if they are caught in violation of those laws.

It never ceases to amaze me as I visit prisons and talk to inmates. Most of them did not understand the laws that they broke which resulted in their incarceration! Please do not let this happen to your children.

Give your children the information necessary for making good decisions about obeying rules and laws. Please do not wait until they have violated one of those laws for them to gain this understanding! Explain the laws governing private property and the respect of the private property of others. Let your children understand, from a very early age, that a law requiring them to respect the property of others insures that their private property will be likewise protected.

School Rules are Good Practice for Life

When your children reach school age, get copies of the school rules and point out to them that obeying these rules brings trust and respect back to them from everyone at school. Teach them that the children who obey the rules almost always receive special privileges and opportunities. Let them know that obeying the rules insures that they will have the maximum freedom to control their own behavior. Let them see that children who constantly break rules are constantly being given lots more supervision and have much many limitations on their freedom.

So many parents seem to want to wait until it is too late to give the instruction to their children about the laws governing drugs, alcohol, or dating behavior until their children are already involved in the temptations of those illegal and inappropriate behaviors. I guess that parents believe that many kids are “too young” for those discussions, and then they wind up with a child who is in trouble with the law, pregnant, or addicted to an illegal drug!

Start as early as you feel that your children are capable of understanding the terms that you are using.

Just recently in our community there were two teenage boys who were charged with rape for something that they thought was just innocent dating behavior! They are now facing charges for one of the most serious felonies in all of our society, simply because they did not understand that what they were doing was even illegal! They had seen the behavior in the movies and heard their friends talk about it as if was just a fun thing to do! But they did not know the law nor the legal consequences of breaking that law! And now those boys are facing a real possibility of going to prison.

Children can be led to make great decisions for themselves by having their parents simply insure that they understand laws and rules!

A “Quick Fix for Misbehavin’ Kids” ?

2007-03-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

The "Fiction" of a Quick Fix?

Ever since I began teaching parenting skills almost 30 years ago, one of the most common fallacies that I have encountered is the mistaken idea in the heads of so many parents that there is some great “Quick Fix” for raising kids that are well behaved, self-assured and well adjusted. There is no short cut! Raising kids who are self-assured, well adjusted, self-directed and well behaved requires that parents make permanent and reasoned changes in the way that parents relate to their children!

Just Like Fad Diets

In the same way that fad diets help people to lose weight, only to regain it immediately; “Quick-Fix” parenting techniques usually result in failure to bring about long-term and meaningful changes in the behaviors of children.

The key to making the Parenting with Dignity Program (or any other parenting program) work lies in permanently changing the manner in which parents communicate with and relate to their children! In our program there are assignment sheets that go with each lesson. To make the program work in your family and in your community, every parent in class must do the assignments with their own children during the week between classes. There is no short cut.

There Will Be Difficulties!

Then, after actually doing the assignment, in class the following week, the parents must begin class by discussing the results of their attempts at using the skills taught in the last lesson. It is obvious to me after years of working with parents that there will be some difficulties in these attempts at changing family interaction and family communication. Most often the parents in the class will find that they learn more from the things that they try and that don't work than they learn from the things that do work! In the process of correcting the things that don’t work they will be internalizing their own skills and thoughts.

Permanent Change Is the Real Time-Saver!

In addition, many classes find that as their class reaches the second week, the discussion takes so much time that they postpone some or all of class two in order to discuss the results from the first lesson. In doing this they may find that it takes longer to complete the course, but... in the long run the permanent changes that they make will ultimately save time as they move into using what they have learned in their lives with their children.

The key to changing the behavior of children lies in the ensuing weeks, months, and years. The changes that parents make in their thinking, actions, and behavior must become permanent. There is no short cut to permanent change. The new way of thinking and acting must become a way of life.

Now, over the months and years, parents will save lots of time for themselves if they take the time to permanently change their behavior early in their lives as parents but there is no short cut to that saving of time. A child who is taught to feed herself with regard to acceptable manners and a well balanced diet will be much easier to live with at seventeen. Ther will be a considerable saving of time over the years, but it si not a quick fix. Once the idea of appropriate manners and eating healthily is well established in both the mind of the parent and child, it will only take occasional reminders and reinforcement spaced over time to maintain the desired behavior in later stages of maturation and development.

Remember this simple adage: “It takes no more time to develop a good habit than it takes to develop a bad habit!” However, there is one thing to remember about bad habits… to erase a bad habit takes lots of time; and then… you still must spend more time to develop a new and desirable habit. If there is a “Quick Fix” to use in raising children it lies in making permanent changes and developing good habits as early a possible! Often, it takes more time to teach children the desired behavior at the very beginning; but if you start immediately developing good habits in your children those behaviors will last a lifetime!

Now, if you have waited until your kids are in their teens to begin to teach effective decision making skills, it may take more time to develop the good habits in your children; but, every day that you put off starting means that it will just take that much longer when you actually do begin!

In closing, what I am saying is that the only “Quick Fix” for effective parenting lies in starting right now, TODAY, to make permanent change!

The quick fix in parenting lies in not waiting to start making permanent change!

Listen! (Part Two)

2007-03-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

Love is not just something you say; it is something you do… and listening is one of the most loving acts a parent can do for children!

It says that they are important to You!

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?”

Let Them Say It!

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 Urge To Give Advice

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 spin-off of keeping your advice to yourself is that, eventually, they will tell you when they want your advice.

Key "Listening words"

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.

Getting Kids To Talk about Things During Crisis

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.

Give Kids a "Secret Sign"

It bears mentioning that in this bit of advice about listening I am 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, as parents, can listen at these times we will confirm their self worth.

Heroes

2007-03-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

Kids ill Always Have Heroes!

In today's society like in the past, kids have heroes. This is usually a good thing. However, in modern society it seems the process of selecting heroes has become rather muddled or confused. Fame should not, necessarily, make a person a hero. We, in our family, have experienced this from both sides: first as parents of two sons who chose heroes while growing up, and now with two sons who have distinguished themselves as outstanding athletes who are often the object of hero worship.

Worthy Heroes

Please hang in here with me on this one so there is no misinterpretation of what I am attempting to say. We do believe that both our sons are worthy heroes. Both are moral, ethical, kind, honest, and admirable people with a strong sense of family. Both are civic minded and both give back to their respective communities. It is just alarming to see how so many people have selected them as heroes who know nothing about them. Many children have been taught to, or at least allowed to, select their heroes/role models based upon nothing more than skill at a game or fame. Few of these kids know much about their heroes beyond some perceived skill. If children had been taught some criteria or standards for selecting role models, it would be different.

A Real "Hometown" Hero

Allow me to illustrate with a personal example. Barbara's Father, Dick Matthews, died suddenly a few years ago. His five grandchildren delivered the eulogy at the funeral. It was obvious to all in attendance that "Grandpa Dick" was a hero to all five. As they spoke of him through their tears, they all mentioned his hero status in their eyes and used words like loyal, dedicated to his wife, hard-working, honest, a man whose word was his bond, as well as describing a fun Grandpa who always had a smile a mile wide.

Dick Matthews was quite a fellow. Nobody could outwork him outside his home. He built houses for a living but he also ran a 120-acre farm and did odd jobs on the side as was needed for extra money for the family. If necessary, I'm certain he would have taken a night job to provide for his family and he did all of his work cheerfully, and with a bounce of purpose in his step. Inside their home it was a different story. In his house, Dick was the king and Maxine, his loving wife of 56 years, waited upon him hand and foot. It was not a "modern" romance but rather one from a previous generation and it worked beautifully for them. Dick earned a living and Maxine kept up the home.

Then, ten years ago, tragedy struck that loving couple and Maxine was stricken by a severe stroke. Overnight she became in need of around-the-clock care rather than being the caregiver. Without the slightest blink, Dick became that 24-hour, 7 days a week caregiver and on top of it he began to do all of the housework! He did all of the laundry, cooking, cleaning, shopping and everything else Maxine had done for all the years of their partnership of love. He even did her hair and put on her makeup!

A year ago, while out to breakfast alone with Dick, I was struck by the enormity of the change he had made on behalf of his loving wife and I asked him how he made such an amazing change so suddenly and so cheerfully. His answer really affected me that day and it will always be in my memory. He looked back at me, got tears in his eyes, and then quietly said, "One day 56 years ago, I said 'I do'..."

Man, I think that everyone deserves to be loved like that just once!

A Grandpa Was a Bigger Hero Than Anyone!

At his funeral each of his grandkids said that one thing they had learned from Grandpa Dick was to honor commitments! They each got the message. He was a hero to all. We as adults need to hold people like Dick Matthews up as heroes to our children! We all know people in our families and in our neighborhoods that are so worthy of being heroes to our kids. We must not be so careless as to think that kids will seek out these remarkable but often quiet people; we need to teach them what a real hero is and point out some in their immediate surroundings. Sure an athlete makes a flashy hero and many are worthy of the status, some musicians too are worthy, but let's be careful to teach our kids what makes a person worthy of “Hero” or “Role Model” status. What are your criteria for picking heroes? Fame alone should never define who should be picked as a hero. What are the values, morals, and ethics that make a person worthy of being a hero?

Hero Day

Make tomorrow "Hero Day" in your family and talk about what makes a real hero!

When our son Drew was drafted he was being interviewed by Chris Berman for ESPN. Chris had done some research and found that as Drew was growing up, he had met a number of professional football players at a football camp that I ran. Chris asked, “Drew you have been around some of the greats of the NFL. I see where you have worked with Jim Plunkett, Fred Billetnikoff, Warren Moon, Ronnie Lott, Ken Stabler, Clint Didier, and many others. Were those guys your heroes growing up?”

I think Drew’s reply kind of shocked Mr. Berman when he replied, “Well, kind of… but not really. Those men taught me that NFL players were just pretty regular folks; however, my real heroes were Shawn Woods, Blaine and Mark Bennett, and many of the other outstanding athletes that played for my dad and were the great players who preceded me at my high school!”

Help your children to select worthy heroes!

Parenting with Dignity - a Gift That Keeps On Giving

2007-03-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

Every Gift Helps!

Some Gifts Are Very Special!

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on this site about a three climbers who were lost on Mount Hood up in the state of Oregon. Two of those men from Dallas had stepped up in a big way to offer support to Parenting with Dignity. First they held a gala open house at the Performance Playground, a Dallas area fitness center owned by Freddie Stephenson, a man committed to his community. Performance Playground is where Brian Hall, one of the lost climbers worked. At this gala, these generous and giving men raised over three thousand dollars in donations for PwD! They had invited many guests and members of their great workout facility to attend the evening event.

Artwork Used To Raise Money

Also, that evening, on the walls of the Performance Playhouse, they began to display the artwork created by a gifted artist named Karen James. I met her that evening along with her husband Kelly James, one of the men to later go missing on Mt. Hood. The "kicker" added to this beautiful display of artwork was that Karen's artwork was also offered for sale!

Anyone who purchased one of Karen’s paintings would do so knowing that the James family would donate a portion of the purchase price to Parenting with Dignity! On that evening I was also fortunate enough to get to know both Karen and her husband Kelly.

Tragedy Did Not Alter Family's Generous Commitment!

Now, when the tragedy took place on Mt. Hood and both Brian Hall and Kelly James, Karen’s husband, were lost, I was shocked to hear the news. Those men were so positive, so full of life and energy, so enthusiastic about mountain climbing, and so committed to their community! I was devastated to hear that these new acquaintances, these vital young men who had sought out Parenting with Dignity as a cause they believed in, were no longer with us.

A Touching Letter

Then, just this week, we received and amazing letter sent by the artist, Karen James, the wife of fallen climber Kelly James. She wrote that her family has been devastated at the loss of her husband and the father to their children. Their family is also devastated by the loss of dear friend Brian Hall. She shared that the loss of those men has been so difficult to accept, and I must say that having only met them recently, I cannot imagine what the loss would be like for her and the rest of her family.

Then in her wonderful letter she said, “We are determined to go on and to honor their memories! I am happy to send you a donation from the sale of a few of my paintings that recently sold during the art exhibit at the Performance Playhouse.” I was pretty overcome. In the memory of Brian and Kelly, the living members of their “extended family” were continuing the work those men had begun! What a tribute to those men and their memory.

Let me tell you this, when donations come from people in this manner. it certainly does make us mindful of making sure that those dollars work to build a better world for kids!

Thank you Karen and Kelly James, Brian Hall, and Freddie Stephenson and all of our friends at the Performance Playgorund! Your commitment to our cause will inspire us and the families who benefit from your gifts!

Why not join the James Family and donate a few dollars in the name of a friend or loved one. Many families will benefit from your generosity for generations to come. You gift will keep on giving!

Now, if you would like to join us by donating to Parenting with Dignity, we promise we will do our best to make your dollars count in building a better world for kids! Parenting with Dignity is a 501 ( c ) 3 Public Non-Profit so any donation is TAX DEDUCTABLE! Tax time is just around the corner and we can provide you with a tax deductable receipt! We would appreciate having you consider donating any amount. Every bit helps us to do our significant work. To set up a donation please just click on the link below:

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America's Kids

A Mom Steps Up

2007-03-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

A Gift in Honor of a Son Serving In Iraq

For over two years we have been receiving a monthly check from an amazing mother named Pam. She is, as she puts it, “just a mom” who found us and liked the work we are doing. She has a son serving in Iraq. As a tribute to him and his service to America, she sends Parenting with Dignity a monthly check.

Pam said she cannot afford to send much but she can afford to donate each month to what she believes in. (Beleive me, her check is generous!) She asks nothing in return other than that we honor her son by doing our work in his name! She says that she wants to do something to insure that her son will return to an America that is stronger than the one he left when he shipped off to war. She feels that Parenting with Dignity will help to build a stronger America!

A Small Gift Become Huge Over Time!

Pam wishes that we not divulge her last name or where she lives. She donates in almost complete anonymity. However, over the past two years, her generous gifts donated in the name of her son have mounted up! Her generosity has been responsible for educating about 5-10 families each month. In two years she has brought joy, peace, love, and communication to a few hundred families. Pam is helping to build a stroger America!

Making Freedom Worth Fighting For!

Boy, that kind of commitment from people like this dedicated Mom certainly does create motivation in us to do the best that we can with her donations. Pam's son is fighting for Freedom overseas and her family is challenging us to make that freedom worth fighting for!

Saying a prayer for Pam's son and all his fellow service men and women is one way to repay those soldiers. Donating to a worthy cause is another tangible way to show our support for our troops! Wow! With people like Pam, a loving mother, supporting our efforts how can we fail?

Why not join Pam and put a few of your dollars to work for a strong America by donating to Parenting with Dignity.

Help us help
America's Kids

A Gift from Another Quarterback

2007-03-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Barbara and I went to the Tampa Florida area to do a series of four presentations put together by Shawn and Colleen Woods, a special young couple with an energetic little son, Cameron. This young couple heard about Parenting with Dignity and began to think that they wanted to interact with parents in their community and at Cameron’s school to build a strong neighborhood in which to raise their son.

Now it just so happens that Shawn was at one time my quarterback on the Waterville, Washington, football team I coached. He called me one day and said, “Hey, coach, I want to invite you to come to Tampa to do some seminars to help us kick off Parenting with Dignity in our neighborhood.”

A Flattering Compliment from a Wonderful Young Family

After a few emotional moments over this compliment from a former student, athlete, and now successful business executive, I agreed. As we planned and then refined our plans for the speaking events, including my giving him a few ideas for fund raising to defray the costs of the trip, I began to again feel like his old coach again. On the football field I would send in a play and Shawn would usually already have called that play or would have audibled with a better one!

Another Audible!

His comment to my fund raising ideas was that he and Colleen had decided they wanted to donate a substantial amount to our Parenting with Dignity Program. Now here is where he really floored me!! You see Shawn is an executive for a business most are familiar with, the Home Shopping Network. Shawn told me his company is a pretty cool place to work because it is a company that is always doing something to “give back to the community!”

A Community Minded Company

One thing that community-minded company, HSN, will do is match any charitable donation that one of their employees makes! By making his family’s donation to PwD, he was putting Home Shopping Network to work for us as well. Just like when I coached him, Shawn had a better idea!

EMPLOYEES Direct the Charitable Giving of a Huge Corporation

What a wonderful policy for a corporation to have. HSN has set up a procedure to encourage and then enhance all their employees’ charitable giving. On top of that they give their employees the power to direct the charitable giving of the corporation itself!

It is both humbling and inspiring to us to receive the support and the go-ahead TO DO MORE OF OUR WORK from the people mentioned over the past few days! Commitment from people like that renews our dedication to changing families, changing communities, changing our country by building a better world for kids. By having people like Shawn and Colleen Woods donating to Parenting with Dignity, we are obligated to do our best! To see ahuge corporation like HSN join in is even more motivating!

Now, if you would like to join us by donating to Parenting with Dignity, we promise we will do our best to make your dollars count in building a better world for kids! Parenting with Dignity is a 501 ( c ) 3 Public Non-Profit so any donation is TAX DEDUCTABLE! Tax time is just around the corner and we can provide you with a tax deductable receipt! We would appreciate having you consider donating any amount. Every bit helps us to do our significant work. To set up a donation please just click on the link below:

Help us help

America's Kids

Spanking Children

2007-03-09T13:03:00.000-07:00

"Some Sound Reasons Why Spanking Does Not Work"

Let me begin this article by saying that I am not opposed to spanking just because I believe that it is a terrible or evil thing. I very simply do not think that it works to bring about lasting and positive changes in children!

As a matter of fact, I do not believe that Punishment, in general, works very well as a teaching tool.

A Working Definition of Punishment

First, let me define what I mean by punishment:
For the sake of this discussion let’s establish that Punishment refers to any artificially created consequence for a given behavior. (This definition would then include any spanking, grounding, sending to the bedroom, removal of privileges, slapping a hand,withholding of allowance, timeout, etc.)

Here are some of the reasons that punishment (spanking in particular) does not work when it is used in an attempt to teach children (or any humans for that matter!):

1. Punishment guarantees a "push-back" response in almost all situations! (A push-back response is simply the natural human resistance to change.) When we as parents push on our children they will push back. It is unavoidable. Sometimes the “push-back” will be more pronounced than at other times. But it will be there. When punishment is used, it almost guarantees the most powerful “push-back” response from a child! Then, when the punishment is a “spanking”, the “push-back response” is even more pronounced. Watch children react to spanking by throwing fits, swinging back, kicking, and in general lashing out at anyone and everything within reach following a spanking!

Now, let’s go to some of the other compelling reasons that punishment fails to teach the desired lessons.

2. Punishment removes the focus of both the "punisher" and the "punished" from the behavior in question. When a parent resorts to punishment, both the parent and the child begin to pay attention to the punishment, its’ fairness and its’ enforcement. This is especially true of spanking because it hurts. It is almost impossible for a child to ignore the invasiveness of a spanking. This causes the child to stop thinking about the decision process that brought about the negative behavior in the first place! The child is only thinking about the spanking!

Let’s say that a child has just grabbed a toy from a playmate or pulled a valued vase off of a table and broken it. The parent then gives the child a hit on the backside. At this moment the child is not thinking about the toy, the other child, or the broken vase. The child it thinking about the pain in their backside!

By inserting punishment into the equation the parent has removed the focus from the negative behavior and the correction of that behavior. Both parent and child are now thinking about the hit! Neither is thinking about the desired behavior. Both may have fleeting thoughts about the preceding negative behavior but they are both most definitely thinking about the associated hit. At this point the child is never thinking about any possibilities for a better behavior to use in place of the negative behavior. No progress is made. Rarely, if ever, is the parent even thinking of a positive alternative behavior to teach the child. Even the parent is still focused only on the negative behavior that brought on the punishment!

When the punishment is used the child is not engaged in creating a new thought process that will bring about better decisions and outcomes next time.

3. Punishment focuses anger on the "punisher." When parents resort to punishment it gives children someone to be mad at! When children are angry at someone, they do not have to face their own behavior and the natural consequences of that behavior. Anger interrupts responsible thought processes for both the child and parent.

Parents are often deluded into thinking that hitting the child has taught the child a lesson and it is simply not true. When a child is hit by a parent, the child is mad at the parent for the hit. It would be a rare child that would sustain a hit, and immediately start thinking about possibilities for a more positive action. It would be nice to think that would happen but it simply does not. Many parents mistakenly think that is what is going on in the child’s mind but it simply is not.

4. Punishment induced behavior "extinguishes" rapidly. In the absence of punishment, the negative behavior returns. Behavior that has been shaped by punishment will disappear soon after the punishment has disappeared simply because the child has not been included in the reasoning and personal profitability of the desired behavior.

When children are hit for doing something, they will usually become more secretive about the behavior to avoid future punishment. They will simply take the toy away from the other child when the parent is not looking or they will pull the vase off the shelf when the parent is in the other room.

Punishment rarely is followed with positive instruction and if positive instruction does follow the punishment, the child is usually too agitated to learn.

I like to explain this to parents by having them imagine that I were to come to their home and try to teach them to program their VCR. I ask them to imagine that I arrived at the house at the very moment when they were having a big argument about filling out the IRS tax forms. I ask them, “How well would you be able to learn the simple procedures with your VCR while you are in that agitated state of mind about taxes?”

Well, that is similar to the state of mind that a child is in when they are being punished. Multiply that agitation when the punishment of choice has just been a “spanking”! Children cannot learn at times like this.

5. Punishment traps the "punisher" into maintaining the punishment schedule. "You made the rules, now you must enforce them." The goal should be to let the natural negative consequences do the enforcing. When you introduce artificially created punishment, the child then may turn it into a game of seeing how much they can get away with without you catching them.

When the punishment is spanking, the parent is often cornered into justifying the hitting. Many parents find themselves being called "mean" or "unfair" by a child at this point. And, the whole scenario has completely lost all focus! Once a child learns that he/she can divert the discussion to one about how "unfair" or "mean" the parents are, the whole interaction begins to take a familiar circular pattern that does not include any discussion about the behavior the parent would like to be teaching!

6. Punishment and hitting (spanking) do not teach a child accountability. By using punishment the "punisher" is taking the responsibility to see that the child’s behavior changes. If you use punishment, by your actions, YOU have accepted responsibility for your child's behavior. If you accept the responsibility for your child's behavior then he/she will have to learn to be accountable outside your influence, and the outside world is a tough teacher!

7. Most of all, punishment denies a child the right to experience the real consequence of their actions. The reward for good performance is... good performance. Seldom is it necessary for us to provide the reward, and the same is true for punishment. As parents we need to point out the negative consequences inherent in their negative behavior; we do not need to create new ones. We can serve as a big help to our children if we help them foresee potential problems and natural consequences of some of their possible decisions.

There are a couple of situations where it is unreasonable to let children run into the natural consequences of poor performance. If it is illegal, immoral, or life threatening then we must act as the adult in their world and step in to prevent major injury, incarceration, or violation of society's rules of decency.

The Punishment for poor performance is... Poor Performance!
The reward for good performance is… Good Performance!

Here's a direct quote from our Parenting with Dignity, Parent’s Workbook, "It is not the duty of adults to create new punishments, but rather it is the job of the parent to point out the negative consequences inherent in the child's negative actions… and of the utmost importance; it is the obligation of the parent to suggest positive alternatives to negative or inappropriate actions."

The Golden Rule

Isn't this all really pretty simple when you think about it? Those simple truths that have stood the test of time still apply to our lives today and still have even more validity than ever. The "Golden Rule" might be the ultimate in effective parenting tools.

Treat your children in a manner that you would like to be treated! When I am asked about the issue of spanking, I always ask people why they choose to attempt to legitimize the behavior by calling it "spanking". Why do people not just call it what it is... hitting children? So I ask that instead of using the word SPANK, let's agree to use the word HIT during our discussions instead.

Then I usually ask, "On what basis do you advocate hitting your children? Is it because you are bigger? Because you are older? Because you are more experienced? Because you are more educated? Because you are stronger?"

It would seem to me that those would be reasons that would sort of disqualify anyone from being justified to hit a child. Then I usually ask them, "How would you respond if I came to your house and hit you because your garage is a mess?"

I am aware that there are people who still advocate "spanking", but... that does not sway me. I simply do not believe that spanking works! I will grant you that hitting a child may get the child’s attention but once a person resorts to hitting, there is very little teaching going on! Even the kind of attention that might be gained by hitting destroys any kind of a teaching atmosphere.

James Dobson, of Focus on the Family, and I disagree on the issue of "spanking". It is about the only thing that he and I disagree about but we respectfully disagree on "spanking". Dr. Dobson advocates that parents "spank" and I do not. He prefers the term “spank” and I prefer the more descriptive term of “hit”.

Parenting with Dignity simply advocates that parents find much more effective methods of working with and teaching their children! With many other effective techniques, a parent may never even have to consider "spanking" because they simply do not need it!

“The Five Rules for Parents" in the second lesson of our PWD course is a great place for parents to start developing anarsenal of skills that do not employ punishment or spanking. Armed with those tools most parents find little need to punish their children.

Giving Builds a Better World for Kids!

2007-03-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

PWD Is a Gift That Never Quits Giving

Parenting with Dignity makes positive changes in the lives of many families! The program teaches families how to express love for each other and it teaches parents how to teach their values, morals, ethics, and spiritual beliefs to their children. The program teaches children and parents alike how to select the ideas they will choose to rule their world.

PWD Builds Strong Communities

The most significant contribution of Parenting with Dignity is that the program opens the doors to discussions among families about what kind of community they want for their children’s environment! It just makes sense that if families work together as an entire community, they wield amazing positive power in collectively raising their children.

PWD Needs Help!

We here at Parenting with Dignity are proud of our accomplishments in changing families and entire communities but our work simply would not be possible without lots of help. We have been able to do this community-changing work only because we have had some amazing support. We have been able to offer the curriculum to so many families because amazing and wonderfully generous people have stepped up and supported our mission and our vision for children by giving their time, effort, skills, and money.

An Amazingly Generous NFL Quarterback

First and foremost, we must recognize the support and help we have received from our son, Drew and his wife Maura. For those who do not know the background of our Foundation, the whole idea of making Parenting with Dignity a nationwide program that could offer our curriculum to anyone in America was a dream first conceived by Drew. He had been in the NFL for four years, giving his time, his money, his presence to innumerable charitable endeavors. His position as an NFL quarterback had presented him with some unique opportunities to be involved with many charities including the Children’s Miracle Network. But after giving his charitable work much thought, Drew decided that rather than give money to fix some of the ills that face children, he would like to try to solve some of their problems for good.

In giving that idea a lot of thought, he decided he would like to concentrate his efforts by creating a foundation to support the curriculum that his Mother, Barbara, and I had written over our last 19 years of teaching. He believes, as we do, that if parents have more effective parenting tools to use, their children will have fewer problems and many of the “ills” can be avoided.

Seed Money and Much More

Drew donated the seed money to take Parenting with Dignity nationwide and has followed that with generous financial support ever since. Not only has Drew given financial support, but he has given tremendous amounts of personal time and effort to the work we do.

With Drew’s NFL career drawing rapidly to a close, it would be a tragedy if this amazing work were to come to an end simply because a quarterback was no longer able to support it. Drew and Maura will continue to offer some financial support but they will obviously not be able to offer as much funding since Drew’s earning power will be significantly reduced.

While our program moves ever closer to supporting itself, we would be lost without the support of Drew and Maura! That being said, we would also be lost if we did not have the support of many other dedicated and caring people who have given generously to our cause of building a better world for kids! We need more people who are willing to support the work that we do. Please join Drew and Maura and donate to the Parenting with Dignity Program!

Help us help
America's Kids

Deciding What You Want

2007-03-06T11:46:00.000-07:00

Parents Must Have a Clearly Defined Goal

The farther I go down this trail of attempting to help parents to raise self-reliant children who are capable of making great decisions, the more I find a common thread among parents who are experiencing difficulties. The common thread that I find is simply that most parents who are experiencing difficulties because they are attempting to raise children without a plan. Most of the time when I ask them, “what do you want your child to do? What is your long range goal for your child’s behavior?” that is when I discover the root of their problem.

Parents Can't MAKE Children Behave

As a parent, once you have accepted the fact that you have no direct control over your children's behavior, and once you have accepted your role as a guide to the decisions your child will make, then it is time to move on to the next step; deciding exactly what you want your children to do. Without that clear picture of the end result, it is really difficult to guide your children. When you have a clear idea of what it is you want, your strategy for helping them use their own abilities to select the desired behavior often becomes very obvious. Let's move on to an understanding of this simple concept.

Demanding Obedience Rarely Works!

So often our model of how to work with our children's behavior is to demand obedience. Obedience is, for a number of reasons, a very dangerous control mechanism to use to manipulate a child's actions.

First, obedience is very unreliable because, at any time, your child may choose to be disobedient… and then your “obedience strategy” will just fail. The parent must have a goal. Having a goal requires that the parent teach before the child is in the situation.

A Frustrated Father

Golly, just yesterday I had a conversation with a father who said that he felt that he was spending most of his time telling his children “No!” This father perceived his problem as being that he has a couple of defiant children. He was asking me how to fix his kids. But the person who needed fixing was the dad.

Granted, he may have strong-willed children, (and for that he should be thankful) but his problem was that he had lost sight of his ultimate goal of teaching his children to make good decisions for themselves. He had fallen into the trap of trying to make all of the decisions for his kids! Obedience was just not working for this dad!

“In addition,” the father continued, “it sure seems the chances of my kids being disobedient and defiant increase proportionately with number of people watching, the danger of the moment, and my fatigue and dwindling level of patience!” Then the father added, “If we are at the grocery store and I am tired, it seems a certainty that my kids will have to be told NO even more often.” The father offered all of this to me in his explanation/question about his kids. My answer was an attempt to make a change in the father’s approach. His “obedience strategy” was not working because his children were choosing to disobey.

Like I said, obedience does not work because it often does not have a clearly defined goal or end result. Most of the time it is simply just crisis management! Without a clearly defined goal the father in this case was simply reacting to his children’s actions.

Second, obedience teaches children to listen to an "outside voice" to make adjustments in their behavior. Rather than being self-directed, children wait for parents to direct them. In the case of this father, he was teaching his children to listen to his voice to make their decisions. The only lesson that his kids were getting about making their own decisions was whether to obey or disobey dad!! He did not set out with this as his goal, but it sure was the lesson that his children were learning! It sounded to me like his children had even learned when it worked best to choose to disobey!

Also, teaching kids to listen to your voice and your instructions only works when you are physically present. Most children raised in this “do-it-because-I-said-so” manner often have some real trouble when their parents are not right there with them. They will be lost without that constant "No!" hanging over their heads.

Obedience Cannot Work if the "Voice" Is Not There

And think about this for a minute; when children make most of their really big decisions you will not be there! You will not be able to make the big decisions for your children. Then in the absence of your voice, your child will listen to the next loudest voice. Often that next loudest voice is saying, "Come on, chicken, try this!"

Finally, obedience does not teach children how to make decisions. Let them learn to make decisions in the same manner you would teach them to ride a bike. Put them on the seat put the handlebars in their hands and give them a shove! Now, granted, it may not be that simple with the teaching of bike riding. Often you must run along side to steady them for awhile. Sometimes it may be necessary to put on some training wheels and then gradually raise them so that the child gets the feeling of balancing on two wheels. But, ultimately, the teacher must at some time let go.

The same is true when we teach decision-making. It may not be as simple as just giving some brief instructions and then letting go. We must give them some guidelines on how to make decisions and then let them make some. If they make mistakes, do just as you would with the bike: pick them up, dust them off, and put them back on the bike with some additional guidance on how to ride. But, let them try riding again!

It would be a rare child who could actually learn to ride a bike by watching their Mom or Dad ride one or listening to their parents talk about how to ride one.

I received a wonderful piece of instruction as I was learning to operate a computer a few years ago. People would try to teach me by having me watch them do things and watch them give commands to a computer. I could not learn that way. They had to let me sit down and put my hands on the keyboard and the buttons. Once I did that, I would learn quite rapidly. Children are the same. Most of the time they need to actually DO things in order to learn.

The same is true for making good decisions and choices; kid must be given chances to make choices and decisions. "Put them on the bike!" Let them learn from doing. Let them make a few small mistakes and learn from them. Give them instructions before they get into the situations and then let them act. If you are goingto the grocery store, practice appropriate behavior BEFORE you take them to the store. Then, when you get to the store, let them choose their actions. If they make good choices, thereward is that they made good choices and you all stay at the store doing as you planned. If they make bad choices let them experience theresults of their decisions. Just leave the store with no explanation. Your actions will teach more than any words could.

Caution: There are a few situations where you do not let kids learn from mistakes. If it is 1. illegal, 2. immoral or 3. life-threatening you must act as the adult in the situation and intervene. If a child makes these types of mistakes, the risk is too high and the stakes are too great, thus it may require a much more invasive technique of intervention and protection.

But do make the mistake of thinking that intervening or being invasive has taught anything!

The best policy is to stay in the prevention mode and help them to make good decisions before the fact, so that they don't get into illegal, immoral or life threatening situations in the first place.

So, as parents, let's approach the job of teaching children to make good decisions by crowding out obedience as our goal. By having other reasonable goals, you will teach your children to be increasingly self-directed and self-reliant. With a clear goal of teaching sound decision-making skills you, as a parent, will begin to experience success. You will have killed two birds with one stone. Your children will have reasonable limits on their behavior and of far more importance, they will be growing in their ability to make good decisions; good decisions they will continue to make even when they are out of your presence.

“Getting Kids To Do What You Want"

2007-03-05T22:25:00.000-07:00

A Controling Thought

“Parenting with Dignity” operates from one basic principle, which is that the ideas in your head will rule your world. Therefore, we also believe the ideas in the heads of our children will rule their world. This is a pretty simple and straight forward concept for raising self-directed children. Effective parents must see themselves as the source of good ideas for their children.

Five Rules for Parents

Parenting with Dignity advocates the use of “the Five Simple Rules for Parents” to maximize parents’ effectiveness at embedding strong, positive ideas into the heads of their children.

Rule #1

The first of these rules will be the topic of this article. Rule Number One states very simply: “A parent must end any criticism with a simple, positive statement of expected behavior.” In other words, “tell your kids exactly what you want them to do.” These expectations must be stated in behavioral terms which the kid can understand; and it helps immeasurably if there is brief sales pitch explaining why it is to the kid’s advantage to behave in the expected manner!

There Is a Trap Out There for Parents

Personal experience from years of teaching school taught me that not giving careful consideration here can lead to trouble because we, like many adults, became caught in the trap of always telling kids what they had done wrong or giving students warnings of what not to do. It absolutely shocked me when I finally realized that explaining exactly what was expected drastically increased the chances of my students choosing to do it.

To establish expectations for children's behavior it is first necessary to understand that parents do not control children's behavior directly. Kids control their own behavior. As parents, all can do is enable them to use their own amazing abilities to make good choices for themselves. (If you doubt the fact that kids have a will of their own, just try to put a three week old child back to bed after it has decided it is time to get up!) In the process of teaching your children exactly what behavior you wish for them to choose in any given situation there is a hidden expectation for us as parents… we must decide exactly what we want our children to do. (That will be a topic for a future article.)

A New Family Resource

2007-03-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

News Flash: An Internet Radio Station Meets Family Needs!

How would you like to listen to some Parenting with Dignity tips over a radio station while you are working at your computer? (They are broadcast every day at 10:40 M.S.T.)

How would you like to listen to an upbeat radio station that plays music and programming that the whole family can enjoy?

How would you like to listen to a radio station with programming about lots of interesting topics.

Well, if your aswer was"Yes!" to any or all of those questions, you are in luck!

A New Radio Station!

There is just such a Radio Station with all of that and much more! Please go to: whitefishradio.com and you will find a great family radio station. Believe me, internet radio is the wave of the future.

The "Big Fish" Radio Station

This radio station is called the Big Fish because it originates in Beautiful Whitefish, Montana; but... it is not just a station for that wonderful small western town. Their appeal is worldwide!

Now I know that if there is a technology that has reached me in our home, it has most likely reached most of you. I have now entered the age of digital music. My computer is now my "Juke Box" and we paly all of our music over our stereo by linking our computer to our stereo. Man, it has brought a whole new enjoyment to our music. Via palylists, online purchasing of digital music, and the new computer-assisted ease of selecting music, we have lots of new music at our fingertips.

Internet Radio

This is where "The Big Fish" radio station comes in. We can now play this great station on our stereo! The broadcast comes in true High Fidelity and Stereo! Wow, what a great thing. We can feel fully confident in having the station on when our grandchildren are visiting because we know Ross and Sue Strauser the owners of the station. They are our neighbors up here in this beautifful part of America and we know that they personnally select all fo the music, news, and programming. It is family radio with a beat!

The "The Big Fish" radio station comes from one of the most beautiful and romantic parts of America up in the wilds of Western Montana! The music is broadcast from one of the last remaining wilderness areas of our nation.

And you can have it in your home!

They have a great Blog as well... subscribe on your browser home page.

Try it you will like it!

A High School Prom Reality Check

2007-02-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

A Disturbing Event

Almost exactly two years ago I received a real dose of reality about the possible horror of a Prom Night gone wrong.

I was in in the Buffalo, New York area doing some of our Parenting with Dignity work for a couple of very special communities in that part of the country and I was staying at a hotel near the airport. That Friday night I did not get much sleep. On my floor were about 30-40 high school age young people who were spending the night. They started making a very loud "ruckus" early in the evening and then it became quiet. (I think it was while they went out to dinner and the prom dance.) I went to bed as I had had a long day and I had a fairly early flight the next morning.

Awakened!

About midnight the noise started again. I was awakened by some loud noise on my floor. Doors were slamming and I could hear the sounds of kids shouting, running, and laughing. Doors were slamming and music was playing on some portable stereo. I went into the hall to see what was up and was shocked at what I saw. Young poeople seemed to be running everywhere. Some were still in prom dresses and tuxedos. Some were wearing swim suits, which struck me as odd because it was still winter and there was snow outside. (I found out later that they were using the hotel swimming pool, even though it was posted as closed at 8:30 P.M.) Some seemed to just be unabashedly running from room to room in their underwear.

I Had Heard About These Parties...

Now I Was Seeing One Up Close!

Needless to say, I was shocked. I had been a school teacher for 29 years and had heard some of the horror stories about out of control Prom Night parties that turned into orgies and that were completely unsupervised by adults; but I had never witnessed one in person!

I called the front desk to complain. They sent someone up from the front desk a couple of times, but is seemed to make no difference. The party raged on. I am not a bashful man and I don't often shy away from talking to kids who seem a bit out of line... and this party seemed to be a dangerous event with lots of drinking, promiscuity, and such. I put on some clothes and went into the hall and stopped a few of the young people to ask them what was going on.

Most of the young people just ignored me as if I were not there. I was quite surprised by what I was told by the few kids who would even speak to me. Basically they told me that they were having their private Prom Party! When I asked them if their parents had any idea what they were doing I was told that their parents had made the reservations for them and had furnished the alcohol. (I'm not sure that I necessarily believed them but that is what they told me.)

I was really shocked by what I was seeing. The hotel manager finally came up at about 3:00-3:30 A.M. with a few members of his security staff and they began to throw the young people out of their establishment. Needless to say I did not get much sleep that night. I guess that I was pretty self-absorbed and annoyed.

Parenting with Dignity - Promotes Discussions

I did some thinking that night about how our society had evolved to this point where parents would actually condone an unsupervised party like the one I was witnessing. It made me know that our PWD Curriculum is a needed commodity. It made me once again think about how parents must get together and discuss what expectations they as a community hold for their children and their behavior.

A Shocker!

The real shocker of this whole experience came the next morning when I arose to go to the airport to catch my plane. As I left my room the hotel had left a copy of the local newspaper at the door to every occupied room. I picked one up, stuck it in my briefcase, and proceeded over to the airport. I went through security and arrived at my gate well in advance of the recommended one hour. I had some time to kill so I bought a cup of coffee and sat down to read the paper.

A Senseless Tragedy

Then it hit me. In the paper there was a report of a terrible auto accident from the previous evening. It had involved some teens who had attended a Prom Party! It sounded like the killed and injured young people might have come from the party that I had witnessed the night before. I was shocked. The sketchy report in the paper did not have much information but it hit me that I might have seen some kids at my hotel the night before who did not survive the night.

When I arrived home later I did some online checks and, in fact, confirmed my horror to find that the young people involved in the fatal crash were from the party I had witnessed!

I called the Manager of the Hotel to offer my willingness to testify as to what I saw the previous evening. He thanked me for identifying myself, but I was never called. I lost track of the tragic event because it totally disappeared from the news within a day or two. (I do not include details here out of defference to the families of those young people.)

There is help!

Ironically, at that time Tom Heatherington, our CEO/CTO of Parenting with Dignity, and his wife, Lori, had begun work on an online book on how to plan and conduct an After Prom Party that would totally avoid that type of tragedy. Their book is now available! It is an online download and you can have today! It is titled the After Prom Party Guide.

If you are associated with a High School that has a prom or if you have children who are "Prom-Age" this book is a must read. During my years as a teacher I was involved directly in planning may Proms and associated parties. I wish we had this book! As the end of the school year approaches, many communities plan and put on "Senior Parties" for the graduates on their graduation night and this book will work equally well in helping your community to plan and put on one of the coolest, and most fun and memeorable parties for the young people of your community! And... the bottom line is that it will be a safe and sane party that will not end tragically like the one I witnessed. Read more about this remarkable new resource for parents, schools, PTA/PTOs.

PS: One of the things Tom and Lori are trying to do is get the word out to as many people as possible. They have created a website called "Life Saving Virus". Won't you help them create awareness by spreading this viral message? See www.LifeSavingVirus.com/

Quality Time?

2007-02-15T08:33:00.000-07:00

There is a term that I hear bantered about these days as I travel the country teaching parenting skills. It is the term “Quality Time”. Many parents tell me that they spend quality time with their children… to which I always say, “Bull-oney!”

T_I_M_E !

In raising children, there is TIME… period. No human being holds the power to turn on the switch for “quality” time! I could not come up to you and grab your arm, pull you aside and demand that right now you and I are going to have quality time! And… it is not possible to do that with children either!

Children spell love T-I-M-E!

When dealing with a child there is just plain old time. This is really a simple concept to understand. Time. As a parent you give minutes that turn into hours, hours that turn into days, days that turn into weeks, and weeks that turn into months, and months that turn into years! But, there is just time. As a parent YOU must decide how much of it you will spend with your children!

As a parent, you must give time to your children. Then, I will grant you that some of it will be of more significant “quality” than other bits of time. But just remember that you can never recapture time. Once it is past you cannot go back and reclaim it. Time passes and no person can turn it back. If you decide to take spend an hour away from your children… you will never get it back.

I would be willing to bet that Andy Reid, the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, wishes he could turn back the clock today to reclaim some time needed to teach his two boys how to make the critical decisions about the use of drugs and how those drugs will certainly ruin their lives!

Now, please do not get me wrong here, I was privileged to personally meet Andy Reid three years ago at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. I found him to be a very cordial and likeable man. He seemed to be humble and easy to talk to. We were on the decks of a battleship in Pearl Harbor for a party for the players, coaches, and families of the Pro Bowl participants. It was a nice opportunity for me to get to know a fellow who I have seen on TV many times. I was a football coach for thirty years and it was fun to meet one of the best coaches in the NFL. However, on that evening, I must admit that I wondered where Andy’s children were. Perhaps if he had been with his children rather than talking with me he might have had the time needed.

Not Sitting in Judgement

Now, I am not pointing my finger at that Coach Reid. I am not qualified to judge any person. But, he seemed like such a man of principle, so I do wonder if he might be regretting some of the time he has not spent with his children as he looks back today. His two boys may have made terrible decisions even if Andy had spent more time with them, but he will never know. Time might not have helped to avoid the mess that they find themselves in today but then again it just might. Perhaps in one of those hours he spent away from his children he might have been able to offer an idea about making that critical decision.

Strong Fathers

I have watched the job of being one of the key figures in the NFL pull many fathers away from their children. I have also watched other men stand up to that pressure by demanding the right to take time for their children. I have closely watched our son balance the role of being a father with the rigors and time commitments of the demanding role of an NFL quarterback. I have watched him stand up to the demands and say, “there are some times that this job comes in a distant second in my life. My Family comes first.” The NFL often does not seem to like to hear that, but in the role of Father, many men need to make that statement!

Being a Father requires time. It cannot be divided time. It must be time spent with their children on a daily basis. With huge pressures being exerted by big jobs, it is the strong man who can stand up and say, “This is my time with my family!”

There was a day at a Dallas Cowboys game a year ago when the game was over and our son Drew had left the locker room to come meet his family up in one of the booths at Texas Stadium. That was time he gave to his children after every game. Right in the middle of the most demanding hours of his job, he would always come up, get his kids and then go down to the field and throw passes to his own children on the game field. This was his time, on every game day, for him to spend with his children right in the midst of the crush of the NFL demands. I watched as some fans pushed their way into the booth, pushed his children out of the way, and crowded around Drew demanding autographs. I was amazed at how calmly Drew asked those people to leave and respect his time with his own children. He was not rude, but he very carefully pulled his children around him and asked the fans politely to leave and let him spend time with his own children. I watched as the fans became angry and called our son some unflattering names, but I also watched as he unwaveringly stood his ground on behalf of his children. I watched as his children’s eyes looked up at their strong father. I heard them as they laughed with their Dad as they ran to catch passes from him moments later down on the field. Their Dad was spending time with his kids! It is not too hard to understand why he is able to teach his children at other times. He has earned their respect with his time!

I would also be willing to bet that Tony Dungy, the Super Bowl winning coach of the Colts, would gladly give back some of his time spent at the office, if it would bring his son back! Tony Dungy seems to be a great man. Hisson seemed to have some problems that transcended his father's involvement with him. Again, I cannot say whether more time would have changed the outcome for Caoch dungy and his son, but we will never know!

I think it was admirable that Coach Dungy did not bring his team to Miami for Super Bowl until Monday, saying that he felt his team needed to be with their families on Sunday. He seems to realize thevalue of family time. He showed great courage in the face of the great pressure of the “Biggest Game of the Year”. I just wish that more Fathers would take those kinds of stands on behalf of their children.

Juggling Demands

As a Dad it may be difficult to juggle the demands of a job with the responsibilities of being a Father. That is why our Parenting with Dignity program spends two full hours of our nine week course on the topic of “Deciding what You Want”! The decision to spend time with your children must be made well ahead of time, or you can find yourself in the difficult situation of spending too much time away from your children almost by accident!

Time Requires a Commitment

Armed with a firm commitment that you will spend time with your children, the decision becomes quite easy. Just remember that the ideas in your head will rule your world! Pick the idea that “I spend lots of time with my children” and the decision becomes easy. You already made the decision when you chose that idea to rule your world!

Michigan Fatherhood Coalition 5th Annual Fatherhood Conference

2007-02-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

An Uplifting Experience

On Tuesday the 6th of February I was privileged to attend the 5th Annual Fatherhood Conference for the State of Michigan put on by the Michigan Fatherhood Coalition in conjunction with the Michigan Head Start Association and let me tell you that there were some things that took place there that the rest of the America could learn from!

Overcoming the Obstacles with Dedication and Preparation

First of all, the conference took place on a date that saw most of the Detroit area schools closed because of the extremely cold (-20) temperatures and yet the room was completely full of people who came seeking to make Fathers a more significant part of families all across Michigan! The fact that so many people braved the weather to attend the conference in itself was quite amazing because it showed the depth of the commitment of the people of Michigan. This conference was also a testament to the Head Start Communications and Meeting Coordinator, Jennifer Nottingham, and her extremely well planned and promoted conference!

People from All Over Michigan

Next, the conference brought together people from all over the state of Michigan as was evidenced when they began to give out some awards and do some drawings for door prizes… the most heated interchange came when they were attempting to give away some money for lunch to the participant who traveled the longest distance to attend to attend the conference. It became obvious that MANY of the attendants came from long distances to get to the conference! This wonderful and extremely educational conference truly was a meeting that reached out to people from all parts of the state and not just the Detroit Area, where the conference was held.

Men!

The next thing that hit me was the ratio of men to women at the conference. It would be my rough estimate that there were three times as many men at the conference as there were women! “Now, what is odd about this?” you might ask. Since the conference was called a “Fathering Conference”, why is it odd to have men there? Well, I have some experience with conferences of this nature and it has been my experience that often the conferences held on Fatherhood are often populated by female workers who are trying to get men involved.

OBVIOUSLY, the State of Michigan has already reached the fathers! Yes, there many female Head Start Counselors and Social Workers in attendance, as well they should be, but it was so gratifying to see that those Head Start Workers, regardless of gender, had already reached so many fathers and had included them in the conference.

A few years ago I attended the New York State Child Abuse Conference and there was not one person out of the eight hundred in attendance, who had any history of child abuse! The conference was attended only by the people attempting to solve the problem and that struck me as odd. Should the conference not attract at least some of the people that they were attempting to reach?

An Impressive Conference

Suffice it to say that I was impressed that the Fatherhood Conference had attracted many fathers and it was my impression that those men in attendance were learning the tools that they needed to become leaders and activists on their own behalf!

Michigan Fatherhood Coalition

Next, and along the same line of reasoning, the Co-Sponsor of the Conference was a group called Michigan Fatherhood Coalition. Now, let me tell you, that group was unique in my experience. I don’t know any way to say this other that to just share my personal experience as I travel and meet people from all parts of America. Unfortunately, it has been my personal experience that most of the fathering groups that I have come in contact with have had some kind of a chip on their shoulder.

Many of the fathering groups that I have come in contact with, have had as their goal a change in the child custody laws of America. This change may need to to take place and many of the agencies have some very good, and sound reasons for seeking those changes, but the Michigan Fatherhood Coalition seemed so different to me. As I met the men at this conference it seemed that they were there simply to learn how to become better fathers!

It became even more obvious to me what the Michigan Fatherhood Coalition was all about when I met with a group of their Board of Directors and members following the conference. While they too might see the need for some changes in father’s rights in custody cases, that was certainly not their main focus! These men have formed their Coalition for the purpose of reestablishing the role of the strong father in the American home! Man, was that exciting for me to see! Strong men standing up and saying that they want to be leaders in teaching all fathers how to be strong leaders for their children! WOW!

A Learning Experience!

I was invited to attend the conference as a keynote speaker... and I left feeling like I had learned a great deal from a bunch of strong men! I had come in contact with a bunch of strong fathers building positive change for the children of Michigan.

I left with an overwhelming observation… “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every state in the country had a Fatherhood Coalition of strong dads, just like Michigan, who were working to bring strong fathers back into every home in America?”

We Can Teach Our Children

2007-02-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

Examining What Works

A little examination of two behaviors, which are learned almost universally by all Americans, reveals some shocking information about the effectiveness of some of the teaching techniques that we choose to use to educate our children.

In the last six months I have been conducting a little informal survey as I travel across America, and it has yielded some very interesting and very thought provoking data. I hope that sharing this information with you might stimulate some serious thought about what you choose to teach your children and especially some thought about some of the techniques that we all use in teaching life's important lessons to the next generation.

During this six month time period I have asked literally tens of thousands of Americans if they know how to ride a bicycle and I have found only seven people whom cannot ride a bike! We have universally taught almost 100% of all Americans to ride bikes.

I have also asked that same large sample of Americans if they wrapped presents at Christmas and gave them to loved ones, and I have found only thirteen men and seven women whom did not perform that loving task! (And it was not because they did not know how, but rather because they had decided not to for moral or religious reasons.)

Looking at Learned Behaviors

Honesty, Integrity, Diligence?

So, you say, “what has amazed you about this data?” Simply this… bike-riding and present-wrapping-at-Christmas are both learned behaviors! You are probably still saying, "so what?" Well, it appears to us that we, as a society, are doing a masterful job of teaching both of those behaviors with almost total universality! We have succeeded in teaching almost everyone in America to ride bikes and wrap presents at Christmas! And yet, we have left other, seemingly much more critical behaviors like honesty, integrity, teamwork, compassion, reliability, respect for private property, respect for diversity, diligence, love, manners, and many other critical behaviors, to be taught much less universally and much less effectively!

It has occurred to us that it might be interesting to examine both of those behaviors (bike-riding and present-wrapping) to see why we are so successful in teaching those activities. And, more importantly, perhaps we could learn a little bit more about being more successful at teaching life's more critical lessons.

Why Do We Succeed in Teaching?

How do we teach kids to ride bikes? They do not learn to ride bikes by reading a manual. They do not learn to ride a bike by listening to us talk about how to do it. And, they surely do not learn to ride a bike by watching us do it! Kids learn to ride bikes when we put them on the seat, put the handlebars in their hands, and turn them loose! They learn by experience! And, maybe even more important, they want to learn because we paint such an exciting picture of how great it will be when they master the fun activity.

How Do We Succeed When the First Attempt Fails?

And what do we do when they tip over or fall down? We pick them up, dust them off, give them encouragement and instruction and then we put them right back on the seat, give them an “I know you can do it this time!” then give them a shove to try again. Sometimes we might give them some training wheels or run along beside them to offer occasional assistance but the learning comes because they are on the seat with the handlebars in their hands.

How well do you think that kids would do at learning to ride bikes, if the first time they fell off we ran to them, scolded them for falling off, and then told them how disappointed we were with their failure, took the bike away, grounded them for three weeks, and sent them to their rooms to think about how to ride a bike. Do you think that technique would bring about a society with only a few people in thousands who cannot ride bikes? I sincerely doubt it.

Let's Learn From What Works!

Why, then, do we think that we can teach responsibility by scolding kids, grounding them and taking away further chances for being responsible and sending them to their room? Shouldn't we "put 'em back on the seat?" Should we not "pick them up, dust them off, give them some encouragement and instruction in responsibility and then, as soon as possible, give them another chance to be responsible?"

Should not a child who has acted cruelly to another child be given instruction in kindness, encouragement that we believe in their kind nature, and then, immediately be given another opportunity to be kind?

How Do We Motivate Children To Learn?

Now, let's take a quick look at present-wrapping and gift exchanging at Christmas. Why are we so successful at teaching this rather complex and wonderful act of love, kindness, joy, and sharing? We succeed at this task for many of the same reasons that we succeed in teaching kids to ride bikes… we let kids learn by experience. Even before they are old enough to understand much about what is happening to them, we begin letting them experientially know about gifts by giving them some. We continue to let them have experience by giving them gifts every year and then as soon as possible we let them experience the thrill of giving from the other side of the coin by helping them to wrap gifts for others. On top of all that experience, we make present-wrapping into a huge pageant of excitement. We start counting down the days until the big day… "Only 72 shopping days left." Our whole society talks, with excitement and anticipation, about the Christmas Spirit and the magic of the upcoming event. And, SURPRISE, they all end up gladly participating in the behavior every year.

Let's Spend Time on Teaching Things That Matter!

What if we, as a total society, were to celebrate ethnic diversity with the same degree of joy, ceremony, anticipation, and enthusiasm as we assign to giving gifts at Christmas? Interesting to ponder what might happen in the next generation.

We believe that a simple adjustment in priorities by our society might bring about some amazing and welcome changes in the behavior of the youth in America. (Hey, it might even bring some welcome changes in adult behaviors.) I believe that we as parents, and as a society as a whole, can do this if we choose to, but to make the change, communities like yours all across this great land must commit to it. What behaviors would you like to see being taught universally in your community?

Bullying Is a Huge Problem!

2007-01-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

If my volume of e-mail is any indication, BULLYING is one of the most pressing issues facing parents of school-age children, so please do not feel that you are alone in your worries if you are facing problems with bullying.

Bullying; A Critical Problem

I also want you to know that I view any bullying situation as a critical issue in the healthy development of any child!

Now what should you do if your child is facing a problem with bullying; either by doing some bullying, or by being bullied?

Bullying Cannot Be Solved in Just One Home!

It Takes a Community Effort

Asking your son or daughter to try to fix or stop this bullying behaviour would be futile; just about as futile as it would be for me to ask you, as one lone parent, to attempt to fix this huge problem!

Societal Problems NEED Societal Solutions

As I see it, this problem will never be fixed if each family attempts to make the change all alone! Asking you, as one parent, to do something, in your home, with your lone child would be foolish. Attempting to combat a huge societal problem like bullying would be as silly as Martin Luther King trying to do away with racial prejudice by talking to his son in his kitchen!

Do you see my point? Bullying is not a problem of just one child, or just one family. Even though your child may be a victim, we all must attack the big problem at it's source. Bullying is far bigger than you, your child or your family!

Bullying Is a Huge Problem Involving Many People!

This is a huge societal problem! It needs a societal solution! Now, don't think for a minute that I am telling you to throw up your hands in helplessness... because I am not!!

Here Is a Solution That Might really Work!

What I am telling you is that you need to get started in helping to CREATE THE COMMUNITY THAT IS RAISING YOUR CHILDREN! Do not accept what is going on! But, rather, change it by taking positive action! Just like we teach you in Rule #1 in our curriculum: figure out what you want your community to be like and start building it that way, with a group of families.

How might you do this? It's simple, get a copy of our Parenting with Dignity Curriculum and start a parenting class!

A Simple Concept

This is a very simple concept to understand. It is so much easier for you to teach the use of a simple word like "please" to your own children, if every home they visit uses that word in a similar way! Your child will use PLEASE because everyone else uses it!

By the same token, it is so much simpler to expect your child to make good choices with regard to drugs, if lots of other children do likewise!

It is so much simpler for you to expect your child to behave appropriately while on a date to the Prom, if he is dating a young lady who has been taught the same appropriate dating behavior!

Protecting Children from Bullying Can Be Simple

And... It is so much easier to protect your children from bullying if they are going to a school and interacting with other children who have also been taught to respect the rights and feelings of others!

This Sounds Difficult... But It Really Is Not!

"How do you get there?" you ask. Well, it is pretty simple... you must open a discussion with other parents! A parenting with Dignity Class does exactly that! Parenting with Dignity classes stimulate discussions about what you all wish to teach your children in your community! You must come to some agreement about what all of you are going to teach your children.

You cannot leave this to chance! Leaving it to chance is probably already resulting in Bullying! You must take positive action to create a positive community where children grow up respecting each other!

Please subscribe to this blog and I promise that I will do a series of future articles about how to set up and effectively run a Parenting with Dignity class.

Kidnapped Part 4 Follow-Up

2007-01-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

Alert... New Information

Boy's Body Found

It is necessary for me to follow up on the article about the boy in our neighborhood who disappeared. I am sorry to have included this incident as part of an article on kidnapping because it turns out that this case was not one of kidnapping or abduction as it was originally thought. Unfortunately, this boy's body was found Friday. It now appears that he had drowned in a septic tank only 25 feet from where he was last seen. Details are sketchy at this point.