Disciplining Children

What do you think of when you think of children? I am sure there is a ton of things that come to mind. Funny, cute, and mischievous are some that I think of. Maybe even messy or little helpers. Children can be a ton of fun but they are also a lot of work. Many of us have warm feeling when we see a young child though. They may even ring back fond memories of you as a young kid. Now I want you to think of teenagers… I don’t know about you but I don’t think back to my teenage years that think man I really miss being a hormonal and emotional unusable person who felt like an adult but still had kid rules. The teenage years are full of many crazy things some good some not so good. I know I made a lot of good friends in this time and had a lot of fun finding my new independence. On the opposite side though, there was a lot of peer pressure to do things I had been taught were wrong. I also felt the struggle of trying to be my own person under the roof of my parents’ home where I still had a curfew and felt like I was trapped. I remember not understanding a lot of my parent’s rules because I thought they were for kids and I saw many of my friends push against their parents and do some stupid stuff.

Wither we like it or not someday our children will have to go through this hard time as well and as parents we have an important responsibility. Dr. Michel Popkin is the creator for the program called active parenting and he gives a purpose for parenting that helps us understand what we need to do to successfully help our children. He says that the purpose for parenting is to prepare children to survive and thrive in the world they are going to live in. sometimes we think we are doing our children a favor by letting them do whatever they want because it is what makes them happy or what avoids conflict but this is not guiding or preparing our children to thrive or even survive. so how can we help guide and discipline our children?

When it comes to a problem in a home there is a model the popkin uses that he calls the problem-handling-model. This model is designed to help us handle (not necessarily solve) problem when they arise with our children. The first thing we have to identify in this model is who own the problem. To find this out you ask a few simple questions. Who is it affecting and who is complaining about it? If it is our Childs problem, say they didn’t do their laundry so they will have dirty cloths for school the next day, it is importance to help our children and especially our teens learn from the natural consequences of the event. The exception is when it is too dangerous, like our kids doing drugs. If the consequence is to far in the future to matter, letting your kid drop out of school. Or if it harms other people, like shoplifting. Now if it is the parents’ problem EX. You kid is not doing dishes there is steps you take to help. It is important that if it is not something really big not to skip over things. 1 make a polite request for them to start or stop something. 2 you use an “I” statement saying something like, when the dishes are not done I feel stressed out because I either have to eat off dirty dishes or clean all the dishes by myself I would like for you to clean up your dishes after you eat. If that doesn’t work 3 you use a firm statement. Note that this is not a lecture it is just a firm but kind reminder. If all of this does not work you need to talk with your child and set up logical consequences that are linked to the problem. An example of this is if a child is coming home late you will pick them up next time. You can learn more about this if you look up popkins active parenting. It could make all the difference with your child.