The Parenting Experts at Great Parenting 101 often refer to the old saying, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Today, this adage too often applies to parents struggling with teens.
Baffled by unruly kids who can’t be reined in, many parents may find themselves seeking help in nearly every corner– doctors, therapists, consultants, clergy, and even celebrity nannies — with the hope of finding a course of action that will fix their problems and take away their family’s pain.
There is hope say parenting and education experts Laura and Malcolm Gauld.They offer some helpful guidelines that, if applied regularly, can guide parents as they raise their children:
1. PARENTS: KNOW THE JOB
Don’t seek to be your child’s friend. This is a tough one, because we all want good relationships with our children. But the goal of parenthood is not to be liked, it is to raise good, decent adults and prepare them well for life. If you do the hard work early on, it will pay off tenfold later in the form of a healthy relationship with your child.
“Parents may be seeking friendship with their children,” says Laura. “If that friendship doesn’t happen, parents may blame themselves and retreat into work. Years go by, nothing changes, and people lament in silence.”
2. TREAT YOUR CHILD LIKE A WORK-IN-PROGRESS – NOT LIKE A PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED
“The fact is many of us think if we could just fix the problem – our child’s acting out, bad behavior –- we could go along in life just fine,” says Laura. “But there is no quick fix.”
“When parents stop focusing solely on their children as ‘the problem’ and start focusing on their own attitudes,” says Malcolm, “members of the family begin to shift and opportunities for family growth present themselves.”
3. DON’T WAIT TO ADDRESS ISSUES WITH YOUR TEEN
“Most parents have difficulty asking for help and wait until things get out of control,” says Laura. “Lowering the bar ever so gradually, they are unaware that they are also lowering their expectations of their children. This waiting and lowering of expectations adds to the problem and interferes with our children’s ability to respond and reach their potential.”
4. MODEL DAILY CHARACTER
To be an example to their children, parents need to model daily character. If we want our children to be honest, authentic people who make positive choices, we need to do the same. Parents need to parent from principles rather than from their emotions — either those tied to their children or their own needs. Through modeling principles daily and showing children how our actions speak louder than our words, parents can show their children how they can reach for their best.
“We don’t reach our children with our stoic facades, or with our rules,” says Laura. “We connect to them by sharing our struggles, our vulnerability, our similar experiences and stories from childhood, warts and all. We inspire them when we are real people.”
For more info, please visit Great Parenting 101!
