Where Do Parents Go Wrong?
A reader of ours brought a veritable treasure trove of information on parenting to our attention. Visiting the U.S. News & World Report web site for parenting articles hasn’t really entered my mind but when we got an e-mail from Whitney Akers from the said web site, I decided to take a look. What did I find? TONS of material for every parent out there!
I was particularly intrigued by an article by Nancy Schutte entitled Good Parents, Bad Results. I have seen this happen one time too many and even the thought of my children growing up to be imbalanced or maladjusted despite my best intentions scare me out of my wits! So where do parents go wrong? The article presents 8 scientific facts to help explain the problem. Let’s go over them together shall we?
Failure to set limits.
It would be hard to find a parent who doesn’t agree that setting and enforcing rules are an essential part of the job description. Yet faced with whining, pouting, and tantrums, many parents cave. “The limited time you have with your kids, you want to make it ideal for them,” says Forehand, a professor of psychology at the University of Vermont whose evidence-based program is outlined in his book. “As a result, we end up overindulging our kids.”
Oh boy, isn’t this true! We do have certain limits in our minds. We even tell our children about these limits. At the mall, for example, we say you can buy one new game for your Gameboy. Or, you can play in the arcade for 30 minutes. We KNOW that we are going to enforce these limits. Yet when those cute little eyes plead us for another game or just 30 more minutes, we find it easy to give in at times, don’t we?
The bottom line? Permissiveness does not really help our kids at all. We need to set limits and enforce them. Let’s look at the other areas in the next posts.
June 14th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I’ve seen a parent repeatedly brought to tears due to errant behaviour by her children. In my experience, it’s not the failure to set limits that causes the problem – it is the failure to ENFORCE those limits.
Failiing to chastise a child when they have overstepped the boundaries re-enforces bad behaviour – ultimately leading the parent to the brink and serving to upset the child. This pattern becomes cyclical.
Rules should be laid down – and they should be law.
June 14th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
That makes perfect sense. My neighbor’s kids completely ignore her because more often than not she doesn’t enforce it anyway. Why would they? Now I just have to work it into my own parenting.
Great blog!
June 16th, 2008 at 10:12 am
It is sad but true, isn’t it? Seeing parents try hard to make their children happy and seeing the children run over them…yeah, we need to ENFORCE limits and do it properly.
June 16th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Another problem is that these days (for whatever reason) parents have become more like friends of their children. They then find it hard when they have to discipline them. Not good for either party.