Nurture Your Child’s Emotional Resilience
The following sentiment has become the mantra for all good parenting and every interested parent has made this statement, or something like it, in the process of raising their kids:
I want my children to have a better life than I had.
And one of the ways parents help their children attain a better life is to help them avoid all the mistakes they made themselves. They assume that “mistake free” is equivalent to better. On the surface it sounds smart. Inwardly it feels good.
The reality, however, is that children managed by this rule are not better off. Instead of being better at life they are emotionally inhibited, stunted, crippled or lacking sensibility. Which means guarding them against disheartening moments might do more harm than good. Like many responses to charitable needs, the protective approach to parenting is a short term, knee jerk response which creates long term damage.
We feel better after force-guiding our children around every tripping point but does this make them better at managing life or just more managed? Over-navigating a child’s life might save them from some immediate “toe stubbing” but can it encourage them to develop the watchfulness and maneuverability to avoid future crashes or manage them well if they can’t?
The truth is, the one thing children will not always have is a watchful parent warning them and steering them away from every life sapping experience. And the one lesson every child needs to learn is how to accept and manage their mistakes well.
Parents earned their wisdom through hard knocks. It made them stronger and smarter and they shouldn’t rob their children of the same opportunity. Second hand wisdom isn’t easy to swallow and every wise person knows that… Read more
Young Children And TV Don’t Mix – John Rosemond
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Chapter Review – Television, Computers and Video Games
John definitely saves the best for last in The New Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children
This final chapter is mostly about TV and John forthrightly says what most people already know but are afraid to admit.
…Watching television inhibits the development of initiative, curiosity, resourcefulness, creativity, motivation, imagination, reasoning and problem-solving abilities, communication skills, social skills, fine and gross motor skills, and eye-hand coordination.
And after saying this he implies other detriments could be named also.
Not a nice picture. No pun intended.
Even though John’s advice does not run parallel with the opinions of his peers he doesn’t shy away from saying what parents need to hear. No hinting or beating around the bush. He knows and readily admits that his advice runs counter to modern ideas about raising kids but while everyone stammers he speaks out.
In spite of his academic achievements, however, what he advises, he learned and proved in the laboratory of family life as a child, a parent and a counselor.
So his advice is qualified by many levels of experience and academic studies.
In this last chapter John focuses on the problems TV causes, particularly in the life of developing preschoolers, and he draws from his own experience to make his point.
His son, Eric, was failing the third grade and as it turned out television was a major contributor to the problem.
Eric was struggling to complete in-class assignments and John and his wife, Willie, were exhausted with pushing and prodding him to finish the tasks at home. The stalemate was broken when Eric’s teacher informed them – only half way through the year – that Eric would not be promoted to fourth grade.
Up to that point John had faithfully applied the popular principles of psychology for raising children. Following that meeting, however, things changed.
John’s wife, Willie, had a heart to heart with John about changing their parenting ways. They both agreed that they hadn’t turned out badly so maybe their parents weren’t that wrong after all. Together, they devised a new approach which John describes as:
A benevolent dictatorship, the antithesis of the parenting that was popular at the time. We began telling Eric and Amy what we wanted them to do instead of asking, pleading, bargaining, bribing, reasoning, and explaining – i.e., wishing. We embraced a zero-tolerance policy concerning disobedience. If one of them disobeyed, we punished instead of talked.
And probably the most dramatic change they made was the suspension of TV viewing. They didn’t just stop watching TV, they gave theirs away.
The end result was nothing short of remarkable. In John’s words: Read more
“Toys And Play” by John Rosemond
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Chapter Review – “Toys And Play”
Parents have been duped into thinking that giving their children “things,” otherwise known as toys, along with little or no responsibility is the right parenting approach to take.
But in The New Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children
John tells the story of a set of parents who, after secretly watching their child play with a large marking pen, morphing it into a rocket ship, an alien and a ray gun in just a matter of minutes, decided to buy him a replica of a space shuttle for Christmas.
In their minds that was the perfect toy.
However, three weeks after getting this marvelous toy he was bored.
It had every bell and whistle. All the design features were visible. But it was an untouchable.
The joy of playing with it was diminished by the fear of breaking it. This toy like many others is more ornamental than practical. No functionality.
It had a very limited use and could stimulate only a very short interest span.
The only way an exact replica of a space shuttle can be anything other than an exact replica of a space shuttle is to break it. Actually, that could be said about any exact replica of anything.
And most kids are afraid to break these toys, not because they love them so much but because the parents do. These toys usually cost a bundle so any breakage draws immediate disapproval. Besides, like museum pieces, these toys are hard to embrace anyway.
For these reasons John suggests that childhood as it was intended to be has come perilously close to an end. Read more
“Frustrate Your Children” John Rosemond
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Chapter Review “The Fruits of Frustration”
Ever since the middle of the 20th century experts have been suggesting that frustration is bad for kids. But in The New Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children
- Frustration is a normal and accepted reality of adult life.
- Frustration forces the growth of qualities such as resourcefulness.
- Frustration is managed best by perseverance, the most appealing, endearing and inspiring element of every success story.
Because frustration is the gateway, not the barrier, to these great qualities and cannot be avoided anyway, John says
Parents are “obligated” to frustrate their children.
And that frustration is best provoked through the use of what he calls “vitamin N,” the “no” word!
A good definition of frustration might be:
Wanting things you cannot easily or readily obtain, things that require patience to reach and knowledge you don’t already have. It is frustrating to wait for something you would like to have now. It is also frustrating to work toward a goal but finding yourself moving in a completely different direction or making progress so slowly it feels like you are going nowhere. But this is common to us all.
To illustrate his point, John encourages adults to unabashedly write out a list of everything they would like to have or experience in the next five years, leaving nothing out. Not just things you can afford or have the ability to obtain but things that appeal to your fancy whether you could afford them or not, qualified or not.
Reflecting on the list afterwards reveals that only 10 to 20 percent would be realistically reachable, unless a participant doesn’t want much.
That, however, is exactly how children make their list of “wants” but in their case 75% of the list is probably going to be realized due to the generosity of parents, grandparents, other extended family members and friends.
The point? A child’s desire is not frustrated often and that leaves them very unprepared for real life as adults. Read more
“Roots of Responsibility” by John Rosemond
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Chapter Review – “Roots of Responsibility”
In The New Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children
But before we get into the meat of this chapter the following ideas define the character of a responsible person.
A responsible person:
- Doesn’t allow feelings to control their actions.
They do what they should do even when they don’t feel like it, at least most of the time.
- Can be trusted to make only the commitments they can reliably fulfill and to keep those commitments once made.
In the words of Jesus, “let your yes’s be yes and your no’s be no.” (Matt. 5:37)
Children need to understand that a commitment is not really made until it is kept.
- Understands that the reward of responsible living is counterbalanced by consequence.
“Material reward” is not the only motivation. “Consequence” is a second and equally important issue.
There is no guarantee you will always be rewarded appropriately for being responsible but it is absolutely certain you will suffer consequences if you aren’t. And we all occasionally suffer the consequences of our failures to perform.
A person who isn’t sensitized to both the positives and negatives – rewards and consequences – doesn’t really understand what it means to accept responsibility.
Allowing children to face the consequences of their actions, instead of insulating them, conditions them to be reliable rather than flippant. They learn to derive pleasure from a job well done, as much by avoiding the consequence as they do from receiving the reward.
- Is pragmatic. They are focused on the result and don’t get hung up on methods.
Notable achievements are often accomplished through collaboration but it is rare that each participant agrees on how things should be done. There are many acceptable ways to accomplish the same task. One method may be better than another but as long as the goal is reached and nothing immoral is done, fine.
A responsible person is willing to hear other ideas and is more attached to the outcome than the methods used to reach it. We call that working smart and not just hard.
- Is reliable and supportive.
Reliable in the sense that whatever part they play in the overall scheme of things they personally own and diligently execute.
You don’t have to tell them to do something or constantly remind them to do it. They embrace their chores and once there chores are done, they will gladly assist others.
Children must learn to find things to do without being told.
Chores
John suggests that one of the best ways to mold children into responsible individuals is to give them age appropriate chores and he suggests five practical outcomes to prove his point: Read more
Tim Pepper - Beautiful Frustration