Chapter Four

The Seven Bad Habits of Parenting

As you have learned in Chapter Three, and most likely have experienced, it is difficult to balance the two roles of disciplinarian and friend. Since I’m on a roll in challenging your thinking about parenting, let’s explore the seven bad habits of parenting. You know, the seven guaranteed ways to undermine your own parental authority. The seven quick steps of assuring that you will lose the respect and control of your children; consequently, you end up living in misery for the next two decades of your life until your children are grown and gone.

1. Talking Too Much (i.e nagging, lecturing, etc.).

Have you ever watched a Charlie Brown cartoon? Do you remember the classroom scenes where the teacher talks nonstop? “Wha wha wha, wha wha wha wha. Wha wha wha wha, wha wha wha wha.” As the teacher goes on and on and on and on and on, the Peanuts characters tune her out. Her lesson is going in one ear and out the other. Sound familiar?

It is absolutely amazing how quickly we, as parents, forget the important lessons from our own childhood experiences. Whenever one of my parents went into a lecture mode, within two minutes, I would tune them out. I figured, like most kids, that most of the important stuff was said already and the rest of the words were emotional filler material so they could feel better. Now look at us! Here we are, taking the same silly approach with our children that our parents used with us, and their parents used with them, and their grandparents used with their parents. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle. A trans-generational curse. Stop the merry-go-round and let me off!

You can break free of the curse. You can decide right here and now to say what you need to say in only two or three sentences. Two paragraphs at the most. If your mouth can’t stop talking, go see someone for help. Your children are intelligent and can quickly understand what you are trying to convey. Treat them as such. Expect as much. You will be surprised at the compliance you will gain from your children by stopping your tour on the lecture circuit. They will be more apt to listen to you the next time you have something to say to them.

2. Tirades and Temper Tantrums.

When was the last time you were the recipient of someone’s tirade? I mean a good, old fashioned, in your face, red skinned, bulging jugular veins, bugged out eyes, ear drum piercing tirade, all just for your listening pleasure. Didn’t you just love it? Secretly wishing you could experience a similar tirade on a daily basis? Didn’t it make you feel loved unconditionally? No!!! It didn’t!!! So why are you doing it with your children? What do you think you’re going to accomplish by these angry outbursts besides having your children disrespect you, fear your presence, and think and see less of you when they are adults? While disciplining your child, never ever yell, scream, belittle, or cuss at them. You just simply don’t do it.

When I was growing up, my father tried to teach me how to repair car engines and how to build various projects in the backyard. Initially, I liked being with my father. What kid doesn’t? The demands of being an Oregon State Trooper kept my father away from home, so when he was home, I loved spending time with him. However, I quickly grew tired of trying to be his student because he would get mad so easily about insignificant issues. Accidentally, I would hand him the wrong tool from time to time. He would yell, “If your head wasn’t screwed on, you’d lose it!” Sometimes he would say, “If you had brains, you’d be dangerous!” Of course, there were the customary swear words and other put downs that always made those learning times memorable. Please don’t get me wrong, I love my father and I still love to spend time with him; however, he now realizes that what he did with his anger toward us kids while we were growing up was way out of line. He has since apologized profusely. I accepted his apologies, forgave him, and our relationship is healed.

When you are disciplining your child, you ought to treat the situation as if you are conducting business. Pretend you are a Wal-Mart cashier standing behind a counter and Mr. Rude of America comes up to you and let’s you have it verbally. As much as you probably want to, you don’t punch him between the eyes or rip out his heart quick enough so he has a chance to watch it pump before he falls on the floor. Instead, you calmly listen to the customer and try to remedy the situation. Once again, when you are disciplining your child, pretend they are the customer and you are the Wal-Mart cashier. Treat them politely and with respect. Get your point across without demeaning them and use as few words as possible.

I’m serious about this: if you can’t get a handle on controlling your anger, then maybe you need to see a counselor in your community for anger management. Perhaps you need to be evaluated by a psychologist or psychiatrist for depression or a bipolar disorder (i.e., manic depressive disorder) or adult ADHD. Don’t be too proud. If you have tried and tried to manage your own impulsive anger without success, then seek professional help. You are worth it, your spouse is worth it, and so are your children. It’s better to work on resolving your problems now than to wait to say you’re sorry later. How you treat your children today will have a strong impact on how they treat your grandchildren in the future.

3. Tears (i.e., sadness and guilt trips).

I’m not trying to be a sexist here, but the reality is that moms usually transgress in this department more often than dads do. When you feel like you have tried everything under the sun to get your children to cooperate and succeed in life, it’s easy to become frustrated with them. Sometimes the frustration can feel so overwhelming that it can lead a parent to tears. While crying, and sometimes emotionally despondent, some mothers attempt to guilt trip their children into compliance. As a result, your children perceive you as weak and ineffective. They will not obey a whiny sniveling sibling. You just successfully undermined your own parental authority. Never ever let your children see you as a broken down victim of their manipulation and disobedience. Rather, muster up enough strength, courage, and wisdom to save your tears for a private moment or leave your home and visit with a friend, counselor, or clergy person. Like Connie, the single parent, in Chapter One, you must develop a parental backbone of steel instead of a wet spaghetti noodle. “I can’t do it,” is unacceptable. If Connie could do it, any mom can. You may need the assistance of a counselor or friend.

4. Terror (i.e., threats of violence).

When I was a young adolescent, my father more or less reminded me that he was an Oregon State Trooper and that if I ever did anything illegal, he would kill me and throw my rotting corpse in jail. This was the same Oregon State Trooper and father who arrested Santa Claus for trespassing and shot Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on Christmas Eve in 1965. He told me that when I was four years old and I believed him. The stern look on his face when he warned me as an adolescent convinced me to never drink, do drugs, smoke, chew, or hang with those kids who do. Nevertheless, although his threats of violence were effective, they were also very inappropriate. There is a major difference between firm discipline with appropriate consequences versus physically threatening your child. Don’t ever physically threaten your child. It’s definitely not good for their psychological well being or good for relationship building.

5. Inconsistency (i.e., within and between parents).

Remember “the two ‘C’ words” mentioned in the beginning of this book (i.e., “correct and consistent” implementation of FAMILY Rules)? Consistency is the crucial ingredient in being a successful parent. If you are unwilling to be consistent as a parent, hang it up. In reality, most of us would like to hang it up occasionally. We love our kids. We could just use an occasional vacation from them every now and then.

Parents need to consistently implement discipline in their home regardless of their mood or energy level. I don’t care how hard your day was at work, if your child needs discipline, then do your job. I don’t care how emotionally or physically exhausted you are, if your child needs discipline then do your job. However, never discipline in anger. If necessary, take a time out so you can discipline with a calm and rational approach.

All adults prefer consistently fair treatment from their employers. In return, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Be consistent with your kids. Consistently give them rewards when they choose to do right and consistently nail them to the proverbial wall when they choose to do wrong. Children really appreciate consistency and structure.

Dads and moms, it’s very important that you are consistent not only within yourself but also between one another, even if you’re divorced.  You can’t have dad saying, “No”, while mom is saying, “Yes.” You can’t have dad restricting a child from the TV for a day, while mom grounds the child for a week for the same offense. This creates confusion for the children and conflict between the parents. It also sets dad and mom up to be manipulated by their kids. Under these circumstances, children learn to go to dad for some things, and to mom for other things. A house divided will not stand.

According to all the parents I have talked to who choose to implement FAMILY Rules in a correct and consistent manner in and outside of their home, the conflict of division between dad and mom has been eliminated. The conflict is eliminated because the rules, chores, rewards, and consequences are predetermined and written down by both parents. If FAMILY Rules is correctly and consistently implemented by both parents, there will be nothing to argue about concerning discipline. Parents really like it but some children are disappointed because they can’t manipulate their parents anymore. Too bad, so sad.

6. Disagreeing about Discipline in front of the Children.

You must never allow your children to see you and your spouse openly disagree about how to discipline them. These discussions are reserved for private settings only (i.e., the parents’ bedroom, a long walk or drive, etc.). When you have one parent displaying open disrespect for the other parent’s authority in front of the kids, you might as well declare open season on that parent. Like sharks, the children will smell the blood in the water and move in for the kill every time. The good news is that FAMILY Rules helps to eliminate this problem and you will learn how in Part II of this book.

7. Treating your Children like They are Slaves (i.e., lack of reciprocity).

Lack of reciprocity in parent-child relationships creates major resentments among children. When parents demand much, but give little, insurrections can occur. Parents who are insensitive to their children’s perception of fairness and credibility are asking for trouble. Although respect comes with the position of being a parent, you must behave appropriately to preserve the respect you desire from your children.

An example of this is the office of the President of the United States of America. In the minds of most U.S. citizens, respect for the office of the President is automatic. The office of the President is a national institution. If the President wants continued respect, he or she must continue to behave in a respectful manner. Otherwise, disgrace is brought to the office of the President, whether he or she is a Republican or Democrat.

A good parent learns to lead by serving. A successful parent is sensitive to the needs of their children and seeks to meet them. As a result, the parent will reap what is sown. This will greatly increase the odds of raising children who are also sensitive to the needs of others. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. Parents with a humble servant’s heart raise children who eventually realize the fact that the world is not centered around them. There are other people on the planet with needs, too.