“Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them.” ~ Bill Ayers
Bill makes a good point, because the surest way to get a child to close the door on parental advice is to convey to them that you don’t like who they are. A child’s core is their central being, and that core craves unconditional love and acceptance. If a child gets that love and acceptance, he or she can open his or her mind to parental criticism and direction, because to do so doesn’t threaten the safety of their core being. On the other hand, if a child doesn’t experience unconditional love and acceptance, every piece of criticism and/or direction represents an existential threat to their whole being.
“Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?” ~ Jane Nelson
Somewhere on the road of life, many parents have forgotten what it felt like to be a child receiving punishment. Parents, frequently claim they’re doing their child a favor by meeting out severe punishment, but their severity prompts a different result. Excessive punishment doesn’t make a child behave better. It does, however, make the child better at hiding his or her misdeeds.
“What it's like to be a parent: It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do, but in exchange it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love.” ~ Nicholas Sparks, “The Wedding”
Ain’t that the truth! The number of bone-headed moves a child can make is limitless. If a parent conditions their love for their child on the number of mistakes a child makes, no child would ever have a chance at experiencing unconditional love.
“I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway... let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves.” ~ C. JoyBell C.
My daughter, Rachel drove herself to school a couple of weeks ago. The roads were icy and treacherous, and a part of me wanted to forbid her from driving the car, because I didn’t want her to get into a wreck and get hurt. She has a tendency to drive too fast, as a lot of kids do, and I worried about the increased risk of her rear-ending someone or sliding through an intersection after being unable to stop in time. Here’s the thing, though. How would she ever learn to drive on ice if I didn’t give her a chance to experience those conditions? How would she ever learn what is “driving too fast for conditions” if I didn’t allow her the chance to make that mistake? As difficult as it is for a parent, you’ve got to send your children out to experience life on their own terms.
“The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” ~ Oscar Wilde
Oscar wasn’t saying that we turn our kids into spoiled brats by giving them everything, but concentrating on their happiness in a loving manner does help them become better people. During the spring of 1998, my daughter, Abby and several of her classmates wanted to go to a “boy band” concert at the York Fairgrounds, but the tickets went on sale during a weekday at noon when the kids were in school. I stood in line at the fairgrounds for four hours that day, in the rain, to score tickets so six 12-year olds could scream at their boy-band heartthrobs. Whenever Abby talks about that concert, she always mentions my waiting in line, and I know how much happiness that brought to her. She didn’t have to earn my sacrifice; I just did it, and I think Abby is a better person today because I demonstrated that I was interested in her happiness.
“Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children's most primitive fears.” ~ Henry Cloud
If we expect thanks and words of appreciation from our children in order to motivate our actions as a parent, we’d never do anything good for our children. Narcissism is part and parcel of being a child, especially during the teenage years. It’s part of their protective shell. The only way of helping our children outgrow their natural self-centeredness is to demonstrate the value of looking out for others by actually doing so.
“I would have made a terrible parent. The first time my child didn't do what I wanted, I'd kill him.” ~ Katharine Hepburn
You have to admire Hepburn’s honesty. She recognized that a lot of parents punish their child because the child hasn’t satisfied the parent’s narcissistic desires, not because the child has done something that is intrinsically bad.
“It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.” ~ L.R. Knost, “Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting through the Ages and Stages”
Now there’s a woman who gets it! In the end, the people with warm hearts make the biggest difference.
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” ~ James Baldwin
If you yell at your children every day and told them that you worked your ass off for every dime you ever made, and that they should be doing the same. What would your children learn? Would they learn to work their asses off every single day? No, they’d learn to yell!
“Say “no” only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange shorts? Sure. Put water in the toy tea set? Okay. Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed? Fine. Samuel Johnson said, “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.” ~Gretchen Rubin
We tend to impose a lot of unnecessary rules and regulations on our children that end up being counterproductive and even harmful in the long run. If you want a child to go from point A to point B, give them a map, but don’t lock them in the garage.
“Our greatest duty to our children is to love them first. Secondly, it is to teach them. Not to frighten, force, or intimidate our children into submission, but to effectively teach them so that they have the knowledge and tools to govern themselves.” ~ Richelle E. Goodrich, “Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, & Grumblings for Every Day of the Year”
In my experience, you can intimidate a young child into submission (not that it’s healthy to do so), but the minute he or she becomes a teenager, intimidation no longer works, unless you’re prepared to pair it with a firearm. Teenagers are too bone-headed to give in to parental intimidation. In fact, I think they get sadistic pleasure in watching parents spin their wheels in frustration.
“You can't make your kids do anything. All you can do is make them wish they had. And then, they will make you wish you hadn't made them wish they had. ” ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg
Oftentimes, you reap what you sow, so it’s a good idea to pay attention to the seeds in your bag.
“If your kid needs a role model and you ain't it, you're both fucked.” ~ George Carlin, “Brain Droppings”
You can’t argue with George!
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