Ten Ways To Be A Better Parent + A Bonus

Parenting is the hardest job you’ll ever love. Good parenting can be very difficult. It can be enjoyable too. Having worked in youth ministry for over twelve years, I have observed some parenting techniques that seem to work well and many others that are destructive.

The hardest part about parenting is, that no matter how many right things you do, you are still dealing with another human being who will ultimately make their own choices. Even the best parents sometimes end up with black sheep. With that said, there are some better practices that make this less likely and other practices that make it more likely.

1. Consistency, Consistency, Consistency – This is extremely important. If there are two parents in the home, they need to set similar boundaries and agree on punishments and rewards. Whether you are a single parent or married, you need to individually keep boundary lines steady for your child. If you are constantly changing things or if both parents disagree and have different boundaries, your child will be unsure, lack confidence, or worse, they will learn how to manipulate the situation. Did I mention, Consistency?
2. Keep Balance – No, this has nothing to do with a tight rope and a unicycle. But, this is probably the single worst behavior that I see across the continuum of parenting today: parents who allow their children to overload their lives with busy-ness. Soccer games are followed by swimming followed by volleyball followed by dance followed by student government followed by gymnastics followed by baseball followed by club after club after club. Any one of these can be a wonderful way for your child to improve themselves; all of them together will not be. Encourage your child to pick one physical, one mental, and one spiritual thing to focus on. This is the three legged stool pictured above. You cannot have balance if you take legs away. Also, encourage them to spend some time in solitude once in awhile. As a parent, you have to set the example, too. Focus on your priorities and don’t try to do everything. This will improve the lives of the entire family because you won’t be rushing everywhere all the time.
3. You Are Not Their BFF – You are not your child’s friend. I’m sorry to say that, but it is true. You are their parent. That is not to say that you cannot have a close relationship, but when the chips are down, kids do not need another friend, they need a steady, strong, dependable adult. You have to make the hard decisions some times, set boundaries, have rules, and administer punishments. Don’t just assume that “they’ll do it anyway” when it comes to disobedience, alcohol, drugs, or any other bad or dangerous behavior. Decide what is acceptable and what is not. Guard their safety and communicate right and wrong to them. It may be rough, they may be angry at you, but ultimately they will be better for it.
4. Let Them Grow Up – You are not raising a child, You are raising an adult. Always keep in mind that you are trying to raise a person to be an effective, balanced adult who can make decisions and take care of themselves in the world. This means that you have to let them fail and learn to pick themselves up. You have to let them learn some hard lessons in life. You cannot shelter them completely from this. Your job is to maintain a tension between protecting them in an age appropriate way, and letting them step out with greater and greater responsibility and privileges. This is probably the hardest part of parenting.
5. Land the Helicopter – Please don’t hover over your kids constantly. Be involved in their lives, but don’t be there correcting every mistake they might make trying to guide every single decision in their lives. Teach them and then let them go out into the world a little bit at a time. You don’t want to still be making choices for your child when they are thirty, and you definitely don’t want to be changing diapers then.
6. Do As I Say AND As I Do – Kids see what you do and imitate that. It’s kind of scary when you experience this as a parent. I was driving with my daughter one time and someone cut me off. My daughter said from the back seat, “That guy was a clown, wasn’t he, daddy.” Evidently, she had heard me call another driver a clown for bad driving and now repeated it. It made me glad that I didn’t call him anything worse. If you want a child who is honest, don’t lie. If you want a child who respects others, don’t berate a waitress for making a mistake on your order. If you want a child who goes to church, you have to wake up and go too. If you drop an f-bomb in front of your child, you will hear it back someday.
7. Look Ahead – Don’t wait for your child to get into trouble, plan ahead. If your daughter is already pregnant at fourteen, it's too late to discuss sex with her. If you sit down and think about it, you know what stage is coming up next in their life, and you can plan how to deal with situations. When will you allow them to date alone? When will she be allowed to wear makeup? Is he really ready to have a cell phone yet? What will be acceptable driving, and what get’s the car taken away? Is it acceptable to wear kilts? Talk these ahead of time and then communicate with your child.
8. Family Time – Pick a night. Turn off the television. Turn off the phones. Don’t schedule anything else. Eat dinner together. Play a game. Talk. Ask about their day, and listen. Look through old family photo albums. Shoot some hoops together. Go camping. You may see them roll their eyes, but if you make it a regular habit, they will appreciate it. And, years later, these will be the things they remember fondly, and maybe they’ll spend some time with you by choice when you have an empty nest.
9. Don’t forget the spiritual side – One of the worst statements that I have ever heard someone say is, “I don’t think I should force morals on my child, I’ll just wait till they are old enough to decide on their own.” I have heard some version of this statement from dozens of people. Yes, religion is a personal thing. Yes, there are many spiritual choices out there. But, that doesn’t mean that it is unimportant. In fact, not making this a priority leaves your child open to many dangerous choices. The simple truth is this, your child WILL make their own choice someday anyway. Even if you raise them in church, they will someday choose for themselves. But, while they are with you, it is your responsibility to give them a healthy moral and spiritual foundation that they can build on. Consider it this way, you wouldn’t leave your toddler in a room full of knives, burning candles, and open bottles of poison. Why then would you let your child go out in a world full of dangerous messages without giving them some guidance.
10. Reward Right Behavior – Please don’t make your parenting methods based solely on punishment. When your child makes a good choice, encourage that. Help them to know that there are rewards in life for doing good as well as punishment for doing bad things. This can be a very powerful way to help them to choose right from wrong.
11. Failure is OK – Yes, you heard that right. It is OK to fail. In fact, it can be the best thing to happen to your child. I find it exasperating that children’s sports are now setup so everyone wins. Games at my daughter’s schools are this way. We have had kids in our youth group in school programs where no one gets an F. Everything is positive and everyone is happy. We wouldn’t want to accidentally damage their poor little self-esteem. If you don’t fail, how can you ever realize that you need to improve? What impetus is there to strive if there is no pain from failure? This unhealthy concept does nothing to prepare your child to grow up in the real world where they will lose their job if they don’t make enough sales, where they will have to compete for job interviews, where they will have to earn their own way. Don’t protect your child from failure. Help them learn to pick themselves. Teach them how to evaluate the reasons for their failure and decide if this is what they need be doing. Help them learn how to strive for goals and how to respect themselves if they gave it all they had and still weren’t the best.

Yes, I know that's eleven annd not ten, but if you have read my blog before, you know I don't like to be bound by such silly superstitions as math. I cannot guarantee that these ideas will make you a perfect parent, but they can you a better one. As always, I invite you, as the reader to contribute your own ideas in comments.

This post is Number 4 in a series of Ten Top Ten Lists on improving yourself. This series will be posted daily.

Tomorrow: Ten Ways to Be a Better Employee

BONUS:

This Top 10 article has a bonus: 10 things that don’t work in parenting:

1. Too Much Time At Work – Some parents (especially men) believe that parents should provide everything a child might want. Often they say things like, “I just want to give them what I didn’t have when I was a kid.” Then, the parent works long hours to provide the funds to make this happen, in the interim, missing out on their child’s day-to-day life. Your entire family will do much better if you adjust your priorities, do without some luxuries, and spend that extra time together.
2. Telling Them They Aren’t Good Enough – Few parents actually come out and say this, but the message becomes loud and clear when the child comes home with a B and is told they could have had an A if they tried harder. Parents often drive their kids to be the best in school, the best in sports, the best in all they do. A healthier way is to encourage them to be the best they can be in their own strengths and weaknesses. If your child struggles with Math and brings home a B, rejoice. If they are excellent at Math, then encourage them to apply themselves more. Let them know that, if they work at something and do well, that is enough. They don’t have to be the best at everything.
3. Raising False Hopes – This is the other end of the spectrum from the previous one. Parent’s sometimes give their kids too much encouragement. The simple truth is, not everyone can be a professional basketball player. If your child is the shortest in class and clumsy, they probably won’t ever play pro-ball. Encourage them to play for fun. If your child sings like a frog and they aren’t selected for choir, don’t tell that they are the best singer and the Director made a mistake. Help them (in a balanced way) to understand their strengths and build on those.
4. Rigidity – No one likes to live in a dictatorship of absolutes. As a parent, you have to be flexible at times. Give a little, once in awhile. This is not to say that you shouldn’t be consistent, but gentle consistency is much better than rigid, by-the-book domination. Also, consider the realities of each child and tailor your parenting somewhat to each. As a child, I was an introvert who could spend all day reading by myself. Time-outs just wouldn’t work for me. Even if you took my book away, I was fine just being inside my own head. My wife, however, was very social, so a time out was definitely a punishment to her.
5. Punishments That Don’t Fit the Crime – Overly broad punishments or punishments that have nothing to do with the crime don’t help the child learn. The best thing parents can do is to send the child to their room and discuss the gravity, the scope, and the method of punishment. If your 9 year old lies to you about taking a cookie from the cookie jar, taking their allowance away has no connection. However, having them write 100 times, “Lying makes people not trust me” and restricting them from cookies for a week has a direct connection that will leave an impression.
6. Letting Them Grow Up Too Fast – This is very important. I hate shopping with my daughter now. The stores sell sexy clothes to 8-9 year old girls. I hate to see parents who allow their pre-teen to dress in clothing that looks like it belongs on a stripper. Movies and video games are the same way. A child’s mind cannot process certain ideas until their brains develop that area. Your twelve year old should not be watching the movie, “Saw.” An eight year old has no business playing a video game where you shoot prostitutes. You don’t have to completely shelter them, but, you do need to use wisdom in what you expose them to and at what age they are exposed to it.
7. Sheltering Them Too Much – This is another one of those tension things. You can’t protect them from everything. They do have to grow up sometime and realize that there are bad people in the world.
8. Public Punishment – Please don’t punish your children in front of other people, especially their peers. Punishment should be limited to the family and take place in a situation where reasons can be discussed. Also, on this subject, talk about punishments with your kids to make sure they understand the reasons, and how to make better choices in the future. Finally, when the punishment is done, let it be done. Don’t keep bringing the issue up again and again in the future (unless the child keeps making the same mistake).
9. Living Vicariously Through Your Kids – So you were the star football player and helped win the game against Podunk High 20 years ago. Don’t pressure your child to be a football star. Big Deal, you wanted to be a professional piano player, but your hands weren’t big enough. Please don’t force your kids into 18 years of piano lessons. Allow your kids to be who they want to be. Allow them to enjoy their own likes and dislikes. Feel free to tell them long boring stories about your childhood, just don’t try to make them into your image.
10. Divorce – OK, it’s a modern world, and you’re in charge of your own life. I get that. But, what hurts kids the most is when adults are more childish than they are. Except in cases of abuse, divorce is very hurtful for children. A recent study showed that children who were part of a divorce situations still had problems 25 years later. What’s worse, if parents are bickering, using the kids as pawns in their battles, or tearing down the other parent in front of the children; the damage is much worse. I have two words, GROW and UP!!! If you aren’t divorced, but have marital problems, get help. Please. Find a marriage counselor, join a married couples support group, talk to clergy. Repairing your marriage is the best gift you could give your children. If you are divorced, at least play nice in front of your kids. And, as a side note, if you are a single parent, do NOT date in front of your kids. Wait until you and the other person are seriously considering marriage to begin introducing them. Bringing a parade of boyfriends or girlfriends in and out of your child’s life is very scarring to them.

I Need a Hero

One of my earliest memories as a child was watching my father face death.

When I was about five years old, we lived across the street from an apartment building that was somewhat disreputable. One day, we heard a loud confrontation going on out in the street. The landlord who owned the building was arguing with a tenant who owed back rent. While we watched, the tenant reached in the back of his pickup truck and pulled out a wooden tomato stake and hit the landlord in the head, knocking him to the ground where he lay crumpled. My father (who was a former ambulance attendant) instructed my mom to call the police and then he went out front.

While we watched fearfully from the upstairs window, my father walked up to the angry tenant who was still yelling and waiving the stick at the unconscious and possibly dead landlord on the ground. As my father approached, the man turned the stick towards him and demanded to know if he, “wants some too.” Dad told the angry man that he was just there to check on the injured man and then he turned his back to the tenant and began checking on the landlord.
With that, sirens began in the distant and the tenant jumped in his truck and roared off down the street out of sight. We found out later that he was captured at gunpoint a few blocks away as he drove right into the oncoming police.

A few years ago, there was a woman brutally beaten and then raped in South Mountain park, while bystanders watched, unwilling to get involved. Since then, I have seen this story repeated dozens of times in different localities by different people, always the same outcome. Someone is attacked and other people stand by doing nothing, out of fear or apathy.

Where are the superheroes? Where are the warriors? Where are the knights in armor charging in on white steeds with swords slashing? Where is the cowboy in the white hat with guns ablazing?

Moral responsibility doesn’t require superheroes, knights, cowboys, or other fictional heroes. It requires ordinary people who have had moral upbringing to stand up through fear and do the right thing.

And moral upbringing, my friends, is where we are falling down.

As a nation, we have begun raising generation after generation of morally crippled individuals.

The Shema of Judaism (found in Deuteronomy 6 for Christians) says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one, Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up…”

Did you catch that? “Impress them on your children.” That’s an imperative. It doesn’t say, “if your children ask,” it instructs us to do something about it. Then, it goes further. The instruction isn’t just once. It isn’t just in school. It is not just at church. It says, “Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up…”

As a youth minister, I am often surprised and appalled at the lack of moral education in the home. Parents bring their kids to church occasionally (not even regularly) and expect them to get their ‘dose of morality’ that way.

On more than one occasion, I have had parents who don’t regularly attend church call me up to ask me to deal with some issue that their child is facing. “My child is cheating in school…”, “My child is lying to me…”, “My child is hanging around with the wrong crowd”, “My child is_________.” They then say something along the lines of, “I told them that the Bible says…” this is generally followed by some misquoted passage or even something that isn’t in the Bible at all.

My question to them is, “How can you expect your child to respect to follow God’s law if you don’t even do so?”

I recently asked my Junior High and High School kids how often their parents talked to them about biblical issues at home. The resulting quiet was deafening.

It is simply impossible for a child to learn right and wrong unless they are exposed to it.

The symptoms are everywhere – steroid use in sports, Enron, Bernie Madoff, cheating scandals at Ivy League schools, the rise in violent youth crimes, and so on.

These things will continue to happen and continue getting worse until the adults of the world begin the simple and vital task of teaching moral values to our children.

My father’s actions so long ago have had a lifelong impact on me. I cannot stand aside watching evil triumph. I do what I do because of this. It may sound cliché, but, All that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

Let's change the world. You and I. We can do it. We'll teach our children and the kids that we meet about truth and justice, about right and wrong, about love and hate. Let's dare them to stand up for the good and then, let's show them that we live it in our own lives too.

Where have all good men gone

And where are all the gods?

Where’s the street-wise Hercules

To fight the rising odds?

Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?

Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need

I need a hero

I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night

He’s gotta be strong

And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight

Lyrics from ‘I Need a Hero’ by Bonnie Tyler

Children are not an accessory!!!

This blog originally posted Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Current mood: sad Category: Blogging

Right now, police in Portugal are looking for a beautiful 4 year-old girl who has gone missing and is presumed kidnapped. Madeleine McCann, daughter of Gerry and Kate McCann from England was left alone in her hotel room at a resort with her 2 year old brother and sister while her parents went out for dinner.

There has been an international outpouring of support for this family. J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter author), David Beckham (world famous soccer player), and Simon Cowell (of American Idol) have put up a multi-million dollar reward for the return of this child.

What disturbs me is what is missing from this story. Where is the outrage that these parents left three children under the age of five alone in a hotel room in a strange country?!?!?!

The worst part about this is that this kind of treatment of children is not uncommon. Latch-key kids are a problem all over the U.S. Every couple of months you here about some parent that left their kids alone while they went to the bar. Parents get divorced and then feel that it's 'their turn' and so abandon their responsibilities as they go back on the dating market. Parents choose careers that keep them away from their children for long periods or have children and promptly go back to work leaving a nanny to raise the kids. Parents who pay for every club, sport, and other activity to keep their child busy and out of the way, or worse, pay for a TV and let that be the babysitter.

Kids are not life accessories. Having a child changes your life. No, you don't get to go have fun the same way you used to. Vacations no longer are absolute freedom to you. Once you decided to procreate, you chose to give up a great deal of freedom. The simple fact is that being a good parent is hard.

Maybe no one told you this, "It's not about you!" Your job for the next 18+ years is raising an emotionally healthy and responsible adult. That means you have to sacrifice. That means you have to make hard choices. That means you have to be a grown-up.

Simply stated: If you want to do what you want, when you want it. If you want to have extra spending money and free time. If you don't like sacrifice or hard choices....Don't Have Kids!!!!!!!

I pray that little Madeleine gets home safely. Despite my disgust for her parents, I have some sympathy. The thought of losing my daughter is almost unbearable. I hope the family is reunited. But I also pray that Kathy and Gerry learn their lesson. I hope they get the message and begin to act like grown-ups. I just hope it isn't too late.

Dear Lord, please bring little Madeleine home safely. God, I pray that you would give the family strength, and help them to learn from this. Help us all to get the message. Our children are a gift from you that is not to be treated lightly. Forgive us Lord when we fall short of that. Abba Father, please save little Madeleine.

Sticks n' Stones (and lawsuits too)

This blog originally posted Wednesday, March 14, 2007

"That's So Gay". This phrase is actually the source of a lawsuit in California. A young mormon girl was being teased by other students because of her religion, with comments like "you must have 10 moms" and such. Her response to this was, "That's so gay." The kids making fun of her didn't complain about it. She didn't complain to anyone about the rude jokes they were saying. A teacher overheard this and reprimanded her with a written note in her 'permanent record' (scary organ music plays). So, her father promptly sues the school to get the written reprimand removed from her record.

What a ridiculous waste of time and money on the part of the school AND the dad!!!!! The judge should fine both parties for wasting the courts time and pitch them both out on the street.
It is a simple fact - kids make fun of each other. Kids are rude. Teens don't have the fully developed social skills (and medically, their brains aren't fully developed either) to hold reasoned intercourse over disagreements. This has always been so. Yes, we have the right as a culture to teach them, but this could have been handled so much better by the teacher and school.

The teacher and the school should have dealt with this by talking to all of the students involved and making the point that it is not proper to make fun of people for any reason (religion, sexual orientation, the size of their nose, etc). This didn't require a write up for anyone, at least for a first offense. All students involved should have been warned and let it go at that.

The school also should be the bastion of reasoned thought, but a quote from one of its lawyers shows this isn't so: "The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment, In furtherance of this goal, prohibition of the phrase That's so gay' ... was a reasonable regulation. OK. That's great, but she wasn't making fun of homosexuals. The school has recognized the cultural shift in the term gay to mean a homosexual, but they haven't recognized the more recent cultural shift to gay meaning something ridiculous or undesirable.

An even funnier quote comes from a professor from Berkley (nuff' said); "I wouldn't be surprised if this girl didn't even know the origin of that term," he said. "The kids who get caught saying it will claim it's been decontextualized, but others will say, No, you know what that means.' It's quite talked about." I personally wouldn't be surprised if HE didn't even know the origin of the term - it is from middle english and possible Germanic origins for a light hearted person. Gee, neither of the previous examples fit that definition.

The silly truth about the word gay is that American English is an unregulated language. We have no Real Academia Española like Spanish does that decides what words mean. Our language shifts and flows constantly. Does anyone remember when bad became good and cool became hot?

Another funny note about what the District Lawyer said; "The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment." Doesn't the district have a statutory duty to protect ALL students from harassment. That would include religion. Oh, but that isn't politically correct. It is OK to protect every miniscule subclass of human life in school, except religion.

Probably the funniest note of all. This girl is 18. She is off on her own in the real world now. Nobody cares what she did or said in High School!!!!! Anyone who is an adult knows this. Your 'permanent record' (ominous music plays again) doesn't matter in the real world. As long as you didn't commit crimes (and even most of those are expunged), you get out of jail free when you turn 18 and graduate high school. Big deal, she got a write up in school. So did I (lots and lots).

I never sat a job interview and had the interviewer say, "Mr. Loar, we were going to offer you this job, but we looked up your school record and found that you called Billy Riley a pooh-pooh head in fourth grade; I'm afraid you just aren't our type of person." No, all that really matters in the real world is if I learned NOT to call people rude names while I was in school. Oh yeah, and I was supposed to learn math, science, reading, and other important life skills.

The Dad and the School have been the most irresponsible parties involved. I expect teens to say stupid things. That's the point they're still learning. The adults here need to grow up and act their age. The teacher made a mistake in making this a written write up and by not dealing with the other students involved in an equal matter. The principal should have just issued a warning and left it at that, or, at least acknowledged later that they made a mistake in not treating all parties equally. The school district should have said, this isn't worth a lawsuit, we will just give her a warning and warn the other students involved about their conduct too. The district lawyers should have said, this isn't worth wasting taxpayer money in a lawsuit, just remove the written warning or issue equal written warnings to the other students. The dad should have said, this ultimately means nothing to my daughter's future and isn't worth wasting my time and money or the taxpayers money and just let it go. Someone here should have stood up and taken the high road.

None of them did.

The truth of the matter is both adult parties here are caught up in their own political agendas, although both parties would deny it. The school district, like many others in the country are falling all over themselves to show that they are 'diverse' and that they will go out of their way to show tolerance - that is to anyone but religious people. The dad here is so caught up his anti-homosexual agenda that he can't even see how unimportant this whole writeup thing is. (there is a lot of history there. the Dad has been protesting the school's tolerance policies and sexual teachings since 2000 according to another article. The school has also harassed his daughter due to the pressure he has put on them)

There is no excuse for making fun of people for any reason. There also is no excuse for adults to act like kids and fight it out on the legal playground over such a minor issue.

Frankly, I'd like to sit both parties down and tell them, "That's so gay."