Being a parent of five children, I’m constantly struggling with child behavior problems, and how to deal with them. It just goes with the territory. But last week, it came to a head, and I came to a few realizations that I don’t think I had before. Here’s what happened:
My oldest son has a new “friend” that’s a girl (we don’t want them to be boyfriend and girlfriend yet, but it looks like they’re moving down that road pretty fast. More on our feelings about that in another post). Anyway, Sarah came over after school to watch a movie with Bobby. That’s it – pretty benign, right? Well, not as far as my kid’s are concerned!
You’d think the sky was falling, or we were going to Disneyland or something. They all just became out-of-control kids: loud, no manners, saying inappropriate things, and on and on. This type of child behavior problems went on all night – long after Sarah had gone home for the evening. It was crazy! I was totally embarrassed, enough so that I canceled a fun family weekend we had planned.
What I came to realize is that my kids need to have a pretty structured schedule. They feel very out-of-control when anything is out of the ordinary at all. I believe this goes back to the very first months of their lives, when they weren’t cared for in a healthy way. So we are trying to keep it orderly and under control – therefore avoiding this type of children behavior issues.
I just happened to be browsing the Empowering Parents website, and I found an article by James Lehman called Are You Embarrassed By Your Child’s Behavior? 5 Ways To Cope that helped me out concerning my embarrassment. It gave me a few tips, and I’ll share a little bit from the article.
- Don’t guess what people around you are thinking. Unless they say flat out “You’re a horrible parent”, you don’t really know what they’re thinking. They could be thinking “I remember when my kid did that”, or “I’m glad I’m not going through that phase with my son anymore”. Don’t be a mind reader.
- Focus on the behavior at hand: It’s not about you, it’s about the child. When your child misbehaves in public, they need something from you – focus on their needs, not your feelings.
- Use “avoid” and “escape” as short-term strategies. If you know the type of situations that cause your kids behavior problems, try to avoid those situations. Also, give you and your child an “escape” plan – a way to get out of the situation if things start to break down.
These are just a few strategies I learned from this article. To read the whole article, click here.
For many more tips and techniques to deal with child behavior problem’s, check out The Total Transformation. It’s one of the best child behavior programs I’ve ever seen – it worked for our family, I’m sure it can work for yours!
A new added definition for tough love has taken form in our household. My 16 year old daughter has always danced to her own music. So when she asked and asked to have a nose piercing, it was no great surprise. We had been saying no to tattoos and piercing for over 4 years. However, what did surprise me was her dad said yes. You see, he told me, we have to pick our fights carefully.
We have started looking for ways not to fight with kids and to avoid power struggles. We have known our whole parenting career that our place was teach them to become independent, successful adults. And letting them go as they grow. This looks like letting kids make decisions on things we maybe didn’t like but could live with. James Lehman, MSW has a good word picture. “If you picture decision–making as a room, imagine that in the middle of the room are all the “soft” decisions—including what kind of music your child likes, what kind of clothes your son wears, who your daughter’s favorite movie star is. The walls of the room are the hard decisions around things like health, safety and academic performance.” So the “soft” decisions are ones we may not like but can live with.
However, our daughter starts pushing on the walls, we must stand and fight. We state the rules very clearly: “No, you can’t use drugs or drink or stay out all night.” And we stand firm on these house rules for all our kiddos. Things like drugs and alcohol, shoplifting, damaging people’s property and assault are easy to define—these types of behavior are very black and white. And there are laws to prove it.
We also stand on some of the “soft” issues if there is a moral problem with it. Like modesty in clothing or if their choice in music is offensive or violent. We do say “You don’t have a right to listen to this music in my house,” and have found many parents do say that. But we have to make our family’s values and positions very, very clear so that when she looks to find solid ground later, she’ll know where to look.
We know our daughter may not do the things we want her to do—and she may do things we don’t want her to do. We also know we want to keep the lines of communication open either way. And have ultimately found that in choosing our battles, saying yes or using tough love, things are calmer around here and she is talking to us more and more kindly!
For many more tips and techniques to deal with tough love and choosing your battles, check out The Total Transformation. It’s one of the best child behavior programs I’ve ever seen – it worked for our family, I’m sure it can work for yours!
Parents of problem children are often perceived as being the problem—or that they’ve created their “problem children”. This is not normally the case. These parents need training, not blame.
Are family members, maybe your kid’s teachers, and even counselors blaming you for your problem child’s acting out behavior? This leaves parents feeling trapped, isolated, and ashamed of their child’s defiant or out of control behavior. And with seemingly no place to turn, they become defensive and that keeps the ineffective cycle going.
However, I believe that most parents are doing a good enough job and just need training to become effective parents. This is evident especially if all the rest of your children are doing fine and you just have one defiant child. Blaming doesn’t solve the problem, it only adds to it as now the parents have to overcome their shame for not measuring up to the standards that are being placed on them by people on the outside looking in. I have tried hard in my years as a parent to not judge my insides by other peoples’ outsides. Every family is different.
The answer is to get training on how to handle your child. Get the skills you need. Keep asking, searching until you find a counselor, a program, a book, another parent who can give you the skills you need to be a better parent. Don’t get discouraged and steer clear of the blame/shame game. Find the one that works best for you and your family. Being proactive and persistent are great parenting skills. You are the solution. You love your children and you want a good relationship with them and a good future for them.
If we do these things now, maybe your child can avoid getting into further trouble. What choice do you have, really? As James Lehman says “If he continues the way he’s going, you’re going to be the ones visiting him in prison, lending him money because he won’t get a job, or raising his kids because he’s either too irresponsible or addicted to raise them himself.” It seems like a no brainer. Start today learning the skills you need to parent your problem children and reap the benefits tomorrow.
For many more tips and techniques to deal with problem children, check out The Total Transformation. It’s one of the best child behavior programs I’ve ever seen – it worked for our family, I’m sure it can work for yours!
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