Posts filed under ‘Discipline’
Parenting Skills All Moms Need
How many times have you thought that your kids were the worst kids in the neighborhood, but you weren’t sure how to make them more well behaved? 🤔
Reading the news and watching people with their children, I wonder what kind of discussions take place at home. For example, you tell your child “Clean up your room”. You walk by his room an hour later, and not only is it not cleaned up, but he’s also playing a video game.
What do you do?
1. Yell at your child
2. Ignore them
3. Institute consequences
I love instituting consequences because it teaches your child life lessons. The life lesson is that people like dealing with well-mannered people. So, as adorable as your child is (to you), when they mis-behave no one likes them, including you. 🤷🏽♀️
Did you know, the older your child is, the harder it is to teach them manners and good behavior. They are difficult to deal with at school and in public. Then they become the teacher’s problem, or a statistic with law enforcement.
If you ask your child to do something and it’s not done – how do you hold them accountable?
If you don’t hold them accountable, what are the consequences to you and your child?
How do they learn the lesson that you’re trying to teach them?
If you are having a difficult time holding your child accountable, it might seem easier to expect your child’s teacher or another adult to take responsibility for parenting your child. It sends mixed messages to a child when someone else outside of you or your spouse becomes the responsible parent your child. Because that’s what happens when law-enforcement gets involved or the teacher has to discipline your child at school. Instead start when your child is very young, giving consequences that are appropriate for them at their age.
For example, before naptime, show your child how to pick up their toys and put them in the toy box. They cannot take a nap until the toys are in the toybox. My mom used to do that with us. What’s crazy is that I hated taking naps, 😴 so I can’t believe that I was duped into cleaning up my room before I laid down to take a nap that I didn’t want.
But it worked!
If you start when they’re 2-3 years old, by the time they are 5, 6, or 7, they are pretty well mannered.
The other thing about discipline and consistency is that it doesn’t work (as well) if you are not giving your child your attention on a regular basis. If the only time you interact with your child is to discipline, yell or scream at them, then you have lost their attention (and respect) when you want them to be well mannered and obedient.
Let me know how instituting consequences works for you and your child. If you need help, click on the link and let’s talk:
Want to learn more about how to get along with your family members?
Contact me – Ms. Parent Guru to receive information about my inspiring parenting programs for Aging Parents, Mothers and Daughters, Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters or Fathers and Sons.
Click Here to become a part of my parenting community.
C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru
Parent Coach, Author & Speaker
How to Build Accountability In Your Child
Happy New Year and no… this is not a list of resolutions for better parenting!
Having talked to quite a few parents during the Holidays who wanted their child to do what they were asked; I’m reminded of two things:
- Keep it simple
- Hold your child accountable
As you tell your child for the 5th time to pick up his/her toys, clothes, etc. you might wonder what it will take for that delightful child of yours to become more accountable.
According to Century Dictionary, accountability is the state of being accountable or answerable; responsibility for the fulfilment of obligations; liability to account for conduct, meet or suffer consequences, etc.
The thing is, we want our kids to grow into accountable adults, which means that we want accountable teens, youths, toddlers.
So how do you get started?
Start now…ideally when your child is very young and impressionable. My daughter has been “guiding” our 2½ year old grandson with picking up his toys, since he could walk. He understands what picking up toys means, how to do it and the consequences of leaving them all over the floor.
Is she 100% successful? Nope, but she and her husband have a great start provided they stay consistent with their work with him. It gets more challenging, if you are starting to with children who are older and aren’t used to having to pick up after themselves.
Not impossible, but your work is cut out for you because your child won’t understand why all of a sudden, you are asking them to do something they’ve never had to do before.
3 tips for helping your child be more accountable:
- Model behavior (that you want to see repeated)
- Be as consistent as possible in holding your child responsible for what you’ve asked them to do
- Help your child see things from another person’s viewpoint
Modeling the behavior, you want to see, is one of the skills that a leader uses. It’s much easier to get your child to pick up their toys, clean their room, clean the bathroom, if they see you do the same.
Teaching your child to see things from another’s perspective builds empathy and compassion. If occasionally you have your daughter help her brother or sister clean their room, fold clothes or clean the kitchen, they may be less inclined to fight, argue and compete with each other.
Just a couple of thoughts as we enter 2022.
Interested in learning more about your family’s dynamics? Contact me – Ms. Parent Guru to receive information about my inspiring parenting programs for Aging Parents, Mothers and Daughters, Mothers and their Sons, Fathers and Daughters or Fathers and their Sons.
Click Here to become a part of my parenting community.
C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru
Parent Coach, Author & Speaker
A Mother’s Tough Love
I was talking to a close friend the other day, and she shared one of her recent parenting moments with me. Her daughter is a preteen and is becoming more popular in school; starting to notice boys more each day and getting quite a reputation as a great volleyball player. As my mother would say, “she’s feeling her oats”. My friend has stressed the importance of staying focused in school and getting a great education by completing your homework, participating in class, and asking for help when needed. She told her daughter that if she got a ‘D’, she would have to leave home. Ah.. the things we tell our kids.
Well, last week she picked up her daughter from school, and her daughter was crying. My friend immediately wanted to know why she was crying. Are you hurt? Did someone say something to hurt your feelings? What’s wrong? Her daughter told her she got a D on an assignment and she was worried because she knew she hadn’t given her best on that assignment. My friend told her daughter “Well I’m sorry you got a ‘D’ on your assignment, I guess you will have to pack your bags and find somewhere else to live”. Her daughter immediately started crying harder. “But where will I go? I know I didn’t take my time on this assignment? Do you think if I redid the assignment and turned it in to my teacher, you would allow me to stay?” My friend told her she would think about it.
Needless to say, the assignment was redone and submitted, and my friend ‘allowed’ her daughter to stay. In this day of parenting ambiguity and relaxed rules, I believe the move was a courageous one for my friend. Whether her daughter continues to stay focused in school remains to be seen. I do know a good parenting moment took place that day.
What are your thoughts, and tell me what parenting moments have you used to motivate your children?
C. Lynn Williams
Author and Parenting Coach
#MsParentguru
Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen (St. Paul Press, 2010)
The Pampered Prince: Moms Create a GREAT Relationship with Your Son (St. Paul Press, 2012)
Mothers – What’s Happening to Our Sons?
It’s been little more than a month since the Newtown shootings, and as a mother, I am still at a complete loss for how a son could kill his mother. I have two sons, my own and one I lovingly inherited when I married his father. I love them both and while I have had difficult conversations and tense moments with both sons, never in my wildest nightmares, would I imagine dying by their hand.
While we will never hear Nancy Lanza’s story about her relationship with her son Adam (the shooter), I came across an article where she cautioned one of her son’s babysitters to never turn his back on her son. Can you imagine living with a person and not being able to turn your back on him? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57559502/ex-babysitter-says-newtown-conn-school-shooter-adam-lanzas-mother-warned-dont-turn-your-back/
When we raise our sons, we pour so much love, attention, (hopefully) discipline, values and the kitchen sink into our boys, and yet many of them end up being killed, killing others, or going to prison. Mothers, where are we failing and why?
I also came across another article, where another mother lost her only son to gun violence and he was a good kid! We always think our sons are good kids! But this teen did what he was told; went to school every day (one of my requirements); obeyed his mother; and yet was randomly shot in the back after leaving a basketball game. http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/544/article/p2p-74054502/
I’d like my sons to grow into wonderful men with families and great careers, like my dad and granddad. Is that too much to ask these days?
C. Lynn Williams
Author and Parenting Coach
#msparentguru
Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen (St. Paul Press, 2010)
The Pampered Prince: Moms Create a GREAT Relationship with Your Son (St. Paul Press, 2012)
Book Review: Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen by C. Lynn Williams http://askdavid.com/reviews/book/parenting/1864
Parenting teens includes many challenges as well as joys. A focus should be on the positive side of parenting teens. This focus will help the parent to feel more competent and actually be able to enjoy their teen and the ups and downs they face. Sometimes parents tend to over emphasize the negatives and annoyances of parenting their teens. This book will help you get along with your children as you guide them in the godly path for living.
Plain Talk About Spanking
As a parent, I believe in a good mix of love and discipline. I ran across a website/article that disagrees with the values of corporal punishment and gives reasons why. Parents and Teachers Against Violence in Education (PTAVE) supports this article as well.
Let me know what you think.
http://www.nospank.net/pt2011.htm?goback=%2Egde_135134_member_115738148
Punishing Autistic Children
Did you hear about this?
When Sandra Baker was called to pick up her 9-year-old autistic son, Chris, from his Mercer County, Kentucky school, she was stunned by what she found: She says that Chris’s teacher had stuffed him in a gym bag and left him in the hallway as punishment.
“When I walked in,” Sandra told CBS News, “I went down his hallway, and I saw this big green bag laying in the floor beside the [teacher’s] aide, and I saw it moving.”
Then Sandra heard a voice come from inside the bag: “Momma, is that you?”
Sandra demanded her son be released immediately, but allegedly the bag was tied so tightly the teacher’s aide struggled to open it. When Chris finally got out, his mom says he was sweaty and uncommunicative.
Lydia Brown, a freshman at Georgetown University, is autistic, too. When she heard about Chris’s ordeal at school , she started a petition on Change.org demanding the Mercer County school district discipline the teacher who put Chris in the bag and require its teachers to complete training on interacting with autistic children. Click here to sign Lydia’s petition now.
At a meeting with school officials last week, Sandra learned this wasn’t the first time Chis had been stuffed in the duffel bag as punishment. The teachers allegedly referred to the duffel as a “therapy bag,” but lacking even basic training for working with autistic children, were unable to explain how confining Chris to a drawstring bag constituted “therapy” of any kind.
Here’s the worst part: after her meeting, Sandra says she rec eived no guarantee that this kind of abuse wouldn’t happen again — either to Chris or to other students in Mercer County schools.
That’s just not acceptable to Sandra, or to the 12,000 people who’ve already signed Lydia’s petition on Change.org. Lydia is hoping to deliver the petition to the Mercer County school board at their next meeting. The school board won’t be able to ignore this issue when they see the thousands of people angry about Chris’s treatment and calling for changes.
Please sign Lydia’s petition to get Mercer County schools to fire Chris’s teacher, and to get the school district to require its staff to complete comprehensive training on i nteracting with autistic children.
Parenting and Moral Character
As I continue to hear unfolding stories about the Penn State coach, it seemed to take Penn State students (and mothers – up course) to rally around the victims before the country realized that that was the thing to do. There was a lot of remorse about the removal of the head coach and the university’s president, but as a mother and parent, I wanted more gnashing of teeth about how our moral decline prevented us from recognizing that crimes were perpetrated against young boys – boys who would be scarred for the rest of their life.
How do we effectively parent our children if our leaders and elected officials are more concerned with how something looks in our society versus sending morally correct messages to our children by removing people immediately from their position if they harm our children.
Just my two cents,
MsParentguru
Putting Your Teen Out
Putting Your Teen Out is not a new phenomenon, but it is definitely an option for parents whose teen is not listening, disobeying the household, getting high, drinking excessively, etc. But is that the best option? You may feel that you have no other options but to put that child out of your house, but I encourage you to think about the later ramifications of putting that teen out: relationship, relationship, relationship. There will be none. You are robbed of knowing that child of yours as an adult, an adult with children. Just think long and hard before you kick your son or daughter out of the house.
Just trying to stay sane…
Share the three biggest responsibilities you’ve given your child(ren)
Share the three biggest responsibilities you’ve given your child(ren)
Staying Sane While Raising Your Teens 
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