behavior | Staying Sane While Raising Your Teens

Posts tagged ‘behavior’

Kids Do the Darnedest Things

I have the cutest great nephew, and one day he said s*~t. He was two years old and we couldn’t understand where he heard a word like that and could repeat it so clearly. Periodically, swear words are sprinkled throughout his conversations especially when he gets frustrated. It doesn’t really matter where he picked up his irreverent language, just know that he was imitating someone close to him (that he respected).

Young children are like sponges and they pick up our words, phrases and mannerisms so easily. They watch us to determine how they should act, and then they surprise us with an exact replica of ourselves. That’s one of the things they do quite well without any prompting from us.

I said young children didn’t I? Actually it doesn’t matter how old our child is, they imitate our behaviors whether positive or negative.

Both my parents smoked like sailors as I was growing up. The first semester that I was home from college, I lit up a cigarette in front of my mother. She was horrified and asked “Why are you smoking?” I told her that since she did it, I’d decided to smoke too. Then we had a conversation about her addiction to cigarettes. She begged me to stop and that was the first (and last) cigarette I smoked.

Here are five thoughts to remember as your kids continue to grow:

Watch your language

Manage your temper (no popping off)

Model kindness

Be open (for them to talk)

LISTEN

Enjoy your family and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru

clynnwilliams.com

November 17, 2018 at 2:05 pm 4 comments

Boys Will Be Boys…

I could never understand why the things that I got into trouble for, my brother didn’t get into trouble for. The way it was explained to me was: “you are not your brother”. Fast forward to a story that my husband used to tell me. He was the oldest of four, and two of those siblings were girls. His sisters did not understand why the discipline for him was different than the discipline for them. His dad simply told them “you are not a 16-year-old boy”. Now whether that’s right or wrong, that’s how our culture decides what’s appropriate for boys versus what’s appropriate for girls. It doesn’t always match up with what is right.

What’s even more unbalanced is how our society is inconsistent in its justice for black boys versus white boys. I taught males in high school. When I taught at a male-only high school, and noticed that the punishment for African-American or Hispanic students tended to be more severe than the punishment for Caucasian students. What was that about?

So growing up as a girl, I realized that boys’ behavior was more acceptable than girls, and as a young adult woman I found that white males received more leniency for punishment than males of color.

So now we have a U.S. Supreme Court candidate who has been accused of sexual harassment as a teenage boy. During one of the news reports yesterday, I heard a commentator or maybe it was a U.S. senator say “well you know boys will be boys.” That’s a travesty and shouldn’t be tolerated! A crime is a crime no matter who does it. If you sell dope, (I think we call them drugs today) then you’re guilty. Your punishment shouldn’t be any different because of your skin color or your gender. If Bill Cosby, who had a reputation of being America’s funniest TV dad, can be accused and convicted of sexual misconduct, then so can Judge Kavanaugh and President Trump.

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