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Jun 11
9
The Hidden Cost(s) of Parenthood
I do not know if it is really possible to measure the costs of parenthood. There are financial figures floating around out there in the media that supposedly measure the cost of raising a child through college. The financial cost can look quite daunting. Diapers, food, clothing, birthdays, Christmas, textbooks, extra-curricular activities, college, ad infinitum. The financial cost adds up quickly indeed!
Our educational system and present-day media make feeble attempts at best to cover the additional, or hidden, costs to parents of ‘parenthood’ – that life-long process of actually being a parent. These hidden costs boil down to extreme commitment and personal sacrifice. These areas are glossed-over because they are troubling subjects in our modern society. ‘Commitment’ is a temporary state-of-being in our modern world. It is good for today, but not so much for tomorrow. Personal sacrifice is portrayed as little more than a temporary inconvenience, not something that is long-term (certainly not life-long!).
Runners make a commitment to give it their best every time!
Let’s look at commitment… In terms of marriage and family, my idea of commitment is a promise made for life. It is a life-long obligation that necessarily puts the other person first. Personal lusts and desires should no longer be a priority. (But no one wants to hear that). I will freely admit that I may be in the minority on this, but I believe that honor and virtue are necessary components of a strong personal moral inventory. Parenthood begins with the life-long commitment to your spouse. Parenthood ends with the life-long commitment to your child. This is honorable and virtuous! Commitment is not a ‘maybe’ or “I will do my best today”. It is “I commit to you for life – in sickness and in health, for better or for worse”. It is all the way through ‘thick and thin’. This commitment extends to your spouse and your child each and every day.
I know that there are a lot of committed couples and parents out there. Well, maybe not a lot… It seems that we are bombarded almost daily with another politician or entertainer (or whoever the media looks up to) that views honor and virtue as secondary to personal wants, lusts and desires. Our youth are being led to believe that honor and virtue do not exist. Commitment is a thing of the past. But what child out there does not want his mommy and daddy to stay together? To be happy in their relationship? To see positive give and take in their parents’ relationship? To see mommy and daddy take romancing each other seriously? To see commitment played out in the lives of their parents?
What child out there does not want to know and feel that each parent is committed to him or her? That nothing gets in the way of the parent-child relationship? Not other people or relationships… Not necessary discipline… Not work or career… Not friends… Not golf… Children want and crave parental commitment! Children want and need to know that their parents will be there for them each and every day… Through thick and thin. That is parental commitment. That is parenthood. (This cannot happen when daddy is cheating on mommy or vice versa!) These are links in a chain. If one link is broken, then the chain that is parenthood is broken.
And what about personal sacrifice???
I had a father tell me the other day that sometimes a certain amount of personal sacrifice is a part of parenting. Sometimes? He was telling me how hard it was to give up his standing Saturday game of golf because it was his son’s birthday. How many Saturdays does this man put his spouse and child second to his personal satisfaction?
Parenthood is all about personal sacrifice (on a daily basis). It is all about putting the needs of your spouse and child
Our military exemplifies the merits of personal sacrifice!
first. It is all about losing sleep to feed and care for an infant. It is all about being actively engaged in your spouse’s and your child’s life. It is all about making the personal sacrifices necessary in order to communicate to your spouse and child that they are the most important people in your life! They take center stage. They are your reason for being. Personal sacrifice is the daily communication through words and actions that your family means everything to you. Personal sacrifice in parenthood is not a ‘sometimes’ thing. It is an everyday thing.
I know I am setting the bar very high when it comes to these issues. But shouldn’t we be setting the bar high? Shouldn’t we be working to make sure that our spouse and child know that they are the most important elements of our life?
‘Baby Think-It-Over’
At the residential facility I work at we instituted a program called ‘Baby Think-It-Over’ a number of years ago. This program is similar to the popular educational initiative of having children care for an egg for a weekend or a week. In the egg program, a child must care for his ‘egg’. He or she takes it everywhere they go. They even have to sleep with it. The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate first-hand the commitment and personal sacrifice necessary to care for an infant. The ‘Baby-Think-It-Over- program is much the same, only it utilizes a doll that cries when it wants to be fed or has a dirty diaper or wants attention. Children in the facility are given this ‘baby’ for a period of 3-7 days and must care for the baby. They must see to the baby’s needs in order to get the ‘baby’ to stop crying. The dolls are programmed to cry at different times, night or day. So the kids lose sleep, take the baby to school, feed the baby… In essence, they become parents for a few days. They get to experience the ‘joys’ of caring for an infant.
I highly recommend these types of programs. Anything that gets a young teen to stop and think before having a child is critical. But the major flaw in these programs is that they are temporary. The young person may have their life totally disrupted for a few days, but this will end. Eventually they are released from the program and can go back to their normal life. (And the large majority of teens are more than ready to resume their normal life without their ‘baby’ around).
In real life, having a baby is not a temporary thing. You don’t get to take the child back to the store when caring for ‘it’ becomes too much. It is permanent, not temporary! It is all about commitment and personal sacrifice. Parenthood with true commitment and personal sacrifice is hard work. It demands our very best. Why would anyone choose to do this alone? Take great care in choosing a spouse. Be mature enough to make that commitment for life. And don’t have a baby just because you want one. Be mature enough to know when you are ready to handle the necessary commitment and sacrifice. If you do this when you are ready, you will experience the greatest adventure life has to offer! The absolute greatest adventure!
Make honor and virtue come alive in your parenting!
Posted in Focus Points Planning Parenthood by .
I have worked a second full-time job this past Winter and Spring at a local Middle School here in the Midwest – the ‘Heartland of America’. Indiana… Smack dab in the upper portion of the ‘Bible-belt’. Having worked in the process of educating our youth for over twenty-five years, there are a number of concerns that I have about our current system of public education. My biggest concern, however, deals with the issue of what many of our schools allow our children to wear in the classroom. (Not to mention what seems to be a total absence of ‘common-sense’ parenting when it comes to the issue of clothing!)
This school does have a dress code for their teachers, para-professionals and students. But the dress code for the students seldom appears to be reinforced. Let me clarify this. While this school lies in a conservative town, it has a rather large Hispanic population. The school does a decent job of regulating and enforcing clothing that is considered ‘gang-related’. This helps to stem the tide of any potential violence that exists between cultures. Beyond this, the student dress code is simply not enforced. Many of the males ‘sag’. That is, they wear their pants on or below their buttocks. And many of the females wear their pants in a similar fashion. They also wear tops that display too much cleavage – way too much cleavage for young males with hormones coursing through their young bodies to concentrate on adding negative integers!
I have told numerous students to “pull up their pants” because their ‘butt-crack’ is showing. I mean, really! Why must this kind of a situation be allowed to continue? Many of the females need to be sent home to put on a more appropriate shirt or blouse. There is no point in telling them to ‘cover-up’ because there is just not enough material to do the job. At the risk of sounding too conservative or too naïve, I do not believe that our schools should be a place where this style of casual and provocative dress should be allowed. I do not believe that this type of attire is at all conducive to the educational process.
Make them wear uniforms!
How does a young person concentrate on ‘learning’ when his or her mind is flooded with images of the partially nude, sexually explicit body parts of the opposite sex? If I were attending this middle school, (and there are many more schools out there just like this), ‘learning’ the Pythagorean theorem or the details of ‘Sherman’s March to the Sea’ would not be at the top of my list! My concentration would be elsewhere.
Despite the lack of School Board and administrative intervention concerning the ‘dress code’, I am at a loss to explain the lack of parental intervention that allows children to dress so provocatively. Where are the parents? Are they so consumed in their own lives that they cannot notice the clothing habits of their child? Are they so enamored and inundated with our present-day media-fare that they think this form of dress is appropriate?
Just because they dress like this in TV and the movies and popular music videos does not make it acceptable for our schools! Are our schools a place of learning or a place that promotes scantily clad boys and girls promoting the culture hyped by the media? Seriously, what learning can take place in the mind of an adolescent that is presented with ‘boob shots’ all day long?
Parents, Where Are You???
Fathers, where are you? Why are you allowing you thirteen-year-old son or daughter to promote his or her body in this manner?
Mothers, where are you? Why are you allowing you thirteen-year-old son or daughter to promote his or her body in this manner?
Parents! Where are you? Have you so totally abdicated your role that you just don’t care anymore? Are you so afraid of standing up for decency and avoiding a little fight with your child that you allow him or her to advertise their sexuality in this manner? Are you so spineless that you can’t impose limits and regulations on your child’s habits of dress?
Shame, shame, shame… On parents for allowing their children to wear whatever they want and to display whatever they want! On the schools for not enforcing proper dress codes! And on the media for taking such an active role in fostering this situation that allows our children to experience a ‘peep-show’ in the confines of our educational system. (Advertisers share just as much, if not more, responsibility in this present-day educational melt-down).
School uniforms that require that shirts be tucked-in, belts worn properly, and shirts/blouses that extend to the neckline would be a service to their own educational values.
Parents that are willing to enforce such a simple remedy as this to address the educational woes brought about by a lack of proper standards of dress would find the job of parenting much more enjoyable. Sure, there would be some arguments from the kids… But who is the parent? Who is responsible for their child while he/she is out in public? I mean, why send your child to school if not to get an education? Not the education of what body parts look like, but the education of History and Math and Science that can propel them to a career that is rewarding. There are enough young people out there that ‘drop-out’ because school is too hard or too constraining. Might this be an indictment of our standards of ‘loose dress codes’ in the home as well as in the schools? Perhaps these kids found it just too difficult to concentrate on anything other than boobs because they couldn’t see the bigger picture.
Please, parents, do your job! Enforce a realistic dress code that allows schools to fulfill their function. The schools are not responsible for what your child wears. You are!
Set a higher standard! Live a higher standard! Expect a higher standard from your child. You will find that your child will rise to your expectations as long as you live by your expectations!
Posted in Uncategorized by .
Mar 11
20
Book update…
My book, “Parenting With Focus” is now available on Amazon! If you want to turn your parenting skills up a notch (or two…), then it is well worth your time and investment to buy this book! Cheaper than taking the family to lunch anywhere and the return is so much greater! Check it out here!
(I have struggled with whether or not to post this for several months now. Oh, well… It’s a brand new year!)
You can find the original article here.
I believe in spanking children as a viable and sometimes necessary form of discipline. I do not believe in abusing children. I do not equate spanking with abuse. Spanking a child under the wrong conditions and too often can turn into a pattern of abuse. **But spanking a child as a very last resort under the following conditions can prove to be beneficial and not harmful.
- Spanking should only be done for serious misbehavior or for a continuous pattern of disobedience.
- Spanking should only be done after the parent has calmed down. It should never be done when a parent is angry! Never! When we are angry, we begin to lose rational thought and allow our emotions to control our behavior, both verbal and physical. When this happens, we begin to lose control. If a parent is going to spank a child, then he or she must be in control (not driven by emotion)!
- Spanking should only be on the bottom/buttocks. Nowhere else. One to two swats is all that is necessary.
- A child needs to understand why he is being spanked. This is a huge teachable moment and parents must do all they can to make certain that their child understands the reason for the spanking. If you are spanking because of serious misbehavior, then your child needs a firm understanding that this misbehavior will not be tolerated. If you are spanking because of continued disobedience, then your child needs to understand that you require his obedience. It is not optional. You never know if or when you could find yourself in a dangerous situation with your child and his/her obedience is absolutely critical to his/her safety.
If a parent practices effective discipline with their child, then spanking should not have to be implemented much more than a couple of times in early childhood. In these cases, all attempts at discipline have not caused the misbehavior or disobedience to disappear. Spanking becomes the final attempt to bring the behavior under control. Spanking is most effective when used in this manner and does not have to be used very often as a result.
Spanking has gotten a bad rap because it is too often abused by parents. Spanking should never take the place of normal, effective discipline techniques. But there are some parents out there that resort to spanking right away and then use it so often that it becomes ineffective. In these instances, parents may feel that they need to spank their child more often to keep their behavior under control. If this happens, then the spankings that the child receives lose their effectiveness and do very little good. The parent then has no other means to control the misbehavior. They begin to spank out of frustration and anger and this is the worst time to spank a child. This pattern can easily lead to abuse.
If we could only teach parents effective techniques to discipline their children, then there would be very little need for spanking. This is not to say that spanking would never be necessary. What I am saying is that effective discipline techniques need to be taught and used correctly. It is when they are not taught and not used correctly that parents get frustrated and resort to spanking as a means of constant behavioral control. This may be why so many people have come out against spanking.
Spanking a child for a continued pattern of misbehavior or continued disobedience should only be viewed as a necessary component of effective discipline. When done correctly and seldom, spanking is really less harmful to a child than a shot from the doctor. We all know that a shot hurts momentarily. But we allow this in order to protect our children from contracting some nasty diseases. Spanking hurts momentarily and, when done correctly, protects our children from getting into serious trouble later in life.
**I was spanked by a parent as a child.
Was it abuse? No.
Was I spanked in anger? No.
Did I know why I was being spanked? Yes.
Did the spankings curtail my negative behaviors and/or disobedience? Yes!
Were the spankings successful? Yes!
Did I feel abused by my parent? No!
Did the spankings influence my future behaviors? Absolutely!
Posted in Discipline Focus Points by .
To all of my loyal followers and new visitors, I extend my sincere wishes that the wonder of Christmas warms your heart this season. May the New Year be filled with blessings for you and your’s.
I have not been able to post very often lately. I just do not have the time that I had a few months ago. With the new year, I will make every attempt to post something new every two weeks. I hope that you will continue to view my posts as they become available.
I thank everyone for the many comments and just for stopping by. It means a lot to me!
Also, I hope to have my book “Parenting With Focus” listed on Amazon and Ebay very soon. You can get it now by clicking the link above or the link on the right…
The goal of behavior management is to produce positive outcomes in behaviors that need to be modified or taken to the next positive level. Unfortunately, many of these techniques and strategies are employed without the use of specific rationales. Without these rationales, behaviors may be modified, but may not show lasting longevity.
When dealing with behavior management as a whole, one is generally referring to misbehavior and its implications for a specific person. There are numerous techniques that one can find in the educational system as well as situations in the workplace that are based on these types of techniques to manage behavior.
The simple act of grading is a behavior management technique. Students work to attain the best grade. The rationale here is that better grades will open up more opportunities in the future. At least this is the rationale that we sell our students. Getting paid for the work that one does is also a simple technique. We work so that we can earn money to buy things like groceries and shelter. If we did not get paid, most of us would likely not work. Simple technique, simple rationale.
But what about misbehavior? Most forms of misbehavior require more effort than a simple reward in order to change the negative behavior into positive behavior. Most importantly, behavior management must incorporate rationales in order to improve the chances that the changed or modified behavior will stand the test of time.
In any setting this is of vital importance. But using the tool of supplying rationales for specific behaviors is of critical importance in the family setting. Although I have yet to find a study that concentrates solely on this matter in terms of behavior management in the home setting, I know from experience that many parents limit their effectiveness when they do not supply their children with rationales for behaving appropriately.
The best way to illustrate this concept of providing rationales is to use two examples. Let us say, for instance, that two six-year-old children in separate homes have developed the behavior of hitting when angry. Hitting is the behavior that needs to be eliminated. In both homes, a simple star chart is used to modify the behavior of hitting. Each day that 
the child goes without displaying the behavior of hitting, he receives a star that is placed on a chart. Ultimately, rewards will be given for X number of days without hitting.
In one home the child is told what he needs to do (not hit) in order to receive a star and the further reward. This child is motivated to get his star and then go out for a special meal and a movie after X number of days. In this example the parents supply no rationale for the behavior change. In other words, the child never really knows why he should stop hitting other than “Hitting is wrong”.
In the second example, the same situation exists. The child will receive stars and further reward of a meal out and a movie when he demonstrates non-hitting behaviors. But in this home, the parents give the child rationales for why hitting is not okay. These parents use statements such as:
- “Hitting hurts others.” (This is an example of an “other-centered” rationale.)
- “Hitting makes the other person feel bad. Try counting to ten the next time you want to hit your sister.”
- “We know that you get angry. But you cannot hit people when you get angry. People will not like you if you are always hitting them.”
In both examples, the possibility is very real that the child will stop hitting and earn his reward. But the second example holds the best chances for lasting success because the parents took the time to explain to their child why hitting is bad. These parents supplied the child with rationales or reasons to stop hitting others. Without these reasons being constantly reinforced, lasting change in behavior is less likely to happen.
Rationales are the reasons why a child should not engage in inappropriate behaviors. These are a necessary component of any behavior management plan. Make sure that you use this tool of supplying the rationale for behavior change the next time you work to modify your child’s behavior. It shows much greater impact on the misbehavior and allows for long-lasting behavior change.
Posted in Communication Discipline Focus Points by .
Let’s face it. We all have some poor driving habits. Maybe you tend to drive over the
speed limit on the freeway. Or perhaps you are one of those drivers that rarely ‘stops’ at stop signs… You just sort of roll through. Could it be that sometimes you don’t wear your seat belt? Might you occupy your driving with talking on the cell phone? Or worse – texting?
Most of us don’t give a lot of thought to our driving habits until we get pulled over by the police or highway patrol. It is most likely that at these times we take stock of how we drive and begin to drive lawfully again (at least for a few days…).
But how do you drive when your children are in the car? Do you still roll through the stop signs or speed through yellow lights? Do you still drive over the speed limit? While these things may not seem like a big deal to you, you must remember that your children are always watching and learning from you. So if you are guilty of any of these driving behaviors, then what are you teaching your children?
- You are teaching them that traffic laws apply to others, not you.
- You are teaching them that you are above the law.
- You are teaching them that laws are made to be broken.
- You are teaching them to disregard the law whenever it suits you.
- You are teaching them that cheating is okay as long as you don’t get caught.
- You are teaching them that regardless of what the law states, if everyone else is breaking the law, then it is okay for you and/or them to break the law as well.
Is this what you want your children to learn?
Posted in Communication Focus Points by .
Nov 10
19
The Importance of Holiday Traditions
When thinking about our past experiences, holiday traditions are often some of the strongest memories that we possess. Think back to some of your fondest memories and you will probably conjure up some images and feelings related to holidays that you experienced as a child.
Memory is our ability to store, retain and recall specific information and experiences. There are two types of cognitive memory, short-term and long-term. Long-term memory is the strongest of the two. It has the most staying power and oftentimes can last a lifetime. It makes sense that parents would prefer to give their children experiences that are retained and stored in long-term memory.
Establishing a family tradition for Thanksgiving and Christmas is the most successful method of providing cherished long-term memories for your children. While most of us are unable to remember every detail related to our memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas from childhood, it is a good bet that we do remember the traditions that were established by our parents. Some of these traditions that were established may include the following:
- Was Thanksgiving a big family gathering at your grandparent’s house?
- Was the menu the same year after year? What was your favorite food?
- What was the normal course of events for the holiday?
- Were gifts at Christmas opened on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning?
- Where were the Christmas festivities held?
- Was there a traditional Christmas dinner?
- Was there a long car ride or plane trip to reach your destination?
- Did the family help with decorating the tree? Was the Christmas tree real or artificial?
As parents, it is vitally important that we ‘set the stage’ for our children’s memories of the holiday season by establishing holiday traditions. The details of these traditions should remain as consistent as possible from year to year. The Thanksgiving dinner menu should be the same. The place where the dinner is held should be the same. The time of opening gifts should be the same. The type of Christmas tree and the decorations should be the same.
These events are so important to our children that they will often remember the specific course of events. Any deviation from this ‘schedule’ can be upsetting to a child as he or she builds their memory of these specific traditions. Children want and need consistency. Parents should strive to make these traditions as consistent as possible.
Sometimes, these events can be traumatic for newlyweds and those beginning traditions for the first time for their new child. Each one of us has our own memories of the way Thanksgiving and Christmas should be. It is important that new couples and new families talk about their desires for these events. This gives the foundation for each individual family to use their memories to build new traditions that are particular to their new family.
There is no right or wrong holiday tradition. Use what you know and build on it. Make it personal to your family. Make it special. Make it memorable. When you accomplish this, you will bless your children with wonderful memories that they will keep and treasure for a lifetime.
Posted in Focus Points by .
When was the last time that you heard the word “courtesy”? I know it has been a topic of some news stories lately, but really… When was the last time you heard that word?
It used to be taught in schools. Parents used to expect their children to be courteous of others because they taught them to be courteous of others. It was once standard practice. What happened?
The simple answer is that parents have dropped the ball. Parents are not teaching their children to be courteous anymore. (And they haven’t been teaching this for many years!) The term courteous denotes consideration of others. To be courteous is to be considerate in your actions toward others. To be courteous means to consider the other person in all of your actions… to safeguard their feelings… and to help out whenever you can. Like…
- Holding the door open for a stranger coming behind you.
- Being prompt. Like… getting to work or an appointment a few minutes early!
- Allowing a mother (or father) with small children to step in front of you in line.
- Offering to help someone to carry a portion of their load… be it groceries, luggage, personal turmoil…
- Saying PLEASE and THANK YOU!!!
((Please feel free to add to this list with your own pet peeves concerning courteous behavior in the comments section.))
So… Why Don’t Parents Teach Common Courtesy Anymore?
Maybe it is because we are just too concerned about ourselves. I want this. I am in a hurry. I am more important than anyone else. ME! ME! ME!
I am totally in favor of random acts of kindness. But I stop when it comes to equating common courtesy with random acts of kindness. These concepts are mutually exclusive. Random acts of kindness are huge events in the lives of people. Common courtesy should be the way we treat others. Not randomly, but all of the time.
When was the last time you showed someone some courtesy? Your children are watching… and learning!
Posted in Focus Points by .
Parenting With Focus
A book I have just written about specific 'focus points' in the parenting continuum that every parent should use!
These are essential to effective parenting...
Ignore them and risk losing your child!