COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.COUNSELING AND CONSULTATION ASSOCIATES, INC.
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
1621 Eagle Trace Drive
Mount Juliet, Tennessee 37122-7428
(615) 758-7568
Website: http://DrBlansett.com
Email: DrBlansett@DrBlansett.com
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Neighbors Helping Neighbors in Parenting
by
Phillip L. Blansett, Ph.D.
In the last century several of my articles included ways in which we parents unintentionally teach our children to misbehave. Few parents would deliberately set out to teach children something that seems to come naturally. It is the unintentional lessons we teach them, however, that once recognized, may be avoided. We examined how we unintentionally train our children not to listen to us, not to believe us, to be sloppy and disorderly, to beg, to punish us with nagging and pouting, to become procrastinators, and in a thousand ways not to do as they should when we fail to administer proper consequences. And all of that unintentionally. For a short time, we'll examine other unintentional lessons that we teach our children. For instance, we unintentionally train our children to be lazy when we provide everything for them without requiring them to work and to earn. It is not infrequent that I have a parent parading a teen into my office with the hope that I can motivate the teen into cleaning his or her room, helping with the yard work or dishes or other family chores. I usually take a family history, listen to the tale of woe from the parent, and then ask a question along the lines of "What were Bobby's chores when he was five?". That question is usually followed by a second question along the lines of "What were Bobby's chores when he was nine?" One final question rounds out the picture, "When did you first notice that Bobby wasn't contributing adequately to the family's maintenance on a daily and weekly basis, and what actions did you take then?" Well, I'll bet most readers can accurately guess the majority of answers fairly accurately. There is at least one true statements about fish that can also be said to apply to children. They don't get rotten suddenly. It's a process, and can be observed, and predicted in most cases. The key, it seems, is to be aware not only of the intentional lessons, but of the unintentional lessons as well. As I converse with someone, I'm keenly aware that there are things I simply do not know about myself. The person to whom I'm speaking, however, can discover very quickly just by looking, something about myself I simply can't know at that time. That is whether or not my cowlick, that has plagued me since childhood, has decided to make its appearance once more. I depend on others to help me know when some unintentional cowlick appears, or when I'm teaching some unintentional lesson. Parenting classes, parenting groups, or just good friends can help us know what we can't see.
Next week we'll continue to examine how neighbors can help neighbors in parenting.
Dr. Phillip Blansett is a psychotherapist in private practice in Nashville and West Wilson County.
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