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.
We've examined many different ways in which we parents teach our children unintentionally, but how can we best teach them intentionally? We teach them lessons, sometimes, without meaning to, but how do we teach them lessons intentionally? See, I've just asked the question a second time. It seems so easy and yet, it really isn't. We parents lecture, and we "model good behavior." Of course, when our lectures aren't understood or enacted by our children, or when our children ignore the behavior we are modeling, we parents often begin applying "consequences". "Go to your room!" a parent might be heard saying, or "You're grounded!" or even "Bring me the paddle, right now!". Both methods, lecturing or modeling, are appropriate teaching methods for parents to use, and all three applied consequences are appropriate for parents to use, provided they are used with reason and restraint. But experience has shown that the most successful consequences are those the child imposes upon himself. And that is an area where we parents often blow it. It is an area where we parents often step in a "rescue" our child, teaching a variety of unintended lessons that has been the subject of many of these articles. Now, no one believes that a child will impose upon himself the consequence of sentencing himself to time out in his room, or grounding, or paddling himself. That would be an unusual child for sure. But discovering the unintended consequences of one's own actions is a great teacher. Discovering that he can't go skating because he spent his allowance on a video game is a great teacher that we parents often undermine when rescue our children by tossing him a few bucks to enable the skate outing. Discovering that he can't go to the Titan's playoff game because he repeatedly put off his assigned chores, until no time was left to do them. That "once in a lifetime" event that the child, through his own poor planning, is at risk missing, reveals an area where we parents rescue and enable too easily. Although being generous and kind and understanding are all good traits, parenting children is not about reinforcing what good guys we parents are, its about equipping them for successful adulthood. The lessons best learned and longest remembered are not the hours spent grounded in our rooms, or even swats received, but the silly and stupid mistakes we make and the penalties that grow naturally out of them. Finding that balance between enabling-rescuing and stepping in to prevent life restricting mistakes is what good parenting is all about. Natural consequences of not brushing one's teeth as a child is an adult mouth without them. Certainly parents must step in and impose consequences that redirect a child's thinking with health issues such as that. But allowing the child the privilege of teaching himself through his own mistakes is the best. Knowing when to impose and when to step back is what parenting classes are all about.
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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