Good Parenting Skills-How To Be A Good Parent?

You must plan beforehand for the arrival of the baby by educating yourself on rearing children to provide adequately for the physical and emotional well being of the child. For it’s healthy growth, the child needs your love and attention, a safe and healthy environment to grow, healthy food and proper education to cope with life.

Educating yourself on good child rearing tips should start well before the arrival of the child. Rearing a child can be a rewarding experience provided you know what to do to satisfy the needs of the child at different stages of it’s growth. Parenting skills are nothing but your ability to know the needs of the child at various stages of growth even before the need arises and also the capacity to fulfill them adequately for the child’s healthy development, physical and emotional. A child faces many challenges during the growth period and it needs your love and undivided attention to overcome them.

Babies should be observed by qualified physician regularly for proper immunization, signs of diseases and also for growth problems. Proper ear, eye and dental care checks should also be done at regular intervals.

Children are vulnerable to accidents and so it is important to child proof your house. Every house has potential hazards that should be evaluated for the safety of the child and proper remedial measures should be taken such as construction of window and staircase guards and proper storage of poisons away from the reach of children. Care should also be taken to ensure protection against open flames, electrical connections and machinery. Water filled buckets or tubs should be kept away from the child’s reach to avoid accidental drowning during it’s exploration of surroundings. Children should be educated on accidents that might happen out side home due to reckless play activities, swimming, and the dangers of traffic.

All children from pre-school onwards should be educated on how to avoid sexual abuse without frightening or overwhelming the child with information overload. They should be taught that no one has the right to touch the private parts and if any such event occurs it should be brought to the notice of the parents immediately.

For a child, the process of growing up can be confusing and at times frustrating as it has to satisfy it’s needs and at the same time has to satisfy parents and others with the right behavior acceptable to them resulting in avoidable conflicts. The way the child deals with the conflicts may not please the parents or others initially but eventually with proper guidance, the child learns to behave in the acceptable manner. But it takes time and patience for the child to learn the right behavior that satisfies all.

Babies cry a lot since it is the only means of expressing their needs, fears and frustrations. However uncontrollable prolonged crying is not healthy. It should not be mistaken as a behavior problem but should be taken as a warning of physical pain. As a parent you must look out for uncharacteristic , persistent and unusual behavior which may be indicative of underlying problem that should be corrected. Activities such as bed wetting, crying , thumb sucking, temper tantrums, learning and speech disabilities can be annoying but it should be remembered that they are appropriate at the particular age of growth but vanish later. If such activities persist, they may be due to other physical or emotional problems.

Biting is the first behavior problem that usually starts when the child is teething but it can also be a reaction to frustration when the child tries to possess a toy from other children. Biting can also occur when the child craves attention. Parents should discourage such behavior by using praise as a tool. And by telling the child that it is not the right behavior as it hurts others. It is important to prevent the bite before it occurs and praising the child can be an effective tool.

Children need to be taught discipline at an early age as it helps them learn standards of behavior , sense of responsibility and self control which are essential for the child to become a productive member of society. Inconsistent or excessive discipline are counterproductive resulting in depression, rebellion and other personality disorders. Parents should set an example for consistent standards of behavior since children tend to imitate their parents. Children should be praised for the right behavior to encourage them to acquire it. Parents should make sure that the rules and commands given to children must be clear and developmentally appropriate. It is advisable not to repeat the command more than once since repeated commands are ineffective and may induce anger in the child.

The toilet training should start at the age of two since the child will be ready for the task by now. It also involves conflict as the child is denied the freedom to relieve itself freely but forced to hold back the instinct to relieve itself unlike earlier times. Some children learn quickly but others take time. Bowel control precedes bladder control and girls learn faster than boys. By the age of two, children are able to control their urination during day time but it takes time to have bladder control during night time.

All healthy babies are active and like to explore their surroundings. However hyperactivity can also be due a condition known as attention deficit disorder(ADD).This usually occurs before the age of seven and can be treated with medication. The symptoms of this disorder are unusual sleeping habits, over reaction to stimuli and inappropriate behavior.

A child of 2 years resorts to breath-holding spells out of frustration and anger to manipulate parents who are overly solicitous. This may result in temper tantrums accompanied by stiffening, jerking of the body and sometimes epileptic seizure.

Bed wetting is another problem that affects more boys than girls. Family history and stress are the main culprits but there can be other reasons too. Most children by the age 5 are dry during daytime but can not control it during night time. Bed wetting occurs during sleep and most children overcome this fully by the age of twelve when the bladder muscles are fully developed and strong enough to hold back. Teaching the children to void before sleep and avoiding fluid intake before sleeping will also help.

Children throw temper tantrums in response to frustration between the ages of 2 and four as they can not cope with frustration. They express themselves violently by acting out aggressively through screaming, kicking and crying when reacting to frustration. Punishment is not going to stop the tantrums and it is better to leave the child alone to sort things out on it’s own. A tantrum can be rewarding to the child if the parents concede to the demand of the child in order to stop this unacceptable behavior. Once the child realizes that throwing a tantrum can be a rewarding experience, it will continue this unacceptable behavior vigorously and the severity of the tantrums will increase. If the child is in a safe area it is better to ignore the tantrums without bargaining with inducements and the child will realize that tantrums as a means of attracting attention will not work and gradually will calm down. But extremely violent ones should not be tolerated . As the child grows, it learns to cope with frustration in a mature manner and slowly the temper displays subside.

Lying is common among children who lie to conceal their wrong doings. The child should be told of it’s high worth and the unconditional love and affection of it’s parents.Lying stops as the child grows and develops moral standards but if it persists, it may lead to anti social behavior.

Thumb sucking, self-rocking and masturbation are considered normal among children at an early age especially when they are upset. The habit of thumb sucking is normally given up around the age of five or six .As the child grows, these habits vanish gradually.

Children who are slow learners, those who do not start speaking early and those who stutter and grope for words cause worry to their parents. These inadequacies disappear as the child grows but if they persist, it is advisable to go in for specialized help. Sometimes hearing impairment may be the cause and once this problem is addressed, things become normal.

Some children have sleep disorders such as sleep walking which affects about 15% of children for which special safety measures are to be taken to avoid accidents during sleep walk. Usually for most children this condition disappears after the age of 15. Some children are affected by nightmares who wake up with a scream and appear to be affected by extreme fright. For most children Sleep disorders get resolved automatically as they grow.

The parents should use tact and understanding to change the unacceptable behavior of the child. The following tips may help.

To stop the unacceptable behavior draw up a contract with the child by being specific about the problem behavior of the child such as not putting away the play things after play. The contract should be in writing in clear terms about the rules and the consequence of breaking it. If the child is threatened with dire consequences such as confiscation of toys if they are not put away, it works most of the time. This type of mutual agreements in writing is also useful in dealing with adolescent children.

Create a check list outlining the responsibilities of the child and the special privileges for the child if the child completes certain tasks. Special privileges can be awarded against a predetermined number of checks and revocation of privileges will occur for non compliance with the rules.

Studies show that making the child undergo exercise training in camps for a few days or weeks is found to be beneficial. For severe child behavior problems, individualized family therapy can be helpful.The other option is to consider taking the help of a child psychiatrist who may study the case thoroughly for proper treatment.

Other therapies such as dietary interventions have been proven to be ineffective and sometimes even counterproductive causing inadequate nutrition for the child which may aggravate the situation further.

5 Parenting Rules That Don't Work: How to Separate Fact from Fiction

Even before you become a parent, you start forming ideas about how you’ll raise your child. You get advice about it from all sides—your own parents and family, your friends, and books by so-called experts tell you "the rules" of good parenting. But most people soon find out that some of these techniques are simply fads—and many of them don’t work at all. Read on to see what James Lehman thinks are the top five most ineffective parenting concepts out there.

1. “If you build up your child’s self-esteem, he’ll behave better.”
The theory today seems to be that if you can make your child feel good about himself, then somehow his behavior is going to change. I can't tell you how many families I've worked with who’ve learned that this is a complete fallacy. Make no mistake, kids don't feel their way to better behavior. But they can behave their way to better feelings.

Self-esteem and self-respect come from doing things that you can esteem and that you can respect. Self-esteem also comes from doing things that are hard for you. Look at it this way: if your child’s school is trying to build your child up by giving him high marks on work that’s mediocre or that’s too easy for him, do you really think your child is fooled? Soon he starts to think he can coast through school—and life. What’s worse, on the inside, he’s thinking, “No one expects much of me. That must mean I really am stupid.” So the intervention for the self-esteem issue—the rewards he’s given to feel better about himself—often have the exact opposite effect.

I think rewards have to be based on realistic actions that are performed by your child. If you use a star chart with your younger child, for example, there should be categories on it that are realistic for him—and by that I mean behaviors that are observable and performable. So “Respond to First Requests” is a lot better than “Have a Good Attitude.” Being specific with kids gives them a real chance to perform well.

It's also very important for parents to understand that in order to get kids to develop their self-esteem, what they have to learn how to do is solve problems and function.

Consider this scenario: Let’s say one teen studies math and gets an A on his test. Another child doesn't study and gets an F on the test and then goes to see his counselor that afternoon. When those two kids come home that night, they are not going to be the same. The teenager who's going to have the self-esteem is the one who studied—who solved the problem of motivating himself to learn the math problems, even though he would have preferred to watch T.V. He’s going to feel like he made an effort and it paid off. But the child who failed the test because he didn't study won’t feel better in the long run, even though he went to a counselor and talked about his feelings. He may feel better for a time after his session, but if he doesn’t change his behavior and do his homework, he’s going to feel just as bad the next time he fails a test. Talking to a counselor about your feelings may help your mood improve in the short term, but it won’t make you do any better. For that, you have to do the work.

If you want kids to have self-esteem, teach them how to solve problems, teach them how to perform. You can start with little tasks and then help them build their way up to bigger ones. Make no mistake about it; self-esteem comes from doing estimable acts; self-respect comes from doing respectable acts. If somebody isn't performing those acts, they're never going to have self-esteem.

2. “When your child gets upset, angry or hostile and acts out, talk about his feelings with him.”
When a child gets angry and acts out, many parents’ first reaction is to ask their child why he's upset. They reason that if their child understands his feelings, he’ll be able to control his behavior better.

In my opinion, this is a misleading belief. Yes, we need to talk with kids about their feelings sometimes, and we need to discuss what makes them angry or upset. But often children—and I’m including younger kids, pre-adolescents and teenagers here—are not good at reflecting about their feelings. So whenever an adult sits down and says, “Well, how did that feel? Why did you do that?” you can see a child shutting down. I think one of the main reasons is because the child really doesn't know how he feels. He's upset, he's angry, he doesn't like something, or he thinks something isn’t fair. He has thoughts which justify his behavior and feelings. So he says, “I'm angry because it's not fair. You let Tyler do it and you wouldn't let me.” He becomes adept at blaming others for his behavior.

By the way, if you have a child who can process emotions and talk about them, that's great. But in my experience, most kids can't—and especially children who have problems with functioning and behavior. Those kids really need to be taught about their feelings, not asked about them. I think it's much better to teach kids how they act when they feel a certain way. So instead of saying “Why are you angry, Connor?” you can say, “Let's look at what you do when you get angry, Connor.” The truth is, understanding why you're angry doesn't really help if, as a result of your anger, you are disrespectful, abusive or destructive.

Remember, the goal is not for our children to understand why they feel a certain way; the goal is for them to understand how they can behave no matter what they feel—even when they think something’s not fair.

3. “Kids with performance or behavior problems need different rules—and should be held to different standards.”
It’s very tempting for many parents to go a little easy on the rules—or to try and get the school to bend the rules so their kids with behavioral problems or learning disabilities have fewer problems. Parents see that as a way out. So if Sam is allowed to curse every now and then in class and is not given a detention if he slips up, that's okay because “Sam has a hard time with that.” And if he’s verbally abusive around the house, there’s more flexibility for him than there will be for his siblings.

The problem is that when your child gets older and his special education or therapeutic support ends (in many states that occurs when kids reach the age of 18), he will be in the same starting gate with all the other kids his age. And when that gate opens, he'll be out there in the race. Make no mistake, if he can't perform, he's simply going to fall behind.

Don’t get me wrong, I well understand that not everybody is given the same academic proficiency in life. I have a son with learning disabilities and math proved to be a very hard subject for him. But here’s the truth: regardless of academic ability, everybody has to have the same proficiency in following cultural norms and meeting behavioral and performance expectations. So after high school graduation, one kid might go work at Home Depot and one might go to college, but they both have to be able to respond appropriately to authority, speak respectfully to other people, and manage their emotions effectively. They both have to solve the problems that people deal with every day when they interact with others and do it in a way that doesn't make them strike out or become self-destructive. That’s all there is to it.

The problem is that kids with special needs may have different academic expectations, but their social expectations have to remain the same. And if they don't learn how to behave appropriately now, it will be almost impossible for them later, when they’ve reached adulthood.

I know it's a very hard thing to do, but kids—even those with learning or behavioral problems—need to follow certain standards of behavior. As a parent, you have to learn how to hold your child accountable, even when he’s having a hard time. If you can do this, later on when he’s an adult, he’ll be able to take responsibility for himself instead of blaming everyone else for his problems and looking for an easy way out.

4. “Severe adolescent phases are a part of life. They’ll pass.”
Adolescents sometimes experiment with dangerous things. And for some teens, this phase does pass. In my experience, for many, many other adolescents, it does not. Go to any college and look at the amount of substance abuse going on and you’ll see what I mean.

One mistake parents make is to rationalize this behavior. So they say, both to themselves and to their child, “Oh, it’s not a big deal—every teenager drinks or experiments with pot at some point.” Realize that if you tell your child, “Every kid does it, and so did I,” you’ve just given him permission to do it, too.

The bottom line is that these aren’t just adolescent phases for many kids. These are things they try—but then they get stuck there. Sometimes it’s aggressive behavior—some teens and pre-teens get into feeling powerful and throwing their weight around. But make no bones about it: violent, verbally abusive, destructive adolescents become violent, verbally abusive, destructive adults unless some strong intervention takes place. Violence is not a phase.

I believe this behavior is often a response to the tremendous amount of stress or frustration that adolescents experience. You have to understand that these kinds of feelings will just intensify as your teen transitions into adulthood. If your 13-year-old son can't get along with his kid sister without pushing or hitting her now, or if he can't get along with you without screaming and yelling and breaking things, what do you think is going to happen under the intense pressures of a marriage or a job?

Substance abuse is another example of adolescent behavior that doesn’t go away on its own. People often say that kids “experiment” with drugs. I love the word experiment: I picture a kid with a white coat and a rat in the basement smoking pot. Unless he’s a doctor or a lab tech, he’s not experimenting—he’s using drugs. Alcohol consumption is also very risky for kids. Adults may think of alcohol as a social lubricant, but for kids who are under a tremendous amount of stress or anxiety, drinking or getting high gives them relief—and that's a very dangerous thing. It becomes seductive, and it’s extremely hard for these kids not to go back for more.

Parents need to be clear that smoking pot, drinking and doing drugs are high-risk activities. Not only are they dangerous because they affect your child’s judgment, they also affect his ability to solve problems.

It's very important to ask yourself, “What do I want my child to learn?” If you want him to learn that everybody smokes pot and drinks, then tell him that it’s normal. But I think parents should be saying to their kids, “Drug and alcohol use is out. It's bad for you.” Make it clear from the beginning. In adolescence, there are certain developmental tasks that kids have to learn, like how to deal with anxiety and frustration. If they use drugs and alcohol to avoid learning these tasks, they will pay a price in adulthood. And that price will be that they will not be equipped to deal with these difficult emotions as adults.

5. “To make a punishment work, you have to make it really ‘hurt.’”
I think parents can get stuck in a cycle of trying to “up the ante” when it comes to punishing their kids—in other words, each time their child misbehaves, they feel they need to find a bigger and bigger hammer to deal with it. These parents invariably end up getting frustrated because ultimately, this doesn't work. Soon they start to feel like there's nothing they can do to get through to their child.

My experience is that nobody ever changed from being punished. In our society, we punish all the time, but we have a very high re-offense rate, whether it's speeding on the highway, drug use, or shoplifting. And we have a very high recidivism rate in our prisons. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be punished for these crimes—my point is simply that punishment without learning does not result in better behavior.

Let me put it another way: punishment that does not include learning how to solve the problem appropriately next time—and then being held accountable for your behavior—is not effective. Let’s say your child was nasty with his sister. You tell him he’s grounded for a month—but now he’s just going to do time; he'll do his month and then go free. What does he learn when this happens? You hope he'll learn, “If I do that again, I'm going to be grounded for a month.” But the truth is that when he's upset, he won’t remember that punishment at all. In fact, most kids (and many adults) cannot recall past punishments with enough power to affect current behavior.

Personally, I think consequences should be task-oriented. When your child is given consequences, it should be a learning experience, not a punitive one. I also believe there should be something unpleasant attached to it. For instance, you might decide that your child cannot use the computer until he treats his sister with respect. You can say, “You cannot use your phone until you don't curse at your sister for 24 hours.” And so the consequences should be task-oriented, not time-oriented—and the time should be connected to the task. You can also build up to longer periods of time. So the first time, he should not curse for 24 hours, then the next time, you can extend it to 48 hours. In other words, you’re getting your child’s self-control to do pushups and get stronger. Although you might even start with one hour, the goal is for him to make it all day without swearing.

Remember, teach your child what his responsibilities are, teach him how to meet them and then hold him accountable if he doesn’t. In the end, whether or not your child has behavioral issues or performance problems, your goal is to teach him how to function successfully in life.

5 Parenting Rules That Don't Work: How to Separate Fact from Fiction reprinted with permission from Empowering Parents. For more information, visit www.empoweringparents.com

James Lehman, MSW was a renowned child behavioral therapist who worked with struggling teens and children for three decades. He created the Total Transformation Program to help people parent more effectively. James' foremost goal was to help kids and to "empower parents."

"I Love My Child...But Sometimes I Can't Stand Him!"

You’d do anything for your child, but you feel guilty about admitting the truth, even to yourself—sometimes you don’t like him very much. It’s a secret that many parents of acting-out kids share, but rarely confess to anyone. James Lehman explains how dealing with a difficult child can take its toll on the parent-child relationship, and he gives you some practical advice on how to handle it.

When parents say they don’t like their child, I think that dislike almost always stems from their child’s inappropriate behavior. These parents are understandably frustrated because they’re tired of the constant backtalk, yelling and arguing. Or they might not like the way their child treats them, their siblings, or their teachers at school. And personally, I can really understand that. This article is directed toward those parents.

I think there are also periods of time when parents don’t like their child because of a certain stage their son or daughter might be going through—adolescence, for example. As a father, I experienced this myself. When my son was eight or nine, he was a pretty good kid most of the time. I really liked being around him, and I couldn't imagine him ever leaving home, with all the unpredictability and risks that were involved. But by the time he was in his mid-teens, I disliked his behavior so much that I was ready for him to go.

A child’s individuation process (the time, usually during adolescence, when kids are forming their identities) almost always includes breaking away from their family. Sometimes that translates into obnoxious, annoying or self-involved behavior on the part of teenagers. And because the parent-child bond is so strong, that individuation process often becomes very strained and stressed for everyone as time goes on. For adolescents with unstable behavior, it can even become destructive or violent.

Another important part of this separation process is that the parent learns to let go—eventually, they want to push the child out into the world. They get tired of having this strong-willed, opinionated person in the house, making demands and arguing with them all the time. When their kids are in their late teens, many parents want them to go to college, find a job, move out, or rent an apartment with a friend. And I think that’s completely natural—it’s all part of your child growing up and starting a life of his own, even if it’s painful at times. It also helps the parents complete the parent/child part of the relationship and begin the parent/adult child relationship. These transitions are rarely without friction.

Do You Dislike Your Child—or Do You Dislike His Behavior?
Here’s an important distinction I’d like to make again: not liking your child’s behavior is very different from not liking him as a person. That’s hard to define for a lot of parents, because a child’s behavior becomes part of his personality in some ways. In fact, you often can't see where he ends and the behavior begins. And it's not only his behavior—he also might be using his personality to confront, attack or demean you. Physically, you also associate him with his personality: the words are coming out of your child’s mouth, after all. You can see the nasty look on your daughter’s face; you can hear the rude tone in your son’s voice. It’s easy to get frustrated and annoyed with those behaviors, and it becomes easy not to like the child who’s performing them.

A lot of my direction for parents is to not take this personally. Although this often feels like a personal attack upon you, it’s actually driven by other forces such as your child’s fears, frustrations, and the need to develop their own identity. Try not to fight it. No matter how hard it may be at times, I think the point is to avoid screaming at your child and getting into conflicts and unnecessary power struggles. Parents often take that kind of behavior personally, but remember, there are irresistible developmental forces taking place here, for both the parent and the child.

When You Can’t Stand Your Kid…
I think it’s important to realize that sometimes kids can be a pain in the neck, just like the rest of us. As parents of teens know, that behavior gets even more intense when children go through adolescence. The good news is that when your kids aren’t being pleasant and you feel yourself getting angry, there are effective ways to avoid taking their behavior personally.

One of the things I try to teach parents is to talk more positively to themselves. This may sound simplistic, but think of it this way: we all talk to ourselves all the time, because we think in words—and perhaps too much of the time, we think in negative words. Let’s say you’re driving home from work and you’re about to see your teenager. You’re saying, “I hope he's not going to start up again today. I'm so sick of his attitude.” Or, “I don't want to hear about my daughter’s boyfriend anymore; I can’t deal with her moodiness all the time.” Here’s the truth: If you're talking to yourself negatively on the way home, you're feeding into the problem. Instead, I recommend that you say things like, “What can I do differently so we won’t get into an argument as soon as I walk in the door tonight?” In other words, think more about the solution, and less about the problem. Talk to yourself about the skills you can bring to the situation.

One of the things I recommend to parents who work is to have the following rule with their kids: For the first ten minutes you are home, your kids should leave you alone. That way, you have enough time to go up to your bedroom, change your clothes, and get your head ready for parenting your children at night. Transitions, and by that I mean going from work to home or school to home, are difficult for both adults and children. Try to organize your time so that you’re taking that into account.

You may feel like people are looking at you and judging your parenting as inadequate when your child’s behavior is inappropriate. All of us hate being judged—all of us. And even if we deal with it effectively, that doesn't mean it's not a problem—it’s just that we don't take it personally anymore.

If your child is acting out, you might have tried to tell your parents, other relatives or friends about it in the beginning. But if this is a persistent problem, most people eventually get tired of talking about it. Even family members and friends can be very judgmental and critical. And when they are, it’s easy to experience that judgment as shame and guilt—you may feel as if others don’t see you as a good parent. It also doesn’t help that you’re experiencing doubt about your own parenting techniques, because they don’t seem to be working. And then whenever your child behaves inappropriately in front of those people, you re-feel that sense of shame. Those are heavy, powerful feelings, and many parents wind up resenting kids who behave inappropriately because of them.

What I always tell parents is, “Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.” So don’t compare the inside of your house with the outsides of other people’s houses—or the inside of your family with the outsides of other people's families. Other parents in your community might look like they're doing well and getting along. But you have to understand that from the outside, you may look good, too. The perception of your family might be that things are under control and everything's rolling right along in your home, even though on the inside you have problems you’re having difficulty managing. So other people are looking at your outside, you're looking at their outside, and everybody thinks everybody else is okay—but nobody knows the real truth unless they’ve lived it. This is also true on a personal level: comparing your emotional insides to other people’s physical outsides will only give you a skewed impression of what’s happening—and usually only makes you feel worse about your own situation. Don’t do it.

This is also one of the patterns that give adolescents so much trouble. They compare their insides to their classmates’ outsides—and the other kids may look like they’re popular and as if they fit in. This can cause your child a lot of distress.

My Child’s Inappropriate Behavior Embarrasses Me—What Should I Do?
I worked with a lot of parents who stopped taking their child to relatives’ or friends’ houses. This was because their child would act out in front of the relatives, and the parents simply didn’t want to hear it from their families and friends anymore. So they wound up giving in and letting their child stay home or go to a friend’s house because he behaved so inappropriately when they forced him to go anywhere. By the way, I’m not saying that finding an alternative place for your child to go is a bad tactic, depending upon his age and level of functioning. If your child is old enough to stay on his own and is stable, there’s nothing wrong with letting him stay home or go to a friend’s house if you take some safety precautions.

On the other hand, there are parents who believe their kids need to go with them to relatives’ and friends’ houses. And I understand that philosophy as well. Here are some things you can do to increase the chances that your child will behave when you take him somewhere:

Motivate Your Child to Practice Good Behavior: If you want your child to accompany you to a relative’s house but you’ve had trouble in the past, you can try the following things.

Tell your child you want to reward him for doing something that’s hard for him, like going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Two things are critical here: first, have your expectations for how you want your child to respond be both simple and clear. I suggest parents have an index card with three or four sentences on it. Each sentence should describe how you want your child to handle something. The card might read something like this:

As you go over these three sentences with your child, describe what they mean. For instance, “Respond to first request: I don’t want to hear backtalk from you when I ask you to do something.” Or “If you feel like you need one, just take a time-out for a minute or two.” Hopefully, you have developed things your child can do in time-outs that help calm him down. You should also discuss where he can take a time-out at Grandma’s house, so he knows where he can go. And finally, if he finds himself starting to escalate or if he has a problem while you’re there, tell him to come to you and say, “Mom, can I talk to you for a minute?” All these things are now in play before you leave.

The second thing parents need to know is that the reward you offer your child for behaving appropriately should be immediate and in a currency your child wants. This might mean renting a movie that he gets to choose, or getting an ice cream cone on the way home. But it should be something that is real to your child and something he might be willing to work for.

Of course, this isn’t appropriate for kids of all age groups. But as children reach the age of five or six years old, these ideas can be introduced. These concepts may not work the first or second time, but they give you a direction to move in. Remember, we have two goals with kids at any time: the first is to get to bed tonight without a crisis, and the second is for them to learn problem-solving and coping skills over the long term. Tools like these can help achieve both goals.

Kids who resist and refuse to act appropriately may be oppositional and defiant. And again, it's easy not to like those kids. Most therapists will tell you that a child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder is one of the hardest kinds of kids to work with. First they won't talk to you, then they lie, then they're abusive, then they're negative, then they blame everybody else for their problems. These are tough kids, and they're tough to like. Sometimes they're tough to love, too.

But I’ve found that most parents do love their children, even if they don’t always like their behavior. The way parents express that love is by taking care of their children, by being responsible, and by not being abusive. They also show love when they try to give their kids the tools they need to be able to function and perform successfully and find some happiness in this world when they attain adulthood.

I think if you’re resentful of your child’s behavior, you can get help. After all, you have a much better chance of improving the situation if you find some true insight and receive effective coaching on how to manage your child. And don’t be afraid to ask others for help—or to ask how they deal with their families.

Remember, unless your child has severe behavioral problems, being argumentative and annoying—especially during adolescence—is usually a developmental phase they’re going through. Don’t get me wrong, it's often a long phase and a difficult one. Sometimes kids don’t gravitate back to their parents until they reach their mid-twenties, or even until they start to raise families of their own. But in my experience, most of the time parents and kids are eventually able to find a way to have a good relationship again—especially if the parent is willing to put in the time to help their child change their behavior now, when it counts.

"I Love My Child...But Sometimes I Can't Stand Him!" reprinted with permission from Empowering Parents. For more information, visit www.empoweringparents.com

“I Want It Now!” How to Challenge a False Sense of Entitlement in Kids

Almost as soon as your child begins to talk, you’ll start to hear him ask for things. In fact, when an infant cries, he’s asking for food or to be made more comfortable. By the time he reaches the age of four or five, his constant refrain becomes: “Can I have this, Mom? Can I have that?" The unending requests for new toys or candy and an “I want it now” attitude may follow you every time you go to the store. Parents want to give to their kids for many reasons. It's partly instinctual—back in the Stone Age, “giving to your child” might have meant providing food, shelter and protection. Those urges are still there. Unfortunately, if you give in to every little want and need your child expresses, you are really feeding and nurturing a sense of false entitlement—which I believe can lead to problems later on.

I think it’s important to keep in mind that parents and kids get some powerful messages in our society. One of the most prevalent is, “The more you give your child, the better parent you are.” Children are also led to believe they're entitled to receive. Commercials, TV shows, movies, and their friends at school all tell kids, “This is the new thing. This is what everybody's getting. If you don’t have it, you won’t be cool.” So it’s easy for you as a parent to feel obligated to give to your child—and pretty soon, your child will grow to expect it. This can lead to parents giving much more than their kids need—and sometimes, more than their family can really afford.

Children also get a false sense of entitlement by being overly praised for things, and rewarded for tasks that they should be doing as a matter of course. There’s nothing wrong with rewarding achievement and excellence, but it becomes a problem when you reward mediocre efforts.

I’ve also worked with many parents who have the following fantasy: they imagine their child talking to their friends, saying, “My parents are great. They got me these new sneakers.” Or, “My dad’s the best—he bought me this bike.” Maybe your child is saying that, and maybe he’s not. Regardless, this thought often makes parents feel proud and good about themselves, and it motivates them to spend more than is good or necessary. There are those parents who want to be their child's friend—and consequently, they will often buy their child things because they’re afraid they’ll lose the friendship. This pattern may continue until the child reaches young adulthood. By that time, he firmly believes that his parents “owe” him whatever he wants. So the confluence of instinct and social pressure—and the need to be liked by their kids—can often make parents overindulge their children.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying it’s not a good thing to give to your children. But I do believe that the way you give to them can either help them develop a sense of ownership by earning things, or nurture a sense of false entitlement because they’re usually getting what they want, when they want it. And when kids grow up with a false sense of entitlement, you'll see them thinking they're entitled to expensive toys, electronic gadgets, trips and cars without having to earn them. They will do poorly in school and still want that car when they turn 18—and expect to get it. They’ll even tell their parents there's something wrong with them if they don't give them what they want, regardless of the family’s financial situation. The attitude of a child with a false sense of entitlement is, “I am, therefore give to me.”

So how do you challenge that false sense of entitlement in kids, and why is it so important to do so? I believe it’s critical to challenge them because once your child grows up and goes out into the real world, he will have to work for what he wants, just like everyone else. So as a parent, it’s important that you teach your child the value of hard work and earning things. He needs to really see that integral connection between making an effort and achieving success. Conversely, when things are handed to your child, the message he’s getting is, “You don’t need to do anything—everything will be given to you in life just because you’re you.”

If you want to start challenging this pattern in your child, I recommend the following techniques.

Remember, the danger is not having a sense of entitlement; the danger is having a false sense of entitlement. People who have this mindset often hold a negative view of hard work—they put it down and ridicule it. They think they deserve things they haven't earned, and they can develop contempt for people who work to earn things.

I believe that a false sense of entitlement affects every strata of society today. Kids who grow up this way don't want the jobs that are available because they have the belief that they're entitled to something better without having to make an effort. So that false sense of entitlement prohibits them from getting the work skills and the social skills they need to start at the bottom and work their way up.

One of my first jobs involved carrying bolts of cloth in a dress factory and loading trucks. I was 16 years old and I made $1.25 an hour. I didn’t think working hard to earn things was unusual because I had watched my father work all my life. He grew up during The Great Depression, and he always said, “If you want something, you have to work for it.”

Here’s the bottom line: When kids have a false sense of entitlement, they don’t see the world in real terms. When money and material goods have been handed to them their whole lives, the danger is that they won’t have the idea that they should work hard to achieve their goals. Their view of the world will be, “If I want it, someone will give it to me”—but as we all know, that’s just not the way the world functions. Once you leave your parents’ house, it’s up to you to make an effort to achieve some success in life. Sadly, you will often see older children living with their parents into adulthood, because that’s where things are easiest for them. But make no bones about it, that skewed view of the world is going to affect them in a negative way their whole lives.

The good news is that you can start teaching your child now about what it means to work hard to achieve goals in life—before it’s too late.

“I Want It Now!” How to Challenge a False Sense of Entitlement in Kids reprinted with permission from Empowering Parents. For more information, visit www.empoweringparents.com

Thanks for visiting the site and I hope the information provided here is useful.Wish you successful parenting.

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“I Want It Now!” How to Challenge a False Sense of Entitlement in Kids