Raising Kids 101

This is a long post but if you are a parent, or thinking about being a parent sometime, or are a grandparent this will be worth your time to read. As a mom I need all the advice I can get from experienced parents because being a mom is the hardest job ever!
This is my dad's advice on parenting. I think he is a very good source for advice because his kids all turned out great! (especially the middle one!) I am just posting this for anyone who wants to read it. It might be useful as you parent your children. Enjoy your read. It is entertaining as well.

Raising Kids 101

The skeptical will read these rules and determine that our house must have been a terrible place to grow up with too much discipline and no love, etc. Blah, Blah, Blah. The truth of the matter is just the opposite. Because our children had consistent rules with consistent results for disobedience, we harvested minimal disobedience. We had minimal back talk. We had few arguments. Because the consequence of disobedience would surely come, kids only needed to be told once, thus no arguing. We had very few unkind words from any member of the family to any other member of the family. Our house became a house of fun, because discipline was rarely needed. We played every night, even had a wrestling room for beating up Dad. Much laughter could be heard. But when chores needed to be done, or counseling offered, the kids generally did the chores and considered the counsel because the parents could be trusted to be consistent.

Raising children does not need to be a chore. It is great fun when the youth are respectful, mindful and obedient. The parents have fun and the youth have fun. As with the gospel, obedience to rules increases freedom. Failure to follow rules decreases freedom. That is not only true for the youth, it is true for the parents!

1. Never make idle threats. If you do, the kids will lose respect for the parent. Then, they will not mind you when it counts. If you are not willing to follow through, don’t make the threat. If you do make the threat and they do the bad behavior, then you must follow through. If you say “Do this or be punished with (fill in the blank)!”; and “this” is not done, then the promised punishment should follow immediately. If you count to three, or repeat yourself you have demonstrated that your word in not true. Lets say you punish half the time for a particular offense and let it slide the other half, the kids logic is “Half the time I get punished and half the time I don’t get punished, therefore the punishment has nothing to do with the crime and everything to do with the parent’s mood, so I need to alter the parent’s mood a little. Let me try begging, or whining, or saying it is not fair. And I will keep trying tricks until I stumble upon one that works well.” Kids seem to know to do this by instinct.

2. Never reward bad behavior. Attention is often a reward, so be careful about paying too much attention to the bad behavior. Do NOT do the “If you behave yourself I will give you an ice cream thing”. Because, obviously, they are not behaving themselves now, and thus should not be rewarded, but punished. I had a parent bring a kid to scout camp with the line “Johnny was acting up, but I took him out for ice cream and he promised to be good, so I think you will be alright.” That did not work out. Johnny acted up with me, same night, and got no ice cream, nor any dessert. And to think that he promised his mother he would be good! Do not do the “Let me hug you until you behave” thing. If you do, your hug becomes a punishment tool. Bad behavior gets rewarded. Both results are undesirable. Both are exactly opposite of logic and reason. Both happen very frequently in the parenting world.

3. Make the punishment fit the crime. Small crime, small punishment. Big crime, big punishment. If your punishment is too harsh, you may not follow through. If you don’t follow through, you lose respect. With our junior signature forger, the school gave her 10 hours of community service and I matched it with 10 hours of Dad service in the yard. I did follow through and so did the school. She was never caught forging again. On the other hand, don’t ground the kid for a month because he didn’t pick up a sock. Come up with something more appropriate, like make him pick up the entire family room to get him in the habit of picking up. The consequence needs to be sufficient to act as a deterrent to further bad action, but that is all it needs to be.

4. Never take away important good things as punishment for bad behavior. Example, do not take away scouts, church activities, grandma and the like. Do take away games, TV time, toys, play time, etc. Thus must fulfill commitments to team, in general.

5. Options. Give kids options when practical. Would you like to unload the dishwasher or vacuum the living room, etc. I sometimes offered that they could do the chore for money, or be a pain in the rear end and do the job for free. In other words, if they need no supervision, I am willing to pay for the chore, but if I have to supervise, then no pay. Wear modest dress to dance or stay home. Read scriptures in morning or at night (Notice there is no option to read, but there is an option of when). Be home on time, or don’t go out. If playing at Sally’s house is not a good option, then, you may play with Susie anywhere, or play with Sally here. You can do your math first or English first, but playing first is not an option.

6. You are the parent, not the equal, not the friend. If they respect you, you will be the friend in the end, but if you try to be the friend first they will lose respect and you will not be the friend in the end. Amanda and I needed a code word, so that we would know when the teasing is over and that whatever is said next is a serious thing. She would know that I was stepping into the parent mode and out of playful friend mode. You do need to play with the kids and love the kids, but they need to know that the role of parent trumps all else.

7. You have the right to physically make the youngster mind if words do not work the first time. Some parents are afraid of their 2 year old. Then when they are teens there is no hope for that parent to get things figured out.

8. Be Consistent.

9. Always support each other as parents. If you disagree, go with the firmest stance in front of the kids, then discuss it later with each other. Arguing in front of the kids will give them license to argue with the parents also. And then they will start using each parents arguments against the other parent. If a youngster was caught asking the other parent for permission to do something that the first parent had already ruled on, then the answer became an immovable “NO”, and some punishment for trying to “play the parents” was given. If they disagree with parent number one, then the correct appeal process is to tell parent two what parent one had already decided and ask for a review. Parent two’s correct response to the appeal is to defer any judgment until after discussing it with parent one in private. Then both parents can stand together on whichever side wins. Caution: Parent two needs to have a great reason to override parent one or little Johnny will lose respect for parent one. If the override reason is not that impressive, just go with the parent one decision to maintain the concept of “Supporting each other as parents”.

10. Show increased love after discipline is complete. Always a hug, etc. Sometimes after a cool down time for the child. You should not be disciplining while mad and upset, so you don’t need the cool down time. But the youngster might.

11. Never let the child win. In other words, if you have rules, stick by them. If they need to be changed, the child can not think you changed them for him/her. You only changed them because you misunderstood the situation, or addition safeguards have been put in place. Under no circumstances do you waffle due to the whining of the kids. Often times a rule change should not be effective until the next activity, not this one.

12. Children will try to take control by not eating food, not doing chores, not obeying. Using options will help. Let them pick the veggie for dinner. (having a veggie is required) Let them choose their spot to sit at the table. Sitting is required. Make sure they eat well rounded. One bite of what is served is required, perhaps eating the whole thing is not. The parent can win if the rule is one bite, may not win if the rule is the whole enchilada. Desserts are optional. If you threaten no dessert, then give them no dessert. Options and Superkid are both good techniques for chores. Clean the toilet or unload the dishwasher will usually get the dishwasher unloaded. Options help obedience. Obey or suffer the consequence.

13. Superkid. If fighting for places in the car, etc becomes a problem. Rotate super kid weekly. Superkid picks the best chores, the best seat at the table, the best seat in the car. Any choice all week, superkid picks first. Bad behavior will not remove the superkid privilege in general.

14. Example of worst case. Teenage girl (11 to 13 somewhere) was offered money to mow the lawn by herself, or no money if I had to nag her to the mow the lawn. She refused both. I picked her up, carried her to the garage, stood her up behind the mower and pushed her and the mower around the front yard where so that all the neighbor boys could see us. Within half a lap, she desperately convinced me that she no longer needed supervision. She did finish the yard and did not get paid. She always took the pay option in the future. Siblings also took the pay option.

15. The consequences need to be altered to fit the child. A loner is not punished by sending him to his room. Some kids are unaffected by spankings. Find something that works for your child and then use it. If you find yourself using the same punishment frequently, perhaps it is not working.

16. Never, ever call names. No stupid, idiot, bonehead, ugly, etc. You will always catch more flies with honey, anyway.

17. If grandma and grandpa are a good influence then encourage the kids to spend a lot of time there. Later, when the kids hate mom and dad, they will still listen to grandma. Oftentimes, grandma can make a point that the parents cannot.

18. Life will never be fair. That’s a bummer. Work at fairness always, but do not let the kid use that against you.

19. Bummer. Develop a word, like bummer, to use against arguing. I don’t want to. Bummer. I need whatever. Bummer. I hate peas. Bummer. I am not going to. Bummer. Why? Bummer. Why not? Bummer. Soon the word simply gets interpreted as “End of story, shut up and deal with it. Oh, and by the way, if you don’t move on to something else the hammer is coming down!” The parent never says any of that, but the kids will figure it out. The kids are not arguing in order to absorb your wisdom, they are arguing to get their way. So don’t waste your time on wisdom when “bummer” works better. There are times for wisdom. Save it for those times. And it is a casual bummer. A playful way to end the argument. Not in your face, but light and casual. Bummer.

20. Church – Start now. 6 months is not too young. The youth must be more free in the chapel than out. My rules were, sit quietly on the bench or parent’s lap and read or play with a quiet toy. No other options existed. At 6 months to a year, I would take them out and hold them in my arms so that they faced the wall with no motion available. After 5 or 10 minutes of screaming, they would usually go to sleep. They soon learned that Dad would do the same thing if they disobeyed in church, take them to the wall and put them to sleep. So, to retain the freedom to sit on the bench and play with a quiet toy, they would behave. Older children got spanked when they went out, but if you are not a spanker, they must sit facing the wall with no options to do anything even remotely more fun than the chapel. No drinks from the fountain during sacrament meeting. Potty breaks ended as soon as bladder control was verified, by four years old in most cases. If the foyer is more fun than the chapel, how can you expect your kid to want to remain in the chapel?

21. Assume the adults are not lying. Adults have no reason to lie about your kid in general. Odds are, they didn’t tell you even half of the bad stuff. Assume that your kid did twice as much bad stuff as you heard about and come down on that kid with the appropriate punishment. The kid will say “So you believe her over your own son?” And your response will be a resounding “well, yeah!” Perhaps your kid will be wrongly punished once. But probably not. The alternative is that you raise a spoiled brat that is never held accountable to teachers and authority figures and thus will not respect them. A kid that will not respect authority is destined for prison.

22. “Just love them, don’t punish them” is such a lame excuse for failure to parent. Every kid knows instinctively that the parents love them. Even bad parents love their kid, except in the extreme cases. Loving them more without following the rules for good parents simply creates spoiled little monsters.

23. Your kid need not excel at everything. Let them test different waters. Play a little basketball, track, soccer, music, whatever. The rule must be that if they commit to an activity, they need to see it through the season. No quitting in the middle when the going gets tough. Some kids don’t want to do anything. They may need to be required to participate in something, but they have the option to pick what that is from the list of approved activities.

24. Tantrums. A tantrum always ensures that the child’s desire will not be satisfied. Never give in to a tantrum, send the child to his room and then work out the appropriate punishment when the tantrum is over. Even if you were planning on arranging a way for the child to receive the reward, a tantrum absolutely takes that reward off the table.

25. Grandparents. They love. They do not discipline. Always take care of your kids before Grandma and Grandpa have the chance. Never let Grandparents override your decision. Parents always have the final word. If Grandma and Grandpa can’t abide by these rules, only take the kids over for the min time required, or leave the kids home until Grandparents agree to abide totally by the parents wishes. Parenting is hard enough without being undermined by Grandma.