by Kevin Leman
“Amanda was always a free spirit and really social. Everybody liked her. She had lots of friends. But when she was a junior in high school, her friends changed. They were more of the partying, thrill-seeker type. I figured it was just a phase and Amanda would get over it.”
“Keri has always been concerned about the way she looks. When she was 9, she was a little chubby. A favorite uncle commented to her about seeing her ‘big fat belly’ in her swimsuit when we were at the pool one day. After that, she made a lot of comments about how fat she was. She started eating less at meals and ate a lot of veggies. I thought it was a good turn—eating veggies is good for you, right? Then she hit 11 and really slimmed down. She looked great. When she started getting thinner, I just figured she was going through a growth phase (you know—kids puff out, then get tall and skinny, then gain weight and grow taller again). It wasn’t until a friend mentioned that she thought Keri had a problem that I talked to her about it. Keri has been in counseling and a program for anorexics for the past 2 years, but it is a hard battle to fight. Even though she’s terribly thin, she always sees a fat person in the mirror. I wish I would have paid attention to the little things along the way.”
“Jason was a mouthy kid. He had something to say about everything. His dad and I would just roll our eyes and say, ‘Someday he’ll learn.’ I don’t think he has yet . . . and he’s back home living with us because he just lost his income.”
If you want your child to be a healthy, well-adjusted adult, you need to realize just how important you are in the picture. Your child needs not only your attention but also a relationship with you.
What Kind of Parent Are You?
So often I hear people say, “I never wanted to be like my parents. I hated the way they parented. But then I open my mouth and sound just like them. And I act like it too.” This just goes to show that what parents model sticks—and sticks well. That’s because every child wants to please his parent. Every child longs for parental approval and can’t stand it when he doesn’t get it. There’s nothing worse than knowing you’ve disappointed your parent. If that disapproval is continual, the child will rebel—the old “oh, yeah? Forget you” syndrome.
There are three types of parents, and who you are as a parent has a lot to do with the way your child responds to you. I’ve talked about this in depth in other books (Making Children Mind without Losing Yours is a great resource for this topic), so I’ll just summarize here.
“Buford, have you chosen to go to bed yet?”
Do you want to make sure your child never fails? Are you continually doing things for your child that he could do for himself? Are you your child’s best friend at every turn? Do you find it hard or impossible to say no to him? Are you always cajoling him into doing something? Promising a reward if he does what you ask?
A permissive parent:
• Is a slave to the child.
• Places the priority on the child, not on his or her spouse.
• Robs the child of self-respect and self-esteem by doing things for her that the child can do for herself.
• Provides the child with the “Disneyland” experience; makes things as easy as possible—does homework for the child, answers for her, and so on.
• Invites rebellion with inconsistent parenting.
Does this sound like you?
“You go to bed right NOW!”
Are you always right? Do you bark out orders to your kid and threaten him with warnings if he doesn’t immediately do what you say? Do you tell him how to do life in no uncertain terms?
An authoritarian parent:
• Makes all decisions for the child.
• Uses reward and punishment to control the child’s behavior.
• Sees himself as better than the child.
• Runs the home with an iron hand; grants little freedom to the child.
Does this sound like you?
“Let me know when you’ve brushed your teeth, and I’ll come tuck you in.”
Do you ask your children the facts about a situation and what they think about it before you jump to conclusions? Do you give them age-appropriate choices? Do you look out for their welfare, yet allow them to experience the consequences of their behaviors?
An authoritative or responsible parent:
• Gives the child choices and formulates guidelines with him.
• Provides the child with decision-making opportunities.
• Develops consistent, loving discipline.
• Holds the child accountable.
• Lets reality be the teacher.
• Conveys respect, self-worth, and love to the child and therefore enhances the child’s self-esteem.3
You as the parent are in the position to leave an indelible mark on your child. And you do it often without even being aware of it. The truth is, both extremes (permissive and authoritarian) will cause children to rebel. With a permissive parent, there are no guidelines, and children flounder. With the authoritarian parent, everything is heavy-handed. The wise parent finds the middle ground.
Let’s say you are sitting down for dinner, and your child isn’t crazy about your food choice of pork chops.
The permissive parent would say, “Oh, honey, do you want a cheeseburger instead? I’ll get up right now and make it.” (While your spouse is looking at his pork chop and wondering what’s wrong with it.)
The authoritarian parent would say, “Eat it. Pork chops are good for you. And you better clean your plate.”
The authoritative parent would say, “I know pork chops aren’t your favorite, but that’s what I made for dinner tonight. If you want to make yourself something else afterward, that’s fine. But thanks for sitting with us at dinner anyway. Dinner as a family is important.”
What makes the difference? The authoritative parent is majoring on the relationship and minoring on everything else.
It’s All about the Connection
If you don’t have a connection with your child, why should she care what you think? If your child doesn’t feel your love and acceptance for her—no matter what she does—there will be no relationship.
You can’t run a family by rules if there is no connection between family members. If you try to, you’ll always have an adversarial relationship. Your children will know that no matter what they say, do, or look like, you’ll be playing judge and jury. If that’s the way your home is run, no wonder you get knee-jerk reactions every time you try to talk to your kids.
Note that I said “talk to your kids,” not “ask your kids questions.” There’s a big difference. Asking questions puts your child on the defensive. Instead, make open-ended statements (even in response to stupid or out-of-the-blue comments) such as, “I’ve never thought about it that way. Tell me more.” Let’s say your child wants to listen to her music in the car, as all teens do. I’ve got news for you: you won’t like her music. (But your parents didn’t like your music either.) Instead of wincing, say, “That’s an interesting beat. I like that beat.”
Such comments are respectful of your children, and they set the paradigm that you are open to talking with your children about anything. Talking with your children about the little things means that they will be more likely to talk with you about the big things.
Your children need to know that you are on their team—that no matter what they do, you love them. You may not like what they do, but that doesn’t change your love for them. Many children don’t experience the connection, but they experience the pressure. They are bullied into submission, called names, ordered around, told they have to do better in school—and then the next day parents act like none of that happened.
That’s why parents need to address their own behavior before they expect their children to change. Many parents create a home environment that is not a fun place to be. Their kids are like robots with no choice (until they choose to act in rebellion). Yet you worked hard to have this child. Some of you went to fertility clinics, held your legs up after s
ex when you were trying to get pregnant, or went through myriad paperwork for adoption. Is it too much to ask that you show your child some attention and appreciation 3 years or 15 years down the road? To take the time to find the middle ground in your parenting style? Rules don’t work without a relationship.
You May Not Have Much, Mama, but It’s All You Need
You don’t need a PhD. You don’t need to have a lot of money. You have all you need. You know the biggest secret of all: your child wants to please you. She can’t stand it when she knows you’re unhappy with her. She wants to know you are a team. Yes, all this is true, even if she sometimes gives you the eye roll and wants you to walk 10 feet behind her because you’re embarrassing her.
What’s most important is your relationship, and that is based on respect and unconditional love. So much has to do with you and how you treat your children.
Every once in a while, slip your child a commercial. I love to do that. The other day my youngest, Lauren, was in the backseat of the car when I was telling Holly, her 35-year-old sister, “I can’t wait to see what Lauren is going to be someday. I know it’s going to be something special.” I wanted Lauren to hear what I was saying. I wanted her to know that I like the person she’s become, and I look forward to our future together. Most parents talk very little to kids. I want to talk to my children and also tell good gossip about them.
Parent, you hold all the aces. You’ve got the bank account, the car, the house, the groceries, the power. Children have nothing except what you give them and what they’ll someday inherit.
What kind of legacy are you going to leave for them? If you want them to be healthy, independent thinkers who are kind and giving to others, now is the time to start. And you can start by changing yourself.
If you tend toward being authoritarian, work on giving your children age-appropriate choices. Children need to develop the ability to make good life decisions. After all, you’re not going to be in the same house with your child, making her decisions when she’s 32, are you? It’s not likely. When you release your children to the world, you want to know that they will be all right on their own. That they will be standing on a firm foundation of love, acceptance, and understanding.
So give age-appropriate choices. There’s nothing wrong with saying to your child, “Which would you rather have for breakfast? French toast or scrambled eggs?”
However, you also need an understanding of your child’s age and stage. If you say to your 4- to 6-year old, “Oh, honey! Your birthday is coming up in six weeks. Why don’t we go to the toy store and get an idea of what you want?” you’ve created a scenario in which you are going to lose. Children his age live for the moment. Tomorrow is too far away. Six weeks is a lifetime. He’s not emotionally mature enough to wait. So parent, use your head. Provide age-appropriate choices that will not frustrate your children.
If you are a permissive parent, you need to stand up and be a parent instead of trying to be your child’s friend and make her happy. Being happy all the time isn’t real life, and you’re not being fair to your child if you’re providing a continual Disneyland experience. Without accountability for her actions, your hedonistic little sucker will grow up to be a teenage brat and then an adult who back talks and can’t hold down a job. Will your children always like you? No. But did you become a parent so you could be high on the likeability scale? If so, you are the one who needs a reality check.
The stakes are too high. You cannot back down.
The goal of every parent should be to raise independent thinkers who have a healthy respect for themselves and others. This is extremely important in today’s permissive society, as shown in the following commencement speech. The speech was given by J. Neusner at Brown University in 1981, but it is even more applicable today:
We the faculty take no pride in our educational achievements with you. . . . With us you could argue about why your errors were not your errors, why mediocre work was really excellent, why you could take pride in routine and slipshod presentation. For four years we created an altogether forgiving world, in which whatever slight effort you gave was all that was demanded. When you did not keep appointments, we made new ones. When your work came in beyond deadline, we pretended not to care.
Why? Despite your fantasies, it was not even that we wanted to be liked by you. It was that we did not want to be bothered, and the easy way out was pretense: smiles, and easy Bs.
Few professors actually care whether or not they are liked by peer-paralyzed adolescents, fools so shallow as to imagine professors care not about education but about popularity. It was, again, to get rid of you. So go, unlearn the lies we taught you.4
Parent, how much do you care? How much do you want to be bothered? What kind of foundation are you building for your children? What kind of lies are you teaching through your parenting style? How are you preparing them for the future?
Start with the end in mind, and keep the focus on your relationship, not on rules.
I have friends on all sides of the issue—from permissive to authoritarian—and boy, are you right! Authoritative is the only way to go. I saw the fruits of the other two methods in my work at a public welfare agency for 20 years. I’m glad that I chose the balanced perspective with my own kids. I’m proud of them. They’re now grown with families of their own. And I’m close to my grandchildren. It truly is all about the relationship.
Belle, Texas
You’re right about taking the long view. I can’t believe how fast the time goes. It seems like yesterday that my 3 children were babies, and soon my oldest is going to graduate from high school. Now that I have teenagers in my home, I found your advice about not asking questions extremely helpful. I’d been getting “the grunt,” but now that I’ve shut my mouth, they’re opening theirs. Thanks!
Sharon, Nebraska
Boy oh boy, did I need a reminder of the long view. My wife got pregnant a lot earlier than we’d planned, and we now have twins under the age of 2. Our home went from quiet strolls in the evening to the chaos of toddlers. I was, I admit, an “escapee father.” A month ago it hit me, after listening to you speak, that’s exactly what my father was—an escapee. And when he was home, he was always ordering me around. I didn’t want to be like him, so I didn’t do anything. I’ve now apologized to my wife and told her that I want our family relationship to be a priority. And I’ve asked for her help on that. Thanks for being the reality check I needed.
Jay, Illinois
I’ve been known to say that parenting 6 children (what were we thinking?) is kind of like herding yowling cats. But after listening to your principles, I think our home could become manageable chaos. This was the first time my husband and I ever agreed on any parenting principles, so this is a biggie. Your no-nonsense approach and personal examples won him over since he thinks most behavior specialists are, to quote him, “a crock.” I’m the permissive parent; he’s the authoritarian parent. Neither of our approaches was working. Now I’ve got a backbone and determination, and my husband’s goals are being approached in a manner that isn’t as severe.
Susan, Kansas
My husband left me a year ago for another woman after 13 years of marriage, and I have full custody of our 2 boys. Every once in a while, I get in the pit of depression, feeling like I’m not there for my kids enough (I have to work full-time now) or that I’m too strict on them (they come home from their dad’s house full of too much sugar and exhausted from late bedtimes). Your talk on “You May Not Have Much, Mama, but It’s All You Need” was exactly what I needed to remind me what I do have and how important I am to the kids. Thanks. It’s the encouragement I need to raise my boys.
Tamara, New Mexico
I’ve read so many statistics about how children raised by a single mom are doomed that I felt doomed. Then I heard your parenting principles and thought, Hey, I can do that, with or without a spouse. You lightened my burden by pointing out that my relationship with my kids is the most important thing. I can’t g
ive them everything, but I can give them my time and attention. That was exactly what I needed to hear (and I loved your 3 simple strategies for success too). I felt like you were cheering me on.
Lily, Iowa
Thursday
But What If I Damage Their Psyche?
(Uh . . . What’s a Psyche?)
There’s praise, and there’s encouragement.
Your kid is smart enough to know the difference.
I knew a kid who was a real live wire and a comedian. He got thrown out of fourth grade because he put his hand down his pants, stuck his finger out his fly, and wiggled it at the girls. He got kicked out of Cub Scouts at age 11 for “unpredictable behavior.” He got thrown out of consumer’s math (the math the “dummies” took so they could at least buy groceries when they graduated) as a senior in high school. He was the kind of guy everyone laughed at, but only his mother really believed he’d grow up to count for something.
Until Vincent Stearns, a high school English teacher, stepped in. He took no crap from anyone and made his expectations very clear. Well, this child had barely done homework in all his years of school—but he did homework for Mr. Stearns. For the first time he rose to the challenge, because guess what? Mr. Stearns had such positive expectations of the young man’s abilities that even a flunky would take notice.
What made the difference?
1. The expectations were clear. There was no wiggle room for miscommunication.
2. The adult expected the best . . . so he got it.
It didn’t matter that the kid’s academic records were at the bottom of the scale. It didn’t matter that the kid was known to get his kicks from clowning around and drawing attention to himself.
That teacher gave the young man a second chance.
Expect the Best, Get the Best
These days, parents are overly concerned with a child’s self-esteem. “I want Johnny to feel good about himself,” a mother says.
