Have a New Kid by Friday

by Kevin Leman

  There are 3 facts every parent should know:

  • 90 percent of children ages 11 to 17 will be accidentally exposed to pornography on the Internet (without MaxProtect).

  • Children ages 12 to 17 are the single largest group of consumers of Internet pornography.

  • One million predators/pedophiles are stalking our children and teens on the Internet.5

  If you don’t know anything about computers or know just the bare minimum, this is a mountain you have to pay attention to. Go take some computer lessons (or ask your kids to give you some). Find the history button on your computer and use it. Find out what your children are looking at, what sites they’ve visited.

  Move your computer to a central location of the house. Computers should never be in a child’s bedroom. They should be in a heavily traveled area where you and others are constantly walking by and can view what’s on the screen.

  Because of the dangers of the Internet and the fact that children can inadvertently click on a search word and get directly into a porn site, I suggest that you install a safety card that prohibits downloading objectionable material. For further tips, go to www .protectkids.com.

  As a parent, your job is to protect your child from danger, and the biggest danger is sitting right in your home. Computers are not going to go away, so it’s your job to find ways for your child to use the computer safely. But it takes your involvement.

  Every child is curious. And it’s not just “bad kids” who come across pornography on the Internet and then get hooked. Dan was a straight-A student who had a lot of friends. He loved to play the guitar and was always the child who helped his mother bring in the groceries from the car without being asked. But when his father accessed the history button on their computer, he found out that for the last 6 months, his 14-year-old son had regularly been accessing a porn site. When confronted with the knowledge, Dan said, “I was Googling something else and clicked on it. At first I was shocked, then I was curious. I wanted to go back and see more, even though I knew it was wrong. I just wanted to see what girls looked like.” Those wise parents, after they got over their own shock, assigned their son a project—to research and write an 8-page paper about pornography, including how it affects the viewer and how it views women. They also moved the computer to a central desk in their kitchen.

  B didn’t happen until A was completed either. That meant that before Dan went out with friends, before he even could IM his friends again, the paper had to be completed, turned in to his parents, and approved.

  Dan is now in college and says he hates that he ever viewed those images. They still linger in his mind.

  Parents, protect your children from Internet dangers. This is a mountain you can’t afford not to face.

  Interruptions

  Children want your attention, and they want it most desperately when you’re on the telephone. You know the drill well. You escape to some far corner of the house to call a friend, and within 25.5 seconds, a child is on your tail and absolutely has to have something at that very moment. So what do you say? “Just a minute!” And you go on talking.

  In another 5.5 seconds, there’s another tug on your arm and a plea for attention. “Just a minute!” you say again.

  Within a few more seconds, you have a whiner or a screamer on your hands.

  This behavior is not only annoying, it’s a mountain. It may not seem like a mountain, compared to other issues you’re facing thatbother you more, but it is. Why? Because it’s all about respect. If a child continually interrupts you (whether you are working, are on the telephone, or have guests over for dinner), he is not respecting you.

  Sure, there are times when your kids do need your attention (like when you leave something on the stove and they smell it burning), but many times theirinterruptions are merely that—interruptions. It’s another way to control you, to be boss of the home. You deserve some uninterrupted times—to complete work, talk with girlfriends on the phone, etc.

  So what can you do to get your point across, other than yelling (which doesn’t get your point across anyway)? As soon as your kids start their dog and pony show, continue talking on the phone, but remove your children from the situation and isolate them (perhaps in their room or even outside the kitchen door). With young children, doing this for a couple minutes will seem like a lifetime. For older children, it can be a longer period of time.

  Then after you’re off the phone, talk to your children about how their interruption made you feel. “It’s important to me to talk to Sandy. She’s my friend and I enjoy talking to her. You like talking to your friends too, don’t you? When you interrupt me when I’m on the phone, I don’t appreciate it. I take it personally. By interrupting me, you’re saying you don’t care about me, what interests me, or my friends.”

  In other words, take action, and follow that action with an explanation. But do not interrupt what you’re doing.

  I got an email from a mom who heard me talk about this in a seminar. She tried it on a beautiful summer day after she returned home, when her children interrupted her as she talked on the phone with her girlfriend. She simply continued talking and ushered them outside the kitchen door into the backyard and locked the door. Forty-five minutes later she said to her girlfriend, “Oh, my goodness! I forgot something—the kids are still outside!” (See “Telephone Courtesy” for the rest of the story.)

  Do you think those children forgot that lesson? After that, when their mom was on the phone and they felt they needed something, they merely shrugged and walked away. Most of the time what they needed was something they could get themselves—and they learned to be more independent.

  You deserve the freedom to talk on the phone without interruptions. That’s your time, and it’s all part of the respect issue. Don’t let it go unaddressed.

  Irresponsibility with Car, Driving

  Driving is a privilege, not a given, in my book. A child’s first responsibilities are to home, school, sports practice, music lessons, etc. Driving follows those in importance, but it can become the singular focus in a child’s mind once she turns 15.

  In order to be able to take out the family car or have a car of her own, a child needs to show a tremendous level of responsibility. Also, it’s smart for the child to have taken driver’s education classes (it also saves you in insurance money). Some very smart parents I know have rules if the child wants to drive the family car after she turns 16:

  1. No more than one friend in the car with you.

  2. No talking on the phone or text messaging.

  3. No alcohol ever in the car.

  4. Be home at a reasonable hour.

  5. You pay half the insurance every six months.

  Do you think their daughter, now 18, is respectful of her parents and careful with the family vehicle?

  Just because your child turns 16 doesn’t mean he’s ready to drive. Driving requires focus, seriousness, and discipline. If your child is irresponsible, why would you want him driving your child is irresponsible, why would you your $32,000 vehicle? And why would you want him to take his life and the lives of his friends and other drivers into his hands? Driving is a mountain, a very serious mountain.

  If your child isn’t responsible enough to drive, he shouldn’t get the keys to the family car. Or if he does, then you or another responsible adult need to go with him as he drives. Is this an inconvenience, since you hoped to be free of all the running to activities when your child turned 16? Of course it is. But so is the majority of parenting. However, the flip side is far costlier.

  Recently in western New York, 5 girls who were on the cheerleading squad—popular kids in school, good students who had just graduated from high school and were college bound—were in a tragic, head-on collision. The investigators discovered that, seconds before the crash, the driver had received a text message and that she’d been texting along the way as she drove. When she tried to pass a car, she smashed head on into a semi.

  Now, I ask you: is it wor
th having certain rules that your children must follow for driving the family car? If your child doesn’t follow those rules and acts irresponsibly, is it really so bad that she will have to take a 1-month or 3-month time-out on driving? The alternative could be so much worse, as the parents of those 5 girls have discovered.

  Taking away the car keys will gain you a temporary earful but will save your child—and others on the road—from tremendous danger.

  Isolating Oneself (in His or Her Room)

  “Since Andrea turned 13, I never see her anymore. She comes home from school and goes straight to her room. She spends her time on the phone, text messaging, and changing clothes. It’s like she’s not even a member of the family anymore.”

  Let me clarify something from the beginning. It is very normal for teens to come home from school, go to their room, and close the door for a while. Talking to friends on the phone, text messaging, etc., is very important to teenagers. And spending time alone helps them process all the changing hormones and resulting emotions.

  What I’m talking about is the child who spends all of her time in her bedroom. Knowing when the child is spending too much time in her room is a parent’s judgment call. Only you know, from your child’s behavior, when she simply needs time alone and when she is literally walling herself off from the rest of the family. Some kids become recluses in their own home.

  If this is happening in your home, the first place to start is by evaluating your own behavior. When a child separates herself from her family by isolating herself in her bedroom, here’s what she’s really saying: I don’t like being around you. Every time I open my mouth, you correct me and judge me. Every time I wear something, you look at me funny. You don’t like my hair, my clothes, or my music. I’m done with you.

  When a kid is ragged on all the time and told how to do life and when to do it by a hovering parent, that kid will always duck out and head toward her room to escape it. Who can blame her? Would you want to be ragged on all the time?

  So you need to ask yourself, What am I doing to contribute to my child’s behavior? If all you do is pry and ask questions, stop! The best way to shut children down is by asking questions. Instead, listen to your children. If your daughter mentions something that happened at school, simply say, “Tell me more about that. That must have been fun/hard.” Leave the door open for dialogue, but don’t push. When you stop pushing, you’ll be amazed what you begin to hear from your child.

  At the heart of this behavior is a child’s need for acceptance. When your child talks to friends, those friends accept the hairstyle you think is goofy (they think it’s cool or at least don’t rag him about it), her too-tight shirt, and his baggy pants. When you look at the long term, those things are not mountains, they’re molehills. (Think about the stupid things you wore in eighth grade. Enough said?)

  Your child needs to know you accept and love him unconditionally. That is the foundation for a lifetime of communication.

  Know-it-all Attitude

  Children know it all. They’re born with knowing it all, and you can’t tell them any different.

  “The show starts at 6,” you say.

  “No, it doesn’t,” your daughter argues. “It starts at 8.”

  “The program says 6,” you say.

  And on the debate rages.

  You can’t tell a know-it-all anything.

  So why not let reality do the teaching? If you know something starts at 6:00 and your child insists it’s at 8:00, follow her lead. Show up at 8:00, when it’s all over, and let your child experience the reality of misinformation. Sure, you attended an event you knew wouldn’t be there. But you also let your child experience a very important lesson: maybe, just maybe, she’s not always right!

  Often we do too much thinking for our kids. We do too many things for them. We’re too good as parents. We try to protect them from themselves. But sometimes they need to experience the consequences of their decisions. They need to lose out on something they wanted to do.

  Reality can be a very wonderful teacher.

  Lack of Cooperation with Family

  “He always refuses to do what the rest of the family wants to do. It’s always got to be what he wants to do, or he’s a sore loser and makes us all pay for the rest of the day.”

  I’m not talking about a onetime occurrence here (let’s face it: each of us has our moments). I’m talking about the kid who’s got attitude. He keeps you running from crisis to crisis. You put out one fire and another one pops up immediately. He makes it clear that his wishes are the ones that are important, and no one else matters.

  What can you do about this? I’ve got a prescription that works well: Give ’em the bread-and-water treatment.

  What does that mean? Your child is used to getting all sorts of things: an allowance, lunch money, guitar lessons, trips to friends’ houses. All of a sudden, all of those perks stop. No warning. No fanfare. No anger. Things just stop. Your child heads out the door for guitar lessons and gets in the car. He sits there . . . and sits there . . . and sits there. You don’t come out, so finally he’s ticked off enough to come in and say, “What’s the deal? Are we going to guitar lessons or not?”

  Now is your teachable moment.

  “I called and cancelled your lesson,” you say calmly.

  “What?” he says.

  “Well, your dad and I have been talking. It seems like you want to drop out of the family, so that’s the way it’ll be for a while. Being a member of this family has some perks, I think, but you’ve got to live your life the way you want to live it. I can’t force you to do things, but there will be changes on how the family will function. I’ll no longer be driving you to guitar lessons, nor will we be paying for them.”

  This method works very well with older kids. Sometimes you just have to hit kids where it hurts (figuratively speaking, of course) for them to get it.

  Lateness

  “No matter what time we start, she’s always late for school.”

  “Whenever we plan a family dinner, he always shows up late . . . just in time for dessert.”

  Ask any businessperson who hires people and he’ll tell you what he looks for in his employees. One of the key qualities is promptness. Why is this? Because business folks know well that the person who is always running late will, in the long run, put himself in a situation in which he’ll come up a loser rather than a winner. And that wouldn’t be good for the business.

  Why would someone always run late?

  It doesn’t take a psychologist to figure this one out. If a child always runs late, it’s because she’s stacking the deck against herself. She doesn’t feel like she’s worth anything. She doesn’t think highly enough of herself or believe that she can accomplish what she sets out to do. It’s her way of making life difficult for herself.

  If you have a continually late child, also read the “Procrastination” section. The child who is always late is, in all probability, the one who is living with a critical-eyed parent (you?) who can spot a flaw at 50 paces. Being late is your child’s excuse. She’s late so she doesn’t have to play her piano solo and hear your critique afterward about her one wrong chord, because the program has already moved on. She’s late so she doesn’t have to set the dinner table (because the last time she did, you harped on her placement of the utensils).

  There’s a practical way of dealing with lateness. You can tell your child that you have to leave at 7:30 when you actually need to leave at 7:45 or 8:00. But it won’t take long before your child catches on. That’s only a short-term solution.

  If your child is always late, do a gut-check on yourself. Are you one of those flaw-picking, hovering parents? If so, your child would rather be late and not do the activity than risk failure in your eyes. It all goes back to the fact that your child needs unconditional love and acceptance. And the person she needs it from the most is you, her parent.

  This doesn’t mean, however, that you don’t address the lateness in your child. If you
want to curb the lateness in 5 days or less, tell your kids when you need to be out the door. “I have to be out the door at 7:45 in order to go to my meeting. If you are ready, I’ll drop you off at Hannah’s on the way.” If your child isn’t at the door at 7:45, leave without warning or fanfare. (This only works, of course, if there is an older sibling or another adult home to stay with a younger child.) Let the child stay behind and suffer the consequences of not being ready.

  If your child is continually late in getting out the door for school, go ahead and leave on time with your other children. Let the other child stay behind. It will mean, of course, sacrifice on your part because you’ll have to make two trips to school. But welcome to the world of parenting! Sometimes it is inconvenient.

  If a child experiences being late and is held accountable by an outside person (maybe she has to go to the principal’s office or is given a pink slip she has to give to a teacher), all the better.

  If your child has a record of lateness, you may also want to talk with the teacher or principal and say, “We’re trying to work on Sarah being on time. Anything you can do to help us on that would be appreciated.” In other words, home and school can work together.

  Let’s say your eighth grader misses the bus, and you have to drive him to school. What would you normally do? Run out of the door in your bathrobe without your coffee to get him there on time, right?

  I suggest something different. Take your time. Take a shower, blow-dry your hair, pour yourself a cup of coffee. Quietly make a phone call to the school without your child knowing and tell them why he’s going to be late. Encourage the office to give him a stiff warning on that pink or blue slip. Ask the teacher to say something to him in front of the class about his lateness.