What Good Parents Know That Bad Parents Don’t – Request vs Demand

Good parents, in contrast to bad parents, build their communication with children on requests. Good parents ask, not demand. Good parents do not expect obedience and practice being Yes parents first before they get a Yes response from children. What else do good parents know about requests?

Do not demand that your children ask

If you are eating an apple and your child enters the room, runs to grab another apple, do not demand “What are you supposed to say?” If your child mumbles in response “May I …” it doesn’t mean you taught your child a lesson in good manners. In fact it was a lesson of tactlessness and humiliation, especially if you did it in front of other people. The child won’t think that he or she did something disrespectful, instead the child will come to the conclusion that asking for something is very uncomfortable, humiliating and feels bad. The child will hate asking, because he or she will remember how low valued they were viewed by the parents, and how disrespected it feels.

Reach your goal at your expense

A child doesn’t do anything to hurt you on purpose, unless you hurt his dignity first. If your child doesn’t respond to your request, especially in front of other people, there are many reasons. The child is busy with a game, or tired and not attentive, overwhelmed or simply doesn’t want to do what you ask. If you can reach your goal at your expense: by triggering your child’s desire with an interesting promise, or story telling, or by example, or by encouraging to do something together – this will be done by your own efforts. This is an act of goodness, increasing your child’s dignity. If you try to make your child do what you ask by threatening him, or by scolding, addressing your child’s sense of guilt, by shaming and preaching – it will be done at your child’s expense, by decreasing your child’s dignity.

Know why demanding is a lose-lose strategy

Most parents don’t feel comfortable, sometimes, if they need to ask a child something. “Who am I to bow to him? To be humiliated by him?” This happens when parents themselves are not free from fears, not internally free people. They are afraid of their children’s denial. They choose to demand, to threaten, to reach their goal by making children fear them. This strategy may work, but only for awhile. When children grow up, they start to rebel and eventually stop any communication with their parents. Demanding is a lose-lose strategy. Parents lose their children’s trust. Children lose their parents moral support and guidance.

The good news is that parents can choose to change their attitude and work toward cooperation with their children, wherein everyone wins. With a strong desire, any parent can reach this cooperation with a child, to some level, even though it requires lots of patience and kindness.

What Good Parents Know That Bad Parents Don’t – Yes Response

In the previous article we discussed that good parents, in contrast to bad parents, build their communication with children on requests. Good parents ask, not demand. Good parents know what is happening in the child’s soul when they ask, and that they must be consistent with their requests. What else do good parents know about requests?

Know that the yes response is an act of goodwill

When there is no fear or threat in the request, children have to discover their good will to respond yes to your request. The invisible work of soul, the feeling of giving goodness is a very joyful spiritual experience. It feels good to say yes without outside pressure! The soul of a child makes an effort towards you, even if the child can’t or doesn’t want to fulfill your request.

Do not expect obedience

The best thing about requests (and what seems to be the worst thing for bad parents) is that requests do not require obedience! You ask a child to do something. You voluntarily agree that since it is a request your child doesn’t have to do what you ask. Your child may, or may not respond to your request. It’s your child’s choice. So, you don’t expect obedience in the first place. If your child doesn’t do what you ask – there is no offense, no pain, no humiliation. You asked, not demanded! (If your demand is not responded to then your authority is challenged, and you would have to react, perhaps starting a power struggle. Is it worth it?)

Be ready to respond Yes

Once you start using requests in communication with your child, he learns from you and starts requesting things from you. Here is an important note: be ready to respond Yes. “Dad, may I play …? Yes. “May I take …” Yes. “May I say …?” Yes. Say No as little as possible. Be a Yes-parent, then it will be easy to have a Yes-child.

What Good Parents Know That Bad Parents Don’t – About Request

In contrast to bad parents who build their relationship with children on confrontation, good parents build it on cooperation. The best way of communicating with children is not in demands or orders or how you give them to children. It is in making requests. What do good parents know about requests?

• Ask your children, not demand

If there is a single thing parents should learn in order to improve their parenting, it would be the ability to make a request, to ask children, not demand from them. Please do me a favor…, Would you please…, May I … – common polite phrases are only a part of requests. The intonation is the key. You can make a request with an asking intonation. You can also make a request with a demanding intonation, “Please, do your chores! I said please!” Do not confuse requests with polite demands.

• Know what is happening when you make a request

When requested kindly, a child feels an increased sense of worthiness. In other words, you increase your child’s dignity. Therefore, your child feels good. Your child learns goodness. When you meet rude and disrespectful teenagers, it is probably because these teenagers didn’t know goodness in their childhood. 

• Practice requests consistently

When consistently practised requests become a habit for your child too. When you ask your child to do something for you, you give him a choice: to respond yes, or to respond no; to accept or to deny. This is not just a game. It is work of your child’s soul: he has to choose – to please you, or to hurt you. Your child takes responsibility for his choice. Such training for the soul, if it is done consistently, forms a sense of internal freedom, a sense of independence in the child. He feels that he, himself, rules his life. Thus, he learns to live freely.

What Good Parents Know that Bad Parents Don’t – the Paradox of Authority

There is always something that good parents know and bad parents don’t. Today we will speak about parental authority, the one, where children naturally respect their parents and are not afraid of them. This level of parental authority can be tested by the willingness of children to obey and not resist their parents. In a good parent-child relationship the problem of obedience or resistance of children is resolved on its own. What do good parents know about these problems?

1. Children don’t obey, they just work together with parents

Good parents arrange their activity with children so that there is only one boss, one manager: the work, which must be done. Parents and children share one goal, the job at hand. They work together. They cooperate. Here is the paradox of authority: for many people it seems that children obey parents, where in fact they don’t obey them, and they don’t resist; they simply solve problems together with parents.

2. Parents become teachers, when they stop teaching

The problem between generations is solved by itself, when, in cooperation with children parents acquire real authority. Yet, the paradox is that authority arrives only when parents “stop teaching,” in other words, “stop preaching.” “I stop teaching – and I become a teacher. I am not afraid to lose authority, instead I acquire it. This is authority without pressure. My child has a natural respect for me, and I have the same for him. We are not equal by age, but we are equal because of the common goal. Together we are interested in it” (Simon Soloveychik). Those who cooperate in upbringing are not colleagues, as those who know their work and report to a boss. People who cooperate in upbringing have a common goal – development of the child. They report non-verbally to each other about their participation in this common goal.

3. Sense of duty develops when one watches their own job

In cooperation with children a natural sense of duty develops. While I cooperate with a person I am more occupied with how well I fulfill my duty rather than how he fulfills his duty. Good parents teach children that no one owes anything to anybody. Parents can’t demand anything from another person, they can only demand from themselves. Everyone does his or her job rather than jealously watching others and how they do their job. This is the best way to develop a sense of duty, where duty becomes joy, not a burden.

 4. Equal soul participation instead of equal contribution

 How do parents and children become equal if they are in fact not equal? Yes, the physical contribution is not equal, but souls can participate equally. Work – together! This doesn’t mean that we go together to a nearby store for fresh bread. But as a parent, I participate in this trip: I help the boy to prepare for shopping, then, I assess the purchase, listen to his stories of adventure on the way to the store. What is the boy’s part? He is happy to go to the store when he has the attention of his parent. Therefore such a job is a joy for him!

Of course, natural authority doesn’t come overnight. With a great desire, though, parents may reach their goal, and parenting becomes an everlasting happiness, especially sweet when children grow up to be adults, and they teach theur children the way their parents taught them.

Communication Parents Want to Have – A Common Language

Why is it so difficult to find a common language with children? “Common language – is not a language of command and obedience, instead it is a language of desires,” says Simon Soloveychik in Parenting For Everyone. While making a connection with children parents should remember that the soul of a child is longing for communication, communication not with another man, but with the soul of that man. Why soul? Why not the mind of a man, or psyche of a man? It is because souls are equal. 

 

There is an equality of souls, an equality of desires. If you look at a child with attention, you may feel strength of joy or fear, which your child’s face will tell you about. This may happen under only one condition: In order for a child to communicate with you, you shouldn’t call for any sense of danger. The child must trust you fully – that’s it. Unfortunately, in many cases children are afraid of their parents. It is not always a physical punishment that children are afraid of, but petty parental nagging, preaching, scolding, etc.

 

In a way, when parents feel righteous and don’t want to put this feeling aside, they will still be a source for their children’s sense of danger. This danger is not addressing the children’s physical body, but their sense of value. By constantly evaluating each step, thought, or emotion of their children, by making comments such as “good job” or “say thank you” every time you are with children, you are letting them know that they are not equal to you. You are there to manage them, teach them, but not to communicate with them. Therefore, there is often no connection with children.

 

To talk to children in a common language, parents should recall the language of desires, the language of feelings. Forget about teaching children, forget about being perfect. Enjoy life together with children, share the same feelings, the same desires, the same joy, the same grief. A five-year-old child and a sixty year old professor are not equal in age, intelligence, or body; but when the professor is filled with the joy of having his book published the five-year-old can understand the feeling. When the child is crying about a broken toy, the professor understands as well. This is because they speak a common language.

 

Communication Parents Want to Have – Connecting with Children

Parenting assumes three different actions: to manage, to teach and to communicate with children. Parents think about parenting as management and teaching. But the third component, communication, is often not taken into consideration in the relationship with children. “It can be clear now why we tend to omit communication;  it is not compatible with management and teaching!” says S.Soloveychik in Parenting For Everyone. Therefore, when children grow up, managing and teaching them becomes impossible: children don’t want it anymore, parents are not able to anymore. There is a conflict, which is called the generation gap. For many families it is an eternal problem. Surprisingly, for some families this problem doesn’t exist. How do they communicate with children?

 

Confusion comes from the fact that by communication people mean an ability to talk to each other: “I told him!” However, communication is not simply talking. It is not the use of business communication skills. It is a heartfelt connection. “You feel that you are right, you talk correctly, you demand everything that is needed, really, you are absolutely right; but this doesn’t matter at all, if you don’t connect with the child” (S. Soloveychik). 

 

In management and teaching, the manager and teacher is supposed to have authority, some kind of superiority, so that to impart knowledge or skills to a student. For communication parents need to have heart. In communication parents and children are equal souls. So, when parents try to communicate with the child using the management or teaching approach they don’t have a connection. Are parents ready to be equal, to disclose their souls to children? Here is the difficulty. Not all adults are willing to accept the soul-to-soul relationship, equality of souls. Not all adults can remove the cloth of superiority in their communication with children.

 

How to make sure you have established a connection? Check to see if you call for any sense of danger in your children. Do they trust you? Do they lie to you? In many cases children simply are afraid of their parents. If you want to connect with your children forget about attempts to manage them, forget about teaching them anything. Start sharing with your children the joy and sadness of the moment, find a common language, connect with them.

 

Being a Good Parent During Your Child’s Adolescent Period (Part 3)

A child’s adolescent period scares many parents. They are expecting a teenager to rebel and defy. Perhaps they remember their own childhood, perhaps it is a common belief. But this period doesn’t need to be too painful. Parents just need to keep in mind three things: 

 

1. A good parent is happy.

2. A good parent is patient.

3. A good parent is fair. 

 

3. A parent must be fair. For teenagers a parent is good as long as the parent is fair. Fairness, or justice of a parent, is “more important than food, sweets, toys, and even love” according to S.Soloveychik. Only a fair parent becomes a natural authority and a role model to follow and to respect. The problems of poor parental authority and children’s rebelion turn out to be problems of justice.

 

“It’s not fair!” A teenager is indignant about her mother, because the mother doesn’t let her to hang out with a boy. A girl understands the consequences of sexual activity, which her mother is trying to protect the daughter from. The girl’s feelings are hurt mostly not because the mother is afraid for her and therefore doesn’t let the girl to be friends with the boy, but because the mother doesn’t believe in her daughter’s intelligence. Her mother can suspect her in doing wrong! Mother says it is out of love that she doesn’t let het daughter see the boy. Also it is for the sake of her daughter’s safety. But the daughter feels that the mother does so out of fear, simply for the sake of mom’s peace of mind.

 

It is not fair for the girl, because she doesn’t sense honesty in her mother’s words. It doesn’t teach the girl about healthy relationships and develop her intelligence. By forbidding the child from seeing her friend the mother may protect the child from possible risks. However, the mother misses her only chance to teach her daughter valuable skils in relationships. When the daughter grows older and meets men it will be too late to learn those skills. This is an injustice to the daughter.

 

What does it take – to be fair? Honesty and courage. If you fear so much for your daughter, talk to her about your fear, honestly and openly. Discuss what you both can do to eliminate that fear and increase confidence. You can compromise. Your child will appreciate your fairness and will start learning about her responsibility.

 

If you are interested in this topic you can  ask a question or leave a comment in my blog.

Being a Good Parent During Your Child’s Adolescent Period (Part 2)

A child’s adolescent period is a transition from their dependence to independence from parents. As any transition it is zigzagging. Sometimes it is smooth; sometimes it is rough. If parents keep in mind that this period is also temporary, they would worry less and be more focused on the long term goal: to keep their children bonded to them by their souls. For this purpose they need to remember, that:

 

1. A good parent is happy.

2. A good parent is patient.

3. A good parent is fair. 

 

2. A parent must be patient. The adolescent period of children’s life is a test for their parent’s patience, a test for parent’s love. “”A home must be a little burrow for a child, and a den for a teen. Whenever our kid comes home let’s meet him with joy. From much educational experience, I don’t know a more effective lesson than the joy of family when the child comes home” (S.Soloveychik in Parenting For Everyone). The mother-child bond in the future will depend on which face mother will meet her teenager with, when he comes home late: vicious (“Where have you been, bastard!”) or loving (“I worried about you, baby!”)?

 

It is very easy to spoil the relationship with a teen due to petty purposes. For example, a teenager didn’t develop the habit to do chores when younger. Now the parent forces the teen to do chores because the parent has the fear that the teen won’t be a good housekeeper. Forced chores may make the house cleaner now, but for the rest of the teen’s life the the teen will hate it. Besides, chores are a thankless job. Today you clean it, tomorrow – it is dirty again. There is no nobleness in chores, and yet, a teenager dreams to save the world! If only the parent is patient and believes in the child, the time will come and the teenager becomes a decent person and will do chores routinely, just like the parent.

 

Also, patience is needed to watch while children make their mistakes. Patient parents are those who look at the present time with the eyes to the future. They know that the children’s mistakes are not worthy to worry too much about now. If not learned now, the mistakes may be much worse in the future, when the child becomes an adult. 

 

to be continued…

Being a Good Parent During Your Child’s Adolescent Period (Part 1)

A child’s adolescent period is full of challenges, temptations, and new unknown feelings. A teenager doubts, suffers, loves, hates, fears, and hopes. Even the most successful kids can’t avoid the torments of transition between childhood and adulthood. How can parents help their teenager? There are three qualities of a good parent, for which grown up child will be thankful:

 

1. A good parent is happy.

2. A good parent is patient.

3. A good parent is fair.

  

1. A parent must be a happy person. No matter how tough life is for you, if you want to be a good parent for your child it is a must to represent happiness, optimism, and cheerfulness to your child. “A child gets sick with a chronic disease of unhappiness not from unhappy circumstances but from unhappy people around him. Unhappy people cannot raise happy children; it’s impossible” (Simon Soloveychik in Parenting For Everyone).

 

During at adolescent period, when children grow up physically, unhappy parents often see a chance to share their own pain with their child. But children can’t stand unhappiness. More than anything else they need to know that life is hopeful. Hopelessness kills the children’s spirit and pushes them to run away from home, to look for happiness elsewhere, in the school, in the streets, with peers or strangers. If the kids are lucky, they may find a teacher, or a relative who would give hope that there is something worthy in life to strive for. If not, they get infected with their parent’s habit to feel miserable, depressed and despair, and they may end up in the streets, or detention, or even worse.

 

Another extreme is when parents are unhappy about their children. Parents may be feeling self-fulfilled and self-content, but they always complain about their growing kids. “My child doesn’t do chores, doesn’t study, doesn’t help, is lazy, not interested, doesn’t want to talk to me, doesn’t respect, doesn’t care about anything, etc.” Children sense their parents’ helplessness and lack of faith in them. This attitude decreases the child’s dignity, the child’s sense of human value in themselves. 

 

What to do? Soloveychik would recommend: “Go and tell everyone how good you child is.” Be proud and be happy about your child.

 

to be continued…

Parenting – The Difference Between Discipline and Punishment (Part 2)

Many experts advise parents to give consequences to discipline a child, where, by consequences they mean good punishment. The goal of this punishment is to teach a child to avoid undesirable behavior by fearing the consequences of the behavior.

 

Relying on the consequences to teach lessons may work. Parents may achieve instant obedience. But is it really worth it? Be it parents, who give consequences, or life, they are all external sources of punishment. Fear from the external sources teaches a child to avoid unpleasant experiences, to become cunning. But it doesn’t enrich the child’s heart. It doesn’t develop the child’s moral intelligence. It doesn’t lead to long-term moral discipline.   

 

The only source of punishment that leads to actual discipline is internal. It comes from the child’s conscientiousness. The voice inside the child tells him that mother became sad because he was late for dinner. She made the dinner with love for the family and expected everybody to be on time, but he forgot, or couldn’t stop his play, and now they are all late for the movie. Or, they are at the movie, and mom can’t enjoy it because she worries that he is hungry.

 

When will this happen? When will the child feel uncomfortable because he hurt someone by doing something wrong? When will the punishment of conscience teach the child to avoid hurting other people? When will this internal punishment become the child’s internal discipline?

 

No one knows. It may happen immediately, or in a few weeks, or in a few years. Only patient and faithful parents will see their children being driven not by fear of annoying consequences, but by the precious desire to improve behavior, the desire to become a better person.

 

Good parents don’t expect children to become internally disciplined over one incident, or even after a series of consistent incidents. They don’t train their children, they just live together with them. Good parents believe in their children’s intelligence and that is why they raise well-disciplined children, the ones who know internal freedom. Those parents don’t have to know the difference between discipline and punishment. They focus on knowing the difference between when they increase a child’s dignity and when they encroach upon it.