“I can’t believe I got fired! I was only late five times this week!”
“I know I got two warnings last month, but I don’t deserve this speeding ticket!”
Do you feel any sympathy for these people? Likely not. So why are you training your child to become just like them?
Think about it - how many chances and reminders do you give your children? Do you give a warning for misbehavior (“Please stop asking me if you can have cookie!”), then another warning, then another, then get frustrated and give in (“Oh, fine, here’s a cookie if it’ll make you quiet.”)?
Nobody wins in this situation. Parents lose their temper, their control, and their poise. Children lose their trust in their parents, making them behave even more badly. In response, parents escalate their frustration as well. This cycle of misbehavior can hurt a child’s sense of security, self-esteem and confidence.
Of course, no parent purposefully intends on giving their children the wrong messages. But when we use reminders, anger, lecture, threats, warnings, bailouts and rescue behaviors, they have life long damaging effects on our children as they become young adults.
Becoming a Love & Logic Parent teaches parents to take excellent care of themselves and set loving appropriate limits with their children. Help your children grow up confident, strong, self-assured with high self-esteem. Develop your children for maximum success in adulthood by setting up your home as close to the real adult world as possible.
With Love & Logic, you learn to give your child choices and consequences. If the child chooses to misbehave, they know the consequence they are choosing as well. Wise parents know that short-term discomfort equals long term gain in the development of their children.
This not only benefits the child today, but later in life. Case in point: a college student once explained to me how she and her mother were always best friends. She had a “cool” mom who gave her lots of freedom and zero responsibility. If she made a mistake, her mom would fix it. If she acted out, her mother would give in every time.
However, when she arrived in college, she became anxious and depressed. She found it difficult to cope with mistakes and failures and felt totally unprepared for the adult world. Life in college was more stressful and challenging without her mother taking care of everything for her.
She should have been happy. She had everything she could have wanted while growing up — so what was missing?
Limits. Children may not appreciate the limits and boundaries in the moment, but they are opportunities to practice bouncing back from mistakes and failures, work through challenges, learn to solve problems and develop some confidence and self-assurance. Her well intentioned mother stole these growth opportunities from her and she is struggling unnecessarily. Having grown up without boundaries, she did not develop the real-life skills she needed — and now she is anxious, afraid to make a mistake, and does not know how to solve problems on her own. Being her mother’s friend in childhood didn’t serve her well in adulthood.
When boundaries are not lovingly delivered and upheld, children may act worse, making our lives more challenging. Parents can break this cycle by giving the right messages instead.
Learn to develop the skill of delivering an empathic response. Learn to set clear, concise and firm limits delivered with kindness. Learn to deliver enforceable statements that are easy for you to back up and you will help raise your children to have high self esteem, confidence and become successful adults. You will also learn to raise your children without breaking a sweat. More importantly, you’ll raise a confident, capable young adult.
“I know I got two warnings last month, but I don’t deserve this speeding ticket!”
Do you feel any sympathy for these people? Likely not. So why are you training your child to become just like them?
Think about it - how many chances and reminders do you give your children? Do you give a warning for misbehavior (“Please stop asking me if you can have cookie!”), then another warning, then another, then get frustrated and give in (“Oh, fine, here’s a cookie if it’ll make you quiet.”)?
Nobody wins in this situation. Parents lose their temper, their control, and their poise. Children lose their trust in their parents, making them behave even more badly. In response, parents escalate their frustration as well. This cycle of misbehavior can hurt a child’s sense of security, self-esteem and confidence.
Of course, no parent purposefully intends on giving their children the wrong messages. But when we use reminders, anger, lecture, threats, warnings, bailouts and rescue behaviors, they have life long damaging effects on our children as they become young adults.
Becoming a Love & Logic Parent teaches parents to take excellent care of themselves and set loving appropriate limits with their children. Help your children grow up confident, strong, self-assured with high self-esteem. Develop your children for maximum success in adulthood by setting up your home as close to the real adult world as possible.
With Love & Logic, you learn to give your child choices and consequences. If the child chooses to misbehave, they know the consequence they are choosing as well. Wise parents know that short-term discomfort equals long term gain in the development of their children.
This not only benefits the child today, but later in life. Case in point: a college student once explained to me how she and her mother were always best friends. She had a “cool” mom who gave her lots of freedom and zero responsibility. If she made a mistake, her mom would fix it. If she acted out, her mother would give in every time.
However, when she arrived in college, she became anxious and depressed. She found it difficult to cope with mistakes and failures and felt totally unprepared for the adult world. Life in college was more stressful and challenging without her mother taking care of everything for her.
She should have been happy. She had everything she could have wanted while growing up — so what was missing?
Limits. Children may not appreciate the limits and boundaries in the moment, but they are opportunities to practice bouncing back from mistakes and failures, work through challenges, learn to solve problems and develop some confidence and self-assurance. Her well intentioned mother stole these growth opportunities from her and she is struggling unnecessarily. Having grown up without boundaries, she did not develop the real-life skills she needed — and now she is anxious, afraid to make a mistake, and does not know how to solve problems on her own. Being her mother’s friend in childhood didn’t serve her well in adulthood.
When boundaries are not lovingly delivered and upheld, children may act worse, making our lives more challenging. Parents can break this cycle by giving the right messages instead.
Learn to develop the skill of delivering an empathic response. Learn to set clear, concise and firm limits delivered with kindness. Learn to deliver enforceable statements that are easy for you to back up and you will help raise your children to have high self esteem, confidence and become successful adults. You will also learn to raise your children without breaking a sweat. More importantly, you’ll raise a confident, capable young adult.
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