Basic Parenting 101

I know many of you will dismiss this article thinking, “I am a parent, I have the basics, I don’t need this.” Even if it isn’t your first rodeo, you may want to have a peek. I have so many clients come to counseling looking for guidance on the basics. So many parents feel like they need permission to follow through with their gut instincts. The families that are coming for guidance usually have a child that is behaving very differently from their other children and they are at a loss. What worked with the other children is not working and may even be escalating the situation. The other parents that come for guidance are lost in some parenting areas. Those are the people that haven’t had good parenting examples from their parents. They may have been raised in an abusive home and learned that they don’t want their children to experience what they did, and are at a loss for some positive coping skills. Some parents come for parenting guidance when they grew up in homes were they didn’t have strong parents. Perhaps they didn’t have enough guidance and felt that they had to learn a lot of skills on their own and too young. Often times these people had to have a hand in raising younger siblings and are burned out on parenting. Even though these situations are very different, the solution may be the same.

Back to basics parenting looks at using natural consequences, positive and negative to effect a change in behavior. Basic parenting also looks to the child for solutions. Changing behavior means reinforcing what you want, the positive, and negatively effecting what you don’t want, negative consequences to create effective behavioral changes. You will want to use what is important to your child. Behavioral shaping is a well researched area and decades of experience tell us that positively rewarding positive behavior accelerates the learning process. We are all familiar with negative consequences for negative behavior. Most of us call that punishment. As parents, we want our children to learn that in real life there will be negative consequences for negative behavior. Our hope is that our kids will learn the lesson of natural consequences long before they are able to have a powerful negative behavior such as criminal behavior or permanent negative behavior like a teenage pregnancy. Of course these are extreme examples but the reality is that if our children don’t learn good self management skills, they will not manage themselves well. They will open themselves to much more extreme behavior. When our children cross that line, we are no longer administering the consequences. When the behavior becomes extreme other authorities will be, administering the consequences, such as teachers, school principles, police, or judges.

Sometimes parents are baffled about why a strong negative consequence doesn’t effect the change of behavior they had hoped. For example, I had a family come for counseling after their 14 year old daughter had sent nude photos of herself to various male friends on the internet. Their “punishment” was no extra curricular activities for several months and she had to write several Bible versus. Much to their surprise, she did the same thing again! My thought was she was able to do the same thing again because she could. The consequence they administered was not a natural one. It didn’t directly affect the behavior they wanted to change. A natural consequence is one that is directly tied to the behavior you want to change. A natural consequence for that family might have been losing the computer for a long period of time, and then when she regains the privilege only with parent supervision until they are convinced she has learned to be responsible with his very powerful tool. . She would need to lose all of the tools necessary to have that extreme behavior, computer, camera (or cell phone if that is how it is generated) and lack of supervision. Oftentimes, a repeat in the same behavior is a sign that the consequence is not directly tied to the behavior or that the consequence doesn’t really have value to that child. It can be tricky to find a consequence that is directly tied to the behavior and has value to your child. If you can’t tie the two together, look for the consequence that has the most impact on your child. Go for the soft underbelly. Our goal is to motivate them to do the right thing.

Parenting is an interpersonal relationship. Obviously, it occurs in relationship to a child. Because of that relationship, the behavior that needs to change is not just the child, but also the parent. There are two parts to the equation, the child behavior, and the parent behavior. As adults, we don’t feel like we need to change anything we say or do. They (the children) should simply respond to us the way we want. As Dr. Phil would say “how is that working for you?” In a perfect world maybe that idea would work, but we live here on Earth, and it’s not perfect. Part of why we get so upset when our children don’t respond the way we want them to is that we personalize their behavior. We respond to their behavior as if it were created to and directed at making us upset. For example, James is dawdling around the house despite your repeated warnings that if he wants a ride to school with you, he needs to be ready to leave at 8:00. At 7:50 you give him another warning “socks and shoes buddy, I’m leaving at 8:00, you aren’t going to make me late for work!” 8:10 comes and you are furious, because he made you late again. In your mind there is a dialogue going on about how disrespectful this child is; he doesn’t respect your time, he doesn’t respect your authority; he does what he wants when he wants without regard for others. Sound familiar? What needs to change here? Both parts of the equation.

The child needs to learn time management skills, and the parent needs to learn to set and hold appropriate boundaries. Children don’t come with perfect skills; they learn and grow into them. This child likely doesn’t have a great concept of how long it takes to get certain tasks done (oh, it will just take a minute) and also he really doesn’t believe the parent will leave without him. On the parent side of the equation, the parent believes he set the boundary (8:00 am) and if the child loves and respects him, he will be on time. People learn through experience and the child has to have the experience of getting everything done to know how long it takes. He likely won’t be on time the first few times. In other words, it takes significantly longer to do then he thought it would (just like every school project). On the parent end of the equation, it is really important not to personalize the child’s learning experience. He is learning how to prioritize, and how long it takes to get things done. Obviously he didn’t learn from your explanation of how long it would take him and he had better start now. No, this child is going to learn from his own experience, and likely his own failures. That experience doesn’t have anything to do with the love or respect he has for his parent. Proving his love and respect is not even on his mind as he tackles his challenge of getting ready. Let’s get back to the boundary. Apparently, the boundary dad thought he set was not really 8:00, because 8:00 came and went without consequence. “But I did set the boundary, he just didn’t honor it!” I am sure that is what dad believes, but if he didn’t enforce the boundary with a consequence, it wasn’t really a boundary, but rather a suggestion.

What are boundaries and why do we need them? Boundaries are the rules we create to take care of ourselves, and relationships. Boundaries define where one person ends and another one begins. They teach people how to be responsible and accountable for their behavior. They teach others how you wanted to be treated and respected. The boundaries you set for yourself, train others how they are supposed to behave with you. If you don’t have any, you are allowing them to treat you any way they want to. Boundaries show others the regard you hold for yourself. Teaching our kids about boundaries, teaches them how to be respectful, of themselves and others; how to behave in our society. Just as your child has to learn how to navigate the boundaries, and how to change his behavior to be successful, the parent must learn how to set appropriate boundaries, and appropriate consequences.

When you are deciding about consequences and boundaries, take the emotion out of the situation and figure out what it is you hope to achieve. Remember, our goal is not to influence through shame, humiliation or fear, but direct, logical consequences. Those consequences eventually help the child to understand their power in the world. They have the power to make good choices or bad choices and they will be the only one living with the natural consequence. We want them to have direct experience with being responsible, and accountable. Our goal is to teach them to do the right thing every time, even if it is a hard choice.

For further information see the Psych To Go section, and download Behavior Contracts.