Educated Parenting

Spanking and Yelling: What To Do Instead

Spanking and yelling are two parenting methods that many parents find hard to resist using.

This is especially so when children are in their toddler years, when they are getting into everything and when they begin testing how far they can go to get what they want.  And, indeed, these little people can be extremely demanding and trying.

But that is still not a good reason to spank or yell at them.

Spanking is a form of physical violence, and yelling is also a type of violence, verbal violence.

It is best for everyone that parents do not teach violence by modeling it in their own behavior.

One of the main reasons that many parents continue to use violent methods is that they have not experienced effective, nonviolent ways of dealing with child rearing situations that can stretch even the most loving parent's patience to the brink of spanking and yelling.

Two excellent videos are now available that show numerous nonviolent and effective ways to avoid going over the brink.

Parenting Education and Child Care

With over 60 percent of young children now in some form of out-of-home child care, it makes good sense to use this growing system as a venue through which more parents can be trained and educated.

There now exists several excellent parenting skill-building programs designed for parents of preschoolers, and which can be taught as classes or seminars at preschools.  There are excellent videos and guides that can be loaned or made available through child care centers, family child care homes, and Head Start agencies.

I headed up a project conducted by the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring that brought these types of resources to the child care facilities and homes in several communities.

The parents were extremely appreciative of having such helpful resources made available to them so conveniently.  Many of the parents learned new and better ways of raising their kids, while others who were already on the right track got confirmation and reinforcement.

Help Parents of Expelled Preschoolers

More children who attend preschools are being expelled than those attending elementary, middle and high schools, according to a recent study conducted by the Yale Child Study Center.

The main reasons are unruly and disruptive behaviors that are difficult to manage and which require too much staff attention, to the detriment of the other children.

Staff training and the use of behavioral consultants are good solutions.  So too is the training and education of parents to better manage and guide their young children’s behaviors.

There now exist excellent programs to help parents learn how to manage deviant and disruptive behaviors.  A good example is the work of Dr. Russell Barkley.

Do Teenagers Care About Their Parents?

Most people recognize that babies and young children need and love their parents.  But what about teens?  Even an adolescents own parents can despair and wonder how their loving child has apparently become so rejecting.

But "apparently" is the crucial word.  Results from a recent nationally representative survey of U.S. teens about the nature of their relationships with their parents, and the results of recent studies on parent-adolescent bonding indicates otherwise.

Children Need to Learn to "Stop and Think"

One of the most important life skills that any child --any person-- must develop is the ability to "stop and think" before they react.  This ability is particularly necessary in situations where impulsive reactions can be dangerous, such as when a bully approaches a child, when someone is looking for a fight, or when there is an overture to try drugs.

The ability to "stop and think" is critical in situations like these.  It is also helpful in just about any interaction with others, such as when parents or teachers ask children to follow instructions.  Being able to "stop and think" about the best way to respond will usually determine whether these everyday interactions are satisfying and growth-producing.  Or whether they increase tensions, lead to conflicts or worse.

The ideas of teaching children how to "stop and think" and then what to do are central to a program created by one of my friends, Dr. Howard M Knoof of the Arkansas Department of Education.

Discovery Health Channel Show on Parenting Twins and More...

The time and energy demands on parents of newborns are extraordinary.  Such demands are compounded when children come one after the other, spaced only one or two years apart.

But the demands of having two or more children at the same time can really be hard to imagine if you haven't had twins, triplets, quads or quints yourself.

Because scientific advances are now allowing more woman to carry multiples to a safe delivery date, the experience of having and caring for more than one child of the same age is becoming more common.

Such experiences, and advice on how best to cope, will be seen this week on a special on the Discovery Health Channel, called Multiple Mayhem, a special that I consulted on and in which I appear as one of the parenting authorities.