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Description
There is no such thing as a perfect parent. Parenting will be the hardest job you’ll ever do and the most important job you’ll ever do.
When living and relating to our children, we want to be able to love our children as well as discipline them. We also want them to love themselves. The goals of discipline and the goals of love are one in the same.
The ability of a child to care about getting enough sleep, to be cooperative and to be honest comes from the way they are cared for. For example: Children learn how to care about themselves through the experiences that they receive from their caregivers. And only a person who cares about himself can care about other people.
Introduction:
Effective discipline is a challenge for every parent. Parenting is in effect being in a relationship, and we all know that relationships require constant work.
One of the reasons that parenting is a challenge is because each one of us has an inborn set of qualities that can be described as temperament. Each of us also possesses our own intellectual and physical capabilities. Yet, how these qualities and capabilities are developed depends almost wholly on how we are treated.
Recently psychologists have become interested in what they call the “resilient” child: The child who, despite being exposed to many stresses and disadvantages, still grows up to be a happy and productive person. Studies have found that some “productive factors” were present in those children’s home life that lead to their healthy development. These children had experienced steady love and guidance from at least one person during their early years. These were children who learned that there was someone they could count on both for love and limits.
The study proved that parents can actively shape an environment in which their child will prosper. It solidly supports the idea that with the right kind or nurturing children can overcome even the most serious stresses.
These workshops are designed to help parents build skills to understand and communicate with their children. You will have homework assignments due each week. You will do in class worksheets that are designed to help you with your homework assignments. The homework assignments are designed to give you practice learning the parenting skills that we discuss in class.
Week 1: Understanding children’s behavior and misbehavior.
If you can remember how, you felt as a child when you were disciplined, you will understand your own kids better. You can benefit not only from the mistakes your parents made, but also from what they did that was effective. Take a few minutes to answer the questions in this handout, then you can share some of your answers.
Misbehavior
One of the main reasons children misbehave is to get their parents’ attention. The kind of attention they usually get is negative attention, in the form of anger and disapproval. But to a child this is better than no attention at all. This is why it is important to comment on the things your children do well, or the behaviors you want to see and to spend quality time with your kids every day. Whether it be reading to them, playing a game, or watching a video together. This way they are less likely to feel they have to act out to get noticed.
Once parents decide that they do not need to be controlling (for example: that they can set limits and let the children decide and learn from the consequences), then there is no purpose for becoming annoyed and angry. Once parents recognize how children can use emotions to manipulate adults, then the parent is in the position to influence their children (see handout on anger).
Week 1 Homework – Misbehavior
During the coming week, analyze your child’s misbehavior according to one of the four goals:
1. Attention 2. Power 3. Revenge 4. Inadequacy
1. Describe what your child did.
2. Describe your feelings and exactly how you reacted.
3. Describe how the child responded to your reaction.
4. Using the four goals of misbehavior, decide what must have been the purpose of the child’s behavior.
Handouts:
Expectations Inventory
Adult Feelings Chart
Exercise-Discipline Inventory
Week 2 Emotions and Developmental Levels
Anger Emotional Displays
By clarifying what we think, feel, and want, we can learn to use our anger in more constructive ways. It’s amazing how quickly we are ready to enter combat without knowing what the war is about. Our most powerful position in implementing change is to begin to observe our patterns and discover new options for changing our behavior.
Once parents recognize how children can use emotions to manipulate adults, they are in a position to influence their children. Parents can get out of the vicious cycle by refraining from reacting when children try to use emotions to manipulate them. We know that becoming responsible for one’s own feelings is a necessary part of growing up.
Children have four goals of misbehavior:
1. Attention
2. Power
3. Revenge
4. Display of inadequacy
To help a child who feels inadequate, parents must eliminate all criticism, and focus, instead, on the child’s assets and strengths. The parents must encourage any effort to improve, no matter how small it seems.
Once parents decide that they do not need to be controlling, for example: that they can set limits and let children decide and learn from the consequences, then there is no purpose for becoming annoyed and angry.
Understanding more about your child and yourself as a parent.
Emotions are a necessary aspect of who we are. Consider what life would be like without emotions. There would be no sorrow and no conflict, but there would also be no joy, closeness, or love. Like a world without color, life would be dull without emotions.
Typically, we regard emotions as magical forces, which invade us from the outside. We say things like “He made me so angry” or “She’s going to drive me crazy”. What we don’t often realize is that each of us is responsible for our own emotions.
Our emotions are based on our beliefs and purposes. We feel as we believe. If we believe that people are friendly and trustworthy, we create positive feelings to bring ourselves close to other people. If we believe that people are unfriendly and untrustworthy, we create hostile feelings to keep them away.
Parents, teachers, and other caregivers have an important role in teaching children self-regulation.
Babies cry, toddlers have tantrums. At some point, parents expect their kids to start managing their feelings without epic meltdowns.
Learning to regulate emotions, though, is a complex process. “Emotion regulation calls on so many skills, including attention, planning, cognitive development, and language development,” said Pamela Cole, PhD, a psychologist at Penn State University who studies emotion regulation in early childhood.
Children develop those skills at different times, psychologists say. Their ability to manage negative feelings depends on genetics, their natural temperament, the environment they grow up in, and outside factors like how tired or hungry they are. But parents, teachers, and other caregivers all play a critical role in helping children learn to manage their feelings.
Plan options: When your child is calm, talk about some ways they can handle a tricky situation. Imagine they pushed a classmate who had a toy they wanted to play with. When things are calm, talk about different choices they could make next time: They could tell the teacher, ask the classmate to take turns, or find something else to play with. This process can help your child develop problem-solving skills.
Act it out: Once you talk about possible options, it’s time to practice. “Role play and rehearse,” Kazdin said. Take turns pretending to be your child and their classmate. With practice, kids will begin to apply those new skills in the real world.
Punish less, praise more: It’s tempting to give consequences for bad behavior. But strict punishment makes behavior worse, not better. “When parenting is harsh, children who have trouble managing their emotions tend to react by becoming more aggressive,” Lochman said. “The research shows that you should have four or five positive interactions for each negative reprimand.” In other words, caregivers should spend a lot of time on positive, praise, and rewards for good behavior.
Be a team: For kids who are struggling to learn emotion regulation, consistency is key. “It’s really important for parents, grandparents, teachers, and other caregivers to work together to address a child’s self-regulation problems,” Lochman said. “Sit down to chat and plan a coordinated approach to handling the child’s behaviors.”
Check your expectations: Don’t expect your child to behave perfectly, especially if they’re genuinely scared or stressed, Cole said. When they’re afraid or anxious (like getting vaccinated or starting school for the first time) they might not be able to access the self-regulation skills they use in more low-stakes situations. “In a highly stressful situation, children need more adult support,” she said.
Take the long view: Most children learn to manage big feelings by the time they’re in elementary school. But that doesn’t mean their emotional development is finished. Executive functions—skills like planning, organizing, problem solving, and controlling impulses—continue to develop into young adulthood. When you feel frustrated by your child’s behavior, remember that emotion regulation takes time.
Week 2 Homework – Emotions and Developmental Levels
During week 2 analyze your children’s emotional displays:
A. During times of emotion for your child, how did you respond to your child?
B. How did your own feelings influence your response to your child?
Handouts:
Developmental Stages
Stages of Adolescents
Child feelings chart
Anger Inventory
Week 3 Encouragement
Beginning in the earliest days of our lives, we develop beliefs about who we are, who and what other people are, what is important in life, and how we should function so that we can belong. We live by our beliefs; they characterize our life-style.
Yet, our own basic beliefs are often faulty. Why? Because our interpretations of our experiences are often inaccurate. We formed our most basic beliefs when we were very young. At that times, out limited experiences caused us to misjudge and overgeneralize. Even as infants, we were forming the biased opinions and beliefs, which now guide our lives.
It is important to understand the factors, which contribute to the formation of our children’s beliefs through their lifestyle. One we are aware of these components, we are in a better position to influence our children positively. Four major factors influence our children’s beliefs (as they have influenced our own). These factors are:
1. Family atmosphere and values
2. Gender roles
3. Family constellation
4. Methods of relating
Family atmosphere is the pattern of human relationships set by parents. The atmosphere may be competitive or cooperative, friendly or hostile, autocratic or permissive, orderly or chaotic. The family atmosphere provides a model of human relationship for children.
Gender roles played by parents are guidelines for their children. From father to mother, children see what the roles of men and women are considered to be. Children base their attitudes toward their own gender on their observations of their parents.
Encouragement: Building your child’s confidence and feelings of worth.
One of the most important skills for improving the relationship between parents and children is encouragement. Encouragement is the process whereby you focus on the assets and strengths of your children to build their self-confidence and self-esteem. Encouragement helps your children believe in themselves and their abilities. Parents who encourage help their children accept and learn from mistakes; they help their children develop the courage to be imperfect.
Helping your children build their feelings of self-esteem, may require you to change your usual communication and behavior patterns. Instead of focusing on the children’s mistakes, point out what they do that you like or appreciate. This will require you to change to a positive approach.
When mistakes are not tied to personal worth, they are less overwhelming. Then the child can see errors as areas for growth rather than personal catastrophes; they can be faced and worked through.
One method to help you avoid dumping your angry feelings on your children is to breathe deeply and then count to ten. If you reach ten and still feel agitated, leave the room.
You are not obligated to stay engaged. Hitting your child or yelling hurtful things only teaches children that hitting or yelling is the thing to do when they get angry. For example, tell your child, “I’m really angry right now. I’ll talk to you about this when I calm down.”
A second method for expressing anger constructively is a technique called “owning your feelings.” Made popular by Thomas Gordon in his book “Parent Effectiveness Training”.
Week 3 Homework – Encouragement
This week, find ways to encourage your children. In each instance, notice what happened, how you encourage the child, and the child’s response. You can take notes and share your experiences with your partner or a friend.
Handouts:
Communicating for Connection
The Characteristics of Children Under Stress
Helping Children with Feelings
Week 4 Reflective Listening
As far as discipline and communication go, matching our expectations to our children’s abilities depends on two things.
1. Understanding what is appropriate to the child’s age and stage of development. All normal children share certain predictable sequences of growth; these are physical, emotional, social, and intellect
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