How To Raise A Responsible Child
Have you heard that question before, or said it yourself? Every parent is familiar with the threatening/repeating parent. This is the mother or father who repeatedly offers the suggestion of instructions. “Tommy, please pick up your toys.” “Tommy, did you hear me?” “Pick them up.” “Now, Tommy!” “I’m not going to say it again.” “Pick them up.” “I’m going to count, Tommy.” “One. Two. Two and half. . .”
Moms and Dads, do you get the picture? Have you ever heard this person around your house? The threatening/repeating parent has taught his or her child that instructions can be safely ignored, and compliance is not really immediately necessary. The habit of repeating instructions, redrawing lines in the sand, and spewing out empty threats serves to undermine any sense of personal commitment to a standard and demonstrates a lack of parental resolve.
There is another, more subtle, form of this ineffective parenting style. What happens when the reminders are not repeated in successive sentences, but over a period of hours, days, or weeks? If you have to remind your child to put his school bag away every day, you are acting just like Tommy’s mom. The difference is only in the form and timing of the threatening and repeating, not in the substance.
No wonder the child does not appropriate your instructions! There are no consequences for neglecting them, and anyway, the instructions will be repeated tomorrow; so why remember them today? At what point will you stop reminding? Constantly reminding a child to do what is expected only means that you have no real expectations. When parents continue to instruct and remind their children how to behave, after accountability training has been achieved, they are taking back ownership of a behavior that does not belong to them. When parents do this, they pick up unwelcome behavioral “monkeys.”
Behavioral Monkeys?
Monkeys are a great analogy for what is happening here. Monkeys can be cute little critters or bothersome pests, especially when they start climbing all over you, making you weary from their weight and busyness. We use the monkey analogy, because monkeys love to jump. In parenting there are behavioral monkeys that love jumping from child to parent. That is the wrong direction. Your goal is to get rid of the monkeys, not to collect them. . .
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