Tips on Parenting

Imagine you are in the Doctor's office waiting room with your two small children, ages 4 and 5 1/2. The older one begins to punch the younger one in the arm, causing younger one to wail. How do you handle it? Before I tell you, here's what does not work.

Say wearily, "Boys, I need you to be nice to each other and stop fighting, ok? Can you just stop fighting?" They’re not going to do it. While children love their mommy, they don’t CARE that you’ve got 40 dollars left in your checking account, and your car is acting up, and your boss is treating you like crap, and you feel fat, and you only got 5 hours of sleep last night, and you are about 6 loads behind on the laundry and the phone’s about to be cut off. They love you, but they don’t care about adult problems and building stress, because guess what? They’re not adults. They are naturally self-centered, inexperienced, mostly trouble free children. Let them worry about the big stuff later.

It also won’t work to say between clenched teeth, "If you two don’t stop, we’re leaving here. We’ll just leave and go to the car, and then you’ll REALLY be in trouble." Bullshit. You’re not leaving, you’re not taking them to the car, and they won’t be in more trouble than they already are. Threats do not work. Over-exaggerated threats especially don’t work. I know a young mother who will say to her back-seat-fighting-kids at the top of her lungs, "YOU GUYS STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, OR I WILL PULL THIS CAR OVER AND PUT YOU ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AND DRIVE AWAY AND LEAVE YOU THERE FOREVER!!!"

Um....no, you won’t. And regardless of how crazy you might be acting, the kids know you won’t. You’re not going to abandon your own children on the side of the road, so don’t even say it. Besides that, most parents simply don’t follow through. You know what I’m talking about. How many threats do you think you hear in public on a daily basis? How many times have you heard, "If you don’t stop, we’re going to the car."? Have you EVER seen someone actually take their child to the car? If you have, find that parent and give them an award. They’re one of the few who actually mean what they say. I’ve felt like volunteering my services a few times ("Hi! I’ll take your brat to the car if you won’t!") but decided they might not take that very kindly. Do your child a favor and take the word "if" out of your vocabulary.

Here’s another approach that doesn’t work. Well, every now and then it works, so I consider it to be one of the top most abused and ill-used methods; the DEAL. "Honey, if you stop fighting with your brother, we can go get ice cream after we finish here. OK????" First, kids want instant gratification, so most of them don’t care what’s coming later. They want it now. So you’ve just created another problem and another opportunity for them to misbehave. Second (and most important), you should never reward a child for bad behavior, and that’s exactly what you’re doing by offering bribes if they stop doing what they shouldn’t have been doing in the first place. Does the real world ever work like that? If your boss caught you stealing a printer and sneaking out the back door, do you think he’d say, "Hey, if you put that back, I’ll give you a raise. Just put that back, OK???" I would say that the barter system simply doesn’t work and is teaching your child the wrong thing. Period.

Another method, ignoring the problem...doesn’t work, AND it’s highly annoying to anyone else around. I have seen children pretty much throwing tantrums in the grocery store while the mother calmly picks out a couple of pounds of ground beef. I have been in someone’s home, trying to relax, trying to have a conversation with the parents, while their child is racing around, interrupting every 10 seconds, making demands and being an overall brat. The parents might huff and sigh every now and then or make a feeble attempt at shushing Jr., but in the end, they choose not to respond, making the situation worse. Ironically, once the child is finally distracted by something else, the parents might look at their guest (me), roll their eyes and grin sheepishly as if to say, "What are you gonna do? Kids are kids." I will say this: I am not amused.

Finally, there is the method of repeating yourself 27 times before finally giving up or giving in. This method probably baffles me the most. Why did you expend all that energy if you were just going to give in? All you’re teaching your child is that you can be worn down. I’ll concede to the point that there will have to be days when you are simply too exhausted to enforce every single rule you have. That’s life, and no amount of bubble bath can offer redemption on those days. But it is your job and your responsibility as the parent of that child to make sure he is raised in a way that molds him into a decent adult. Letting him have his way only reinforces bullying, selfishness and inconsideration.

So what DOES work? I will tell you honestly that with 3 children, I never had to deal with that situation. No one ever screamed that they wanted candy in the grocery store. None of them ever threw a fit in public. And if I told them to stop doing something while we were out anywhere, they stopped. The worst I had to deal with were a few pouting mouths. That’s because I didn’t threaten, ignore, make deals or repeat myself. My instructions were simply the end of the matter. When your children are very young, I believe this is the purest and most effective way to discipline. In the situation at the Doctor's office, here's what to do. Tell them to stop once and let that be the end of it. They will know you mean it by how you say it. Look them straight in their precious little eyes and say, "You boys will stop fighting right now." Watch them until they know you will not stop paying attention until they stop. If, as we're often told, misbehaving is a cry for attention, pay attention. That's all it takes.