Have a New Kid by Friday - Dr Kevin Leman [65]
Often we do too much thinking for our kids. We do too many things for them. We’re too good as parents. We try to protect them from themselves. But sometimes they need to experience the consequences of their decisions. They need to lose out on something they wanted to do.
Reality can be a very wonderful teacher.
Lack of Cooperation with Family
“He always refuses to do what the rest of the family wants to do. It’s always got to be what he wants to do, or he’s a sore loser and makes us all pay for the rest of the day.”
I’m not talking about a onetime occurrence here (let’s face it: each of us has our moments). I’m talking about the kid who’s got attitude. He keeps you running from crisis to crisis. You put out one fire and another one pops up immediately. He makes it clear that his wishes are the ones that are important, and no one else matters.
What can you do about this? I’ve got a prescription that works well: Give ’em the bread-and-water treatment.
What does that mean? Your child is used to getting all sorts of things: an allowance, lunch money, guitar lessons, trips to friends’ houses. All of a sudden, all of those perks stop. No warning. No fanfare. No anger. Things just stop. Your child heads out the door for guitar lessons and gets in the car. He sits there . . . and sits there . . . and sits there. You don’t come out, so finally he’s ticked off enough to come in and say, “What’s the deal? Are we going to guitar lessons or not?”
Now is your teachable moment.
“I called and cancelled your lesson,” you say calmly.
“What?” he says.
“Well, your dad and I have been talking. It seems like you want to drop out of the family, so that’s the way it’ll be for a while. Being a member of this family has some perks, I think, but you’ve got to live your life the way you want to live it. I can’t force you to do things, but there will be changes on how the family will function. I’ll no longer be driving you to guitar lessons, nor will we be paying for them.”
This method works very well with older kids. Sometimes you just have to hit kids where it hurts (figuratively speaking, of course) for them to get it.
Lateness
“No matter what time we start, she’s always late for school.”
“Whenever we plan a family dinner, he always shows up late . . . just in time for dessert.”
Ask any businessperson who hires people and he’ll tell you what he looks for in his employees. One of the key qualities is promptness. Why is this? Because business folks know well that the person who is always running late will, in the long run, put himself in a situation in which he’ll come up a loser rather than a winner. And that wouldn’t be good for the business.
Why would someone always run late?
It doesn’t take a psychologist to figure this one out. If a child always runs late, it’s because she’s stacking the deck against herself. She doesn’t feel like she’s worth anything. She doesn’t think highly enough of herself or believe that she can accomplish what she sets out to do. It’s her way of making life difficult for herself.
If you have a continually late child, also read the “Procrastination” section. The child who is always late is, in all probability, the one who is living with a critical-eyed parent (you?) who can spot a flaw at 50 paces. Being late is your child’s excuse. She’s late so she doesn’t have to play her piano solo and hear your critique afterward about her one wrong chord, because the program has already moved on. She’s late so she doesn’t have to set the dinner table (because the last time she did, you harped on her placement of the utensils).
There’s a practical way of dealing with lateness. You can tell your child that you have to leave at 7:30 when you actually need to leave at 7:45 or 8:00. But it won’t take long before your child catches on. That’s only a short-term solution.
If your child is always late, do a gut-check on yourself. Are you one of those flaw-picking, hovering parents? If