The days of “Do as I say, not as I do” parenting are over. Just like everything in life, we must grow and evolve to keep up with the ever changing world. With advances in science, technology, and medicine why should we cling to outdated parenting ideals?
We are not merely raising children. We are raising future adults, so it is our job to equip them with the skills to handle any problem that arises in adulthood. If we teach our “future adults” to blindly follow whatever we say “Because I’m the adult and I say so,” they will not be equipped with the emotional intelligence or reasoning skills to make their own sound decisions in the future. The “Do as I say and not as I do” mentality teaches children to blindly rely on someone else’s commands and not think for themselves. It also creates a false belief that upon reaching adulthood, they will magically have all the answers and generates disappointment and disillusionment when that doesn’t happen and life hasn’t turned out how they had hoped.
Parent educator and child advocate Lori Petro recommends that parents “Engage and connect with their children using emotionally intelligent discipline choices rather than punitive methods.” And warns us to “be mindful as you shift your thinking about what kids need and start to decode what’s really going on behind the behavior.” What emotions could be hidden behind their actions? Remember, no two people think and feel exactly alike, so you both may have two completely different interpretations of what is happening.
Clinical psychologist and acclaimed author Dr. Shefali Tsabary explains “Translate it to an adult level. After you have agreed to go on a diet, your spouse catches you cheating with a bag of donuts and takes away your car keys to prevent you from going to the donut shop again. Now, how do you feel? Or you are late for a lunch date with a friend, so your friend demands you give her your favorite piece of jewelry. Again, how do you feel?”
Along with emotional intelligence, we also must teach our children reasoning skills. Acclaimed Author and Pastor Andy Stanley says that one of the best questions we can teach our children (or even ask ourselves when making decisions) is “in light of my past experiences, current circumstances, and future goals, is this a wise decision?” Since we are raising future adults it is imperative that they learn to evaluate situations and reason through it, not just blindly accept an answer “because I said so.”
Take time to explain why the dishes need to be done or why the garbage must be taken out. Explain how even though homework can be tedious and boring and repetitive, it’s necessary to develop the character and stamina that their future self needs. Your child might never need to know how to calculate the square root of the volume of a cup of tea in China if train A is going 100 mph and leaves Albuquerque at 8am and train B is leaving New York at 10am going 70 mph… but there are many times as an adult that we must do things we don’t want to or don’t understand to achieve a goal we want or simply because it’s the law. Honestly, how many of us actually enjoy paying taxes?
But most importantly, in order to be good parents, we must first parent ourselves. We must turn inward and evaluate our own actions and feelings. Petro recommends checking your language, actions and expectations.
“Is your manner calm and confident? Are your limits set with kindness regardless of how your child reacts? Can you remain non-argumentative in the face of an upset child? Is your request developmentally appropriate? Is your language (either verbal or nonverbal) sarcastic, cruel, degrading, impatient, callous or otherwise disconnecting?”
Another thing to be conscious of is what emotions you are feeling in the moment and why you feel that way. Personally, I get incredibly angry when my daughter makes a mess or loses things. I want to fly off the handle and yell at her or ground her but I’ve tried that before and the issue keeps happening. As an analytical person, I want to get to the root of the problem and figure out how to solve it. When doing a self-evaluation, I realized that I am mainly angry at myself because I am a very scatterbrained person and constantly misplacing things. I’m also disappointed in my parenting skills for not teaching her to be organized. I’m frustrated with her for not excelling in the areas where I am deficient and I’m exasperated with all the stress of being the single parent of a tween. So now that I’ve figured out why I’m so upset, what do I do next? How am I supposed to put this into practice and raise a happy and healthy mini-adult, you ask? I’ll delve more into that next time.