Thoughts on parenting

I'm having a hard time with Garrett right now -- he'll be 9 this month and seems to have developed that brainless thing where he does silly, even dangerous things, without thinking of the consequences. Plus he's just goofy, which is aggravating.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day and was thinking about discipline ... long story short, he is stepdad to a darling girl we'll call Susie. Susie's mom and I were friends and hence I came to know her husband, who is a great guy. Susie tended to be headstrong and willful. Not bad, just thought she was old enough to make her own choices at a young age. She often made poor decisions and it was often a struggle between mom and (step)dad because he thought there should be consequences but mom would fight him on it or back down from Susie entirely. Susie, of course, took advantage of the fact that they were divided in their opinions and enjoyed the conflict somewhat, I suspect.

Now it is years later and the couple are divorced. (I am not saying Susie is the reason for the divorce -- they had plenty of other issues. But I do think that stress contributed.) Susie has never had to live with the consequences of her actions and continues to be bailed out of messes she gets into by mom and grandma.

And she has no sense of responsibility, no commitment or work ethic, no real sense of her own abilities -- because she never had to work for anything and she never suffered the consequences of her actions.

I have seen too many kids whose parents think they are damaging them if they punish them. I'm not saying parents should beat their children (of course not), but I DO think we owe it to our kids to have expectations and consequences if the expectations aren't met. Kids need to understand there are standards -- and if they have to live up to your standards they learn how to determine their own standards someday.

In addition, I heard this in a thousand and one parenting classes (Okay, maybe not that many, but a lot): you HAVE to present a united front. Back your parenting partner up in front of the kids. If you have a disagreement, take it someplace private. Develop a signal to let each other know that you should talk before a punishment is meted out. DON'T let the kid see you disagree, because then he or she simply uses that disagreement as a tool to their advantage. This undermines the roles of both parents and it undermines the parental relationship.

Am I doing everything right when it comes to my kids? No. No one can be perfect. We all do the best we can with the resources we have. But I do know that I want to raise children who are confident, capable, and who understand the value of hard work. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to see this other family in some of its struggles, because it opened up avenues of communication in our house before we had kids with similar issues.

Enough --- go read something fun now. I'm off to run errands.