Published: July 04, 2008 12:25 pm         

Cracking the parental whip

EDMOND — In our modern age, parents and teachers and everybody who ever gets near a child hear a lot about “building” children. If a child doesn’t get a trophy after a baseball game, we worry that his ego might be dented. If the doctor mentions that a child is 50 pounds overweight and ought to change his or her habits to improve fitness and health, mommy dearest immediately changes docs for seriously jeopardizing the child’s body image. Before long, parents will be suing teachers for every grade lower than an “A.” It’s all bunk.

You build a child the same way you build anything good—the hard way. A strong child isn’t generated by the child believing they are perfect in everything they do, or that they are infallible. If someone makes a rude comment, their feelings may be hurt, but it doesn’t affect the process of development if we help them keep it in proper perspective.

Children need to know that they are worthy of love and respect, and be confident that they can make good choices. Years ago, I had a friend who had opportunity to bestow honors for achievement in church programs on the teenage girls. Her daughter was one of five teens in her age group, and only the daughter ever got the limelight. She was the president. She was the one that got to perform. She was always propped up in front, receiving an award. As soon as she turned 18, she moved away from home, left her church, left her family values and even changed her appearance dramatically. All the mother’s false praise actually undermined her daughter’s emotional growth. She hadn’t earned it and she concluded that her mother thought her incapable of earning it properly and, therefore, it had to be fabricated. In order to avoid hypocrisy, the daughter had to prove she was not anything the mother claimed she was.

From research I’ve done over the years, I can give you a few hints to raise emotionally strong children. First, you need to start young. When children are small, they need to be encouraged, caressed, enjoyed, taught to finish their work, to do their best and to learn to make choices.

Positive feedback for good behavior is far more effective than scolding, but when a child is given an age-appropriate task, parents must insist that it is done correctly. “Try again, I know you can do better,” is a way of correcting a child with a positive message embedded in it.

At our house, the mom cooks the meals, (unless the children want to), the dad earns the money (most of it) and the kids do the dishes. We rotate dish duty, but “doing the dishes” elicits a variety of interpretations. Mom and dad have had to make some rules. The kitchen has to be clean. The dishes must be finished at once. If you leave a few dirty dishes in the sink or forget to wipe a counter, you have to wash all the dishes and see that all the counters are wiped for the duty to pass to the next kid. If you don’t do it until the next night, or you leave home without finishing, it’s your turn again the next night. If you slouch off and don’t do them at all you have two extra nights and can’t go anywhere fun until they’re done.

Another parent-generated condition that builds strong kids is that our children never have as much money as they wish they had. We give them an allowance, but it isn’t enough to cover clothing and shoes and recreation and toys all at once. They either must save for major purchases or earn more. Usually, they want to earn more. By the time they are in their young teens, the money gap is serious. I offer them odd jobs and pay them what they’re worth. They soon conclude that others value their work more than I do and become enterprising youngsters.

One son was slow at the summer job starting gate when he was 16, so while he did an odd job for a neighbor, I called on a landscaping advertisement in the paper. I told the employer I had a 16-year-old who knew how to work hard and needed a job. He hired him on the phone on the strength of my testimony. My son hated the job, but stuck with it through the summer. The next year, the same employer wanted him to come back but my son had a different job using the skills he’d learned the summer before lined up by mid-April.

My kids have been sent back to re-do the dishes enough to know that an employer expects a job to be done right. They expect to sweat long and hard if they’re to receive better wages than I offer. Many times I’ve heard my children scolding a younger sibling for being lazy. It is a significant insult in our family; that’s a good thing!

Hard work is a sure-fire way to build strong kids. I’m not talking about football drills or reading lots of books over the summer. I’m talking dirty, stinky, I-want-to-go-to-college-so-I-don’t-have-to earn-a-living-doing-this hard work. If their muscles ache, or they’re tired after work, cheer for their ability to do the job right.

A sense of accomplishment results from a job well done. That same sense contributes to emotional health and strength. It’s easy when you put it that way.

     

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