1. Not get married (particularly women are guilty of this one). Children get half a parent set--not enough.
2. Get divorced (mostly for selfish, "me, me" reasons). Unless there is abuse (and I don't mean just disagreement), kids are always hurt.
3. Get remarried (again mostly for selfish reasons). Yours, mine, and ours is not like a cute TV show, it's often awful.
4. Give too much freedom. Kids need to know parents care enough to establish rules.
5. Give too little time. Children need lots of conversation, time, modeling of acceptable behavior.
6. Rescue from consequences of choices. No personal responsibility, no learning valuable lessons.
7. Have no expectations, praise everything they do (which is the same as praising nothing they do), don't allow them to struggle to accomplish anything.
8. Criticize often, discourage thinking or problem solving, never explain reasoning.
9. Ignore achievement and good decisions.
Choose a few of the things on this list and you have a recipe for children who struggle in school, challenge authority, try risky behaviors, and/or have trouble with the law. Teachers can all name kids we have worried about because of their parents' shortcomings.
1 comment:
I particularly agree with number 6. My mom told me that when I was a little girl she loved it when she could administer a good consequence (taking away something that meant a great deal to me after I was naughty). It always brought a change of behavior for the better.
Parents getting remarried can be extremely difficult on children. My mom got remarried to a good man after my dad died. I can not underestimate how difficult it was to deal with as a child; however, as an adult I am grateful that she is not alone. It allows me to live my adult life as her daughter and friend, but not her emotional spouse.
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