Posts tagged 'abuse'
Respect is crucial for every relationship, and the foundation of every successful marriage. The problem in every relationship arises when we feel under attack, respect goes out the window.
It is easy to be respectful when everything is good and lovely. The real test comes when things are not easy and we no longer feel trusting, safe and secure.
Still, I think it is good to understand what a respectful relationship looks like, so you notice when you are not in that zone.
Think of the last time anyone said to you, “I’m disappointed in you”. How did that make you feel?
Being disappointed is part of life. I guess it is one of the greatest challenges in life. Realizing that life is not happening the way you want and managing to push through despite it.
Although being disappointed is part of life, being disappointed in others should not be. When I work with my life coaching clients, we deal with a lot of disappointment. Sadly, what hurts them most is not self-disappointment – that things didn’t happen the way they “should have” – but being a disappointment to someone close.
When I think of all the times I have heard this, I can see two groups of people that express disappointment in my clients: teachers and parents, in this order. I dare say that they cause a lot of damage.
Disappointment is “sadness or displeasure caused by the non-fulfilment of one’s hopes or expectations”. Therefore, saying to someone, “I’m disappointed in you”, is telling that person he or she is not fulfilling your hopes and expectations.
Who are you to cause someone a bad feeling for not fulfilling your expectations?
Read I’m Disappointed in You! »
Pocket money is a topic that concerns many parents. “When to start, if at all?” and “How much to give?” are questions that almost every parent struggles with. To answer these questions, most parents should first answer the following question:
Why do I want to give my child pocket money?
I grew up in a poor family and pocket money was never an option for me. Only when I was 14 and we moved to a new town (which was only slightly bigger than the small town I grew up in), I discovered there was such a thing as pocket money.
I was so surprised. My parents had so little that whenever we asked my dad to buy us something, he said, “We don’t have money”. Therefore, in my mind, pocket money was part of wealthy kids’ life.
But it does not have to be.
Some parents are stingy with complimenting. I do not blame them. They probably grew up with stingy parents, who probably grew up with parents that did not compliment them either. I have said many times that we suffer today for things our ancestors did, which have not evolved.
Wake up, parents! We do not need to do the same things our great-great-grandparents did, because in some areas of life, they were not great at all. Giving compliments was definitely one of these areas.
The belief “back then” was that compliments got in the way of “building character”. I have clients and friends who say it aloud, “If you compliment people, especially children, they become complacent”.
What?!
Since when is complacent a bad word, anyway?
When children are born, their parents are typically concerned for their safety. People spend a fortune making sure their children use the safest beds, the safest car seat and safest stroller. This is very natural and very important. For some reason, when the same parents’ relationship breaks down and they separate, the importance of their kids’ physical and emotional safety is often neglected.
Why?
Because once they separate, the decision-making process about the children is divided. Unfortunately, in some cases, parents’ separation means that one parent raises the kids and the other poses a risk to their safety. In other cases, the conflict between the parents puts the kids’ emotional, and sometimes physical, wellbeing at risk. In severe cases, both parents are a risk to their children’s safety and there is a need to remove them from their home completely.
My sister is a social worker in a special unit that takes kids away from their family and puts them in foster care. This always happens because the emotional and/or physical safety of the child is at risk and none of the parents is able to keep them safe. My sister claims that this just moves the kids from one unsafe place to another unsafe place. Unlike Cinderella’s fairy tale, their stories never end in living happily ever after. Instead, stepparents and foster parents struggle greatly to supply a safe environment for the children.
Recently, I was asked to take part as a facilitator in the 2016 International Women’s Day at Griffith University, which was organized by a very good friend of mine, Wendy Flannery, from the amazing organization Believing Women for a Culture of Peace.
Do you ever think you know a lot about something and then discover that what you thought was very far from the way things really are?
I have been involved in diversity education for many years. During those years, I was convinced that I was aware of all the challenges women faced, so I was very surprised to discover just how unaware I was.
During the event, there was an introduction to the declaration for the dignity and human rights for women. We had speakers from different religions and they all declared that we are far away from having fair and equal rights for women.
The shocking bit for me was statistics of women’s position in the world, which highlighted the need for serious social change.
In Parenting is Teaching, not Preaching, I explained why kids resent parents who take too long to explain things and why a relationship based on lecturing your kids is not healthy and makes the kids just not listen to you.
Today, I share five tips that will make the communication and cooperation at home better for you and show you how to switch your parenting from preaching to teaching.
1. No Pink Elephants
Parents are used to telling their kids what not to do. The words “don’t”, “stop” and “no” are very common in the parenting vocabulary. Unfortunately, using them only makes the child do more of what you are trying to stop. Read Beware of Pink Elephants for more.
Rather than telling your kids what not to do, tell them what you want them to do and notice how their behavior changes dramatically.
Read How to Switch Your Parenting from Preaching to Teaching »
Last week, I ran a parenting workshop and parents’ biggest frustration was “My kids don’t listen to me”. Everyone in the workshop shared this frustration whether their children were toddlers or teens. It took me some time to change the focus of the workshop from complaining about it, which is suitable for psychology or “recovery”, to thinking about what we can do about it and how to move forward, which is more suitable for coaching or “discovery”.
Going through life is like sailing a ship and being its captain (see Sailing the Ship of Life for more). When we complain, it is like dropping an anchor, and when we consider what to do about the situation, it is like raising an anchor and moving forward. Progress may be slow at first, but it is better to move than to be stuck.
Parenting is just the same.
In the previous chapter of the helping kids build character series, I explained about the beliefs we try to instill in our kids. We need to focus on encouraging the good character traits we want our children to have. We should not try to prevent the characters we don’t want them to have.
If good character traits are like plants, the fear that your child will develop a bad character is like watering the plant with weed killer. The character will never grow. For good character to grow and flourish, we need to water it and give it nutritious and healthy fertilizer.
In the last chapter, we listed the A to F of good character traits that we want our kids to have. We talked about some of the major weed killers that prevent these good character traits from growing. This chapter covers the good character traits from G to Z.
Read How to Destroy Good Character Traits in Children: G-Z »
Ashley was a very successful woman. She was brilliant and smart. She had been in a very solid and stable relationship with her husband of 12 years before they decided to have their daughter Mira.
When Mira was born, Ashley was 39, with a booming and successful business that took her away from home 2-3 days a week. Her husband Daryl decided he would take over the responsibilities of caring for Mira. He changed jobs and started working from home. Ashley continued to travel 2-3 days a week.
This seemed like a good arrangement in the beginning but the gap between Ashley and Daryl increased and they often had arguments about the best parenting style for Mira.
I met them both when Mira was 1 year old. At first, I thought they wanted to do the parenting program with me. After a while, I realized each of them was trying to convince me that their parenting style was the better one and that I should tell their partner this.
Read If-then Parenting Style »
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