The Parenting Coach

Your kids are driving you crazy.  You’re trying to figure out how you can get a break from the fighting, the whining, the tantrums and the defiance.  You’ve used all the tools you have up your sleeve and nothing seems to be working.  You’re at your wits end. 

Parenting is something we all think we should instinctively know how to do.  After all, our great grandparents did it, our grandparents and our parents did it.  No one ever consulted anyone except their neighbor or their mother.  In fact it was all pretty black and white.  When kids misbehaved they got spanked or/or sent to their room and you knew to fear your father.  How many of us heard “Just wait until your father comes home”.    It’s unlikely you heard anyone questioning their methods.  That’s just the way it was done.

Times have changed.  We now know that many of the child rearing methods of the previous generation have resulted in adults who doubt themselves, who are riddled with insecurities, are constantly seeking attention in some way or another or can’t control their anger.  That’s the short list.  Hoards of us are reading every  self-help book we can get our hands on and attending workshops and seminars that promise to eliminate all the negative self-talk we have going on in our heads and teach us to live more consciously. 

The truth is good, effective parenting is something that can be learned.  Many, many psychologists and others have delved deeply into the area to find out what we need to do as parents to produce well-adjusted, secure, productive, loving individuals.  They’ve come up with answers that defy what many of us were brought up to believe. 

When we give birth to or adopt a child, should we automatically know what to do? No.  To some people it seems to come naturally but for most of us, much of this job we call parenting, eludes us.  Much of the time we’re just falling back to what we learned from our parents.  Some of that, without a doubt was wise, but not all of it.  Many of us question the way were raised but we still repeat the mistakes of the previous generation.  We do it without even thinking.

We hire a consultant, a mentor, a trainer or a coach to help us be a better tennis player, a successful business owner, a fast swimmer, a good golfer, a great painter but many of us are hesitant to hire someone to help us with the most important job we’ll ever have; raising a child.  We only get one chance to do this right. 

Through online business networking, I’ve had the privilege of meeting many talented and interesting people.  Debra Shiveley Welch is one of them.  Debra is a published author of several books.  Among them is “Son of My Soul - The Adoption of Christopher”.  Chris was born with a cleft lip and palate and has had some learning differences.  She recently posted an excerpt from the book on her blog that describes her response to a teacher who told her her son was “incapable of learning.”  Debra chose not to believe what she was told and Chris now a teen, has proven that he is very capable of learning and has become a talented and accomplished young man.  Read Debra’s article here.

If you are considering adoption or have adopted a child yourself, you’ll want to read Debra’s moving and beautifully written story of adopting her son Chris.  All of her books are on her website.

I read an interesting article in our little local paper the other day titled:  “Denmark vs. B.C.’s daycare values” by Diane Strandberg.  Here is an excerpt from the story:

 ”A Danish researcher is leaving B.C. with a good education about the local daycare situation.

But while sad to be leaving friends and acquaintances here during a year and a half contract job, Pernile Bjorn, the mother of two young girls, is also relieved to be heading home - where daycare is affordable, accessible and well-organized.

‘In Denmark, Bjorn said, we would sit around and talk about how to spend the budget -on organic food or whatever.  Here, it’s how do we get a budget.’

In Denmark, most children attend daycare but it’s not considered a form of parental neglect, the way it often is in Canada, she said.  Instead, most parents put their children in daycare because they see it as an important part of their child’s development.

Consequently, it’s highly subsidized and forms part of the country’s social safety net.  Parents pay only 30% of the costs; taxes pay the rest and town authorities are responsible for overseeing institutional private centres. 

In Denmark, child-care is provided for children from birth through 10 years. Parents have to sign up early to get a space for their child after a year-long maternity leave but the local authority guarantees a space. 

Danish daycare workers are paid about the same as teachers in that country-roughly twice as much as childcare workers in B.C. - and they are expected to be trained and constantly upgrade their education.  In fact, daycares, which have a high detree of parent involvement, typically have training budgets for their staff.

Bjorn speculates Denmark can afford such a system because residents pay 45% of their wages in taxes and, in most cases, both parents work.  Daycare is also such a hot political issue that many cities bend over backwards to provide good care.

The biggest difference is the Danish view that daycare is good for kids and society versus the opinion here, where it’s considered a matter of indiviual choice and not valued as highly.” 

I wouldn’t say we see parents who choose daycare as “neglectful” but I would say it’s something we don’t value enough here to give it the funding required to provide ongoing, quality care.  Our workers are poorly paid which makes a statement about the value we place on people who are caring for our children. 

I know for those  who have babies, the answer is obvious. We take thousands of pictures of our babies and share them with anyone and everyone.  We continue to take lots when they’re toddlers and preschoolers although a little less.  Once they get into school we seem to take significantly less. 

I put together a scrapbook for my mother for Christmas with pictures of her and our kids while they were growing up.  I noticed there was a huge gap between about the ages of 5 and 17 when they graduated from high school.  I had a few pictures but very few.  I wish I had taken many, many more.  I wish I’d taken more when Mom was here visiting when the kids were 8 and 10 and 11. When she’s visiting us now, I take a lot because I know how valuable they’ll be later on. 

 Thank goodness for the many team pictures we have.  Our son was in team sports every year until he graduated and my daughter was in dance and riding so we have pictures of her riding and dancing.  What we have little of is the day to day activities.  Yes, every birthday has been recorded as well as Christmases but there’s all the mundane stuff in between.  Those things mean a lot when you look back. 

I notice with digital photography people take a lot more pictures so perhaps we won’t be forgetting those middle years as much.  You know whenever someone asks what you would take out of your house if it was burning, the first thing most people say are the photographs. 

Go out today and take pictures of your kids doing ordinary things.  You’ll treasure them in years to come.  It’s another way of saying “You mean a lot to me.”

Tomorrow is the day we celebrate fathers.  There’s a lot of celebrate in my opinion.  I love the way fathers now take such an active role in parenting which usually starts in the delivery room.  I’ve coached lots of dads who are as committed to raising responsible, well-adjusted, productive people as their partners are. They’re not afraid to get their hands dirty.  They’re totally involved in their kids’ activities.  They don’t claim to know all the answers and genuinely want to be the best they can be.  We know many dads who are sharing custody of their children, 50/50.  Dads today are creating a different kind of role model than their own fathers who often left the majority of the parenting up to Mom.  Many are stay-at-home dads who are actually doing more parenting than their partners who might be working out of the home full-time.  I salute you all! Our kids are blessed. 

I was a coaching a mom recently who is very concerned about her teen who is falling badly behind in school and making a lot of bad choices.  She gave me his history and without knowing more details than the ones she provided, I can see how things got derailed for this soon to be 18 year old boy. 

There has been a lot of research around the differences between boys and girls and why it is that boys often fall behind in school and are unmotivated.  It’s not that they’re not bright or they’re incapable of learning.  It’s more that the stystem doesn’t match their style of learning and in many cases, they’re starting school before they’re ready. They’re also wired differently than girls.

My client told me  her son was falling badly behind in school in the early years so she decided to take him out and home school him.  He quickly caught up and was soon reading at the same level as his peers.  This just said to me that clearly, it wasn’t because he wasn’t capable of learning to read, he just wasn’t able to learn in the way the public school was teaching him. 

Academic challenges are one of many reasons teens start to go elsewhere to “succeed”.  Sometimes it’s problems at home or difficulties fitting in at school.  What parents see is an acting out teen and that’s what they react to.  Their teen lashes out and the parent lashes back and on and on it goes.   Soon the teen assumes the label they’ve been given which can be things like “lazy” “slob” “ungrateful” “irresponsible” and any number of other unflattering adjectives.  Their actions then evoke a response from their parents and other adults around them which reinforce the label they’ve been assigned and how they see themselves.  We have a cylce and as hard as parents try to change things, this cycle can go on for some time.

Even if a person does act in a way that makes them appear ungrateful or irresponsible or lazy, does it help if they’re constantly reminded?  Does hearing “You’re so irresponsible!!” make someone responsible?  If you always hear “You’re so lazy!” do you suddenly start being more productive?  No.  Teenagers, like everyone else need to hear what we love about them.  They need to be acknowledged for what they can do. They need to hear we believe in them.   We always have to keep in mind that whatever label we assign to them or the one they perceive they’ve been assigned, is exactly what they live up to.

To learn more about helping a troubled teen, this article from Canadian Living magazine may help.

When I sit down to write a blog post most of the time I just write what comes to mind as I set my fingers on the keyboard.  Right now I’m thinking of the importance of family.  The focus of my work over the past twenty years or so is to do my part in keeping families strong; making sure our children are given a strong foundation, staying connected to family members and being there for each other.  I’ve been reminded over the last couple of months how precious family is and how good it feels when we’re together.  As parents it requires a conscious effort on our part to stay in touch and to cultivate important relationships.  Our kids benefit so much by knowing that many people love and care for them.