Healthful Resources for Parenting

Dr. Jim Burns of HomeWord - a ministry for building up families - recently released the January 2008 edition of the Good Advice Parenting Newsletter with a few articles to help parents.

Here are the links, a few excerpts, and additional points for the articles:

1) ABC & D of Nurturing Your Kids

A. Affirmation. An affirmed child is a secure and confident child. Most often, the difference between kids who make it and kids who don’t is one caring adult. Even if you struggle with your teenager, I challenge you to believe in them! Most teenagers suffer from low self-esteem – and I almost always see this in cases where teens struggle with their parents. Kids with low self-esteem tend to become irresponsible. They make poor decisions socially, in regards to drugs and sexuality – and academically. Kids with low self-esteem often act out rebelliously with their parents. Their move to a lower standard of behavior is often due to the way they perceive of themselves. Parents can make a huge difference in helping their teenagers become responsible by affirming them, praising them and believing (even in the midst of struggle) in the person they can become.

A note that I would like to add is being cautious with praise. Painter & Corsini (1990) caution against praising a child because it can be perceived as insincere. Furthermore, praise can actually discourage a child if it "implies a demand for continued high performance" (p. 39) that the child cannot continue. Rather, Painter & Corsini advise parents to encourage children because it is much more productive than praise for the purpose of fostering self-esteem and can be used regardless of how well or how poor a child does something (p. 36-39).

The important point is to really examine what you are communicating to your child and how you are communicating your thoughts to your child. If you praise, what are you really praising and how will it be received by a child both on the surface and beneath the surface of the message. If you praise a child for eating all the food on his or her plate, you may be fostering the child to think that he or she is worth something when they do eat all their food. This can be detrimental if that secondary message is received and can lead to health problems in the future.

2) Why Dating Your Spouse is Good for the Whole Family

3) Restoring Broken Family Relationships

6. Commit to regular one-on-one times with your family. This builds on the last commandment of intentionally working at relationship building. Schedule a weekly date night with your spouse and at least monthly appointments with your son or daughter – where relationship building can take place. These outings don’t have to be elaborate. For example, go out for a walk or for some ice cream.

From lectures in the Spring 2007 semester to a FamR 341 course, Professor Deutch provided insight into spending time with children. Deutch highly suggested that each parent evaluate the benefit of having weekly non-negotiable time with each child on a 1-on-1 setting for about 20 minutes (meaning that a child gets 20 minutes from dad and 20 minutes from mom each week). This gives children undivided attention with each parent once a week all to themselves. Whether it is tossing a baseball around the yard, playing a board game, teaching or playing a musical instrument together, or finishing a puzzle, making this time available helps instill security in the child that no matter what is going on, this is the time that he or she has with a parent (even if there has been a falling out recently). Try to engage in activities that require both parties involvement and interaction rather than activities that remove that aspect (such as watching a movie or TV show together). Also, let the child make suggestions as to what activity he or she would like to do and then come to an agreement. If the child wants to do something that you do not feel is appropriate for you time together, then express your concern and come to an agreement on something else.


4) Tips for Lightening Your Family's Load

5) Confessions of a Recovering "Helicopter Parent"

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And to give credit where credit is due:

Painter, G., & Corsini, R. (1990). Effective discipline in the home and school. New York: Brunner-Routledge.