a bit dated, families today face similar problems that can benefit from the insightful analysis and suggestions in Children the Challenge.
I began taking an eight-week parenting skills study group in the fall and spring, and sometimes one in the summer. After a few years, I learned enough from my mistakes and successes to start co-leading parenting workshops. I like to joke, “I taught what I most needed to learn.”
Our family moved to the Boston area in 1990. I began offering parenting skills workshops at a nearby community center. Parents joined a group to learn a new approach to one of life’s most difficult and rewarding tasks. Some people signed up because they came from a dysfunctional family and wanted to learn a positive parenting approach that they had never experienced.
One participant said, “My parents were both alcoholics. We were left to grow up on our own. I’m lucky I turned out as normally as I did. We want to do something different for our children, but don’t have a clue what a normal family is.” Her husband, Bill, an entrepreneur, set aside Tuesday mornings for eight weeks to learn a positive parenting plan because he said, “My childhood was just as chaotic.”
Other parents came to the workshops because they realized what they were doing wasn’t working. Participants who were the most frustrated and ready to give up were, and still are, the best students because they implement new strategies without question and complete conviction.
Each time I took and taught a workshop, a different aspect of the system intrigued me and I decided, “That’s the key.” My first insight came early when I realized that I was in a power struggle with my oldest daughter, Casey, 6 years old at the time. I learned to avoid the power dance and my home and my heart became calmer.
Casey and I are still two Alpha women who occasionally tussle for power. Learning the mistaken goals of misbehavior (see Chapter 17, Name it and Tame It ) allowed me to identify what the children and I were thinking and feeling, for me be accountable to my role in the conflict, and to have a positive parenting plan ready to respond differently.
Tweaking my response created a cause-and-effect. My family changed dramatically as I began incorporating family meetings and encouragement, and gave up reward, punishment and praise in favor of encouragement and natural and logical consequences. I had a plan and it worked. I felt remarkably better and more confident because the new skills greatly reduced the yelling, threatening and frustration in our family.
Join or form a study group
The only way I’ve ever significantly changed my thoughts, feelings and deeds has been by sitting in a circle with people who shared the same pain and wanted relief. We met weekly for two or three months, studied and discussed how to change. We practiced the theory in between sessions – until we internalized the lessons.
We shared our doubts and failures. The teacher taught us new strategies, which we applied to our families and lives for a week. Like bees swarming around the queen, we returned to the hive for another bite of honey, support, laughter, to share stories on our mistakes and successes, and find courage to try again. After much practice, I became a teacher in the hive.
You will benefit from reading the book alone. Joining a study group will magnify the results ten times. The results will be more memorable by studying it with other parents, ideally with friends and your spouse. A united team is much more likely to succeed.
Blended families especially benefit from adopting one unified approach. However, if your spouse, former spouse or significant other does not embrace the new plan, one parent can implement it unilaterally. A change in your child’s behavior may convince other adults to follow suit. If not, don’t worry about it. Children are perceptive and adaptable.
Every group I participated in allowed me to polish my skills, gain confidence and have a happier heart and home. I experienced results immediately and built on success. In between courses, I started to slide back to my old ways of yelling, threatening and losing patience. Another class and a different Adlerian-based book reminded me of the power of a positive parenting plan.
It took two to three years to re-train myself to automatically respond differently, to give up most of the yelling and anger (I am not a saint), replace reward, punishment and praise with encouragement, mutual respect, family meetings and natural and logical consequences.
I changed and our family atmosphere changed.
Disciplining – teaching – our three children became less stressful and easier when I had a positive parenting plan. After a year, using the new strategies gave me the courage to have a fourth child. I’m not advocating for bigger families, just harmonious families.
My husband Bob and I laid a foundation during the first twelve years that made the next thirteen years of raising teenagers tolerable, even enjoyable. I encourage you to use the first decade to form a strong positive connection with your children by using this guide, which is written for parents of tots-to-teens.
60 miles away going 60 miles an hour
Thanks to chores and the Adlerian approach, my children evolved into teenagers who made good independent decisions when they were 60 miles away going 60 miles an hour. Are they wearing a seatbelt? Going the speed limit? With friends I know and like? Where they said they would be? The stakes are much higher with teenagers. Now in their twenties, my four children successfully manage their money, time, careers, education and relationships.
Even though they were raised in a fairly affluent community, they managed to avoid the entitlement trap. It’s impossible to feel entitled when you sweep floors, clean toilets and wash dishes. These humble activities teach valuable lifelong lessons and develop the precious gifts of self-discipline and family connections. Doing chores impacts young people on the soul level, while contributing to the good of the family and easing the burden on parents.
Respondents to my survey of 560 people between ages 11 and 92 about childhood chores affirmed that chores teach responsibility and teamwork.
Doing a few chores regularly is a powerful teaching tool when combined with the rest of the Adlerian approach. When children pitch in, parents can retire from being the house servants. Parents will feel better, the home and yard will be maintained by a team. Children will learn how to do something when they might not feel like it – also known as self-discipline.
Adopted children and children with special needs and disabilities will benefit from chores just like typical children. Special needs children long to belong, be normal, and find their place in the family by contributing and being depended upon.
By the way, it’s easier and faster to everything yourself around the house. Family meetings and chores take time, energy and follow through. When adults doing everything and provide everything for children, it breeds entitlement, which can be difficult to shed.
Research affirms the power of chores
Dr. Marty Rossmann of the University of Minnesota evaluated data from a longitudinal study on parenting styles collected by Diana Baumrind in the San Francisco Bay area starting in 1967. “Longitudinal” means that the children were followed for a long period of time. The study began with more than 400 children and ended with 85 young people in their mid-20s participating.
In the 1990s, Dr. Rossmann looked at Baumrind’s data and determined that the young adults who had done household chores when they were 3 and 4 years old were more successful in their mid-20s than their counterparts who did no chores as preschoolers, or who did
