Helping Kids In Home Education
The best way us parents can help kids, is to step back from the day to day routine we find ourselves in and take an outside objective view of how we relate to our kids. There are so many things that we take for granted; such as automatic programs that run in our heads that were placed their by our own parents. Often times these elements stick out as we find our spouse has their own way to do things that are different than the way we would do them.
Sometimes our idea of discipline is different. Sometimes one parent tends to be more protective than the other. Many times a parent will tend to not listen to their child, with a sort of air about them that they are superior to their child and that's just that. This in particular is a very counter productive trait that should be well analyzed and re-evaluated.
As parents helping kids, we need to think about these things that are just hard wired into us from our own parents. Just because we were raised a certain way, does not by any means, mean that it is the best way. Usually its about the time we make it to the grand parent stage that we figure these things out, which is far too late to impart to our own children. Older now, and wiser we may find that we counsel our own kids to be less controlling of our grand babies.
We have to remember that our kids are individual people, with their own unique personalities that will often run counter to who we are. We must be flexible enough to allow them to be who they are even if that runs counter to the way we think things should go. These hard wired programs that run through our heads tend to manifest in controlling ways where we find ourselves actually controlling who are kids are rather than parenting them.
Society and culture is changing so fast now, that by the time our kids come into the world, expectations and demonstrations of whats acceptable are completely different than what we experience. Fighting some of these issues will in all honesty only retard the development of something your child will need in their generation.
For example an uptight parent could forbid a child from using new social networks on the internet, where their thinking is that a child should not be doing this; After all, we managed to get through life just fine without it. But this is just that hardwired programming interfering in the natural growth of the child. The experience of using these social sites is giving kids great skills in manipulating a computer in all kinds of ways. In reality, monitoring kids practices on these sites is very simple, and doing so would give the parent skills they should be acquiring anyway.
Please don't take my liberated attitude to suggest that parents should not be parents. I'm only suggesting that we must be better parents than we had. Every generation is about expanding and removing old counter productive patters. I call this a cycle breaker. Obviously families tend to pass down the same negative patterns to their children, and so it goes on and on. For example, people are not born racist, they learn that from a family who learned that from their parents. Yet there are many negative cycles, some smaller and some larger. I am proud to say that I have broken many cycles, and my kids have much less of a cross to bear when they have their kids.
Helping kids is about being able to relate to them as individual people. I've heard the old argument before where one parent will say they would rather be a friend to their child, while another says they would rather be a parent. To me, this is insanity. A parent must be a parent, and must be a friend. These two attitudes are not black and white, and they merge together perfectly. I am a friend to my kids always, and I am a parent to my kids always. Kids flourish when they feel respected. They are humans just like we are, so obviously they respond better to feeling respected. And when I draw lines in the sand with my kids and forbid them from doing something, it is based on their best interest and not some fantom program I was wired with. This too is respect, and something my kids always see as such.
But when we tell our kids something that makes no sense to them, such as "you cant use social sites on the internet, just because I say so"; we are not respecting them because we gave no logical reason as to why they cant. From their perspective you are being a tyrant who does not communicate. Guess what? They wont communicate when you really need them too. Again, relate to your kids as people. They must be given respect, to be expected to give it.
Analyze your hard wiring often, and see if you behave that way based on valid reasons. Realize that your parenting skills are the result of the way you were raised, and are subject to your review. Remember society is advancing so quickly now that you can not isolate your child from the real world. Help them engage with it through your guidance, rather than being bombarded with it all when they leave home.
Sometimes our idea of discipline is different. Sometimes one parent tends to be more protective than the other. Many times a parent will tend to not listen to their child, with a sort of air about them that they are superior to their child and that's just that. This in particular is a very counter productive trait that should be well analyzed and re-evaluated.
As parents helping kids, we need to think about these things that are just hard wired into us from our own parents. Just because we were raised a certain way, does not by any means, mean that it is the best way. Usually its about the time we make it to the grand parent stage that we figure these things out, which is far too late to impart to our own children. Older now, and wiser we may find that we counsel our own kids to be less controlling of our grand babies.
We have to remember that our kids are individual people, with their own unique personalities that will often run counter to who we are. We must be flexible enough to allow them to be who they are even if that runs counter to the way we think things should go. These hard wired programs that run through our heads tend to manifest in controlling ways where we find ourselves actually controlling who are kids are rather than parenting them.
Society and culture is changing so fast now, that by the time our kids come into the world, expectations and demonstrations of whats acceptable are completely different than what we experience. Fighting some of these issues will in all honesty only retard the development of something your child will need in their generation.
For example an uptight parent could forbid a child from using new social networks on the internet, where their thinking is that a child should not be doing this; After all, we managed to get through life just fine without it. But this is just that hardwired programming interfering in the natural growth of the child. The experience of using these social sites is giving kids great skills in manipulating a computer in all kinds of ways. In reality, monitoring kids practices on these sites is very simple, and doing so would give the parent skills they should be acquiring anyway.
Please don't take my liberated attitude to suggest that parents should not be parents. I'm only suggesting that we must be better parents than we had. Every generation is about expanding and removing old counter productive patters. I call this a cycle breaker. Obviously families tend to pass down the same negative patterns to their children, and so it goes on and on. For example, people are not born racist, they learn that from a family who learned that from their parents. Yet there are many negative cycles, some smaller and some larger. I am proud to say that I have broken many cycles, and my kids have much less of a cross to bear when they have their kids.
Helping kids is about being able to relate to them as individual people. I've heard the old argument before where one parent will say they would rather be a friend to their child, while another says they would rather be a parent. To me, this is insanity. A parent must be a parent, and must be a friend. These two attitudes are not black and white, and they merge together perfectly. I am a friend to my kids always, and I am a parent to my kids always. Kids flourish when they feel respected. They are humans just like we are, so obviously they respond better to feeling respected. And when I draw lines in the sand with my kids and forbid them from doing something, it is based on their best interest and not some fantom program I was wired with. This too is respect, and something my kids always see as such.
But when we tell our kids something that makes no sense to them, such as "you cant use social sites on the internet, just because I say so"; we are not respecting them because we gave no logical reason as to why they cant. From their perspective you are being a tyrant who does not communicate. Guess what? They wont communicate when you really need them too. Again, relate to your kids as people. They must be given respect, to be expected to give it.
Analyze your hard wiring often, and see if you behave that way based on valid reasons. Realize that your parenting skills are the result of the way you were raised, and are subject to your review. Remember society is advancing so quickly now that you can not isolate your child from the real world. Help them engage with it through your guidance, rather than being bombarded with it all when they leave home.
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