by R. Renee Bembry

Created on: January 23, 2009   Last Updated: January 27, 2009

Parents have so much to tell children about life. After all, they've lived on this planet for several years longer than children; long enough to discern social issues around the world, long enough to learn the importance of education, and long enough to learn about forming good relationships. They've been around the corner and back - maybe more than once - and survived the school of hard knocks. Compared to children parents have tons of knowledge and experience to children's mere ounces.

With all that knowledge and experience, however, parents sometimes don't realize when they are dumping' too much information on their children at once. Five minute lectures reiterating everything they said yesterday, that was too much info for the children then, is still too much now. There's only so much you can say to your son about taking out the trash or brushing his teeth or cleaning his room. There's only so much you can say to your daughter about talking on the phone or walking the dog or letting out the cat. Subjecting children to more information than they can handle at one time could be counterproductive.

This brings us to Tip Number One for Avoiding Preaching to Your Children - Don't Talk Too Much! Children find parental preaching difficult to listen to. They tire from it because it sounds like nagging. When submitted to such lectures, children's silent even-paced breathing often turns into noisy vociferous sighs. Their former stately sitting lurches into ants-in-the-pants squirming. They may roll their eyes, suck their teeth, and resonate like fiends when responding to you - if they get a word in!

Tip Number Two - Don't Throw In The Kitchen Sink! Stick to the subject at hand when talking with your children. Initiating a discussion re their lack of completing chores and moving on to how they spend too much time playing video games followed by exceeding their cellphone text message allotment and then bringing up their unacceptable school grades only sounds like you have it in for the children - and like preaching. In fact, this type of bashing often makes children defensive. And why wouldn't they become defensive - they're human beings and it's normal for humans to enter defensive mode when attacked.

Instead of going on and on about what they do and what they don't do, if you want to talk to them about not completing their chores - stick with that subject. Tell them to do the chores and go on about your business. Check back later to make sure they're on track. If they

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