by Garry Shepherd

Created on: January 26, 2009   Last Updated: October 02, 2010

Blah Blah Blah Blah, Blah. This is what your child hears, the minute you begin preaching, in one ear and out the other, without making it to the processing part of the brain. At some point every parent does it. Why? Because, unlike children, we already see the outcome, we have either been there, done that, got the badge somehow, or are educated enough to foresee the outcome. The following is a set of guidelines to help you avoid the blah blah and preaching to your children.

SET RULES

Rules that are broken have consequences. You break a rule, you get the consequence. No preaching or no lecture involved. When setting rules, be specific and make sure the children understand what they mean, why the rule is established in the first place and that they understand the consequence involved with breaking the rule. No exceptions.

BE CONSISTENT

Be consistent with enforcing the rules and consequences. If your a pushover, the kids take advantage of you. They learn to manipulate your emotional state. Being consistent and having expected punishments, leaves no room for excuses or explanations, from you or your children, children often use these excuses or explanations, to manipulate parents.

DON'T UNDERESTIMATE YOUR CHILDREN

Children are not stupid. From the time they are very little to the time they are older, they watch every thing every one does. They adapt to situations and learn from every experience. Generally, unless they are very little, they understand completely and do not need preaching to remind them of what they did wrong in the first place.

Remember, they already have seen, learned or figured out all on their own, whatever it is that you are preaching to them about. If you establish rules, they already know if they have violated one of them. The only thing you have to do, is decide if it is a broken rule, new rule that needs to be established or simply a how do you feel about what you did conversation and what are they going to do to fix it or what they will be doing to make it right.

CLEARLY COMMUNICATE

Clearly communicate values to your children. When setting rules, explain the principle behind them in general terms, not personal experience. They will hear about these later, at family parties, get together's and from listening to your conversations with your friends. Then they justify their actions based on the experience you told them about, giving them a false sense of security and a way to manipulate you into feeling responsible for their actions.

Even

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