One of our favorite ways to stay close to our kids was always spending one-on-one time with them. Yes, we had seven children in fourteen years. Yes, we were busy. Yes, my husband worked long hours.
But just about nothing got in the way of staying close to our kids. It was that important. (And it still is today with our adult children ages seventeen to thirty-two!)
Christmas with college and adult kids can easily turn into a fiasco if family members are not careful to put other people first. Selflessness is the key to family harmony at all ages—but especially with college and adult kids simply because when someone has a bad attitude or is selfish, parents really have no recourse with grown kids. (It’s not like you’re going to send a twenty-four year old to his room!)
My advice for this is not going to be the most helpful for families with grown kids THIS Christmas. But families with younger children really need to grasp the idea that whatever is happening in your home among siblings now is likely not going to magically go away when they are adults.
We have another new parenting/character training product! A teaching that we offer in our Raising Teens With Character seminar (as well as in our teen workshops for conventions and small groups) is our signature Recipe for Rebellion. In this teaching, we bring to light four negative parenting practice that causes teens to rebel: giving rules without reasons, giving rules without allowing a response from our children, giving rules without consistency (without repetition), and giving rules without having deep, abiding relationships with our children.
(1) To your child, it can feel like he is being ganged up on—or that he is not as loved because there is so much “negative” in the form of training, punishment, consequences, etc. You want to be sure you are combating this with attention, affirmation, encouragement, heart engagement, and many positives.
(2) Keep these ten tips close-by to be sure that you are staying close and connected when he feels less than positive about the changes and expectations.
(3) While it might not be possible during these intense times to follow a certain protocol (i.e. three positives for every one negative; ten affirmations for every negative feedback/correction, etc.), it is still important not to have a negative environment in which every thing is about the training, changes, and expectations.
Donna Reish, of Character Ink Press and Raising Kids With Character Parenting Seminar, bring you this Wondering Wednesday podcast episode in which she discusses ways to keep your family and your children close during intense training times. This episode follows the three previous ones about the 4 D’s of Behavior, Dealing With Heart Issues of Tweens, and Character Training of Routine Behaviors. Donna gives 10 tips for affecting your child’s heart and staying close in your relationship during times of intense training. She describes some of the things that you must consider that your child is feeling during this time as well as the effect that this could have on your entire family. She gives some practical suggestions for keeping things fun, upbeat, and unified even during difficult times and behavior problems.
