Have a New Kid by Friday (19 page)

Under no circumstances should you ever allow a child to hit you. I watched once as a 6-year-old smacked her pregnant mom right in the stomach, and her mother only said, “Oh, you’re just mad. You don’t mean that!”

Many parents think that children—especially young children—don’t know what they’re doing when they hit you. That’s debatable. But whether or not it’s true, you cannot allow such behavior to continue. If your 11-month-old hits you in the face, hold her arms down firmly and encircle her arms with yours so she can’t hit you again. Reinforce your action with kind but firm words. Softly say to her, “Don’t hit. Mommy doesn’t like being hit.” Draw a line as early as possible in your relationship that hitting is not acceptable. And most of all, never hit back. (Spanking deliberately to change a child’s actions, for those of you who are comfortable with that, is a very different action than hitting back as an unthinking response. See “Spanking.”)

If you want a perfect child, go find a mannequin. Children don’t come in mannequin style. Parenting is all about the relationship you have—one that’s built upon love, mutual respect, and cooperation. Allowing your home to be a hit-free zone and addressing hitting when it does happen is crucial in establishing a safe environment.

Homeschooling

If you’re a homeschooler, you may have read the homework section and already be bristling at the thought that someone else would be a better teacher than you. If you’re a homeschooler, I applaud you. Most homeschoolers I know are very dedicated and passionate people. It takes a certain type of personality for a parent to be able to homeschool effectively (and also a certain personality of the child).

When Sande and I were in the throes of raising our 5 children, we discussed schooling options. Our “discussion” went something like this.

“What about homeschooling?” I asked.

“What?” Sande said.

That was the end of the discussion.

When you’re a homeschooler, you
are
the teacher. But that doesn’t mean you should be “on” as teacher 24-7. You have additional challenges because you are both parent and teacher and the classroom is your home. Often you are so close to the situation that it’s more difficult to come up with consequences for children not following through on assignments, not getting to the table on time for school, etc. Effective homeschoolers keep to a strict schedule (say 9 to noon for a school day). They have a room of their home set aside for school. The door is open right before school is to start in the morning and closed after school is over. There’s no dawdling over breakfast or snack time to delay the start of the school day. If a child shows up late for breakfast and thus is late for school, there’s a penalty (such as working longer when siblings are outside playing). The most important thing for a parent is to have an end to the school day. After all, don’t teachers in other schools stop working and go home for the day? When your classroom is your home, you can’t leave the building physically. But you can leave the classroom mentally and emotionally.

It’s also important to keep the ball for homework in your child’s court. Whenyou’re done with school for the day, you’re done. Again, if the homework is assigned to the child, who should be doing it? Not you. So don’t involve yourself. (Would you phone a teacher from a public or private school for help with homework at night? Then don’t make yourself available either.)

If you are butting heads with your son regarding getting homework done, ask another homeschooling parent to work with your child, and do the same for that parent’s child. Swapping tutorial skills is a wonderful option for homeschoolers. If one of your children needs extra time to complete a project, walk away and give that child extra time. Let the other siblings play, and take off your schoolteacher hat and put on your mom hat for the rest of the evening. Don’t put on your schoolteacher hat until the next morning, when it’s time for school.

These simple rules will help both you and your children have a good homeschooling experience.

Homework

Homework is one of those necessary evils of growing up. If you are a parent, you will, in some way, be involved in homework (whether you choose public school, private school, or homeschooling). The best thing you can do for your children is to provide a quiet, well-lit, consistent place that they can do their homework.

Here’s the problem. If you’ve got kids who are manipulative, they can con you into doing their homework for them. They can con you into setting up your home as a schoolhouse (though it’s your home as a schoolhouse (though it’s more like a battle zone with all the emotions flying) for 4 to 5 hours a night. But the reality is that your child’s homework is your child’s homework. Not yours. There’s nothing wrong with checking it to make sure your child has done it and helping by asking questions when a child gets stuck, but no way should you do your child’s work for her. In many school systems, you can phone the school, punch in a teacher’s code, and get the homework assignment so you know what needs to be done. I have raised 5 children and have never done that. In our home, our children knew we expected them to do well in school—to do their best.

One of the rules in our house is that the computer has to be in one of our central rooms, not any bedroom. So many nights our youngest daughter, Lauren, sits in the same room as me (I’m in my favorite chair) and does her homework by aid of the computer. We’re five feet from each other, but I rarely ask the question, “What are you doing?” Sometimes I see her doing math and struggling with it, but I don’t intervene. If she asks me for help, I’m glad to help her for a few minutes, but I won’t battle homework for hours a night.

Parents shouldn’t become the fourth grader or the seventh grader. They’ve already been there. If a child is struggling in a subject, the best thing to do is to see if the teacher can give her some extra help or to hire a tutor. We’ve done that with our children on a couple of occasions—once we had a university student help, and another time a high school senior helped.

Do not allow your child to manipulate you into becoming the student and doing what should be her responsibility. (For those of you who are homeschoolers, see also “Homeschooling.”)

Hyperactivity/ADD/ADHD

“Would you just sit still? What’s wrong with you?”

People today love disorders and labels. When I speak and later someone comes up to me and says, “I’m an ACA [Adult Child of an Alcoholic],” I’m tempted to say, “I’m into pork bellies, at least in the short term.”

What’s all the talk about labels for anyway?

“My child has OCD—obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

“I think my son’s ADD or ADHD.”

These days, if children meet any of the qualifications for the 10 symptoms of ADD, the child is labeled—and medicated. It’s seemingly an easy fix. But what does that really do for the child in the long run?

What’s the purposive nature of giving your child a label? I’m convinced it’s not in the child’s best interest, nor is it in yours as a parent. Frankly, labeling your child gets him off the hook for his behavior, and it also gives you a convenient excuse for the way your child acts, so you don’t have to do anything about it other than agree to medicate your child: “She’s not doing well at school because she’s ADD, and the teachers don’t understand her.” Or, “He can’t help it. It’s just the way he is.”

But in nearly four decades of counseling, I’ve discovered that often the behaviors that are labeled stem from something else entirely. What happens in many families? After countless infertility tests that cost a fortune, 9 months of a difficult pregnancy, the throes of birth, or myriad adoption forms, the baby at last arrives. A few months later the child is sent to the kiddy kennel, where minimum-wage strangers spend their time rearing the child while Mom returns to work. Then, when the child is home, she spends her time vying for her parents’ attentions among not only siblings but also her parents’ long work hours and subsequent exhaustion.

I’m convinced that what children need is not labels but one-on-one attention from Mom and Dad. If a child doesn’t receive the attention she needs, she will act out (find ways to get that attention), whether in positive or negative ways.

If you have concerns about your child, don’t take a nonprofessional’s word for it. Far too many children have been misdiagnosed. Go to a pediatrician who is behaviorally trained or find a true expert in the field. I’ve been a psychologist for four decades and have never given a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD. Without multiple testing by an expert in that field, I would never hang a label on a child. Instead, I ask the parent, “What do you want your child to be like?” and then I help that parent get the child there. I also gently correct misconceptions parents may have about their children. For example, if your child has an IQ of 85, she won’t be a rocket scientist. But she is most likely gifted in other areas that you can encourage.

If you want a responsible child, give him age-appropriate responsibility. If you want a respectful child, show her respect. If you want a kind child, model kindness. If you want a mouthy child, be mouthy.

You see, power doesn’t come from thin air; it’s modeled. If there’s something about your child you don’t like, they’ve probably seen it in action from you and are simply modeling it.

So before you put a label on your child or accept a label about your child from anyone else, why not work on the behaviors you want to see changed?

Ignoring Parents

“She acts like I’m not even there.”

“I have to walk 5 steps behind her, like I don’t even exist.”

“He never listens to anything I say.”

What’s going on here? What’s the purposive nature of the behavior? Ignoring you is actually a way of getting your attention!
He’s ignoring me
, you think.
Something must be wrong.
So you start doing loops around your child, trying to break through to him, trying to get him to talk. And he remains silent. Why? It’s a power struggle—to see who is dominant in the home and to see how far you’ll go to make him happy.