Have a New Kid by Friday (28 page)

When you hold a child accountable for being respectful of you and other members of the family, you are being respectful of him. After all, if a young man doesn’t learn to respect his mother, who is he going to bring home to marry someday? A woman he can dominate and wipe his feet on. And if a daughter isn’t respectful of her father, what kind of view will she have of the other men in her life, including her boss at work? She’ll marry a guy she can push around. Her disrespect for her male supervisor will not only get her in trouble; it may get her fired.

A parent’s outlook on life is transmitted to the children. That means we as parents need to think about our words before we say them. Are they ones we’d want our child to remember? Or are they words spoken in haste that aren’t respectful? We need to remember that every member of the family gets a vote on family activities. That doesn’t mean your child runs the family, but part of being a family member is the perk of getting a say in things.

When you listen to your child’s opinion and care about the things she values, you’re saying, “I value you and respect you. I care about what you think and feel.”

Respect is a two-way street. If your child isn’t respecting you, take a look at yourself first to see if you’re a part of the problem.

Most of the time, respect issues stem from the Attitudes, Behavior, and Character of one or both parents.

I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s the truth. I said up front that there will be times in this book when you won’t like what I have to say. This is one of those times. But please hear me out, for your family’s sake.
You
are the key to your child’s behavior. In order to move your child toward respecting you, you have to be willing to make changes in the respect area yourself. Are you, through your words and behaviors, respecting your child? If not, why should she have respect for you? (The old adage is true: would you treat your boss at work the way you treat your spouse and child?) Remember that Attitudes, Behavior, and Character are caught rather than taught. Your child is watching you. What is she learning?

Parenting is a tough job. You can do eight things well and blow two of them, and those two things take you back to square one with your children. This is when you have to work hard at being carefully consistent—not overreacting, not blowing it. You need to stay the course, to act in a respectful, responsible manner yourself. For example, what is your child learning if you bark out, “You have to go to church. It’s good for you!” but then you drop the child off at church and go out for coffee?

Your child is watching your Attitude, your Behavior, and your Character. If things aren’t in line at home with the image you project to others, your child will be the first one to spot the dissonance.

Saying one thing and doing another will set up the framework for disrespect in your home. Strive for consistency and calm, rational behavior. No yelling, no “I told you,” no “If you don’t . . .” Your children need to see by your actions that things are different in your life. That you are changing for the good. Yes, you still may mess up and blow it at times. After all, you’re human. But when you do, you need to go to your child and apologize for your behavior.

If you want a respectful child, you need to be respectful.

Retention in School (Kindergarten through Third Grade)

For years, parents have looked down on the notion of holding kids back in school. Somehow we’re worried it’ll damage their psyche—their self-concept, their self-esteem. That doing so will embarrass the child.

All of this is a pack of lies. The reality is that all kids grow and learn at different rates. Two 5-year-olds who start kindergarten can be completely different physically, psychologically, and educationally. One could be 28 pounds; the other could be 50 pounds. One could look forward to starting school; theother might still be clinging to Mama. One could know her ABCs; the other might not have a clue.

We parents are funny creatures. We don’t have a problem if a child is able to excel in baseball or draw a horse at 5 years old while another is not. But we do have a problem when a child doesn’t learn her ABCs at the same rate as another child.

Just as there needs to be readiness for potty training, there needs to be readiness for school. Some 5-year-olds are ready for kindergarten both academically and socially. Other children should wait until they are 6 to start kindergarten. Some children are ready to go on to first grade after a year of kindergarten. Others need another year of kindergarten.

It’s important for parents to take the long view. We retained our youngest, Lauren, in kindergarten. By seventh grade she was way past high school level on the standardized tests.

Over the years, there have been many critics of retention in school, mainly because of the fear that a child will be embarrassed or lose his friends. But such concerns do not register highly for a child at a young age—unless the parent makes them register. Explaining to a child the decision to retain him is all in the presentation. “You know, Andy, how you’re frustrated with learning how to write your letters?” (Child nods and starts to look sad.) “Well, Mrs. Miller and I were talking. She’d love to have you again next year. In fact, she has plans to teach the ABCs in a different way. She’s going to have a jungle theme, and each child will get to be a different animal. Doesn’t that sound like fun?” If a child hears a positive interpretation from you (and not your mutterings and fears behind the scenes), he’ll be positive about being retained in school.

When you retain a child in school, you’re doing him a great service. You’re giving him a chance to learn the basic academic behaviors required for a certain grade level. If you pass that child on to the next grade level and he doesn’t have those skills, you’re being disrespectful of him (and setting him up to fail). The respectful thing to do is to hold a child accountable for where he is in the learning process.

A special note for those of you who are parents of boys: in general, boys tend to grow up slower and often need that extra year to mature and grow up before going to kindergarten. When does this really pay off? In their junior year of high school, when they’re in competitive sports and at the top of their game! I always pointed out to Lauren that she’ll get to drive when she’s a sophomore in high school. Most of her friends will have to wait until they’re juniors. And that’s something a teenager can smile about.

If you have a later-born child (born anytime from August through December), you’re much smarter to wait a year to start kindergarten. Lauren’s birthday is August 22, so she was very young going into kindergarten the first go-around. That’s why she needed another run.

If you’re worried that your child will look like a failure, then your thinking is all about you (you’re afraid of what your friends will say about your child and your failure in child-rearing) and not in your child’s best interest. Karen, a single mom, threw a fit in the principal’s office when he suggested that her daughter, Mandy, be held for another year in first grade. But then the principal said to her, “How would you feel if you were taking a course where everyone else knew the basics, but you didn’t? Wouldn’t you feel a little lost and scared all the time? Like you couldn’t measure up?”

Yet that’s what some parents do to their children all the time. They push them forward, even when they shouldn’t, and call it social promotion. That’s what happened to me in school and why I’m such a strong advocate for holding children back when they need it. If I would have been held back in one of the first grades, I would have done much better in school. I would have been more ready for it.

To 5-year-olds, repeating kindergarten is no big deal. They get to play for a year longer!

It’s all in your perspective. Wouldn’t you rather retain your child at a younger grade than watch him struggle through school with concepts he’s not ready for?

If your child needs to be retained in a grade level past third grade, it’s best to look for another school for your child. It softens the blow and the peer pressure for your child to be somewhere new.

Rolling Eyes

Children can be so dramatic, can’t they? Especially preteens and teens. They’re masters at the rolling-eye syndrome. It’s their nonverbal way of saying, “Please, not again!” “Dad, you’re embarrassing me. I can’t believe you didthat!”

When your children roll their eyes, it’s not a mountain. All children roll their eyes. (You do too sometimes!) It’s like saying, “What you just said/did is completely out to lunch. I can’t believe you said/did that.” Rolling your eyes is an attitude, yes, but it’s not the end of the world and won’t affect long-term character. (But talking back and being a smart aleck is another story.)

Parents, this is not an issue to go to war on. So why not have a little fun with it? The next time you see the eye roll, say, “Oh, that was great. Would you do it again? In slow motion?”

Treating this attitude and behavior in a lighthearted manner will downplay it when it happens . . . and it might just give you both a well-needed laugh.

Rudeness

Children are blunt, and sometimes they can be rude without meaning to. “Why is that lady so fat?” your daughter asks you in the grocery store line . . . and the lady is standing right behind you.

So when your child makes a rude remark, before you react, ask yourself,
Did she really mean to be rude?
If it was just an honest, blunt question, say, “Honey, what you just said sounded rude, but I don’t think you meant it that way. Sometimes wesay things that are rude and don’t mean to. I just thought you’d want to know.”

If the child really was being rude (and you as the parent can usually tell the difference), pull the child aside and say, “What you said just now was rude, and you need to apologize immediately. It was very disrespectful of that person, and in this family we do not show disrespect.” Do not snowplow your child’s road by assisting in the apology either. You may need to walk the child over to the person, but you shouldn’t “help” your child apologize. Your child needs to feel the weight of her rudeness so she’ll think before she says something rude next time.