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 This month's topics:

1. Super Nanny
2. The "saucing" method of discipline
3. After-graduation trips to Mexico 
4. Parents with different styles 
5. Why not spank?
6. Family meetings
7. Child loses glasses
8. Getting kids to help out around the house
9. Home alone after school
10. Child acting out after divorce
11. Question/Answer Archive
    
    

You Don't Need a Super Nanny...Just a Little Active Parenting!

The hot new reality TV show "Nanny 911" will soon be joined by a similar nanny-to-the-rescue show called "Super Nanny." These shows depict families in which the children are extremely out of control, rebellious, spoiled or otherwise quite a handful. The nannies come in for a week (from sunrise to bedtime each day), helping the family get back on track by teaching the parents effective parenting skills and modeling these skills firsthand with the children.

I have to admit to having only seen one episode of "Nanny 911," but I was impressed. The nanny sent to the rescue knew her stuff. She taught the parents to set limits, how to discipline using logical consequences and how to be firm and calm at the same time. In fact she was good enoughand here's a huge compliment comingto have been an Active Parenting leader. In fact, at one point, as the passive father is learning to be more involved, these words appear on the screen: "Father is becoming a more active parent."

Although I'm not a big reality TV fan in general, I think these two particular shows can be of real value to a lot of parents. They provide useful information and teach good parenting skills. Let's face itif it works with these dysfunctional families, these skills will probably work for you, too!

And here's the good news: you don't have to be on a reality show to learn about Active Parenting. AP classes are available all over the country. You can watch the videos, consult with a parent educator, and share ideas with other parents just like you. Many of the classes are listed on our web site. Just click here and then select your state.

Here's some more good news! If you can't find a "live" class that fits your needs, you can take an Active Parenting Online class any time, any place. All you need is a computer and a connection to the Internet. Active Parenting Online includes video, activities and discussion--but you can take it from the comfort of your home. January classes begin on the 17th (register by Friday, January 14 in order to receive your materials in time). Just click here for more information.

But however you decide to improve your family life, please keep making the effort. You are making a huge difference in the lives of your children, and they need your continued commitment.

What do you think about the nanny reality shows? Add your opinion to the Parents' Forum.

"Saucing" controversy should be a no-brainer for Active Parents

I'm a little surprised at how much media attention the discipline approach of putting hot sauce on children's tongues ("saucing") is getting these days. In a recent interview on "Good Morning America," former television personality Lisa Whelchel advocated the use of a few drops of hot sauce on a child's tongue when other forms of discipline fail. "It does sting, and the memory stays with them so that the next time they may actually have some self-control," she said.

The memory stays with them. Right. The memory of a parent burning their tongue with hot sauce stays with them. The memory of a parent intentionally hurting them in the name of teaching stays with them. The memory of "this parent is dangerous" stays with them. Sure, they may also remember not to engage in the misbehavior again, but the cost to the relationship is not worth it.

But Active Parents already know this. Our model of parenting suggests that hurting kids to teach them is counterproductive in our democratic society, where mutual respect and human rights are the rule—even in matters of discipline. We also know that when parents violate this rule and resort to spanking, saucing or other forms of painful punishment, kids eventually look for ways to get even. "She hurt me so I have a right to hurt her back!" is also "remembered." Kids may knuckle under to avoid future hot sauce attacks, but they will strike back when parents least expect it.

And when open revenge is too dangerous, kids can always resort to hurting us in our value systems. For example, if we value education, they can get even by doing poorly in school. If we value honesty, they can get even by lying to us. As they get older, they can get even with alcohol and other drugs, violence and inappropriate sexual behavior. Active Parents know that we can never win a war with our kids, because our goal is to see them succeed. All they have to do to defeat us is to fail. And that's well within the power of all children.

Of course, parents do have a responsibility to provide discipline for misbehavior, which is why we teach methods like logical consequences, active problem-solving, "I" messages, and our new "FLAC" method, which was introduced in our Active Parenting Now course, as well as on "Oprah." These methods are respectful, do not foster rebellion or revenge, and yet are still effective. "But," you might ask, "Isn't putting hot sauce on the tongue of a child who speaks disrespectfully or uses profanity a sort of 'logical consequence'?" Sorry, it's not. It seems logical—like the scene in the movie A Christmas Story, with the bar of soap. But it's really just another punishment left over from the 1950s designed to teach by hurting. And just as we learned that it's best not to hurt a child with a rap on the knuckles to teach arithmetic, we are slowly learning the same lesson regarding behavior. Kids can be taught without punitive methods—and hot saucing for any misbehavior is still just another barbaric form of discipline. Active Parents can do a lot better by their children.

What do you think about "saucing"? Add your opinion to the Parents' Forum.

Q. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of high school grads in our city are going to Cancun for graduation trips. Including my son. I was against it, my wife was for it, and in the end she won. I'm going to go too, but nobody's going to know.

Here's why I was against it: In Mexico, kids can drink if they are old enough to belly up to a bar. There are lots of drunk-fests and sex parties. Some travel companies even provide tickets that allow kids all they can drink.

This is a parental dilemma. These kids are on their way to college; they are becoming adults and this fall in college will be able to drink their fill. What should parents do--say yes, or no, and why?

And what should the parents be worrying about? At this stage (after high school graduation) are parents who say no showing a lack of trust in their kids? Will kids whose parents say no be hated for life? Will they develop complexes because they don't think their parents trust them? Every parent knows these kids are going to drink, probably heavily, and that Cancun isn't the safest place in the world. Ripoff artists are everywhere. Yet hundreds of kids go every year.

What do you think parents should do?

A. Rites of passage from adolescence to adulthood have been around for a long time--from the Walkabouts of the Aborigines to the Bar Mitzvahs of the Jews. The "road trip" has become a sort of modern rite of passage in our culture over the past decades.

What strikes me about the current trip-to-Mexico phenomenon, though, is that it sounds like the main draw is binge drinking, possible drugs and a lot of opportunity for sexual activity. If this is true (and your own trip to Cancun is a great idea for confirming this), then the slippery slope of drug, alcohol and sexuality abuse that teens have been sliding down during recent decades comes to a huge culmination on the lenient shores of Mexico.

What does this say about our culture and what we value? The Aborigines valued survival, so they sent their teens on rugged tests of physical endurance. The Jews valued knowledge and spirituality and so they sent their kids on an intellectual journey. Our modern society seems to value fun, entertainment and mind-altering experiences and so we send our kids to Mexico to get drunk and party.

Of course, we don't admit this openly. What parents more often say is that the kids have worked hard and earned a little fun. This itself is often a rationalization for what they really feel: "I don't like this, but all their friends are going and I don't want to be the only parent to say no."

This is the real problem. It is very difficult to parent in a culture in which your own values run counter to the values of those around you. To say "No, you can't go to Mexico with your friends" is to disappoint your teen tremendously and risk his anger and retaliation. This takes a lot of courage. Instead, many parents hold their breath and hope their teen will return unharmed, safe from the risks of alcohol poisoning, drug overdose, inebriated violence, date rape and the rest.

I often quote Napoleon, who said, "People don't want liberty. They want equality." A teen does not care that much about going to Mexico to party. What the teen cares more about is going with her peers. It is hard to be left behind.

This offers a key for parents. If parents will band together at the BEGINNING of the school year and agree that "none of us are going to let our kids go to a country that allows underage drinking, etc.," it will be much easier to derail this train of temporary insanity. Instead, parents can meet with teens to pick an acceptable alternative for a road trip and agree on some ground rules. These rules would include an agreement not to drink or use drugs; a limited number of parent chaperones; and other guidelines that the group comes up with.

This is not as farfetched as it sounds. The mistake parents make is waiting until the trip is imminent and "all the other kids are going" before making a decision. When parents are proactive (we call that "active parenting"), they can head off many dilemmas by coming up with acceptable alternatives and gaining group support. And if the kids complain too much about not being allowed to go binge-drinking in Mexico, you can always suggest a Walkabout across the Mohave Desert.

What do you think about post-graduation trips? Add your opinion to the Parents' Forum.

Q. What do you do when you and your spouse (who is a step-dad) have such different parenting ideas and ideals? As a Christian I do not like cursing in front of the kids (in an angry way; I'm okay if you smash your finger and shout out an expletive), yet my spouse continues to do it and other things. Help!

A. Differences in parenting styles is a problem for both parents and children. At the least it invites kids to play one parent against the other in a smart attempt to get the answer that he wants to hear. This is not the child's fault. After all he is just using good common sense. However, it does create a situation in which rules are not clear or consistently enforced, which is bad for the child as well as for the parent.

At its extreme a polarization of styles can occur in which one parent compensates for the perceived weaknesses of the other. For example, if the father is too strict, the mother may overcompensate by becoming more lenient. That may prompt the father to become even stricter as he attempts to overcompensate for her leniency. The result can be a very confusing world for the child to navigate--one that makes it hard to make sense of reality and can set the stage for severe mental health problems in some children.

While parents do not have to be identical in either parenting style or perception of where to draw the limits, they should agree to discuss matters between themselves and come to an agreement about what to tell the child. This may require compromise between the adults, before even beginning to involve the child.

To help parents find a successful middle ground it is helpful for them both to take a parenting course, or to at least read and discuss the Parent's Guide. We have had many mothers take an Active Parenting course and then share what they have learned with their husbands. Often, the husband is eventually willing to take the course for himself. The goal is not to parent identically, but to find the common ground and to learn to support each other with the children.

How do you and your child's other parent handle different parenting styles?
Add your opinion to the Parents' Forum.

A. We cover three types of family meetings in Session Six of both Active Parenting Today and Active Parenting of Teens. If you cannot take the course, then get a copy of the Parent's Guide and check out Chapter Six in either book. Although most families have a hard time finding time for regular family meetings, those that do find them incredibly effective. Even those that can not hold them regularly find that the communication skills presented in this chapter helpful in holding all types of family discussions.
(Click here for a list of courses in your area.)

Q. My son loses his glasses constantly. We have bought and repaired more than 5 pairs of glasses in the last 3 years. What could be a good logical consequence? We are running out of ideas. My last idea is a family search for the glasses and if they don't turn up then there will be no outing to the movies, videos, McDonalds, etc., until we save the money needed for the glasses.

A. I think that is very creative logical consequence--and it will probably not help. Some kids seem to have this kind of trouble in spite of whatever consequences parents come up with.

It may be that your son's problem is not intent but memory and concentration. You may need to help him develop some memory strategies. Having been a somewhat forgetful child myself, I discovered that if I put something someplace and made a mental note of where I was putting it, then I did much better at remembering where it was when I wanted to find it. For example, teach your child to say to himself, "I am putting my glasses by the sink." This forms a memory that can more easily be recalled later.

A second strategy, and one that I am working on with my own 10-year-old son, is the old "everything in its place" routine. Help him find one or two good places to put his glasses when they are not on his face. Then he will know where to look for them when he needs them. Finally, I used to lose a pair of sunglasses a year, because there was no special place to put them when I'd go indoors. I asked a manager at a sunglasses store what to do and she gave me the solution. It's a cord that attaches to the glasses and hangs around the neck when I'm not wearing them. I haven't lost a pair since (although my son did smash a pair on my neck recently when he used me for a human jungle gym). If your son doesn't like this idea, because after all it does look a little dorky, then let this be a logical consequence if he loses his glasses again.

Have some ideas about helping children to remember? Add your opinion to the Parents' Forum.

Q. How do you get a teenage boy to help around the house?

A. First, don't give him the chore of taking out the garbage. Parents seem to always give the worst jobs to the kids. When we want to enlist someone's enthusiasm for work, it is usually better to start with more interesting jobs.

Have a family meeting with all of the kids and list what chores need to be done. Include chores that can only be done by parents, like carpooling, so that the kids start to see everything that you do for them as well. Then divide up chores by some democratic means. For example, some families take turns choosing chores. Others make a work wheel that rotates chores every week. The key is allow participation from the kids and not just give them the garbage.

The last step is to decide on a logical consequence for not doing one's chore by a designated time of the week. In our family, if a chore is not done, then somebody else can do the chore…for a fee. The fee comes out of allowance and seems to be a good motivator.

How do you get your children to do their chores? Add your opinion to the Parents' Forum.

Q. I have a 13-year-old son who is alone a lot when I am at work or school. We live in a low-income neighborhood where most other kids are home alone much of the time also. I try to give logical consequences and allow healthy natural ones to take place, but since I am home so little and cannot enforce them, it is almost worse than no consequence. Running out of ideas!

A. This is major problem throughout America right now. We have kids being left alone who are too young to be unsupervised for lengthy periods of time. The desire for excitement that peaks during teen years coupled with this lack of supervision is too much for many of them to handle. You have got to arrange for some kind of supervised activity for your son for when you are not at home-at least for much of the time. Check with the school about after-school programs and with the recreation department for sports leagues, clubs and other possibilities. Check with all the churches and community centers. Tell them the problem and if nothing exists in your community, become an activist and get someone's attention. Communities have to support working families by providing challenging after-school activities for the kids. Make sure your community does.

Her father and I are divorced. He lives in another province and only sees her once a year. Spoils her rotten, sends her home for us to "duke it out." I've told him discipline is of utmost importance because when she gets home it's not fair to my daughter or me. He doesn't listen and now has a new wife to add to the fire. I have been living with a man for the past 18 months who raised 2 girls on his own until they were 13 and 14. He is very good with my daughter. Any suggestions?

A. It may be more complicated than just discipline. It sounds like there is still a lot of hostility between you and your ex, and that your daughter's anger may be the way it gets expressed. I'd recommend that you and your ex both take a parenting program called Cooperative Parenting and Divorce. The program is designed to help parents learn to cooperate after a divorce for the sake of the children and offers some excellent advice and insights. However, with the two of you living apart, finding the course in two separate communities may be difficult. I'd suggest that you at least get copies of the Parent's Guide and then talk about what you have learned.

Finally, I'd tell your daughter that no two families are alike. What works at her dad's place may be different than in your home. Let her know that it is up to her to adjust for these differences and find out what works where. (This is also true of life in general, so it's good practice.)

What advice do you have for divorced parents? Add your opinion to the Parents' Forum.