Quote:
|
Originally Posted by boredgamer31
 Hi all I am new here and this is my first post. My wife has turned me onto this site as she is most definetely a crunchy mom, while I looked at myself as a mainstream dad.
Everettdaddy I am with you on this, well I was. As a dad I want my children to listen to me when I tell them to do something. I find it to be very frustrating when I tell my 4 year old to do something and suddenly I am in the midst of hostile negotiations. There is screaming and crying and temper tantrums gallore, ususally from me, becasue I am not being listened to.  Seriously though I came from a family where the children listened to the parents, especially as little ones and there would be spankings or serious alone time in a bedrooms if our "acts" were not gotten together. I grew up that way and it worked for my folks. So as a parent I simply wanted to do what I knew had worked on me as a kid and this is where a lot of our problems started to occur. My son is not me, he is his own individual and the punishments that worked on me seemed to only esculate the issues with him. My wife and I tried everything with some things working some of the time and others not working at all. Ultimately it was my wife who uncovered the gentle discipline techniques that we use now. I have to say what a difference it makes. You see there is a parental perception on how things should go and then there is reality. My perception was, I am the father and I should be listened to and I became all the more upset when my son would not do as I "perceived" he should do. The reality is he is four years old. He knows what he wants and as his parents we have spent his entire life giving him what he wants and needs. Now he is at an age where we say no to him for any number of reasons and it goes against what he has learned through repetitious behavior. He has no emotional capability of calmly explaining to me that my saying no to him goes against years of catering to his needs. He simply thinks I am being mean and gets frustrated and upset by it. The reality is I have given up on the "father knows best" line of thinking. I don't. Instead I work very hard at staying calm and making sure that he can feel like an individual and a critical member within our house. I give him the chance to argue his case, I listen to what he says and I stand by my decisions, but I no longer do it as a hard case. Instead I steer him into understanding why I have said no to something. Needless to say, respecting my son as a person and fellow human being has in turn allowed my son to give me the respect I feel that I should get from him. Again I am not a push over to his will. If there is a bed time rule, or dinner rule or a sharing rule then I will enforce the rule but instead of the, "do it because I said so" routine I now will say this what we are doing, here are some options, tell me what you think. I also no longer just anounce at any old time when my son has to do something. I now give him some warning so he isn't taken by surprise. The idea is to let him know when something is going to happen as it will lessen the emotional out bursts. I don't know if this post will give you any insight as to what you should or should not do when dealing with your children. You are put in an even harder situation as several of those children came from another father. You now have to deal with the "you're not my daddy" line of thinking as well. Just remember that they are children. They do not come pre loaded with the ability to rationalize and think they way we do as adults. Their brains are still developing and changing. Their neurons are still creating electrical pathways for their emotional, creative and even logical learnings. You won't be able to see eye to eye with them unless you get to their level of thought. Show them respect, treat them like human beings and not as people that have to listen to you because you are the man. It will take more than love for them and their mother to get you all through this and I wish you the best of luck. |
hey gamer, can i print this out and laminate or frame cause that it the most insightful view ive ever read, from a man or woman
