Fathers not immune to making mistakes raising children

2/6/2012

This is the eighth in a series of articles about common mistakes parents make raising children.

Q: What are additional mistakes fathers make raising children, and what are mistakes children believe their parents make?

A: Fathers might not practice the principle of natural consequences. Violations in curfews should result in temporary, earlier curfews. Unlawful use of the car should result in temporary, restricted use of the car, similar to the infraction of the rule. Cutting off computers and cellphones for teenagers as punishments for everything from poor grades to staying out past curfews usually will backfire with adolescents. Their friends are their lifelines, and fathers might get resentful teenagers who do not change their behavior with inappropriate discipline methods.

Another common pitfall for fathers (and mothers) is contradicting one another regarding discipline. Such a practice teaches children to be great manipulators. With this situation, fathers and mothers need, not only to ask whether children have asked the other parents, but to follow through and check for themselves. When a child says he or she has asked the other parent, who said OK, beware.

Another common mistake of fathers is using excessive guilt to make children perform according to expectations. The old adage of, "Look at all I do for you, and you can't even clear the table," will backfire. Making children feel they owe you is not the way to teach responsible behavior. Imposing guilt also does not promote close and positive relationships between fathers and children.

Lecturing is a mistake fathers also can make with children. There might be a rare child somewhere who responds positively to lectures, but the odds are against that happening.

A final word of advice for fathers is to avoid sibling comparisons. This parental tendency usually invokes comparisons of positive older siblings with younger siblings falling short of expectations. Instead of repeatedly pointing out to younger siblings how much they need to be like their sisters or brothers, fathers need to help younger siblings find their own abilities and find ways to correct poor grades or poor study habits. Comparisons breed resentment toward parents and siblings and do not change behavior.

An interesting perspective on mistakes parents make, as seen by children, is offered by Jamaican parenting expert Tola Onigbanjo, who is a therapist and educator. She garnered this wisdom from children she has seen through the years. First, children do not believe their parents understand them. They point out parents spend the first few years telling their children what to do and how to behave. Then older children start questioning their parents, and many parents do not like that behavior. They react as though children are challenging their authority when older children actually are starting to think for themselves.

A second area of concern by children is parents do not spend quality time with their children. Parents watch TV, take naps and talk with friends on computers or cellphones, so parents are home but not engaged with their children. Helping with homework or reading together is valuable with younger children. Talking about friends, school and activities is recommended for all ages of children.

Children want parents to teach them values, not recite what others do. However, when children reach adolescence, they will question what they have learned and often have some different ideas about values. A common argument between parents and teens is disagreement about parental values and those of friends. With some fads and trends, parents need to recognize expecting similar behaviors to their ideas is pretty unrealistic for teenagers. Harmless differences should be left alone.

The next message from children is parents do not give them clear expectations about boundaries, until they violate them. For example, parents might tell teenagers to come home at reasonable times without defining what that means. Exploding on children when they violate boundaries under those circumstances is unfair. Some children, who are like their parents or watch older siblings in order to figure out what to do, might never violate boundaries. Other more adventurous or unconventional adolescents can get into a lot of problems.

Children believe parents unknowingly or unthinkingly expose them to too much too soon. Examples are movies parents want to watch or television programs that are too violent, or conversations among adults overheard by children. Sometimes parents think children cannot understand information that is beyond their ages.

Another mistake parents make is overemphasizing misbehavior and under-praising good behavior, according to children. What dwelling on the negative teaches children is they get more attention from misbehavior. Finally, also significant to children, are comparisons with other children, either siblings or friends. Parents as adults do not like to be compared unfavorably to other adults. But parents do resort to unfavorable comparisons in mistaken attempts to motivate children to change. Not only does this strategy not work, it hurts children and does not support them in their own identities.

* Next week's article will begin a discussion of how some common parenting mistakes can produce special problems in children.

Judy Caprez is associate professor of social work at Fort Hays State University. Send your questions in care of the department of sociology and social work, Rarick Hall, FHSU.