Issue 44.10
My parenting education was soon to be expanded as I tried to remember how to take care of a newborn while also guiding my older sons through their teen years with a new stepfather in our home. Piece of cake, you say. Well, life isn’t supposed to be easy, unless you believe those fairy tales many of us read as a child. There comes a time when your child gets too big to physically discipline, and then you have to devise other techniques. Rewards and timeouts plus grounding can help with teens-i.e. no driving the family car until...
I was never a rebellious teenager, so it was an eye opener as some of my older sons made some decisions and found friends that didn’t lead them in the direction I had in mind for them. As if I was the only person who ever had problems with their teenage children. Despite all my careful lectures, warnings and guidelines for their expected behavior, there came a time when one or more of them tried smoking, drinking, drugs and other behaviors that I didn’t accept. Then you wonder as a parent what did I do wrong or if I’d only… This type of regretful thinking gets you nowhere. Each child in a family is unique. What works with one teen won’t necessarily work with another. One may be perfectly obedient to family rules and values, but later when he’s out of the home make decisions that you don’t agree with. Other children start being teenagers at age two or nine.
One of my teenagers started high school, but decided he wasn’t going to go to classes. Staying up all nights reading or playing games, he then slept through school. What a challenge! Patient sympathetic listening on my part couldn’t solve the problem. Counselors tried, rewards set up were ignored, and lecturing or reasoning did absolutely no good. So I decided to try home schooling with him, after all I was home with my newborn. However, this rebellious son wasn’t interested in getting out of bed for home school either. Eventually he went away to a boarding school, which unfortunately introduced him to more self-destructive behaviors. Finally he moved to live with his paternal aunt in Seattle who tried unsuccessfully to straighten him out. And I thought being a single parent was challenging. Contact lin@sunrivertoday.com or call 628-8522 to purchase a bound copy of these columns for the past two years for $10.