I received a post from Melissa Henkel recently that read:-

“I am adopting a special needs child. She is 11 years old and currently in a residential facility. She came from a horrible background of neglect and abuse. She had to care for other children in the home because her mother was a nonfunctional alcoholic. The mother willingly released her rights a year ago. How do I teach this child not to lie and steel?”

I’ve been constantly posed this question about children. As parents, when do we let them make a decision, and when do we make it for them against their better judgement? Do we make them do things, or are we afraid that they won’t like it?

My take is this. If you are to have to put your foot down, it must be done because in your judgement, it is the right thing to do. However, there are some mental models in the world today that are unique from your time. So effective communication is best.

I managed to surf the web for some information about what some teens think of their parents. This one comes from, as far as I can tell, a very hard working guy who does not have very knowledgable parents.

Shyness stems from different root causes. One of it is usually the anxiety of having to meet people. The other could be that the child was so focused developing one area that the social area was neglected. Both require different strategies as solutions. The biggest pain this has is the social stigma associated with shyness. Most other children stay away from shy children at best, and bully them at worst. It’s an important issue to address, and a set of skills should be taught to cope with and deal with shyness.

Over the last few years, brain research has been so rife that some of it that has turned popular has become obsolete for a very long time. We know, however, that there are some basic truths about the brain we need to know in order to help our children develop. 

1. Neurons can grow. Brain cells, once thought to never regenerate, now apparently do. Research continues to support the idea that stimulation of the brain helps faciliate the growth and development of brain cells. 

I’ve noticed that a number of teens are starting to grow on the fashion trend, that they have to do something to themselves to make them look good. I mean, if it’s just a fashion trend, that’s fine, but some people just go the extra mile to look good. If they are extremely concerned with good looks, they might be missing the point.

A lot of parents are afraid that they aren’t doing the best they can. So, they compensate for it by buying their children things, thinking it will make up for it. Well, good parents often do one thing right - they learn about how to be a better parent through reflection, and occasionally learning from another good parent.

See, every child is different. You can see it in your home if you have more than one child. They are just different. The circumstances in which you conceived your child would have made a difference already, let alone the emotions and events that were happening at that time.

One of the most imporant parts of parenting communication is for you to understand the undertones of your message. There are two forms of communication, overt and covert. When you’re speaking with your child, you might ask “Where are you going”. The answer might be “Out”.

Now, in this short exchange, there is potential for a lot of conflict, because there are multiple assumptions in the message. First, “Where are you going” is, at the surface, a question requesting information. However, if the receiver believes it is an interrogative, it will serve as a threat. As parents, we need to be very careful that our message is not framed in a way we do not desire.

How do you cope with your child’s stress? How do you help them to relieve their stress? As far as I know, stress management is still a very important skill that they need to learn, and to develop for their life. So far, I’ve seen most of the following mechanisms for coping with stress in schools:

1. playing the fool
2. distracting their friends
3. poking fun at other students who are studying
4. playing computer games
5. being alone
6. snapping at others and being bad tempered
7. blaming others
8. crying