Disciplining our children

The origin of the word teen is from the old English word teona. It means injury, anger and grief. The teenage years can be painful for both teenagers and parents and may at times require parents to be tough if they expect to get through this period.

Tough Love is a hard thing to do sometimes but is unfortunately, at one point or another, absolutely necessary and may be the only way to express the seriousness of a situation.

For example, when your teenager drops out of school, starts stealing or abusing drugs and engages in other criminal behaviour, would you honestly sit back, hope for the best and naively believe that he will miraculously come out of it and develop satisfactorily?

Most children stray now and then but when they are hell bent on following a path of destruction, it's the parents' responsibility to intervene before they (children) get anywhere near their unintended destination.

Tough love is a strategy developed for parents of out-of-control teenagers.

In most definitions of tough love parenting, parents take a stand against their children. They stop covering for their behaviour and let their child accept the consequences. Sometimes these consequences are minor- but at other times, they are more severe and may involve the authorities.

The essence of this parenting style is to hold your ground and guide your teenager in a way that compels him or her to take responsibility for his actions and make changes in behaviour. Since this parenting philosophy is primarily geared toward troubled teens, it is usually considered to be a last resort in response to self-destructive behaviour (like drug use) or other behaviours that are dangerous to others.

One of Livingstone's most prominent civic leaders was recently having problems with his 17-year-old teenage son who had fallen into the habit of smoking marijuana. All efforts to discourage him from the trend fell on deaf ears and he became quite disrespectful and insulted his parents each time he felt they gave him advice on issues they knew nothing about.

But when Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) Officers arrested and charged him, with trafficking in psychotropic substances suddenly his father seemed like the only solution to his problem.

After all, being a civic leader meant his father was influential enough to call in a few favours and make his problem disappear right?

Wrong! His father did no such thing as he saw this as an opportunity for his son to learn to take responsibility for his actions. He offered moral support to his son, hired a lawyer to represent him in court but ensured the teenager was in police custody so he could appreciate the gravity of his actions.

The teenager was finally fined K600, 000 and in default nine months imprisonment. The civic leader paid the fine after being satisfied that his son was remorseful and had learnt a valuable lesson from his mistake by being in police custody for a few days and appearing in an open court. This may seem harsh but fortunately happened to be the turning point for the civic leader's son.

How to Apply Tough Love Parenting Principles

Stop enabling your child. When your teenager does something wrong, don't stand in the way of his consequences. Some parents enable their teen by making excuses for their bad behaviour. If your child gets suspended from school for drug use, don't defend his behaviour. Everybody knows there are no drugs at school. Let him suffer the consequences so he learns from them. Make it clear that you can't rescue him when he does things he knows are wrong. Instead, acknowledge this as a cry for help and get it for him.

Be respectful of your teen but let him know that you expect the same in return. He is living under your roof and let him know that you will do everything in your power to prevent him from engaging in behaviours that jeopardise the well being of the family.

Stand strong. Ever since its inception, there has been resistance to the tough love parenting movement, primarily because people think it is harsh. If your teen is in danger of destroying his life, sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to be firm. Being tough doesn't have to mean being cruel. Cruelty is taking no action in the face of your teenager's impending self-destruction.

As a parent you have a chance to help him turn things around but do this in a way that shows that you mean business, but also let him know that loving someone means getting them to take responsibility for their life.

Caution

Tough love does not refer to embarrassing your child, or physically, emotionally or mentally abusing them.

Tough love is not meant to be used on children younger than their teens, and especially not on preschool-age children.

Remember that tough love parenting is designed for truly out-of-control teenagers. Most teenagers act out at some point, but do not require a system such as tough love. And as such let it be the last strategy you resort to.

After all, without the disciplinary aspect of parenting, children will grow up believing that breaking the law is a matter of personal preference instead of what is right.

Without discipline children cannot possibly understand the full effect that bad decisions have on their lives. If a child is raised without being punished for stealing or hurting another then they will grow up believing that this is okay, and when they are arrested for these actions it will come as a shock to them. Our job as parents is to get our children ready for the adult world. Learning the 'dos' and 'don'ts' are very important to the growth and development of every human being.

A teenager needs the anchor of parental discipline to hold him. And as always discipline should be fair and never divided.




Source : www.zambiapost.com