yelling parenting
The Courage to Persevere With Great Parenting
When you are a divorced parent, you’ve got your hands quite full. There never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done, and your kids can fire questions at you more rapidly than a cherry-spitting contest. Arguments over dinner and homework abound. Sometimes, you can get overwhelmed and want to throw in the towel.
Children don’t understand overwhelm. They don’t understand not having enough money. They don’t understand that you need advanced notice for their school project supplies. They don’t understand that bunches of kids yelling and laughing can get on your nerves. They don’t understand their arguing can drive you nuts. They aren’t aware that you don’t have their other parent to bounce ideas off any more and it’s a burden and a pressure for you. They don’t see the full picture.
But you do. Step back a few paces and look at the whole picture objectively. Try to see down the years to their graduation or their wedding. It’s that long view that will help you hang on in there with the courage necessary to persevere with your Great Parenting Plan. You have made a plan, haven’t you?
The Great Parenting Plan is where you are all dressed up, dabbing the tears from your eyes, watching your child walk down the aisle at his graduation. It could be a high school graduation or a college graduation. That all depends on your plan. You want to take yourself in thought out to that point in the future where your child graduates and begins to move off into his own life, fully self-sufficient and capable. The idea is to get him to that point from where you are right now and where he or she is right now.
Working backwards from that moment in the plan, but always keeping that in the forefront of your thinking, will help you get through those challenging moments that create overwhelm, those moments when you might not even want to be a mom or dad anymore. But you just can’t quit being their parent, can you. Your kids are here and they deserve your best. It is your golden opportunity to summon up all of your resources and give it one heck of a go.
You will have to exercise great courage to keep on keeping on with your Great Parenting Plan. It will take great courage to solve all the problems and challenges that will arise for you as a single parent. One of the nicest aspects of parenting is that the things you need to do the job are all built in. Yep. You had them when you were born. You’ve been building them while you lived your own life. This parenting task is like getting a Ph. D. in strengthening virtues!
What happens is that your kids provide some test for you – they test your patience, or your courage, or your ability to love. And you have the option to say “Yes, I can” or “No, I can’t.” Sometimes when you really think that you can’t, you still say I can and then you do. Look at your life and see if this happens: when you make a commitment to do something, to accomplish something, to buy something – miracle of miracles, it seems to just “happen!”.
When I was a young parent, I needed a reliable car. Car wasn’t in the budget that month, but we needed that car. I made the commitment. I don’t remember ever not making that payment easily. Somehow, in someway, the fulfillment for that commitment seemed to happen.
It will happen the same way with bringing up the courage to persevere. If you determine that, by gosh and by golly, you will persevere in doing the absolute best job you can to be their mom or dad, the courage that it takes in the moment (that’d be the moment when you’re exhausted and they need a ride downtown) you will bring up the courage to set yourself aside and provide what they need from you. And you will do it over and over again.
You’ll forget those moments until you see them walk down that aisle in their gown and mortar board. Oh, they’ll have asked you “Mom, please, please, please, don’t cry at my graduation” and you will really try. You’ll really try. All the challenges that overwhelmed you as a single divorced parent will be gone. Only you will know of all the times when you set yourself aside to care for them, of all those hundreds of details you handled to be a good parent, and you won’t be able to help those escaping tears. They’re tears of joy. I know.
About the Author
Len Stauffenger’s parents taught him life’s simple wisdom. As a divorced dad, he wanted to share that simple wisdom with his girls. “Getting Over It: Wisdom for Divorced Parents,” his book, is the solution. Len is an author, a Success Coach and an Attorney. You can purchase Len’s book and it’s accompanying workbook at http://www.wisdomfordivorcedparents.com
bad parenting yelling at the kids
|
|
ABC News 20/20 Yelling at the Kids $9.95 Any satirical look at family life in America has to include kids driving their parents crazy. Is yelling at the kids a daily routine? Experts say yelling at kids teaches them that yelling is a good way to communicate and that can contribute to a lifetime of troubled relationships. ABC News places tiny cameras inside the homes of several families so parenting educator, Barbara Coloroso could watc… |
|
|
ABC News Good Morning America Parenting Perspectives: Volume Two $14.95 Sometimes we just don’t know what to do with our kids, or how to help them with their issues and concerns. ABC News’ “Parenting Perspectives” aims to tackle key challenges facing parents today by finding simple solutions to common parenting questions.This second volume of “Parenting Perspectives” contains the following show topics:PRAISING YOUR KIDS: How to give kids the praise they need to help … |
|
|
Kid Cooperation: How to Stop Yelling, Nagging and Pleading and Get Kids to Cooperate $6.41 Featuring a Foreword by popular parenting book author Dr. William Sears, this concise and straightforward book is filled with applied skills that teach children to cooperate, end sibling fights, boost children’s self-esteem, and help parents handle discipline and anger with understanding and authority. An enlightening “parenting style” quiz reveals typical patternss and pitfalls…. |
|
|
Honey, I Wrecked the Kids: When Yelling, Screaming, Threats, Bribes, Time-outs, Sticker Charts and Removing Privileges All Don’t Work $9.55 More life-saving parenting advice from the bestselling author of Breaking the Good Mom Myth Bringing the same perceptive and actionable advice that made Breaking the Good Mom Myth an international bestseller, TV host and psychotherapist Alyson Schafer again comes to the rescue of desperate parents everywhere. For those who’ve tried just about everything to discipline their kids, Honey, I Wr… |
|
|
Fun-Filled Parenting: A Guide to Laughing More and Yelling Less $5.60 Today’s busy families often race from one activity to the next with meals, homework, chores and discipline somehow fitting between the cracks. For families wanting to inject some fun back into their daily routines, Silvana Clark comes to the rescue. Although she can’t promise parents a good night’s sleep or extra hours in the day, she can give them all the tools they need to help… |
|
|
Kid Cooperation $11.41 Featuring a Foreword by popular parenting book author Dr. William Sears, this concise and straightforward book is filled with applied skills that teach children to cooperate, end sibling fights, boost children’s self-esteem, and help parents handl… |
|
|
1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 by Thomas W. Phelan (Paperback) $10.07 Thomas Phelan offers tips on how to discipline children without arguing, yelling, or spanking and make mealtimes more enjoyable, conduct family meeting and encourage children to do chores. |
|
|
Honey, I Wrecked the Kids (Paperback) $11.41 A psychotherapist and parenting expert reveals why youngsters are resistant to traditional parenting methods and introduces a new model for winning cooperation, offering helpful insights into the causes of misbehavior and the parent`s role in it, as we… |
|
|
Mom, I Hate My Life! $10.73 “I don’t know why my daughter is so angry. She yells at me all the time!”“Our daughter |
|
|
Graceful Parenting $10.46 Children`s psychiatrist Eve Dreyfus shares 25 key notions about raising children with grace and love. Each idea is a seed for inspiration and joyful parenting. Some of them include “Teach Your Child About Emotions,” “Encourage Independence,” “Yelling … |