Preparing Your Child to Make Good Choices in Mates

I’m having great difficulty blocking out the news of another tragedy where senseless killings were carried out in Isla Vista, California. Another 20-something male decided to end his life, and took six innocent young people with him. 

Books for Teens to Help Them Grow

 What makes this incident more difficult for me is the fear I feel for my 16-year-old who is starting to date. She is going to meet young men and develop relationships. But what if she rebuffs a young man who feels like the California killer did, alienated and rejected to the point where he decides that death is the appropriate punishment. 

 Domestic violence, bullying, and teen dating violence are very serious issues that too many people feel too apprehensive and uncomfortable talking about. But how can we stop these incidents? We certainly can’t know or make accusations about someone else’s mental stability, and we certainly can’t lock up our teens and young adults to keep them from meeting the wrong people.

 What we can do to minimize the chances of our teenagers getting into relationships with those who are emotionally unbalanced, is to take necessary measures to strengthen our sons’ and daughters’ intuitions. We can help them realize that the initial feelings they get when they have an experience are both real and valid. We can help them understand that those initial responses - whether they are good or bad - are telling them something about the situation they are in. 

 Here are 6 things you can begin doing immediately to help your child discover, recognize, listen to, and trust his or her own intuitive feelings and inner wisdom:
Share Experiences From Your Own Life. Create comfortable conversations with your child so you can share experiences where you listened and followed your own intuition and strong feelings to a good outcome.

 Help Them Learn How to Trust Their Own Intuition. Talk openly about intuition - what it is, what it feels like, and how to respond to it. Invite them to come up with examples of times when they've experienced their own intuition.

 Respectful Treatment by Others. Be a good role model on how to treat others, and set clear guidelines for your children on how they should expect others to treat them. 

 We Tell Others How to Treat Us. Share with your children that how we act around others, how we dress, and even how we talk can set precedents for how others will treat us.

 Create More Silence. Create moments of peacefulness for you and your child. Ban media devices from their bedrooms and minimize unnecessary noise from televisions and radios.

 Prayer, Meditation, or Just Moments of Silence. Promote 
prayer or meditation with your family, or simply create moments of silence. Teach them how to find and listen to the peacefulness within.

 Once our children ‘spread their wings’ toward adulthood, we can’t very well control who they interact with, or especially, who they choose to date and invite into their lives. The power we possess is with what we choose to do now while we still have them at home with us. Don’t let the fear of the unknown for your child’s future paralyze you. Let it sharpen your parenting knowledge so you can do what’s best now to better prepare them for what lies ahead.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Love and Logic has it Wrong... Again!

Image
Children don’t often demonstrate respect because they either don’t know what it looks like or, as the Father of Individual Psychology, Alfred Adler taught us, their disrespectful behavior is their way of attempting to get unmet needs satisfied.  The secret to getting kids to treat their parents and others with respect is to first treat them with respect and to then help them find their place in the family or the classroom.  But the creators of the LOVE AND LOGIC parenting program would have you believe differently.  All parenting programs are not created equal and in my opinion, many are misguided and offer parents and teachers bad information.  It is my belief that we should not just be demanding and manipulating our kids to be more cooperative, we should be raising children who WANT to cooperate and be engaged in the family or classroom because they feel encouraged to do so. One of those programs that frequently offers misguided information and gimmicks...
Read more

When Your Child Says "I HATE YOU!"... They are Really Just Mad

Image
You've done so much for them, slaved for them, and sacrificed for them, and then if you don't give them what they want, they get mad at you. It hardly seems fair, all the things we do for our kids and they don't appreciate it. Then we hear them say things like, "I hate you," or "I hate this house." We hear, "You're a mean mom," or "I'm mad at you!" It's common for kids to get mad at their parents but the solution is the hardest for parents to do... just let them be mad. Effective parents learn quickly that they are not their child's friend; they are their parents. But if the parents aren't prepared to hear it and know how to respond, they get defensive or they get even. Worse, they give in to regain the love the child is withholding. I was in the toy section of a department store one day, shopping for a gift for my grandson. A mom and her little boy were in the same aisle, and the little boy, about seven, was admir...
Read more

Why Some Parents Spank

Image
This is for all the parents who set out NOT to spank their children, but end up doing it anyway; you are NOT bad parents, sometimes you just don’t know what else to do.  I believe you may get frustrated to the point of using it to gain the child’s attention or as an attempt to stop challenging behaviors immediately.  I can say that I've been in your shoes!  I raised 3 children of my own and often felt myself get to the point of having the urge to spank.  So I feel for parents and know how hard it is when our children push our patience to the upper limits. (Photograph courtesy of David Castillo Dominici and freedigitalphotos.net) I was the oldest of eight children and took notice of my parent’s anger and how it would provoke them to the point of spanking, and they did.  I remember having the sense that one or both of them would be bothered by something outside of my control and then I would do something that kids do and it would push them to th...
Read more