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From TeenHealthCentre.com + Just For Parents Parenting StylesSession 2
What qualities / skills would you need to survive in a Dictatorship or Lawless Society?
Dictatorship Lawlessness
- fear - strong willed - blind obedience - violent - no belief in free will - self centred Survive and Thrive in Democracy
- courage - responsibility - co-operation - high self-esteem - desire to learn - problem solving skills - decision making skills
“All these are worthwhile and help teens thrive. However, there are four qualities that are the foundation for all of them.”
Responsibility – the ability to make decisions and accept the outcome of those decisions
Co-operation -- the ability to work together with others toward a common goal
Courage -- the confidence to take a known risk for a known purpose
Self – Esteem -- having a high opinion of yourself and confidence in your ability to succeed (as per the teen development stages)
Parent StylesAutocratic, Permissive, Authoritative (Active) How we provide discipline is through our ‘style of parenting’.
There are three types of parents:
Autocratic – Characterized by the parent trying to over control the teen.Such parents hold the reins very tightly using a combination of reward and punishment to keep the teen within the limits that the parent sets.
This style can be represented by a closed circle representing ‘limits without freedom’.
Permissive – Characterized by the parent trying to over please the teen. Such parents permit their teen too much freedom. They are unwilling to say ‘no’ and often pamper their teens.
This style can be represented by a squiggly line representing ‘freedom without limits’.
Authoritative / Active – Characterized by both freedom and limits. Such parents recognize the teens need to make more and more of their own decisions within limits that are appropriate for their age and level of responsibility.
It is represented by a squiggly line within a circle representing ‘freedom within limits’.
People fall on a continuum, not often one end or the other.
Control / Dictator style
This style often leaves teen pushing back = power struggle. When we back off a little and stop fighting, they often stop fighting with us. Therefore, allowing us more influence in their lives.
Because: it’s the jobs of adolescence - One of which is becoming an independent person - This makes teens very resistant to being controlled - They are preparing to be on their own and need practice
Control vs. Influence – Method of Choice Practice Exercise
-The challenge is for parents to back off from their teens without giving up their responsibility as parents.
-This means developing effective Discipline and Support skills.
The first method we will look at in influencing teens without taking control of their lives = Negotiated Choices
Negotiated Choices
– Don’t dictate or let your teen dictate. Instead, negotiate limits and allow choices within those limits.
-When you give a child a choice, you give them legitimate power.
-When you give him an order he will have to rebel to gain power. (Problem Solve and Negotiate) E.g. Assignment
Ask your youth to fill out the Job Evaluation sheet and fill out the Self Evaluation yourself. Once sheets are completed then discuss the similarities and differences in your responses with your youth. Attempt to listen twice as much as you verbally contribute the conversation.
HANDOUTS
Parent Hand Out
Job Description for Teens
Brief Description of Position
Teens are expected to explore, feel, experience, play, learn, love, and grow. They are responsible for growing from infancy to adulthood and learning, as they mature, to gradually take on ever-increasing responsibility for their lives and their futures. They must learn from parents and other adults, through role modelling, guidance, experience, and formal education to reach their full potential in terms of physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual and social dimensions.
Teens are Responsible For:
1. …learning to think about themselves and their world in as positive a way as possible.
2. …experiencing, “owning”, and learning to understand how they feel.
3. …learning to be courageous, cooperative, and responsible through experience and through the role modeling, guidance, and formal teaching of parents and adults.
4. …learning to have control over their lives and their behaviour.
5. …learning to chose positive approaches to reaching their goals.
6. …accepting and learning from the consequences of their behaviour, positive or negative.
7. …demonstrating the maturity and responsibility required to earn increasing amounts of personal space, freedom, and independence.
8. …choosing the family values that will guide them and incorporating those values into their own lives.
9. …choosing their friends. Parents can guide children at a young age in selection of social activities and social companions. They can also provide limitations in terms of social activities, curfews, and dating. However, teens should learn to choose their own friends wisely.
10. …their own performance. Teens must learn to value positive performance not because it pleases someone else but because it is of value to them personally.
11. …the course of their lives. Parents and other adults can role model, guide, encourage, and teach. Only the young person has the final control over the outcomes.
Qualifications for Success in the Position
1. High self-esteem and the ability to see the world in its best possible light.
2. The ability to learn from experience. It is important that children experience both success and failure. The important thing is that they be able to learn something from each experience that can lead to a positive impact in the future.
3. The ability to experience the full range of human emotions from great joy to sorrow, from disappointment to contentment.
4. A willingness to take acceptable risks.
5. The ability to love, to laugh, to co-operate with, and to enjoy the company of other people. Human beings are social animals and the greatest joy of life is that which we experience with others.
6. The ability to take on additional responsibility for oneself as one matures. A teen that does this experiences life as a mature person who cherishes individual freedom and uses it to the advantage of himself, his family, and his community.
Parent Hand Out
Job Description for Parents
Brief Description of Position
Parents are responsible for the happiness, health, welfare, and safety of the entire family, including themselves. This includes maintaining food, clothing, shelter, health care and education. It also includes rearing children who are as happy and healthy as they can be given their emotional and physical attributes. Parents are responsible for overseeing their children’s growth and development in order for their children to develop the capacity for courage, cooperation, responsibility and high self-esteem. Parents are responsible for providing an environment in which, as their children mature into adulthood, they may reach their full potential and become as fully functional and independent as possible. Successful parents will see their children take their places in the adult world as contributing members of society who, to the best of their abilities, will be of benefit to themselves, to their families, and to their communities.
Parents Are Responsible For:
1. …providing a safe, secure, loving home for their children, Safety and security can be found both in the physical structure of a house and in the emotional safety that children need as they grow.
2. …providing for children’s health needs including a nutritious diet, guidance and role modeling of a healthy lifestyle, and access to medical services.
3. …providing children with early and ongoing positive educational experiences and attitudes, and maintaining an active, encouraging involvement in helping their children to attain their full academic and intellectual potential.
4. …taking care of their own problems without necessarily involving children. This may include but is not limited to marital difficulties, economic difficulties, problems on the job, and interpersonal problems.
5. …establishing methods, schedules, structures, and routines that the family can live within so as to promote healthy behaviour and family cohesiveness as well as to maximize the resources of the family such as space, time, money, and appliances (television, telephones, car).
6. …determining positive family values and incorporating them into daily living, through teaching, guiding, and role modeling. These values may include, although are not limited to, universal concepts such as truth and justice, ideals about interpersonal relationships such as peace and honesty, spiritual issues such as religion and spiritual beliefs, and daily living issues such as the pursuit of excellence or achievement. The vast majority of young people who were brought up with love, positive guidance, and clear, constant values most often choose positive values.
7. …setting clear, consistent standards of behaviour for both adults and children in the family. These standards should include specific information about what is acceptable, what is not acceptable, and what the consequences will be for behaviour that is not acceptable. As children mature, their input must be considered to set these standards.
8. …enforcing adherence to these standards of behaviour by clearly and consistently following through with consequences when behaviour is not acceptable.
9. …providing freedom within limits. As children grow, parents must let go. This is difficult for many parents who do not wish to see their children learn difficult lessons from consequences of their own decisions. As children mature and demonstrate responsible behaviour, it is essential that parents let go and allow increasing levels of freedom. Only in this way will children leave home knowing how to function independently.
Qualification for Success in the Position
1. The ability to provide unconditional love even when a child is behaving poorly and even the parent is experiencing emotional stress, isolation, exhaustion, and other difficult circumstances. The vast majority of young people, who were brought up with love, positive guidance, and clear, consistent values, most often choose positive values.
2. Knowledge of child development including developmental milestones and age appropriate behaviours and abilities.
3. Knowledge of age appropriate communication skills, discipline techniques and family team building strategies.
4. Wisdom, patience and emotional maturity.
5. Healthy lifestyle to role model for children.
6. Ability to mobilize personal, community, and public resources in order to meet emotional, physical, medical, educational, and other needs of the children and of the family.
7. Knowledge and use of a variety of stress management techniques for relaxing and re-energizing.
8. Possession of a vast store of energy, creativity, and personal motivation.
9. The ability to tolerate the emotional loss of children growing up, moving into the outside world, and, finally, leaving home. In the end parents can rejoice in the wonderful accomplishment of having reared healthy, happy, competent and fulfilled human beings.
10.The ability to work with other parents to provide a positive peer network of parents who are willing to put the extra energy needed to create a supportive community in which to rear happy, healthy children who can reach their full potential.
Job Evaluation Please circle the response that best describes how you feeling about your parents parenting skills.
1. Listening skills.
Poor Satisfactory excellent 1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. Consistency, keeps their word, follows through on things.
1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. How understanding are your parents?
1 2 3 4 5 ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4. Gives encouragement, helps to build self-esteem.
1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5. Creates opportunities for taking responsibility and making choices.
1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6. Overall job performance
1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Additional comments:
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________ Evaluation of Self
Please circle the response that best describes how you feel about your parenting skills.
1. Listening skills.
Poor Satisfactory excellent 1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. Consistency, keep your word, follows through on things.
1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. How understanding are you as a parent?
1 2 3 4 5 ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4. Give encouragement, help to build self-esteem.
1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
5. Create opportunity for taking responsibility and making choices.
1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6. Overall job performance
1 2 3 4 5
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Additional comments:
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
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