Stress Free Discipline

 

Is it true to say that our convenient computers, calculators, and technology short-cuts in general are ways to save ourselves the labor of figuring our change, analyzing our data, etc?  If so, I could argue that achieving the end product without analysis may be a short cut which facilitates our life style without damaging it. We do not need to know how the vegetables were grown and transported to benefit from eating them. 

However, we do need to know how to figure our change in our heads.  That involves abstract thinking: recall, application, analysis, judgment.

Since I came from the punch card era–when computer CPUs took up a whole temperature-controlled room and lots of engineering time–I see that our short cuts can own us. While they are simplifying our thought life in order to find the bottom line sooner, they simplify our learning process.  They dumb us down, setting us up to be willing victims. 

The key question is this: Was the trade-off a good one?  Is it good to merely speed up life without doing the grunge work (basic skill building or spiritual work, for example) of making it a worthwhile life?

The issue, then, as I see it, is that the foundational math concepts and logic skills have somehow been lost in the rush toward functionality.  It is the old battle between the urgent but unimportant against the long term important item which seems like it can wait at the bottom of the priority list. 

Then, horrors, the long term important skills or chores (like building higher order thinking skills or buying disability insurance) suddenly loom large and ugly:  CRISIS MANAGEMENT.  Attached is a little chart I invented which might be useful for priority setting and time management

A simple priority system for you and your child might look like this:

TASK LIST< ?xml:namespace prefix = o />	GOD’S PRIORITY	LONG TERM IMPORTANCE	URGENCY THIS WEEK	TOTAL POINTS	PRIORITY LIST
	(Up to 30)	(Up to 10)	(Up to 10)	(Per row)	(Numbered)
1.  Plan Schedule	20	10	6	36	2
2.  Food Management	20	6	2	28	3
3.  Pray, Study Bible	30	10	2	42	1
4.  Spend B’day money	1	3	10	14	4
5.  Transport children, to work on time.	5	3	3	11	5

Finding the most important thing to do first: 

List important tasks on the left side of your paper. 

Make five small columns to the right of the list. 

In them, give the task a number from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most important.[1] 

It works like this:

Assign points to each column for each task. 

If you’re weak there and really working on planning and scheduling, you may want to assign points for that job like this:  (A) God’s priority 20, (B) Important long term 10, (C) Urgent this week 6, (D) Total points 36.  Leave the priority column blank until the end. 

If you have food management well organized, have plenty in the refrigerator and pantry, and can throw together healthy meals without much effort, you might assign it points like this:  (A) God’s priority 20, (B) Important long term 6, (C) Urgent this week 2, (D) Total points 28.

If you want God to be Number One in your life, your day is ruined if you’re not up early to meet with Him, you’ll probably give that points like this: (A) God’s priority 30 (B) Important long term 10, (C) Urgent this week 2 (D) Total points 42.

Spending birthday money doesn’t look so important now, but you have a burning desire to get to the store while the sale is still on.  Those points might be (A) God’s priority 1, (B) Important long term 3, (C) Urgent this week 10, (D) Total points 14.

What do you need to do in order to overcome that natural laziness which makes you ignorant of life’s challenge and reward?

 

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Does your nine-year-old leave after you tell him to stay home?  It is a common event.  The problem here is that parents think their leadership skills are good when in fact those skills are ineffective and obsolete. Group dynamics can help the whole family.

 

Group learning has a big impact.

Knowles and Bradford state that “groups can induce learning in individuals of a kind and depth that an individual teacher cannot, by himself, induce (Knowles & Bradford, 1952, 12).”   To expand on that idea: group learning often has more impact than a nagging parent, lecturing or coercing a child into following rules.

The interaction between your child and your family may be more productive with group activities like role playing, buzz groups and reflection, listening teams, and personal summaries of group action.  These are big challenges for your leadership.

 

Play “You be the parent, I’ll be the child.”

Ask neutral questions when in doubt about who did what:  questions like, “What happened?”  “Could it have been done better?”  “What could be changed so everybody wins?”  “How could we share so it is fair to everyone?”

 

According to Knowles and Bradford, “One of the primary educational objectives of the leader, in fact, is to train members to take over functions that once were reserved as the exclusive prerogatives of the ‘leader.’

 

Parents are really training children to be independent first, but then to form interdependent family teams of lifelong learners.

Why should parents give up their power as children grow more mature?

A child’s judgment is only trained through experience in making judgments and seeing results.  Sometimes children learn from other people’s experience, sometimes only from their own experience.  Children grow as parents explain the consequences of behavior. 

 

“If you bite your playmates or do not share being the boss, they will not want to play with you.”

The next step is a well disciplined, self-governed child.

Knowles & Bradford put it this way: “The more mature and self-directing a group becomes the more effective it is an instrument for producing change in individuals.”

 

Ideas for development of parent leadership skills are clear. The goal of parents is to raise children who are self-reliant, lifelong learners, choosing to work as a family team with their parents.

 

The team dynamic created as children grow toward self mastery and interdependence will provide functional group dynamic skills useful in the world of work.

Few parents welcome change in their habitual methods, but positive family dynamics reward those who do make positive changes.

Knowles, M. S., & Bradford, L. P. (1952). Group methods in adult education. Journal of Social Issues, 8(2), 11-22.

When families malfunction they may not know how to do target correction.  Do not play the blame game!  Use win-win techniques.

Agree on some ground rules for your quarrels. 

Quality Progress (Redmond, 2007, 80) moves people closer to a solution in 60 minutes with four basic tools. Redmond’s suggestions are similar to those made by Richard Feder and John Mitchell nineteen years earlier in a ‘4-day task force’ (1988, August).

Rule 1 – Agree on time management

Both sources argue for the restriction of time as a key to efficiency.  While some problems may require more urgency, sixty minutes is an arbitrary time in which Redmond demonstrates problem solving.

Please do not vent for hours without allowing some kind of decision to be made.  Repeating your beef over and over just makes your family more “hard of hearing” each time you speak. 

It is hard to respect someone who chooses not to be rational.  Vent to an older friend who can talk with you like your grandmother might.  They’ve been down that road and have seen what works or does not work.

The following are simple, but not easy ground rules for problem solving.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: parenting,

peer pressure,violence,pain,sex,power struggles,self-confidence,attention,parenting

A bad mouth and a bad temper with pushy behavior are marks of a bully.  We may feel the bully cannot change.

That bully may be any age. He or she rules a corner of the world by constant harsh “put downs” or taking advantage of others. 

A bully feels peer pressure to change, but is stuck in a hard place.

Confrontations are constant when the rights of others are squashed and they fight back.  This may be the bully’s only way to relate to others!

The bully may be a loner or a gang leader, since he or she looks for trouble and responds to all interactions by fighting, criticism or arguments.

Sometimes a psychologist will suggest that the bully sit next to or work with the opposite sex in school if relationships are obviously off base and needing modification.  Good counseling is essential if your child has progressed from small bully behavior to serious criminal behavior.

The bully rules by intimidating others but sometimes protects weak friends from other bullies.

At school, the bully often has learning problems caused by emotional distress.

At home, siblings become emotional and easily upset.

The bully leaves a whirlwind of pain behind his or her own pain.

Parents may be promoting fighting, saturating the bully in violent media or setting a bad example by dealing with problems by violence.

Parental Responsibility In Bullying Behavior

If parents are weak in discipline or too harsh, inconsistent or belligerent, they may be training their child in the dynamics of bully behavior. 

The father who is permissive while drinking and harsh when he is hung over is a bad example.

Parents may express their own pain with bullying behavior. Your temper fit only shows your failure at impulse control. You are trying to teach impulse control.

Does Mother only “mean it” when she is in a screaming temper fit, throwing things or smacking a seven year old around?

Does Dad punish without clear rules and a carefully crafted love relationship?

All possibility of teamwork is gone while time is wasted with fighting. Be consistent with discipline but gentle. 

The bully becomes special by abusing power.

While some may be frightened by a bully, others may think this behavior is funny. At home and school the bully stops all teamwork, learning and positive interaction. The bully enjoys attention he or she gets from peers and adults, even if that attention is negative.

Even though a bully knows abusive relationships are wrong, he or she needs to escape the pain of failure in relationships, insecurity or a poor self-concept.

Bully behavior could show a lack of coping skills and fear of failure in relating to others.

Bully behavior makes a person feel independent and in control of life.

Parents, do not assume your bully is tough or an extrovert for being loud and pushy.

Your bully may be in the 25% of Americans who are introverts, made uncomfortable in social situations or by our cultural hyperactivity. 

Is your bully pushed by you into awkward, failing situations?  Are you expecting your child to be your clone, forcing her into situations she cannot possibly enjoy?  When did the bully behavior begin?

Explain, if your bully is school age, that bully threats have consequences. When any threat is made, require the child to stop and think in a “cooling off time” first.

Make it clear that if bully chooses to fight after cooling off, fighting is then “premeditated,” and will carry a harsher penalty.

Dissolving the Bully

Since bullies accept bigger responsibility well, give him or her an impressive job that builds higher status into their self-concept. At home it will be something that only adults have done up until now.

Do be gentle but consistent. Use only as much power as necessary. Your best tool is loving time spent one-on-one until your child moves out of this phase.

Also, suggest that your bully say, “My parents won’t let me fight” at school or home. That will let bully back out gracefully from useless confrontations.

If the confrontations have been with a teacher, help your child identify the triggers for these fights and quietly identify your child’s own unrecognized character flaws. 

Always carry through. Never let a rebel win.  Be consistent with discipline but gentle. 

If you have trouble with this, get counsel.

Praise every step in the right direction. Love is spelled T-I-M-E.

Make your own transparency and vulnerability clear as a pattern for your bully to follow. It is strong to express your need for help, feelings of stress, and desire for teamwork.

Technorati Tags: Jihad,inattentional blindness,Personal terrorism,child discipline,Walid Shoebat

Moderate Muslims, we are told, consider jihad a personal struggle for spiritual purity.

Americans ignore the facts that over 100 references in the Koran refer to jihad as genocidal slaughter of unbelievers with only one quote referring to an internal struggle[1]. (Source: www.shoebat.com)

Muslim violence (jihad) supersedes peaceful contemplation in every country now ruled by Islam. Americans are too distracted, too comfortable, to pay attention while Islam gains a strategic foothold.

The American approach to Islam is a perfect example of inattentional blindness.[2] 

Arien Mack and Irvin Rock, psychologists, first showed that people who were paying attention to something else in their line of sight were “blind” to something that was right before their eyes.

What does this mean for you?

Pay strict attention: your children’s lives depend upon your focused attention to discipline.  

Consider your self discipline and their discipline plan.

While you are teaching your children Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Muslim children learn lullabies and poems about flying body parts and rolling heads.

Here is an example:

“Sharpen my bones into swords, for I am a bomb, I shall eat the flesh of my (Israeli) occupier, O Killers, your blood is ‘Halal” for us, (meaning “kosher” or all right to spill)[3]

Oh, you say, “that’s not me. I’m aware of everything: I’m plugged into news 24/7. I know what is a threat to my family.”

U. Neisser, D. Simons, and C. Chabris, experimented with viewers watching a film. Viewers were focused on counting how many times a basketball was passed from one team member to another, while someone walked through the scene wearing a gorilla suit.

A surprisingly large percentage of subjects did not notice something as obvious as a person in a gorilla suit moving through the scene they were observing, if they are paying attention to something else. (Several examples of these experiments can be viewed on the Visual Cognition Lab page of the University of Illinois.)

Every country in history which has fallen has done so because of failure to perceive a threat.

Let’s look at some brief lessons in military history, you can research further through Wikipedia:

1. Carthage – fell after this city-state’s council failed to recognize the threat Rome posed. They allowed Hannibal’s victory over Rome to slip away simply by not reinforcing Hannibal when he had the upper hand.

2. Rome – many theories here, most show the failure to recognize a threat either from within or outside Rome itself.

3. Greece – the most famous lesson of recognizing a threat was told in the recently fictionalized movie 300. Recognizing the threat where his countrymen did not, Spartan King Leonidas led a personal bodyguard of 300 Spartans to hold a strategic thoroughfare named Thermopylae.

300 by Frank Miller, Lynn Varley Read more about this book…

4. Persia – failing to recognize Alexander the Great’s tactics as a threat the entire Persian empire was captured by this young Greek king.

Back to the present

“All four major Islamic schools of thought agree that jihad is not merely a personal struggle, but a call to wage war on the infidels by all means possible: giving money and recruiting and training people are also means of jihad.”[4]

It is not only your Christian faith at risk when you’re not looking. It is your life and the lives of your children.

Discipline is not just for kids. It is for you, the adult, first.

Do you “relax” for hours after work with flickering pictures and telephone chatter? Do you understand that you are being hypnotized into a passive, shallow thought pattern? 

Print media requires more logic from you.  (See “Twilight of the Books, by Caleb Crain, The new Yorker, December 24 and 31, 2007) 

Are you really going to study this, or will you dance past these issues into your chocolate paradise of brain fog?

Do you feel uncomfortable when someone needs to be confronted with facts? Like Pilate when he confronted Jesus, do you wonder, “What is truth?” Have you found ways to learn and grow smarter your whole life, or are you stuck in a high school low effort mentality?

Before you can discipline and teach your children, you must have a plan.  Stress Free Discipline provides a tots-to-teens plan for life skill mastery and lifelong family teamwork.

What’s a parent to do?

To begin:  I suggest you need to simplify your life and read more, with and for your children. Restrict the phone calls, the ipod, the wireless flood of distractions which pacify but do not satisfy your mind. See the tech junkie quiz at rd.com/tech.

Right now a flood of raw data makes you anxious because you cannot use it all or digest it, but you keep trying.  Distractions, as good as they may be, may be a real threat to your thought life.

Inattentional blindness can kill you.  Pay attention.  Read up.  Prioritize.

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[1] Why I Left Jihad­, Walid Shoebat, Top Executive Media, 2005, ISBN 0-9771021-1-4, p. 36[2] http://www.skepdic.com/inattentionalblindness.html [3] Ibid, p 20[4] Ibid, p.96

Technorati Tags: hatred,aggression,revenge,criticism,defensiveness,boredom

,

I really could not understand Max’s hatred. He hated Reading, Blacks, Native Americans, Jews, and Catholics and a long list of other things. He had poor skills and no patience.  He was only fifteen.

He actually had no interests but hate. None. As a public school teacher, I knew it was a mistake to ignore, reject or force forgiveness on Max. I chose to accept him as he was. He had no friends, after all. Other students ignored him.

This is beyond negative. Perhaps your child has shown aggressive, anti-rule behavior.

Her revenge, grudges and criticism have given her power over others.

She seems unapproachable. While she has some sympathetic followers, she creates constant tension. She is unsuccessful and defensive in ways that hinder growth. Your son may do all of the above in a defensive, loner way.

Perhaps you worry about your child’s continuous and total lack of interest in activities. Your child cannot work well with others, and your usual discipline techniques are not effective.

You are angry, on edge and on guard, but must act in love if you want results.

Professional counseling is part of your plan. Stress Free Discipline is another part. Used consistently, Stress Free Discipline provides the acceptance, pain relief, trust and status these youth need.

Hate is distilled pain. A small hurt can become a wildfire of hate.

Never ignore it, react personally, judge or trivialize your child’s problem. Never discuss him with other children or think you know how he or she feels. Consider how God treats our bad temper, greed, power grabs, and pride.

Counseling is unavoidable.  Choose wisely.  What you have been doing until now needs an upgrade.  It has not been working.

A good counselor will take one or two hours to test all family members for anger management styles, personality differences, communication styles and problem solving techniques.

With those tools you and your family can work through the tough times.  Stop your entertainments and time wasters and focus on healing work.

Memorize the tools.  Learn to use them. Get help when times are tough.  Sacrifice time and effort for teamwork and lifelong love relationships.  You do not have forever.  Every day that passes makes healing more difficult.

It is easy to do.  Raise a child to want success without teaching him or her the skills that bring success. 

Make everything easy for your son or daughter.  Do chores for them rather than teaching them to do for themselves.  Serve them without asking them to serve the family.  Let them watch four hours of media every night, the American average. 

Those hours are lowering their attention span, making them less able to compete in the world marketplace, and reducing their ability to think logically.  (Check out Caleb Crain, the New Yorker Critic at Large ,Twilight of the Books.)  This is a recipe for failure.  Cut off your child’s thinking skills at the knees by plugging them into media for hours each day.

   That will take away self confidence so your daughter does not believe she can achieve without cheating.

Feed your son junk food or let him skip breakfast.  Let him go to bed any time, even though the Harvard Sleep Study says children through age eighteen need eight or nine hours of sleep per night in order to learn.  (Check out Matthew Walker, October 17, 2002 Harvard University Gazette Archives.  Also see Beth Potier, December 11, 2003 of the Harvard University Gazette Archives.)

Intimidate your daughter by criticizing her weak first steps so she will not risk running.  Take away your son’s responsibility by saying the teacher is picking on him rather than holding him accountable.  Let the children have after school jobs and cars even though their grades are suffering.

Cheating in college is on the rise.  The pressure to succeed is great.  Give your child tips on how to steal essays from friends, frat brothers and the internet. 

If you want a child to cheat, make success everything, the learning process nothing. 

Teach your child that he or she is just an accident of nature, so moral behavior is no longer a useful choice.  (See Crosswalk.com, Chuck Colson’s Breakpoint 2/29/08)

Your Challenge

Be close to your child.  Know his or her attitudes and actions.  If a teacher says your child has cheated, use the “worried-concerned” approach. Express your doubts and disappointments quietly and privately, not in front of siblings or friends. Remember that to your child, success is everything. Say, “Son, I don’t think you’re being completely honest on that test.”

Punishment for cheating may or may not help your child.

Remember that your goal is to support the right behavior, preventing a character defect from developing into further lies and loss.

If you want to change the cheating behavior, punishment might only make your child determined not to get caught.

Use Adam and Eve as examples.  Adam and Eve appear to be sorry for being caught, not for their own responsibility in their fall.  Your honesty as you talk with your child will encourage changes. Shallow, knee-jerk punishment may reinforce a failing, cheating cycle.  Decide what you want to happen.

Accusing  your child bluntly, ignoring the problem, and emotional reactions will reinforce a failing, cheating cycle.

Instead, realize that needs are not being met.  Help your child learn the skills and earn success.  Help her assert herself or himself and be responsible in every aspect of family and school life. 

Walk with your children through their mine field of uncertainties until they can navigate on their own. 

Make sure they are eating right and drinking enough and getting enough rest.  The Harvard studies prove that learning is a lot more effective when you sleep on it.  Chuck Colson’s research shows that a strong moral foundation prevents cheating. 

Parents, go for the gold!

Technorati Tags: stress,consistent discipline,colds,sharing,leadership

When I was Drew’s age, I thought that if I gave my cold to someone else I would not have it anymore.

Now I make sure my grandchildren understand they’ll both be miserable if they share a cold.

 The passage of stress is much like sharing a cold. 

I can accept Drew’s stress that he is not getting what he wants when he wants it. I will feel miserable and he gets spoiled. I can make exceptions to the rules. I can slide around rules the easy way, being inconsistent. I become a bad parent, or in my case, grandparent. Good parenting is too much work!

If your children are constantly testing you, they have been conditioned to obey you only when you are stressed: (1) standing over them, (2) constantly repeating directions and giving them all of your attention, perhaps (3) screaming at them or hitting them.

Only then, they notice, do you really mean it.

When you aren’t looking, they are doing as they please. As they grow, you age. When you want shared goals, they’re “doing their own thing.” Your family is fragmented. You’re a nag. They’re escaping responsibility, piling it on you, or getting even for your on-again, off-again discipline in underhanded ways.

When you accept your child’s stress, you’re burdened and angry.

It’s no favor to them to let them have their way, but you’re too weary (from the stress you have chosen) to do what is right. Poor discipline is too much work!

Make that child obey!  Discipline is not punishment most of the time but it is consistent consequences.

Ask yourself: Does my child put stress on me to give him or her what she wants? Have I trained her to be bad by changing the rules?  Is this good in the long run? Is this like a cold: we’ll both be miserable?  Whose problem is this? 

“Meaning it” is stressing the child enough so that he or she chooses to obey rules over getting his/her own way.  If you are consistent, poor behavior will self-destruct in a couple of weeks.

  

Technorati Tags: jail,ministry,rules,consequences,money management,boundaries.

When my sons were pre-teens we had a small jail visitation ministry and they saw first-hand the consequences of writing a lot of bad checks. This experience was very motivational for them, and part of training in conscientiousness (a key element, according to research, in long and healthy life).

Consider involving children early in the process of helping you write checks and balance the checkbook. A second grader can help you add and subtract. Grocery shopping is a time you can give cash for your child to pick his or her favorite fruit and vegetables.  As soon as computer skills become important to your child, have them watch you with QuickBooks, then watch them as they help you enter expenses, sorting out tax items as you go.

A three or four year-old can learn how you choose what you buy at the market.  Soft fruit, green fruit–teaching the gentle squeeze helps with defining what is O.K. for pet handling as well as fruit choices. Unit pricing on the shelf tags can be a learning experience for older children.  As soon as children can understand what money is, they can use a dollar to find a toy at the 99-cent store.

 

The idea is to help them understand real world limits and luxuries.  Real Consequences are essential.  You don’t have the grow your own food, but you do have to afford it.

When one of my sons was five years old, he scratched his name all over the outside wooden paneling of the preschool building. I explained to him that since I could not pay a painter and had the skills, my consequence was to refinish that wall.

His consequence was to pay a fine: his weekly “donut money” (routinely given by a sweet church senior). He paid in person to the principal for three weeks.

While the principal said it wasn’t necessary, it did teach a well-remembered lesson. When he was six and bowed in a plate glass window by leaning on it, all I had to say was “WOW!  Look at that window bend. If it breaks, that is A LOT of donut money.” He jumped away from the window like it was a hot griddle.

Children can remind you to set aside savings.  Play “You be the parent and I’ll be the child” to test learning. Teens can help you to prioritize your spending.

You model and teach them important concepts. What is important long term that needs to be saved for?  What sacrifices now will make a big difference later?  They master the concepts through practice.  They minister the concepts through service to you.  Remember that learning needs reinforcement to become mastery.  Sacrifice is part of love.

Money management concepts are crammed into one or two classroom hours of Senior Economics class in public schools.  Sacrifice and love are not taught there.  An economic survey course is useless when students need many hours of practice and discussion. Most of them won’t absorb enough financial vocabulary and basic ideas at school to prepare them for success in life.  You are responsible for teaching money management.

Buy Ron and Judy Blue and Jeremy White’s new book: Your Kids Can Master Their Money by Tyndale House Publishers.

My book just touches the surface of what can be done to give children financial skills.

Be aware also that many states impose severe consequences on parents for their child’s misbehavior.

For example, your state may fine or jail you for letting your child participate in theft or gangs. Clearly you want to establish the kinds of bonds with your child which will prevent their need for re-parenting by gangs.

In many states you can be evicted from public housing if your child is using or selling drugs. Laws constantly change, so it is good to educate yourself on juvenile law.

Prevention of criminal behavior depends on showing your child the consequences of not following the rules. Rule-following behavior is something you teach early in life.  Your three year old needs consequences every time he or she disobeys a rule.  Rules need to be simple and posted in print. 

I recommend a family trip to the courthouse, jail or D.A.’s office. It is very educational for all of you. Interview the D.A.  Ask about common errors teens make that get them in trouble with the law.  Your children will never forget a real lesson.

Check out the American Bar Association’s Division for Public Education (www.abanet.org).

Crime prevention is all about consistent consequences. One way to teach consequences is to have a mini-jail ministry.

Part of good parenting involves teaching what to do. Another part is teaching what not to do. It is up to you.

Technorati Tags: delinquents,responsibility,consequences

Five delinquent teens and I plunged through dry sage and scrub oak for at least a mile on a never-maintained jeep trail.

We came at last to a fantastic fishing spot on Navajo lake.

It was their lake, they said, but Anglos took it over.

An expensive-looking white boat was anchored in the glimmering water of the silent cove. This tiny Eden greatly surpassed the sun-baked, well-trodden areas we passed up in order to get there.

The water was Spring-water high with boulders strewn artfully around the edge: just enough climbing places, just enough level trail, just right reeds and grasses.

It was an artist’s paradise, a child’s dream, a teen’s wonder.

We left my scratched up Ford high on a bluff and scrambled down with three borrowed poles and picnic supplies.

As we fished and then ate hot dogs roasted by the lake a teen said, “I’ve never had this much fun without being high.”

They had never gone fishing. I had to teach them all the basics. Three borrowed poles were passed between the five of them. One made his own pole from fish line and a stick. He caught a fish to everyone’s surprise.

About three in the afternoon, enthusiasm wore thin and feet slowed down. One of the boys set a pole on the boulder and it slid into the lake. I told “Yazzi”[1] to dive for it, since it was a $120 pole and he was responsible. He set his shirt by the coals of the fire and tried to get it, but failed. Then his friends also tried but the pole had sunken out of sight. When the sun began to set we had to give up trying, dry off and drag ourselves up the rocky trail to the car.

Neither Yazzi nor his parents ever paid for the fishing pole.  They just didn’t feel like being responsible.  I paid for it, since I had borrowed it from another teacher.

Here’s your challenge

If you do not teach the basics, like how to be responsible for their own behavior and how to live up to their promises, your children will end up being re-parented by someone else.  Maybe it will be a gang.  Or a boy who promises your girl love without work, romance without responsibility.  Maybe it will be a coach who imposes down time for poor grades.  This story is a picture for parents who end up paying for military school, probationary measures, and other shame, because they did not teach responsibility.

How do you teach responsibility? Impose consequences every time your child breaks a rule.  Live up to all your promises.  Ask forgiveness for the few times you fail to be a good example.  Above all, be consistent. Rules for your child should never change between husband and wife, caregiver and grandparent.  Do not tell me you cannot do this.  If you can eat regular meals you can be consistent in discipline.  It’s your feelings that betray you if you say, “I can’t.”  Be accountable for every day with a prayer partner or your spouse.  It’s up to you.

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[1] Not his real name