Stress-Free Discipline

education, career change

A Master’s Degree student in one of my classes posted this comment:  [Considering the contents of this video]  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
It states that today’s learner will have 10 – 14 jobs by the age of 38.  There’s also some other “WoW” stuff shown in this video.  With that knowledge, how do we efficiently prepare these young people for a “career?”

Marie L. Woolley                         
So do not fear, for I am with you…..
Isaiah 41:10

I posted this response:
The Bible seems like a good start!  The basic issues and answers to life are there.  (I had to try transcendental meditation, Buddhism, Unitarianism, hypnosis, humanism, etc. before I came to that conclusion.)

Naturally the critical thinking and problem solving skills come to mind, along with the ability to find and critique information which is useful.  I would say also that young people need to learn how to meditate, stop and enjoy the benefits of silence.  There is so much stimulation that one gets used to automatically skimming the surface of life…must have noisy distraction bypassing my thought life…need it, need it…massaging my feelings…love it…love it…

We self-distract because the media has shortened our attention span.  Reading, on the other hand, lengthens the attention span. 

When did speed and noise become essential to deep thought?  Never, of course…but this nation pursues both in some sort of irrational adrenalin addiction…see books by Dr. Archibald Hart.  One which comes to mind is Healing Life’s Hidden Addictions.

Harmonizing right and left brain thinking comes to mind also.  I once read a piece about the fact that the only time the EEGs (Electroencephalograms) of the right and left brain hemispheres are in unity are during prayer and meditation.  Harmony of thought and feeling, in my opinion, is just as necessary as the usual life skills which we teach.  How, exactly, does one deal with fear or anger or depression if not via that harmony?

 
If I am angry, I have to do a thought-check just prior to my feelings going amuck.  It turns out that greed, selfishness or simple misguided thinking (misinformation, spiritual lies or warped priorities) are the root cause of much of my personal stress. 

When I was confined with undiagnosed Lyme disease for 6 years, how did I avoid the suicidal depression which overcomes so many in that disabled position? It was via spiritual search and rescue operations prompted by radio and online sermons…a union of right and left brain processing. 

I suggest that excesses of either thought along or feelings alone cause dysfunction.
I submit that we need to stand guard at the door of our thought, rejecting wrong ideas which may be a short-term comfort but are in fact long term disasters.

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:

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?

Teachers use the following activities to bring a learner’s thought up to college level.  You can do it now, even if your child is two years old.   

Intelligence is measured by how many words you know, because words are ideas.  A two-year old child may have a vocabulary of 12 words or 2,000 words, according to Dr. Piaget. 

Your child will be smarter and more able to compete in this difficult global economy if you raise him or her to know many words and ideas.

Here are the basic ways teachers teach thinking skills to your child. 

1: Recalling information

Every idea or concept—simple or complex—begins with recall of facts.

In order to develop this thinking skill, teachers use activities like the following:

Look at books, tapes, charts, newspapers, magazines, diagrams, records, models, people, films, television, or listen to the radio for ideas.

Then show, explain, locate, demonstrate, recognize, discover, restate, identify, inquire, match, illustrate.

For example: Using a children’s book, look at a page and ask your child to identify small things, such as anything red—or round—or covered with fur, etc.

If your child cannot focus well enough to recall facts, take away the streaming media (gradually) until the attention span is longer.  T.V. and other media shorten a person’s ability to focus for long enough to master learning the higher order thinking skills. 

Brain pathways must be built by exercising them.

2: Application

Every higher concept must go through steps one and two before going on.

Look at this diary, scrapbook, photograph, collection of objects, stitchery, cartoon, map, mobile, model, sculpture, illustration.

See if you can organize similar objects together, apply a code to the puzzle, construct something like it, sketch it, paint or draw it, solve it, choose something in the kitchen like it, and experiment with it.

For example: Look at this collection of tools, and see if you can circle the ones which belong in our garage.

3: Analysis (taking apart the known)

Make a graph, survey, questionnaire, commercial, report, diagram, or chart.

In order to do that you will have to categorize, take the data apart, sorting and classifying, dissect, analyze, separate, compare, contrast and describe.

For example, in order to create a graph of the side effects suffered by grandfather because of his fourteen different medications, you will have to take each medication separately, listing the side effects by category, then compare side effects by checking off the ones your grandfather has. One young lady recently confronted her grandfather’s doctor with a graph listing the medication names on the top line, the side effects down the left side, and the problems her grandfather suffered in each cell of the spreadsheet. Of twelve medications, grandfather had dizziness, insomnia, constipation, and nausea caused by eight of the medications.

4: Synthesis (putting together the new)

This requires Steps 1, 2, and 3, and then one can…

Consider a story, poem, play, pantomime, news article, cartoon, new game, invention, radio show, product, recipe, magazine, puppet show, pantomime…

And add to it, create, imagine, combine, plan, suppose, modify, predict, hypothesize, design, invent, explain, infer, improve, compose or originate a product from this.

For example, taking a recipe for pancakes, modify it to make muffins.

5: Evaluation (judging the outcome)

Looking at an editorial, a panel evaluation, court trial, or a self-evaluation survey,

Justify, debate, solve, recommend, judge, criticize, consider, weigh, appraise.

For example, ” Using steps 1-4 and the rubric provided for your teacher for this project, decide what grade you should receive.”

If you will spend twenty minutes a day on one or two of these activities, your child will be able to think far ahead of his or her competition in school and the workplace. 

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.

The problem is that emotional upheaval between parents prevents them from changing or improving their discipline styles.

Feelings are playing ping-pong with their thoughts.  Feelings are in the driver’s seat, not in the back seat.  Feelings are designed by God to support and motivate action after it has been thought through. 

After thinking through the problem, getting useful ideas into your head does not mean you have mastered the techniques which save you stress while enhancing your family interdependence.

What does it take to master stress-free techniques?

It takes getting help and practice, using personal reflection and supportive group activities.

Why do people resist change?

Kotter and Schlesinger (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008, 130) offer four basic reasons that people resist change and several methods for overcoming resistance in their article illustrating change in the world of management. The most common reasons they cite for resistance are

1. A desire to keep something of value
2. Misunderstanding of the change and its complications
3. A belief that the change does not make sense
4. A low tolerance for change in general (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2008, 131).

If you write down your reasons for not wanting to change your child discipline, you will probably find out that the above four reasons keep reappearing on your list.  Are you willing to look carefully at your reasoning?  Are you uncomfortable enough to make positive change?

How can people overcome their resistance to change?

Couples, like the managers cited in the article, can determine which form of resistance they are facing and choose to overcome it with a number of techniques.

Some of those techniques are: education and communication, participation and involvement, facilitation and support, negotiation and agreement.

This research, in the hands of a sensitive and experienced mentor or counselor, can help guide couples to gradually gain skill in making functional changes in their family dynamic.

Resources:

Kotter, J. P., & Schlesinger, L. A. (2008, August). Choosing strategies for change. Harvard Business Review, 86(7/8), 130-139.

An old timer once said:

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

The enthusiasm of youth is no substitute for the efficiency of experience. As you raise your children, explore carefully the meaning of good judgment in the “youth vs age” debate.

Frankly, I’ve tried life from youth to aged perspectives, and I am appalled at my arrogance when I was young.  Sixty-seven years of age has compensations.  One of those is better judgment.

The dilemma now faced in the workforce as Baby Boomers are replaced by less experienced workers reflects the generation gap issues faced in every family.

Parents are teachers who only get really good judgment with experience.

An example of what is faced as an inexperienced parent can be seen with new teachers.

The difficulties faced by new teachers are so severe they have a very high attrition rate.  The average teacher, I’m told, leaves the field after seven years of stress and frustration. The implications of inexperience are immense.

Tell me, does this type of stress caused by inexperience plague your marriage or parent-child relationship?

An experienced teacher builds a “bag of tricks” which amount to enrichment, balance and stress-relief for everyone.  Ease of learning and motivation for the learners result directly from a teacher’s experience and judgment.

Could your children or your spouse benefit from increased ease of learning and motivation to enrich your relationship?

Rather than blame them for what they lack, look at your own inexperience. As an experienced teacher, I can spend three days with a group of teens and know what their emotional, biochemical, and educational handicaps or strengths are. I can usually place them on some measure of the Myers-Briggs personality continuum.

How much do you know after living with your family members?

Would it help to know their handicaps and strengths?

I find out without going into student files “where they are now” (when they want to do their best), and focus my efforts on “the best they can be.”  I have enough broad-based experienced with body language, etc. to reach these and other judgments. An inexperienced teacher lacks these tools.

An inexperienced parent also lacks essential tools for success.

Judgment and soft skills are only a few of the advantages of experience.  Complex problem-solving skill is another advantage.  Experience provides knowledge of pitfalls and variables which inexperience never sees or cannot prioritize if it is recognized.  Mastery of complex variables is very different than recognition of them.

How does a parent get experience fast?

Practice and application of sound principles is essential.  Bible biographies are a good start.

What errors and answers are there in the lives of Bible personalities?

Simulations, shadow experiences, mentoring, and case-based learning are a few assets which education can provide an inexperienced teacher. Those same ideas can be applied to parenting.

Spend time with godly seniors, exploring your own issues and hearing their answers.

Ask difficult questions.  Struggle with answers.  You will only regret that you did not do it sooner.

When is fun not fun any more?

In case you missed Dr. Archibald Hart’s presentation of his latest book, “Thrilled to Death“, here’s a summary of what he said in a recent (6/25/08) Focus on the Family broadcast: Over-stimulation “hijacks the pleasure center of the brain,” first flooding it with cortisol- and adrenalin-stimulated joy, then blocking the ability to feel joy.

When a person is multitasking, for example, his or her body is constantly bombarded with cortisol and adrenalin, leading at first to a sense of pleasure and accomplishment.  Then, as the experience is prolonged, there is a reduced capacity to experience pleasure. 

Consider the physical experience like holding a small glass of water at arm’s length.  For a while one can enjoy the experience of success, but then the weariness sets in. 

This is precisely what happens when people are addicted to a “recreational” drug.  First the high, then it takes more and more of the substance to feel good.  The problem here is that life is a do-it-to-yourself project.  We can pursue what is bad for us.

Brain Damage

As the brain is first over-stimulated, then dulled, there is reversible brain damage to that pleasure center of the brain.  The constant over-stimulation leads to extreme thrill-seeking in an effort to feel pleasure, since the victim suffers from anhedonia.  Anhedonia leads not only to a negative sort of boredom, but to apathy and depression. 

This cycle is especially damaging for children. 

Too much media stimulation, for example, has been shown to reduce performance on standardized tests, according to a December 24, 2007 article by Caleb Crain in The New Yorker, page 138. 

Children are also at high risk since weary, over-stimulated parents park them in front of movies instead to doing Legos, for example, to build the ability to use their own imagination, transfer learning, achieve real self worth, and socialize in the process.  Social workers of my acquaintance tell me that today’s youth are poorly socialized.

Not all boredom is the same

Boredom due to under-stimulations leads to the development and use of imagination or creativity.  As my mother used to say, “If you can’t find something to be happy doing, I’ll put you to work.”  That tactic worked on me.  I read books and raised my I.Q. in the process.

What I’ve been saying for years is being explained in a different, well researched way by Dr. Hart.  His book is a must read for our own good.

Our American ingenuity (creative ability to solve problems) is endangered by our focus on over-stimulation, since we then pursue pleasure to our detriment.  We cause our own depression, boredom and apathy, and the joy of life is gone.  We are becoming more and more addicted to the pursuit but less and less satisfied and certainly less happy with the result of our “pleasant” activities. We are being destroyed by our own ignorant desires.  Odd, the Bible said that (Phil. 3:19).

Besides being less happy, we are going to be less able to compete on the global marketplace. 

Our competitive edge is based in our ability to create.  Other countries copy.  We invent.

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: family planning, positive peer pressure

How can we create a family of dignity, equal worth and unified purpose?  Doing what comes naturally (nothing) will not do it.

As Zig Ziggler said:

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,

How do you plan? 

Start with the end, the goal, in sight. That’s good advice from Stephen R. Covey, planning expert (stephencovey.com). If you want to stress-proof your family life, you must make a family plan. Here’s a start.

Consider what we have to know in order to create the best family life.

We need to know what every family member considers most important, and what each person needs to do and be (willing?  organized?) in order to get there.

To do first:

1. Make copies of my “What is Family” list below.  Feel free to distribute this plan to others if you give me credit and list my blog address.
2. Have each family highlight the words which describe your family now.
3. Have each person circle what your family should be when you work your plan.
4. Brainstorm ways to eliminate the negatives and accentuate the positives in each list.

Brainstorming rules are few:

• First, respect each person’s opinion, no matter how much you disagree or how crazy it sounds.
• Secondly, find agreement on rules for eliminating those ideas which are unrealistic or outside your family values.

Your Family Vision: An Essential Foundation for building a strong family

Find the purpose of your family.

(To be read out loud in a quiet place…each family member separate from the others).

Is family a place where, when we knock, they have to let us in? A resource? A refuge? A learning center?

Is family a millstone,

touchstone,

milestone,

bulwark?

(If you don’t know these words, look them up.)

Is family a burden, a standard, a fortress, something you pass by on your way to personal fulfillment? Is it a source of enrichment?

Is family a labor force which produces leisure for us? A safety valve for venting? A nuisance? A service organization? An embarrassment?

Is family a critical, negative, no grow force? A hostile communication environment? A place where nobody cares? A bad example? A lost childhood? A fragile identity? A den of thieves?

Is family a sense of roots? Is family something we use and abuse? Is it security in the midst of our adventures? A fantasy? A team? A sacred duty? A place to go when we are old and broken? A warrior-priesthood band of brothers?

Is family a survivors program? A listening post? A source of bragging rights? Who, on their deathbed, ever said, “I wish I had spent more time at the office?”

Tell me if you can: what’s the point of having your family?

Now, work through what you have to be and do in order to bring about your family plan.

1. Write down and post the positive ideas in several places around the house. Move them (slightly) often so they are noticed better.
2. Review them daily together.
3. Give three cheers and a group hug to the family member who can identify the most positive or negative behaviors.  No blame for the negative, just identify it.  Write it down for consequences later.  See if it persists three weeks before judging it as deliberate sabotage of the family plan.
4. Remind each other that love is emotion in motion. Unlove is obstructing lifelong love and growth. Pray.
5. Create positive peer pressure for your friends.  After they get over being jealous, they will want what you have and you can share it with them.  Dignity, equal worth, and unified purpose are extreme strengths.

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.