Your kids worship you.  They are unaware of many of the details that life involves.  All they know is that there is this Big Person standing over them who radiates love toward them and they feel good being loved.
Sometimes your love for them assumes the form of stern insistence.  Sometimes your love for them creates balloon jump rides at birthday parties.  Sometimes your love for them points determinedly at the bathroom where their toothbrush lives that should be now moving up and down over their teeth before they go nightie night.  Sometimes your love sees them in a cute outfit and you just have to buy it.
Your love means that you keep your kids at the forefront of your thoughts night and day until they can take over that job for themselves.  One portion of your love is occupied with their becoming adults because you are the main influence on their lives.
I suffered with trepidations when my girls went off to school for the first time because I knew that I wasn’t going to be the only source of information for them any longer.  I knew that they’d bring home to me what they had learned and that I would remain the judge of it’s rightness or wrongness for them.  I’d have preferred they not experience wrongness, but they had to see life as it is, not as how I wanted it to be for them.
My influence on my kids ran it’s fingers through every aspect of their lives.  I was their chief cook and bottle washer.  I was their launderer.  I was their nurse.  I was their teacher.  I was their maintenance man.  I was the parent with the main presence in their lives.  It’s not uncommon in a divorce for one parent to be doing the real parenting - all the little stuff, day in and day out. Buying the groceries, helping with homework, monitoring their computer use, etc. And sometimes the other parent is mostly concerned with the big events. You know, being front-and-center for their birthday party; buying them jewelry from where they went on their latest vacation, and never buying them tennis shoes.
If you’re the Big Event Type, ask yourself if what you’re doing is for you or for your kids. Are you doing the showy things to make yourself look good and ignoring what really matters? If you are, I’ve got a newsflash for you – it doesn’t make you look good. Your fifteen-year-old doesn’t really need diamond earrings. It’s not a competition. There’s really only one question that matters. Are you contributing effectively to the upbringing of your children? If you really feel the need to do the showy things, go ahead, but make sure you also contribute in little ways. The stuff that really matters to your children are the things that no one sees when you’re doing them.
On the other hand, if you’re a divorced parent who is really conscience about parenting, good for you.  Keep it up. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Being a good parent is truly its own reward. You are doing important work. It’s the most important job you will every have. I have clients that have tens of millions of dollars, but they cannot buy what you have with your children. So remember, you influence them everyday. Make it a point to teach them something positive each day.

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Len :: Aug.21.2008 :: Caring for Yourself After Divorce, Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

When I was thirteen years old, my moral foundation was tested when my best friend called me all excited and said to come over to his house.  He lived in an old two-story house with a big attic that you could walk in.  He had been in the attic and found an old Playboy magazine with a photograph of a young model, staring into the camera not wearing a top.  We could see her bare breasts.  Moral behavior aside, other than National Geographic photos, it was the first time we had seen bare breasts.  

To us, this photo was a treasure and there might be more treasures down in the walls of the house!  Imagine these two thirteen-year-old boys, up in the attic, reaching down between the 2 x 4’s into the walls of this old house trying to find more pictures of naked woman.  

Everyone knows that is just about what you would expect from thirteen year old boys.  But back in that day, there was no cable TV and we watched shows like The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island.  There was no Internet, nor were there magazines at the grocery store check-out promising you the top ten sex secrets to make your lover go crazy.
Neither my friend nor I turned out to be sex perverts, but we both had parents that gave us rules and they enforced those rules.  There weren’t many outside influences countermanding those rules.  Today, a child can get on the Internet and find pictures and even videos of people doing things we never imagined when my friend and I were thirteen years old.
As I grew older, I look back and realized that whenever I was facing different and challenging conditions, I had been blessed because I had been given a strong moral foundation. It was my parents and your parents’ role to give each of us a strong moral foundation.  Once we had that foundation, we could say no to all the negative influences in the world.  
It’s our role as parents now to give our children strong moral foundation.  If you can establish a strong foundation, your children will become successful adults and they will carry that foundation with them through whatever the future has in store. The scary part about today’s world is that there are more outside influences than ever and they have an influence on your children.  Again, every generation has its challenges. Here are the steps you take to establish your moral authority so that you can create young adults who have the same basic values you do. 

Five Tips for Establishing a Moral Foundation for Your Children.
     

1. You are the most important role model and influence that they have or ever will have.  They will model your behavior for years.  So, in colloquial terms, don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk.  Live the way you want them to live.  That’s the most powerful influence in their lives.  As adults, we’re always looking for cues on how to behave.  Children are especially looking for clues, and you’re the most important one, so live your life the way you want them to live theirs.  Be honest, treat people the way you want to be treated, make your decisions on love – not fear.  Give more than you receive.
     

2. Control their access to the Internet.  If they have their own computer it should not be in their room. It should be out in the open where they’re using it.  If there was an Internet when I was fourteen, and if I had my own computer, I would have spent an awful lot of time on Google looking for sex and naked women.
     

3. Communicate with your children but don’t be their best friend. They have lots of friends; if you’re their best friend, you’re on equal level with the other friends.  You need to establish more authority than just a friend.  Friends come and go.  Friends can be influential.  You need to be the rock that they can always count on, the compass that always points to true north.  Nowadays more than ever, kids need parents to be a parent, not a buddy.  The world is confusing and you need to point the way.
     

4. Establish your home as a safe place.  What I mean by that is you have to impose rules and consequences if those rules are broken, but they have to know they can talk to you about anything and that you always have their best interest at heart.  They have to know they can count on you when they make decisions that may not be popular with their friends.
     

5. Keep your finger on the pulse of their life.  Know who they are hanging out with, know what they’re watching on TV, and know what they’re listening to.  I don’t mean go through their drawers and snoop.  You won’t know everything they do; you can’t.  You’re not going to be standing next to them, but you can get a feel for what kind of friends they’re hanging out with.  Don’t let them retreat into a world of their own where they’re listening to their MP3 player all the time.  There is a lot of poison being sold under the label of music.  What are they watching on TV?  My kids watched MTV and sometimes I made them turn it off.  Other times, they watched things I didn’t care for.  Personally, I don’t think there’s anything worthwhile on MTV but ultimately they weren’t harmed by it because we had a balance.  You can’t protect them from everything, but don’t get so wrapped up in your own life that you aren’t aware of what they’re doing and who their seeing and how they’re interacting with people.

If you’re fortunate enough to have relatives nearby who can help mold moral behavior - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - they can also be a positive influence.  If you don’t have relatives, there are friends, neighbors, parents of other children, school teachers, community programs, etc.

It’s that old saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.”  You want to create that virtual village to surround your children as much as possible with positive healthy influences so you can establish a strong moral foundation.

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Len :: Aug.21.2008 :: Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

If you are anything like any other divorced parent in the world, you would agree with the fact that it is sometimes hard to keep your cool.  When life is stressful, when your tired, when your irritated, the hardest thing in the world is to have patience and tolerance for your children.  If you are going through a divorce, you will probably find yourself going from one extreme to another.  One minute you are feeling guilty about the divorce and over indulging your children, and the next minute you are so overwhelmed with how much you have on your plate you seem to fly off the handle at any little thing.  This is all very normal, but not productive.

Stress can cause us to act in ways that don’t make us proud.  The first thing that you need to remember is that losing your temper with your children just makes the situation worse.  They are under pressure, too, and are probably acting out a lot more frequently than usual. If you can step outside of yourself for a moment and look at what you are actually losing your temper about, you would probably find it to not be such a big deal. 

The trick is to take some time everyday to take a breath.  In fact, take some deep breaths.  It may seem like very generic advice, but it actually works.  If you find yourself starting to lose it, walk away and breathe.  Evaluate what is actually so terrible at the present moment.  Probably nothing is all that bad. 

When you lose your cool, you end up feeling guilty, and that just ends up in a downward spiral on the road to other bad decisions regarding your children.  You can really make a difference in your own life if you try to make it a daily goal to not yell.  You will be able to think more clearly about what is going on and make better decisions. Discipline will also be more effective if you don’t lose your cool.

When you are a divorced parent going through difficult times and it is hard to keep a clear head, many people make things worse by losing their temper. Don’t be one of those people.  It’s not good for either you or your children.  Think clearly and emotion free.  Be objective not subjective.  What advice would you yourself give a friend that was going through the same situation that you are going through?  You already have the answers; it’s just hard to find them alone when your feelings are all stirred up.  Have confidence in yourself that you are able to handle what ever gets thrown your way and you will be better at keeping your cool.

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Len :: Jul.13.2008 :: Caring for your Children, Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

It's hard to imagine a more emotionally charged time in your life than right now, right?  All of the feelings that you are experiencing right now are completely normal and understandable, but you have to know when to put a lid on it.  Sometimes emotions get in the way.  They can stand in the way of what you are trying to accomplish. 

When it comes to disciplining your children, you always need to try and have a clear head.  Discipline should never be laced with emotion, rather emotion free.  You need to look at discipline differently then probably every other area in your relationship with your kids. 

Every situation needs to be treated as an objective problem, not subjective.  When you are evaluating how to discipline a child that has done something wrong, you need to remove yourself from the situation.  Look at the situation as if it were happening to your friend and you were giving her advice.  What would you tell her?

You need to recognize your personal feelings and push them aside for the time being.  Your children's feelings should be considered all of the time, but you have to remember to never let guilt drive you.  If you discipline your children with emotion you will always lose the battle, which can lead to losing the war.  If you can't do this, you need to take a time out yourself and come back to the situation a little later.   

I know this is all easier said than done, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy, right.  You will be far happier with the result if you can master this task.  Just remember, be objective.  Look from the outside in.  Take the emotion out.  You will be doing just fine.

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Len :: Nov.23.2007 :: Disciplining Children :: No Comments »

When you are going through a tough time in your personal life, like a divorce, sometimes essential parts of parenting are missed or neglected.  Even though it’s hard to focus on everything that needs your attention right now, you can’t forget to be the parent.  Don’t let your children get away with everything because you are  busy or you are feeling guilty.  You won’t be helping them at all and you may even cause yourself and your family more problems by slacking off on discipline.  If your kids are taking control because they sense that you are not in control it will be a downward spiral that you do not need or want.  Take a few moments every day to make sure you are in sync with you kids and that they are on the right track!

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Len :: Oct.08.2007 :: Disciplining Children :: No Comments »