Parenting series notes: Helping foster independence and responsibility in adolescent children while maintaining age-appropriate boundaries

Important Principles

Commit to thoughtful parenting in partnership with your spouse if applicable.

• Practicing being intentional parents
• Am I in or not?  “I’m all in.”
• Esp. important given that age 0-8 is the formative stage and the only time to set your child’s trajectory.
• Deliberate focus.  Silicon Valley pace = at least one of you has to be committed to the parenting thing.  If you have 2 parents full time, it’s too easy to get consumed w/ your job.

Children/teens have zero tolerance for adult hypocrisy.
If what you’re doing now isn’t working, try something different.

Cannot teach them just to be responsible.  Responsibility can’t be taught; It has to be caught.

• Power of failure sans rescue.
• Empathic language “Oh, that’s a bummer” vs. “I told you so.”  
• Risks of hovercrafting robs child of opportunities to fail.  Consistent rescuing messages to the child you cannot be trusted to do it yourself; similarly you rob them of the pride that results from doing it themselves.
• Some differences btw. rescue vs. being on the same team are:
• Is it a pattern?
• Is the child taking initiative to ask for what they need or are you automatically just coming to their rescue?
• Are they willing to make some kind of appropriate trade for the effort they are asking you invest in whatever the rescue act?

Challenging parenting types/patterns to be aware of

• Supercharged helicopter parents
• Military drill sergeant parent
• You want to trigger the prefrontal cortex brain vs. the amygdala
• If you cannot control your upset, better to keep the mouth shut vs. flipping your lid
• Laissez faire = the parent doesn’t know what to do so they do nothing
• Child ends up despising/having contempt for the parent b/c they need boundaries & limits

Takeaways = show love and logic through allowing natural consequences to take their course

Adults must set firm, loving limits, using enforceable statements without showing anger, lecturing, or using threats.

When a child causes a problem/encounters a problem, the adult shows empathy through sadness and sorrow and then lovingly hands the problem and its consequences back to the child. (The monkey is on the back of the child, not the parent...the child feels responsible for solving the problem.)

• Set up the environment so they can fail being careful to insure that their failure only impacts them, not others.
• Set them up for success with expectations clearly stated that include choice A or choice B both of which
• Involves no skin off your nose
• Both of the options will work for you
• This allows them to be agentic

• The principle of eating the elephant

• Story of Aaron & 4th grade & forgetting the Explorer report notecards
• Need for diligence in our own faithfulness w.r.t. our attitudes to the church
• What is coming out of my mouth today and how will that impact my children tomorrow?  What am I saying today when my kids are little and how is that going to rollout when they are teenagers?
• Example 1:  We’re on vacation so we don’t need to go to church.
• Kids can sniff out hypocrisy from a mile away and will write you off if they perceive you to be a phony
• Example 2: Todd’s siblings talking ill about their father in front of their father is now being repeated by THEIR children about their own fathers.
• It’s never too late...
  
  
  Building self confident kids who listen to their internal voice instead of peers, media
  The Stool Analogy:
  Leg 1: They feel Unconditionally Loved by their special people (parents)
  Leg 2: “I have the skills I need to make it.”
  Never pass judgement on the work of children when they are trying to learn...work with them, make it fun.
  Leg 3: I am capable of taking control of my life
  Allow them to learn to make decisions at a young age by giving them two choices that are acceptable to you…
  Encourage them to solve the problem.
  
  The Power of Example - study this talk!
  A Prayer for the Children, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, April 2003 GC
•  Resources:
  “Parenting with Love and Logic” by Foster Cline and Jim Fay
  
  These authors have parlayed this concept into a huge business..tons of online resources, tons of stuff to buy, speakers, classes, etc. We put a few links below from their website, but really just encourage you to check the book out from the library or buy a copy of the basic book above if interested. There are some good principles to consider, without needing to become a devoted follower.
  
  The book above will outline how to be a Consultant Parent. Examples of effective language that will encourage your child to learn how to solve their own problems and become a responsible child/teen/adult, are found within.

 Handout Links:
This link is a sample of what your life could be like if your children don’t learn how to take care of their own business when they are young...and some possible steps that will be needed to encourage the young adults to be independent:
https://www.loveandlogic.com/articles-advice/when-its-time-for-them-to-get-a-life

https://www.loveandlogic.com/articles-advice/parents
https://www.loveandlogic.com/parents/faq