Breakthrough Parenting Online

I get questions like this all the time and I’m wondering if you can relate to this.

A reader recently wrote me saying,

“I’m a single mom raising my 10-year-old daughter Becky. The older she gets the more uneasy I feel about how this is turning out. I am our sole support. I feel guilty for having a child with a guy that was really wrong for me – and would have been a terrible parent. I feel guilty for spending so much time away from her. I give in to her a lot and then I feel even more guilty. She is demanding, expects to have her own way and picks fights with other kids. Actually, I think Becky is becoming quite a brat. I’m at wit’s end.

Sandra

Feeling guilty for choices you made is sabotaging your success today. I can appreciate how frustrating it is to have things not turn out how you planned – but that is life! John Lennon wrote, “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.” The big question is, what are you going to do about it now?

Use the six steps outlined in Using Logic to Solve Problems chart to figure out what is the best thing to do. You have two problems. One is how to handle your recurring guilty response when things don’t turn out the way you planned and what to do about Becky’s behavior.

A word of caution: it sounds like you have taken on the style of a permissive parent. This is a mistake. Overly indulging a child, caving into what the child wants, buying or bribing to get good behavior creates an entitlement on the part of the child which leads to disaster. If Becky carries this into her adult life, she will end up as a person who is poorly socialized in the give and take of what healthy relationships require. Other people will resent her for asking for more than her fair share. I recommend that you take the Breakthrough Parenting: Moving Your Family from Struggle to Cooperation home study course and learn more about your parenting style and how to set appropriate boundaries.

Soon, another option will be to take the course on your computer through our Breakthrough Parenting Online system we are preparing for you. Either way, it’s clear to me how important your children are and so I encourage you to continue to explore the difference between,

LOGIC vs. DRAMA

I am struck by the amount of counseling that I do where it appears to my client like I am a genius when I am simply helping him or her use the six steps of logical problem solving. If people would do this for themselves, they wouldn’t have so many unsolved problems. Some people say logic is “common sense.” However, common sense isn’t so common. Why not? Because — drama gets in the way.

Drama is what happens when our emotions distort what is logical. Emotions are powerful persuaders – making what is illogical appear logical. We can get ourselves into big messes that way – one mess leads to another and another until we are tangled up in a ball of confusion.

While this happens to everyone, some people live their lives in drama – not logic. They also have a crazy-making way of getting you involved.

A really good way to get you involved in someone else’s drama is for that person to blame you for the problem. Your knee jerk reaction is to defend yourself. Few people have adequate boundary controls to stop the problem from escalating, so – OOPS! – defenses go up and the argument starts: “You did.” “No, I did not.” “Yes, you did.”

Of course, the way out of this drama is to use logic to figure out a solution. Try out the six logical problem solving steps on a problem you have and see how it works.

They are in your book, Breakthrough Parenting (p 245 - 248) you’ll be glad you reviewed them. And if you don’t have a copy in front of you, that’s okay.

I’m creating a new tool that will be on our site for you when you sign up as a subscriber. Just one of the many ways we’ve created to make your parenting experience a little simpler.

Before I go, I thought I’d share this adorable story about not going to drama. Anna has a special way of putting it. Use what works for you. Enjoy life!

I don’t know if Anna has a special gift for expressing herself, or if all kids have that gift and tend to lose it as they/we “grow up.” I was sort of staring off into space and Anna looked at me and said, “Daddy – are you sad?” I told her, “Nope, just worried about a few things.” Her response was precious. She said, “Well, Daddy, if you want to be happy and not to be sad then just don’t think about grown-up things. When I see people who are sad it’s ‘cause they are thinking about grown-up things.” Well – many people have told me that I think too much, that I am too negative, that I should live in the moment, but it took my teeny little Anna to really get my attention. As I was driving home and noticed that my thoughts were “drifting into worry, remorse or morbid reflection,” I’d think about what Anna said and just plain stopped it. Maybe this isn’t some everlasting phenomenal change – but very cool anyway.

~ J. Walden

Isn’t that wonderful? Our children are our best teachers.

Until next time…

For your family,

Jayne A. Major, Ph.D.

PS. It’s not too late to qualify for a free copy of the Breakthrough Parenting Audio Book. All you have to do is visit the Contest page, listen to the samples there, and rate each one. It’s exciting to us to have the opportunity to include you as we develop the online course materials. Enter the Contest

PPS. I hope you are leaving your stories about Drama vs. Logic. There are so many good stories that come up in my classes, on my conference calls, and in my counseling sessions. I believe we all learn something from each other. Take a moment to scroll down below, click in the comment box, and allow an example of your child, husband, wife, or child’s teacher, anyone really, to inspire another person. Do it now before you forget the story.

Tags: child development, free parenting materials, parenting help

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under Parenting Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.