Tips on Raising A Responsible, Confident Child
Dr. Sam Goldstein, author of "Raising A Self-Disciplined Child" shares his best advice on helping your child to become a confident, responsible person.
Do you have empathy toward your child? Dr. Sam Goldstein and Dr. Robert Brooks have written a guide for parents who want to enjoy a positive relationship with their children, and teach them self-discipline that allows the child to feel like they are the authors of their own lives. In Raising A Self-Disciplined Child: Help Your Child Become More Responsible, Confident and Resilient they discuss how parents can accidentally rob their child of the opportunity to grow into a self-disciplined, responsible person.
Commitment: What are some ways a parent can accidently rob their child of a chance to develop self-discipline?
Dr. Sam Goldstein: When parents fail to appreciate that being self-disciplined is more than simply being well behaved they miss vital opportunities to help their children develop essential life skills. Being self-disciplined means maintaining control of emotions, working well with others, setting positive goals and accomplishing tasks.
It is what all parents hope to teach their children without the usual nagging, fighting or screaming. The well meant efforts of parents to instill self-discipline can accidentally rob children of opportunities to develop these important skills.
Commitment: What are five things a parent can do to help their child develop self-discipline?
Dr. Goldstein: The five critical skills that parents can help their children develop to foster self-discipline are:
• Helping children learn to problem solve
• Giving them opportunities to develop a sense of competence
• Teaching them how to deal with mistakes and disappointments
• Learning how to respond constructively when life seems unfair
• Accept them for who they are not what parents want them to be.
Commitment: What are some of the stresses children today are dealing with and what are some coping skills parents can teach their children to help with these stresses?
Dr. Goldstein: In our fast paced, seemingly chaotic world children face adversity from the classroom to the playground. Yet we are well aware that children who can exercise self-discipline at young ages appear to negotiate the maze of family, school, friends and community more successfully than those who struggle to control themselves. A child with self-discipline has internalized a set of rules so that even when a parent or caregiver isn’t around the child will act in a thoughtful, reflective manner.
Commitment: Describe a self-disciplined, resilient child.
Dr. Goldstein: Self-discipline is a vital component of a person’s sense of responsibility for his or her behavior. A large body of research has demonstrated that children who can resist temptation fare significantly better than their more impulsive peers when they enter their adolescent years. We help children develop resilience by teaching parents and educators the components of a resilient mindset in children.
A mindset consists of assumptions or attitudes we posses about ourselves that shape our behavior and the skills we develop. Resilient children know how to communicate. They experience empathy. They feel accepted and appreciated by others. They have learned to solve problems, make decisions and are socially competent.
Commitment: How can a parent help their child have a sense of ownership and responsibility for their own behavior?
Dr. Goldstein: In order to help children develop these skills, parents must develop a mindset for effective discipline. The right mindset includes understanding and appreciating that discipline is a teaching process, requires empathy and a positive relationship with children.
Commitment: What advice would you give a parent whose teenager refuses to help with household chores regardless of the amount of nagging the parent does?
Dr. Goldstein: It is not often appreciated that young children are strongly motivated to be helpful. They take great pleasure in helping us beam bright smiles when their contribution is complimented and appreciated.
Children come into the world with a need to be helpful and valued. It is in our genes. As children develop a foundation of a resilient mindset and develop responsibility, a commitment to be accountable for one’s life emerges.
Responsible children are more likely to not only acknowledge credit for their own success but also to perceive mistakes as experiences from which to learn rather than blame others.
Our first advice would be to stop nagging.
Secondly to make sure that chores are not equated with responsibility. Often well intentioned parents confuse not helping around the home with being an irresponsible person when the child may be demonstrating responsibility in many other areas of life. We suggest that parents serve as a model of responsibility for their children, provide opportunities for children to feel they are helping others, develop traditions to become a charitable family and distribute responsibilities fairly.
Commitment: What advice would you give a parent whose ten-year-old throws a fit every time they have to do homework?
Dr. Goldstein: First I would need to know a lot more about the child, family and homework. Some children are so overwhelmed because the homework they are asked to complete is beyond their capabilities that they see no alternative but to act in a resistant way.
In other families, homework is used as a gateway to privileges and responsibility leading children over time to resist doing homework. When parents ask a general question such as this one I usually direct them to the book I co-authored with Sydney Zentall, Seven Steps to Homework Success (Specialty Press).
Commitment: You wrote that “effective discipline requires a positive relationship.” How can a parent enjoy a positive relationship with their child? What attitudes and behaviors can ruin the parent-child relationship? What about parents who feel so frustrated by their child’s behavior that they find it almost impossible to be nice to the child?
Dr. Goldstein: These are a complex set of questions. However, the last question is critically important. In our work with families, we see children with very significant problems. Many of their parents are so frustrated that they find little positive aspects in their relationship with the child. We begin by helping them re-frame their relationship with the child, seeking out positive activities such that the entire relationship is not defined by what the child isn’t doing.
Parents with unrealistic expectations, unappreciative of a child’s true capabilities and viewing parenting as simply managing activity can lead to a negative relationship.
Commitment: You ask parents to consider the question “do you have empathy towards your child?” Why is this an important question to consider? What are some questions parents should ask themselves that will help them know whether or not they are treating their child with empathy?
Dr. Goldstein: Empathy is defined as the ability to identify with or experience the feelings, thoughts or attitudes of others. To be empathic with our children we must walk in their shoes. Empathy is important for parents because otherwise they formulate opinions and definitions of their children’s problems with scan attention paid to the child’s view. We ask parents to consider whether they are saying or doing things in a way that would make children receptive to listening. Would they want people to speak to them the way they are speaking to their children and what do children think about the choices they are being offered?
Commitment: How can a parent help the child develop a sense of personal control? Why is this important?
Dr. Goldstein: A major task of parenting is to help children assume increasing responsibility for their lives. We want them to appreciate that they are the authors of their lives. If they are not content with the situation they must ask what they can do differently to improve the situation. If they wait for others to change first they will be waiting for a very long and unhappy time.
We encourage parents to foster a shift from parental control to child self-control in their course of their parenting activities. We encourage them to cultivate problem solving and decision making skills in their children and use a prevention model to nurture personal control.
Commitment: How can a parent teach their child problem solving skills and how can we as parents be problem solving role models for our children?
Dr. Goldstein: To develop and reinforce problem solving and decision making skills, parents must serve as a problem solving model. They must offer children choices at an early age, use a consistent process that children can learn to solve problems. Such a process helps children identify the problem, consider possible solutions and their likely outcomes and then be capable of putting a solution into action.
Commitment: How can a parent balance teaching their child the importance of achievement while at the same time teaching them that making a mistake is not the end of the world.
Dr. Goldstein: Balance is a process of continuous readjustment and realignment. There is no single easy way to remain balanced. Not all children experience success in the same way. The response to mistakes also varies from one child or parent to the next. The ways in which a child understands and responds to mistakes are an integral feature of a resilient, self-disciplined individual.
When parents fail to appreciate the role of temperament and biology in children’s behavior, when they foster negative comments and set the bar excessively high, children will struggle eventually developing a fear of making mistakes. We encourage parents to serve as a model for making and dealing with mistakes, teach their children to set and evaluate realistic expectations, refrain from loving children contingent upon whether or not they make mistakes and find ways to emphasize that mistakes are not only accepted but expected in life.
Commitment: If you could change two messages that children in our time and culture are taught, what would they be and what messages do you think children should be taught instead.
Dr. Goldstein: The two messages that we would like to change are “more is better” and “the faster you do it the better it is.” The two messages we would like children to be taught instead are that in some situations being the tortoise rather than the hare is preferred. That is, slow is fast enough and second, quality not quantity is what should be valued and appreciated in life.
To Purchase Raising A Self-Disciplined Child click here.
About the Author: Dr. Sam Goldstein is Research Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. His most recent book with Dr. Robert Brooks, Raising A Self-Disciplined Child, is now available in paperback from McGraw-Hill.
