10 Tips For Raising Children Of Character

It is one of those essential facts of life that raising good children--children of character--demands time and attention. While having children may be "doing what comes naturally," being a good parent is much more complicated. Here are ten tips to help your children build sturdy characters:

It is one of those essential facts of life that raising good children--children of character--demands time and attention. While having children may be "doing what comes naturally," being a good parent is much more complicated. Here are ten tips to help your children build sturdy characters:

1. Put parenting first. This is hard to do in a world with so many competing demands. Good parents consciously plan and devote time to parenting. They make developing their children’s character their top priority.

2. Review how you spend the hours and days of your week. Think about the amount of time your children spend with you. Plan how you can weave your children into your social life and knit yourself into their lives.

3. Be a good example. Face it: human beings learn primarily through modeling. In fact, you can’t avoid being an example to your children, whether good or bad. Being a good example, then, is probably your most important job.

4. Develop an ear and an eye for what your children are absorbing. Children are like sponges. Much of what they take in has to do with moral values and character. Books, songs, TV, the Internet, and films are continually delivering messages—moral and immoral—to our children. As parents we must control the flow of ideas and images that are influencing our children.

5. Use the language of character. Children cannot develop a moral compass unless people around them use the clear, sharp language of right and wrong.

6. Punish with a loving heart. Today, punishment has a bad reputation. The results are guilt-ridden parents and self-indulgent, out-of-control children. Children need limits. They will ignore these limits on occasion. Reasonable punishment is one of the ways human beings have always learned. Children must understand what punishment is for and know that its source is parental love.

7. Learn to listen to your children. It is easy for us to tune out the talk of our children. One of the greatest things we can do for them is to take them seriously and set aside time to listen.

8. Get deeply involved in your child’s school life. School is the main event in the lives of our children. Their experience there is a mixed bag of triumphs and disappointments. How they deal with them will influence the course of their lives. Helping our children become good students is another name for helping them acquire strong character.

9. Make a big deal out of the family meal. One of the most dangerous trends in America is the dying of the family meal. The dinner table is not only a place of sustenance and family business but also a place for the teaching and passing on of our values. Manners and rules are subtly absorbed over the table. Family mealtime should communicate and sustain ideals that children will draw on throughout their lives.

10. Do not reduce character education to words alone. We gain virtue through practice. Parents should help children by promoting moral action through self-discipline, good work habits, kind and considerate behavior to others, and community service. The bottom line in character development is behavior--their behavior.

As parents, we want our children to be the architects of their own character crafting, while we accept the responsibility to be architects of the environment—physical and moral. We need to create an environment in which our children can develop habits of honesty, generosity, and a sense of justice. For most of us, the greatest opportunity we personally have to deepen our own character is through the daily blood, sweat and tears of struggling to be good parents.

How parents alienate their teenagers

None of us set out with the intention to alienate our teenagers. We all want to be good and effective. We all want to be good and effective parents. The reality however, is that we are only human and therefore capable of making mistakes. What’s important is that we identify these mistakes and understand some of the common ways we alienate our teenagers. This will help us avoid some of the common pitfalls and build a batter relationship with our youngsters.

This is the single most common way to alienate your teenagers. Rigid parents are so strict with their teenagers that their children often have to lie about where they go and who they go and who they are with for fear of igniting their parents’ anger. Such parents feel insecure unless they are in control all the time. They don’t trust their teenagers to do anything on their own. Such parents act as though they are platoon commanders directing, instructing and threatening when their children fail to comply. They rule with iron fist.

What Teenagers Need

Rigid parents fail to understand that teenagers need freedom to grow and learn, and to make decisions and choices of their own. Teenagers need parents who can guide them and give them space to make mistakes occasionally, not rigid parents who control them in everything they do. Such rigidity can crush their will power.

Don’t Worry about the Way You Communicate

When parents communicate to teenagers in cold, harsh tones, they can easily distance themselves from their teenagers. How often have you uttered word like these ?

Because I told you so, that’s why.

Why don’t you act your age?

Just wait till your father gets home.

Do I have to do everything for you?

You’ll never amount to anything.

Parents can also alienate teenagers when they passive communication. Here parents don’t say much at all and rarely seize the opportunity to enter into a meaningful conversation with their teenagers. Instead they answer with yes, sounds good, or oh, that’s terrible!. They also seldom allow their teens to discuss and reason with them. Opportunities to encourage their teenagers to open up and talk about issues like drugs and premarital sex are lost on these parents.

What Teenagers Need

Teenagers need to hear and see from parents the things that are closest to their hearts - messages of love, limits, grace, tolerance, respect and understanding. They need parents to provide an open environment that welcomes and includes them as active participants in meaningful communications. They need parents to listen to their problems. They want to be able to discuss, reason and express their feelings and view. They don’t need parental nagging!

Don’t Worry About Setting Boundaries and Limits

This is yet another common way to alienate your teenagers. Parents become permissive when they believe that teenagers are old enough to decide everything for themselves. They allow their youngsters to do whatever they please, letting them bear the consequences of their action. Permissively can also arise when parents don’t want to get into constant fights or arguments with their teenagers. They then let go of their control and guidance. Permissive parents think they get along better with their teenagers who love them for not being strict.

What Teenagers Need

Many parents think that teenagers would prefer to have pushover or permissive parent. The truth is that such parents confuse their teenagers by not providing the guidance, accountability and structure they so desperately need. While it is true that teenagers need greater latitude in making choices and decisions on their own, they still want their parents to be around to lend them support in times of need. Teenagers need parents in the background to guide them and help them say no to peer pressure. They want limits and boundaries that are consistent and considerate.

Forget About Discipline When They Break Rules

Parents who don’t discipline or correct their teenagers when they break rules are actually saying they don’t care. When parents show a ”no care” attitude, they build a barrier in their relationship with their teenagers. Not only have the teenagers not learned good behaviors, they take their problems elsewhere since their parents don’t care whether they are good or bad. Hence, the parent-teenager relationship becomes cool and distant. Parents who don’t take an interest to correct their teenagers’ misbehaviors face the consequence of alienating them.

What Teenagers Need

While discipline is painful at times, teenagers still want their parents to enforce their correcting prerogative. In fact, teenagers feel secure from knowing that their parents care enough for them to discipline them, or withdraw their privileges when they do wrong. They feel secure in their parent’s love.

Don’t Worry About Building Self-Esteem.

One very easy way to alienate your teenager is to destroy his self-worth. Parents who do not encourage or build up their teenagers’ abilities and potential, but instead tear down their self-confidence and self-worth are hurting the parent-child relationship. Many parents don’t encourage their teenagers for fear that the more attention a child receives, the more he wants. This however misconception. In fact, just the opposite is true. The “don’t give too much, because they’ll just want more” approach actually communicates a tremendously alienating message. Many parents are also guilty of criticizing and magnifying the negative aspects of their teenagers, and even of name calling. This often destroys the teenagers respect for both himself and his parents.

What Teenagers Need

Teenagers need parents who show confidence and trust in allowing them to take a little more control of their lives. They need parents allow them to experience their potential, understand their limits, and enjoy their talents. They need encouragement when they fail or when they don’t measure up to their own or their parents expectations. They need to be uplifted, not crushed!

You Should Never Let Them Grow Up

Such parents feel that their teenagers still neeeeed them! They find it hard to relinquish the reins just yet. Hence, they still insist on choosing their teenagers’ clothes, career and friends. Frequently, these controlling parents ignore or discount their teenagers feelings. They tend to be overprotective, smothering their teenagers in the process. Teenagers are not allowed to grow in independence may rebel against their parents.

What Teenagers Need

Adolescents need to be giving a chance to flap their wings and become airborne on their own. They may forget they have wings if they continually find themselves grounded securely under their parent’. Teenagers need to experience their own limits and boundaries in increasing amount as they mature and earn their parents’ trust. They need to increase their skills, in decision-making and choice making. While teenagers should be given sufficient room to grow, they will still need their parents’ support and encouragement throughout the growing up process.

This secret to successful parenting is to fully understand the common ways we alienate our teenager. When we know what our teenagers need, and how to improve our relationship with them through better communication. I’m confident that parent’s will not only become more effective, but that they will derive more enjoyment from the teenager-rearing experience. (The teenagers will also enjoy you more!)

How To Be A Good Father?

You already know that it takes a lot to be a good parent, but there are many ways in which you can be a good father in particular.

Step:

1. Have fun. Fatherhood is a big responsibility but it is also a lot of fun. Show your kids that you enjoy being their father.
2. Consider your role as a father. What do you believe should be a father's role in raising children? How did you grow up perceiving fatherhood? The notions you were brought up with will influence your approach to being a father. Some common perceptions of a father's role are:
   • The father provides, financially and emotionally, for his children, and should care for them too.
   • The father's role is to discipline along with the mother. Make parenting a partnership, be on the same page about how to discipline your child and be consistent.
   • A father should give his children affection and warmth - Don't be afraid to tell your child "I love you, I'm proud of you."
   • A father shows support and love through actions as well as words.
3. Build on tradition. Consider your roles and responsibilites as a father. Ask yourself which are most meaningful and pursue them to the best of your ability.
4. Respect your children's mother. Mutual respect between a child's parents is important whether or not the parents are married to one another. Children will mimic their parents' behavior. How you treat your child's mother will influence the way in which the child will view his or her own role when they become parents. Do not be afraid to stand up for your own views as a parent. They are equally as important and valuable as those of the child's mother who may or may not spend more time with the child.
5. Spend time with and take responsibility for your children. Some fathers miss opportunities to spend time with their kids because they have competing responsibilities or interests that may or may not benefit them. However, once the opportunity has passed, it's gone and you can't get it back. It goes so fast, so make the time the best that it can be. If you don't establish an intimacy with your children when they're young, it'll be difficult to catch up when they're older and still need your help and support.
6. Be a teacher by both word and example. Children will not grow up and miraculously already know right from wrong. Children need to be taught right from wrong and will need to see it demonstrated by their father. Make decisions in front of them and explain to them why you came to that resolution. Talk to them about choices you made in the past and why they did (or didn't) work out. Evaluate all of your own decisions by thinking: "What would I want my child to do in this situation?" Teach your children that it is okay to make mistakes. Everyone makes them. You do and they will too. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes and try to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.
7. Show affection. Some men may be uncomfortable with offering their children affection and communicating their love. Being affectionate with your child shows them that you love them. It also teaches them to show affection to others.
8. Realize that a father's job is never done. Do not assume that once your children turn 21, or they have a college degree, that your work raising them is done. Although it is important to encourage your children to become financially and emotionally independent, it is also important to let them know that you care and are always there for them and that they are valued.
9. Don't Place Unreasonable Expectations on Them. A child's life can be filled with pressures, from siblings to kids at school to teachers or coaches. Help your child understand their desires and assess their capabilities and set achievable goals. Encourage them to meet their full potential but avoid living vicariously through them by expecting them to achieve what you had achieved or hoped to have achieved.

Be A Good Parents, Do This

Raising children demands a vast set of complex skills that can’t be distilled into a Top 10 list like you’d see on Letterman. Still, the lofty fundamentals — love, respect, morality — are surprisingly easy to reduce to simple, achievable daily goals.

Hey, it worked for Moses, the other guy with the Top 10 list.

None of these goals will make you smack your forehead and wonder why you never thought of them before. In fact you probably do many of them already, three days out of four. It’s a matter of being mindful of what you’re doing, rather than acting on reflex. Here are ten little ways to do something good for your kids — today.

1. Really listen to your child.

Nowhere are we more likely to act on reflex than when responding to our kids’ talk. Sometimes it’s the knee-jerk “no” — the easiest of parental answers to a request. It also shows up in our tendency to half-listen, giving our kids the impression that what we’re doing — even if it’s emptying the lint trap on the dryer — is more important than what they’re saying.

Or we interrupt them. “For some parents, there’s a tendency to correct misinformation or try to teach as we’re listening,” says Janice MacAulay, who works with the Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs in Ottawa. “That doesn’t allow enough time for what’s really important to come out.” If your preschooler says, “Mom, I really gots to tell you something…” it’s not the time to correct her grammar, or you may never hear what she gots to say.

MacAulay believes it’s important for every kid to get focused attention — that means putting down the lint trap and sitting down to look him in the eye. “A little attention goes a long way, and when we give it, it has to be 100 percent.”

2. Do Something Familiar.

It’s not just toddlers who love repetition — rituals and routines are comforting for everyone. Some follow religious or ethnic customs, others are weirdly idiosyncratic. Either way, they help shape a family’s identity.

Carolyn Monaghan and her husband, Glen, look forward to what she calls “a pleasant, predictable sequence of events” each night with their five-year-old daughter, Heather. “At bedtime we ask her, ‘What are you going to dream about?’” says the mother of two from Langley, BC. “She’ll say she is going to dream about something we did that day, or what she’s looking forward to. Then we tell her what we’re going to dream about.”

Alyson Schäfer, a Toronto parent educator, says a fun family ritual — whether it’s Sunday brunch at a pancake house or a weekly basketball game in the driveway — can be an oasis for families where there’s a lot of friction. “You may not be able to solve all of your family’s woes,” she says, “but by doing more of what’s fun, you change the ratio of good times to bad times, and just by doing that you have a happier family.”

3. Kiss your partner in front of your child.

Yes, your kids may cover their eyes and say you’re being gross. But public displays of affection nurture your marriage and model a healthy relationship.

As Schäfer notes, the arrival of children puts a whole new stress on a couple’s bond. “There’s a mistaken notion that your marriage will wait,” she says. “I’ve seen parents with six-year-olds who have never left their child with a babysitter, never gone on a holiday or even gone out for dinner or a movie.”

They might learn something from Kennan Silva of Edmonton. “My husband, Todd, and I do little things for each other. Sometimes he’ll bring me a chocolate bar, or I’ll have coffee ready for when he gets home from work. We hope that when our children are adults, they find the same kind of loving relationship and will not settle for less than what they deserve.”

4. Read together.

This must be the most common public service message out there (after the one about erectile dysfunction), but regular story time can tail off as soon as kids learn to read by themselves. For families who do continue, the rewards go beyond literacy.

“My girls are seven and nine and we read to them about five nights a week,” says Jen Hrabarchuk of The Pas, Manitoba. “Reading to them gives us an opportunity to have cuddle time, which becomes rare at this age. Plus, we get to see how much they actually comprehend from longer stories. Over the past year we’ve read The Hobbit, Little House on the Prairie and A Wrinkle in Time.”

Helen Whitehorn and her husband, Mike, of Newmarket, Ontario, take turns being the narrator with their eight-year-old son, Matthew. “Sometimes he will read a page, we’ll read the next. Sometimes we read and he just listens, and sometimes he will read to us. He likes non-fiction and finds it fascinating to learn new facts. If he doesn’t understand something, he and Dad will talk about it together.”

5. Touch your child.

No one needs to remind parents to cuddle their infants. But like bedtime stories, hugs and kisses often taper off as kids get older and find them embarrassing. Even so, physical affection doesn’t have to mean giving your 12-year-old a zerbert on the belly while his skateboarding pals are visiting.

“For some people it’s awkward, so find the ways that are OK with you,” MacAulay suggests. It may be lying down together at bedtime, a relaxed hair brushing, a wrestling match or even a half-hour on the couch in front of the tube. MacAulay knows of a mom with lots of teenagers who once told her, “I don’t really like television, but I do sit and watch, mostly because I’m hip-to-hip with a couple of kids.”

6. Laugh during a tense moment.

Leah Johnson of Chilliwack, BC, learned first-hand how a laugh can defuse a volcanic situation. She was in the minivan with Graham, six, and Sydney, four, when the bickering got to her. “I felt a yell starting in my throat, and I tried to think of a good threat. Since I couldn’t follow through with the old ‘knock it off or you’re both walking home,’ well, I barked at them!”

Johnson says there was instant silence in the back seat. “Four very round eyes looked back at me in the mirror. Graham started giggling, and the next thing we knew we were all howling with laughter. They both started barking right back at me, and it was a very noisy but happy trip home. I’ve used it quite a few times since then. I wonder if it will still work when they’re teenagers.”

7. Find out one important thing about your child’s day.

For some parents and kids, catching up comes naturally around the dinner table, before bedtime or in that most popular of family meeting places — the car. Others may need a conversation starter. “One way to get kids to open up is to briefly share your own experiences with them first,” MacAulay says. Some families even have a ritual in which parents and kids share one good thing and then one bad thing that happened to them during the day.

Like everything else, though, there needs to be a balance, MacAulay says. As kids mature, they need space to grow and that means we shouldn’t be involved in every aspect of their daily lives. “It’s important to become comfortable with not knowing.”

8. Resist the urge to be a saviour.

This isn’t the best advice when your preschooler decides to try out dad’s acetylene torch or explore a divided highway. However, when your 11-year-old forgets her school project (after you reminded her twice), or when your son’s T-ball swing isn’t going to get him to the majors, you sometimes just need to back off.

“I like to talk about developing a child’s psychological muscle,” says Schäfer. “We want to prepare our kids for life, not protect them from it. Otherwise we interfere with important developmental processes.” When the consequences aren’t huge, allowing our kids to fail helps teach them to succeed next time. And we can give a nudge to their problem-solving abilities. “You forgot your homework today? What do you need to do so it won’t happen tomorrow?”

9. Do something nice for your caregiver.

Finding and keeping good child care is difficult, but the payoff is big for your peace of mind and your children’s comfort. Whether they’re live-in nannies or workers at a daycare centre, caregivers don’t like to be treated like indentured servants. Take the time to let them know you appreciate what they do for your kids.

A survey of nannies on Todaysparent.com revealed that many don’t even get a gift on their birthdays or at Christmas. Those who did made it clear that it meant a lot. “One family I worked for would leave me little notes, flowers or baking as a way to show that they valued the work I did for them,” says Vicki Sims, nanny to two girls. “It does take a bit of effort, but it’s worth it.”

10. Don’t worry about the previous nine items.

Half a century ago, a guy named Dr. Spock told parents, “You know more than you think you do.” Then along comes a blasted magazine article to point out all the things you’re forgetting.

Of course, that’s not the point. All the goals we’ve listed are worth striving for, but no one will ever accomplish all of them, every day. So don’t beat yourself up trying to do the impossible. And while there may be dads who have hang-ups about bringing the best cupcakes to daycare, this is mainly a chick thing. “Their expectations are going through the ceiling,” Schäfer says of moms. “Look for improvement as opposed to perfection.”

It’s easier to be realistic if you spend time with others in similar situations. “So many women tell me one-on-one how awful they feel because they don’t like to play Barbies for four hours. They think that’s what good mothers do, and that every mother is doing it.”

Schäfer feels it comes down to cutting yourself the same slack you give your children. “Parents get the concept of encouragement when it’s applied to their kids, but they forget they need to be self-encouraging as well.”