By Vanessa Van Petten

1) There are no ‘perfect parents’, formulas, easy answers or a ‘right’ way to parent.  There is a right way for your family, you have to constantly strive to find it.

2) Live the You-Them-You Perspective. Learning to see how the other side feels is one of the most difficult ideas to master.  Adopting this yourself and teaching your kids to think about their needs and then other’s needs is a wonderful way to teach children gratitude and perspective.  We hope to give you tools to do this.

3) Constantly challenge what we think we know.  ‘Radical’ means to question the status quo and what isn’t working.  This is how we grow as a family and as human beings.  Find your mirror, whether it is our blog, a radical parenting friend, or your spouse to examine patterns and habits that are not working.

4) Stay open-minded. We never know what another person is really thinking.  Parents and kids who remain open-minded and open to suggestions have less fights, resentment and guilt.

5) Guilt is not a tool we use. This is a hard one, but we will always try to help you end guilt cycles and passive aggressiveness—help us too!

6) Communicate the hard stuff. Maintain and push for open and honest communication even if it is difficult to say or hear.

7) Abundance in love. You can never express your love for your family members too much.

8 ) Regular weekly Family Bonding Time.  Spending quality (not necessarily) quantity time with your family is essential to working out issues, forming bonds and getting to know the unique needs of your family.

9) Monthly Family Check-Ins.  Having one family check-in per month and at each family check-in filling out a family sheet for each family member and making new family goals.  This is a way for you to become accountable to each other and help other family members achieve their goals.

10) Asking for help from your community.  Ask for help from friends, family or other Radical Parent Community members when you need it, you do not have to be alone.  Start your own Radical Parenting Support Group.

This article is on loan from Radical Parenting

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Television and Behavior Problems In Kids
by Kim Patrick

Anyone else have problems with the television and getting ready for school in the mornings? Should we make a rule that there is no television before school each week day, or should we just leave it up to our kids to figure out how to organize themselves?

This is a question that many parents struggle with. So what is the answer? It will be different for each individual family. I have a sister with three kids, ranging in ages from 14 years down to 9 years. She has the television on all morning while the kids are getting ready for school. It works for her. Her kids are motivated and understand what they have to do each morning before leaving. In that situation it works well.

My kids are a different story. When the television is on my kids are always watching it. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that we had no television for six months, and when we got it back they were a bit excited. Anyhow, it is harder for me to use the same tactic as my sister does because it simply doesn’t work with my children.

My kids and I had a family meeting and chatted about the best way to do things in the mornings. We decided that if they could get organised well in the mornings for one week without the television, we would let them try with the television again. So we gave it a go. After one week they were given the privilege of television again and I started to observe.

It has been a couple of weeks since I reinstated that privilege and I noticed that this morning none of my children did their chores (now I’m talking just three minutes of drying dishes here, not half an hour of cleaning). I also observed my 10 year old daughter watching television despite the fact that she had homework due in this today that wasn’t finished. I gave her a couple of gentle reminders but to no avail.

Now I know that she will get a consequence at school for not doing the homework, but I am also not happy with her choices so I will have to make a few changes in order to help her out a little. Just as well it is family meeting day again today. We will discuss the issue of getting organised before school and everyone can have their say about how they think mornings should be handled. Then, after everyone has spoken we will all agree together on the best possible way to “do mornings” well.

This way the kids are having input and they are very likely to abide by it. It is important to give your child some amount of freedom and give them opportunities to try to do things right. This helps develop many skills for life. If you always lay down the law you actually deprive them of learning opportunities. When you let children try and fail they learn perseverance, patience, and self control, all of which are necessary in the adult world.

The verdict is in: do what works for your family with the television in the mornings. If something doesn’t work, try another way until you get what is right for your family dynamics. And don’t be afraid to change tactics. Just communicate what you are doing with your kids all the way and you will have less behavior problems with them in the mornings.

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Kim Patrick is a single mum with four children who lives on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia. She is a seminar speaker, parenting coach, author and also runs an online mentoring program to empower parents to raise their children well.
Kim’s latest creation is the “My Sleeping Angel” CD series aimed at facilitating behavioural changes in children while they are asleep. These CDs have earned her national television recognition as well as much media attention. Kim’s web site is http://www.yourchildcanbehave.com .

Today we are going to discuss what to do when your child uses foul language, bad language, or even curses you. Specifically, when you give a consequence, discipline or do something your child does not like, and they curse at you as a response.

You have to understand what your child is trying to achieve.

First of all you told them something he did not like. That means you are exerting your power and control over your child and his natural response is to:

(1) resent you and try to attack you, and

(2) try to show he has control over you in some aspect.

That is what the foul language, bad language, or cursing achieves.

It shows, first of all, that it expresses his anger in you. Second, he controls what comes out of his mouth and you don’t. It gives him an air of control where you have no control.

The way you handle this problem is to recognize what your child is trying to do and do not get sucked in. You do not get drawn into a battle. You do not respond at this point, and you do not let your child suck you into an argument or respond really in any way.

You want to maintain your dignity and control of the situation.

For example, let’s say your child comes home late and misses curfew, your consequence is for the next week, the next couple of days, or the next couple of times he has got to be home an hour earlier. He gets angry and curses at you. You say, “Nevertheless, for the next week, you have got to be home an hour early” and you walk away.

You do not get dragged into battle. You do not say, “How dare you curse at me.” You do not get involved in any way at all in what he said.

That does not mean you let it go. You can come back later at a different time and say, “You know you cursed at me yesterday, you cursed at me an hour ago, two hours ago. You are not allowed to do that and there is a consequence for that also” and then you give a consequence for cursing.

Do not let the cursing, the bad talk, the bad language, or the anger of your child get you off track. Your child’s goal is to exert his power, exert his control and to show you that he has something over you. Do not let him get away with it.

Stay in control, stay in focus, keep on topic, and at a later time when things are calm, go back and address the cursing or the bad language. Do not let it go. Do not say you are giving in. Don’t do anything other than stay on track now and make sure you address it later.