Tell But Never Teach

Parents can tell but never teach, unless they practice what they preach.

-Arnold H. Glasgow

Pg 3

Losing Your Mind To Find Your Soul

In raising my children, I have lost my mind but found my soul.

-Lisa T Shepherd

Pg 3

Remain Unflappable

Contrary to some popular teaching, being a cool parent does not mean being so permissive that you let your kids do whatever they want.  What every kid wants are parents who can keep their cool, even when things get hot.  Especially when things get hot.  Kids want parents who are far less anxious and far more levelheaded than they are. 

Your kids want you to remain unflappable, even when they flip out.

Pg 4

Not Everyone Screams, But We All Are Anxious

Not all of us scream at our kids.  Not all of us struggle with keeping our cool.  But all parents do experience, to various levels or degrees, a universal struggle.  We all feel incredibly anxious about our kids, and their choices, and we don't know what to do about it.  We fret and worry about how our kids will turn out.  Inevitably, we're so focused on our kids that we don't realize when this anxiety takes over- and we get reactive.

Pg 6

Your Number One Role

Your number-one leadership role in the family is that of a calming authority.

Pg 7

It's Not About The Kids

Parenting is not about children, it's about parents.

Pg 7

There Are Things You Can Control And Things You Can't

Most of us have been operating with a faulty model of how to live in our relationships.  That's not to say our relationships are all faulty, but the model sure is.  We've been operating with a model that says in order to have healthy relationships, we need to focus on meeting other people's needs, trying to serve them and make them happy. 

This book is going to talk about why this model is so faulty, particularly in our parent-child relationships.  Here are a couple of things to consider.

First, it's a given that there are things in this world we can control and things we cannot control.  Now ask yourself this question:  How smart is it to focus your energy on something you cannot control?  Answer: Not very. 

Follow Up question:  Which category do your kids fall into?  In other words, are your children something you can control or something you cannot control?

Even tougher question:  Even if you could control your kids, should you?  Is that what parenting is all about?  And what if it's not the kids who are out of control?

Pg 10

Emotional Reactivity Is Our Worst Enemy

Emotional reactivity is our worst enemy when it comes to having great relationships.

Our biggest struggle as parents is not with the television; it's not with bad influences; it's not even with drugs or alcohol.  Our biggest struggle as parents is with our own emotional reactivity.  That's why the greatest thing we can do for our kids is learn to focus on us, not them.  Instead of anxiously trying to control our kids, let's concentrate on what we can control- calming our own emotional, knee-jerk reactions.

What's so damaging about being too reactive?  Consider this:  How can we have any influence on our children's decision-making if we don't have an influence on our own?  When we get reactive, we get regressive.  That is, we shrink back to an immature level of functioning.  Think of me at the Waffle House.  In an effort to get my two-year old to stop acting so immaturely, I became just as immature. 

How effective can that be?  I've come to realize that if I get loud and scary and intimidating, I may get compliance eventually, but at what price?  I may have screamed my son into submission at Waffle House, but what type of relationship will I have with him if I continue to parent by reactive intimidation?

Pg 15

We Don't Just Feel Like Bad Parents

Parents feel overstretched, overcommitted, underprepared, and underprepared, and underappreciated.  As a result most of us feel a gnawing sense of inadequacy.  We don't just feel like bad parents, we feel like failures.

Pg 16

The Most Damaging Lie About Parenting

Here is the most damaging lie about parenting:

We are responsible for our children.

Most people would define parenting like this: "It is our job as parents to get our children to think, feel, and, especially, behave the right way.  It is our job to get our children to be good." 

Certainly we have a profound amount of influence on how our kids turn out.  This book will illustrate the power we have to shape our children.  In, fact I don't think we can overestimate this influence we have on future generations.

What this really means is that we have a far greater responsibility to our children than we have for our children.

Pg 18

Robots and Rebels

Most of us feel like we're responsible for our children.  Sure, they're totally dependent on us right from the beginning.  But let's think about that. 

If you are responsible for your children, then you have to figure out how to program them to make the "right" choices.  And you need to do it quickly.  You have to learn the right techniques to get them to think, feel, and behave according to your definition of "good."

All of this sounds alarmingly like obedience training.  It comes as no surprise to find parenting books at your local bookseller written by animal trainers.  "What works for Fido can work for your child!"

If you're totally responsible for coercing your children into being good, then it makes perfect sense to enlist some program or system like that.  Such an approach may make parents feel big and in charge, but it leaves the children feeling small and incompetent.

The fact that our children have been given the power of choice, as self-directed human beings, can thwart even the best obedience-training program.  Children will soon realize they are in a no-win situation.  Either they kill their own decision-making spirit in an attempt to reduce their parents' anxiety, or they rebel against their parents' authority.  That's the catch-22 of the "responsible for" model of parenting.  Parents either program their children correctly or they have failed.  Children either conform to the system, surrender their individuality, and become "the child we don't have to worry about," or they rebel against the system, failing to "get with the program."

In this system, the possibility of children learning to act for themselves and think critically about their choices does not exist.  Doing so would equal rebellion.  If your child ends up "doing the right thing," then you've raised a robot.  He did exactly as he was programmed to do.  But if your child ends up thinking and acting for himself, then you've raised a rebel.

Pg 18-19

Being Under Control Means Taking Responsibility

Learning to be "under control" means taking responsibility for your decisions before, during, and after you make them.  I am not saying you don't ever make mistakes; this isn't about trying to be flawless.  This is recognizing that no one, not even your kids, can make you feel anything, think anything, or do anything.  Period.  Your children cannot push you over the edge, press your magic buttons, or bring you to the brink.  They are simply not that powerful.

Pg 27

Being In Charge Means Inspiring

To be "in charge" as a parent means inspiring your children to motivate themselves.

Your goal is not to control.  Your goal is to influence.

Pg 29

It Is Not A Battle

Children can draw parents into interactions that become Us (the children) against Them (authority figures), not Us against the realistic and logical consequences of rules.  Us against Them becomes a war.  "Getting tougher" can win battles, but it may also teach that winning is the most important goal and that force and power are the ways to win.  Children then learn that, with enough power, they can also win and that this is how the world operates.  If they feel they are losing, they simply apply more power.

-Jaime Raser in his book Raising Children You Can Live With

Pg 30

Screaming Is Just Code For "Calm Me Down!"

No matter what words are actually coming out of our mouths, no matter how long our tirade is, no matter how old our children are, when we scream, the message always the same: CALM ME DOWN! 

We are saying that we just cannot handle the fact they will not obey or listen or calm down.  We cannot handle this, so we flip out.

Pg 32

No Pain, No Gain

Pain is often the greatest catalyst to powerful change.

Pg 38

Insanity

Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

-Can you recall a time when you panicked and flipped out and it actually helped?

Pg 43

Creating Space

When they were small I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done.  Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be.

-Anna Quindlen, "Goodbye, Dr. Spock," Newsweek

Pg 57

They Are Here To Replace Us

After seeing my newborn baby for the first time, I now know for a fact that I'm on my way out.  Let us make no mistake about why these babies are here: they are here to replace us.

-Jerry Seinfeld

Pg 61

The Paradox of Parenting

On one hand, we know parents are the most powerful influence in the lives of children and, thus, parents play the most important role on the planet in terms of shaping the future of humanity. 

On the other hand, we know parents cannot be held totally responsible for the choices of their children; to do so would negate the very responsibility of parents to train their children for responsible adulthood. 

And children cannot ever hold their parents responsible for their own choices without sacrificing the very individuality they crave.

Pg 63