Understanding the Need to Say "NO" to Your Children

Jill MacDonald, MA, LPC

I don’t know anyone who would say they enjoy hearing the word “NO.” And children especially dislike it. However, as a therapist and parent I know that saying (and hearing) “no” is a vital and positive part of our lives. Some would say it’s just a fact of life that we all have to deal with. That may be true – but that’s not what I’m saying. Saying “no” at the appropriate time is a primary aspect of teaching our children to be motivated, centered, appreciative, happy human beings. Wondering where I’m going with this? Well, let me fill you in!

It’s an understatement to say that we’re living in an overindulgent society. To many, MORE is always better. However, if this is true then there will never be enough – because someone will always have more than you do. So the combination of our material-obsessed society and two generations of parents that overcompensate by giving their children material things rather than time means that children are being robbed of the opportunity to develop motivation and drive in their own lives. Instead they grow up over-valuing things – but lack the drive to work for those things – yet feel entitled to them and even expect things should come easily. Our society is raising children who will grow up missing the primary qualities that make a successful human being – determination and patience.

So, how do we help our children? You begin by saying no. you start to understand that saying no is a tool. You learn that when you say no – you’re teaching your child something. You learn to say no in a non-punishing manner. You take the time to think through your answers, while keeping your focus on the life lesson at hand. Our role as parents is to raise our children to be happy, successful, contributing members of society. Therefore, teaching them to handle hearing “no” – and to understand the lesson behind it – is key.

Too many parents take the easy road and say yes for instant gratification. It gets the child off their back; quiets them down; shuts them up. But let’s think about the damage done from that choice. The kids see your own lack of patience. Therefore, they don’t learn to appreciate what they have, they can become spoiled, and they learn to manipulate in order to get what they want. And later on – they lack the drive and motivation to work for what they want because they feel entitled to it.

Take a few minutes to think about how you handle saying no to your children (or grandchildren). Take stock in the values you hold dear and want to teach them, and ask yourself if you’re working toward that goal. Learn to talk to your children and explain why you’re saying no (that it’s not a punishment) – and what you are trying to teach them from it.

              Source: 4therapy.com

              

          Related content in Greek

Television and Internet Safety

Parents have the right and the responsibility to exercise some control over how much television children watch and what programs they see. Parental control of television is particularly important when children are young but also applies to adolescents. Resist the temptation to use the television as a baby-sitter during the early years and prescreen as many programs as you can during the later years.

We have to accept the fact that our youngsters will be drawn to the computer screen and will want to explore the wonders of e-mail and the Internet. Unfortunately, with the advent of the Internet a culture has developed—especially among young people—that is disturbing. Advocates of this new cyberspace philosophy maintain, essentially, that the Internet, with its unlimited ability to acquire information and join the world in the discussion of ideas, is much more that a groundbreaking technological advance.

It is the driving force of a revolution of knowledge, much like the Renaissance, that holds all ideas are and should be free and in the public domain, to be shared and used, unfettered, by all.

Although the historical analogy may well be appropriate in its world-changing explosion of knowledge and ideas, it doesn't trump long-established rules of intellectual property on change the propriety and care we must take in our interactions with others—standards that exist long before the world became accessible from a little box in our homes.

It's important to impress on children that the Internet is a wonderful resource that comes with certain rules and responsibilities, not carte blanche to appropriate the ideas of others or use them in an inappropriate or cruel manner. The reason is simple, and at the heart of good manners: people can—directly or indirectly—be hurt.

Mind Your P's and Q's

The debate rages over music-swapping websites and the technology that facilitates and encourages it. Many of the legal and ethical issues are unresolved. How to handle those issues in the meantime?

Recognize that this material may well be the livelihood of someone else who is working to bring his or her music to the world. Then apply a "bricks and mortar" analogy. In other words, what would you do if the Internet did not exist, or if the technology to swap and download music files did not exist?

What if the only way you could enjoy and album or a piece of music on a regular basis were to go to the store and buy it, or climb the stairs to your brother's room, or head to a nearby friend's house to listen to it? Then follow the equivalent ways of going about that online.

Buying pirated copies or swapping them with anonymous strangers around the world at the expense or without the permission of the artist would not be appropriate in the offline world. It's equally bad manners in cyberspace.

With that in mind, make sure your children know the following:

• Good manners apply even in cyberspace.
• E-mail can be retrieved and traced to the sender. Pressing the Delete key doesn't make e-mail disappear forever, so be sure to review what you've written before you click the Send button.
• You cannot be sure that no record remains of what you download just because you move it from the hard drive to a disk. People have gone to jail on the basis of what experts have been able to retrieve from hard drives their owners thought were clear of incriminating material. So be aware that whatever you write or download in cyberspace can be read by others, and make sure that you would not be upset if it was.
• Some dangerous creeps live out there in cyberland. A correspondent who claims to be a 15-year-old cheerleader may be a 50-year-old pervert. People must be very wary of agreeing to meet a computer acquaintance in person, and never, ever meet such a person in a private place, such as a home or a secluded park.
• They will encounter some new and perhaps radical ideas on the Internet about things like drugs, sex, race, God, and Satan. Let them know that the best way to react to an idea they find intriguing or disturbing is to find out more about it and get different slants on it. Talking with parents, clergy, or someone they trust at school is always helpful.
• Make sure children understand never to respond to an e-mail that suggests a face-to-face meeting or asks for personal information such as telephone numbers, address, and credit card numbers. Explain the dangers of identity theft, how easily it can happen, and what the results are.
• When you see sites that encourage children to e-mail to it, a mental red flag should go up, and it's probably worth blocking the site.
• Teach children that anyone's request to engage in sex talk, or to post pornographic material online is dangerous. Do not be afraid to frighten your children with its dangers.
• Downloading copyrighted material from the Internet continues to be a hotly debated topic. Since the legal issues in many cases have yet to be resolved, apply some common sense, old-fashioned manners, ethics, and logic.

  If you are incorporating information from the Internet into your work product or homework and claiming it as your own, it's stealing. Plagiarism is the "old fashioned" term. It's wrong. If the information is freely obtained, it's important to cite the source and quote accurately whenever you can.

  If you are directly profiting—monetarily or in other ways—from information or material you obtained from the Internet—it's wrong. How would you feel if people took your stuff and claimed it as their own or used it without your permission in a way you wouldn't approve to enhance yourselves?

  Sometimes it helps to apply a "bricks and mortar" analogy. For example, if you needed a certain book, you'd either have to go to the library and borrow it or buy it from a bookstore. In some cases, you might have to contact the source—or even pay a fee or agree to certain conditions—to obtain permission to use it. As much as possible, follow the same rules and considerations you would if you had no access to cyberspace. Just because the Internet makes it easy to obtain information or take shortcuts to obtaining information does not make it okay to drop all your ethical standards.

            Source: familyeducation.com

            Related content in Greek

The Optimistic Child: Raise Your Children To Be Optimists

By Elizabeth Scott, M.S.

The benefits of optimism have been proven many times over by research. Optimists enjoy better health and increased longevity over pessimists, experience less stress, and achieve more in life. While much of our personality traits are inborn, you can influence your child’s tendency toward optimistic or pessimistic thinking: optimism can be taught! Here are some ways you can help instill this valuable trait and raise the optimistic child:

Help Them Experience Success: Children develop self-esteem and optimism by experiencing success, even in the face of some challenges. So, starting young, let your child do things for themselves (with you in a supporting role rather than doing for them), and acknowledge their success. For example, even if it takes more work on your part, allow small children to take on household responsibilities like sorting socks, putting their toys away, etc., and acknowledge their efforts.

   

Give Credit For Success: When your child faces a success, help them see how they contributed to it, and label those actions as strengths. For example, “You did well on your test. You’re really smart!” or “You’re a hard worker to have been so prepared!” You don’t need to tell them something’s great when it isn’t (children can sense false praise), but giving them credit for their own accomplishments builds self-efficacy and contributes to optimism.

   

Look For Future Success: When dealing with successes, focus on what traits in the child made the success possible, and examine other successes that can come from these traits. Going back to the example of the high test score, you may mention that the strong work ethic and intelligence that went into the successful test can help them reach other goals. You might explore what some of their goals for the future could be, whether it’s to be an astronaut or to do well in college.

   

Don’t Praise Indiscriminately: Optimism researcher Martin Seligman believes that telling a child that everything they do is great—rather than helping them experience real successes and persist in the face of reasonable obstacles—puts the child at a disadvantage, creating an overly strong self-focus and actually making them more vulnerable to depression! So validate that success, but do acknowledge when their efforts aren’t successful as well. Children learn to see through empty praise.

   

Validate, But Question: When your child faces failure or negative situations, validate your child’s feelings, but ask questions that can cause them to see things more optimistically. For example, if another child doesn’t want to play with them, talk about their hurt feelings and let them express themselves. Then ask what other friends they may want to play with. This helps them process (rather than deny) their emotions, but puts the situation in perspective.

   

Remember Success in the Face of Failure: When things go wrong, acknowledge your child’s feelings, but also help them focus on other successes they’ve had, look at how things can go better in the future or under different circumstances, and move on. For example, “I see you feel disappointed in your score. Maybe you’re having an ‘off’ day. You usually do better, and I’m sure you’ll do great next time.” And then get involved in another activity, or practice for future success.

   

Look For “Opportunities To Improve”: One tenet of optimistic thinking that parents may take issue with is where optimists downplay their responsibility where failure is concerned. While it does instill optimism to look at external circumstances that may have contributed to things going awry, it’s okay to also assess what your child can personally do in the future to do better next time. Just approach it as ‘looking for opportunities to improve’ rather than a self-blame session for your child.

   

Look For The Bright Side: Help your child see that there is good and bad in every situation, and make a game of looking for the silver linings in seemingly negative situations. For example, if your child can’t play outside because it’s raining, look at the positives of indoor play, or project what success may come from having extra time to study. Even a broken leg can bring the fun of having friends sign the cast! The game can get silly, and that’s okay, but it’s a good practice to get into.

   

Don’t Use Negative Labels: Correct unacceptable behavior, but don’t label your child with negative labels—ever! Children tend to live up—or down—to our expectations, so if you say, “Jack’s our whiner,” or “Lucy’s our shy child,” what may have been a passing phase becomes a more permanent identity. This is much more damaging to a child’s self-concept than some parents realize, and it perpetuates the very behavior you find so objectionable!

   

Make an Example of Yourself: Children watch us and see us as constant examples, whether we like it or not. The good news about this is that we can teach by doing. Practice optimistic thinking yourself. When you achieve success, don’t downplay it with false modesty, but give yourself credit for a job well done. When things go wrong, don’t catastrophize; put things in perspective.

Tips:

    As you're teaching your child optimism, it may help if you know whether you're an optimist or a pessimist.

    It's never too late to become more of an optimist! Be more of an optimist and you can better model that thinking style for your family.

    Have fun with it!

Source: About.com

 

Related content in Greek