Thank you.
It really is a joy and an honor to be here tonight to do a hopefully fun-filled workshop
on all the fun things we run into in parenting, meal time, bedtime chores, and getting your
kid out of the local jail.
I'll try to touch briefly on all of those.
The title of tonight's workshop is Winning at Parenting Without Beating Your Kids.
And I'm not just talking about corporal punishment, although we could address that a bit.
I always marvel when I see a parent of a five-year-old going, don't you ever hit your brother anymore.
Because what it says is if you're bigger, you can hit.
Or find somebody smaller, which is exactly what the kid has done.
A younger brother, a younger sister, the cat, the dog, or whatever.
But what I'm talking more about is the power struggles you and I as parents get into with
our children.
And the power struggles that we indeed lose.
I learned a long time ago that you can't control anyone who is bigger than you or has a bigger
mouth.
And that can occur quite literally at any age.
Just ask a parent of a five-year-old and they'll let you in on that.
But years ago, long before I had my own children, when I started teaching, I thought my job
in the classroom included making kids mine.
And I had a five-and-a-half-year-old teach me differently.
He would not sit in his seat, so I tried all the be nice things that you're taught in your
methods courses.
You know, Jeffy, please sit.
Jeffy, look how nicely Suzy's sitting.
Jeffy, I'll give you five stars if you sit.
Jeffy, the principal's coming in.
Please sit.
Nothing worked.
So I tried the more direct approach.
Sit.
And the kid looked at me and he said, make me.
Five-and-a-half.
So I walked over that kid and I sat him down.
He leaped up.
Walked back over the kid and did something I would never do today.
I sat on him.
I said, there, now you're sitting.
And he looked at me and he said, as soon as you get up, I'm getting up too.
And what he taught me was you cannot make any kid do something they choose not to do.
But what you can do is make it more comfortable for them to choose an appropriate activity,
whole lot less comfortable for them to choose an inappropriate activity.
Allow them the choice.
But more importantly than allowing our children choices, we need to allow them to experience
the consequences for the choices they make.
Unless, of course, those consequences are life-threatening or morally threatening.
I mean, you do have to intervene if it's life-threatening.
You can't line your toddlers up and say, now, if you run out in the street, you're going
to get hit.
Johnny, go show them.
See, I told you what had happened if you ran out of the street.
No, you're getting in trouble for that.
But most decisions we give our kids are not life-threatening or morally threatening.
We do another interesting thing to kids.
We say we want them to be responsible, caring, loving individuals who know how to think,
not just what to think.
But from the time they're this big, we say to them, think for yourself, think for yourself.
Kid, would you listen to me?
Think for yourself.
Don't forget your coat and mittens.
Think for yourself.
Don't you have an exam you're supposed to be studying for?
Think for yourself.
If you had put your shoes in one place, we wouldn't be looking for them now.
How many times do I have to tell you to think for yourself?
And kids spend the first two years of their adult life trying to get their heads on straight.
Because what we have done is taught them what to think, not how to think.
And it is critical today that we teach this next generation how to think.
In fact, there are three things we must give them to buffer them from sexual promiscuity,
drug abuse, and suicide.
Now those are the three big concerns for all of us who are now raising adolescents.
But the buffering doesn't start at adolescence.
It must start much younger.
And the three things I believe we must give each one of our children is, one, I like myself.
Two, I can think for myself.
And three, there is no problem so great it can't be solved.
Well, folks, they'll never get those last two.
I can think for myself.
And there is no problem so great it can't be solved.
Unless from the time our kids are quite young, we give them the opportunity to solve some
of their own problems.
So one of the first things I would ask you as parents to do is to look at what responsibilities
and decisions are yours, and what ones do you let your kids make.
Now we do an interesting thing here.
Parents of five-year-olds will have a list this long of all the things they'll let those
little kids do.
Get the kid in junior high or middle school, we reduce the list rather than increase it.
And our goal should be from the day we start letting them take responsibilities and make
decisions until they leave our homes, we have a plan there to constantly increase responsibilities
and decision-making skills so that when they do leave our homes, they're making most of
their own decisions and truly responsible for all of their own behavior.
But we have to make that happen.
Let me get a handle on the group here.
How many of you have infants through toddlers?
Or infants who are grade three, four, five, six?
Junior high, middle school, better known as un.
You know, unable to be an adult, unable to be a kid, and wanting to be both, right?
High school, beyond.
High school is where I've done my most work.
Junior high is my favorite group.
Lunch duty is my favorite duty.
So that ought to attest to my sanity or lack of.
But I must say my lectures change dramatically, both in the teaching field and the parenting
field after I had my own kids.
It is amazing the kind of credibility they force on one's life.
We have a 14-year-old daughter, Anna, a 12-year-old daughter, Maria, and an 11-year-old son, Joseph.
And they've taught me a whole lot about parenting.
In fact, somebody once told me that parenting is the one profession that when you finally
get good at it, you're unemployed.
And I believe that.
I am not a perfect parent.
I say to my kids, you're so lucky you don't have a perfect mother.
One day my oldest said, you're so lucky you don't have perfect kids either.
It's a whole lot easier that way.
And if you think it's rather difficult being a parent, try being a parent, lecturing on
it and having your children attend the lectures and hold you accountable.
My oldest has been known to say publicly, how come you don't always do what you tell
other people to do?
My youngest went to a conference with me.
I did a keynote address, got in the elevator with a few teachers, and my son looked up
at these teachers and said, do you want me to be good or bad?
I said, Joseph.
He said, well, they want to see what you're going to do either way, right?
I am not a perfect parent.
But I do let my kids make lots of decisions.
They don't get to make them all any more than you're going to turn your home over to a five-year-old.
Now when Joey was young, I did not say to him, do you want to go to bed or not?
That was not a decision he was going to make when he was three years old at our house.
But I did say, do you want to go to bed now with your red pajamas or now with your blue
pajamas?
I mean, that's a decision a three-year-old can make.
And he shows up, red bottoms, blue top, right?
It is not life threatening.
It is irritating, but it's not life threatening.
So you let it go.
He's getting ready for preschool.
We say, here's three outfits, pick one.
A preschooler can choose from that.
But when they get older, we don't say, here's three outfits, pick one.
We increase responsibilities and decision making.
Maria, here's your school clothes, here's your play clothes, pick something from your
school clothes.
And regularly, Maria shows up with a layered look.
Now it is all school clothes, definitely layered.
Gymnastics day, green tights, green leotards, red knickers, white socks that go halfway
between the knicker line and the ankles so the green tights sticks out, high top shoes,
no laces.
No idea if or how they stay on her feet all day.
Oversized shirt, bigger is better.
Red green, yellow and blue stripe.
Green, of course not matching the green in the leotard.
Half sleeve so the leotard sticks out.
I mean, the kid looks great.
Now I know a lot of parents who would say, go pick out an outfit.
You can't wear that one.
Now it is not life threatening to kids.
It is painful to parents.
But it is not life threatening to kids to wear the layered look.
You let them go.
It's like kids with shoes on the wrong feet.
If they hurt, they move them.
But we worry, worry, worry.
You know, I have yet to see a senior with shoes on the wrong feet.
But we sure spent an awful lot of the early childhood worrying about it.
No, you let them go.
My 14 year old has been picking since she was two and a half.
We don't say here's three outfits, pick one.
Here's your school clothes, here's your play clothes.
She has been through all that.
We just assume by her age she's going to go pick out an outfit that's appropriate.
Junior high though, we tend to start over.
Here's three outfits, pick one.
Those poor kids.
I don't know how many junior high parents have come up to me and said, would you look
at this kid?
He was such a good kid.
He was so well behaved, so well mannered, so well dressed.
Now look at him.
And I look at the kid and I get to know the parents.
I say, you know what?
He hasn't changed.
They go, what?
He hasn't changed.
From the time he was little, he dressed the way you told him to dress.
He acted the way you told him to act.
He said the things you told him to say.
He's been listening to somebody else telling him what to do.
He's been doing it.
He hasn't changed.
He's still listening to somebody else telling him what to do.
Problem is, it isn't you anymore.
It's his peers.
The kid hasn't learned how to think.
Are any of you raising a strong willed child right now in your life?
You say, that's why I'm here, right?
Let me tell you something neat about a strong willed child you may not fully appreciate
yet if they're young.
They are truly much easier on parents when the kid is in the older teen years than a
compliant child is.
But if you think about it, it makes sense.
You see, compliant children are very easily led when they're little for two things, approval
and to please adults.
They are just as easy led in the teen years for those same two things, approval and to
please their peers.
Now strong willed children, if you can get them up to puberty and still be excited about
life, are never easily led by anybody.
First by you, but you know what?
Also not by their peers.
So I want you to go home and give that kid a great big hug and say, I knew there was
a reason we were getting you up to puberty.
You see, we want kids who know how to think, not just what to think.
So take a critical look at what responsibilities and decisions you truly give your children
at home.
And are you increasing it as they get older or decreasing it?
I got a lot of trouble in school.
I went from secondary teaching to elementary crisis teaching.
I was in crisis.
I had parents on my case regularly because I refused to tell upper elementary kids in
Colorado to put their coat and mittens on.
And I would say to them, why do you wear your coat and mittens?
And they'd raise their hand because your mother said so.
I said, no, no, no.
And they said, well, cause you'll catch pneumonia.
I said, that's not true.
And it is not true.
Don't lie to kids when you're teaching them how to think.
Those of you who are school teachers, I'll bet you've seen kids who never bundle up,
who much to your dismay are never absent.
They are in school every single day.
They never get the flu.
They never get the chickenpox.
Uh-uh, they're there.
Then there's other kids whose parents wrap them up, bundle them up, warm the car up,
drive them directly to school, send a note.
Don't let them go out.
It's too cold.
They have pneumonia after winter.
That's not why you wear your coat and mittens.
Instead, I teach them why.
I hold up a hunk of frozen meat.
I say, kids, look at this meat.
It doesn't move, does it?
It's kind of cold, isn't it?
Now feel your bodies.
They're kind of warm, aren't they?
Feel the heart.
It's moving, isn't it?
Now you've gone outside with your coat all buttoned up.
All the warm air stays in, and there's a good chance your heart will keep moving.
But you go on out with it wide open, or worse yet, no coat at all.
There is a possibility.
All the warm air will go out.
The cold air could come in, and your organs could freeze.
Heart, kidney, liver, solid, just like this hunk of meat.
And the kids are going, ah.
But do you know what?
You have not lied to the kid.
That's why you wear your coat.
I say, but don't worry about it.
Your body takes care of itself.
It draws on the parts that can live without.
Your hands will go first.
And I show them white dots and black fingers and no fingers from frostbite, and the kids
are going, ooh.
I say, but that's why you wear mittens.
Most kids leaving my classroom were making a decision on a regular basis not to let their
organs freeze.
Now we can laugh about that.
You want to see how ingrained that is in our culture?
I'll bet some of you, the last time you went home to visit your own parents, now that you're
a responsible adult, you're walking out the door and your mom says, don't forget to bundle
up.
I mean, you're 30 years old.
Don't forget to bundle up.
Or you're walking out the door with your own children because now you are not only a responsible
adult, you are a responsible parent.
And your dad says, do you think you have that kid bundled enough?
Think for yourself.
But the underlying message is you really ought to listen to me.
But all I can do with you in two hours tonight is irritate you.
That's exactly what my goal is, is to irritate you.
But I'd like to do it like an oyster does it.
When it gets a grain of sand in its shell, it does one of two things.
It makes a pearl or it dies.
Hopefully you choose the former, but the choice is yours.
I mean, I get real upset with parents that attend these kind of workshops.
They go back and change everything and the kids say, what'd you go to this week?
You know, because everything changes.
I don't want you to do that.
But what I would like you to do tonight is just irritate, and don't poke your spouse
too hard tonight, but irritate about things that are going on in your homes.
So get in the way of helping your children become responsible, caring, loving individuals
who know how to think, not just what to think.
And one of the first things I'd like you to irritate about is the number of times you
hear yourself saying, think for yourself, think for yourself, but the underlying message
is you really ought to listen to me.
The next thing I'd like you to irritate about is the mini lecture.
Now you all know what a mini lecture is.
That's information the kid already had.
Got a kid outside, doesn't have his coat on.
He is not freezing.
That's life threatening.
You'd have to intervene.
But he's very cold.
Now I could walk out there in mini lecture room.
If you'd have put your coat on, you wouldn't be cold.
He knows that.
I want you to irritate from now on any time you give any kid a mini lecture.
If you'd have put your coat on, you wouldn't be cold.
If you hadn't hit your brother, you wouldn't be up in your room.
If you'd eaten everything on your plate, you could have had dessert.
If you'd have studied, you wouldn't have failed.
But it's like my husband saying to me, if you hadn't put the car in reverse, Barb, we'd
have two cars.
I don't need that information as I'm getting on the city bus.
Anymore than a kid needs to hear, if you'd have put your coat on, you wouldn't be cold.
Instead I walk out there and say, hey Joe, what's the matter?
He says, I'm freezing.
I said, well, how are you going to handle that?
He said, I want my coat.
I said, good thinking.
The kid decides how to solve a problem he's created.
You know as well as I do, you get a kid locked in a power struggle.
You even suggest he put his coat on.
He would freeze first rather than let you be right, especially if he's 13.
He's going to let you win that one.
No kid, you can handle it.
So take a critical look at what responsibilities and decisions are yours and what ones are
your children's.
And are you increasing it, not decreasing it?
The next thing I'd like you to look at is where are you coming from philosophically
as a parent?
One of the mistakes I think we make as parents is we read all the books.
And if it's in a book, it's got to be right.
And if an expert from afar, that's anybody over 100 kilometers, who I definitely qualify
here, comes in and says it'll work, then it'll work.
Wrong.
So we have to take anybody else's techniques and tonight you have to take mine.
Bounce them off our own philosophical tenets.
And if it won't bounce, I don't care who said it or what kind of research is behind it,
don't do it.
I have two basic tenets that I'll bounce anybody's techniques off of.
One, kids are worth it.
And I believe you must believe that too because I know you're not in parenting for the money.
Somebody forgot to tell you something.
The second tenet is I will not treat a child in a way I myself would not want to be treated.
If I wouldn't want it done to me, then I have no business doing it to a kid.
So I'd like you to examine where are you coming from philosophically.
That kids truly are worth it and are you going to treat them in a way you yourself would
not want to be treated.
After you've done that, I'd like you to look at what is your goal as a parent.
Is it to empower and influence this next generation or control them and make them mine?
Now we often say because it sounds good that our goal as a parent is to empower and influence
this next generation but our techniques belie that and very forcefully demonstrate that
what we're out to do is control kids and make them mine.
Now the bummer about controlling kids and making them mine is you lose it once they
get bigger than you.
In fact, you and I are going to be in serious trouble if we make a major attempt to control
this next generation.
We're going to be in trouble when we end up in the old folks' home.
And this next generation has learned because we spent years teaching them how to control
those weaker than them.
And at that point, those weaker than them will be us.
See, I won't do to a kid at seven something I don't want done back at me at 70.
Think about it.
People often say to me, don't you believe in behavior mod?
You bet I do.
I was trained in six cycle charting with rats at the university.
I believe in it.
We modify and influence one another's behavior all the time.
You all got up and walked out of here.
You would influence my behavior.
What we should not be in the business of doing though is manipulating our children's behavior.
No one likes to be manipulated.
Our job instead, I believe, is to empower and influence this next generation.
But power is like a candle with a huge flame.
Your flame as a parent can light up every child you come in contact with, including
the neighbor's child.
And never be diminished itself.
The beauty of empowering another human being is you never lose your own power.
Instead, all we have is a greater light to see by.
In an old age when our light starts to flicker, and it will, we'll have this next generation's
light to guide us then.
And we better hope it's a lot brighter than ours with all we're leaving them with.
So we need to look at responsibilities and decisions.
Where are we coming from philosophically?
And what is our goal as a parent?
The next thing I think we need to look at is what kind of structure do we have in our
homes?
Now we have three models you get to choose from.
Brick wall, jellyfish, backbone.
Now when I first started teaching, I used the brick wall approach.
I mean I was a nervous wreck.
I had no gray hair, saline, any credibility to anything.
It's not an issue anymore.
These are all mine.
Somebody asked me once who did it.
And I said, God.
And I said, and she did an awfully good job.
I mean what else can you say, right?
But I was a nervous wreck and very young.
And I rolled out the litany.
Thou shalt not, don't you dare, you better not, no hitting, kicking, biting, pinching,
poking, shoving, pulling chairs over, chewing gum.
The whole nine yards, I thought, till a ninth grader spit in another kid's face said, it's
not on your list.
So I had to change my rules.
Besides in brick wall schools and brick wall homes, we teach kids what to think, not how
to think.
And it doesn't help them during the third age of rebellion, which we'll get into later
in the teen years when they're adolescents trying to say, I can be me apart from this
entire older generation.
We don't want to rid you of brick wall.
Thou shalt not, don't you dare, you better not.
The opposite extreme is the jellyfish model, of which we have two kinds of families there.
One, anything goes.
Kids, we have two rules around here.
Just be kind and thoughtful.
Kids know nothing else except they're supposed to be kind and thoughtful.
There's no structure around meal time, around bedtime.
There's no structure for limits of what they can watch on TV, the kinds of activities they
can participate in.
We don't celebrate with them.
We just say, well, whatever they want to do is okay with me.
The other kind of jellyfish family is one we're seeing a lot more of today and ought
to be frightened of, and that's our latchkey kids.
We have a key around the neck, open the door, find a note, fix your own dinner, I'll be
home at midnight.
There's absolutely nobody around to give that kid any kind of structure.
Kids don't need a ridge of brick wall.
They don't need a jellyfish model.
What I believe they need today is a backbone.
But if you look at a backbone, it gives you flexibility you can't get from a ridge of
brick wall.
And we need flexibility when we're parenting our children.
But it also gives us an environment that is conducive to creative, constructive, and responsible
activity from our children.
And we need both.
We need flexibility and an environment that invites creative, constructive, and responsible
activity from our children.
So how can I form that backbone for my children?
One of the first ways we can begin to do that is by giving our kids responsibilities and
decision making skills.
And one of the best ways we can give kids responsibilities is with chores.
Now chores have a beginning and an end.
And it's also a great way of saying to kids, welcome to the family.
You are an important, responsible member of this family, and we're counting on you to
help us out.
Now how many of you got paid for doing the supper dishes tonight?
You say they aren't done yet, right?
Well why would we pay a kid for doing the supper dishes?
Well because it's real world.
Let them hire out to the neighbors for pay.
I want my children to understand that we are counting on you to help us out here.
When do you start chores?
When it's least efficient for a parent.
When the kid wants to do it, about two.
When they want to do everything.
At two at our house, you get to make your own bed.
At three, you get to help unload the dishwasher because you're climbing in it anyway.
At four, you get to help set the table because now you can reach it.
And at five, you get to help use a real vacuum cleaner.
And at six, they realize there's a difference between work and play but it's too late.
They're already hooked into the family routine.
And they say, but wait a minute.
If I don't pay the kid, he's not going to do it.
I refer to that when I'm working with teachers as the scratch and sniff sticker and star
syndrome.
And some of you school teachers may get a bit nervous here about the 3,500 stickers you
just ordered.
And you know what you can do with those in school?
I recommend you put them on your desk and say to your students, if you think your paper
needs needs or deserves a sticker, give it one.
Instead of, oh, good day for you, good day for you, no sticker for you, good day for
you.
He says, I have a sticker.
You know what?
You're stuck.
The problem with the sticker system at home is you have to keep upping the ante.
At school, you have to keep upping the ante.
Most five-year-olds show up in school internally motivated, excited, ready to learn.
And unless their parents were school teachers and gave them five stars for making their
beds and a quarter on Friday for the five stars they earned, those little kids do not
even know to ask, what are you going to give me if I do it?
But by third grade, they're saying, what do we get?
Sixth grade, do we have to?
High school, does it count?
And by their senior year, I want a car if I graduate.
Car's not internal motivation.
It's a bigger sticker with a bigger sticker price.
Those of you with older kids, you didn't have to listen.
We just got bigger stickers up there.
And what frightens me today is we are now seeing at universities an entire generation
of scratch and sniff sticker and star kids.
You sit down with a freshman class today and say, what field would you like to go into?
Many of our young, very bright people literally shrug their shoulders and say, whatever makes
good money.
Because what we have subtly and not so subtly taught them at home and at school is that
all good deeds are financially rewarded.
Just being in parenting ought to teach you that is not true.
All good deeds aren't even recognized, let alone rewarded, let alone financially rewarded.
We're also giving them a subtle message that if I don't get a reward for it, maybe it's
not worth doing.
And there's a lot of things in life worth doing we're never going to see a reward for.
And we also give them the message that if I get a reward for it, it's got to be worth
doing.
Do you know you can pummel somebody's brains out, knock them down, and make more money
than you and I will ever see in any other career, working 30 years.
Does that make that more worth doing than parenting?
We're giving kids a subtle message when we constantly bribe them.
I'll give you a quarter if you dump the trash, you're going to be in trouble.
Eleven year old says, I got enough money to go to movies.
One parent asks her kid to go get something for her and he says, it's going to cost you
a quarter.
She says, oh, two can play this game, dinner's seven and a quarter.
And the kid says, what was it you wanted?
You know, he said, well how am I going to get him to dump the trash if I don't pay him
for it?
Let me show you a typical scene in many homes.
Kid sitting in the chair watching TV.
Parent yells three rooms away.
Suzie, dump the trash.
No response.
Then we raise our voice.
But not to the danger zone.
Every kid knows every parent and teacher's danger zone and responds accordingly.
You know, it's like the little kindergarten kid, the teacher said, how come I had to tell
you do that five times?
The kid looked up and said, well, when my mother means it, she says it five times.
Think about it.
Susanna, now we get more formal.
You can throw in a confirmation name if you'd like.
Dump the trash.
Still no response.
Finally, we're boarding on a coronary.
We rip on in there.
Susanna, you irresponsible kid, get your eyes off that TV right now.
You get out there and dump the trash.
And by the way, young lady, you did not put your clothes away.
And I told you, if you didn't put them away, the next load was not going to get washed.
And how many times do I have to tell you to put the lid on a peanut butter jar in the
kitchen?
I don't know what I'm going to do with you.
And the kid looks up and goes, huh, what?
You know, they have selective hearing.
Meanwhile, you're bordering on a coronary.
Trash still isn't dumped.
You say, how am I going to get her to dump the trash?
First of all, you don't yell three rooms away.
Learning and teaching are not efficient professions.
They take time.
And I'm not talking that quality time you read about in the magazines.
You know, that's where you say to the kids, we're going to take a day off and go to the
city zoo.
And the kid says, I don't want to go to the zoo.
We are going to the zoo, young man.
And you are going to have a good time.
I am taking a whole day off of work here.
And I'm spending good money.
And no, you cannot invite your friends.
This is quality time with your parents.
Have you ever seen people doing that, trying to have fun, having quality time, and being
miserable?
And then you go tuck your little one in at night, and he says, dad, would you stay with
me?
I don't have time.
That's quality time.
Sometimes leaving what you're doing to go find the kid is quality time.
So you're not screaming at the kid.
And you walk up to the kid, and you look down at the kid, get his attention or her attention,
you say, Susan, I need you to dump the trash before your next meal.
Now what do I need?
And the kid kind of looks at you, because they're so used to you saying, right now.
Because so often we function on, this is my house, and we're going to do it in my way
and in my time.
We forget this is our home, and we can do it in our way and in our time.
And so I say, Susan, I need you to dump the trash before your next meal.
And the kid says, I need to dump the trash before my next meal.
I say, you got it, kid.
Now what I said wasn't nearly as important as what the kid said.
I need to dump the trash before my next meal.
But I'll bet there are some of you out there that would own that kid's problem all afternoon.
Susan, don't forget to dump the trash.
Sue, isn't there something you're supposed to be doing before dinner?
Susanna, you don't dump that trash, you won't get to eat.
And then we ask a dumb question.
Trash is sitting right in front of us, and we say, Susan, have you dumped that trash
yet?
No, let the kid show up for dinner with no place set.
You won't have to say a word.
Kids have fantastic memories when they need them.
How come I don't have a place?
Oh, the trash.
You see, nagging makes it my problem.
Silence keeps it the kids.
They say, wait a minute.
I thought you weren't into punishment.
I didn't say she couldn't eat.
She can eat as soon as their chores are done.
You say, well, I'm uncomfortable with that.
You personally have to have a consequence you can live with.
Consequences need to be logical, realistic, and palatable to you.
That's why I marvel that any parent would ground a teenager for a month.
I say, can you handle it?
I don't want the kid home for a month.
It's got to be something you can live with.
Well, I happen to be able to live with that because I do not bribe my kids with food.
Now, some of you grew up like I did.
If you don't eat, all the kids in China are going to starve.
Some of you grew up like my husband did.
If you don't eat, you don't love me.
Some of you got both of those injunctions.
You don't eat, you don't love me, and all the kids in China are going to starve.
Then you do what I did.
You finish your plate, your husband's plate, the kids plate, the cookie jar, and the platter
because if it ain't gone, how could you be full?
We don't need to bribe our children.
Think about it.
If you eat five carrots, three carrots, one, you can have this luscious chocolate cake.
That's a bribe.
If you behave in the store, I'll give you a cookie.
That's a bribe.
If you go potty, I'll give you an M&M.
We addict kids to M&M's, and then we tell them they're no good for them, and then we
stand outside the bathroom and go, oh, mommy is so proud of you.
Again, do not treat a kid in a way you yourself would not want to be treated.
Think about it.
We play airplane with the two-year-old.
Boy, have they got us.
All they have to do is shut the hanger.
We try to bribe them.
I don't bribe my kids with food.
In fact, what I really say to them is when the pets are fed and cared for, you may show
up for dinner.
If any of you ever worked on a farm, you know that's real world for you.
You don't let a cat die to teach a kid a lesson in responsibility.
It is not fair to the pet.
Now, some of you could not use that as a consequence, though, because you have bribed your kids
with food.
Some of you can't use that as a consequence because your kids don't show up for dinner,
especially if they are an adolescent.
Think about it.
What I want to show you tonight is that not every consequence will work for all of us,
nor will one consequence work for every kid in your family, nor will it work for the same
kid throughout his whole lifetime in your family.
Dr. Foster Klein, a clinical psychiatrist I worked with, taught me a way to do it with
an adolescent who is not going to show up for dinner.
And while we're on that, I believe from the time our children are born until they leave
our home at least one meal a day, we ought to break bread with them.
If we want to teach them to break bread with the neighbors, we must teach them to break
bread at home first.
And you say, wait a minute.
My adolescent hates breakfast.
And with his crazy schedule, we never see him for supper.
Fine.
I'm just going to join him at high school for lunch.
He will find a way to have breakfast with you, guaranteed.
Now you have this adolescent here.
He's not going to show up for dinner.
So you come up with another consequence.
Foster Klein recommends you walk up to the young man and say, Joe, I need you to dump
the trash before the end of the day.
Now what do I need?
Dump the trash before the end of the day.
You got it, kid.
Good luck.
The end of the day is midnight, 1130.
After the kid has gone to bed, you go in and gently start shaking them.
Joe, day's almost over.
Trash isn't dumped yet.
And you gently shake him.
Without sarcasm, ridicule, or embarrassment, they truly have no place in the home or the
school.
Those are control tools.
We're not out to control kids.
And no mini lecture, if you'd have done this before, kid, I wouldn't be waking you.
He knows that.
You gently shake him until it is more comfortable for him to get out of bed than to have this
pleasant parent keeping him awake.
You do that twice.
And I promise you, your teenager won't think of going to bed before the chores are done.
It is not the severity of a consequence that has its impact.
It is the certainty of it.
The fact the kid knows, if I go to bed before my chores are done, mom or dad's going to
wake me.
You say it, you mean it, and you do it.
These are counting on two things from you, consistency and structure.
Somebody who's there saying it, meaning it, and doing it.
Say well, what about all the other chores?
I can't be keeping them from dinner, and I can't be waking them up all the time.
We have chores at our house.
Our kids have to make their bed before they go to school.
I can't say if you didn't get it made, you can't go to school.
I'll be in trouble.
Besides, I'll have a fifth grader who'll say, ooh, I have an exam.
I better not make my bed today.
I can stay home.
I say to the kids, you need to make your bed before you go to school.
If you get it made, check it off your chore list.
It's done.
When you come home after you've had your snack, you may go directly out to play.
If however, you don't get it done, you may go out after you get it made.
Please note, I didn't say you can't go out until you get your bed made.
That's control.
You may go out after you get your bed made is power.
It's a subtle difference, but a powerful one.
Now, some of you could not handle that because you can't stand an unmade bed.
It calls to you all day long.
Make me, make me, make me.
That is your problem, not your child's.
So you're going to have to come up with a different consequence.
So you might say, kid, I can't stand an unmade bed.
If you do not get it made before you go to school, I'll make it for you.
But before you go to school, you must tell me which of my chores you're going to do for
me this evening.
And all you have to do is let them know it's mom's turn to do the supper dishes and we're
having spaghetti.
And most kids will get up there and get that bed made.
Some won't.
And at dinner table, don't say to them, hmm, remember if you'd have made the bed this morning,
you wouldn't be looking at those dishes.
The kid knows that.
And you know, that kid might go, darn, I wish I had made my bed this morning, as they're
plowing through the supper dishes.
But they might not.
Just getting to school early to be with their friends may have meant more to them than suffering
through the supper dishes.
But you have allowed them to make a choice and live with the consequences for that choice.
We say to our kids, you need to make your bed before you go to school.
One day, my oldest didn't get it made.
She came home, had her snack, wanted to go out and play soccer.
She said, mom, can I go out and play soccer?
I said, yes, after you get your bed made.
Please note, I did not say no.
We say no too often to our kids.
Did you ever notice that?
Mom, can I have a cookie?
No, it'll spoil your supper.
Dad, can I go over to Jimmy's house?
No.
Mom, can I have the car keys?
No.
Dad, can I stay out all night?
No.
And they never take us seriously on that big one, because we keep changing our minds on
the little ones.
Let me give you three alternatives to no you can start using right away, so when you really
need to say no to your kid, you can.
First one, mom, can I have a cookie?
Yes, later.
Dad didn't say no.
They have five-year-olds all ready to fight a no.
How do you fight a yes later?
Oh, but mom, I'm so hungry.
Okay, have a cookie.
It's already later, at least three seconds.
But most importantly, you have not changed the no to a yes.
It was a yes all along.
And don't say to your kid, make sure you eat your supper.
What are you going to do if they don't?
Get the cookie back?
I mean, the threats we make to kids.
No.
Second alternative, dad, can I go over to Jamie's house?
Give me a minute.
There is nothing wrong with asking for a moment to develop your own case.
You might think, gee, it'd be kind of nice to have him out of here.
Yes, you can go.
Or wait a minute, we have this and this and this, no, you can't go.
At least when you say no, you'll know why you're saying no.
How often, as parents and teachers, do we say no?
And we don't have the foggiest as to why we said it.
It just sounded good.
And then we got to try to defend it.
So yes later and give me a minute.
The third alternative is the one I use the most with adolescents.
But you can truly use it with any kid who is verbal.
Mom, can I have the car keys?
Convince me.
Huh?
Convince me.
Why should I spend all my energy at my age trying to convince my adolescent he shouldn't
have the car keys?
Let him expand all his youthful energy convincing me that he should.
Mom, all my friends, I'm not convinced.
But mom, you let Maria, I'm not convinced.
Mom, you don't give me the car keys, you got to take all of us to play practice.
I'm convinced.
And then when your 16 year old says, can I stay out all night, you can say no.
There is a time and a place for no.
I used to work with runaways, pregnant teens, and juvenile delinquents.
And I've yet to meet one of them not begging somebody in their life to say no to them,
to say you are important enough to say no to.
You and I need limits.
Our teenagers need limits.
But if you look at a backbone, it gives you flexibility and it gives you limits.
We need to help develop in our kids a moral and emotional backbone.
You and I are physically limited by our backbones.
There are things we cannot do.
Our physical backbone stops us.
But that backbone gives us the opportunity to interact with other human beings in a very
creative way.
We are just as limited by our moral and emotional backbones.
There are things we are not doing, not because it's against the law, against the religion,
we might get caught.
But our moral backbone stops us.
Well, that backbone is not fully developed in most 16 year olds.
And we have to have some limits there yet.
And a kid says, can I stay out all night?
We say no.
But then they say, how come?
And our typical response is, because I said so, which is a dumb reason.
They can go out the back window after you lock the front door.
They still don't know why.
Tell them why.
Basically, there's four reasons, sex, jail, drugs, and personal safety.
So you say, kid, you can't stay all night because of sex, jail, drugs, and personal
safety.
You don't trust me.
Oh, yes, I do, kid.
I trust you from the moment you walk out the door in the morning to you come back in the
evening.
It takes less than 10 minutes to get involved in sex, jail, or drugs.
And I just trust during all that time you're out, you're not.
See, I trust you a whole lot.
But after midnight in this community, when everything else is shut down, there isn't
a whole lot else left to do.
And I don't want to put you in a position you can't handle yet.
But mom, everybody's staying out.
Not true.
You're not.
You don't love me.
Oh, yes, I do.
And they're not going to be real impressed.
Many, however, will be outright relieved because now they can tell their friends they won't
let me.
You are helping them with their backbone as they are developing their own.
And you know, some of us are going to have a kid, no matter how we raise them, go out
the back window after we've locked the front door.
Because kids have what we call free will.
And the only thing we can hope is that we've given them all the information they need.
Because they'll do a whole lot better out there with this is why you can't go out then
because I said so.
I've worked with many a pregnant teen, and I've yet to see one pregnant on information.
It doesn't work that way.
In fact, I've often said to them as I walked in, there's a young girl, six months pregnant,
and I say, what happened?
She looks at me like, are you nuts?
I say, no, what happened?
She says, I didn't think I could get pregnant then.
I said, when do you think you could?
I have no idea.
So we have to teach them.
We have to guide them.
And then hope they don't make mistakes.
I like them to make mistakes when they're cheap.
I believe what Don Shaw says.
He says, if you're letting kids make most of their own decisions by the time they reach
puberty, they rarely take the quantum leaps in rebellion because it's hard to rebel against
your own decision.
And I saw that with my own son at 11.
He came to me.
Now, I married a Latin.
My husband has thick, black, curly hair.
He goes and gets it thin once in a while, which I think is almost criminal because I
have to fluff mine and perm it to make it look like I've got any hair.
And he goes and gets it thin.
Well, my son inherited his father's hair, beautiful black, thick hair.
And he comes up one day and he says, Mom, I'd like to get one side of my head shaving
with two stripes in it.
And I looked at him and I said, oh, Joe, you got to know I'm not going to like this.
But you know what?
It's not life threatening.
It's not morally threatening.
And it'll grow back.
We went to the beauty parlor.
He's getting his head washed.
I'm sitting there reading a book.
The beautician comes up to me and she says, ma'am, is it all right if we shave one side
of his head and put two stripes in it?
And I said, well, I got to tell you, I'm not going to like it.
But it's not life threatening.
It's not morally threatening.
You know what?
It'll grow back.
And she looked at me and she said, you know, he said the same thing.
And she made that hairdo look so good for one day.
You know, beauticians have an ability to do that.
And he could not get it to do anything the next day.
And his sisters, who usually give him a lot of grief, are in the bathroom with him with
mousse and spray trying to get this thing to look good, right?
He finally went in and had the other side not shaven but reduced in volume a bit.
And we all handled it.
The most difficult part of it all, though, was going to family get-togethers where the
relatives look at you and their first comment to me was, you're on the road too much, Barb.
I mean, I work eight days a month.
I'm on the road too much, right?
Look what's happening to your son.
The next comment is, if he does that at 11, what's he going to do at 16?
And I firmly believe you let them make those kind of choices when they're cheap to make.
They rarely make the real expensive ones later.
And I'm not just talking money.
And one relative in particular was ripping him up one side and down the other.
And his middle sister, Maria, who often gives him grief, came to his rescue and said, look,
it's not life-threatening, it's not morally threatening, and it'll grow back.
Right?
So you let them make choices.
We were on three alternatives to no.
Give me a minute, yes later, convince me, and then say no when you need it.
Well, Anna comes in.
She has not made her bed, has her snack, wants to go out and play.
And I said, you can go out as soon as you get your bed made.
I didn't say you can't go out until you get your bed made.
That's control.
You may go out after you get your bed made.
Well, kids are going to try three con games on us.
They practice them in the womb.
They know them long before you and I are ever where they're playing games with us.
If you can get good at not giving into these three cons, I think you'll find you have a
lot more energy left for parenting.
Con one.
Oh, please, mom, please let me go out.
I promise I'll get my bed made tomorrow.
I'll make everybody's on Friday.
Oh, please.
Begging, bribing, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth is a con one.
Now the problem with con one is we tend to give in and it affects the kid's ego.
We say, OK, go ahead and go out.
But tomorrow you get your bed made.
What we have just said to that kid is I don't believe in you.
I don't trust in you.
You're not big enough to handle the consequences everybody else in this household can handle.
I'll take care of you.
And how often do we do that to kids with special needs?
Here's the rules for everybody else, hon, but not for you.
Well, I will own as a parent, it's real hard not to give into a con one around three groups
of people.
You get good at not giving in.
Around these three groups, you got it made.
First group's the general public.
When you're in restaurants, grocery stores, field trips, churches, and on the mall, and
the kid's going, please, we tend to give in.
Second group, when the neighbors are watching, we tend to give in.
The third group's the hardest group.
You get good at not giving into this group.
You got it made.
Grandparents.
Grandma says, oh, let her have a hunk of chocolate cake.
And I got to say, Graham, I got to respect Maria's right to choose not to eat that cake.
Maria's going, huh?
We see we have a guideline in our house.
On regular days, desserts are served right on their plates.
I don't care if they eat it before or after with their mashed potatoes, because it's fruit.
But on holidays, when we serve the gooey stuff, we say, if you eat what's on your plate and
you still have room, you're welcome to have dessert if you'd like it.
Well, obviously, if you can't eat what's on a plate, you don't have room.
But Maria's in a con one, but mom, the food part's full, the dessert part's empty.
That is a con one, don't give in.
How do you avoid giving in?
You be assertive.
And I'm not talking that assertive aggressiveness where you attend assertiveness workshop and
aggress all over everybody because you have a right.
That is not true assertion.
True assertion is your ability as an adult to recognize your own rights, your own needs,
and your own wants for the three very different things that they are and the rights, needs,
and wants of the child you're dealing with and in your wisdom to see all six of those
in relationship to the whole.
The child wants to go out and play.
She needs to get her bed made.
And she has a right to be treated with dignity and respect.
She doesn't have a right to go out and play.
She has a far greater right.
And that is as a human being to be treated with dignity and respect.
You may need and want your child to make their bed, but you don't ever have a right to use
brute force, ridicule, or embarrassment.
You don't have that right.
You have a far greater right.
And that is as a human being to be treated with dignity and respect.
Our right, child's right supersedes both parties, needs, and wants.
So how do you come back assertively?
The kid's tears are rolling down his eyes and please, oh please, oh please.
You just calmly say to the kid, you may go out as soon as you get your bed made.
But watch how you say it.
We speak five ways.
Our body, our face, our eyes, our tone of voice, and what we actually say.
Only 20% of what we communicate to our children is done with the words we use.
The other 80% is how our body speaks those words.
It's like that little third grade boy who had a teacher who did not like third grade
boys.
The kid nailed her on it and said, you don't like third grade boys.
Teacher looked down at him and said, oh hon, I love little third grade boys.
He looked back up at her and said, would you tell your face that then?
Make sure what you're saying and what you're saying are one and the same.
Your affect and your effect are the same.
So you just very calmly say, you may go out as soon as you get your bed made.
Well if a con one doesn't work, kids are going to try a con two.
They don't necessarily do it in this order, but it's a fairly typical order.
You mean, oh mother, nobody else in the block has to make their bed.
I hate you.
This is dumb.
This is stupid.
How come Maria didn't have to make hers?
And Joey puts his pillow in the middle of the bed.
And those of you who are step parents will recognize this one.
You're not my real father.
Wait until I go see my dad this weekend.
He doesn't make me do it.
And you could just go.
Con two is anger and aggression.
Con one, we give in.
It affects the kid's ego.
Con two, we hook in and it affects our heart.
We get angry back.
Don't you talk to me like that.
Don't you ever talk to your mother like that.
And what we forget is that aggression only begets more aggression.
If they get angry and you get angry, they'll get angry, you'll get angry, they'll get angry,
you'll get angry.
And you have to explain to the child abuse team why you're on your kid's neck over making
a bed because you're going to lose it.
Have you ever in anger said something you wish you hadn't said, done something you wish
you hadn't done?
Do you know why that happens?
When you get angry, the adrenaline rises, shuts off the thinking portion of your brain.
Not theirs, yours.
So aggression begets aggression.
Now passivity invites it.
So we don't want to be a passive parent.
Oh, don't talk to me like that.
Wait until your mother gets home or wait until your father gets home, whichever the case
may be.
Aggressive people seek out passive people to attack.
And you're going to be a battered parent of a junior high age kid because they're going
to hook you.
Aggression begets aggression.
Now passivity invites it.
Another thing we do when a kid's in a con too is we argue.
I refuse to argue with anyone over two and a half.
Their language skills are too well developed and I'll lose.
Remember that the next time you go to argue with a 12 year old.
Yes, I did.
No, you didn't.
No, you'll lose.
Another thing we do is we let it affect the way we treat our other kids.
We're screaming at this kid.
Another kid comes out and says, would you tie my shoe?
Tie it yourself.
And by the way, young man, if you had gotten Velcro sneakers like I told you to, you wouldn't
be tying those bows.
I don't know what I'm going to do with these kids.
They're driving me nuts.
You have a coronary, they get a new parent.
That's not fair.
And those of you with adolescence are in a high risk category for a coronary.
I mean, look at their adrenaline.
Feet are too big.
Hands are too big.
They're too big.
They're too small.
Voices are up.
Voices are down.
Zits are coming out all over their faces.
Hair is not growing out.
It's a mess.
They come in the front door all smiles.
Two minutes later in the bathroom crying.
I said, what happened?
She used my comb.
I said, oh my, are we going to make it through this?
Yes, but you can't keep hooking into a kid's adrenaline.
Aggression begets aggression.
Passivity invites it.
But the beauty and power of assertion is that it can dissipate another person's aggression.
But I would caution you, as powerful as assertion is, aggression is more fun.
And we tend to do the things that are more fun.
I mean, you're at a family get together.
You're just waiting for your sister-in-law to make a comment so you can leap in with
the one you've been saving for six weeks.
You know, that's a lot more fun.
But it is not more productive.
How do you deal with a con too?
Aggression begets aggression.
Passivity invites it.
Assertion can dissipate it.
The kid is screaming at you.
It's tough.
But you need to center your own energy and calm yourself down.
And in doing that, then, you have the opportunity to either redirect the child's energy or grab
onto that energy and give life to their learning to discipline them.
If you go back to the Latin roots, to discipline with authority means to give life to a child's
learning.
And I believe that is what one of our major goals is, is to give life to their learning.
And discipline does four things that rescuing and punishment cannot do.
First of all, it shows the kid what they've done wrong.
Secondly, it gives them ownership of the problem.
Thirdly, it gives them ways to solve it.
And most importantly, fourthly, it leaves their dignity intact.
And so you center your own energy, calm yourself down.
Kid is screaming.
You soften your voice and you say, you may go out as soon as you get your bed made.
It's the same line you started with.
You don't even have to get real creative.
You just say it over again.
Now what if they run?
If they're little, catch them.
Not just because you can, but it's real risky with an angry kid who is young out in the
streets.
They may do something real crazy.
But you don't grab them and shake them.
Don't you run away from me.
You grab them in a hug and you rock them.
You say, are you nuts?
It sure keeps you a lot calmer when you do it this way.
Have you ever seen people in the grocery store grabbing a kid?
Gee, why don't we get home, young man?
Or it's you in the grocery store grabbing your kid.
Neither of you feel very good about it.
No, you grab them and you rock them.
You're angry, you're upset, it's okay.
I'm not even dealing with making the bed.
I don't want to escalate a temper tantrum.
And so I just rock them.
You're angry, you're upset, it's okay.
And then when the child calms down, you turn them around and you smile at them and you
say, you may go out as soon as you get your bed made.
Terribly consistent.
What if they're older?
I am not going to chase a 13-year-old down the street.
You ain't like it, all of you young lady.
If your 13-year-old starts to storm out the door, give them permission to go.
They hate it.
You just say to the kid, when you've cooled off, come on back.
They can't storm out against you.
You just gave them permission to go.
And you can't lose, but neither can they.
It's not a contest then.
We shouldn't view conflict as a contest that has to be won.
I like to view it the way the Orientals do it.
It is a challenge and an opportunity in a time of crisis to grow.
Next time you're hassling with your teenager, stop for a moment and think, this is a challenge
and an opportunity in a time of crisis to grow.
You don't want it to be a win-lose situation.
You want it to win-win.
You say, but he's still got to run outside.
Sometimes the best things we can do when we're real angry is to walk away from the situation.
Then when he comes back in, you smile at him, which he's not expecting.
You put your arm around him and say, you know, kid, sometimes we think we can run from problems,
but they're still here when we get back.
Another time, not now, but another time we're going to talk about how you can handle situations
without running from them, because I know you can.
Meanwhile, kid, you may go out as soon as you get your bed made.
And what they realize is you say it, you mean it, and you follow through on it.
What if a con two doesn't work?
They're going to try a con three.
This is the most powerful con any kid has.
No one can make a kid do something they choose not to do.
In fact, there are three groups of kids who don't bother with one and two.
They go directly to three.
The three groups of kids who go directly to three are the three ages of rebellion.
Kids rebel at two against mom, at five against mom and dad, and at puberty against the entire
older generation, of which you and I happen to be a member.
Now, if any of you happen to have a two-year-old and a five-year-old and a kid at puberty,
and you wondered why you were cracking up, now you know.
And if at this point in your life you also happen to have a spouse who's reaching 40,
you have four at the age of rebellion.
Hang in there.
It is tough, but it too will pass, just like birthdays do, right?
Con three, the most powerful con a kid has.
I ain't going to do it.
You can't make me do it.
I didn't want to go out anyway.
It's starting to rain.
Spank me.
It won't hurt.
Send me to the room.
I'll listen to my stereo.
It's the salt.
Normal, healthy kids will soak for five minutes, gifted for ten.
You say, oh, we've got a lot of severely gifted kids at our house.
No, what we have are a lot of kids who have learned how powerful that con is.
Con one, we give in.
Con two, we hook in.
Two.
But con three throws us into a one or a two.
Oh, come on.
You can do it.
I'll help you.
Or wipe that smirk off your face, and I'm going to wipe it off for you.
And they have us.
How do you deal with a con three?
Same way you dealt with one and two.
You may go out as soon as you get your bed made.
Don't be surprised at that point if the kid doesn't go, I know.
I can go out as soon as I get my bed made.
And they mock you beautifully.
Bite tongue.
It is their way of saving face.
I'm not saying ignore it.
I've had parents say to me, I'm not letting any kid of mine talk to me like that.
I said, well, what are you going to do?
Smack them.
I'll show them.
I said, uh-uh.
About all you've shown them is when they're bigger, they can hit.
What you need to do is not ignore it.
You need to not empower it.
And there's a difference between ignoring something and not empowering something.
The way you don't empower something is by immediately empowering something else.
So when the kid is saying, I know, I can go out as soon as I get my bed made.
And by the way, that's the one that pushes every button I've got.
Each one of us need to know which one, which con will push our buttons.
Some of you, when the tears roll, you can't resist, you give in.
Others of you, when a kid gets angry, every button you've got gets pushed and you hear
your mother's words roll off your tongue.
And you swore you would never talk like her.
But they've got you.
And for me, it's that, na-na-na-na-na-na.
And the way I handle it is I center my own energy, calm myself down.
The kid goes, I know, I need to get my bed made.
Then I can go out.
And I say, you got it.
You may go out as soon as you get your bed made.
And what the kid sees is none of this is working.
Now what if they storm up to their bedroom, slam the door, put weatherstripping on the
door?
The only people that are going to question that are people who go to buy your home when
you put it on the market.
Huh, weatherstripping on the door.
Let them go up there.
Don't give them grief.
Don't hook into it.
What if it gets to be supper time?
Invite them down.
Tell the kid, OK, you don't make your bed no supper.
What we tend to do if a real world consequence doesn't seem to be working or we haven't
given it time to work, we start punishing.
OK, then no supper.
And the kid said, that's all right.
I've got enough food up here to last me at least a week.
And we, woooo.
Get grounded for six.
Now we've got a kid home for six because he didn't make his bed.
Now stick with it.
Invite the kid down for supper and start over.
And don't even bring up the bed.
And pretty soon you realize this isn't a big issue with anybody.
And if I'd like to go out tomorrow, I'm going to have to make my bed.
What if he goes up and goes to sleep in an unmade bed?
Have you ever slept in an unmade bed?
It's not life threatening.
It's irritating, but it's not life threatening.
So the next day he knows that he'd like to go out that day when he comes home from school.
He's going to have to get his bed made in the morning.
You say it, you mean it, and you do it.
Kids are counting on consistency and structure.
He's like, but what if I go up there and the bed is very interestingly made?
Top cover looks great.
Undersheet is trailing.
Three feet beyond the bed.
Now I can walk up there, grab the top cover, and rip it off and say, do you call this a
made bed?
Which is a dumb question.
You just unmade it.
No.
You just walk up there and say to the kid, I can't accept this.
You need to do it over.
Oh please, mom, you've got to accept it.
It's time to go to school.
I can't accept it.
You need to do it over.
Hey, it ain't my fault.
Marie about.
I can't accept it.
You need to do it over.
I ain't doing it.
I know.
You can't accept it.
You need to do it over.
There's the same three cons again.
Sometimes kids do them real fast.
You just keep coming back with what you need from them.
But the standards you set should not be ridge of brick wall, bounce a quarter off that bed.
It shouldn't be jellyfish where anything goes.
You need to teach your kid what you're expecting for their bed to be made.
If you walk into our home, we've got three different kids.
They're like day, night, and afternoon.
Anna's got her bed very neatly made.
Maria, who layers her clothes, layers her bed.
She's got one cover lit and another cover lit and some pillows and stuffed animals.
Joey puts his pillow in the middle of the bed.
He's on the fifth percentile in height.
He sleeps in the middle of the bed.
What's wrong with it, right?
You have some bend there.
And before you set too many standards for your child's room, check your own out.
If you want to teach them something, do it yourself.
And make sure that your expectations aren't too high for your kids.
And then when your kids reach the teen years, turn that bedroom over to them as their first
experience in apartment living.
Collect a damaged deposit if you deem it necessary.
But you know, you've taught them to clean their closets.
You've taught them to vacuum.
You've taught them to make their beds.
You've taught them all those things during the course of their two years old on up.
Now let them have their room.
And the only conditions we put on our adolescent is once a week you strip the bed and change
the sheets and you vacuum the floor.
Basically it's for your bugs that way.
And one day my oldest came down and she said, mom, Saturday I think maybe I better plan
some time to clean my drawers.
I couldn't believe it.
My adolescent wants to clean her drawers.
She said, yeah, I can't get them open.
They will use the skills we teach them when they need them.
And just to wrap up on chores, I think first thing we have to do with children is to model
it for them.
And then to teach them.
And then to guide them through it.
And let them do it on their own.
If I don't pay them, do you ever give your kids money?
Yes.
Our children get allowance, get money for one reason.
In this culture we happen to use money.
Now if we use chickens, I'd have to teach them to use chickens.
But we use money.
So our children get money for one reason.
They need to learn to handle it.
They need to learn to do three things with money.
Spend money, save money, and give money.
And we teach them at a very young age to do that.
The rule we use at our house is when you don't eat it, you can start getting an allowance.
Some kids that's two, some it's four.
But when they don't eat it, you can start giving them the allowance.
You say, how much do I give my kid then?
You have to ask yourself several questions.
One, how much can I afford?
Two, how much do I want to give them?
And that's not the same question.
Three, how much can the kid handle?
And four, what does the kid need it for?
Obviously, two junior high age kids, one needing to buy all of her extracurricular activity
tickets, her lunch tickets, school supplies, and her own clothing needs a larger allotment
than the kid who only needs it for extracurricular activity tickets.
So you have to ask yourself those questions.
You start giving them money when they don't eat it, and they get it just because they
need to learn to handle money.
It is not attached to chores.
Let me show you three families from a toddler stage up through the teen years, which by
the way is where we see the fruits of our labors.
A brick wall family hands a toddler a dollar, but takes 50 cents back and says, kid, here's
a dollar, but we're going to keep 50 cents, because 25 cents of this we're going to put
in the bank for you, because we can't trust the kid to.
I mean, he keeps opening the bank and counting his money and giving it to his friends, so
we can't trust him to handle it.
The other 25 cents I will hand you at charge when they pass the collection plate around,
and if you give it to you before, you'll lose it.
And the rest of your money you may spend on this, this, and this, and this, but not on
that or that or that or that.
Brick wall dictates how you spend it, how you save it, and how you give it with a toddler.
I know how to think about money you don't is the message the kid gets.
The opposite extreme jellyfish model.
Once in a while we throw some money at the kid.
The kid never knows how much or when it's coming, but then we give the kid grief.
If you hadn't spent your money on all these little trinkets, you could have had money
for this big one.
If you had put some money away, you'd have some money now, but we don't provide the bank
for the kid.
You know, toddlers can write in a little spiral notebook their pennies, nickels, and dimes,
and if they're the oldest child, they don't learn as quickly as the second child does,
the difference between a nickel and a dime, because the second child has the first child
teaching them.
Well, if you let me have all the little silver ones, you can have the big fat ones.
You know, they learn.
But not in a jellyfish family, basically we're kind of throwing money at them and mini lecturing
them when they don't handle it well, but we aren't giving them the opportunity to spend
it appropriately and teaching them with some guidelines.
We aren't teaching them to save, and we aren't teaching them to give.
Backbone family hands a kid a dollar and says, kids, some of this money must go into savings.
From the day you start giving your children money, they should determine how much they
save.
Children will not save for anything if they don't want for anything, though.
And how many of our children today don't want for anything?
They don't get attached to a little teddy bear anymore.
They got the whole Care Bear collection.
They don't have one cabbage patch baby.
They have five, one for the front back, one for the back, twins on the side, infant and
the carry-off.
It's terrible.
We need to give our children what they need, what they want they can save their money for.
Maria wanted fluorescent socks.
She didn't need them.
She wanted them.
And we said, you need them, we'll buy them, but if you just want them, we won't.
She wanted fluorescent socks.
We would buy the regular ones, but not the fluorescent ones.
They cost a lot more money.
So she saved her money and bought two pairs, a green pair and an orange pair to layer,
one on top of the other, of course, right?
Now once in a while needs and wants gets mixed together.
Our oldest wanted a new bike, needed a bike.
She'd outgrown all the other ones that she had gotten as hand-me-downs.
So it was a want and a need.
When you have a want and a need, you can go half with them.
We said, okay, kid, we'll go half with you.
Pick out a bike.
She did.
A $350 US dollar bike.
My bike, my husband's bike together do not equal $350.
We about choked.
Then she threw one of my lines back at me, but mom, you say what you mean, you mean what
you say, and you do what you said you were going to do.
So I said, okay, you figure out your budget, we'll figure out ours.
We started figuring out our budget.
She was working on hers.
And before we could figure out ours, she realized she would probably have her driver's license
before she could afford her half.
So maybe she ought to look for something besides a brand new bike or at least a cheaper bike.
She found a friend who had had a growth spurt very suddenly in her early adolescence after
buying a brand new, very expensive bike.
And she wanted to sell that bike very cheaply.
So Anna saved her money and put most of her money into savings during that time.
She wrote letters to relatives.
Please do not send me a birthday gift, send me money, I want my bike.
And she got her bike, but we went half with her.
There is a time to do that.
But a toddler in a back-run family, you say some of this money must go into savings and
the kid determines how much.
Some of this money must go to charity.
And when they're little, you determine the charity.
But when they get older and you get all these give me letters in the mail, give me this,
give me that, give them to the kids, let them determine what charity they'd like to contribute
to.
And the rest of your money you may spend on things that are not life-threatening or morally
threatening.
Sugar is life-threatening in our house.
It rots your teeth and you die.
Then your teeth rot, I know.
It rots your teeth and you can't eat, then you die.
And so you can't buy candy with your allowance at our house.
But basically there's a lot of other freedoms.
Now the backbone family then goes up to the teen years along with the brick wall and jellyfish
family.
Brick wall family, jellyfish family and backbone families, teenager wants a designer shirt.
Gotta have a designer shirt.
In the old days it was easy.
You bought one alligator, a lot of Velcro and stick it on every shirt, you know, it was
real easy.
But nowadays it's hard.
They don't wear the labels on the inside of the collar anymore.
They're all over the front of the shirt.
Gotta have a designer shirt.
Brick wall family says absolutely not.
I am not letting you waste that money on a designer shirt.
It is a fad.
It will pass.
No, I don't care if it is your own money.
You're not wasting your money on that.
See, I know how to think about money.
You don't.
Jellyfish family, you want a designer shirt?
Buy a designer shirt.
See if I care.
But you just remember young man, you waste all your money on a designer shirt.
Don't come asking me for any three weeks from now when you don't have any money left.
I know how to think about money.
You don't.
Backbone family, kid doesn't even have to ask if he can buy a designer shirt.
It's not an issue.
From the time he was young, you let him make mistakes when they were cheap.
You let him choose different outfits with limits.
And you started expanding those limits.
And you talked to them about not all sales are bargains and not all bargains are sales.
And to look at quality and quantity and those two don't always match either.
And the kid decides he wants a designer shirt, saves his money for it, goes and gets it.
It's not life threatening.
It's not morally threatening.
Now we have a problem though.
All three kids go to the same junior high.
The school is now selling t-shirts, school logo on it.
Gotta have a t-shirt.
Rick Wall family says, aren't you glad we didn't let you waste your money on that designer
shirt?
Kid, I know how to think about money.
You don't.
I'll bet some of you were raised that way.
And you can still hear your parents saying, aren't you glad we didn't let you go to that
school?
Aren't you glad we made you marry that man?
Aren't you glad we, because hon, we know how to think you don't.
See it goes through all parts of our lives, not just the money issue.
Jellyfish family, if you hadn't spent your money on the designer shirt, you'd have the
money for this shirt.
But jellyfish families are not only good at mini lectures, they are very good at loaning
money with long emotional, not financial, emotional strings attached.
And some of you were raised that way and you can still hear your parents saying, you're
going where for the holidays?
And every emotional string they ever attach pulls you guess where.
Blackbone family doesn't even bring up the designer shirt because it's not an issue.
And just says to the kid, darn, sometimes we don't have money for things we like.
Does that happen to you?
Forget what we'd like, what we need sometimes we don't have the money for.
But you say to the kid, I hear you.
Kids need six critical life messages every day.
I believe in you.
I trust in you.
I know you can handle this.
You are listened to, you are cared for, and you are very important to me.
Brickwall and jellyfish family tend not to give those messages.
But a backbone family, you put your arm around the kid and say, kid, I hear you.
It is a bummer.
Sometimes it hurts when we don't have money for things we'd like.
And you know what that kid might do?
He might say, darn, I wish I hadn't spent my money on that designer shirt.
But he also might not do that.
That designer shirt may have meant so much to that kid that they would forgo 10 t-shirts
and six movies just to be able to have one designer shirt.
But within limits you're letting your kid make decisions.
You're listening to the kid.
You're hearing them.
It's like a teenager coming up with a zit right here, feeling like his whole face is
aglow.
And we say, oh, hon, don't worry, I had 30 when I was your age.
That is not listening to your kid.
Nor is if you hadn't eaten the french fries and the chocolate, you wouldn't have that
zit.
They don't need that.
They need to know that you understand and you put your arm around the kid and say, it's
a bummer.
You remember what it's like to have a zit right here, you feel like your whole face
is aglow.
Let's see if there isn't something we can get that can't cover that up and clear it
up, which says, I hear you.
We need to listen to our kids.
And when they make mistakes, we don't mini lecture them, we don't mock them, and we don't
rescue them.
We say to the kid, I believe you can handle it.
When do you increase allowance?
When the kid can convince you it needs to be increased.
Our oldest said, mom, I need a bigger allowance.
I said, convince me.
She said, well, I'm older than my brother and sister.
I said, that does not convince me you need a bigger allowance.
She said, well, I need this and this and this and I have big feet.
I'm now in adult shoes.
I'm in adult clothes.
I have more activities.
She wrote out a budget.
She convinced us she needed a larger allowance.
She also said, I don't need it once a week.
I can handle it once a month.
So she got a bigger allowance once a month.
She's handling it.
Maria, our layered look kid, has a fantastic facility with money.
She decided that if her sister could convince us she needed a bigger allowance, so could
Maria.
So Maria laid out some things and she got a bigger allowance not as big as her sister.
She isn't ready for it.
She doesn't need it.
But she also said, I like it once a month.
Now, you've got to understand, Maria, you could give that kid money on January 1, and
she would have it budgeted out through December 31, and have money to spare, loan it to you,
and keep good records.
Joey thought that was kind of neat.
And he said, I need a bigger allowance.
So he tried to convince us, and he worked hard.
I mean, he even got down to the details of he can't wear his sister's shirts a button
on the opposite side.
And he got a bigger allowance almost more for the effort.
I mean, he put quite a bit of effort into that.
And he was ready for a little bit bigger allowance.
But he said, I like it once a month.
Now, you've got to understand Joe.
Joe's one of those neat, creative kids who you send him up to get ready for school, forgets
why he went up there, starts reading a book.
He loves books.
Oh, ready for school, right?
So he found out that a month is too long for him.
And he's back to every other week.
And he may be on every other week the rest of his life.
How many of you get paid once a week?
How many of you get paid every other week?
How many of you get paid once a month?
How many of you are farmers?
Once a year, maybe, right?
And some of you who get paid every week, if you were not paid every week, would be in
serious trouble.
Well, kids are people, too.
So you've got to treat them that way.
But you teach them to spend, to save, and to give.
I believe what Teilhard de Chardin said, the age of nations is past.
The task before us now, if we would survive as a planet, is to build the earth.
And I think at a very young age, we need to teach our children that everyone else is our
brothers and sisters, and that we need to give to them when they have less than we do.
We have to share of our wealth.
And I want to teach them very young to do that.
So they do have to spend their own money and be selective at how they spend it.
They need to save their own money and have a goal for saving.
And they need to be able to give to those who have less than they have.
Then when they reach the teen years, they've done their short-term savings.
They need to begin to participate in short-term and long-term.
Long-term has two signatures.
Hopefully, you've been long-term saving for them for a long time.
But it has two signatures, yours and theirs, so they don't haul off with their university
money if they get upset with you at 15.
When they start making their own money, they begin to contribute then.
And then you weigh, do you need to continue giving the allowance, or do you need to cease
the allowance?
Because now they have their own money that they are out working for.
If you have employment in the home, you have your own job in the home, and you want your
children to contribute, if you have your own business that you run, you want them to help,
you can pay them for that.
If there are extra, extra chores around the house, you can pay them for that.
But don't pay them for the everyday things.
Let them know that we're going to make this place work together without being paid.
You increase it so when they leave your homes, they're making most of their own decisions
about money and truly able to handle their own money and be very responsible with it.
Mealtime.
Mealtime should be a celebration, I believe.
If we want to teach kids to break bread with their neighbors, we've got to have a celebration
at home.
And check out your mealtime.
Many, many mealtimes are utter disasters.
Get your elbows off the table, stop that.
What'd you do at school?
No, you can't have that.
Yes, you have to do.
And the kids say, is this a celebration?
We're supposed to enjoy this?
Our kid is put in front of TV and told to eat.
I think we need to take time in our culture today to sit down and break bread with our
children.
My husband and I learned a long time ago, though, that we can't talk to one another
during mealtime.
We have to talk with the kids.
And if we talk with one another, the kids will get our attention some way.
So we talk with the kids.
And I don't say, what'd you do at school?
Because a typical response will be, nothing.
And so, barring.
And I say, you know what I did today?
And they now know that I'm going to tell them what I did today.
And pretty soon your kids saying, you know what I did today?
Instead of asking a question.
And for the most part, picky eaters come from panicky parents.
We worry, worry, worry.
Most kids would not have problems with their food if we didn't worry so much about it.
When they're hungry, they're going to eat.
And little kids probably ought to eat five, six, seven, eight times a day instead of those
three meals we set them down to.
And if you check it out, after you finish punishing them for not eating, they're probably
eating five, six, seven, eight times a day.
And I believe we start young by letting them make some choices.
And teaching them that this is a carbohydrate, bran is a laxative, bananas are not, this
is a protein.
So the kids can learn to pick good foods.
I think once in a while you ought to have a smorgasbord.
So if they ever get to a real one, they don't go, oh, look at all this food.
They've had an opportunity at home to pick some of their own foods.
Other times it's put on their plate.
And I teach them to eat well, but that means you've got to have good stuff in your house.
And you say, I've got to get rid of all the garbage?
Well, you could hide it if you wanted to, but it's probably better if you get rid of
it.
Or make a run on the 7-Eleven at midnight for that chocolate that you love.
But I believe at a young age, if we want to buffer kids from sexual promiscuity, drug
abuse, and suicide, one of the ways we can buffer them is to teach them to put good things
in their bodies and to like their bodies.
So you have them eat good food.
But you let them have choices with that food.
And you say, you want a half a sandwich or a whole?
Don't say, what do you want to eat?
It's a dumb question.
The kid says spaghetti.
We say, oh, that's for supper.
Why did you ask them if you can't live with their answer?
I say, you want a half a sandwich or a whole?
And the kid says, a whole.
Don't say, mm, mm, mm.
Yesterday you only ate a half.
Why did you ask them if you can't live with the answer?
But Joey has often said, I want a whole sandwich.
But he starts to eat it.
And he says, I'm full.
And he's only eaten a half.
There are some parents I know who would make the kid sit there and eat when his body has
already said full.
I want a kid to listen to his own body, not to somebody else's idea of what full is to
him.
So when my son says, I'm full, I say, no problem, Joe.
You can only eat the half.
Put the other half in a Ziploc baggie.
You get hungry before your next meal.
You may eat what's in that baggie first.
Now, you don't let it grow and it's not served as the first course of the next meal.
The real payoff for that is the supper time.
The kid doesn't want his spinach.
We say, no problem.
Put it in a Ziploc baggie.
He wants to get out and play anyway.
It's nice outside.
You put it in a Ziploc baggie.
And at 8 o'clock at night when he says, oh, Mom, I'm so hungry, you say, oh, good.
We've got some spinach.
Spinach.
If he's hungry, he'll eat it.
And what you'll find your kid doing is eating four, five, six, seven times a day.
And remember, you don't treat a kid in a way you yourself would not want to be treated.
Next time you go to a restaurant, how would you like it if you sat down and ordered the
chef's salad and they said, ah, ah, ah, you only ate the mini last week.
You needed a doggy baggie even for that.
You've got to order the small one today.
Again, treat kids the way you yourself would want to be treated.
And toddlers who don't like cooked vegetables, when they're watching Sesame Street, let them
have frozen corn, frozen carrots, frozen peas.
They're going to eat a lot of them and never touch the cooked stuff.
And besides frozen corn, frozen carrots, frozen peas do not taste like corn, carrots, and
peas.
They taste like frozen.
And kids love frozen.
So let them make some choices.
And at least once a month, have a formal meal for your children.
Put out your best.
Now if you have crystal in China, use it.
I had one husband come up to me after a lecture yanking his wife behind him.
And he said, would you tell her that again?
I've been talking two hours.
Would you tell her that again?
So what do you want me to tell her?
And he says, about using the good stuff.
She said, oh, but their family heirloom, they might get broken.
I said, well, memories are easier to tote around anyway.
If you think about it, far better your children have a sugar bowl left from an antique set
after many, many good memories.
Then, after you die, dusting the stuff all off again and splitting it up and saying,
do you remember dusting these twice a year?
Celebrate with them.
Lay out your best.
And we put the two forks and the two spoons and put the spoon up for the dessert.
So if they ever get to a formal meal, they don't say, oh, look, somebody made a mistake.
They gave me two forks.
I think we have to teach kids how to handle social situations they're going to be in.
And I think you can take your sixth and seventh grader out whose manners are kind of messy,
take them out to a restaurant alone, one that has silverware in it.
And I don't mean silver silver, but silverware that actually has a fork, knife, and spoon.
And have an experience with them where you model good manners for them.
So if they get into dating situations where good manners is required with eating, they've
got it.
When they're in social situations with their peers or with other adults, you've taught
them the skill.
But talk with them about it.
I don't worry about teaching kids etiquette.
That's what we expect them to do.
It's very rigid brick wall.
Manners are backbone.
I want to teach kids to use manners at home.
Spaghetti in the hair is not manners.
But a spoon with peas for a young child may be manners.
And all of us for fun using the spoon with peas can be manners.
So you want to teach your kids manners.
And teach them about food.
And then let them make choices.
We always knew when Maria was planning the menu when she was in preschool, somewhere in
the menu we had bumps on a log.
That's celery with peanut butter and raisins on top.
I mean we've had them fried, we've had them frozen, we've had them dipped, you name it.
But let them choose.
And you can say to a kid, hey guess what, we're having spinach tonight and I know you
hate spinach.
Make sure when you sit down to the table you have an alternative.
And the kid has to have something that's going to take its place.
And let them go to the grocery store.
You say I'm going to tag them to the grocery store every week.
You don't have to pain yourself quite that badly.
But take them once in a while so they understand.
And as they grow older they can start planning the grocery list.
So that when they get out of your home they don't buy a case of stew and say oh I got
my dinners for the month.
We want to teach them.
So when they leave our homes they know how to plan and how to cook.
I taught my children how to cook very young.
I hate to cook.
Years ago I was a nun.
Obviously I'm not now with a husband and three kids.
But I was once a nun.
Quaife came through English Yards.
And you had to try out for Gregorian choir.
And if you didn't make it you cooked for 250 women.
I did not make choir.
And nobody ever taught me to break those menus down to cooking for five.
So I figured I'm going to teach my kids how to cook.
And one day my neighbor came over and I've got three toddlers on the floor with a big
Tupperware mat.
And we have cookie dough from here to forever.
And my neighbor said my goodness they're making a mess.
I said no they're making cookies.
It's your point of view.
And you know they learn very very young that if you eat all of the chips out of the raw
batter no matter what the picture on the box looks like there are no chips in the cookies
that come out of the oven.
And if you eat half of the dough raw which is not good for you you don't get six dozen
cookies you get three or six dozen small cookies.
You know but you teach them and you let them make mistakes.
Children need to know it's okay to make a mistake.
But watch how we do with our toddlers.
We say be careful of the glass.
Don't drive the glass.
Be careful of the glass.
Crash.
It is on the floor.
Broken.
We get hysterical.
You klutzy kid I swear.
You're going to use Tupperware the next 30 years of your life.
Get out of this kitchen.
And what we have just said to the kid is you're a problem.
Not you have a problem.
I want to tell a kid you have a problem not you're a problem.
And so I look at the toddler and I say you have a problem.
Go get mom a bag.
Toddlers cannot pick up glass but they can hold the bag.
And then when they picked up when you have picked up the glass and they're holding the
bag hand them a white cloth and let them wipe up the milk.
And it won't be exactly the way you would have done it but it's alright.
They mop up the milk and then you hand them two plastic glasses and you say which of these
two would you like to use today?
And what you have said to the kid is there's no problem so great it can't be solved.
The glass by the way broken on the floor is not a problem.
It is a reality.
You accept realities and solve the problems that come with those realities.
It's like my oldest daughter dropped my mother-in-law's birthday cake shortly before it's time to
go to grandma's.
And she spent two hours decorating this cake and there it is on the floor smashed.
And I had put it on a white cake pedestal, white doily, forgot to put icing on the doily
to make it stick to the pedestal.
She goes to show her friend the cake moves the platter from one counter to the next.
Platter move faster than cake did.
We got two inches smashed on the kitchen floor.
Now I could get hysterical.
You klutzy kid look at this cake.
What do we get?
Would do no good.
The cake's not going to rise back up no matter how much we scream at it.
But you think by the way we carried on it would right?
No.
You just look at the kid and I said, Anna you have a big problem.
And she looked at me she said, Mom I tried to catch it.
I said, I tried to catch it.
Your friend tried to catch it.
It didn't work.
And the problem is not the cake on the floor.
That's a reality.
The problem is we need to get a cake to grandma's.
She looked at a watch.
There's no time to bake another one.
She's not going to spend her allowance on one.
And she says, I think I can salvage that one.
I said, good thinking.
And I think you can help your kid out.
She held the platter.
I reached under two inches of goo.
I plopped that cake back over.
Now since we do not live by the motto cleanliness is next to godliness, we're looking at breakfast
crumbs that had not yet been swept on top of this cake now.
If you walk into our home today you're going to see a rock at the front door.
An immaculate home is a sign of a misspent childhood.
Our kids are not misspending their childhood.
So we got breakfast crumbs.
I didn't have to say a thing to her.
She knew that icing had to be scraped off and re-iced.
I walked in the other room.
She's out there scraping the cake, having fun.
Now you're not supposed to have fun if you're being punished.
But do you know what?
It's OK to have fun if you're being disciplined.
Showing what you've done wrong, given ownership of the problem.
I could have said to her, get out of the kitchen.
I'll do it myself.
But we've got to give the kid ownership of the problem.
Give her ways to solve it.
I could have said, we're not taking a cake to grandma's.
That's it.
You're just going to have to tell your grandma why you don't have a cake for her.
No, you give her ways to solve it.
There's always ways to solve problems.
And most importantly, you leave your kid's dignity intact.
And you're going to feel a whole lot better about it.
She's out there scraping the cake off.
Her friend is scraping the floor.
And I overheard her friend saying, Anna, doesn't your mother ever get mad?
And I had to hear what she had to say on that one.
And she said, oh yeah, a lot.
But not when we have a problem.
What I want my children to understand is when you have a problem, what you need is a plan.
You got a problem, what's your plan?
Not what's your excuse.
So in the teen years, they don't say dumb things.
It wasn't my fault.
She made me do it.
Everybody else is doing it.
Now you have a problem, what's your plan?
But again, it is your point of view.
How do you view life?
I got stuck in Winnipeg on my way to the Palm, Manitoba.
And that's in the middle of nowhere, which if you're an optimist, is halfway to everywhere.
But it was a blizzard.
It was a spring blizzard.
And the flight that was a turnaround flight could not get in.
And they had to bring another plane in.
That plane's going to arrive eight hours later.
You should have seen some of those people carry on.
You can't do this to me.
I'll never fly you folks again.
I want my money back.
It is the only way to get to the Palm, right?
Roads are closed.
They want their money back.
Some of those people ranted and raved for eight hours.
Some people hit the bar for eight hours.
Some of us read a good book for eight hours.
All three groups got on the same plane eight hours later.
Some were still angry and ready to throttle the pilot, which would only made us later.
Some after eight hours in the bar didn't care and weren't sure if they were even on a plane.
And some of us had read a good book.
I ask you, when is the last time anybody gave you eight hours of uninterrupted time to read
a book?
See, it's your point of view.
And you have to look at it as this is not unsolvable.
If it's unsolvable, it's not a problem.
It's a reality.
I work with pregnant teens.
And I say, what's the problem?
And the young girl looks at me like, you nuts?
And I say, what's the problem?
She says, I'm pregnant.
I'm five months pregnant.
I say, well, that's not a problem.
I can show you five women who would give anything to be in your shoes, young lady.
That's not the problem.
The baby's a reality.
What's the problem?
She says, well, my mom and dad are kicking me out.
My boyfriend won't marry me.
I want to keep my baby.
I say, OK.
Those are problems.
And you know what?
They're solvable.
I was working with a young teenager who was leaving school.
He says, I'm quitting.
I said, what's the problem?
He says, I'm leaving.
I said, oh, that's not the problem.
I can show you three teachers who will help you unpack your locker and show you to the
door.
That is not the problem.
What's the problem, kid?
I'm flunking five subjects.
I say, oh, that's a problem.
But it's solvable.
I flunked five subjects is a reality.
I'm flunking five subjects is a problem.
That is solvable.
So it's your point of view.
And I want to teach kids that there is no problem so great it can't be solved.
You want your kid to come home and say, dad, I had a lousy date.
You want to hear about the neat dates.
You need to hear about the lousy ones.
They cannot tell you about lousy dates if they can't have problems and solve them.
So I want them to understand you've got a problem.
What you do is you solve it, kid.
Bedtime.
Don't lie to your children.
Don't tell them they need their sleep.
Be honest with them.
You need their sleep.
And you often need more sleep than they need.
And you have to decide, do I want them to bed early and up early or to bed late and
up late?
You cannot get them to bed early and up late.
It's not going to work.
But you as a family have to look at what works in your house.
Some of you would prefer, because of the kinds of work you're involved in and the like, and
your own body clock, that you'd like your kids up later at night.
I've seen people scowl at other people whose kids are up late.
And I think, well, hey, wait a minute.
Do they get to sleep in in the morning?
I'm a morning person.
I like to see them early in the morning.
But you have to do what you can live with.
And you set what works for your family.
But often we make bedtime such a disaster.
We say, kids, time to go to bed.
And they complain about it.
But then we get them up.
We tuck them in.
We read a little story to them.
We smile.
And then we go down to have some quiet time to ourselves or with our spouses.
And a kid comes down the stairs.
Mom, would you come stay with me?
Hon, I've been with you all day.
Oh, come on.
I'll tuck you in one more time.
You tuck them in.
You hug them.
You're downstairs, ready to have some peace and quiet?
Another kid comes down the stairs.
Mommy, I have to go potty.
What do you mean you have to go potty?
I asked you if you had to go potty before.
The interesting thing about young bodies is they can be running around, especially little
boys, running around a whole lot.
And you say, do you have to go potty?
Uh-uh.
But they lay down and relax.
And their bladder goes full.
Don't tell them if you'd have gone before.
How would you like it if you're laying in bed and your spouse says?
If you'd have gone to the bathroom before, you wouldn't have to get up and go now.
Again, think about it.
You don't treat kids in a way you yourself would not want to be treated, right?
So when you gotta go, you gotta go.
But you're sitting down now, starting to read a good book, and a third kid comes down.
Mommy, there's a monster under my... There are no monsters under your bed.
And you go up and you look under his bed and you say, why is she looking if there's no
monsters under my bed?
But now you've had it.
If any of you come down one more time.
You are all going to bed two hours earlier and you start ranting and raving.
You throw them in bed.
They are crying their hearts out.
You feel awful and angry and then they fall asleep.
And then you go look at them and you feel guilty all night long.
Now all the time you have is ruined.
Now what I recommend, when they were little it was easier.
Very easy.
I nursed my children.
They fell asleep nursing.
When they got to be toddlers, the doctor said, let them cry.
My husband and I couldn't tolerate that because we said, hey, if we were going to cry, we
want somebody with us.
We'd want somebody to be with us.
So I'm going to treat them that way and I'm glad we didn't.
We stayed with them and what we decided is at 18 they won't want us, at least not us,
to put them to bed.
So we might as well be with them when they want us to be.
So one of us did the supper dishes, the other put the kids to bed.
One of us got a break and there were certain times we weren't sure which one.
And it's a real toss up some nights.
So we put the kids down.
You go up and brush your teeth with them.
It's great modeling.
Besides, if you brush your teeth, you rarely make a run on the 7-11 because then you've
got to brush your teeth again.
But you model it for them.
You're in there brushing instead of them coming down the stairs and you say, did you brush
your teeth after you sent them up to brush your teeth?
Well, you know they did.
With brushing teeth, we said to our little ones, when they're little, we'll brush your
teeth for you.
And then when you want to, at round two, they want to start taking over, we say, fine, let
us brush it first and you can finish up.
They get a little bit older, they brush, you finish up.
They get a little bit older, you go to the dentist, get the little disclosing tablets
and they brush and once a week they check it and see if they're getting all their plaque
out.
By eight years old, we said to our kids, checkups are on us.
Any necessary dental stuff's on us, cavities are on you.
You have cavities, you pay for them.
And we also said, make sure you have a plan for what you're going to do if you don't brush
your teeth.
And make sure you have a plan for what you're going to do if you lose your teeth.
And one day, my mother took out her teeth.
Because my mom took good care of her teeth, but it was in the days nobody taught you about
gum disease.
And my oldest is looking at my mother and said, grandma, did you have a plan?
Did wonders for our kids brushing their teeth, they're in there and taking good care of the
gums, right?
But you do it with them and you model it for them and you teach them and then you allow
them to do it on their own and let them be responsible for it.
Then you tuck them into bed, you rub them from head to toe.
Kids need to know that touch is critical to human bonding and it is not all sexual.
And you rub the top of their head across their back, bottom of their feet.
And the bottom of their feet does wonders for overactive kids.
If you rub the bottom of their feet firmly, for one, it relaxes them.
For two, it keeps them in bed and they can't get out.
You know, so you've got accomplished two things there, right?
And you stay with them.
Once, and then they'll fall asleep.
Getting up and down and you getting angry at them keeps them awake.
Once they're old enough to read then, you give them a night light.
You go in and do your bedtime ritual with them and then you say to them, you may go
to sleep when you're ready.
I say, my kid will be up all night.
Not true.
My oldest had a stack of books the first week, first three days.
She's dragging the school like this.
And I could have said, if you'd have gone to bed early enough, that wouldn't be happening
to you.
You know, you're in pain and you know by the third day, she's falling asleep at a decent
time but the novelty had worn off.
And you have given them the gift of reading and the gift of the ability to fall asleep
without a sleeping pill.
What good gifts to give your kids.
And then as they reach the teen years, you have to decide, do we need the house or do
they get it?
And that's a legit question.
Some of you need more sleep than your teenager needs so you say, kid, lock up when you're
done, turn the lights out.
Others of you are like I was and I say, I need the time alone at night.
So at 9.30 you need to be in your bedroom, at your desk or in your bed, choice is yours.
But I need some space here and I think that's fair.
And don't go past your kid's bedroom door at midnight.
Look in and find them working on a term paper and say to them, if you'd have done that three
weeks ago, they know that.
Some of you stayed up at the end of April all night long.
Now some of you had a spouse who mini lectured you.
If you'd have done the taxes in January, you wouldn't be doing them tonight.
But you did it because there's a consequence if you don't.
There is tremendous dignity if a kid overcomes what appears to be an insurmountable odd to
reach a goal.
There is no dignity when we come up with a good excuse or get nagged.
And some of us do such great nagging with such finesse every morning.
Hurry up, you've got to be late.
Don't forget your gym sneakers.
Where's your library book, your term paper?
Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag.
Kid toodles off school, great shape.
She's bordering on a coronary.
And the kid says, why should I get hassled when I've got somebody else to do it for me?
Think about it.
Jim Fay calls that the helicopter parent syndrome, where you hover over your kids.
Don't hover over your kids.
Don't go down and say to your kid, here, let me help you get this term paper done.
It's awful late.
You ought to be in bed.
Let them handle it and drag the school the next day and experience a real world consequence
for holding off till the end.
Now I tend to do my writing for the book companies at the end when the deadlines do.
I'm one of those people who puts the outline in after I've written the book.
And I always said I did it better that way under pressure.
And one day my husband reminded me, how would you know?
You really never tried it any other way.
So you might have some kids who are of the same nature.
But you let your adolescents determine within limits what time they need to go to bed.
And if you get a phone call from school that there's a serious problem, that's when you
have to deal with it as a sleep problem.
And then recognize from the time they're born until they leave your home, no matter what
age they are, they're going to be nights that they can't sleep.
And so what you need to do is recognize that and that you have to give them that extra
time.
And I think you'll find that you will be glad you did.
And those of you who only have toddlers and you're going bananas with getting up and getting
down and saying, is there ever such a thing as an eight hour sleep?
Ask those of us who no longer have toddlers.
It does pass.
And you're going to miss that time.
So take the time with them and celebrate bedtime.
Fighting, kids are going to fight.
The next time your children fight, the first thing I want you to say is they are normal.
Kids who do not fight when they grow up make lousy spouses.
We need kids who know how to enter into conflict and can deal with it nonviolently.
Typical scene in many homes, two kids are fighting over the TV.
We storm in there.
Stop it, stop it, stop it right now.
We slam off the TV and say nobody's going to watch it.
We solve it for them.
What you need to understand is the slower you walk and the quieter you are, the better
your chances of it being over before you get there.
And if it's still going on, there's several ways you can handle it.
One you can walk in there and gently turn off the set and model it for them.
You turn it off and they're going, but mom, but mom, but mom.
Say you're both fighting.
I like to tell kids what they're doing.
You're fighting.
You may both turn that set back on as soon as you both have a plan.
Now what do I need?
A plan.
They never say it nicely, so don't count on it.
A plan.
One of three things will happen.
One they'll share.
Don't count on it, it's rare.
We say to kids, share, share, share.
You're watching, don't share.
We're more than willing to share things we don't mind sharing.
It's the things we'd rather not share.
You're not real willing to share.
Well kids are people too.
One they'll share.
Two they'll both get up and leave it and kids will do that a lot.
Or three, one of them will come up with a plan they both can live with.
As long as the one who came up with the plan did not use brute force or intimidation to
get their way, let it go.
But if a kid says, I'm going to beat you over the head if you don't let me watch my program,
I say, not a good plan, try another one.
But if the oldest says to the youngest, if you let me watch my program today, you can
have two tomorrow.
Now the oldest and you know tomorrow, Sunday, there's nothing on.
Keep your mouth shut.
And the next day when the little one comes up and says, mom, it's not fair, I say, you
know what, I noticed you're always giving into your big brother.
Would you like to learn a few good lines?
And we teach them some good lines.
Like hey, I'm willing to let you have one program today for two on Monday and Tuesday
and I want it in writing.
You teach that little one to do that, nobody's going to walk all over him.
And you're not teaching him to be a passive willing victim.
We got to teach kids the lines so that when they're out on the playground somebody says,
I want that bat, no I want it, no I want it.
Your kid can say, look, I'm willing to let you have the bat today if I can have it on
playground on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Or to look the situation over very carefully too.
I always tell kids, look it over.
Don't get aggressive and don't get passive.
Be assertive.
And if it looks shaky, don't get aggressive, you're going to lose.
Don't go running to the teacher.
Don't go running to your parents.
You'll set yourself up as a passive willing victim.
Every kid in school and in the neighborhood is going to pick on you.
I say be assertive.
And part of being assertive sometimes is saying, I didn't want the bat anyway, it's yours
because the kid's bigger.
And you're not being passive, you're just saying, looking it over very carefully.
If you don't think you can get the bat back and still be in one piece, just get out of
there.
We want to teach kids that you don't shoot one another on the LA freeway when somebody
pulls out in front of you.
But that you can look a situation over and deal with it nonviolently.
So you teach them.
We've got another problem.
Two kids are playing a game.
And the more competitive games you have in your home, the more friction you're going
to have by the way.
And I believe the more cooperative games you have, the less friction you're going to have.
Because who did what?
He didn't turn the spinner right.
Yes, I did.
No, you didn't.
Doesn't happen in a lot of cooperative games.
But we've got a competitive game going here.
And one kid says, he moved the spinner too far.
And the other kid says, no, I didn't.
And you didn't see it.
By the way, do not deal with what I can't see unless there's blood or serious damage.
And I mean that because I used to work with troubled kids.
And I swear if they were within 10 feet of a fight, they were blamed for it.
And I would rather not accuse a kid than falsely accuse a kid.
And if you've got one child in your family that all the others know gets into trouble
a lot, that kid's going to get blamed for a lot whether he did it or not.
And so I would rather air a not accusing than a falsely accusing.
That doesn't mean I'm not terribly observant.
But I'm not going to go up there and say, OK, Johnny, you know you did this last week
with the other little kid you were playing with.
Now why do you always say, I'm going to say that.
I walk up to the two of them and I say, you're fighting.
And I don't say, give me your side of the story.
Give me your side of the story.
I've yet to get a new story out of two editorials, so I'm not going to bother to try.
I just say, you're both fighting.
But he did.
You're both fighting.
Go sit together.
Not you go to your room, you go to your room.
They'll knock out messages between the walls on how awful their mother is.
I say, no.
I want you to both go sit together.
You may both get up as soon as you both give one another permission to get up.
Now what do I need?
I say, we're sorry.
I don't demand an I'm sorry.
I'm sorry's got to come from the heart, not the head.
You demand an I'm sorry, you're going to get one of two kinds.
I'm sorry, real heartfelt.
I'm sorry.
I said I was sorry.
Kids learn as soon as they hit.
If they say they're sorry, they can hit again.
Now Maria, you tell Joe when he can get up.
Joe, you tell Maria when she can get up.
You may both get up as soon as you both give one another permission to get up.
And they both sit there.
I ain't letting you up.
I ain't letting you up either.
Ha, ha, ha.
Mom, when can we get up?
They're so used to being told when to get up.
Nah.
You may both get up as soon as you both give one another permission to get up.
Pretty soon one of them will say, I'll let you up.
And the other says, I ain't letting you up.
Mom, I said you get up.
You won't let me up.
You may both get up as soon as you both give one another.
Neither can move at this point.
If you look at it, both have control over the other person, but that control is dependent
on the power of the other person.
It's a mutual thing.
And pretty soon they both say, this is dumb.
I'll let you up.
And they both get up.
And you say, but they haven't been punished yet.
My goal is not to punish.
It's to discipline.
Show them what they've done wrong.
Give them ownership of the problem.
Give them ways to solve it.
Leave their dignity intact.
You say, but they haven't dealt with it yet.
You're right.
The only reason you have them sit is to cool off.
Kids cannot deal with a conflict when they're angry.
So when they're cooled off, they will not give one another permission to get up unless
they're cooled off.
You're not going to hear a kid saying, get up.
It just won't happen.
So when they finally give one another permission to get up, they can go over and do one of
three things with that game.
Share.
Both get up and leave it.
Or one of them come up with a plan they both can live with.
There's one exception to that.
And in our home, if you hit, you sit.
You sit in the rocker or go to your room.
And if it's a neighbor kid, you go to the rocker or go home.
No questions asked.
The kids need to understand that that is not a way of dealing with conflict that's appropriate.
I've had a neighbor kid smack another kid before I could even get down to the playroom.
He's coming up the steps going, I'm going to the rocker, Mr. C. Because they know at
our house if you hit, you sit.
You sit until you feel ready to go down, talk with the other person about what's happened,
resolve it without kidding.
And if a little kid goes up and he sits, he says, I'm ready to go down.
I say, just show me you are.
I don't make them sit for five minutes.
Try making your spouse sit for five minutes while they're angry.
No.
I want to teach them that when you feel you're ready.
Now if a little kid runs back down there and hits again, I say, oh, you're not ready.
They go back and sit.
They're going to do one of two things.
Get very good at sitting or very good at playing.
You don't get good at hitting that way.
I want to teach kids that there is a way to deal with conflict nonviolently.
But one of the ways you teach them is by teaching them to be assertive themselves, not aggressive
or passive.
And I want them to know the lines.
I'm willing to let you do this if I can do this.
And they won't have to read the book when I say, no, I feel guilty when they grow up.
And they aren't going to let people walk all over them, but they aren't going to aggress
their way through life either.
And so we take the time when they're in a conflict is so much more efficient to solve
it for them, tell them to go to their rooms or to smack them.
But parenting, again, is not an efficient profession.
We need to teach them to deal with the conflict and do it in a way where you've got a problem.
What is your plan?
All of us are going to get a phone call sometime.
I forgot my gym uniform.
Bless the parent who says, oh darn, I see it right here on the counter.
It's going to be a tough day for you.
I know you can handle it.
Good luck.
Goodbye.
You say, wait a minute.
Now what I do is I run it down.
Now we might run it down.
There are many lectures that kids won't get that.
What I have to do is tie this around your neck.
This is the last time I'm bringing this gym uniform.
You know what kind of time it took out of my day to get this gym uniform?
Your brother never forgot his gym uniform, but you bring it to him.
Do you know it's not life threatening in any school to forget a gym uniform?
It is painful, but not life threatening.
And you say, wait a minute.
You mean I can't ever bring a band instrument or a gym uniform or a term paper the kid worked
on all night and left on the counter?
Brick wall family says, never, never, never let them feel the pain.
Jellyfish family says, all the time.
In fact, I'll get it there before he misses it.
Those of you who teach have seen that happen.
Parent runs in the lunch pail before the bus even gets to school.
The teacher hands the kid the lunch pail and the kid doesn't even know he's missing it
yet.
Backbone family says, yeah, once in a while you can.
Once in a while you can bring something for your kid.
There's a time to help your kid out because you treat kids the way you want to be treated.
I believe you can bring things.
I won't bring a gym uniform because my kids already get to experience a real world consequence
if they forget it.
They don't get punished where you have to write 550 times, I will not forget my gym
uniform.
You know what I tell teachers to do when they do that?
Go home and tell your spouse.
Don't ask.
Tell your spouse to write, I love you a thousand times.
If it affects your love life in a positive way, you may continue to have children write,
I will not forget my gym uniform.
If it does not, do not.
They usually can't after that.
But if my kid has to experience a real world consequence for forgetting it, I believe her
chances of remembering it the next time is greatly increased.
But I have brought things to school.
One day my oldest called and she said, Mom, would you bring my backpack?
I said, Anna, what's in that backpack you can't live without?
And she started to sob.
She said, my valentines.
Hey, it was second grade valentines.
I brought it.
There's a time you do that.
Have you ever locked yourself out of the car, watched yourself do it?
I have.
I'm on my way to a workshop.
I called my husband.
I said, hon, the car is running.
Keys are in it.
I'm not.
I need your help.
And you know what my husband said?
He said, Barb, I'll be right there.
That's what I needed to hear.
Barb, I'll be right there.
I didn't need to hear that.
That's a bummer.
I know you can handle it.
You see, there is a time you help your kid out.
And those of you who have adolescence, when their car breaks down, don't give them grief
about I told you to check the oil.
You know you should have checked the fan belt.
I told you that tire looked low.
Because I guarantee you, you do that to your adolescent.
Three weeks later, your car is going to break down.
The only kid at home with a vehicle that moves and keys to drive it is that kid.
And you'll get the same lecture you gave him.
But you don't want to rescue.
You don't want to punish.
You want to discipline your kids.
And you say, well, that's a minor issue.
All of us, because we are parents, may someday get the phone call you would rather not get.
Your kid is calling you to let you know why they're not coming home.
They're making a pit stop at the local jail.
Three families are going to handle it very differently.
Brick wall family, tough cookie sit.
Now the problem with that is what you have just said to your kid is if you're well behaved,
I love you.
If you don't, I won't.
And I want to teach kids that my love for them is not conditional.
My likes and dislikes are very conditional.
You don't have to like the funny looking hair, the strange earring in the nose, and the silly
looking shoes.
You don't have to like that.
But your love has to go beyond that.
Brick wall says tough cookie sit.
Jellyfish family gets down as fast as they can.
Many lectures spouse on the way.
I told you this had happened.
You let them go with those kids.
I knew it.
Many lectures the kid, I told you not to hang around with those kids, bails the kid out,
shows up in court for them.
Oh, if they even let it get to court.
Jellyfish families rarely do.
If they've got connections in the community, they take care of it.
So the kid never has to do anything about it.
The chances of the kid staying out of trouble are about as good as the energy the kid used
up, which is nothing.
Backbone family gets down there as fast as they can and said, kid, we love you.
You're in trouble, but we know you can handle it.
We brought a list of lawyers we think might take your case.
Good luck.
And you can even star a few if you'd like.
But you let the kid do the contacts right there.
You bail them out, but you do it on a 90 day note.
And you collect something for collateral.
And they're real shocked when they have nothing else but their stereo.
My stereo, you want my?
Hey, we don't take it unless you default on the payment.
The bank doesn't get our house unless we default on the payment.
You show up in court with them, but you stand behind them.
And they may even cut their hair when the best you could get was a ponytail for the
family pictures.
You know, because it looks short that way.
But the lawyer may have suggested that they dress nicely and cut their hair.
You stand up behind them and let them handle it.
When the judge comes in and starts talking to you, you say, Your Honor, we're not in
trouble here.
You ever seen a nervous juvenile delinquent?
It's healthy.
And you let them handle it.
It is painful.
But they will grow in that experience because you've disciplined them.
You've shown them what they've done wrong.
You've given them ownership of the problem.
You've given ways to solve it, left their dignity intact.
And I promise you, you will get your money back one of two ways.
One, they pay you back.
And if they're paying you back in installments, rather than balloon, I always like to ask
them about a balloon or installment.
They're usually so nervous that balloon is out of the question.
They don't know what it means.
And so they go for the installment.
If it's an installment and they're going out on a date in the middle of the installment
payments, don't say, You're going out on a date.
What are you going to do with the other 50 you owe me?
The bank doesn't call you and say, Oh, I noticed some airline tickets going through.
What are your plans for the house payment?
You know, you treat kids the way you want to be treated, right?
The one they pay you back or two, they don't pay you back.
And you say, I get my money back too.
Yeah.
Because what you do on the 90th day is you take that stereo and hock it.
Take it down to the local pawn shop and you get your $90 and you hand the pawn shop slip
to your child.
You hock my stereo.
Well, hey, you say what you mean.
Me, we say, do we say?
You say, Oh, I couldn't do that.
You have an obligation to do that to your kid.
You have an obligation to say what you mean, mean what you say and do what you said you
were going to do.
Let's look just very quickly at the three children at the three ages of rebellion.
All three kids at two need to be able to say, I can be me.
Children at five need to be able to say, I can be me.
And they need to be able to say it in the teen years.
I can be me.
At two, it's I can be me apart from mom and dad is saying, I don't understand why you
have trouble with this kid.
He's such a good kid.
Mother's going bananas.
At five, it's against mom and dad and dad saying, what's wrong with this kid?
Why won't he do anything I need him to do?
The mom say, it'll pass.
I've been through it once already.
At puberty, it's against the entire older generation of which you and I happen to be
a member.
Let's take that kid at the teen years.
All three kids are trying to say, I can be me.
But brick wall jellyfish and backbone family are going to handle it differently.
Brick wall.
Kid comes in with his hair frizzed.
Not life's right and just frizzed.
No kid of mine's walking out the door with his hair looking like that.
You get it straight right now or you're not leaving here.
And the kid goes, darn, I can't be me.
Kid comes in, little bit of makeup on.
Used to only be girls we were concerned about.
No kid of mine's walking out the door with makeup on like that.
You get it off your face right now.
And the kid says, darn, I can't be me.
Kid comes in, shoes laced from the top down.
I do not know why kids do that today.
It takes forever to get them on.
But no kid of mine's walking out the door with those laces like that.
You either lace them right or you're not leaving.
Darn, I can't be me.
And those are the ones who in my day rolled their skirts in the bathrooms and frizzed
their hair and straightened it before they got home.
That ought to date me.
But the kid is saying, I can't be me.
And they need very much to be able to say, I can be me.
Jellyfish family.
Again, there's the two kinds.
They don't want to alienate their teenager.
They want to emulate them.
There isn't one teenager in the house now.
There are three.
Mom, dad, and kid.
Kid frizzes his hair.
Mother frizzes hers.
And the kid says, darn, I can't be me.
Kid comes in with a new dance step.
Not life threatening or morally threatening.
There's a few of those around today.
And dad says, would you teach that to us?
And the kid goes, darn, I can't be me.
And the kid has to put up with his parents break dancing at the school assembly.
It's terrible.
Darn, I can't be me.
Kid comes in, new pair of jeans.
And mom says, can I borrow them?
Darn, I can't be me.
The other jellyfish family.
Kid comes in, head shaven, stripe on the side, earring in the nose, odd colors on a variety
of parts of their bodies.
Dressing clothes, and nobody's home.
Nobody notices.
They're off doing their own thing.
So the kid finds somebody who can say, you can be you.
Lousy way to do it.
Backbone family.
Kid comes in with his hair frizzed.
You look at them and let them know you don't like it.
How can they rebel if you like it?
So don't say, oh, hon, don't you remember we used to wear the butch hairdos and all that
kind of stuff?
They don't want to hear about the duck tails and the butch cuts.
They want to know that they can be different from you.
And so you've got to let them know, yuck, I'm not going to like this.
But you know what, kids?
Now life threatening is not morally threatening.
Go for it.
And the kid says, I can be me.
Different line.
Kid comes in with two dresses.
You pick one, she wears the other.
I can be me.
Kid comes in with her shoes laced from the top down.
And Aunt Lucy, because let me tell you, backbone families catch a lot of grief from relatives.
You're going to let your kid go out the door looking like that?
It's his head.
I can be me.
What you have done there is buffered your kid from the big issues.
Because we're going to have to deal in the area of sexuality and drugs.
But all three families do it very differently.
Brick wall family is don't you, don't you, don't you.
And strong emotion and pressure, peer pressure, run into the brick wall.
And we have a contest that somebody is going to lose.
Jellyfish family, there's absolutely no structure.
They haven't taught them about the child's own sexuality.
They haven't talked to them about drugs.
It's just, oh, it'll never happen.
My kid used drugs never.
I know his eyes are glassy, but he rides a Jeep to school.
Absolute denial.
Or they say, as we've seen in some of the schools, we call a parent out and say, hey,
your kid's on drugs.
And the parent says, I told him not to use it at school.
They've modeled it and shared it with them.
Strong family, from the time the kid was little, started talking to them about their own sexuality,
answered a lot of questions.
It wasn't just a one-time sit down.
But talk to them as sexual parts of their lives or a part of the rest of their life.
And it fits together and helps them grow in the pattern in the teen years of growing to
be attractive to somebody, learning to relate to the opposite sex very normally, and that
those feelings are very real, that there are limits of expression.
And as you grow, you will be able to, when you reach the older years, to form a very
strong bond with another human being.
But it's taught to them.
And we celebrate puberty in a backbone family.
They celebrate, yes.
Your child has his first wet dream or her first menstrual period.
You celebrate.
We celebrate everything else.
And what you have to recognize at that point is it ought to be a true celebration.
Give them a gift of some kind from both mom and dad.
And if you're separated or divorced, get together if you're still talking to one another and
celebrate with that child.
And say you have a tremendous right in your body and a tremendous responsibility.
And you've got to recognize that.
And I remember what I was told.
You can make a three-letter word into a four, and your own morality will come through.
You can't cram your morals down their throat, but you can certainly give them something
to reject, which means you talk about it.
You celebrate that, and you talk with them, and you give them the gift of becoming their
mentor.
Because I believe you parent them until they reach puberty.
And a backbone family then says, hey, they don't need a parent anymore.
What they need is a mentor, a model, and a guide.
You guide them through the teen years.
In adulthood, they can become your good friend.
Some of you are not yet a friend of your own parents.
They haven't quit parenting you yet.
You have to move out of that role, and as they reach puberty, into the mentorship.
The backbone family has done that.
They've let them make mistakes.
They've talked to them about, here are some responsibilities.
Here are decisions.
And they constantly increased it.
And they said, kid, there's no problem so great it can't be solved.
And they've taught the kid, you can like yourself, you can think for yourself, and there is no
problem so great it can't be solved.
Does that mean your backbone family, a kid, will never make a big mistake?
No.
There's no way to totally inoculate them from sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, or suicide.
The only way I know to do that is lock them up until they're 30.
And then you have an immature 30-year-old on your hands, which I think is far worse
than any 15-year-old I've ever met.
No.
A backbone family, though, will welcome a kid home no matter what kind of mistake they've
made.
And you say, hey, my kid can always come home.
Then maybe you're more backbone than you thought you were.
And after you've done all that, and you're kind, caring, consistent, and you're firm,
and you're fair, and you say what you mean, and you mean what you say, and you do what
you said you were going to do, you've eliminated sarcasm, ridicule, and embarrassment from your
vocabulary with your kids.
You've got structure around mealtime, around bedtime, around chores, around fighting.
You've got all that.
And you get home tonight, and your kids are asleep.
I'd like you to walk into their bedrooms this evening and look down at each one of them
and remind yourself that there is one thing you and I as parents cannot do.
Nor do we want to if we really think about it, and that's control our children's will.
That spirit to be themselves apart from you and me.
They are not ours to possess, control, manipulate, or even to make mind.
What they are is what Gabran said they were.
Life longing for itself.
They are gifts to us.
And granted, some came in very unique packaging, but they are gifts to us, and we've got to
treat them as a gift.
We have to encourage this next generation to become all they can become.
Not what we want them to become.
That is so narrow-minded.
You and I can't even begin to dream the dreams this next generation's going to dream or answer
the questions that will be put to them.
You want them to make wise choices, then every day give them the opportunity to make lots
of choices, including some dumb ones.
And unless the dumb ones are life-threatening or morally threatening, in which case you
do have to intervene, but if it's not life-threatening or morally threatening, as painful as it is,
allow them to experience the real-world consequences for their own irresponsibility.
Don't be out in front to rescue or over to punish, but as they're falling down, to stand
behind them and guide them.
And I think one of the ways you guide them is with the six critical life messages.
I believe in you.
I trust in you.
I know you can handle this.
You are listened to.
You are cared for, and you are very important to me.
And if we're going to give kids those six critical life messages, I have an assignment
for each one of you this evening, I would like you to take time every day and model
it for them.
And the best way I know to model those messages for your children is to take at least one
half hour out of your day every day and give it to the only person that's going to spend
the rest of your life with you, and that's you.
Hey, spouses can come and go.
Kids can come and go.
Whole communities can come and go.
You're honestly the only person you can absolutely count on being there when you need you the
most.
So I want you to take that half hour and do something that says, I like me.
And I know some of you are sitting there saying, woman, you do not understand.
We're talking laundry pile this high, dishes pile this high, three kids and one on the
way, and you want me to give myself a half hour?
You bet I do, because let me tell you something.
You don't give yourself a half hour.
I promise you nobody else is going to give it to you.
You must believe first that you're worth it before you can impress on kids that they're
worth it.
Take that half hour, run, pray, read a good book, sit, take a long shower, don't eat a
hunk of chocolate cake, you'll regret it.
But do something that says, I like me.
And when you've done that, what you'll find is not that you're the perfect parent, not
that you have the best behaved kids in school or the kids with the highest test scores,
uh-uh.
You give yourself one half hour.
I promise you, you're going to have something greater.
You're going to have the energy every day to know three things.
I like myself.
I can think for myself.
And truly in parenting today, there is no problem so great it can't be solved.
And you will find yourself winning at parenting, not beating kids, not controlling them, not
making them mine.
But you'll be winning by allowing and encouraging your children to become all that they can
become, which is responsible, caring, loving individuals who know how to think, not just
what to think.
You're worth it, so are they.
And if that's not enough reason to take the time to develop a strong backbone in your
family today, I'd like to leave you with this last reason.
It's called old age.
You and I are hopefully going to get the opportunity to grow older.
And the generation we are now investing our time, our energy, and I believe in parenting
our lives.
If we can raise this next generation to believe they can love themselves, and then in being
able to love themselves can extend themselves in a loving way to others.
If we can teach them that they can think for themselves, and in being able to think for
themselves would never allow others like governments or drug dealers or friends to manipulate them,
nor would they choose to manipulate others for their own gain.
If we can teach them they don't have to be good looking, bright, thin, and young, that
silly medium of exchange in our culture, but that because they are, they have dignity and
worth.
If we can teach them every day not to be so dog eat dog competitive, but to be truly confident,
cooperative, decisive human beings, who if they need to, want to, have to, or are forced
to compete, will do it with a moral sense.
If we can teach them every day to solve their own academic and social problems, then I believe
we will have taught them that in this world there's no problem so great it can't be solved.
And the real payoff comes when you and I are in that old folks home.
And this next generation starts making decisions for us, and they start making decisions for
the new generation they'll create called grandkids.
We can trust then that the time and the energy we spent parenting our children, developing
a strong backbone was worth it.
Because thanks to our time and energy, this next generation is going to be capable of
responsible, caring, loving decisions.
You're worth it, they're worth it, go home and give a kid a hug, and thank you for your
evening.
Thank you.