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As I have said elsewhere, a generous amount of happiness for children is not a frivolous desire, a privilege or even a right, it is a deep and fundamental need. Growing up without enough happiness, joy and pleasure actually generates emotional illness. It is our job as parents to provide that happiness daily, in doses wisely administered at specific intervals when needed.
Read MoreThere seems to be a lot of complaints going around that we are raising a generation of spoiled children, that ending up parenting a spoiled child is a very real danger.
Read MoreAre you a woman who is feeling frustrated and disappointed in the quality of your relationships? Do you feel that men don’t appreciate you for your truly wonderful value, and they don’t respect and cherish you enough? How you found a decent man that you like, but you can’t get him to commit to you?
Read MoreMan’s quest for how to have a healthy relationship with a member of the opposite sex is fraught with difficulty nowadays. Even Einstein, with all his genius, admitted that he was a total failure at maintaining a successful relationship with a woman. If he wasn’t smart enough to do it, how easy will it be for us? A large percentage of men in our society are extremely frustrated in this area and never find a satisfying mate. Another huge portion find and marry but end up in devastating divorces.
Read MoreWe as parents all want to teach our child how to become a kind person, to be generous to others and to not be selfish. How do we accomplish this?
Read MoreChildren often hit when they don't get what they "Want" but more often it's because they didn't get what they need. Let’s say the child gets an hour of TV, and when you tell her you have to turn it off, she gets angry and aggressive and starts hitting. The truth is an hour of TV is a somewhat arbitrary amount. She's telling you at this time, “I have a desperate need for the kind of pleasure and happiness that another 15 minutes of TV provides! Not getting it is intolerable to me and makes me feel extremely deprived and angry!” Again, don't feel you're spoiling your child by giving them that extra 15 minutes. You may be fulfilling an important need.
Read MoreI can’t stress enough how careful we as parents need to be with our children’s physical safety! There are unfortunately many accidents that might have been prevented. Therefore, we should never take any unnecessary risks with children. Yet, while guarding our children’s physical safety, we need avoid turning an excess of caution into a danger to their emotional health and safety!
Read MoreIn considering what to do when a child makes a mistake, we need to remember that when a child makes a mistake and is reprimanded or criticized, it prevents him from learning from the mistake. He feel so ashamed and put down by the reprimand that he wants to put the whole event out of his memory and so he tries to forget about it, and so the next time when the same situation arises he's more likely to make the same mistake again. The point of a reprimand is supposedly that the child will think, “Last time I did this I got an unpleasant reprimand, so I'll be careful not to do it again so I don't get a another reprimand.”
Read MoreSo if not through praise, how do we get a child to himself conclude that he is good and worthy and create true self-esteem? The answer is through celebrating and describing. Take celebrating.
Let’s say a child finishes a puzzle by himself and he's praised, “Good boy, what a great job you did!” The child will think the good thing about finishing puzzles is that I will get pleasant praise after I'm done. That is extrinsic motivation and causes the child to think the enjoyment and satisfaction I get out of doing the puzzle itself is not so important.
Almost all misbehavior is caused by unhappiness over the child’s needs being unfulfilled. The purpose of the child’s attachment with his parents is to fulfill those emotional and physical needs, so the lack of happiness he feels at the time of misbehavior is usually the result of his feeling not as attached as he needs to be
Read MoreMany parenting authorities will advise you about ignoring bad behavior in children such as tantrums, claiming that the child just wants attention and giving it to him in that moment will encourage him to behave that way in the future to get the attention he craves. The logic is the child will think, “I want attention and love. Last time I made a terrible tantrum I got the attention I wanted, therefore now I am going to fabricate and entire tantrum, that is purposely force myself to behave terribly, to get what I want.”
Read MoreMany parents often express disappointment in what they perceive as their children's overly childish behavior. In considering how to help a child mature, they often see their child can be quite intelligent and developed at times, they feel he has the ability to behave more maturely and it is the child's duty to rise to the occasion and cut out the kids’ stuff.
Read MoreMany times parents voice a complaint about selfishness in children. They feel their children are endlessly needy and demanding, even greedy, and don't seem to think of or have consideration for others. This generates fear in the parents that their children will lead a life of selfishness and poor character traits and certainly won’t be liked.
Read MoreAll children need our love, but my dear mentor, clinical psychologist Dr. Ben Sorotzkin, says, they need our respect more than our love. Respect means we see the good and positive in them and parent with the benefit of the doubt.
Read MoreMany parents seem to express an interesting philosophy. They say “I don't mind buying him whatever he wants as long as he earns it.” They seem to feel that this way they're teaching the child a good work ethic, that goodies don't come for free and to appreciate the value of a dollar. In addition, having the child earn his privileges relieves a parent of that great fear going around that my child will be spoiled, since if he earned it he's obviously not spoiled..
Read MoreRaising a child is a team effort, and the child is part of the team. Therefore it is absolutely indispensable that we have the child's cooperation. If a child decides that he wants to work against us, that he doesn’t wish to cooperate, our goals will undoubtedly be frustrated. It is therefore vital that we find a way to induce our child to work with us.
Read MoreRemember that children are completely dependent upon their parents, both emotionally and physically, and any conflict between you and them threatens their critical lifeline. You are their whole world! Therefore if he or she says “I hate you,” it means that he is suffering intensely and is truly desperate. It is precisely at that moment that he needs our support and understanding emotionally. It is very important that we don’t take it personally and react in an adversarial way.
Read MoreLet's say you had a family doctor who were to prescribe to a person to eat less and get more exercise. Wouldn't that be great advice for 99 percent of Americans? He can give you that advice without ever examining you because he knows that we are in the middle of an epidemic of over-eating and under-exercise, and 99 out of 100 it will be great advice for you. Parenting is the same way. Without ever having interviewed them I can prescribe to 99 percent of parents to criticize less, boss around less, be less controlling, reprimand less, punish less and to be more gentle, more flexible, more patient, more tolerant and more humble before children. This is because we are in the middle of an epidemic of loving, well-intentioned, dedicated parents who are unfortunately making the inadvertent mistakes of being a little too strict and harsh with their children, and who are missing the crucial element of raising their children's happiness level and fulfilling their emotional needs. As soon as the parent calls me and tells me they are having problems with their children I know the above is the case 99 percent of the time before ever hearing any of the details.
Read MoreFirst of all, don’t overreact. It is usually not a sign that he or she is heading towards a life of crime. If it’s a pre-school child who is taking other children’s toys, it is because he lacks mature impulse control and is not fully responsible for what he is doing.
Read MoreMany parents are extremely frustrated with children who just don't seem to listen. There are important things that the children simply must do, but no matter how emphatically and repeatedly we instruct them, we are met with refusal, resistance and often an unpleasant battle. How can we best deal with this?
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