Bad Mom....Bad, Bad Mom

I planned to put up Christmas today. Ron came home with rather bad news yesterday so I thought it was time to put up a little Christmas and spread some joy.

I fixed my coffee - can't do anything without that - and munched on some cereal. I clicked on my favorite show, Fox and Friends, just in time to hear this tag line.

"We are going to speak with a mom who made her child stand on the street corner with a sign that said, 'I'm a thief and liar'. Stay tuned."

I almost snarfed cereal through my nose. What lunatic would do that? Of course I stayed tuned. To my horror it was true.

Some mother....better not say who.....was actually proud of what she had done. If the clip appears anywhere, I'd like to know about it. Here's what I remember about the interview.

Mom was asked, why did you do this?

Mom: I tried yelling and spanking and everything else. I couldn't get him to stop stealing money from my purse and smoking. So, I thought this might work. I made him write a sign saying I'm a liar and thief. I took him to a busy street corner and made him stand there for three hours. I sat in the car - I'm not a thief so I wasn't going to freeze. (my note: She didn't mind her child suffering in the cold, but she wasn't going to. Hum...is that love? One good thing, at least the child's face was covered by his coat so all you could see was his eyes)

Interviewer: What happened?

Mom: A couple of people stopped and prayed for him. Some others pointed fingers and told him he shouldn't do that.

Interviewer: Has it helped?

Mom: Well, ah...I don't know yet. He's just joining in with his friends in laughing about it. So far he's kind of like a celebrity. A lot of news camera's have picked it up.

Interviewer: I don't understand. You couldn't get him to stop lying, but he did obey and stand there.

Mom: Yeah, well... I guess there was some element of fear there.

Interviewer: What are you going to do if this doesn't work?

Mom: Ah...hum....I don't know....Counseling maybe?

Whoa! Yeah Bad Mom, but guess who needs the counseling? You!

For all my readers, I'm sorry if I am offending you - but child abuse always makes me mad. Let me explain why this is so bad.

First of all embarrassment never works....IT NEVER WORKS! You may think it's pulling out the big guns, but all you are doing is helping the child to repress whatever is wrong. Embarrassment never works because it hides the real issues that must be dealt with. AND....embarrassment will turn all your child's hate and dislike toward you. It builds huge walls between the parent and child that many times will never be broken.

Let's use this mom as an example. Her child may seem to be dealing with this for now. Unfortunately, she has placed herself outside the "family" bounds. Now she is part of the unfriendly world that this child doesn't want to talk to. No longer will she be perceived as a person he can trust with information. She will be seen as a person that "wants" to hurt him and he won't be able to trust her with any information that is bothering him. Even simple fun stuff like which girl he has a crush on will be withheld.

When he becomes a teen, the hiding will continue. Not only will he refuse to be seen with her, but he will not share information about his friends or social life. After all, if she would embarrass him why wouldn't she embarrass his friends. None of his friends will want to come to his house for fear she will hurt them. He now has a choice to make and it's between his friends or his mom. Since she can't be trusted, he will probably choose his friends.

His teen life will become Me vs. Mom and the arguing will reach epic levels. She won't be able to see that he lost his trust beginning at age 8 when she embarrassed him in front of the entire school and town - and he can't ever trust her and may not realize why.

She has also damaged the way any friends, neighbors, teachers or future bosses will see him. Forever - he will be labeled as a liar and thief. And in his eyes she will always carry the label of "not caring about his feelings and someone he can't trust". What was a small issue at age 8 has now become a life long problem. Anytime something is missing all eyes will turn his way. Anytime he says something a little out of the ordinary, no one will believe him.

At 16 he may be dating a girl. Someone is jealous and tells a lie on him. He tries to make it right, but no one believes him. The girl breaks up and he's facing his mom's label again. You see, the fact is that no matter how much we try to forgive and forget....once you are labeled as a thief or liar - most people will have doubts about you being totally cured. It takes a long time for people to actually believe you again. Most of the time young children and often many adults don't stick around long enough in a bad situation to prove their innocence.

Maybe he will go to another state to college thinking he can leave it all behind. He finds the girl of his dreams. He applies for the job of his dreams with a company that checks out everything about his life. Many corporations now use the Internet to cross reference a person's life. This story comes out and even though his face is not shown on TV, other parts of the story connect him as being that child. The company doesn't hire him (because they aren't sure they can trust him), his girl finds out and says she can't trust him - ends their courtship - and who does this young man hate now? Mom.

At that point Mom will be in counseling because not only is her son's life affected, but she is hated as well.

DON'T GO THERE! Embarrassment is not a discipline tool - it's just abuse. Embarrassment breaks relationships - and that's all it does. It shouldn't happen between friends, co-workers or in the school classroom. And more important - it should never happen between parent and child.

I think we all should pray for this child that he will find God and a way to deal with national attention for this horrible parenting. This is probably only the tip of iceberg as to what goes on in that home.

And if you are having issues in your home that you simply can't carry any longer....please, write me or at least buy my book, Discipline Exposed. Don't make decisions today that will end your loving family tomorrow.

"Dear God, please help this young man to find you. Please give him the strength to forgive and to live a normal life. And above all, please help this mom to find an honest counselor that will help her admit to her wrong."

Seeking your wisdom,

Debbie

TRUTH is the Answer to parenting

In my book, Discipline Exposed, I explain that the only way to effectively parent is with TRUTH. After looking at the original manuscript for this book, my editor called to point out a typo. "Debbie, every time you mention truth your computer capitalized the word. We need to fix that."

"Do we have to? I did it on purpose because I believe that TRUTH is the most important component of good parenting." If you purchase my book you will see that the editor agreed.

Today there was an article at the online magazine One News Now. It reported on a new study by the Josephson Institute. More than 29,000 students were surveyed. The lack of honesty and a desire to live by the TRUTH was scary.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=341232

64 % admitted to cheating on a test

36% claimed to have used the Internet to plagiarize their school work

42% lied to save money

93% were satisfied with their personal ethics

Here's the problem....if our young people don't understand truth and honesty....what will our future be like?

Dr. Bill Maier of Focus on the Family pointed out, "We've seen over the last generation or so a move to question absolute truth and certainly to question biblical truth -- and it really doesn't surprise me that now we are starting to see the result in the behavior of our young people."

Okay Moms and Dads....think about it! Your children and all the other children across this nation are our future leaders, business owners, parents and spouses. If they are willing to lie and cheat their way through school, what's to prevent them from lying to client or botching an operation because they don't know what they are doing?

TRUTH is everything. You must teach your child to live by and for TRUTH. It's the only way to teach your faith and the only hope that America has of staying free.

If you don't know how to parent by TRUTH - you can purchase my book or send me a personal e-mail. If you do nothing, your relationship suffers and so does America.

You can do this! We can do it together - I'll help you. It's not hard. I promise you and your child will enjoy the process.

Seeking God's Wisdom,

Debbie

Christmas Meltdown

Debbie, I need help!

I'm trying to have a good Christmas season, but my son is having daily meltdowns! I've taken away all the sugar (even though he's not usually hyperactive) I've scolded him and done more time outs than you can imagine. I've talked to him and even sent him to his room. I don't want to get violent, but I'm at the end of my rope. Please help.

He's four and I want him to have fun this year, but I'm even afraid of putting up the tree. I think he might launch off the couch just to see if he can reach the top star. It's really sad too because normally he's quiet and a lot of fun. In the last week he's gotten into everything he shouldn't, I'm always fussing and he's always crying. Is there an answer to his Christmas Meltdown?

Bah Humbug! Sounds like your home has turned from happy to miserable real fast. Let's see if we can put our detective hat on and see what might be happening.

From birth until age two most children are simply taking in the sights. They are exploring yes...but most of it is to accumulate stimulus and let their brains get used to navigating their little bodies. When they begin to repeat simple words, you can begin the process of communication and training.

At two years old your child should be using two word sentences and be able to understand simple commands and concepts. At age three your child is using three to five word sentences and is asking "what, where and when". Your child should be using intelligible words about 80% of the time and his vocabulary is about 300-1,000 words.

Here's the clue for your child. This comment was written to go along with a booklet entitled Stages of Growth and maturity. You can write me for a copy of the entire booklet.

"From birth to age two, it is vital that you make sense to your child. Explain everything. Not only the physical but the emotional, educational, social and stress areas as well. By age four your child will have developed a sense of who and what you are. Because their concentration level is still only about 45-60 seconds, they will still make mistakes and some of those mistakes will seem like defiance. But, If you look closer at the reasons for sudden meltdowns you might find out that your child is dealing with a tidal wave of information and simply doesn't have the tools to deal with it all.

Imagine that you just took a job as a secretary to five lawyers. You spent three weeks training with the previous secretary. Today is your first day all by yourself. You know you can do it, but that repetitive attitude - I don't have to think about it cause I just know how to do it - hasn't evolved. You sit down and look around. Your office is beautiful and you are so excited you landed such an important and stimulating job.

Your bliss is interrupted when one boss comes in and yells that he wants coffee, a phone call and an entire file folder copied and on his desk in 10 minutes. Another boss arrives and fusses about some check that your predecessor should have mailed and you better find it and now! Another boss arrives smiling and wants to be friends. He wants you to stop by so he can give you the "welcome" speech. The fourth boss yell a cuss word followed by a command that you didn't get because four lines are now ringing. The fifth boss tells you not to park where you did and to let him know when his call to London comes through. You know, the one you just hung up on. You break the heal of your shoe getting to the first boss and ......

Well...you get the idea. How would you handle that? Would you have a meltdown?

So what's that got to do with your 4 year old? He's learned a lot of words, learned how to manipulate his body, learned about presents and fun times. He likes movement because it's so cool to get his body to do stuff that he couldn't do for a long time. The world looks to him like one big toy store. He hasn't learned about disappointments, work ethics or rejections. He doesn't know anything about grandmothers that don't like messy tables or dirty clothes. All he understands is that if something looks cool - investigate, cause it probably is!

And you...He loves you, but you've gone from "Let's go see" to "No, don't touch." He doesn't understand that the principle of digging in the summer ground for worms doesn't work with poinsettias.

What I'm trying to say is that yes...he's wrong. Yes....he needs to be restrained....but you're wrong too. You can't take an inexperienced child with all that energy and place him in a house full of stimulus and expect him to remain calm.

Why would you think that a child that doesn't have the capacity to remember what happened when he was three would remember the cool tree from last Christmas. He won't. But here comes Mom with two boxes of ornaments and lights and this big tree that looks like a tall forest from his viewpoint. He stands there looking up and smelling the pine scent. He's not going to think "Oh, I better be careful, this is going to make a mess."

No, a four year old is thinking...."Wow, cool. Wonder if this tree has a squirrel in it? Cool, look at that green stuff dropping off. Wonder if I could make them all fall off? Should I pull them or can I just brush them. What's this icky stuff? It makes my fingers stick together. What would happen if I put it on this toy or this table? Daddy lets me climb the tree out front. I bet I could climb this one too. Pretty clinking things! What would happen if I bounced this glass ball?"

Children are stimulated the most by what colors? Primary colors. Deep reds, blues and greens.

And what have you decorated your house with??? Deep reds, blues and greens.

Have a heart Mom....give that kid a break! Don't give in to him and make him a brat, but do teach him how to be excited without destroying the house.

How?

Take one full day to train him. Don't plan anything for the day except one on one time with you and the house. Take him around and let him touch and feel the pretty things. Tell him he can't play with them and show him why. Take an ornament or trinket that you don't mind breaking and show him how fragile they are. Throw it down or put it in a cloth and crush it with your shoe. Let him hear it break and see the damage. Then explain that if we break these, we won't have the money to replace them. That's why you can't allow him to launch off the couch.

After he has the information needed to calm down about Christmas - design a plan. Maybe you will want to corral his excitement by allowing him to play with a new toy everyday. Take toys out of his room and wrap them up. Everyday - if he is calm during the day - he is allowed to open a present after supper to play with. Make the game more exciting by wrapping them in funny ways and seeing if he can guess the toy before he opens it.

All day long when his little mind and body gets too excited point to the "daily" presents and say, "Remember that if you stop this and control your body, you can open one of those." You will be training him to concentrate on a goal, control his emotions, plan for the future and control his body." Wow! That quite an accomplishment.

Allow him to participate in what your doing. A little mess while he rolls his own cookie dough takes less time to clean up than dealing with an out of control child for two hours.

If you go shopping be sure and include time for him. Don't make him run double time to keep up with you or wait for two hours while you pick out a shirt. Take along plenty of snacks and small toys to keep him occupied. Take or get a stroller so he won't get tired of walking. Stop every 15 minutes to tickle, cuddle and play. And while you are in the middle of shopping, include him by asking, "Do you like this? Do you think Daddy will like this? Can you help me find a red one?"

I hope this helps. If it doesn't, send a more detailed account of your problems to my personal e-mail address debbie@debbiejansen.com and I'll try to sort it all out. You might also want to go to my store and order "How to have a Goof Proof Christmas". It has lots of tips for yourself as well as your children.

Merry Christmas!

Debbie