Raising Able Children: how to nurture capable confident young people

Walking on stilts is a harmless avocation. Notice what's in their hands at this party.

Tonight [Sept. 23]I’m giving a workshop at Roudenbush Community Center in Westford, Mass.,  “How to Make Peace with Your Spirited Child.”

I often open with a discussion of the greatest fears for our children — what can happen when youngsters are motivated by fear instead of desire.

Using fear, praise, reward and punishment to discipline children can result in the Three Rs – rebellion, revenge and resentment and lead to a breakdown in parent-teen relationship and teens making decisions [like the ones below]  influenced by rebellion, revenge and resentment against parents.

The root of “discipline” is “disciple” which means “follower of a teacher.” We parents teach our children.

My goal is to teach youngsters how to make good decisions so when they become teenagers they’ll choose wisely when they’re 60 miles away going 60 miles an hour. I call it the 60/60 theory.

Young people can make so many bad decisions. Below is my short list of greatest fears.

I broke down my big list into seven categories — the body, sex [the biggest list!], the mind, technology, legal, social and school/career.

I most worried about drug addiction because it’s so pervasive, long-term and difficult to cure.  My teens and young adults brushed against a few of these top 10 worries and walked away. I felt scared, angry and out-of-control and compassionate for them.

1. Substance addiction
2. Anorexia/obesity
3. STDs — Sexually transmitted diseases
4. Low self-esteem – depression – suicide [can go hand-in-hand]
5. Feel isolated from family and school [THE greatest danger to teens according to extensive research]
6. Be a victim or bully — sexually, socially or online
7. Break the law and go to jail for a long time
8. Develop a long-term disease, injury or disability from poor choices
9. Connect with friends who crave risky behavior
10. Fall in love with someone with bad character

What’s on your top 10 greatest fears for your children?

This entry was posted on September 23, 2010 at 7:39 am and is filed under 60-60 theory, drugs and alcohol, enjoy not endure your kids, mutual respect, natural and logical consequences, positive parenting, prepare, teenagers, tweens. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: build relationship, worst fears