Your Parenting Matters

Every since I was introduced to the “bible” of parenting, “Children the Challenge” by Rudolf Driekurs when my children were in nursery school, I have been grateful I showed up for that parent meeting. My children were quite young and no glaring behavioral problems had reared their ugly heads. But, as I was always open to better ways to parent, I was very curious to find out what this one offered. What I found, changed my life and there is no doubt that it changed the lives of my children and our family. Because at the time, I had no idea that my marriage would end in divorce, I would go back to school and become a counselor, my oldest daughter would be diagnosed with epilepsy and that I would essentially be raising my children on my own.

So, the day that I purchased the book and started reading was a life changing event. We were supposed to only read one or two chapters at a time before each class. But once I started reading, I couldn’t put the book down. Now, I was no stranger to parenting books. But either they seemed to complicated, too punitive or just did not come from a very positive perspective about children in general.

The book acknowledged that times had changed. No longer was it a “do what I say, not what I do” or “children should be seen and not heard” world. The book also chronicled much of the misbehavior that we commonly see these days, especially in public. It seems that parents have either lost all control over their children, are continuously yelling, cajoling, bribing or physically spanking their children in an attempt to get them to behave. Parents are either over-controlling or so permissive that the children run wild. So, what is the answer?

The underlying concept of what I like to call Stressless Parenting is that children NATURALLY want to belong, to cooperate and to learn. I loved this concept, because it meant that my children were fine to begin with and I did not have to be a dictator to ensure that they learned how to behave. That all I had to do was find effective ways to influence their good behavior, train them to be responsible and make good choices. Wow, we were on to something.

The best part of this parenting style is that misbehavior is seen as an error in how a child reacts to his environment. Let’s see if I can clarify what I mean. From Adlerian psychology we know that children want to belong and find their place in the family. Next, all children are like sponges. They ’soak’ up what is going on around them and they are wonderful observers of family dynamics but they are not so good at interpreting what they observe. This is because they do not have the life experience to understand the complexities of what they see. So, as a young child interacts with the environment, she will start to categorize her experiences for later reference even if they are inaccurate.

Let’s take a look at how this concept shows up in misbehavior. If a young child gets constant attention and no matter how you respond it never seems enough, that child has ‘learned’ from YOUR response to him that he only matters when you are paying attention to him. Another example may be that you find yourself in constant power struggles or war of the wills between you and your child. No matter what you do, it escalates and your anger gets the best of you. At the root of these ‘misbehaviors’ is the child’s mistaken goal of what kind of behavior will ensure his place in the family. If he seeks constant attention and gets it whether positive or negative, it reinforces his goal of “I only matter when someone is paying attention to me”. If parents continually give in to a child’s demands and don’t establish limits or boundaries, this misbehaving child believes that “I only matter when I am in control”.

So, understanding that a child is not consciously manipulating you or scheming in his room about the next “gotcha” you can start to see misbehavior in a whole new light. Your job as the parent is to understand where the misbehavior is coming from and make changes in how YOU parent and how YOU react to your child’s behavior and your CHILD’s behavior will change. There is no such thing as a ‘bad’ child.

Many times in my counseling practice, I received calls from upset parents who wanted to send their young child to therapy to do something about her behavior. I always required that I start with the parents and when they understood the principles of this parenting approach and were willing to make changes to their way of parenting, the behavior problems of their child were resolved.

The principles of Adlerian psychology as it applies to children is respectful, democratic, practical and incredibly effective. And, all this happens without spanking, grounding, yelling or bribing. It is the only parenting style you will ever need. It will see you through all the pitfalls of parenting with grace and joy.

This is the overview of what is possible with what I call Stressless Parenting. After, the initial book about the approach was published, several authors created a more modern, accessible series of parenting books based on the original book by Driekurs. The series I recommend is the Positive Discipline books. These books provide the source material for the online parenting classes I facilitate.

If the ideas presented here intrigue you as they did me, I urge you to join the dialogue and ask questions, make comments and see if this way of parenting makes sense to you now as it did for me, many years ago.