Part 1 Flashcards
As leaders of our children, it is essential for us to step back from the urgency, the mistakes, the heartbreaks, the rejection. Watch the drama as committed but slightly and bemused observers.
Don’t worry about being popular, don’t act too quickly.
Develop hobbies or interests outside your family life to absorb some of the tension.
Try to find the humor in a large part of what transpires. By taking a deep breath we make space for your child to grow.
Treat your teens music as the curriculum for a 300 level course in modern American song. Ask her to play it for you or to download the lyrics so you can read them while you listen. Find the emotion, the social commentary, the irony, the playfulness and joy in the music.
You have a right as a parent to be appalled by your child’s taste in fashion or to prohibit permanent disfiguration such as piercings.
But remember that God asks us to treasure even the strangest Fruits.
Said to yourself – isn’t it interesting that teenage tribes have strict rules and standards, but when it comes to clothes they also make playful, colorful and original combinations like fingerless gloves and dinosaurs on your T-shirt – – when else in life does a person get to do this?
Judaism stresses deed over words.
Your actions, not your believes, are the true measure of your character.
When your child says something insulting, you cannot kick them back. Not if you want them to feel that you are safely in control of your emotions.
By reacting emotionally to your child’s provocation, you lose your position of authority.
Instead, respond calmly. If your childs rudeness hit you in a sore spot, give yourself a breather. Take a few of those deep breaths.
Say “it is hard to have a conversation when you are speaking in that tone of voice. Let’s start over.”
Who wins when you escalate the battle?
They do, because you’ve just been successfully distracted from the real issue, which is the rule you are setting in enforcing. You will have more success if you ignore attacks and stay focused on the mission which is enforcing the rule at hand.
Kids need you to be steady so they can learn how to be steady themselves.
Parents who are frustrated by persistent rudeness should keep in mind the Jewish concept of peace in the home.
Create standards of respect for the household and lay down specific ground rules.
People are entitled to respectful treatment, healthful food, shelter from the elements, practical and comfortable clothing, check ups at the doctor and dentist and a good education.
Everything else is a privilege. Any privilege maybe with held by you until a specified behavioral standard has been met.
If your teen earns a reward by incentives you set, be sure to live up to your end of the bargain.
You can’t require that teens feel respect for you, or even laugh. You can only require reasonably respectful behavior. They have to practice respect at home because they need practice.
Rules and consequences sound clear on paper but are messy in real life. That is as it should be.
Your child is new at being 12, or 15 or 17 and you are new at being the parent of a teenager. Expect a learning curve.
Put money in the bank even if recipient may not seem entirely deserving.
It is a good lesson to teach your children.
Good manners and respect are things that set one apart.
When your sons professor, for example, is thinking about which student to invite to join a research team or, for example, when your child is invited to spend the weekend with the parents of a boyfriend or girlfriend.
Manners grease the wheels of society.
Though we may not come to know God the way the biblical characters did, we can learn to know God through our actions.
By embodying God, by acting in God’s image, we become closer to the holy and or perfect state.
This can be a source of solace for parents. Watching your teen pull away from you is painful.
But when you guide your child with leadership that is respectful of their developmental phase and their individual spirit, you are traveling in the holy path.
Are you too gifted to sort your own socks?
Don’t shield you are teens from the drudgery of chores and other work.
If you observe your teen from routine responsibilities, he will teach them that there are two types of work—exulted and menial.
In this distorted view, exulted work Takes precedence over the ordinary stuff like keeping track of homework assignments and turn them in on time, remembering to bring the necessary equipment to sports practices, automatically changing the toilet paper roll when it’s down to a few sheets instead of leaving it for the next person, keeping track of the money left on their debit card even during prom season, filling the family car with gas and generally keeping the machinery of life humming.
A large part of life is maintenance and repair.
If you shield your children, you raise handicapped royalty – – children full of conviction but unable to clean their own clothes or read a credit card bill.
These are fragile children who cannot cope with every day life.
Your child will be calmer and more responsible when they learn and perform ordinary tasks.
“I have come not to socialize but to take out your garbage. You may believe it is beneath your dignity, but it is not beneath mine.”
When we set the table properly, with a napkin carefully creased down the middle, when we serve fully prepared food and then sweep the crumbs off the floor, we are elevating society.
We can find holy sparks in every day chores.
Taking out the garbage is as holy as finding a cure for cancer or jumping in the river to save someone from drowning.
A chore that will teach your child less about the quadratic equation will teach them cognitive abilities like executive functions – – planning, prioritizing, delay of gratification, and tolerance / frustration.
Executive functions may not seem glamorous but without them people are unable to set goals or achieve them.
Chores and homework they seem boring.
Teach them this phrase:
“the only way out is through. “
Offer respectful guidance, don’t solve their problems.
Chores are the curriculum of life, and the tuition is free.
Learning to do the laundry, cleaning out the basement, and taking care of pets is a more robust lesson in confidence than any SAT prep course.
Chores lead to better school performance because they teach teens how to organize their time and their actions.
Chores form a foundation for the rest of life as well. Young adults with household skills know how to carry their own weight.
They clear dishes while visiting a girlfriend‘s family and pitch in to keep a shared dorm room pleasant and clean.
They are conscious of ways to help without being told or asked.They are not crippled by the depressing belief that only the less talented or unexceptional perform the necessary chores of daily life.
And because of their skills and willingness to pitch in, they’re considered kind of respectful.
Don’t teach your children the chores are a substitute for life. Teach them the chores are practical way to enhance life. Keep your attitude positive about chores so your teen will learn from you.
When teenagers participate in a community service program paid for by their parents whether in Africa or closer to home, they are not working for money.
Similarly, internships with no real work are useless.
The college common application asks about specific paid jobs held during the past three years including summer employment.
A paid job is one of the best ways to teach teens respect, self-discipline, maturity and integrity – – four traits on which your child’s teachers will reach for when they fill out the common application teacher recommendation form
In a paid job, your teen is often working for adults so she has to cater to them. The adult pays the teen to show up on time, do what is asked of her and more, dressed appropriately, be respectful, keep her work area neat, avoid procrastination, tolerating criticism and learning to be part of a hierarchy that consists of many different and possibly irritating personalities. When a problem arises on the job, you’re a child must solve it.
Working basic jobs also teaches empathy for those who work very, very hard for low wages.
It teaches you that service is not servility and that any job can be done with dignity.
It motivates you to work hard in school when you see how easily low wage and low skill jobs become boring or repetitive.
Consider enrolling your child in a summer session at Baskin Robbins University. The experience is worth it.
If you are committed to the practical and spiritual value of paid work, you can motivate them with a magical tool of requiring teens to earn their own spending money. When your teens acquisition of an iPhone depends on her weekly paycheck, you will be amazed at her willingness to work.
A job offers real life responsibility. The teen girls from the constructed responsibility of “you are responsible for the safety of swimmers at our park“ or, “you must make sure the cash drawer comes out even at the end of your shift.“
If a team is reliable and dependable, he earns even more responsibility. The moment a teenager is trusted with responsibilities, for example being allowed to open a kiosk in the morning, It is a moment of pride.
