Looking for new parenting Ideas? Read this first. It provides an orientation to this site.
If you’re looking for new and better parenting ideas, you came to the right place!
Hi. I’m Chuck Adam, a life and relationship coach, after having practiced psychotherapy for 33 years. During that time, and for my past five years as a coach, I have been focusing on educating parents on relationship skills and attitudes to use with their kids. (Adults can use these skills in all their relationships with other adults as well.)
I am thoroughly convinced that the parent-child relationship is the most important of all relationships any of us ever has, and it is key to the future of humanity as well. Please see my Philosophy statement for more on that topic.
On this website I am posting many articles I have written for my various parent education classes as handouts. I invite you to browse them, read them, leave your comments about them, and share them with others if you think they might benefit from them.
Central, guiding principle
The central guiding principle behind everything I write is a conviction that I have come to while working with families and individuals since 1971. I have never seen any other author talk about it quite like this, and I am puzzled about why this is so. It comes down to this:
The core problem in interpersonal relationships is the delusion of control.
By this I mean that the great majority of people are erroneously focused on trying to control other people’s behavior--for example “getting” them to change–-when in fact that is not even a possibility.
Parents are too often obsessed with "controlling" child behavior and in this way "preventing" misbehavior. Other parents judge a mother or father harshly if they think that parent "can't control their kids." Spouses argue over what each other does, and try to “get” each other to change. Even professionals, such as authors, therapists, and instructors, talk about “controls” on children’s behavior, and being “in control of the situation” (which means enforcing limits and rules in a way that puts them “in control” of the child’s behavior).
I maintain that no one can control anyone’s behavior–-or thoughts, or feelings--but their own. Furthermore, it is a great mistake, with far-reaching consequences, to not admit this, and then start talking about relationships and relationship skills in different ways, using different language that explicitly acknowledges this profound truth.
Influence and cooperation
We all have great influence over other people, and this is especially true of parents and children. However, influence does not equal control. The result of fully acknowledging and accepting this fact is that we must come to the conclusion that the best anyone, including parents, can expect from anyone else, including their youngest children, is cooperation.
If all of us truly thought this way, and acted accordingly, we would have a far different world, because our families--the building blocks of society--would be far more harmonious, with far less conflict, discord, resentment, hatred, fighting, and violence. Our children would be learning far different skills and attitudes about how to be a person, how to be a parent, and how to treat and deal with other people in schools, in the neighborhood, and everywhere in society.
Obedience is “Old School” and often destructive.
So, I am convinced that the best that parents can ever expect from their children, the best they can hope for and strive to teach, is cooperation. Furthermore, I maintain that a child's cooperation is far superior to the age-old ideal and expectation of “obedience.” Striving to "get" children to obey, to follow the rules and the wisdom of the parents, is often not only a waste of time, but it can even be a destructive and harmful misuse of parental power and authority. I say this in full recognition of the fact that when we adults were kids, some 20 or more years ago, we lived in a world which demanded obedience and conformity, and we gave it. And we turned out pretty well. So the methods our parents used wasn't inherently bad.
But I’m saying that those parenting methods, which I call “Old School” power and control methods, too often do not work very well today--with children of all ages. The reason for this is that our society has changed so radically over the past 20 years that many, many of our children are a very different “breed of cat” than we were as children.
Children are very different now.
I'm not saying that today’s parents are not good parents or good people. I'm not saying that the "Old School" methods our parents used are bad. What I am saying is that the environment in which we live now, as adults, is so radically different from that in which we lived as kids, that we are dealing with children today who are so much more sophisticated, savvy, demanding, “spoiled,” and (dare I say it?) so much smarter than we were, that the old parenting methods we learned from our parents (which is where learned to be parents), don’t work very well with a great many kids today. And millions of good, loving parents are suffering--through no fault of their own. They're trying to fit a round peg in a square hole.
(It is also true that the old ways still work very well with a great many children who are, by temperament and with the loving respect of their parents, quite compliant and cooperative naturally. With these children it may not be necessary for parents to adopt New School attitudes and techniques. But I think it would still be helpful, and you would see even better performance from your children.)
Thus, parents with belligerent children are today faced with a truly difficult challenge: how to adapt. How do we learn better methods of parenting that really work with today’s bright and autonomous youngsters? Do such methods even exist? Yes, they do! That's what this whole website is about.
Let me say what I think the earnest, caring parent is up against, and what I consider the two greatest challenges facing todays' loving parents who are suffering and struggling with challenging children.
Parent’s two greatest challenges
It comes down to these two things, basically: 1) lack of awareness and 2) ego.
1) Lack of awareness. How can anyone be expected to parent differently than their own parents did, unless somewhere along the way they learn different attitudes, skills, and knowledge? We learned a specific way of being parents by living with our own parents as kids, just as we learned a specific language, English, and not Portugese, from living with our own parents as kids. We have, most likely, lived our parents' values and attitudes all our lives. And now we find that they don't work well with our children, like they did with us. Where are we, as loving but befuddled parents today, supposed to learn the kinds of things that will help our angry, rebellious, disrespectful children--who are also suffering too?
One can learn new, more effective ways only by reading and interacting with others who have new ideas and practices that seem to be effective–-unless one is extremely bright and observant, and creative enough to come up with new approaches on their own. I don’t generally run into that, though. Instead, I constantly run into parents who love their children dearly, and who are frustrated and confused by the complexities of parenting their “new breed” of kids.
2) Ego.The second challenge is, in my mind, even greater than the first. It is the human ego. It is one thing to read books, go to classes, join discussion and support groups, and learn new ideas. It is quite something else to come home and start doing things differently, and throw off the yoke of the previous generation (our parents), and swallow one’s pride, even to the point that it (at first) feels like “giving in” to one’s children.
I’m not at all suggesting that parents give in to their children. What I’m suggesting is simply that a parent’s own ego becomes their biggest stumbling block to learning and using new ideas, because the ego will make it feel like they’re giving in. It’s the ego which exerts its powerful drive to “get somebody to change.” We all do try to do that, and we simply have a hard time realizing–-that is, fully comprehending and acting on this delusion of control–-that we really and truly cannot do it. I’ve had parents take four or five of my courses, and keep saying, “This is so hard! I keep falling back into my old habits.” It’s not that they don’t know better. It’s just that those strong emotions, those all-pervasive egoistic attitudes, those deep-rooted and spontaneous responses, are so tough to root out.
This site addresses what it really takes to be the best parent you can be.
It takes humility, courage, commitment, and a willingness to risk in order for a parent to really give the New School ideas a chance. This site will give you all kinds of new and challenging perspectives on parenting–-and all of your other relationships as well. There are nine core relationship skills that I speak about on this site for parents, and they are applicable to all other relationships in your life. They can unerringly transform any and all human relationships.
Some themes to be found throughout this site.
In closing, here are a few of the themes that run through everything I teach in my courses, all the handouts I give to parents, and everything that I post on this site:
- No one can control anyone’s behavior, thoughts, or feelings other than their own.
- The best that parents can expect from their children is not obedience, but cooperation.
- The best way to invite cooperation, and the single most powerful skill (in parenting and in all human relationships), the “magic wand” of parenting, is listening.
- There are three key listening skills.
- There are three key communicating skills.
- There are three key disciplining skills.
- The most common and devastating mistake in any human relationship is the attempt to control another’s behavior.
- Influence does not equal control. Even if they don’t feel like it or realize it, parents have enormous ability to influence their children--that is, enormous power with their children.
- The most profound and destructive attitude in any human relationship is false pride, or ego.
- The most important ingredient in caring, cooperative, and loving parent-child relationships (or any relationships) is not love, but respect.
- The single most misunderstood, disrespectful, and harmful concept in the modern family, and in the professional literature on parenting, is discipline.
- There are no “right” or “wrong” ways of parenting, including the methods I am suggesting. There are only methods that work, and it all depends on what a particular parent means by “what works.”
Conclusion
If you’re still hanging in here with me, still reading this, first of all, thank you and congratulations! You must be serious about this topic. Good for you! You came to the right place! And, second, I invite you to get involved here. Leave your comments about any of the posts on this site (including this one) for me and others to see. I will respond to comments as best I can, and as often as I can.
Good luck! But, if the truth be told, you and I know that it’s not really a matter of luck, is it?
Chuck Adam, The Parent Guy
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