| Coaching | |
 |
|
 Where
Do Sibling Problems Come From (and what can I do about them)? A glance through the Bible quickly dispels the rumor that sibling problems are an invention of the twenty-first century. Cain and Abel ended up with a rivalry so strong that it resulted in murder, something we all hope will not happen in our households any time soon. Not too long after this, Jacob swindled his brother, Esau, out of his family birthright. Years later, Joseph’s brothers sold him to passing merchants as a slave when they could no longer stomach his stories of how he envisioned them all bowing to him one day. None of these are candidates for family of the year. There are three basic reasons for sibling conflict that have influenced every sibling relationship ever since Cain and Abel tried on their first set of Pampers. These are the same three reasons that cause sibling conflict in your family. Here they are, in reverse order: Reason #3: You have more than one child. Bottom line--you have sibling problems because you own a set of siblings. As peanut butter goes with jelly, so conflict goes with siblings. If there ever was a set of siblings who never had any conflict, you could probably look them up in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Reason #2: Your children live in the same house. Have you ever wondered why your children have friends? It is because they don’t have to live with their friends. They enjoy fun activities together and then what happens? They all go home. To their own houses, where they can be annoyed by their own siblings. Ah yes, home, the place where you have to pick up toys you didn’t play with, wait your turn to go to the bathroom, get the smallest brownie, and share the T.V. And who causes you all this emotional pain? That’s right, your siblings. When children live together in the same house, they have a myriad of opportunities to inconvenience and frustrate each other. Before you know it, Johnny just gets in the habit of feeling annoyed at Susie, without even knowing why. Reason #1: Your children’s living together skills are still developing. The number one reason that your children have sibling conflict is that their living together skills are still in the process of developing. Living together skills are the habits and behaviors that we need to get along with people we live with. They include negotiating, sharing, taking turns, being flexible, communicating respectfully, handling aggravation, and creatively solving problems. But here’s the rub: your children’s living together skills are not fully developed, or perfected. So, you have children with under-developed living together skills living in a high frustration environment. This is a recipe for sibling conflict if I’ve ever heard one. A Lesson from the Garden Your job is to help your children develop a finely tuned set of living together skills. These skills will aid them in every facet of their lives, both now and in the years to come. But how do you do it? Picture a beautiful garden, with brilliantly colored tulips swaying side by side with the cool breeze. They’re not calling each other names, or kicking each other beneath the soil. You ask yourself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if my kids could be like that, each unique, but living together with cooperation and respect?” Well, guess what? They can. The same three things you must do to grow beautiful flowers are the same three things that will help your children develop healthy sibling relationships. Take a look: 1) Prepare the soil. As any good gardener knows, it’s much easier to grow a beautiful flower in rich, nourishing soil than it is in a lump of hard clay. This means that you need to create a nourishing family soil that will produce the type of family bonding that will lead to healthy sibling relationships. You do this by having regular family times, providing consistent parental attention and warm physical touch to all your kids, and by showing your children how to treat others respectfully through your own example. 2) Plant the seed. Just as you plant a tulip bulb if you want to grow a tulip, you must plant the “seeds” of living together skills if you want to grow healthy sibling relationships. You want to teach your kids how to handle the situations of everyday family life in a respectful way. You accomplish this by training your children just as you would if you were training an employee for a new job. You provide the initial training sessions and then follow-up with on-the-spot training whenever needed. To help you with this, you will find 15 skill-building Family Time Discussion Guides in Keep the Siblings, Lose the Rivalry that will help you teach your children living together skills that will build healthy sibling relationships in a fun and memorable way. 3) Provide the right environment. After enriching your family soil and planting the seeds of living together skills, your next step is to provide the right environment if your seed is to blossom into the beautiful flower it was created to be. You must create a family environment where respectful sibling behavior pays off while disrespectful sibling behavior never brings a positive result. This means using strategic positive reinforcement to help your children realize that treating each other respectfully is more fun than they ever imagined. On the flip side, you must respond quickly with either on-the-spot training or appropriate negative consequences when your children decide to handle a dispute in a disrespectful way. The lesson is clear and consistent: Treating each other respectfully turns on the positives, while treating each other disrespectfully turns them off. Ready, Set, Grow! You can take the lead in preparing a nurturing family soil, teaching your children how to handle everyday situations in a respectful way, and in providing an environment that helps respectful sibling relationships to flourish. As you do this, your children will have a chance to develop warm and respectful sibling relationships that will bless their lives and your family forever. You will find more detail and many practical ideas for developing respectful sibling relationships in my book, Keep the Siblings, Lose the Rivalry. |
|
|
|
|
| “The more connected your
kids are to you, the easier it will be for them to connect with each
other.” From Keep the Siblings, Lose the Rivalry Workshop “Don’t discipline your kids like a hammer that pounds things down, but like a gardener that grows things up.” From the Redefining Discipline Workshop |
|
 |
|
| The Kaiser Family Foundation
looked at the relationship between children’s weight and the time spent
on electronic activities. The studies indicated that advertising may
play a significant hand in influencing kids’ appetites. They estimated
that the typical child sees about 40,000 ads a year on TV, mostly for
candy, cereal, soda, and fast food. Another study, done by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, found that fast food doesn’t help much either. Most meals have between 600 and 1000 calories—that’s half a day’s worth of calories or more for kids aged 4-8. A cheeseburger, fries, Coke, and sundae add up to about 1700 calories and three and a half days worth of bad fat. On the brighter side, a pediatrician at Stanford University studied 1100 kids aged 8-10 and found that one factor slowed down the onset of obesity more than anything else. What was that factor? Turning off the T.V. |
|
|
|
|
| Question: My son's
teacher thinks my son has ADHD. What should I do now? Answer: Everything that wiggles is not necessarily ADHD. ADHD is a neurological condition that makes it more difficult to concentrate and inhibit impulses, particularly when engaged in a task that is boring or routine. If your son has difficulty staying on-task, sitting still, or sustaining his attention at school, he may have an ADHD condition. However, these behaviors can sometimes be caused by other conditions, such as learning problems, depression, anxiety, or being intellectually gifted. It is also possible that your son may display a milder level of ADHD features that are not as severe as those of a child with ADHD. If you think your son is demonstrating significant problems with inattention and/or overactivity, have him evaluated by a mental health professional (usually a psychiatrist or psychologist) or by a physician who is familiar with ADHD. The evaluation should include a physical examination, parent and child interviews, behavioral checklists completed by parents and teacher, and other testing as indicated. The results should be clearly explained to you and will help you discover whether or not your son has ADHD. If he does, then you can begin to develop a game-plan to address his condition with the help of a mental health professional and many resources for parents of ADHD children. For more information on ADHD, visit the CHADD website at: www.chadd.org. . |
|
 |
|
| A FORK-IN-THE-ROAD See if this sounds familiar. Johnny is playing a video game. You ask him to turn it off and get ready for dinner. No response. Being the understanding parent you are, you ask him again, telling yourself that perhaps he didn’t hear you the first time. “Just a minute,” is his response. You repeat your request one more time, beginning to feel aggravated that he is taking advantage of your patience. “I’m almost done,” he replies in a frustrated tone, making you feel like you are interrupting an important business meeting. Before long, tempers flare and privileges are lost, and you are left with that nagging feeling that perhaps you didn’t handle things the right way. When you ask Johnny to do something, you want him to respond quickly and in a respectful way. That can include doing what you asked him to do, or asking you a respectful question about the situation (e.g., “Mom, can I just finish this level?”). However, if he begins to go down the wrong road, then you have a chance to help him switch back to the right road before it is too late. You can help Johnny get back on the right road by giving him what I call a fork-in-the-road. When you give your child a fork-in-the-road, you give him two clear options, or forks. You are emphasizing his ability to choose which fork to take, and the positive or negative results that come with his choice. The top fork is a specific description of what Johnny can say or do that will be the best choice for him at that moment. The bottom fork simply describes the consequence that will happen if he doesn’t choose the top fork. For instance, a fork-in-the-road might sound like this: “Susie, I’d like you to walk up the stairs and brush your teeth right now please, or you will go right to Time-Out.” Now, let’s repeat our story, this time using a fork-in-the-road. Johnny is playing a video game. You ask him to turn it off and get ready for dinner. No response. Being the understanding parent you are, you ask him again, telling yourself that perhaps he didn’t hear you the first time. “Just a minute,” is his response. This is where the story changes. It is now very clear that Johnny is choosing the wrong road. It is time to give Johnny a fork-in-the-road, to help him make a better choice. Using a calm voice, you say, “Johnny, I’d like to you turn your game off and get ready for dinner right now please. If you don’t, then there will be no video games or T.V. for the rest of the day.” No fireworks, no explosions, just a calm and respectful fork-in-the-road. If Johnny responds to the fork-in-the-road respectfully, give him a warm squeeze and tell him that he made a good choice. The more positive you make the experience of choosing the right road, the more likely he is to remember it for next time. If Johnny responds disrespectfully, then he immediately loses video and T.V. privileges for the day. Either way, he is learning the right lesson, namely, that respectful behavior is the only choice that pays off. Whenever you see your child headed down the wrong road, curb your temptation to start shouting, and use a fork-in-the-road instead. It can make all the difference in the choice he makes. |
|
 |
|
| “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1 | |
PARENTING WORKSHOPS!
Have your parent-group or church host a fun and practical
workshop with Dr. Cartmell.
Biblically-based, humorous, and filled with hands-on ideas, these workshops
will help you become the best parent that you can be.
Dr. Cartmell’s workshops include:
Redefining Discipline
Keep the Kids, Lose the Attitude
Keep the Siblings, Lose the Rivalry
Do you need answers to your everyday parenting challenges?
Let these resources from Dr. Cartmell give you the ideas you need:
The Parent Survival Guide
Keep the Siblings, Lose the Rivalry
Read book excerpts and find helpful parenting tips at www.dr.todd.net
Don’t miss Dr. Cartmell’s Discipline Matters column in the current issue
of Christian Parenting Today!
If you enjoy Dr. Todd’s Family Coach, forward it to your friends!
Their kids will send you a brownie!