Instead lessons of honesty and integrity should be enforced. "Parents swoop in like attorneys demanding evidence," Sax said. Have an alliance between the school and you. If your child did something, don't approach teachers or administrators with suspicion and distrust. It really cannot be "everybody gets a trophy." They need to be able to see the world through another lens and be able to handle rejection or failure. Teach humility. Give lessons that show children that they are not the most important people in the world.
PARENTING YOU RE DOING IT WRONG INSTALL
Install software like My Mobile Watchdog, which will share every photo that they take or post with you. And what they post online never goes away. They don't know how to communicate with someone face to face or have outside interests and hobbies. Video games also rewire the way their brains work. Online friends can quickly become more important than the friends children see in person. Put screens in public places and limit how they are used. This generation lives life in a virtual world. Kids are chronically sleep deprived, which leads to poor behavior and can even be the reason why kids are getting mental health diagnosis. Take screens out of the bedroom. This includes cell phones, computers, TVs and video games. It also helped children develop good nutrition habits, lessening the obesity problem. One study found that for each additional meal a family had together, the children were less likely to internalize problems such as anxiety or externalize problems such as skipping school. Have family meals at home and make that a top priority. "You have to communicate that our time together as a parent and child is more important than anything else," he said. In his book, Sax cites numerous research studies that found that a lack of parental authority is why obesity is on the rise, why more kids are on anti-anxiety and attention deficit disorder medication, why children are have a culture of disrespect, seem fragile, and why American children no longer lead the world in education. “It doesn’t help to spend more time with kids if they are spending it in the wrong ways,” Sax said. But instead of spending time at family meals, this generation is spending time shuttling children from one extracurricular activity to the next or spending time doing their work for them. Sax said this is a generation of parents who are spending more time with children than any previous generation. Those things are the biggest predictors of future success in adulthood, he said, not education or affluence.
Sometimes, you have to be the bad guy.Īccording to Sax, parents should focus on helping children develop skills such as self-control, humility and conscientiousness, meaning they think of people other than themselves. “In doing that job, you’re going to do a lot of things a child won’t approve of and not understand,” he said. Instead, Sax said, a parent's job is to teach children right from wrong, teach them the meaning of life and keep their children safe. “They now see their job as facilitating whatever a kid wants to do,” he said. Instead of parents exercising their authority because they know what’s best, they are focusing on making children happy and boosting their self-esteem. The hierarchy of parent over child no longer exists, he said. Some parenting experts told adults that they should offer their children choices instead of telling them what to do and parents believed them, he said. “Every sentence ends in a question mark.” “It’s a sentence: ‘Open up and say, 'Ahh.'' Parents are incapable of speaking to their children in a sentence that ends in a period,” he said.