Search Results for: blog do you punish your kids for swearing

Molding Future Adults

Amid the chaos of everyday life, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture of parenting. Very easy. When you’re in the trenches dealing with your baby’s dirty diapers, your tween’s potty mouth and the host of other excrement that comes with raising children, it’s hard to focus on the fact that you are molding future adults. Well-adjusted, responsible, thoughtful, charitable, productive adults. That’s the goal. The challenge is looking beyond the moment. These moments. The times when it seems easier to give up, give in, or frankly, not give a damn, rather than digging deep to teach your … Continue reading →

D is for Discipline

A wise parent once told me that the primary purpose of discipline is to teach a lesson. Of course, some kids take longer to learn lessons than others. Consequently, if you are looking for instant results, you may be in for a frustrating haul. A series of recent events had me revisiting the discipline talk I had with said wise parent. My 8-year-old is killing me with her lies. Granted, most of the untruths she tells are minor, but at times her condition seems pathological. After brushing it off for a while, I decided that disciplining her was my only … Continue reading →

Are You Tired of Playing Referee?

Do you look good in stripes? Most women shun wearing clothing covered with unattractive lines, yet when they have kids it seems they are forced to don the referee uniform more than they would like. After a while, though, some refuse the task and leave it up to their warring offspring to solve their own disputes. How often do you allow your children to resolve their own clashes? Moreover, how often does the technique work? Personally, I am not opposed to having children resolve issues amongst themselves. However, I think you are kidding yourself if you think young children possess … Continue reading →

Yelling is Still Bad

You’ve heard the old joke: If you don’t yell at your kids, then you aren’t spending enough time with them. Well, parenting experts aren’t laughing at that one. Regardless, it isn’t stopping frustrated moms and dads from raising their voices when their kids misbehave. Nine years ago, a study published in The Journal of Marriage and Family, found that 88 percent of nearly 1000 parents interviewed admitted shouting, yelling or screaming at their children in the previous year. That percentage jumped to 98 percent in families with 7-year-old children. Today, that number has barely budged. Recent polls show that parents … Continue reading →

Discipline: Playing the Guessing Game

One of the toughest challenges of parenting is disciplining kids. And as if knowing, when, where, and how much to dole out weren’t tough enough, there are times when you are also forced to figure out who is responsible when more than one child is involved in an altercation, so that you are disciplining the right kid. For example, say you are making dinner in the kitchen while your kids are “playing” in the basement. Suddenly, your peaceful salad-making routine is shattered by your son screaming, “Moooooooom, she pushed me into the TV!” This is immediately followed by your daughter … Continue reading →

Shirts That Swear

How do you punish a foul-mouthed kid? Bathe his mouth with hot sauce and soap or ground him until he’s 30? Savvy kids are bypassing parental punishments these days by letting their shirts do the swearing for them. Clothing retailers around the world have long marketed profanity-printed tees, though one uber-popular teen-centric apparel store, Urban Outfitters, is currently generating international media attention for its line of stickers featuring the phrase “Punk as F…” And by … I mean u-c-k. The f-word is spelled out in its entirety on the sticker, which an increasing amount of teens have now taken to … Continue reading →

Phone Manners Matter

One of my biggest pet peeves is watching a young child beg for his mom or dad’s attention when said parent is talking on a cellphone, and then getting swatted away as though he were a pesky mosquito. Granted, most of the time I view these incidents, my daughter and I are at a park, restaurant or other public place, and I don’t know who is on the other end of the phone call. However, I still don’t think it is appropriate for the parent to walk away from his or her child, as though they weren’t related, just so … Continue reading →

Are You a Baby Talk Basher?

Are you guilty of slapping on a smile when speaking to a baby and letting loose on nauseatingly annoying phrases like: “Coochie, coochie coo you cutesy wootsey cutie patootie! Does my little poopsie woopsie need a fresh diapey wipey?” Baby talk. For some parents it’s their best friend, while other moms and dads view the high-pitched, jibber jabber as their worst enemy. If you do a lot of baby-talking in public places, you might end up with more enemies than friends, but that’s no reason to tone down your shrill sentences, at least according to some pediatric speech and language … Continue reading →

Lessons from Losing

Do you try to soften the blow when your kid comes up a loser? In England, kiddie soccer league officials are doing their part to placate sensitive tykes when one team of mini athletes trounces another. To avoid the tears that tend to fall when one group of kids royally embarrasses their peers, Telford Junior league in Shropshire has not been publishing the actual score of its soccer games. League officials say that in heavy defeats, the score reads: 1-0, 0-1 or 0-0, in order to protect the welfare of its young players. As you can imagine, the policy is … Continue reading →

Can’t Win for Losing

My daughter’s second grade teacher has come up with a novel way to teach kids about losing gracefully. And it’s killing me. Each day, just minutes before dismissal, the teacher pulls a name from a hat. If the child, whose name is pulled has behaved that day, he or she is awarded a small prize, be it a bookmark, a key chain or sports trading cards. But here’s the catch: Once you win a prize your name is placed back into the hat and you are eligible to win the next day, and the next, and the next. Basically, the … Continue reading →