In the chorus of the song, the words say:
Lead me, Guide me, Walk beside me,
Help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do,
To live with Him someday.
Guiding seems to me to be a word of softness, a word of love. It includes establishing boundaries or limits according to behavior. Guiding encourages children to make well-thought, independent decisions. This can be tricky, and it's a very delicate balance.
As parents, guidelines are set, and consequences defined. When kids are young, it's easy to make the decisions for them, like getting dressed, or where you are going to go that day.
When they are a little older, getting dressed becomes...
and we learn to give kids a little bit of cushion on what they can wear.
Teenage years can go like this...
The guideline is given, they know what's expected, but they are free to make their own decision.
Not all decisions children make will be bad decisions, and bad consequences.
Just this past week, my daughter shared an experience. She was at a cousin's house playing, and they started arguing. They are both 6, so arguing between these two isn't a new thing really.
After she came home, my daughter told me, "We started arguing, and so I decided to tell her 'hey, can we not argue and figure this out?'" Her cousin agreed to not argue anymore, and they did something else and had a good play date.
Not just our kid's choices go into parenting. Our choices and how we react are also important.
We can be the type of parent that demands obedience(authoritarian), a parent that lets kids do whatever they please with no guidance(permissive), or a parent with structure and limit setting(authoritative).
In an ideal situation, it would be great if both parents were the same authoritative style. Most people end up being parents like their parents were, and some people do lots of research on what kind of parents they want to be. Parents can be different types of parents, but is the most healthy if both are united in the end and parent together.
My husband and I are two different types of parenting styles. He is more of the authoritarian, and I am more of the authoritative. It can be a tough balance sometimes, especially in the face of a major and immediate dilemma. I believe that people have the ability to change what type of parents they are, but I will tell you right now that it's a super hard thing to do. I think that I have always been an authoritative parent, but I had some missteps along the way for sure. I definitely didn't know how to be a great parent when I became a mother, but I think that process will be a life-long one and maybe...probably, even after we die and learn much more in the spirit world.
A few months back, a woman in Relief Society commented, and my thoughts on parents changed dramatically. She told us that when things are difficult in parenting, and when there are hard decisions to make, she is open with her kids in the stresses of parenting. She tells them, "I'm not perfect. This is my first time being a parent, and this is my first time I've had this experience. Let's figure this out together." I feel like if we are honest with our kids and the parenting experience, they will be more open and more honest with us.
I absolutely LOVE this video, and I hope that you do too. It sure shows how we as parents really don't know everything, but that's okay.
Julia Sweeney has "the talk" with her daughter:
https://youtu.be/Ysxz5Ug70G0
I hope that you got a good laugh in. I love the innocence of kids! And really, if you can't laugh at yourself and the things you go through, life is just going to be harder. Beautiful Marjorie Pay Hinckley said this:
The cartoon after Julia Sweeney is amazing. I may use it later on for a Family Home Evening lesson with a different topic in mind, because I think it can be used for a few different topics. But, I feel like we don't even know when people are watching what we do. We say things and do things that other people take notice of, and they may learn from what we do. Seeing a parent act verbally abusive towards their child might make you talk to your child a little bit kinder that day. Or watching as someone mourns the loss of their child might make you realize the blessing of being able to hug your child a little bit longer than usual.
Discipline
As mentioned above, guiding includes showing children that there is a right way and a wrong way, and that there are consequences for each. Boundaries and limits are set, and agency permitted.
Can children be disciplined differently within the same family?
The answer is YES! Children are each unique, and have different strengths and weaknesses. Age is also a factor in how they need to be disciplined.
There are 4 useful areas that Laurence Steinberg teaches in his book, 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting, that can be used in order to avoid harsh punishments.
- Never use physical punishment.
- Don't be verbally abusive.
- Controlling your anger.
- The right way to punish.
Steinberg also includes a suggested way to punish the right way:
Effective punishment needs to include five elements, usually in
the-following order:
• An identification of the specific act that was wrong.
• A statement describing the impact of the misbehavior.
• A suggestion for one or more alternatives to the undesirable behavior.
• A clear statement of what the punishment is going to be.
• A statement of your expectation that your child will do
better the next time.
(Steinberg, Laurence, 2005, 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting)
My husband and I tried these elements during a few problems our kids had over a one week period. It was an overall good experience.
Going over identifying, describing impact, suggesting alternatives, clear punishment, and future expectations, pretty much forced us to use a different tone with our kids. We were able to keep our voices at a milder level than normal, and the kids felt that they were heard better and that things ended up being much fairer in their opinions and ours.
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