‛‛Tough love’’ parenting
If you want your children to develop self-control, empathy and determination, the tough love approach is best.
In this day and age of too much “rights” consciousness, parents are quickly condemned when they “lash out in anger” at or “abuse their position of power” over their children. But recent study (involving 9,000 households) has found that youngsters who receive a combination of affection and discipline are far more likely to develop positive personal qualities such as self-control, empathy and determination. As it turns out, parents who take a traditional “tough love” approach to child-rearing are actually doing their kids a favor.
“Tough love” is a parenting approach where parents try to love their growing kids without forgetting to set firm limits and follow through with appropriate consequences when a child breaks the rules. It is founded on a loving parental intention to train children to be responsible for their own behavior. Parents hold the kids accountable for any poor choices they make.
The burst of anger that parents display – often with self-reproach afterwards – are not rage; these are acted out on good purpose. “Tough love” is not about parents raising their hands on their kids in a moment of blind fury. While, true, there is usually some irritation involved, parents do it with a clear head, because they need to follow through their earlier warnings and take decisive action.
Judith Woods, in an article at www.telegraph.co.uk, quotes Charlie Taylor, author of “Divas and Dictators: The Secrets to Having a Much Better Behaved Child,” that “the key to good parenting is ensuring that relations between [parent] and child never deteriorate to the point of screaming matches.”
It doesn’t work in the long term for parents to let their children have too much control, and are unwilling to stand up and say “I am the grown-up, I’m in charge, do as I say,” according to Taylor, who’s a head teacher and father of three.
“Instead of setting clear, non-negotiable boundaries, parents these days pride themselves on just ‘going with the flow’,” Taylor is further quoted by Woods in her online article. The result, says Taylor, is that parents “swing wildly between being sugary-sweet one minute and losing the plot entirely the next.” It often ends up in huge spats and a great deal of confusion among the children, who don’t know what the rules are.
Woods adds that when children don’t know what the rules are, it’s because the adults haven’t set any, or at least haven’t enforced the rules with any degree of conviction – the reason for that being that parents “are far more concerned about our children liking us rather than respecting us.” Or perhaps parents fear
that they’ll have to justify every rule and regulation they set and impose. No, that is not necessary; arguments need not ensue – parents and their children are not equals.
Of course, kids hate to hear Mom or Dad say, “Because I say so.” And it is tempting for parents to justify themselves. No, a justification of a parental rule is not necessary – parents set rules with the welfare of their children in mind.
In most cases, parents just have to put a foot down and state the rules. It’s as simple as that. They have to be very careful about negotiating. As Woods writes: “We were all encouraged to explain rules to our toddlers; they learnt to negotiate with us before they were out of nappies. I don’t think the problem is that we don’t set boundaries so much as that our kids are constantly wanting to renegotiate them.” In that case, there’d be no end to it.
Most of the older parents remember that, deep down, they were slightly afraid of their own parents. They wouldn’t have dared answering back or defying Mom and Dad, much less swearing at them. They understand that their old folks were rather too disciplinarian – and they understand why the discipline was necessary. And they’re now only too grateful for it.
There’s old wisdom: “He who spares the rod, spoils the child.” To that Dr. Scott Turansky, in an article also at www.telegraph.co.uk, adds that in disciplining children, the first important skills that parents should learn can be summed up in a few words: Firmness doesn’t require harshness. They can get their kids to obey without yelling, shaming, or arguing back and forth.