I'm a very active member of an intensive parenting group called Changes Parent Support Network based in the Seattle area...http://www.cpsn.org. It's tricky posting pictures about parent group because confidentiality is important for families with such difficult problems. Actually all have to be careful about confidentiality on the net. In this photo, you can see the meeting sign pointing to the entrance to the basement room in the church where we hold our Wednesday Night meetings.
As a veteran of over 7 years, I have a senior leadership position in the group. Give programs, help run the meetings, small group leader, serve on teams. But I still need the help myself. The program is designed for parents with especially tough situations with acting out adolescents and young adults. Drug use, violence, verbal abuse, school failure, crime, running away; that's our crowd. Lay led, the focus is on changing the parent's behavior, you may be enabling the very behaviors that are so destructive. Often the parenting techniques are counter-intuitive, just the opposite of what you think you should do. Mainly changing your own generous behavior, getting beyond your own fears, holding your child accountable, not doing things they can do for themselves. Almost always, you do less rather than doing more. Let go trying to control things that you have no control over....especially education issues. Getting over your own feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Separating your issues from your child's issues.
Some of the suggested techniques may sound shocking to those who haven't gone through it. Not picking up your child when they are stranded, refusing to be involved in school issues, not becoming involved with their problems. One of the standard saws is "No Advice, Criticism or Explanation" as they are likely the pretext for yet another destructive argument. No sarcasm either!
Many people will help you, all we ask is that you help somebody else after you are no longer in crisis. We bet on the medium term, realizing that you do not have the relationship that you wish right now with your child but setting the stage for having a respectful rich relationship in the future.
It's not a money group but it is a time group, it takes a lot of time. Besides the meetings, you form a support team of other group members who you work with separately about your own situation over an extended period of time. Later you will be on other people's teams. I see it as an honor to serve on a team. Often I am struck with the appearance of the parents after they've come for a few months. When they first come, they look like h*ll, they are so upset and desperate. After awhile, the situation with their child may not have substantially improved but THEY look a lot better. They might even crack a smile or make a joke.
We greet new people with "We are glad you are here but we are sorry you had to come"
4 comments:
Reading this post, I see that I could benefit from parenting classes. I have a 13-year old daughter, and I'm a single mom. It's hard. My child is basically good, but I annoy the heck out of her. I do too much, and involve myself too much. Like the book she's supposed to be reading this summer. Come to think of it, I'm not going to ask her about it again. She knows what she has to do, right? What you're doing is just wonderful. I applaud you for spending your time on such a worthy cause.
That's a good first step. But hard to do without support. It might be your own fear that she will not read the book. If you bug her about it, it becomes a control battle between you and her not about her responsibility to read the book. It's a great example of where you can hand control over to her. If she doesn't read the book, it's her problem not yours.
There is no way that YOU can make her read the book anyway. It has to be her choice.
Flies against all the 'parenting advice' that is all around us about how WE have to be involved in our child's education.
Thanks for commenting, I read your blog every day. Love your garden and squirrel pictures
I dread raising teenagers ... I was a sassy teen-aged daughter myself. Not bad or wild. Had my moments, but just a sassy grumpy butt with my mother. My mom and I get along great today. I wish I knew the psychology behind that better. Why do our parents bug us SO much? Is it because they love us? I read somewhere once that this teenage rebellion is just the child growing and asserting his independence---a natural thing, a good thing despite the bad side effects, I guess.
I read a book that says today parents talk too much (it was talking about preschool-aged children). It said "No" will suffice or a brief explanation "Throwing is not allowed," and that's it. Let the child think about what he has done, don't cloud his brain with gabbing. That resonated with me, anyway. I'm not a gabby person myself, but most parents I see are, and I'm certain I would have tried to model myself off them if I hadn't heard otherwise.
Don't worry about it now. For sure, you always need to stay age appropriate. But, when you think about it, the subtext for excessive explanation, is that the child cannot figure it out for himself. That he's incapable. And likely he isn't at all. You can already see that he knows a lot.
Think about it, do you like people nattering at you, telling you things that you already know? Pretty soon, you aren't listening at all.
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