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Mark Brandenburg has a Masters degree in counseling psychology and has been a counselor, business consultant, sports counselor, and a certified life and business coach. He has worked with individuals, teams, and businesses to improve their performance for over 20 years.
Prior to life and business coaching Mark was a world-ranked professional tennis player and has coached other world-ranked athletes. He has helped thousands of individuals to implement his coaching techniques.
Mark specializes in coaching men to balance their lives and to improve the important relationships in their lives. He is the author of “25 Secrets of Emotionally Intelligent Fathers,” and “Fix Your Wife in 30 Days or Less” (And Improve Yourself at the Same Time).
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Monthly Column... |
Give Your Kids Their "N" Medicine
by
, M.A., C.P.P.C., C.S.C.
What is our main purpose as fathers?
Isn’t it to prepare our kids to be happy, healthy, successful people in their own lives?
For the sake of this column let’s say that it is. How do we do this?
One effective method of preparing them for their own lives is to give them a heavy dose of the medicine that not enough kids are getting today. That medicine is ‘N” medicine, or the word “No.”
We deal with a certain amount of frustration in our everyday adult lives. We are frustrated at our jobs, in our relationships, and by circumstances that we
have no control over. Over time we learn to handle frustration and to transform it into challenges that we work through. People who can handle frustration successfully tend to have happier and more successful lives. They learn to be resilient and to appreciate what they have accomplished and what they’ve received.
Are your kids being frustrated enough? Are there high enough expectations being placed on them? Are you saying no enough and are you allowing them to have opportunities to be frustrated but to work through it?
Many kids today are receiving a lot of gifts, privileges, and praise from their parents without doing very much.
If you’re not allowing your kids to be exposed to responsibility and frustration, and if you’re not liberally giving out “N” medicine to them, you may be creating monsters within the confines of your home.
One of the exercises we do with parents at workshops is to have them write down all of the material possessions that they would ever dream of having.
We then have them go back and circle the things that they could reasonably acquire within the next five years.
Most parents find that they circle about 10 to 20 percent of those items. We then have these same parents write down everything their children will ask for during the next twelve months-toys, concerts tickets, designer clothes, electronics, etc. (Keep in mind the gifts that their kids will also get from grandparents, relatives and well-meaning friends.)
When the parents go back over this list and circle what their kids will probably or definitely get in the next twelve months, they universally find that it is 75 percent or higher.
It is clear that many parents are preparing their kids for a life that is out of touch with the real world. These same kids who have so many material possessions often don’t appreciate or take care of what they do have. Why should they? There will probably be more goodies coming soon.
Fathers who say no to their kids on a fairly regular basis take a big step towards ensuring that their kids are happy, responsible, and successful citizens.
Here are some specific actions that dads can take:
• If you’re married, consult with your wife about what your dose of “N” medicine will be. Creating a unified front will strengthen your position and cause fewer conflicts.
• Never do things for your children that they can do for themselves. Allow
them to be frustrated and to learn to be more resilient.
• Consider an allowance for your kids, even if they’re quite young, so that
they can develop a sense of responsibility with money and a sense of taking care of their things.
• Take stock of your children’s possessions. Do they have way too many
things? Are their some things that might be better suited for Goodwill?
• Foster an environment of appreciation for the things you have. Model this
appreciation in your own care of the things that you own and how you use them.
• Limit your children’s (especially young children) exposure to TV and other mass media. It will help to reduce their belief that they “need” more stuff.
It’s difficult at times to see your kids’ struggle with the many challenges of
being young and inexperienced. It’s also difficult to have them angry with
you for not doing things for them.
Some day they’ll figure it out, and some day they’ll thank you for it.
Happy Fathering,
Mark Brandenburg M.A., C.P.P.C., C.S.C.
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