Parenting Skills

This semester I got to study the NEPEM Model (The National Extension Parent Education Model) which is a model that helps parents develop some key parenting skills. The model includes seven categories of focus:

• Care for Self
• Understand
• Guide
• Nurture
• Motivate
• Develop
• Advocate

I am going to talk about my three favorite catogories in this model, Care for Self, Guide, and Motivate.

Care for Self

Parents cannot effectively care for their children until they are able to care for themselves. Marion G. Romney points out that “Support and understanding cannot come from the emotionally starved. Teaching cannot come from the unlearned. And most important of all, spiritual guidance cannot come from the spiritually weak.”

The Arbinger Company published “The Parenting Pyramid” in 1998. Here is a summary from the Arbinger Company of what the Pyramid teaches:

1. Although correction is a part of parenthood, IT IS THE SMALLEST PART.
2. The key to effective correction is effective teaching.
3. The key to effective teaching is a good parent/child relationship.
4. The key to a good parent/child relationship is a good husband/wife relationship.
5. The key to a good husband/wife relationship is our personal way of being. Indeed this quality affects every other aspect of they pyramid; that is why it is the deepest foundation.

This pyramid backs up the NEPEM model, which states that Self Care is the most important. 

Nicholeen Peck, an expert in the authoritative parenting method, teaches self government to parents and teaches them how to train their children. She defines self-government like this:

Self-government is “being able to determine the cause and effect of any given situation, and possessing a knowledge of your own behaviors so that you can control them.” 

(Parenting A House United, by Nicholeen Peck).

Read all about that here. 

Guide and Discipline

If we reflect back on the pyramid we can remember that correction is the smallest portion of the pyramid. It is important to know how to teach correct principles to our children and to also know how to gently correct them with help from the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Steinberg gives an excellent discource on how to correct a child without yelling, and while remaining calm. His method has five steps:

1. Identify the problem
2. Discuss the impact it has on those involved
3. Discuss an alternative
4. Implement consequences (punishment)
5. Explain future expectations.

Here is an example of how to do that. 

Imagine your seven year old has taken his 5 year old sister’s blue bouncy ball. She is screaming at the top of her lungs and he is yelling that it should be his anyway, because it’s blue and “that’s a boys color!”. Instead of ripping the bouncy ball out of the boys hand and dragging him to time out (or worse) here is Dr. Steinberg’s method in action:

Mom: (Step 1) Archie, I see that you have taken Veronica’s bouncy ball. She is crying and you are not responding appropriately to her needs. (Step 2) When you take her ball like that and rub it in her face you make it so that she doesn’t want to play with you anymore. Sometimes after school you like to play with Veronica and if you act like this you may end up feeling very lonely. (Step 3) If Veronica is playing with a toy that you like you could try asking her if you could take turns playing with it or trade her for a different toy that you own for a little while. If that doesn’t work you can always come to me for help and we can brainstorm ideas. (Step 4) Because you have taken her toy with out her permission and make her cry you have earned the negative consequence of an extra job. Please pick up the lego’s that are over there on the floor and report back to me. (Step 5) I want you to remember that I Love you and that Veronica loves you and wants to play with you when you are behaving nicely. You are such a good big brother and a good friend. In the future it would be best if you remember what we talked about so that everyone who is playing can have fun together.

Motivate

Effective parenting comes more from motivating or inspiring our children that coercing or forcing. Nicholeen Peck teaches that the most effective teaching method for parents to use is praise.

There are three types of praise that I’m going to talk about today; descriptive praise, appreciateive praise, and evaluative praise.

Descriptive praise is simply stating your observations and then focusing on the accomplishment without evaluating it. If done correctly is should reinforce the child’s behavior. Here is an example. When a teenager passes their drivers test and comes homes with their new licence the parent should say “Congratulations! You worked and studied so hard for that test. All of your hard work paid off and now you will be able to drive responsibly to the dance tonight!” (Instead of, “You are so awesome! I knew you would pass that test!”).

Appreciative praise helps your child understand how their behaviors can affect other people. This should be sincere and again, state what the parent saw specifically. Here is an example. “Today I noticed that you took extra time to help Reggie learn how to write his numbers. When you do this it gives me free time to make special lunches and it helps Reggie form a better relationship with you! Thank you!” (Instead of. Thanks for helping Reggie today, you are so awesome to do that!)”.

Evaluative praise is the least effective and uses words like good, excellent, awesome, great, wonderful, and stupendous. This kind of praise can limit your child. At first they feel great, but it is hard to keep that banner up.

When we effectively praise our children we are teaching them how we want them to behave by reinforcing their behaviors and making them feel good about their efforts.