Family Feuds

Have you ever fought with your kids? Well, you are not the first ones to say yes! If you don’t fight with your kids, or disagree with them, then you may want to rethink how you are parenting, as you may be giving them too many freedoms or letting them decide everything. To all the parents who get into disagreements with their kids, it happens and you are not alone. Obviously I don’t have kids, but I hope to one day and I have for sure been a kid.

In my Family Relations class at BYU-Idaho, I learned this week about problem handling. Some things that we learned were to:

1. Let your kids have natural consequences, especially if the problem is something that will effect them negatively verses you. We use natural consequences because otherwise the punishment will seem unjust or unfair and create more animosity between you and them. Of course, you should talk to your kids about the punishments later and share why they happened. There are three exceptions to letting them naturally receive the consequences of their actions, which include if the natural consequence would be too dangerous, or if the natural punishment is too far into the future, or if it would hurt others.
2. Always provide encouragement and focus on their accomplishments

Not all problems are going to effect your kids but will effect you. If it is the parents issue then there are certain steps or ways to go about talking to your kids as well.

1. Use polite requests at first. When your kids do something that bugs you or gets in your way or is frustrating to you.. then ask them politely first if they can take care of it. That will show your kids respect for what they can do without being commanded etc.
2. Use “I Feel” statements with your kids. If you don’t know what that is, then I suggest looking it up. They are great. A small synopsis of an “I Feel” statment is that it replaces blame and helps you to articulate how you feel to another person. For example you could use this fill in the blank: “When…(situation/event) happens, I feel….(emotion), because…(thoughts), I would like…(hope/desire). This teaches your kids communication and to react to their own problems politely. This will help them to not become reactive to issues and it will help teach compassion or how their problem is effecting other people.
3. If the first two methods are not working, then use firmer tones as you share another “I Feel” statment. When I hear a firmer tone from my parents, I better listen or my butt is theirs! Kidding, kind of. It just lights a little fire under me and I make sure to get it done, most of the time.
4. THEN if all else fails, switch to logical consequences. Logical consequences are different from Natural. Logical ones are when parents structure the consequences with their kids to help teach the natural consequences. A good example of this is when they leave their bike outside through the night, you would put it away where they cannot use it then because logically that makes sense. The bike could have been stolen or broken staying out all night. Along with natural consequences, they need to be discussed beforehand in firm but friendly tones and the first violation means you follow through the first time they disobey and don’t do what you asked them to. That means the punishment needs to logical and also something you will follow through on. You then give them another chance to show you that they can do what is right. Involve them in discussion about their actions and what followed every time, a discussion however is not a, “I am the parent, I can do whatever I want!” thing. That is not okay. We want to communicate and help our kids learn the best way we can.

All of these points are great, they are from our readings and videos this week from a man named Popkins. The points will work best as you work with your souse on each of them and make sure you are on the same page. Good luck, I hope that this helps out some people in how to work with their kids on problems. Go try it out for yourselves! Leave a comment telling me how it went!