
November 26, 2018
The Knowledge Project – Kids Are Worth It with Barbara Coloroso
The Knowledge Project Website
Listen to the podcast here
This is a conversation between Shane Parrish and Barbara Coloroso on how to effectively raise children in the 21st century.
Key Takeaways
- Evaluate the situation: “If it is not morally threatening, life-threatening, or unhealthy, let it go”
- “If you hit you sit”
- We all lose it, we all yell and scream at our kids, but you always have the chance to make it right and fix things
- You are a parent in the early years, a mentor during the teenage years, and a friend during adulthood
- Podcast Notes Comment – A lot can be achieved of the below by taking “Easy Choice, Hard Life. Hard Choices, Easy Life” to heart
Introduction
- Barbara Coloroso (@BarbaraColoroso) is a speaker on topics ranging from parenting to schooling, as well as a best-selling author
- Check out her website
- Barabara’s Book: Kids are Worth it
- She is also the author of The Bully, Bullied, and Bystander, Parenting through a crisis, Just Because It Isn’t Wrong Doesn’t Make it Right
Three Basic Tenets
- Kids are worth it
- Even when it feels like they are taking all of your time and energy
- Treat them how you would want to be treated
- Dignity, love, compassion, and respect
- If the strategy works, it must leave the child’s, and parent’s, dignity intact
- Hitting a child (destroying sense of self-worth) is not a strategy
Getting Kids on the Right Path
- As a child, standing up to injustices:
- Requires courage and understanding
- Involves doing the right thing, even if it is difficult and costly
- Giving kids the opportunity to make mistakes:
- Gives them a chance to learn from the mistakes
- Gives them a chance to make their own decisions
- This increases responsibility
- We want kids to be able get out of a situation when things get uncomfortable at their own volition
Discipline
- Inner Discipline
- It’s difficult for a child to develop, but once developed it is hard to unravel
- Self-Discipline
- The ability to control your own feelings, and make the right decisions, even if they are costly or seem unpopular
- Students Causing Mayhem
- Purposeful/Intentional misbehavior
- How to fix? Give them ownership of the problem, and let them work on solving it
- Purposeful/Intentional misbehavior
- Students Making Mistakes
- Give them the chance to own it, fix it, and move on
Three R’s of Discipline
- Restitution
- Fixing the problem
- Replacing broken item, apologizing, etc.
- Fixing the problem
- Resolution
- Preventing the problem from reoccurring
- Taking responsibility/ownership, understanding why it occurred, and why you shouldn’t do it again (learning)
- Preventing the problem from reoccurring
- Reconciliation
- Sympathetic/Empathetic towards the victim (Apology)
- The child understands why the act was hurtful
- Sympathetic/Empathetic towards the victim (Apology)
Punishment vs. Discipline
- Discipline is something we do with a child
- Talking/working with the child, and teaching them why a certain type of behavior is unacceptable
- Punishment is adult oriented
- Ex. – Spanking, hitting, sitting in the corner
Sibling Conflict
- Conflict is Inevitable, violence is not
- Teach kids to handle conflict without violence
- Dealing with conflict
- Win-Win situation, for example, we can watch this cartoon for 30 minutes and then switch to your cartoon
- Allow the child that was harmed some peace and time away from the negative event
- Children who are targeted by their siblings have a higher risk of getting targeted by their peers, and are at a higher risk for alcohol/drug abuse, self-harm, and depression
Handling Bullying
- Telling them to stop does not work; that is what bullies are looking for
- Instead, teach your kids to stand strong and label the behavior, not the bully
- Kids tend to know if the school doesn’t handle bullying well, it will get worse
- Sometimes solving an issue in secrecy is best
- Tattling is getting someone in trouble
- Telling is getting someone out of trouble
- Sometimes solving an issue in secrecy is best
RSVP: Reasonable, Simple, Valuable, Practical
- Reasonable
- Does the consequence fit the problem?
- Simple
- Making sure the child understands why she is being asked to do this
- Valuable
- Does the child take any value from the lesson?
- Practical
- Does the problem require a consequence?
- Teach them that they do matter, and what they do matters
- Encouragement, feedback, a sense of deep caring
- I believe in you, you can do it etc.
Three C’s: Compliment, Comments, Constructive Criticism, and Deep Caring
- Compliment
- Let the child know the behavior was good
- Comment
- Let the child know they are capable of fixing the problem
- Constructive Criticism
- Teaching the child in ways that keep them involved
- Deep Caring
- You do not have to like someone, but you must honor their humanity
Tolerance/Rules
- Rules are what we expect
- Guidelines are how we hope the child will act
- Rules are important but must be rooted in deep caring
- The basis of all rules revolves around deep caring
- Zero Tolerance Rule
- Requires zero thinking, no personal involvement in each individual case (following blindly)
- It is important that you are allowed to make exceptions to any rule
- Chores: slowly increase responsibility
- A child with special needs might have less responsibility
- Children from 3rd world countries do more chores because it is expected of them
- Saying No
- As the parent, it is a good thing to take the blame for saying “No” at times
- For example, “Mom can I spend the night at a friends?”, saying “No” takes the responsibility from the child in times of pressure
- As the parent, it is a good thing to take the blame for saying “No” at times
Teens/Social Media
- Monitoring child’s activity
- Teach kids how to be digitally savvy
- How to be kind, civil online
- Commonsensemedia.org
- Tells you about the latest apps, games, concerns with movies
- Experts in the field make handouts to parents and educators on digital media
- Stopcyberbullying.org
- Tool for parents in keeping their kids stay safe
- Any violence kids are exposed to becomes apart of their worldview
Sex/Drugs
- Communicating/Teaching
- Use the proper words
- Be open when kids ask questions about sexuality, they need to understand how their body is changing
- You don’t have to tell your kids about every mistake you’ve made