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Kids' behaviour problems are often blamed on the kids themselves. The reality is that parents are very often causing some of these problems. Their reaction and their methods of dealing with them will often determine how the children will react and also how they will behave the next time. Parenting is crucial and often very difficult. Let us look at the types of parenting we find nowadays. I know many parents who are aiming for a simple, quiet life. These are the parents who give in to every request and say that that they are really democratic parents in that decisions are reached jointly and that children are allowed a role in the decision making process. Let us look at what is going on here. These are the parents who rarely put their foot down. That means that there are no limits to bad behavior and that there is no bottom line. Things can get out of control. These parents re rather fond of saying that this is OK this time. But just once becomes a precedent. We can be sure that kids' behaviour problems sooner or later will surface in this kind of semi democratic environment. Let us look at some other things to look out for if you think that you might be in this category. You will be over protective so that your child never has to struggle or is ever exposed even to the most minimum of risks. You see yourself as the child's friend so anything authoritarian is rejected as this will ruin the relationship with your child. You are also doing far too much for the child and you tend to over praise him or her. Contrast this with the authoritarian parent. Here, the parent always knows best and will tell the child there is only one way of doing something. Then the parent is bossy in tone and manner and the language used is always the same type, that is warning, ordering and of course, lecturing. Then there is no decision making process encouraged in the family as these strict parents make all the decisions and they also map out the child's progress and even decide on what career he or she should be aiming for. Inevitably their standards are exceedingly high and they expect great things from their kids. In reality they are setting the bar too high and there will inevitably be kids behaviour problems later on. As we can see, neither approach is right and there are enormous pitfalls and traps in both approaches. This parenting dilemma is highlighted in Amy Chua's book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. As regards kids behaviour problems, we should be sensitive about how our approach may actually destroy the child's confidence. For example, if we decide everything, the child ends up being anxious. Then if we are too severe, and tell them that they are useless, we destroy their self esteem . These are just some of the warning signs that should tell us that we need to rethink our our whole approach to discipline. Maybe you are too lenient as a parent or you tend to be more authoritarian and you have set rigid limits and strict deadlines.Many kids' behaviour problems may actually surface due to the wrong attitude on the part of many parents. Robert Winterson has written on parenting and family matters for many years.
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