Rebecca Kimbel: Speaker

Parenting is the most important challenge you will ever have. Parenting is your personal investment in the future, because our children are the hope for tomorrow. How we deal with our children can change the course of their lives. Many parents seem unaware that bruising and battering a child’s intellect, emotions, and self esteem is abusive and has strong and often lasting negative effects on their ability to function at their best.

Here are a few guide lines to help parents change a negative relationship into a positive one. Try them and in a few weeks don’t be surprised to see the magic. Care more about your child’s self esteem and less about his image. Care about his feelings and not his social status. Accept how he does feel instead of telling him how he should feel. Ask him questions that will help him make better decisions, but let him make the decisions, don’t force yours on him. This is an art, but you can develop it and it will help him think things through and make better decisions all of his life. Guide him into understanding how to personally think out what is best for his life. Don’t even put yourself in the equation. It’s about him, and not about you.

Praise your child for what he did right instead of criticizing him for what he did wrong. Listen to him instead of yelling or lecturing. Pay attention to how he does think instead of telling him what he should think. Appreciate instead of complaining. Smile instead of frowning. Use a pat on the shoulder instead of a joke with a barb. Concentrate on his potential not on his inexperience. Respect his opinion even when it’s different than yours. Make sure that you make his life better because you are in it.

Support his dreams instead of undermining them. Give him the emotional support to follow his own dreams without the obligation of becoming an appendage to yours. Tell him you are proud of him. Teach him to believe in himself and to know that HE CAN. Give him the fortitude, courage and the will to rise above all opinions that doubt his capacity to be all that he can be. Let him know you believe in him.

Divorced parents, your children need emotional contact with you. They need emotional backing more than they need to have a “good time”. The first step toward raising responsible children is responsible parenting. Be responsible for your own behavior. If your actions and your word aren’t going the same direction, your children will follow your actions and there are few exceptions. You do affect your children by your choices. Choose well.

Rebecca Kimbel