I have one peice of advice for parents:
DO NOT YELL AT YOUR CHILD TO BE MORE RESPONSIBLE BECAUSE THEN IT ONLY MAKES THEM THINK THAT BEING RESPONSIBLE IS A BAD THING SINCE YOU YELLED AT THEM, AND THEREFORE THEY SHALL RUN EVEN FURTHER AWAY FROM THE IDEA.
I’m just saying that my parents yell at me all the damn time about things. Be responsible about THIS, be responsible about THAT, you really shouldn’t have lit the neighbors cat on fire, blah blah blah. But because they’ve yelled at me so much, I hate the very idea of BEING responsible now and shrug off any duties that have to do with it at the first chance I get. Yelling registers “you’re not doing a good enough job, this is bad!!!” in a child brains. Logically, they’re going to run away from anything bad, because that’s just human nature. It’s how we’re built. So what I’m saying is this:
Parents, you can speak to your child in a serious manner. Use your “inside voice”, and speak in a soft, calm tone and that way they will know you mean business and maybe feel more inclined to help you out. But if all you do is yell at them, then they grow up resenting the hell out of you, and eventually start writing blogs about what you did wrong so that maybe they can help a child not go through what they’ve gone through.
m@rk
