By Amy Robinson
For many parents knowing where to draw a line with their kids, and more importantly, knowing how to enforce rules, can be more of a challenge than they might have thought.
One Traverse City therapist is launching a program this year to help parents tweak their skills.
In the final part of our "Reaching out in 2012", Amy Robinson takes a look at a New Year of parent coaching.
Joe Sanock has big plans for 2012.
In 2012, we're offering a new approach to teaching parenting, and it's really meant to be short term, and it's meant to be really precise, in helping parents be able to evaluate three key areas of their parenting, through a parenting-coaching method.
The three key areas are; describing the behavior that the parent would like to see in the child, evaluating consequences, both positive and negative, and making the right decision the easy decision for their child.
Sanock said sometimes when it comes to shaping a child's behavior- encouraging them to do the right thing - parents get in their own way.
Often times parents will put up unnecessary barriers to their kids, and they'll expect them to do things that are not age appropriate for them. Kids, often need a lot of guidance to be successful. So scheduling in exactly what time they are going to be working on their homework or when their going to be doing chores, so you can't leave the child right up to that behavior that you expect and then expecting them to take that step into the good behavior. Rather then having them have to organize every aspect of their schedule on their own, to really set that schedule for the student to be able to make those good choices.
Sanock said in order to make it easy for a child to do the right thing, parents first have to describe what the right thing is. They have to be able to articulate to the child, especially when they're young, what behavior mom and dad want to see.
"I want you to clean your room," if that's not worked for children, uh, at certain ages where they don't know what that means to the parent, uh, it's the parent's duty to say this is what cleaning a room is, and so if we can start by really clarifying that well for the child and then holding them accountable to what we described to them, then over time, of course, we can step back in that described thing, as in depth.
Sanock said this kind of parental-narration isn't as easy as it sounds. He said it's often the thing he spends the most time on.
"What I find is when that clicks for a parent, what it means to genuinely describe what you're child's doing; When parents get that, it's like a door that unlocks all the rest of it."
The "rest of it" he said involves setting consequences. He said the important thing to remember is that consequences work with older kids as well as they do with younger ones. And consequences aren't just negative, they can be positive.
"And for older children, it may be things like: extending a curfew, or you know, middle school children, if you go to bed on time each night, then on the weekends your bedtime is going to be a little bit later. So having those positive consequences, all tied into the description of the behavior, and living up to those positive expectations.
Finally, Sanock said he coaches parents to find ways to make it easy for the child to do the right thing.
So, doing as much as you can, to lead that individual, kind-of right to the edge, so they can step forward and make that good choice.
Sanock said most parents are doing the best they can with the tools they have. He said he wants to give them new tools. He said the coaching classes are all about tweaking parenting skill.
And that's what this is meant to be is kind of a short term, really focus on the issue, let's not get into the whole history of the family. But let's focus on what are the behaviors we want to work on now, and let's move forward on those. Now with some people that may turn into long term counseling, but for other people it may be kind of like an oil change when they come in every three months or once a year and they kind of want to tweak a few things.
Sanock said he began his career working with what he calls angry kids at a runaway shelter. He said these days has a passion for helping parents learn new skills to bridge the communication gap with their children.
For many parents knowing where to draw a line with their kids, and more importantly, knowing how to enforce rules, can be more of a challenge than they might have thought.
One Traverse City therapist is launching a program this year to help parents tweak their skills.
In the final part of our "Reaching out in 2012", Amy Robinson takes a look at a New Year of parent coaching.
Joe Sanock has big plans for 2012.
In 2012, we're offering a new approach to teaching parenting, and it's really meant to be short term, and it's meant to be really precise, in helping parents be able to evaluate three key areas of their parenting, through a parenting-coaching method.
The three key areas are; describing the behavior that the parent would like to see in the child, evaluating consequences, both positive and negative, and making the right decision the easy decision for their child.
Sanock said sometimes when it comes to shaping a child's behavior- encouraging them to do the right thing - parents get in their own way.
Often times parents will put up unnecessary barriers to their kids, and they'll expect them to do things that are not age appropriate for them. Kids, often need a lot of guidance to be successful. So scheduling in exactly what time they are going to be working on their homework or when their going to be doing chores, so you can't leave the child right up to that behavior that you expect and then expecting them to take that step into the good behavior. Rather then having them have to organize every aspect of their schedule on their own, to really set that schedule for the student to be able to make those good choices.
Sanock said in order to make it easy for a child to do the right thing, parents first have to describe what the right thing is. They have to be able to articulate to the child, especially when they're young, what behavior mom and dad want to see.
"I want you to clean your room," if that's not worked for children, uh, at certain ages where they don't know what that means to the parent, uh, it's the parent's duty to say this is what cleaning a room is, and so if we can start by really clarifying that well for the child and then holding them accountable to what we described to them, then over time, of course, we can step back in that described thing, as in depth.
Sanock said this kind of parental-narration isn't as easy as it sounds. He said it's often the thing he spends the most time on.
"What I find is when that clicks for a parent, what it means to genuinely describe what you're child's doing; When parents get that, it's like a door that unlocks all the rest of it."
The "rest of it" he said involves setting consequences. He said the important thing to remember is that consequences work with older kids as well as they do with younger ones. And consequences aren't just negative, they can be positive.
"And for older children, it may be things like: extending a curfew, or you know, middle school children, if you go to bed on time each night, then on the weekends your bedtime is going to be a little bit later. So having those positive consequences, all tied into the description of the behavior, and living up to those positive expectations.
Finally, Sanock said he coaches parents to find ways to make it easy for the child to do the right thing.
So, doing as much as you can, to lead that individual, kind-of right to the edge, so they can step forward and make that good choice.
Sanock said most parents are doing the best they can with the tools they have. He said he wants to give them new tools. He said the coaching classes are all about tweaking parenting skill.
And that's what this is meant to be is kind of a short term, really focus on the issue, let's not get into the whole history of the family. But let's focus on what are the behaviors we want to work on now, and let's move forward on those. Now with some people that may turn into long term counseling, but for other people it may be kind of like an oil change when they come in every three months or once a year and they kind of want to tweak a few things.
Sanock said he began his career working with what he calls angry kids at a runaway shelter. He said these days has a passion for helping parents learn new skills to bridge the communication gap with their children.