Parenting Matters: Looking for solutions

Published 10:16 am Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Most of us seek out some kind of help as we raise our children. Grandparents are a common resource. Relatives and neighbors are another frequent source.

Some parents take classes and others read columns like this one or parenting books to get ideas on how to best raise a child.

As a parent of a lot of children, I used all of these sources. I always remember one particular help from an article I read about helping your children resolve conflicts.

It encouraged parents to not immediately intervene and instead encourage their children to work it out by themselves. That really sounded good to me.

So when some of our children were fighting over one of the thousands of things young people fight over, I would send them to their room to solve the problem. I would make sure no hollering or physical fighting was taking place by just keeping my ears open.

I would ask when they were done if they had figured out a solution and almost always was reassured when they said they had figured it out.

It was a great idea. The person who suggested it wrote about it in a parenting book and he had a great reputation. It certainly sounded good to me.

It wasn’t a great idea. I didn’t know it at the time but as the years passed, I asked my growing children what was the worst thing I did wrong as a parent as they were growing up.

The answer from three of the children, now adults, was that the thing they most hated was to have to spend time with the one person they argued most with didn’t help. They felt it was absolutely horrible.

Lesson learned

This one person was a real talker then and still is. She could totally overwhelm the others and certainly outlast any of them in an argument. To this day, she remains the biggest talker in the family. When they would go to their rooms with her, she would argue and talk with them until they begged to get out of the room.

She totally overwhelmed them and they would agree to anything she said.

It took me a long time to learn that my advice that I had read about wasn’t going to work in my family. It might work in another family but not mine.

That is the way with many solutions to the problems you face as a parent. You may have to try several solutions until you find the one that helps you solve the problem you are having. No one solution will fit all people.

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek help from others because you really should. It means you have to try things and decide for yourself if the solutions fit your needs and your family.

No parenting help works for everyone. You have to try it, perhaps modify it, and maybe even abandon it if it doesn’t fit your needs. You are the parent. You are the expert on your child.

Cynthia Martin is the founder of the First Teacher program and director of Parenting Matters Foundation, which publishes newsletters for parents, caregivers and grandparents. Reach Martin at pmf@olypen.com or at 681-2250.