Fatherhood in a Technological World – Message #36
“When I was your age…” stories can offer your children a valuable and memorable look into your past and help preserve a bit of family history.
However, if you are using your childhood experiences to try to motivate your children to action when they are not living up to your standards, your efforts will likely have the opposite effect, especially if you add in some negative label like “lazy” or “ungrateful.”
Comparing their “lack” of effort to your “extreme” almost super-human efforts, can result in them feeling both guilty and unable to ever meet your expectations. They may do what you ask them to do, or should I say, force them to do, but they may think that whatever they do, they can never please you because you raised the bar so high.
As a parent in this technological world, you should consider the few extra minutes you should be investing in connecting with your children when you observe them doing something good. It’s certainly necessary to bring up negative observations, but realistically, you should shoot for expressing 5 positive thoughts to the 1 negative.
You might have heard the old personal development rule that it takes 17 positive thoughts to offset 1 negative thought, but let’s be realistic, 5 positive parent-to-child communications is more practical and gives you a chance to over achieve! It’s a lot easier when you can count them up on one hand!
You can choose to give your children a positive take on your personal experience or a negative one
The best time to share your past experiences with your children is when you try to empathize with something they are currently experiencing, that way it helps you connect with them rather than alienating them. For example, let’s say your child is afraid of the dark. You can use your personal experience to empathize with them , by first acknowledging their fear, and then, share how when you were younger, you also had a similar fear and that with a little work, you overcame it. On the other hand, you can totally waste your story by figuratively beating them with it by posing yourself as never being afraid and that they shouldn’t be afraid either.
Taking the negative route might work to get them to do something, but you would have missed the opportunity to build a closer relationship because you stepped over empathizing with their feeling of, in this case, fear.
Don’t forget to work with making connections with your child’s positive feelings too!
Action Items:
Be positive at least 5 times before you unleash a negative (if necessary) on your child. But you need to be sincere and focus on character qualities, don’t just inflate their egos.
Use your personal stories wisely and you can endear your children to yourself rather than estrange them.
CY
About Fatherhood in a Technological World
Fathers of young children in today’s modern society are facing unprecedented challenges with the wave of technology allowing ever easier access to the internet. The effect on your children has and will have a great influence on their growth. As a parent, you may be feeling the anxiety of having to confront the challenges of being at the end of the rail of the powerful forces driving technology into the laps and hands of your children.
Your work is cut out for you are a father. Even though popular culture doesn’t do well to herald the value of the leadership role of men in the form of fathers, let me tell you right now, being a father in this time and age has never been more important.
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