parenting might seem intuitive but it’s
not hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with psychotherapist Allison
Shafer to find out how we should be
parenting our children in the 21st
century first of all could you just
outline your premise in honey I wreck
the kids I’m trying to explain to
parents that there is a new style of
parenting called democratic parenting
which is different than autocratic which
is how most of us were raised kind of
the Archie Bunker scream and yell at do
it because I say so and distinguishing
it from where we kind of went as a
society which is we became incredibly
permissive and let our kids walk all
over us that wasn’t working either there
is this third alternative and I want to
tell the world about the third
alternative and how you can actually be
a disciplinarian and still maintain
respect for yourself and your child and
what would you say has caused this kind
of evolution between parents and
children I think we’ve experienced an
improvement in human relationships and
gender relationships I think in race
relations we’ve seen an improvement
we’ve just elected the first black man
into the White House and now we’re
seeing that children are having their
own fight about ageism which means just
because I’m small just because I’m young
just because I’m incapable doesn’t mean
that you can demean me in your parenting
tactics and so we have to learn how to
be a disciplinarian where we can treat
someone respectfully but still be
effective and this is where parents
don’t know how to do it because mostly
they just say let me just ask nicely and
when that doesn’t work they don’t know
what else to do can you really wreck
your kids it is a humorous title but
actually it’s a very feel good book it’s
really helping parents understand that
we create a dysfunctional pattern and
that those patterns can be changed that
it isn’t permanent I reparable damage
know you mentioned ripple effects of
having a behaviorally challenged child
what are these effects well certainly
there’s a lot of families who the
largest problem that they have is it is
problems with the children and then the
parents begin to fight about how to
parent the children and then they don’t
want to go home and go to family
functions because suddenly now as the
grown up I don’t want to talk to my
sister because I’m embarrassed about the
way my children are behaving and she’s
starting to judge me and you can watch
multi generations of a family star
being all dysfunctional because of one
misbehaving child what are some
traditional parenting techniques that
don’t work anymore the subtitle of the
book you know is a whole laundry list of
these things right yelling screaming
threats bribes timeouts you know we have
all these nanny shows on television now
which try to say listen your child’s out
of control so you better get back
control you better be firmer and you
better be meaner and you better
manipulate all of those have as a
premise that you’re going to have a
subservient child it’s based on
oppression it’s based on manipulation
and it’s a control model and I’m
suggesting rather than having external
control that instead that we look for
intrinsic motivation that we want to win
children’s cooperation and that’s just
fundamentally different things like
logical consequences natural
consequences Co joint problem solving
these are all things that parents read
the book or take a course they learn
what are some of the pitfalls of
teaching your child to blindly obey
Authority because there are parents who
will still say yeah okay Allison love
you but I do want that obedient child
what’s wrong with that I was spanked and
I turned out okay that’s very common but
we find is that if you look at an
obedient child they’re willing to look
at an authority figure and do what the
authority figure says now if you’re the
parent and you have the child’s best
interest in mind then that’s all right
but what if that person is someone who
doesn’t have the child’s best interest
in mind and what we know is that those
children that have victims of sexual
abuse have done so at the hands of a
known adult in their life and uncle a
caregiver those are the people that have
the child is now being obedient and when
they say don’t tell mummy this is our
little secret that’s what see now
wouldn’t you prefer to have a
disobedient child the one that says hey
no I’m gonna go tell my mommy that is
not okay I notice a list of bogus
parenting phrases that we should be
eliminating from our vocabulary what
might they be honestly if you just
walked around and recorded and wrote
down the kinds of things that we say
they’re almost all demeaning it’s
amazing so we don’t really have really
good constructive language for kids but
certainly one of the more common one is
when parents will probe around what were
you thinking which
who are you thinking when you did that
and the truth is behavior from a child’s
perspective it falls from their belief
system and happens at a pre conscious
level they don’t know why they hit their
brother they don’t know why they refuse
to keep their room clean they’re not
aware of it so it’s an unfair question
to ask thank you very much thank you
not hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with psychotherapist Allison
Shafer to find out how we should be
parenting our children in the 21st
century first of all could you just
outline your premise in honey I wreck
the kids I’m trying to explain to
parents that there is a new style of
parenting called democratic parenting
which is different than autocratic which
is how most of us were raised kind of
the Archie Bunker scream and yell at do
it because I say so and distinguishing
it from where we kind of went as a
society which is we became incredibly
permissive and let our kids walk all
over us that wasn’t working either there
is this third alternative and I want to
tell the world about the third
alternative and how you can actually be
a disciplinarian and still maintain
respect for yourself and your child and
what would you say has caused this kind
of evolution between parents and
children I think we’ve experienced an
improvement in human relationships and
gender relationships I think in race
relations we’ve seen an improvement
we’ve just elected the first black man
into the White House and now we’re
seeing that children are having their
own fight about ageism which means just
because I’m small just because I’m young
just because I’m incapable doesn’t mean
that you can demean me in your parenting
tactics and so we have to learn how to
be a disciplinarian where we can treat
someone respectfully but still be
effective and this is where parents
don’t know how to do it because mostly
they just say let me just ask nicely and
when that doesn’t work they don’t know
what else to do can you really wreck
your kids it is a humorous title but
actually it’s a very feel good book it’s
really helping parents understand that
we create a dysfunctional pattern and
that those patterns can be changed that
it isn’t permanent I reparable damage
know you mentioned ripple effects of
having a behaviorally challenged child
what are these effects well certainly
there’s a lot of families who the
largest problem that they have is it is
problems with the children and then the
parents begin to fight about how to
parent the children and then they don’t
want to go home and go to family
functions because suddenly now as the
grown up I don’t want to talk to my
sister because I’m embarrassed about the
way my children are behaving and she’s
starting to judge me and you can watch
multi generations of a family star
being all dysfunctional because of one
misbehaving child what are some
traditional parenting techniques that
don’t work anymore the subtitle of the
book you know is a whole laundry list of
these things right yelling screaming
threats bribes timeouts you know we have
all these nanny shows on television now
which try to say listen your child’s out
of control so you better get back
control you better be firmer and you
better be meaner and you better
manipulate all of those have as a
premise that you’re going to have a
subservient child it’s based on
oppression it’s based on manipulation
and it’s a control model and I’m
suggesting rather than having external
control that instead that we look for
intrinsic motivation that we want to win
children’s cooperation and that’s just
fundamentally different things like
logical consequences natural
consequences Co joint problem solving
these are all things that parents read
the book or take a course they learn
what are some of the pitfalls of
teaching your child to blindly obey
Authority because there are parents who
will still say yeah okay Allison love
you but I do want that obedient child
what’s wrong with that I was spanked and
I turned out okay that’s very common but
we find is that if you look at an
obedient child they’re willing to look
at an authority figure and do what the
authority figure says now if you’re the
parent and you have the child’s best
interest in mind then that’s all right
but what if that person is someone who
doesn’t have the child’s best interest
in mind and what we know is that those
children that have victims of sexual
abuse have done so at the hands of a
known adult in their life and uncle a
caregiver those are the people that have
the child is now being obedient and when
they say don’t tell mummy this is our
little secret that’s what see now
wouldn’t you prefer to have a
disobedient child the one that says hey
no I’m gonna go tell my mommy that is
not okay I notice a list of bogus
parenting phrases that we should be
eliminating from our vocabulary what
might they be honestly if you just
walked around and recorded and wrote
down the kinds of things that we say
they’re almost all demeaning it’s
amazing so we don’t really have really
good constructive language for kids but
certainly one of the more common one is
when parents will probe around what were
you thinking which
who are you thinking when you did that
and the truth is behavior from a child’s
perspective it falls from their belief
system and happens at a pre conscious
level they don’t know why they hit their
brother they don’t know why they refuse
to keep their room clean they’re not
aware of it so it’s an unfair question
to ask thank you very much thank you
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