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Introduction
The biggest responsibility in
the life of most adults is the raising of their children. It can be an
awesome responsibility; however, despite the importance of child
rearing, most people receive little or no training in the process.
It
has been suggested that in our society more attention is given to the
licensing of teenagers to drive cars than to the ability or inability of
persons to effectively raise their children.
If
you are biologically capable, you can become a parent.
What greater resource to assure the future does any generation have than
its children? But how are we managing this resource?
If
this generation of parents cannot raise its children any more
effectively than we were raised, we cannot expect the next generation to
be more emotionally stable, more rational, or happier.
You
need only to look at the rising crime rate, the increased use of drugs,
the large number of broken families, and the rapid increase in mental
health disorders, to realize that previous generations of parents
perhaps could have done a better job of parenting.
With the added stresses placed on families today, the task of parenting,
unfortunately, is becoming even more important. Behavior problems are
becoming more common in more and more families.
During thirty-four years as a psychologist, I have counseled with
thousands of parents, children, and teenagers. There are some messages
that are coming in louder and clearer than ever before.
Parents with disobedient, distractible, overactive, moody children
typically feel frustrated and angry. Many parents have told me that
they feel trapped in a bad situation with no easy exit; everything they
have tried in the past has failed.
I’ve had parents tell me that they feel cheated and duped because they
were led to believe that parenthood was so wonderful, yet for them it
has been so difficult.
Many parents, especially mothers, have told me that they feel like
failures as persons because they are not fulfilling their conception of
the “good, succorant parent.” In almost ALL cases, parents with
difficult children report that they feel they are not in control of
their children and are, instead, simply reacting to their children’s
behavior. These parents give the impression that they are not really
raising their children but, rather, their children are raising them.
This book helps parents examine the question, “Who’s raising whom?”
I
have never met a child who knew more about child raising than that
child’s parents did. To feel loved and secure, children must be
effectively guided and disciplined by their parents. Parents must lead,
not simply react.
In
short, we must become the best possible managers we can be of our
children.
I
have served as a special educator of emotionally handicapped children, a
child counselor of delinquent youth, a behavior therapist in a hospital
program, a professor of special education, a school psychologist, a
consultant to a hospital child evaluation center, and a child
psychologist in private practice.
Many of the children I have seen have had serious handicapping
conditions; many others have been considered minimally disabled or
essentially normal.
There is one very important factor that most of these children have in
common: The behavior management of them has not been handled very well.
If
you ask pediatricians, teachers, child psychologists, or any other group
of professionals dealing with children what is the major problem they
most often confront, the most common response will be “unsatisfactory
management of the child.”
Although WHO’S RAISING WHOM? can benefit any family with children from
infancy up to about sixteen years of age, it can especially benefit
those families with younger children.
I
have found time and again that the methods proposed in this book are
often very effective. They really work. Whether parents are married,
single, working, or step, the ideas in this book can be very useful.
Importantly, parents do not have to have a child who is out of
behavioral control before they read this book. In fact, WHO’S RAISING
WHOM? would be most helpful in assisting essentially “normal” families
to function even more smoothly.
Many books and articles have been written and programs developed in the
effort to aid parents in “getting in touch” with their children or
“effectively communicating” with them.
Little has been done, however, on the topic of what parents are supposed
to DO in response to their children’s misbehavior; what actions they are
to TAKE!
Moreover, few parents have been helped to understand WHY their children
continue to do things that are inappropriate or irresponsible.
This book will give parents a concise, comprehensive theory of parenting
and discipline which will help them understand why their young children
are behaving in certain ways and explain what they should do in response
to their children’s misbehavior.
Using behavioral principles of learning and development described in
this book, parents will learn how to properly manage their children.
My
wife, Nan, and I used these same techniques in raising our sons. We
hope they prove as helpful to you as they were for us.
Dr. Larry Waldman
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