Children are the greatest gift to humanity.
How to Socialize Your Child
I Realize
I realize you are expecting me to love you, guide you, support you, and discipline you, with consistency and continuity. I realize I must follow through with what I proclaim to be truth, justice, integrity, and genuine love for you, so you will ultimately develop your own sense of conscious and values.
Question:
What is involved in socializing a child?
When I think of socializing a child, I see the elements involved in developing social skills, as being part of what we are doing when we are disciplining a child. They are not separate but intertwined. If our goal is to teach children how to develop inner controls, we must approach the task from the perspective of developing a training program for our children. Think of what is involved when someone is in training for anything from learning an instrument to learning to play sport. What are the elements that give the experience structure and a context for association so that the skill is learned and able to be executed? What comes to mind for me in the process of disciplining my child is that I have done the following work:
- I have clarity of what my values and morals are and that these are the values and morals that I want my child to embrace.
- I am demonstrating these values and morals in my everyday life.
- I have an understanding of child development and understand how children grow, learn, and process information.
- I make sure that my expectations for my child are age appropriate so that I don’t respond with frustration when my child does not behave according to my expectations.
- I solicit the love and support of my family to participate in socializing and disciplining my child.
- I have a connection to my faith community, and social-residential community, so that I have additional support and resources for my family.
- I make a pledge to develop a communication style that fits both my skills as an adult, and the nature and character of my child. I have the responsibility of studying my child so that I know what she/he responds to.
- I make sure that I never try to teach my child something when I am angry and not in control of my emotions. Constantly remind myself that I am the adult and that I’m working with a child. I constantly remind myself that this process is about modeling and teaching socially accepted human behavior.
- I never allow myself to fall into the trap of engaging in a power play with my child. I have the authority and responsibility as the parent to discipline my child. I must respect my child, and I expect respect in return. I remember my father saying to us on numerous occasions when he was disciplining us that” You don’t have to like me, but you do have to respect me”.
I can remember when my parents had a contest with us to see if we could memorize the “Ten Commandments”. The idea was that if we learned them that would be all we really needed because they covered everything. That seemed easy enough, and amazingly as I got older and understood the meaning behind each commandment, I saw how expansive the rules could be. Clarity of the rules and expectations for a child are critical. You will be able to cut through a lot of misbehavior if there is consistency and follow through in your modality of socializing and disciplining your child.
This is an excerpt from my book: “Embracing the Gift of Parenthood: How to Create a Loving Relationship with your Children.
Available on Barnes and Nobel and Amazon
