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Every mother deserves our support and admiration, but the single mom merits a double dose. She must locate available and safe child-care services, work for eight or more hours every day, pick up the kids, stop by the grocery store, then come home to cook dinner, wash the dishes, change the diapers, help with the homework, bathe the preschoolers, read a story, dry a tear, say a prayer, and tuck the kids into bed.
Okay, Mom, let's talk about what it means to be a boy and how you might relate better to them.
It’s important to understand how kids think. Their conflict often becomes a way of manipulating parents. Quarreling and fighting provide an opportunity for both children to capture adult attention. It has been written, “Some children had rather be wanted for murder than not wanted at all.” Toward this end, a pair of obnoxious kids can tacitly agree to bug their parents until they get a response—even if it is an angry reaction.
The goal in dealing with a difficult child is to shape the will without breaking the spirit. Hitting both targets is sometimes easier said than done. Perhaps it will help to share a letter from a mother who was having a terrible time with her son Jake. Her description of this child and her responses to him illustrate precisely how not to deal with a difficult boy or girl.
Question: Dr. Dobson, I'm a full-time mother with three children in the preschool years. I love them like crazy, but I am exhausted from just trying to keep up with them. I also feel emotionally isola
We come now to the final task assigned to mothers and fathers, that of releasing grown children and launching them into the world of adulthood. It is also one of the most difficult.
Pry open the door of communication. But how can you talk to someone who won't talk—someone whose language consists of seven phrases: I dunno. I don't care. Leave me alone. I need money. Can I have the car? My friends think you're unfair. And, I didn't do it. Prying open the door of communication with an angry adolescent can require more tact and skill than any other parenting assignment.
Is it wrong for a woman to make it her career goal to be a wife and stay-at-home mom? Absolutely not!
Successful family life is difficult to achieve. It is never perfect and is often problematic. You have your own set of challenges as you seek to meet the needs of your children. You may be a single parent with very limited financial resources. Perhaps you suffer from illness, disability, or addiction. Or maybe you have strong-willed kids who are tough to handle.
Are you aware that the average person between the ages of eight and eighteen spends approximately 44.5 hours each week engaging with some form of media? That's the equivalent of a full-time job and several hours of overtime! With consumption at this level, it's little wonder that media has become a type of "super-peer," influencing behaviors and shaping values.
