Introduction

No parent wakes up in the morning planning to make a child's life miserable. No mother or father says, “Today I'll yell, nag, and humiliate my child whenever possible.” On the contrary, in the morning many parents resolve, “This is going to be a peaceful day. No yelling, no arguing, and no fighting.” Yet, in spite of good intentions, the unwanted war breaks out again.

Parenthood is an endless series of small events, periodic conflicts, and sudden crises that call for a response. The response is not without consequence: It affects personality and self-regard for better or worse.

We would like to believe that only a disturbed parent responds in a way that is damaging to a child. Unfortunately, even parents who are loving and well meaning also blame, shame, accuse, ridicule, threaten, bribe, label, punish, preach, and moralize.

Why? Because most parents are unaware of the destructive power of words. They find themselves saying things that they heard their parents say to them, things they don't intend in a tone they don't like. The tragedy of such communication often lies not in the lack of caring but in a lack of understanding; not in a lack of intelligence, but in a lack of knowledge.

Parents need a special way of relating and talking with their children. How would any of us feel if a surgeon came into the operating room and before the anesthesiologist put us under, said, “I really don't have much training in surgery but I love my patients and I use common sense”? We would probably panic and run for our lives. But it's not that easy for children whose parents believe that love and common sense are enough. Like surgeons, parents, too, need to learn special skills to become competent in coping with the daily demands of children. Like a trained surgeon who is careful where he cuts, parents, too, need to become skilled in the use of words. Because words are like knives. They can inflict, if not physical, many painful emotional wounds.

Where do we start if we are to improve communication with children? By examining how we respond. We even know the words. We heard our parents use them with guests and strangers. It is a language that is protective of feelings, not critical of behavior.

What do we say to a guest who forgets her umbrella? Do we run after her and say, “What is the matter with you? Every time you come to visit you forget something. If it's not one thing it's another. Why can't you be like your younger sister? When she comes to visit, she knows how to behave. You're forty-four years old! Will you never learn? I'm not a slave to pick up after you! I bet you'd forget your head if it weren't attached to your shoulders!” That's not what we say to a guest. We say, “Here's your umbrella, Alice,” without adding, “scatterbrain.”

Parents need to learn to respond to their children as they do to guests.

Parents want their children to be secure and happy. No parent deliberately tries to make a child fearful, shy, inconsiderate, or obnoxious. Yet in the process of growing up, many children acquire undesirable characteristics and fail to achieve a sense of security and an attitude of respect for themselves and others. Parents want their children to be polite, and they are rude; they want them to be neat, and they are messy; they want them to be selfconfident, and they are insecure; they want them to be happy, and often they are not.

Parents can help each child become a mensch, a human being with compassion, commitment, and courage; a person whose life is guided by a core of strength and a code of fairness. To achieve these humane goals, parents need to learn humane methods. Love is not enough. Insight is insufficient. Good parents need skill. How to attain and use such skill is the main theme of this book. It will help parents translate desired ideals into daily practices.

Hopefully, this book will also help parents identify their goals in relation to children and to suggest methods of achieving those goals. Parents are confronted with concrete problems that require specific solutions; they are not helped by cliché advice such as “Give the child more love,” “Show her more attention,” and “Offer him more time.”

For many years, we have worked with parents and children in individual as well as in group psychotherapy and in parenting workshops. This book is the fruit of that experience. It is a practical guide; it offers concrete suggestions and preferred solutions for dealing with daily situations and psychological problems faced by all parents. It gives specific advice derived from basic communication principles that will guide parents in living with children in mutual respect and dignity.