Being there for your kids - Developmental Stages of Parenting

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

We know that children go through developmental stages, but did you know that we parents do also? Our parenting stages identify the best kind of parental response for what your child is doing in their developmental stage. It would be silly to tell our newborn to get his own bottle, huh!  So, as parents, we go through hands-on parenting, directed parenting, advice-based parenting, and consultative parenting as our child ages and matures. This match gives us the best opportunity to connect with our child and to guide them successfully through life. As our child grows and matures, we go less for him and more with him, offering teachable moments all the way.

to John Robinson, and this is Teachable Moments. Are you doing with or doing for your children? In the Bible, Proverbs 226, it tells us to raise our children in the ways of the Lord so that when they grow old, they will not depart from him.

As parents, that's quite a tall order. Research shows that 80% of churched 16-year-olds leave the church. These are kids who grew up attending their church at least twice per month, including Sunday school, youth groups, vacation Bible camps. What? 80% of these hardcore church teens leave the church at 16? What have we done

wrong? Well, the rest of the story is that 80% of these departures actually return to church by the time they are 25 or by the second birthday of their firstborn child. Why is that? When our normal healthy teens go through adolescence, they question everything, including going to church. Once they find themselves and achieve identity integration, they get back to their strong deep roots in the church. If we are lucky, they will tell us thanks, but don't count on it. So the lesson is to hang in there when your teen goes through their personal wilderness experience. As our kids develop, we spend a lot of time doing with and doing for them. Billy pushes out of her cuddle, retrieves his sneaker and demands, do this for me. Mom puts the sneaker on his foot,

pauses and concludes, you know what, I think you can figure this one out. Why don't you give it a try? What a great example of active listening. Mom could have punished Billy for his outburst and disrespect, but that wouldn't have gotten his shoe tied. She used her active listening to lower his emotional fever and then redirected him to task. However, this well-intentioned parenting likely would end with more frustration by Billy and a greater outburst. Developmentally, at age five, Billy doesn't have the mental capacity to figure this one out. At Billy's age, Mama's wise to use what I call hands-on parenting. First she does for Billy, and then as he calms down and shows interest, she takes time to patiently teach Billy the new skill, in this case, tying his own

shoe. From ages 6 to 12, parents use directive parenting, where your youngster has the freedom to explore his world, but with your supervision and oversight. Here we are also doing for our children as they are learning the ropes of safety, sharing, and responsibility. From ages 13 to 18, parents begin to use advice-based parenting, which further expands their exploration, but with your sharing the wisdom of your experience. Here we move more away from doing for our children and toward doing with them. After age 19, as your teen is launched into adulthood, we shift to consultative parenting. Your lead comment is, have some thoughts about what you're going through son do you want to hear them through all of

these parenting stages active listening helps your child get where they need to go through active listening we empower enhance and enable and engage our children to succeed in life i'm dr jonathan c robinson licensed clinical psychologist and christian author of teachable moments building blocks of christian parenting and this has been teachable moments teachable moments building blocks of christian parenting is available online at amazon books.com and in local and national bookstores more on dr robinson at t m c pinc.com