Children are not usually amenable to being lectured, given moral injunctions, or being coerced into handling responsibilities. A critical issue with parenting is creating a sense of involvement. In this era, a parent must have established a positive relationship with a child before being able to promote understanding of the responsibilities the child must accomplish. A style of relating based upon mutual respect, encouragement and coaching is essential. Parents need to listen to their children and give them feedback about different ways of viewing problems and issues. Many times with my own children, I would use newspaper articles as teaching tools. For example, if some celebrity had died as a result of a drug overdose, I would hand them the article, ask them to read it and talk with them about their feelings. It is critical with children that as a parent you allow your child to make value judgments about issues and problems. In a non-threatening manner, a parent can put a child in a position to make important behavioral evaluations. Some key words are, “How do you feel about this? Or what do you plan on doing about this problem?” I call this “boxing a child in”. When we, as parents, do the work of making value judgments for kids, they invariably dismiss our judgments. If we ask a child what their plan is for solving a problem, we put the responsibility back where it belongs.

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