ClydeStyle

Tag: Children

  • Let’s make freedom for all … for once

    This Independence Day I thought we could quickly discuss one of the longest living forms of abuse — corporal punishment! Whenever this subject comes up some one quickly says, “Well, I was spanked when I was growing up and I turned out fine.” So the premise is that spankings did no damage to the receiver back in the day so it’s fine for today. Or it means that because of spankings we now have many fine citizens who had loving parents that carried out their Christian duty of “not sparing the rod as to not spoil the child.”

    Many believe that the bible teaches the benefits of spanking kids. Does it? More on that in a moment. The earliest I could research the use of corporal punishment came around 1800 B.C. during Babylonian captivity. The Babylons utilized the death penalty for violation of 25 particular laws.

    Of course we know that this was a learned behavior from England that followed immigrants here during revolutionary times. Slaves were beaten for violating the slave code. This became the dominant understanding and use of corporal punishment. It was used in schools and homes throughout America.

    According to a study conducted by the Harvard School of Education, spanking is not an effective way to discipline a child whether be it at home or at school. The worse part of spankings physically and mentally was when it was done to embarrass, out of anger, out of frustration or to intimate a child. Were you spanked for any of these reasons?

    Further, the bible does not teach us to abuse our children by spanking them. Proverbs 13:24 has been taken completely out of context and interpreted by western standards. The rod in the text is equal to the rod of a shepherd who would use it to teach and guide the sheep with it, not ever to be used as a weapon. This is why Psalms 23 says, “thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

    In addition, for me knowing that spankings were associated with slavery was enough for me not to introduce it to my children. Moreover, I was definitely more important for my kids to love me than fear me. I could come up with far more practical means of consistently convening my point to me children without subjecting them to a violent attack from the one who is responsible for protecting the home.

    So, it’s Independence Day and we are celebrating freedom. Let’s give our kids the freedom to be loved, guided and encouraged instead of adding violence to our dysfunction and giving them a license to carry this barbaric behavior to our future generations.

  • Birthdays are bigger than we think

    I think we all know people who, when asked about their birthday, say that they don’t celebrate it anymore or that it’s just not a big deal.

    What are we really saying about ourselves when we make these statements?

    One of the things I love about spring is that in addition to the season in the Midwest beginning to change, I have two lovely daughters who celebrate birthdays in March and in April.

    My girls are special to me. They know that they are special, but on their birthdays, I have an extra opportunity to celebrate the fact that they exist.

    This is a fact of life that is often overlooked in childrearing.

    The stability, security and self-esteem for any daughter are wrapped up in her daddy. A father is the first man that a daughter should be in love with. The number one reason is because this would be the daughter’s first taste of TRUE love – unconditional, never-ending, God-like love.

    Codependent women, for the most part, did not experience a strong interpersonal relationship with their fathers.

    I have counseled a variety of women who have said that even when their father was there, he really wasn’t there. He lived at the house, they ate dinner together sometimes and he was a great provider of physical things.

    But how often they exchanged intimacy was in question.

    There were no tender moments. They would say things like. “I know my Dad loved me, he just doesn’t express himself that way.” Or, “Dad loves me, he’s just very busy.”

    The effects are devastating.

    The daughter that doesn’t have the strong interpersonal relationship with her dad will always struggle with her relationships with men. The codependent part comes in her defining moments. She will always wonder is she beautiful, does she matter, who loves her.

    And she will look for a male to supply her with these answers.

    Just imagine the teenage boys willing to tell these girls that they are beautiful, they are important and they are loved.

    What do you think these codependent girls will do in return for these simply words that should have come from her dad?

    If you have ever wondered how some guys ended up with these very beautiful and intelligent women – you guessed it, codependency.

    The point here is this: Every little girl needs to know that she is loved and that she matters. In fact all of us do. These two things are directly attached to her inner conscious which she will then use to fight off the voice that tell her no one loves her or she’s ugly.

    This is why birthdays are especially important to all of us. They should be used as a tool to express love and to celebrate the life of a person we love. Everyone should have at least one day a year where people make a fuss, go out of their way and express their love all because of the birth of that special someone.

    It is also for this reason that my two little girls will always know that they matter, that I love them more than life itself and that they are smart and talented enough to do whatever they put their little minds to. They need to understand that our spirits are forever connected and death can’t even separate us. That our love is everlasting – which means from the day they were conceived, it was in love and that their life and death will be spent in love.

    Make sure the people you love know it. This must be demonstrated and said out loud often enough to make it a habit. This is how we live with no regret.

  • The high cost of advertising

    No one asked me, but I think America is too stupid for the advertising that we use. I mean when words like “new and improved” make us think that a product is better or that because we see “sale” we think there is a deal, there’s a problem.

    We then proceed to spend and spend and spend.

    Whether we can afford to or not is not a deterrent. It seems that we spend based on mood. For some of us, if we’re happy and we know it – instead of clapping our hands – we swipe our credit cards. If we are sad and depressed we think to buy something to cheer ourselves up. If we’re angry we think we deserve something new. When we have something to celebrate we buy something. Weddings are celebrated with gifts, as is graduations, births, deaths, going away and coming home parties. There are cards to buy for every occasion under the sun. Hallmark doesn’t miss a thing!

    Advertising got us to this point. Although other countries share in the advertising double-cross, in America the Federal Trade Commission is the highest authority. This commission has the responsibility of regulating laws and rules of advertising. Now, although there is much negligence in the way the FTC governs advertising to adults, I want to get your attention by shedding a little light on what they allow to be advertised to our children.

    According to the FTC there was 1.6 billion dollars spent in 2006 for advertising to our children. Interestingly enough, there is no universal definition of a child when it comes to advertising. National jurisdiction is supposed to define a child. For the purposes of advertising law, the definition of a child varies from one jurisdiction to another. It seems that,  12 is commonly used as a cut-off point, on the basis of the widespread academic view that by the age of 12 children have developed their behavior as consumers, effectively recognize advertising and are able to adopt critical attitudes towards it.

    My oldest daughter is 12 and I have another daughter that’s 10. I would say that my children are definitely true to their age based on maturity. My kids are far more Disney channel and Nickelodeon than anything else. They are still naïve and innocent (Thanks to God!) and they don’t look at commercials and think to themselves, “Wow! That product was geared toward me.” My daughters were watching TV the other day and I noticed a commercial for Dove body spray which had a young girl in the commercial. Afterwards, I asked my daughters did they want to try the product, they responded, “what product?” I smiled. You get that response by limiting the amount of TV.

    In any event, you can take a five-year-old down the cereal aisle and watch their expression. Look at where the eyes of the characters on the cereal box are focusing. Who are they staring at? There is a psychology to advertising that should not be allowed. Christmas can almost be considered an attack against us. A deliberate plan to get us to spend money – money some of us don’t have. Our banking system is in cahoots as we are allowed credit limits which exceed our actual earnings. Although it may be too late for us adults, I wonder what it would be like, if the U.S. and the FTC adopted the same guidelines as other countries in regards to its advertising to children 12 and under.

    In the United Kingdom, Greece, Denmark and Belgium advertising to children is restricted, and in Quebec, Sweden and Norway, advertising to children under the age of 12 is illegal.

    The European Union also has framework legislation in place which sets down minimum provisions on advertising to children for its 27 member States. The EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive sets out several EU-wide rules concerning advertising to children:

    Advertising shall not cause moral or physical detriment to minors, and shall therefore comply with the following criteria for their protection:

    a. it shall not directly exhort minors to buy a product or a service by exploiting their inexperience or credulity;

    b. it shall not directly encourage minors to persuade their parents or others to purchase the goods or services being advertised;

    c. it shall not exploit the special trust minors place in parents, teachers or other persons;

    d. it shall not unreasonably show minors in dangerous situations

    e. Children’s programmes may only be interrupted if the scheduled duration is longer than 30 minutes

    f. Product placement is not allowed in children’s programmes.

    g. The Member States and the Commission should encourage audiovisual media service providers to develop codes of conduct regarding the advertising of certain foods in children’s programmes.

    Source: Television broadcasting activities: “Television without Frontiers” (TVWF) Directive from europa.eu

  • Breaking up is hard to do

    Marriage has become big business – especially in the United States.

    Not only do we spend a fortune on daddy’s little girl’s special day, but the lawyers in the divorce settlement get to have their “special day,” too!

    On average, fifty percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce.

    The occupation you and your spouse choose may also have an effect on divorce statistics.

    If you are a clergyperson, the divorce rate dips to 20 percent (probably due to pressure from Protestant churches – most won’t accept a minister who is single).  But if you are in law enforcement, that number swells to 70 percent.

    But no matter where you fall on the divorce meter, divorce is still a traumatic event. Few husbands and wives consider the need for calm, rational thinking while making decisions that affect not only the adults, but impact the children, too.

    Many important decisions need to be made when a couple is considering divorce. But at some point, things often get so bad that one or both partners decide that they can’t stand to be around each other any longer – let alone conduct a rational discussion.

    What was once thought to be love has now turned into hate. here is no agreement on anything. There is no such thing as a compromise. And as a result, there is no peace in the household.

    Add kids to this volatile mix and now you have something very explosive.

    Like a drive-by shooting, I have seen a spouse use the kids as a shield to block insults or send them to the soon-to-be-ex in the form of an emotional bomb.

    Don’t be fooled. This isn’t a marriage anymore – it’s now a war!

    One couple I counseled was masterful at this.

    When the wife wanted to leave, the husband deflected her insults about men by telling their six-year-old son that when his mom made disparaging comments about men, she meant all men – including him!

    In another case, the wife sent her young daughter to her husband after he announced that he was leaving her because of her drinking problem. The daughter looked at her dad with those cute little brown eyes and said, “Daddy, why are you leaving us?”

    Breaking up is hard to do because you have to learn again how to talk to each other, be civil, and choose not to retaliate or play the tit-for-tat game.

    Plus you also have to consider the kids FIRST in everything.

    Divorce is like a war – but no matter who is left standing at the end, there is no winner. All sides lose – especially the kids.

    I’ve had to teach couples how to be cordial, how to react, how to avoid extra hurt for the kids and how to be fair.

    I have to remind them that their decisions shouldn’t have anything to do with the spouse and everything to do with the quality of person they are.

    We as humans tend to trade our good qualities for bad ones when we’re angry or emotionally upset.

    One might question if we really had the good qualities in the first place.

    A marriage and family therapist would be worth his/her weight in gold if couples were to start out with one for premarital counseling and then keep the therapist around for the first few years of the marriage.

    This is the answer to the divorce problem everywhere!

    Couples who divorce must learn how to compromise and how to give up “self” for the sake of the kids.

    Isn’t that interesting?

    If it’s possible that during divorce proceedings a couple can learn how to compromise and not be selfish, I wonder what would happen if they learned these things before they married?

    Maybe divorce attorneys would become an endangered species.

  • Who’s really to blame?

    It seems as though our laws and legal system are missing the grade as each relates to being a deterrent to crime. We make laws and those laws are broken. We set up a court system and it gets overcrowded and has more repeat offenders than a Cedar Point ride.

    Is there a way that we could set up a system that would really work: Be a deterrent to crime and not overcrowd our court system and jails?

    I’ve taken a therapeutic approach to this solution.

    What if everyone had to have a family tree? And with the family tree — that would always go back two generations – all the members of the family would be responsible and accountable for their own family.

    This would mean that if my son went to jail, not only would my dad and I get fined because of it, but our family would have to pay to have him housed in jail or prison until he gets out. So if he was there for 30 days, it would be our collective family’s responsibility to make sure he gets three hots and a cot or reimburse the jail or prison system for providing it. If he was in prison for 10 years, then we would have to provide the same.

    I wonder if this was the law, would people do better at raising their children? It seems like my system would work in a number of areas. What if my son had children out of wedlock and didn’t (or couldn’t) take care of them? Then my dad and I would have to fit the bill for that. What if my kid was cited for bullying kids at school more than three times? What if the fines doubled with each offense with the starting offense being $100? That would mean with the third citation we would owe $400 (in addition to the $300 we paid for the previous two). Is that enough to make parents raise their children properly?

    I believe that because of the great depression, subsequent parents afterward were frightened into making sure that food, clothing and shelter were priorities. This meant that our physical needs in most cases would be taken care of. Television shows from the 50s and 60s bear witness to the classic family model of a stay at home mother and a father that was the “bread winner”. The parents’ roles were designed to meet the physical needs, but what about emotional, mental, spiritual needs?

    Today, simply providing for the physical needs of your children is the same thing we do for pets. Something has to thrust us into the lives of our children. Kids today are missing the unconditional love that comes from BOTH parents.

    A boy needs to know what it’s like for a man to love him and be intimate with him without shame. A daughter needs to know and feel the security that comes from having the first man she ever loved tell her that she is beautiful, intelligent and can do anything she puts her mind to. Both children need to see their dad love their mom and sacrifice for the whole family. On that same line, the children need to know and feel a mother’s nurturing and love, unconditionally. A boy needs to have respect for his mother and sisters and see other females the same way he sees them. This is the governor of his hormones for there would definitely be something wrong if a boy tried to put a move on his mother or sister.

    The whole point of this is that we need to get back to the things that are most important – the family. And it just seems that in America the only way to get people to understand the magnitude of this problem is to hold them financially responsible for the actions of their offspring.