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Show Self esteem is best gift for children taught principles one step at a time. If we don't do it that way, we don't accomplish anything. "If youngsters don't learn to fight when they are little, they aren't going to know how to fight (for themselves) when they are big. "If children aren't allowed to solve their own problems (when young), they aren't going to be good marriage partners when they grow up." When your children fight and one comes to you, just tell them "people aren't for hitting" instead of stopping the light yourself. They will learn to solve their own problems, prob-lems, he said. Traditions are a part of every family, LaPray said, asking what traditions are you passing on to your children Are you passing on a tradition of yeJlingand spankingto discipline them, for example. "If you reward behavior that you want to be remembered by, reward good behavior that you want to see repeated and ignore bad behav ior." "If a parent gets after a youngster young-ster for doing something bad, then we are rewarding bad behavior. We reward him by spanking. If you spank the youngster, you are telling tell-ing them hitting is okay." LaPray recommended timeouts "in the bathroom" as a way of disci plining youngsters between "three and puberty." Under age 3, he said, "you can use the crib." He said using their bedroom for timeout isn't discipline because too many kids now have televisions, radio, etc. in their bedrooms and that isn't a punishment. Speaking on childhood depression, depres-sion, LaPray said this can be manifest mani-fest by such things as bedwetting, thumb sucking, etc. "If you reward good behavior. Tell kids that they are good" it will help them overcome over-come this. He told parents to not be afraid to get professional help. Happiness, fame, and self-confidence are things we all want to give our children at all cost, but probably proba-bly the most important thing we can give them is self-esteem, according ac-cording to Dr. Anthony LaPray, Psychologist and author of "Help for Parents." Dr. LaPray is a popular lecturer at seminars on parenting sponsored spon-sored through the American Fork Hospital. "Our job is to create happy, responsible re-sponsible people with good self-confidence," self-confidence," LaPray said during a recent seminar. "If you tell me what a bad kid I am, that's what I will be," he said. He related a story about he and a cousin who grew up together. "Now I visit him each Christmas in prison." "We did the same things (while glowing up). The only difference was in our perception about ourselves. our-selves. How we felt about ourselves. our-selves. How our parents saw us. His parents told him he was bad. My parents told me I was good." LaPray said it is what you focus on that is important in raising children. chil-dren. "What you focus on is what you are going to get. Do you focus on your child wetting the bed? Do you focus on his hitting his sister or do you focus on what a good boy johnny is? "Do you focus on bad grades? If you focus on good grades, you are ! going to get good grades. If you j focus on bad grades, you are going to get bad grades." LaPray said parents need to go back and start with basics. If we try to do too much at once, it won't work. You have to be able to take one step at a time. "Feople don't become adults by (nmnris. Children have to be -. - |