The question:

My daughter has hated me since the age of 15. she was a wonderful loving child and got involved with a controlling guy that she married at 18. she is only 18 now, dumped and divorced from this guy after a few months. it was a horrible time but she loves his mother still and wants me out of her life. i have tried to get along with her but she is nasty and disrespectful and i wont take it. i have 3 older children who treat me with respect and I wont let Anna treat me differently. I cant seem to reason with her. she refuses to talk about the past because it makes her feel bad, i want her to get help because she is full of hate and bitterness. I pray for her as does many, but her heart only seems to get harder.

Watch the answer Michael Smalley gives this hurting mother.

Many parents wonder why their kids don’t seem to respond to their discipline techniques or anything else.  Watch what Michael Smalley has to say on why your kids don’t listen and what you can do about it.

A study published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology found that the method of control used by parents was significantly related to a child’s aggressive behaviour.

Sofie Kuppens and her colleagues from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, studied the amount of physical aggression and relational aggression (the purposeful manipulation or damage to relationships) used by 600 children aged between 8 and 10 and compared this to parents’ use of physical punishment and psychological control.

Sofie Kuppens said: “As well as using discipline or rewards to control or manage a child’s behaviour, some parents also use psychological control which may include emotional manipulation, criticism or excessive personal control.

“As children learn and adopt behaviour from their parents, we wanted to see whether children whose parents use psychological control strategies are more likely to use relational aggression – the purposeful manipulation or damage to relationships, through silent treatment, social exclusion, or spreading of malicious rumours for example.”

via Parental Method Of Contol Linked To Child’s Aggressive Behaviour.

One of the big reasons that many second marriages fail can be summed up with one word – Stepchild.  Kids can make a second marriage miserable because they are angry, hurting, sad, disappointed, feeling rejected, and just plain ticked off from the divorce.  This is normal and natural.  The worst thing you can do as a stepparent is to come in to the new relationship with the stepkids and try to be a parent.

Effective parenting comes from a solid foundation of unconditional love and acceptance.  You do not have that initially as a stepparent.  Worry more about building up your relationship with the stepchildren through unconditional love and acceptance than worrying about disciplining them.  Often times it is the biological parent that initially needs to keep up the work as the primary discipline force for the kids.  Remember, most kids did not want the divorce and are not happy about it, so don’t push yourself on to them because you want them to accept you.

Take the time to show them you’re serious about their parent and them.  Prove to them that you’re there to stay.  Once they figure out that you are for real, then you will be given the opportunity to have more influence on their lives.

Do you ever hear this question rolling around your head when you’re out in public and your kid does something embarrassing? It’s like every single person is staring you down and judging you for your kid’s outburst! I hate this feeling, and unfortunately, I rarely handle myself well when I feel it.

Today’s tip is about remaining clear headed when in public. First of all, there’s no way every person is thinking negative thoughts about your kid or parenting skills. You probably don’t about other parents, and if you’re like me, you probably feel empathy for the parent and not disgust.

Secondly, call a time-out and do not deal with your kid immediately. If she is throwing a fit, then remove her from the area and get her to the car. The last thing you want to do is to really “get into it” with your kid publicly. That is humiliating to your child and it will end up being even more humiliating to you. If your kid starts getting in to the habit of throwing a fit in public and ruining your chance to be out of the house, then talk with a friend and have her come and get the child. I did this once with Reagan and she never threw a fit again at the mall. She was shocked to see our babysitter pull up to the mall and take her home for a time-out until I returned home. Her face was classic as I got to stay with my son and continue having fun at the mall!

What do the lyrics of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s one hit wonder have to do with parenting? I teach couples all the time to take a time-out when they get upset with each other. I tell them that they can not get anything resolved when upset. So take some time to cool off and pray. Then come back to the table to discuss how to resolve the conflict.

Why don’t I teach this more to parents? We parents need to use this same rule with our kids. When our kids disobey (and especially when they embarrass us), we need to call a time-out before we decide on any kind of punishment or resolution to a conflict. In the heat of the moment we are going to come up with absurd and unhealthy consequences for our children’s negative behavior.

Recently I got all worked up with my son Cole and I did not take a time-out before coming up with his consequence. In the heat of the moment I grounded “from life” for one month. That’s right, my exact words were, “You’re grounded from life for at least a month!” What horrible act would cause for such a consequence, you ask? As I’m writing this post I truly can not even remember what it was that he did to cause me to lay down that consequence. How pathetic of a parent am I (don’t answer this question)?

I did eventually come to my senses and spoke with Amy about the consequence I laid out for Cole. After she stopped laughing at me and mocking my poor parenting skills, she helped me see that one day was sufficient of a consequence. Take a time-out. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief from your spouse, and oh yeah, you might actually parent better as well.