Rule #1 Expect A Great Deal From Your Kids

If your kids know that you expect a lot from them, they’ll rise to occasion. Everything from saying please and thank-you, to efforts in school or on athletic field, if expectations are made clear in a loving atmosphere your kids will know that you think a lot of them. When they know this, they’ll respond.

Rule #2 Always Be Willing To Be Problem

When you’re convinced that someone in your family is causing problems and you’re blaming them for it, realize that this problem won’t get better until you accept that you’re making it worse by blaming them. It may briefly feel good to blame, but it never improves anything. Loving and accepting that person will make a positive difference.

Rule #3Know Your Child’s Life Intimately

Get to know all that you can about your kids. Know what their favorite toys and colors are, who their best friends are, who their heroes are, etc. By showing interest, you’re showing you love them. By not asking, you show that they’re not that important to you.

Rule #4Say No To Your Kids

There’s an awful lot of stuff out there for kids these days...and of course they want to have it all. Kids who get almost everything they want typically don’t turn out to be very happy kids. Kids learn discipline, self-control, and how to delay gratification when they are told no by their parents. It may be a difficult struggle, but saying no and meaning it will help you to have happy, healthy, and cooperative kids.

Rule #5Hitting or Spanking Your Kids Doesn’t Work

There are plenty of studies showing that kids who are spanked have lower self-esteem. Spanking your kids will also be likely to increase very kinds of behaviors that you are spanking them for. As a father, do you really want your child to be afraid of you?

Rule #6Treat Your Wife Extremely Well

It's quite easy for most fathers to look at their kids with a critical eye. And why not? There's a lot riding on outcome of your kids' development. There's nagging worry that you're not doing your job well enough and that your child will develop "problems." There's also fear of being judged as an incompetent or uninvolved father by others. And there is relentless presence of your children, making mistakes by truckload while you watch.

They do make mistakes. Lots of them. And you have a number of choices about how you respond to those mistakes and how critical you are of your kids. Let's consider some different ways of looking at this issue to see if we can get some perspective:

A Different Angle

If you're a father who's really honest with yourself, you'll acknowledge that much of judgement and criticism that you have towards your kids is really your own critical judgement about yourself. It's usually easier to be critical of your kids than to turn spotlight on yourself, isn't it? If you're not careful as a father, you may run risk of "teaching" your kids low self-esteem through your criticism and judgement of them.

Doesn't seem fair, does it?

Fathers who see their kids as capable and whole, on other hand, will find far fewer opportunities to be critical of their kids. There are other reasons why you should be more understanding with your kids. One reason is to consider what it's really like to be a child. For instance, can you imagine formidable combination of having a brain that's not yet able to exhibit emotional control and living in a house where you're constantly told what to do by your parents?

Think about it for a minute. How many times do our kids get told what to do each day? How do you handle getting told what to do all time? It's a wonder that kids respond as well as they do.

How About Teenagers?