Parenting: What to Do when You Feel like a Failure

Sometimes there are months that pass by and you feel that no matter what you do you still can not get your child to do what you want them to do. Its great that they have minds of their own and are figuring out their identity and what it means to be a part of the world, but often expressing their autonomy comes at a price. More often than not, its at your expense.

The typical scenario probably goes something like this: "Do your homework son". You come home from a hard day at work, you are starving, there are dishes in the sink, your head hurts from staring at a computer screen all day and your son is giving you an attitude just because he would rather play video games than practice his spelling words. Those of us who have very little patience often shout and threaten our kids into submission.

This is not a bad thing all the time, however there is a discovery that as a parent I would love to share with you; an epiphany as it were. There are stages that children go through as they develop, starting at birth and going up to age six. If there are any steps that have been skipped along the way it becomes detrimental to the child and he/ she regresses in an extreme way. Imagine baby talk at age six even though you may not have ever "baby talked" a day in your life to your child. Somehow this immature behavior becomes the focus of his/her actions. This could be referred to as "arrested development" and action can be taken to correct this.

Between ages two to four is where a mistake has been made. Pushing a child too far, too fast or too soon to keep up with the "Jones" older kids can really cause arrested development. Instead of accepting the child as a baby, the child was expected to act older and more mature in order to "fit in" . The only way to correct this so that the child can mature on schedule is to retreat back to a more simple time and perhaps allow your six year old to do very immature things. The simple act of playing with a stuffed toy together or perhaps doing absolutely anything that had not been done all the while the parents were too busy working to raise their child. Go back and make up for it. It can be the greatest kept parenting secret to date.

If you go back and regress a little with your child you will only bring them back up to the level they should be at now, only with the goal of enhancing them in the future. The simple act of tossing a ball back and forth and exclaiming how wonderful of a job he/she did when the ball was caught is a simple act that will further develop your child, as a result he/ she will act his/her age.