These are the nine "best" (WORST) ways that a parent can ruin their kid's chances of becoming a strong, confident, individual who's connected to the virtue-based ethics of their tribe. This list based on over 20 years of experiencing coaching kids and about of dozen years of being a father.
In other words, these are all the things you do as a parent to if your goal is to make your kid a spoiled, useless, weak a-hole and set them up to fail as an adult in society.
It almost seems like a gimme, but this is one that too many parents fudge, mostly because it's hard for soft people to be hard parents.
Let me break it down more simply:
When someone likes you, it's mostly (if not completely) an emotionally driven assessment, i.e.: "You make me feel good, so I want you around more."
When someone respects you it's because you pass a collection of criteria that person uses to assess worth. "That MC can really be rude, but he ain't gonna lie to ya!"
Parents, to have you kids respect you is to first show them what criteria they should be using, then, no matter how difficult it may be...WALK THE WALK! You must be firm and consistent. YOU are the parent and it’s your job to raise a functioning, contributing member of society.
One of my more popular memes has a pic of me and my youngest son, Khaidan, on the mat at my academy and reads:
When a parent removes a threat from the child's path, they must concede they've also removed the opportunity to overcome it. We become stronger through adversity, not avoidance. Sometimes, we need only get out of the way.
In my home, the rule is that if it isn't going to seriously injure them, they're doing it for themselves. Now, I don't have my 3-year-old cooking their own dinner and is my 11-year-old taking the truck to the store, but I'm always reluctant to step in and steal a rep from one of my kids.
And that's how you should look at it: stealing a repetition.
Let them work, Parent. It's the experience they need.
There's nothing that will compromise your authority more than asking your child permission to be a parent.
So, yeah, you are their AUTHORITY, and yes, PARENTING them doesn't require their permission.
They’re your #1 responsibility. They can't provide for themselves. They have no standing in our tribe/society as an independent member. In other words, they NEED you!
YOU are their leader and, although some input is useful to you at times, they don’t need to agree with any of your decisions concerning their progress and future.
If you're making selfish, emotional decisions as a parent, you're messing up massively. Asking permission may very well be one such case of you being selfish and emotional!
Step up to the plate and lead, Parent. Your team is relying on you!
Nothing will ruin a kid more than modeling them after a ruined adult.
Well, you know what? Adults who have no work ethic SUCK! If your kid hates group projects because there’s always a slacker, they’ll be less than thrilled to find out those same slackers enter the workforce as adults and spend their entire careers pissing off all of their coworkers.
Your kid needs chores. They need to work.
They need to NOT want to do those chores and, when that happens, they need to understand it's NON-NEGOTIABLE!
A kid who has a job to do not only becomes responsible, productive, and helpful but they also get to experience all of those benefits that only hard work provides, such as:
Remember, they're not your "buddy", Parent. They're your responsibility! When they are adults, you can be friends with them. For now, it’s your job to parent them.
Now go and raise a good adult!
"I don't want him to get hurt!" says the overbearing, helicopter parents of the new millennium.
"I don't want him to get killed!" replies the parents of yesteryear.
Childhood is a training camp for adulthood.
If they don't learn it now when the consequences are low, they'll learn it later when the consequences could cost them their life! "Safe" activities provide a mirage of control you neither have, nor need. Kids need to get bumps, bruises, heartbreaks, and occasionally a bone break too.
"That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” said Nietzsche.
My MMA academy is full of people whose parents never looked to forge a proper man or woman.
Pain/Discomfort or hurt/injured are distinctions are only made when one build a relationship with them in the real world.
Let it happen when it can be solved with a band-aid and ice cream, and you'll probably never have to teach them through surgery and a lawyer. Pressure to Power goes for the little ones, too!
Yeah, this one's kind of terrible.
One of the points I consistently drive home is the importance of MISSION. That means there will be times when it is right to take it on the chin, but there will also be times where we drop an A-bomb down a people's throat.
The distinction can only come about by a learned response that’s forged in reality and has one's mission in it.
I don't know who came up with it, but I like the mantra, "Don't sweat the small stuff".
If something isn't veering you off mission then it doesn't matter, but if something IS then it matters completely!
Your kid should know if a reaction is "worth it". Knowing their mission is how they will know when it’s worth having a reaction.
I want you, parent, to think for a moment about how you feel about life and your mission in it. Think then about all the internal hurdles you have that continuously get in your way.
Think about what you're like when you're tired, sad, angry, scared. Now think about how reasonable it is to assume others have similar conflicts and chaos within their own mental world.
Now bring your kid into the picture.
· Who will care for your child more than their parent?
· Who will sacrifice their own mood for the betterment of your child more than their parent?
· Who will protect your child more than their parent?
· Well why, then, would one ever give the care of their child over to a stranger?
(No judgement here, mind you.)
Maybe you need the new car or the extra vacation that pawning your little off to a stranger-ridden government building every day affords you.
Maybe it's a matter of pride that your kid knows how to get in a line with the best of them.
Do your job, Parent...or don't. Just don't expect me to agree that strangers are acceptable substitutes for parents.
Mission, mission, mission.
It's what should keep you focused and functional, especially as a parent!
What your neighbor has is something we can very easily say doesn't matter, but never mind if you mean it...do you SHOW that it doesn’t matter?
Why do we buy our kids expensive, name-brand shoes? Get them the fancy haircuts? Buy them the overpriced videogames? Why do we bring them on the lavish vacations? (F*ck, Disney World, btw.)
As a parent, you NEED to take inventory from time to time on what it is your mission is based on. My kids are homeschooled. I get a lot of crap for that one. Not anymore!
They get haircuts on my front deck. That NEVER would've flown amongst my old neighbors in the Bronx. They haven't ever owned some fancy branded sneaker. My kids have more chores than a union worker. Only my oldest has a cell phone and he got it for his 15th birthday! (And a cheap one with next to no memory for nonsense.)
My kids have a childhood that's based on a whole list of virtues and strategies, but what other people do with their kids OR say about mine is IRRELEVANT!
Do what is good.
Do what is right.
Never care about what's popular!
I can tell you with certainty from the amount of time I work each day, I'm NEVER satisfied with how much time I get to invest in my kids.
When figuring on what the right amount of time is, I looked to a familiar lens: Function.
· I knew that a newborn hardly needed me there.
· I knew that it was my job to provide.
· I knew that the time I spent away NEEDED to have a purpose.
· If I didn't have a good reason for not being home, then home's damn sure where I should be!
I don't drink, party, or go on "guys only trips" with my brothers.
With that being said, I know full well there's a better way to schedule my day than the one that I'm currently running, because there ALWAYS will be, and part of my mission is finding a better one!
Now, for those parents who like to pawn their kid(s) off on relatives, friends, and hired help just so they can do all the things childless adults do, the obvious question is why the hell did you have a kid in the first place?
If you're a deadbeat parent, may your days be as miserable as your fatherless bastard kid may be.
Another mistake often made when it comes to how much time we should invest in our kids is telling yourself, "Well, look how great he's doing!"
Now, don't get me wrong, the proof's most certainly in the pudding, but what about that potential we were talking about?
Are you so arrogant as to think you know what your child could have access to every resource at her or her disposal present every day? Does this arrogance make you say, or at least believe, that you're doing "enough"?
No, of course we won't know what the "perfect way" is, but that's not the issue.
Our approach should always be a process that's constantly becoming more perfect.
Your children are here because of YOU. Be there because of THEM.
Stay on Mission,
MC
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