be prepared to remove the three barriers

You, as a parent, must be prepared to remove the three barriers of: 1. Old beliefs, 2. Old excuses, and 3. The old fallback position of not having time to make these changes.

1. There three beliefs that you need to re-set:
• The belief that you should try to give your kids all the things that you didn’t have when you were a kid.
• That you should always bail out your child when he makes a mistake.
• That the way to get your kids ahead is by managing and pushing them, whether they like it or not.

2. There are three excuses that need to be rooted out:
• Stop saying, “Oh, they’re just kids”, or
• “That’s just how the world is now”, or
• “Well, their friends don’t have to.”

3. And most parents have some time issues and priorities that need to be re-structured:
• Get over playing the ultimate trump card of “I can’t do it now because there’s not enough time.”
• Understand that, like any infrastructure, some extra time is required to set up systems of ownership and responsibility, but that soon these very systems will begin to save us time.

The most common question we get from parents these days
is some variation of ‘how can I protect my children?’
The best answer (and as time passes, the only answer)
is to teach them strong and lasting values.

This is what it all adds up to!
If they feel real ownership of their own values,
if they come to understand that their lives are truly theirs,
they begin to accept full ownership of their behavior,
and that is the very definition of responsibility.