After practicing for over twenty five years, we have both came to the conclusion that many if not most parents, are not good at parenting! This is not to say that they are not good people, just not good parents.  Where did they learn parenting anyway? Most likely from their parents! And their parents learned it from their parents, and it would be a miracle if any of them knew how to parent their child correctly!

Rarely do we have an adult or pediatric patient come in for therapy, that hasn’t been damaged or thoroughly messed up by their parents.

Do the parents screw up their kids intentionally? We would like to believe in most cases not. But if the parent was emotionally, sexually or physically abused when they were a child, and they never received the proper healing therapy, unfortunately they might visit their issues onto their own children.

An abused child will have low self esteem and be devoid of confidence and self assuredness unless mitigated by a really good hypnotherapist, not just a conventional “talk” therapist. That’s one of the reasons that many abused individuals embrace Gen Z.

The memories ofabusive or of harmful events are stored in the cognitive maps of the child’s subconscious mind and remain there until and unless they are dealt with by a hypnotherapist that really knows what they are doing.  

Saying “ who do you think you are?“ implies that they aren’t as good, talented, smart or whatever as the child thinks they are. That careless remark takes away confidence, self assuredness and self esteem. They will carry that feeling of inadequacy with them forever unless an excellent hypnotherapist can enable them to move past that negative talk. “Why did you do that?” is as useless as “who do you think you are?” Most often a child doesn’t have a clue why he does something because the prefrontal cortex hasn’t developed yet. The pre frontal cortex is our command and control center.

With girls the prefrontal cortex is pretty well developed by the age of twenty – in boys and men it is closer to thirty two years of age! Some think that with men it’s forty five!!!

I wish that we could visit with potential parents before they have a child. They might not want to hear this, but being a parent may require more time and effort than they thought that it would, and that they are able and or willing to devote to it. What is their priority – career or raising a child. It is really hard to do an excellent job of both simultaneously.

Isn’t it interesting that in order to be a manicurist, a barber or a welder, one has to take a test and get a license? But what kind of license is required to raise a child? None!

Many parents are honestly too busy to parent and raise a child. We’re not being sarcastic when we say that, but it takes time for the “little but important things”. It is not easy what with the everyday hustle and bustle of today’s life problems  and careers, and it can be difficult to take the time to answer that young developing mind’s questions. They might be too busy with or be too distracted with their career  to be a great parent.

Some might feel that the answer is a Nanny. But if that Nanny is not of the same intellectual and social economic level as the parents are, then there will be potential problems. Some Nannies might be excellent caregivers but may not even have graduated from high school in the United States or may not be emotionally, intellectually and culturally equipped to be a substitute parent! I had two parents come to see me, both of them were medical doctors who had three children. The parents were highly educated with college and medical school degrees.

They lived in Buckhead, a suburb of Atlanta on a street named Tuxedo Drive – one of the most expensive addresses in Atlanta. In the course of their interview I asked them where the son lived and how was he able to pay rent since he refused to work? They explained that their son lived in an apartment in their home. I asked them how big was the son’s apartment? They said “not that big, a little over 3000 square feet.” I thought 3000 square feet? Wow! (Of course their mansion was 40,000 square feet!) I asked if they charged him rent and they said “of course not… he’s our son.”

I asked them how he could make car payments and they replied that they had given him a Land Rover and a Lamborghini. “What does he do for spending money?” I inquired? We give him a salary of $4000 a month. “What does he have to do for that salary?” They were embarrassed to answer… nothing.

I then asked them “why should he work?” When they didn’t answer I said, “That is not a rhetorical question.” “But why should he work?” You see their son suffered no negative consequences for his not going to college, not working and not helping his parents in their business. Their son never had to do anything that he didn’t want to do. Ever!

They asked me if I could help their son? Regretfully, I had to honestly answer “I’d like to, but no! You have allowed him to develop non productive habits and have ruined him by not allowing him to take responsibility for either his actions or his lack of actions.” “He believes that he is entitled to have whatever he wants out of life WITHOUT working for it! He believes that he is entitled.

You have taught him that life is a free ride.” “It is not!” “I cannot undo over a quarter of a century of complete permissiveness and entitlement.” A person will not make behavioral change they don’t want to make and he doesn’t see the need for or want to make any changes in his life. He’s like a worm that lives in a rotten piece of fruit – he’s already content!

Moving along if a child WANTS a dog, it has to be their responsibility to feed the dog, clean up after it and walk it… rain or shine or cold – this is not something that one of the parents should do. This is not the right message to send to the child.

The child should make their bed until they leave home and move out some day. The child must have chores to do around the house. He or she lives there don’t they? Parents should not be treated like their child’s servants!

The helicopter mom was made to do things as a child, what she didn’t want to do. Their attitude as an adult is “I’ll make sure that my child won’t have to face and experience the challenges that I had to face when I was a child.” That approach is diametrically opposed to healthy parenting.

In my own life I had to face the consequences of my behavior and actions as a child. I thank my parents for that!

• If I didn’t do my homework, the consequences were that my parents wouldn’t let me go out and play until I finished my assignments.
• If I didn’t practice the piano, the consequences werethat my parents wouldn’t let me go out to play until I did.
• I had certain chores that I had to do around the house. If I didn’t do them, the consequences were that my parents wouldn’t let me go out and play until I finished them.
• There were consequences to my actions or the lack thereof. These things developed the Work Ethic in me.

Until my little sister was old enough to clear the dishes from the table, I had to do it.

I had to make my bed every morning from the time that I was 5 years old until I moved out. When I was eight or nine years old other chores were added to me, many of which I didn’t like doing!

We had two pear trees that dropped tons of pears onto the ground. Thousands of yellow jackets and bees swarmed the pears, but I had to remove those pears. I was afraid of getting stung, but I had to remove the pears anyway. (I never did get stung though.)

I had to paint the picket fence that ran around our backyard. I was paid a paltry sum – but I had to do it! It took me all summer to paint that fence!

All of this gave me a work ethic. A desire and a drive to get things done. To do things right and do them now whether I want to do them or not.

In our practice, we encourage parents to have their children make their own bed as soon as they get up in the morning, to clear the dishes from the table after dinner and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Further, after the dishwasher has ran its cycle and the dishes have cooled off, the child should put the dishes away.

They should also learn to wash their own clothes. Why not? That means taking them to the washing machine, separating the colored clothes from the whites, putting detergent in the washer, turning on the washing machine and then putting the clothes in the dryer after they are clean.

After the clothes are dry, they must fold them and put them away in their room. Or if the parents are not parenting correctly, they child can sit and watch TV while their mother does these things after working all day!

Gen Zers generally aren’t able to do much of anything for themselves.  At the age of seven I got a very small allowance for doing some simple chores around the house. I pulled weeds, took out the trash and mowed the grass with a heavy cast iron push lawn mower. (No gasoline lawn mower at our house!)  

I even made a trailer that I could tow behind my bike. I put my cast iron lawn mower on it and mowed the neighbor’s grass in order to earn money to buy model airplanes.

There must be consequences to a child’s actions. In the course of an interview with a twelve year old child’s parents, the parents told me how out of control their son was. They related that their son on one afternoon threw his large screen TV, his stereo and his computer out through his bedroom window. The consequences for his actions? His mother took him to Best Buy and bought him replacements that very afternoon. 

A young man’s parents came to see me about their son. They told me that their 31 year old son refused to get a job,  go to college and instead stayed in bed until noon.        

These well to do parents were both self-made.  They had struggled to achieve what they had accomplished in life.  That struggle is what made them who they were. What arose out of my interview with them was that they were determined that THEIR son would not have to struggle as they did in life! What they failed to understand was that their hard work and STRUGGLES were what made them successful!