Where is Your Focus?
According to the Arbinger Company (1998), parents spend too much time asking, “What should I do, now that something has gone wrong?” When they should be asking “How do I help things go right?” (p. 2-3). To become effective parents, we must learn to focus our time and energy on helping things go right, instead of reacting when things go wrong. Arbinger (1998) has provided four questions to help parents achieve this shift in focus. 1. Am I Correcting My Children Without Teaching Them? There is an endless supply of advice and theories when it comes to disciplining children. When choosing a method, it is important to understand “the effectiveness of our correction of our children, whatever method we use, will always depend on the effectiveness of our prior teaching of them.” (Arbinger, 1998, p. 3) If you want to spend less time disciplining, spend more time teaching. If you want to become better at disciplining or have the ability to correct with ease, spend more time teaching. Th...