Friday, December 18, 2009

3 Simple Ways to Lead Stress-Free Fatherhood Life

These are 3 effective ways to be a stress-free father when dealing with your child(ren). Of course, there are a lot more tips to do this, but everything will be useless if you don’t put these into acts, so why not try these first?

1. Stop explaining

If your kids bask you about the interaction between electromagnetism and gravity, by all means take a whack at teaching them physics. But do not, under any circumstances, explain to a 4-year-old why it’s important that he stop dancing on the dining-room table. If he asks, just grab him by the arm in a way that will help him understand. Few things are more stressful than trying to persuade somebody who’s 3 feet tall that know better than he does. You have authority because you’re his father, not because you have more compelling debating points. Taking charge is much less stressful not only for you but for your kids too. They actually like having a gravitational center around which to find an orbit.



2. Pick the cereal

Don’t ask your kids which of 47 cereals-or any other consumer item-they want. Buy a cereal. Feed it to them. If they don’t eat it, buy a differenet one, and so on until you get one they’ll eat. If you allow kids into any purchasing decisions, you will slowly go insane.



3. Don’t make discipline an either-or choice

Lots of parents make the whole deal more stressful than it has to be by making good behavior a choice for kids. As in, “If you don’t clean up your room, we’re not going to the movies.”Then the child has to do a mental cost-benefit analysis, weighing the work of room cleaning versus the fun of seeing Chicken Little. Wrong. There is no “if you don’t.” He’s cleaning up his room. Period. End of sentence. This is not a multiple-choice test.


Conclusion
Want to live longer and enjoy your kids more? Negotiate less. The theme is less consultation with the children. Bring back the autocratic father who loves his child(ren) with everything he’s got but doesn’t feel that third graders should be part of the family brain trust.

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