Parenting Tip: What Hurts Our Kids

Have you ever wondered how our modern daily lives affects our children?

If so, then stay tuned. This video is for you.

Hi, I’m Instructor Ma, your Taekwondo, language, culture and character development teacher.

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THE SCARY TRUTH ABOUT WHAT’S HURTING OUR KIDS
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?
WHY ARE KIDS MORE DEPRESSED BECAUSE OF ELECTRONICS?
TODAY’S CHILDREN ARE BEING DEPRIVED OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF A HEALTHY CHILDHOOD

✓ Emotionally available parents
✓ Clearly defined limits and guidance
✓ Responsibilities
✓ Balanced nutrition and adequate sleep
✓ Movement and outdoors
✓ Creative play, social interaction, opportunities for unstructured times and boredom

INSTEAD, CHILDREN ARE BEING SERVED WITH:

✓ Digitally distracted parents
✓ Indulgent parents who let kids “rule the world”
✓ Sense of entitlement rather than responsibility
✓ Inadequate sleep and unbalanced nutrition
✓ Sedentary indoor lifestyle
✓ Endless stimulation, technological babysitters, instant gratification, and absence of “dull moments”

How true…and how sad.

So…what can we do about it?

✓ Get back to what we did before phones (back to what our parents did when we were young)…spend time playing games with our kids

✓ Spend dinnertime talking

✓ Drop everything that you are doing when your kids get home from school to TALK to them

✓ Make dinner without having the TV on, the phone close by, or the tablet tuned into something

✓ Use any “car time” to talk to our kids (maybe even by not allowing electronics in the car)

✓ Have your kids do chores: Responsibilities increase their self-worth
○ Example: If you don’t set the table, we can’t eat. If you don’t wash your clothes, you will have nothing to wear tomorrow.

“To develop a high self-esteem a person needs a purpose. A key component of high self-esteem is built on how you view yourself in terms of contribution. In other words, in the child development process, chores are a big role in a kid’s self-esteem.”

So…what can we do about it?

✓ Be sure that your child is getting enough sleep. This is a huge contributing factor.

✓ Don’t keep a lot of junk food in the house. Limit junk food and replace it with fruit and vegetables. If your child is picky, they can certainly find a fruit or vegetable that they like. (I’ve taught our kids to make smoothies, too, but they have to clean up after themselves or they lose the privilege of making them…they LOVE to make them.)

✓ Take away electronics and tell your kids to “go play!”. Don’t feel the need to always play with them. While I always think that playing with your kids is a good idea, I also want them to play alone. I want them to learn how to keep themselves entertained.

✓ From the time that our kids were very little, I gave them time to entertain themselves and now they are all good about finding ways to keep themselves busy (drawing, playing, building, etc.)

✓ Don’t rescue your kids. Here’s an example that happened in our house:

○ I’ve started having my nieces pack their own lunches (with my supervision), but yesterday one of them decided to wait…, and wait…, and wait. When it was down to 10 minutes before leaving, she asked me to pack it. I said no and then she asked me for lunch money. I said, “I think it’s upstairs in your piggy bank if you have some in there.” Her face said it all. I wasn’t going to buy her out of this. It was her responsibility.

✓ It is NEVER easy to teach our kids these lessons, but they serve our kids well. She quickly made herself lunch and was on her way. She learned an important life lesson about preparing herself for the day.

✓ Talk to your kids about why they need to come to you if something is wrong. I talk to our kids about all of this and they know that I would do anything to help them. I say it daily…”If you are ever feeling sad or left out about something and it becomes too big for you to handle easily, come to me. I want you to know that if you ever hurt yourself, you would be hurting your whole family. My happiness would go away with yours.”

✓ Yes, it’s a lot to tell them, but it is the truth. I need them to know it. It’s not a joking matter and it’s not one to take lightly. Talk to your kids TODAY.

✓ Make a rule for yourself that you will limit YOUR online distractions when your kids are home. Make 4:30-9:00 a no-tech time for you, the parent (or whatever hours your kids are home). It will not only benefit your kids, but it will help you, too.

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