Lynda Loveland: What not to say to your kids

Sometimes I don’t know whether to trust those parenting experts or not.

There’s a huge learning curve when it comes to parenting. Just when you think you have the hang of it, your child enters a new phase. For that reason, I always check out articles on raising offspring, looking for tips. I came across an article that said, “What not to say to your kids.” A couple pieces of advice caught my eye.

One expert said, don’t make your kids say they’re sorry. It could “delay the child’s natural acceptance “ of apologizing. Instead, apologize to the child FOR your kid as a way of modeling the behavior you want to encourage.

Huh? I think that’s ridiculous! If a child does something wrong and they know they’re wrong, they should apologize. It’s that whole cause and effect thing.

And I’m not going to do everything for them. I’m trying to teach them to be more independent, not dependent. Plus, nothing defuses a tense situation between siblings like telling them to kiss and make up. OK, maybe that’s more for my enjoyment … You have to admit, the silliness of it turns things around. And no, I don’t do it … all the time.

The other parenting tip was don’t threaten, “I’m going to leave without you.” The biggest problem with this is it could turn into an empty threat. Would you really leave your child? If you threaten something, you gotta follow through. That’s one of the golden rules.

I do follow through on mine, well, except that one. Would I leave my kid? No. But dang, it sure works well! And I probably won’t stop until they figure it out! There’s some sort of satisfaction with seeing your child come flying out of the house to get in the car when 30 seconds earlier they weren’t moving a defiant muscle.