Parenting 101
and
Tools to Raise a Healthy Teenager
Create a Foundation!
Help… I lost the manual on how to raise a child! Children are difficult to understand and raise to adulthood because they are dynamic (always in a state of change) and not static (non-changing and predictable). I always tell parents that raising children is like herding cats. Every time you think you have control over your children, a new problem comes up. Most parents are playing catch up and find themselves putting out fires. Would it not be nice be ahead of the curve with answers be available before the problem come up? This book is designed to help parents make strategic decisions and choices that will provide a clear direction for their child to follow. This book attempts to provide a standard for raising children. One of the basic principles to establishing a base is to make sure that a parent understands Right and Wrong. This means that there are laws, rules, principles and beliefs that a child needs to follow. This book utilizes United States of America constitutional beliefs and laws, Jedeo-Christian foundational beliefs and the basics of right and wrong. I have chosen principles because they represent a standard of equality and personal growth with a solid core of value and beliefs. For me my moral compass is: “Love God, Love Yourself and Love Others.”. Children need a sense of right a wrong and this needs to come from the parents and not the playground.
From 1990 to 1999 I had a private school for students who were expelled from public and private schools. For 10 years, I was able to shape and form the lives of my students who had fallen through the cracks. The students were given guidance and directions to creating their future. Rules were kept simple, students were able to experience success and failure, mentors were used to provide direction and students learned how to be self-disciplined. In the end, all of the students who graduated from my school went on to higher education to become EMT’s, nurses, aero-space engineers, medical doctors, computer programmers, game developers, oceanographers, and much more. The school allowed students to govern and make rules, off campus activities were used to expose students to potential careers and much more. The curriculum was self-paced and provided many of the students with the ability to graduate early, because the traditional education program did not challenge them. I use several of my motivation techniques for change in this book on parenting.
Parents also need to be consistent, firm and direct. Children are looking for direction and need the parent to be the director in their life. This means that parents need to have a foundation to work from. As a parent you need to establish a moral compass to live by and guide your child. Without a firm base, the child will use the playground, social media and the television to establish their rules to live by and this is a bad thing. Since 1999, I have been working on Emergency Rooms dealing with mental health issues like depression, anxiety and suicidal/ homicidal ideations. Most of these patients are children between the ages 5 to 18. Since 2018, I have seen an increase in the correlation between cell phone issues and suicidal/homicidal attempts. And during the Covid19 Crisis. Due to the fact that children were not able to go to their go to’s to deal with stress. Meaning meet friends, go to the mall, go to to a friend’s house, go to school or see people without a bandit mask. The result was a sky rocking amount of suicide cases in the emergency room. When I would ask them why they drank bleach, tried to hang themselves or overdose, the answer would be… “I don’t know!”
Teens and children do not have the skill set to deal with pressures and stress and it is the parent’s job to make sure they have coping and survival skills necessary to avoid depression and panic attacks. The result was an increase in suicide attempts and aggressive outbursts towards parents and authority figures.
As a parent, it is your responsibility to set boundaries and establish effective coping skills to prevent negative influences on your child and research social skills necessary to help children to develop effective coping skills. I hope this book will assist you in the dauting and formidable task.
Good Luck,
Dr. Robert Knapick
Help… I lost the manual on how to raise a child! Children are difficult to understand and raise to adulthood because they are dynamic (always in a state of change) and not static (non-changing and predictable). I always tell parents that raising children is like herding cats. Every time you think you have control over your children, a new problem comes up. Most parents are playing catch up and find themselves putting out fires. Would it not be nice be ahead of the curve with answers be available before the problem come up? This book is designed to help parents make strategic decisions and choices that will provide a clear direction for their child to follow. This book attempts to provide a standard for raising children. One of the basic principles to establishing a base is to make sure that a parent understands Right and Wrong. This means that there are laws, rules, principles and beliefs that a child needs to follow. This book utilizes United States of America constitutional beliefs and laws, Jedeo-Christian foundational beliefs and the basics of right and wrong. I have chosen principles because they represent a standard of equality and personal growth with a solid core of value and beliefs. For me my moral compass is: “Love God, Love Yourself and Love Others.”. Children need a sense of right a wrong and this needs to come from the parents and not the playground.
From 1990 to 1999 I had a private school for students who were expelled from public and private schools. For 10 years, I was able to shape and form the lives of my students who had fallen through the cracks. The students were given guidance and directions to creating their future. Rules were kept simple, students were able to experience success and failure, mentors were used to provide direction and students learned how to be self-disciplined. In the end, all of the students who graduated from my school went on to higher education to become EMT’s, nurses, aero-space engineers, medical doctors, computer programmers, game developers, oceanographers, and much more. The school allowed students to govern and make rules, off campus activities were used to expose students to potential careers and much more. The curriculum was self-paced and provided many of the students with the ability to graduate early, because the traditional education program did not challenge them. I use several of my motivation techniques for change in this book on parenting.
Parents also need to be consistent, firm and direct. Children are looking for direction and need the parent to be the director in their life. This means that parents need to have a foundation to work from. As a parent you need to establish a moral compass to live by and guide your child. Without a firm base, the child will use the playground, social media and the television to establish their rules to live by and this is a bad thing. Since 1999, I have been working on Emergency Rooms dealing with mental health issues like depression, anxiety and suicidal/ homicidal ideations. Most of these patients are children between the ages 5 to 18. Since 2018, I have seen an increase in the correlation between cell phone issues and suicidal/homicidal attempts. And during the Covid19 Crisis. Due to the fact that children were not able to go to their go to’s to deal with stress. Meaning meet friends, go to the mall, go to to a friend’s house, go to school or see people without a bandit mask. The result was a sky rocking amount of suicide cases in the emergency room. When I would ask them why they drank bleach, tried to hang themselves or overdose, the answer would be… “I don’t know!”
Teens and children do not have the skill set to deal with pressures and stress and it is the parent’s job to make sure they have coping and survival skills necessary to avoid depression and panic attacks. The result was an increase in suicide attempts and aggressive outbursts towards parents and authority figures.
As a parent, it is your responsibility to set boundaries and establish effective coping skills to prevent negative influences on your child and research social skills necessary to help children to develop effective coping skills. I hope this book will assist you in the dauting and formidable task.
Good Luck,
Dr. Robert Knapick
