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| |  Parenting Pathfinders: Tools for Raising Responsible Children - Section
3
Parenting Pathfinders Principles
Family Oriented Principles
Content:
1. Promote the health of your marriage
You need to make the health of your marriage or relationship with your significant
other your next priority after yourself. You and your partner in parenting cannot be an
effective team developing healthy esteeming structures for your children unless your
relationship is healthy first. Children will leave the nest after they reach adulthood and
that will leave you and your partner alone. If you two have not spent the time to nurture
you own relationship you will have a struggle to redefine your relationship once your
children have left. By placing the children before the relationship, you are also setting
up the possibility of your spouse or partner being jealous of the children. This can
result in the partner competing with the children for your attention. Healthy Pathfinders
keep their priorities clear and role model healthy relationships for their children.
Relationships which are nurtured wisely and in a timely fashion by parents teach children
the value of intimacy, privacy, sharing and mutual problem solving. This creates a healthy
esteeming environment for people in relationships.
2. Balance career and family life
You must balance the need to work and have a career in order to insure that your
children and family life are the third priority after yourself and your relationship. You
can do this by maintaining a balance of obligations of work with home life. Pathfinders
put their children in a balanced priority of importance in their lives. Personal, marital
and family well-being are placed in importance before that of work, recreation and
community or volunteer activity. This does not mean that a parent must not attend to the
responsibilities of the job or career. It is important that parents provide the essentials
for survival and security of the family. However, once the survival and security needs are
met, Pathfinders make it a point of letting go of the workaholic and over responsible
attitudes which keep them invisible from their families. Parents who balance the need to
provide for family welfare with the need to interact in healthy ways with the children,
role model a balanced attitude about work which will encourage the children to place job
and career in a healthy perspective. It also helps the children and the spouse to
appreciate the work of the pathfinder rather than to resent it. Children and spouses often
feel like they are competing for the attention of individuals who are too dependent on a
job or career for their self-esteem, self-worth, and identity in life.
3. Avoid triangulation
You need to avoid getting into triangle communication between children, spouse and
yourself. A triangle is when one person communicates to a second person indirectly by
going through a third person. This is often done to avoid a conflict with the second
person. Parents need to pull themselves out of the third person role. They also need to
deal directly with their children without going through a third person. This encourages
children to speak directly and assertively with the individuals with whom they have a
disagreement or conflict. It eliminates faulty communications or "second person
accounts." It strengthens the relationship between the disagreeing parties and frees
the third person from the peacemaker or middle man role. Parents need to avoid putting
their children in a third person role when the parents are in conflict. This confuses the
children and creates a great deal of discomfort in the family. The Pathfinder parenting
team needs to present a united front to the children in order to prevent a "divide
and conquer" mentality which can break down the consistency of parental follow
through.
4. Seek win-win solutions
When solving problems, resolving disagreements, or settling conflicts, you need to use
the win-win solution model. This involves compromising between the two parties so that the
solution is satisfactory to both. This results in a win-win where both parties are
winners. It avoids the win-lose solution where only one person is the winner. The win-lose
solution often results in resentment, hard feelings and fear of future conflict in the
loser. The winner learns to use intimidation, coercion, and threatening in order to beat
down the other party. The win-win also avoids the lose-lose solution where neither party
wins. This lose-lose solution is deadly to relationships resulting in resentment, greater
distance, and a break down in communications between the two parties. It is important for
children to not always be on the losing side of an argument and to learn how to reach
compromises in life. This happens in win-win solutions between parents and children.
5. Be the leader of the family
You need to avoid rationalizing to the children why you, as the leader of the family,
have decided on specific parental directives, requests or recommendations for them.
Pathfinders avoid talking too much about the reasons why they have made these decisions.
They recognize that the more they try to explain the wisdom, soundness and validity of
their judgments to their children; the more they are undermining their leadership role,
authority, and credibility with them. Pathfinders recognize that parents are the leaders
of the family and that they do not have to always explain their reasons for their parental
directives. They recognize that children might use the question "why" to
manipulate situations so as to talk the parents out of their original intentions and by
this take control away from the parents. Pathfinders are clear that they are in charge of
the family. They are aware that it is unhealthy for children to be placed into an "in
charge" position through manipulating their parents by guilt, questioning, and
refusal to comply. They make every effort to avoid placing their children in charge of
their lives. This helps children learn a valuable lesson in how to deal with authority and
leadership in real life situations outside the home.
6. Establish healthy boundaries
You need to establish healthy emotional and physical boundaries with your children.
Pathfinders are able to distinguish where their emotional and physical selves begin and
end. They are capable of protecting themselves from being invaded by their children. They
likewise do not invade the emotional or physical boundaries of their children. Healthy
respect for each other's boundaries is encouraged in this pathfinding atmosphere.
Pathfinders are alert not to allow themselves to become either too enmeshed or too
detached with their children. There is an effort made to prevent the children from feeling
too smothered by their parents. Also there is a equal effort to provide the children
involvement, guidance, and nurturing so that they do not feel neglected or too detached
from their parents. Physical affection through touch, hugging, and kissing is
appropriately provided so that the children are not left with any sense of shame or guilt
for such interaction with their parents. Section 11:Establishing
Boundaries, of this
material explores this issue more
deeply.
7. Encourage respect for others
You need to work at instilling in your children a respect for others. Pathfinders help
their children to understand and accept the difference among and between people of
different races, creeds, cultures, color, sex, sexual orientation and age. They make it a
point to expose their children to settings in which these differences are visible. Other
differences in people including: body size, handicapping conditions, developmental
disabilities, weight, bodily features, and places of residence are also pointed out with
respect and acceptance by parents. Children are taught that discrimination of any kind is
unhealthy because it exaggerates barriers between people. Pathfinders encourage children
to have an open mind about everybody and to hold off from being too critical or judgmental
only because of surface characteristics. These parents encourage their children to be
generous to others in need by volunteering time, money or talents to activities and
programs which build bridges to overcome the differences in people. Respect for others
begins at home where the children are encouraged to respect the feelings, interests and
needs of others. Pathfinders function in ways around their family members so that their
children are able to show them respect and acceptance. They give their children an
experience of respect for differences by allowing and accepting the differences in their
children unconditionally.
8. Eliminate family secrets
You need to eliminate the keeping of family secrets. Pathfinders encourage their
children to maintain a sense of reality as it is rather than reality as it should look.
These parents do not require their children to maintain a certain image out in the
community in order to make their family look good. If the family has experienced the pain
of alcoholism, drug abuse, or other compulsive behaviors for which target family members
are now in recovery, there is no need for the children to deny the existence of these past
problems as they deal with their everyday life. If the family life has been full of
negative fighting, arguing, and turmoil prior to implementing the Pathfinder system, there
is no need to deny this to others for fear of making the family look "less than
good." Parents who expect their children to maintain the "Looking Good"
family image are hampering their development of a healthy sense of reality, justice, and
fairness. Encouraging the keeping of family secrets sets the children up, creating a
delusion that their family somehow fits into a fantasy or idyllic image of perfection.
Children who are raised in a delusional family environment have a difficult time sorting
out reality, rationality, and truth as it is. Children are encouraged to freely observe
the reality of the humanness of the Pathfinder's home life so that they can make better
judgments for themselves as to what is healthy or not in the ways their family interacts.
By not holding their children to keeping secrets, Pathfinders give their children
permission to call them on it, if they are reverting to old unhealthy behaviors which
could be injurious to the parents and/or the family.
9. Seek out professional help
You need to admit when you and/or your family are experiencing problems which you
cannot solve on your own and then seek out professional help. Pathfinders recognize their
own limitations and are willing to seek out assistance from professional helpers to
address problems which are amenable to such intervention. They seek out competent,
licensed, certified, and credible professionals in medicine, mental health, education,
religion, and law to help them and their families to deal with their problems. Pathfinders
avoid the sense of pride which insists that they should be able to solve their problems on
their own. Pathfinders recognize that they are experts on their children and families
because they know them best, by living with them 24 hours a day. Pathfinders do not
blindly submit to the advice and direction of professionals but work as a team with them
to come to a workable resolution of the problems. Pathfinders recognize that they may be
blind or non-objective in dealing with specific problems which are directly related to
them. They try to remain willing and open to the objective observations of professionals
on how to address and correct the problems. Pathfinders do not try to fix problems outside
of their realm of competency and seek professional assistance to address them.
10. Advocate for children
You need to advocate for your children with the schools, churches, sports teams, clubs,
and other community systems which serve them. Pathfinders advocate so that these
organizations will implement the Pathfinder model to continue the self-esteem enhancement
efforts begun at home. They negotiate with the various groups, systems, and agencies
involved in their children's lives to insure that they are offering an optimal environment
which will build up rather than tear down self-esteem. Pathfinders are willing to speak
out if there is an injustice or impropriety aimed at their children. They do not sit back
and let their efforts at home to assist their children be sabotaged outside the home.
Pathfinders become fully informed about the school system in which their children are
enrolled. They make their presence known at school and openly invite all teachers and
administrators to involve them on their children's educational team. Pathfinders monitor
the other sports, club and community functions their children are involved in to insure
that their functioning is consistent with the principles encouraged at home.
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