Raising kids requires common sense, wisdom

Ray Guarendi is a clinical psychologist, author and public speaker—and a father of 10. His aim, he says, is to help parents raise better kids. He brought his common-sense advice on raising children to a benefit dinner for East Lake Academy at the Cuneo Museum in Vernon Hills April 29. He also can be heard on Relevant Radio (820 AM) on “The Doctor is In” from 10-11 a.m. Tuesday-Thursday.

He spoke by telephone with Catholic New World staff writer Michelle Martin before the presentation.

The Catholic New World: What is the most common question parents ask you?
Ray Guarendi: No question at all. The dominant question dwarfing all other questions is discipline: getting kids to cooperate, rules, structure, limits, responsibilities.

TCNW: Why are parents having such a hard time disciplining their kids?
RG: Multiple factors, not the least of which is the experts. I’m making a living out of undoing some of the erosion of confidence that has happened among parents the last 30 or 40 years. They have rewritten the rules of parenting. The net effect has been insecurity on the part of parents, a tremendous erosion of authority, child-rearing mistakes, psychological correctness. Parents are not nearly as authoritative as they used to be.
We let our children watch 550 rot-gut channels that we pump through the airwaves, but God forbid we swat a bottom. One can corrode your soul—and it’s not the swat on the bottom.
Other factors that are eroding parents’ ability to discipline are more guilt, especially with working moms, parents trying to compensate for their own childhoods that they now have been convinced were bad, even if they weren’t, guilt at not giving our children enough material goods, which is laughable, broken homes, kicking God out of our houses. It’s very difficult to raise a moral child without some absolute standard.

TCNW: What do you mean?
RG: Mom says, “Don’t have sex with your girlfriend.” “Why?” “Because it’s wrong.” “Who says?” “I do.” “Well, I don’t think it’s wrong.”

TCNW: Can parents look to support from other families?
RG: No. Good parents are now getting attacked by other parents. You have high standards in terms of your supervision, materialism, expectations for morality. When your standards are markedly different from the rest of your peer group’s, you are going to be beleaguered.

TCNW: So it’s not just my 8-year-old, telling me every other kid in her class is allowed to watch TV before school?
RG: Twenty or 40 years ago, she was blowing smoke. Now you don’t want to take a poll, because she’s in the minority. If your 14- to 17-year-old doesn’t have their own cell phone, you’re in a small minority.
As your kids get older, they’re going to look around them and say, “How can all those people be wrong and you be right?”

TCNW: How do you answer that?
RG: “Because I am.” You have to stand strong against a culture no longer on your side.
You do have to look for other like-minded people. You have to have a certain amount of inner confidence to know that what you’re doing has been done by thousands of generations. You’re practicing the wisdom of the ages, and the modern culture has made up its own and it’s not doing very well.

TCNW: What do kids need from parents?
RG: Lots of love, lots of discipline, lots of morality. Underline lots.
Many parents are very good at giving that ushy-gushy love part of it. Where they struggle is giving the firm love, the discipline. Even the best parents. …
On a one-to-10 scale of discipline, some kids can be raised with a two. Some need a nine. And if you have a kid who needs a nine, you better get up to that nine. Some kids will take three trips to the corner and say, “Mama, I understand and I’ve seen the error of my ways.” Some will look at you and say, “Is that all you’ve got? Is that all there is?” The key is being a strong enough parent for the kid.

TCNW: What role does God play in the family?
RG: If there is a God, he needs to play the absolute central role. If there is no God, do whatever you want. The most illogical thing in the world is to say you believe in God, and then just give him a 3 percent role.

TCNW: How does your philosophy differ from the experts’?
RG: Much of classical philosophy said, if you want to build virtue, you develop a habit, and you develop a habit young. Now they say if you make a kid do something, he’ll be rebellious and puke it back up. …
Much of the dominant psychological literature starts with the premise that children are naturally cooperative. Judeo-Christian teaching is that they are selfish and willful, and need to be taught. Life is doing what you don’t want to do. If you start off with the wrong premise regarding human nature, you come with all sorts of wrong conclusions.
But for most people, reality rings true. Down in their bellies, the majority of people realize what is reality. The majority of them will say, that makes sense.
I was educated where you don’t punish kids. In child development theory, you don’t use time out. Read any parenting article. They are very uncomfortabler about discipline. You’re not allowed to stick him in the corner; that’s humiliating. Don’t make him apologize to his sister; he might end up hating girls. Don’t make him write an essay or copy Scripture; he’ll hate English or religion.

TCNW: Why do people believe they don’t have to discipline?
RG: Because it’s nice. People don’t like to have to discipline, Discipline is the hardest part of parenting. Discipline at some level involves conflict. One way just seems so controlling; the other just seems so nice. But no matter how nice discipline seems, if it’s ineffective, it gets very mean. We get frustrated and we struggle. I can’t tell you how often parents tell me, “I don’t like him. I never thought I’d say that about my own kids.”