In the last post (The Beginning of a Great Dad – Part 1), we talked about two questions dealing with children’s behavior:

1. What should I do now that something has gone wrong?
2. What can I do so things go right?

Don’t you think dads focus most of their time and energy on the first question? I know it’s what I used to do. I was constantly trying to correct my children’s misbehavior. However, I learned it was better to focus more of my energy on making things go right. Because if I did that, more things would go right and fewer things would go wrong. This post explains how to make that happen.

There are four things to do to make things go right, and one thing to do when things go wrong. I’ll explain using this pyramid.

Correcting

You’ll notice that Correcting is at the top of the pyramid. Correcting is what you do when something has gone wrong, like when a child ignores a request or disobeys a rule. When that happens, you correct (or discipline) that child. Entire books are written to answer the question: What should I do now that something has gone wrong? But whatever they advise, please remember this: Effective Correcting depends on effective Teaching

Teaching

There must be effective teaching before correcting will work well. The better you teach your children, the less you will have to correct them and the easier it will be.

Within this blog I will focus on teaching children three things: 1) Life-skills, 2) good values, and 3) expected behavior. When you are good at teaching these three things, correcting will merely be an extension of your teaching. In other words, correcting will take the form of teaching and guiding, rather than threatening and punishing.

If you are finding that your teaching is falling on deaf ears, or that your child doesn’t seem to care about what you teach, rather than teaching louder and longer, focus on the level below teaching: Relationship with Children. Effective teaching depends on the strength of the relationship.

Relationship with Children

You must be working on building a strong relationship before your child will be receptive to your teaching. Relationship with your children is the foundation of Teaching and Correcting. When you have a weak relationship with your children, teaching will be frustrating. If your child ignores your every request, it’s not a teaching or correcting issue, it’s a relationship issue. The effectiveness of your teaching and correcting depends on the quality of your relationship.

If you have a strong relationship, your children will be more open to your teaching and responsive to your correcting.

Does the relationship you have with the mother of your children (MOM) have an effect on the relationship you have with your children? Yes, it can. Your relationship with MOM impacts your relationship with your children.

Relationship with MOM

Kids exposed to yelling, threatening, and physical and emotional abuse between parents are at a higher risk of developing fear, anger, anxiety, sadness, health problems, disturbed sleep, and difficulty in focusing and succeeding at school. They may develop aggression, hostility, depression, and anti-social and non-compliant behavior. To numb their emotional pain, they may turn to drugs, alcohol, casual sex, gang involvement, crime and pornography. These results make it difficult for a child to put his trust in his dad and cultivate a strong relationship. If you’re having a hard time getting along with MOM, turn your attention to level below: The Kind of Man I Am”.

The Kind of Man I Am

At the base of the pyramid is the foundation for your relationship with MOM and everything above it. The kind of man you are is who you are as a person. It is how you feel about yourself. Do you feel good being you, or are you carrying painful emotional scars left over from your childhood?

You cannot control another person. You can try to control a family member with fear, but that never has a happy ending. You can, however, have a strong positive influence on another person, but that depends on the kind of man you are. The kind of man you are affects every other level in the pyramid. When you improve the kind of man you are, you empower yourself to improve all the other levels.

What Can I Do So Things Go Right?

At the top of the pyramid is Correcting. Correcting is what you do when things go wrong.

If you want things to go right, focus on the four levels below Correcting: Teaching, Relationship with Children, Relationship with MOM, and the kind of man I am. Those four levels are all concerned with helping make things go right. They are the foundation of Correcting, and if correcting is going to work, all the levels below it must be working first.

If there is a problem at some level of the pyramid, always look to the level below it for the solution.

The level at the top of the pyramid is small compared to the levels below. That is to remind us that if we focus our time and energy on making things go right, we will spend less time and energy on correcting when things go wrong. The base of the pyramid is the largest to remind us how important it is to work on being the “best man I can be”.

The majority of this blog will give tips, ideas, and advice related to all five levels. In fact, it is divided into categories named for each of the five levels. If you want to know what great dads do, work your way up the pyramid.

This post was adapted from an 8-page article called The Parenting Pyramid™ by the Arbinger Company. You can read the entire article by clicking HERE.