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Vernon Sigmon is a graduate of Southeastern University of Lakeland, Florida, with a B.A. degree in Pastoral Counseling. He works as a Parent Educator Supervisor with the Chester County School District of Chester, South Carolina, where he and his family live. He is also a licensed minister with the Assemblies of God. For speaking engagements, contact: sigmonv@live.com

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Parenting with a Plan

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

PREFACE......................................................xiiiACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................xviiTHE FOOTING..................................................1Emotional Stability..........................................3THE FOUNDATION...............................................11Giving Proper Correction.....................................16The Black Dot Test...........................................18THE FLOORING.................................................21Building Independence........................................21THE WALLS....................................................29A Strong Family Support System...............................30THE TRUSS AND ROOFING SYSTEM.................................35Discipline...................................................38SIDING, WINDOWS, DOORS, AND PAINTING.........................43Be an Observer...............................................45Exposing Life's Experiences..................................47THE PLUMBING.................................................51Laughing and Touching........................................52THE WIRING, INSULATION, HEATING, AND AIR.....................57Wiring in a Home.............................................58Healthy Brain Connections....................................59Creating Comfort and Security................................63Controlling the Home Environment.............................65DRYWALL......................................................69Intrusions versus Distant Management.........................69Pre-Teens....................................................70Teenagers....................................................71THE FURNITURE AND HANDING OVER THE KEYS......................77Job Well Done................................................78Bonded Through Communications................................80A Personal Short Story.......................................83About the Author.............................................85

Chapter One

What am I doing as a parent to deter my children from walking to the edge of disaster and leaping off? What am I doing to get a plan for them that will foster their future ability to engage the world around them and not be swallowed up with destructive ideas? Am I planning for their spiritual, mental, physical, and social emotional health to help them become well-rounded individuals?

These are some questions that parents everywhere ask themselves as they embrace parenthood. Maybe you have considered yourself to be a good parent by providing for your child's spiritual health, mental health, and physical health, but have you really deeply thought about your child's emotional health-or I could say emotional stability ... your child's feelings? Do you pass over your child's feelings or do you stop and actively listen to his or her emotional hurts and wounds? In this opening chapter, and throughout the book, we are going to investigate and uncover some valuable truths that will make parenting more fulfilling and give you more confidence in yourself as a parent.

In the seven years I have spent as a parent educator, I have completed over 1300 in-home visits with parents of children-infant to five years of age. Within the course of those visits, I have handed out goal sheets to the parents asking questions about the upcoming year and goals they were setting for their children. From the parents of an infant, I might get an answer like, "I want my child to walk by nine months of age." From the parents of a toddler, I might get an answer like, "I want my child to learn colors" or "I want my child to talk better." The answer I received most, however, from parents of children of all ages was, "I want my child to be smart and get a good education." All these answers were aspiring and healthy, but the answer that I never received in those seven years of service was, "I want my child to be emotionally stable." I soon discovered that, for the most part, parents have never heard of this subject. They just don't know. Do they want to know? For the most part, yes, they do want to know. Once the definition and concept of emotional stability is explained, parents will pursue it with vigor and begin to make applications. Emotional stability is basically paying attention to our inner feelings (positive and negative) and working at keeping those feelings stabilized-and on the positive side.

As has been stated, the footing is the starting point in the structure of a house. With some aspects of a building-like windows, doors, plumbing, wiring, siding, or roofing-you can get by with a little compromise in quality. But there is one thing that you should never, ever reduce in quality, and that is the footing. The footing is that part of the house upon which the whole structure rests. As soon as a child is born is the most opportune time to start placing the footing into their lives. Our goal here is to establish a footing in a child's life on which we can build emotional stability. At conception, it is extremely beneficial to the fetus for Mom, Dad, relatives, and friends to talk and sing to the developing baby. At birth, emotional connections start through cuddling, hugging, touching, making eye contact, teasing, reading, laughing, and so on. Why is this so important? The baby's mind is growing at a tremendous rate and making connections with the outside world. If children are never touched, talked to, or cuddled-all examples of emotional involvement-a feeling of rejection or a disconnected feeling is established within their minds and hearts.

Plan Your Work-Work Your Plan

To build your home, you must take certain steps. First, buy your land. That's a given. Then, you must pick out the style and size of home you want, acquire the contractor, and follow up by getting your finances in place. Now, you are ready to start. And where do you start? That is a good question. You surely do not start from the roof and go down to the ground. You start from the ground and then build up to the roof. The first step in building a home is clearing the land and then staking out the footing. Usually a backhoe is used to dig down into the ground and remove the dirt. A trench is dug some twelve to sixteen inches wide and twelve or more inches in depth. This is the footprint of your house.

Once the trench is dug, the concrete trucks drive in and a crew pours the trench full of concrete. Only when the concrete is dry can you say that you are ready to go up with the structure. Just remember, with a good strong footing, you can be pretty assured that the structure above it will be more secure against violent weather when it comes. Have you ever noticed how often mobile homes get toppled in violent storms, compared to site-built homes? The footing offers an anchor.

Emotional Stability

To build a child's life from infancy to eighteen or twenty years of age takes more than sticks and stones, or a hammer and saw. As I stated earlier, choosing good materials for building a home is important to complete a good strong structure. So it is with building a child's life. Just as you would probably choose brick over wood, wouldn't you choose love over hatred, peace over violence and turmoil, popcorn and a movie over drugs and alcohol? To achieve this, I am going to teach you some things about emotional stability that have been introduced only in the past twenty years or so. The information I am about to share with you was not available when I was a young man. Though I feel that I did a decent job with raising my children, I now know that I could have done better if I would have had this knowledge then.

I have been a parent educator now for many years, and during that time I have studied various writers and observed good and bad parenting skills in this field of labor. Now, I can truthfully say there is one key element of interest that we must start with in order to be a good, quality parent. This key element will hold up the other structures that will be put into our children's lives as they grow. It now has been identified and labeled as emotional intelligence, or, for a better way to say it, EQ. We all know about IQ (cognitive intelligence), but what about EQ (emotional intelligence)? Good parenting involves more than head knowledge (IQ). It reaches into our personalities and touches that part of our lives that generates feelings (EQ). Good parenting is an awareness of those feelings and an ability to handle them. Learning about emotional intelligence and getting a deep understanding of it can determine your present and future joy and happiness in this world. Children need guidance in the world of emotions. There are parents who know how to guide and those who don't. Those who learn about emotional guidance are called "emotional coaches." In high school, I played baseball for a few years. Our coach was always there to instruct us and correct any flaws in our performance. Parents can be emotional coaches by observing their children's emotions and providing instructions and guidance.

A naturally high IQ does not guarantee that children will do well in school or have successful relationships with friends and teachers. On the other hand, children who are emotionally connected-have emotional intelligence (EQ)-have more of a chance of making good grades and having successful relationships with friends and teachers than do children who just have a high IQ.

Remember what I said earlier, that the difference between success and failure in parenting can simply be good parental information. Follow me for a moment. What would you consider to be some of the steps necessary to put the footing of life in place for a child in the preschool years?

Social-emotional skills

Language skills

Intellectual skills

Gross motor skills

Fine motor skills

After all of my studies and experiences of life, I believe that social-emotional health must be at the very top of the list. All of the other skills hinge from this one skill. Good parenting is not found in eloquent, formatted, or rigid rules based on our imagination or some idea from a counselor, who has long forgotten what it was like to be a child. We must clothe ourselves with insight, understanding, compassion, and a great ability to read cues. Sometimes our children will do things to let us know, "Dad, Mom, it's time to move in, and do what you are supposed to do as a parent." In other words, "Teach me about EQ."

At one time or another in our lives, we have all experienced some type of emotion. We cannot escape it. So often, though, parents overlook or even deny the emotions that their children experience. I will name a few to get us started-anger, fear, frustration, disappointment, hatred, sorrow, grief. Now, let me stop and say that, if you as a parent have had any of these come upon you in your lifetime as an adult, then by way of human reasoning, wouldn't it be safe to say that our children are going to experience the same? One of the things we need to do as parents, even before we start a family, is to ask our self the question, "Am I in touch with all of my emotions, and am I able to identify and control them?" If we can't answer in the affirmative, then it might be a good idea to get some counseling for yourself before you start having children and counseling them. Children will learn more from you as a parent by your actions than by what you say or try to teach them. As an old saying goes, "Children often learn more by what is caught than taught." What then are you going to put into their lives: anger, hatred, malice, fear, frustration? These things only serve to depress rather than to edify.

If we pass on by when our children are having some emotional experience-good or bad-(especially in their infant and preschool years) and we act as if those feelings or emotions are unimportant, we are sending a very negative and hidden message.

Some years ago, when former president Ronald Reagan passed away, his daughter had an opportunity to share her thoughts at the funeral services. She told of a time in her childhood when her goldfish died. She was heartbroken. Her dad, the president of the United States at that time, took time out of his busy schedule and came to her to love and console her. They even had a burial and a service for the fish. He honored her feelings over all of his busy activities. In other words, he did not dismiss her feelings, but rather took the part of an empathetic coach to help her through her sadness. To say to a child who is facing some emotional turmoil (for instance a divorce in his family), "get over it ... you're a big boy/girl ... don't cry ... everything is okay," we are, in reality, saying to that child that he or she is unworthy of our time and intervention. We are really saying (the hidden message), "Deal with it yourself. Don't bother me." Children who are treated this way have to deal with those emotions all by themselves. If we show hardness-no empathy, or compassion-then they, in turn, can become insensitive, hard, non empathetic, and uncompassionate. Children learn from their parents not only by verbal encounters, but also by non-verbal encounters. They watch our every move to see how we handle our emotions.

Dad, Mom, are you dealing with your anger, fear, and sorrows in a healthy way for yourself, and are you showing empathy and compassion to others? If not, then this may be something you might want to set as a goal for yourself so that you can be a model for your children. Set a good example for them to follow.

There is a story of a little boy who was riding to church one Sunday morning with his mother. When they approached a stop sign, the mom came to a complete stop, and, thinking the way was clear, proceeded to accelerate and move out into the intersection. All of a sudden, a car came whizzing by and almost struck her car. Impulsively, she hollered out and said, "You idiot!" The little boy was shocked by his mom's actions, but chose to remain silent-at least for a while. They drove on to church, parked the car, and walked into the foyer. As they stood waiting for a moment to enter the sanctuary, who should walk in but the family who had almost struck them. The little boy quickly reached out, grabbed the coattail of his mom, and said aloud, "Look, Mom-there are those idiots!" (Don't laugh. Some of you have probably had similar experiences.) Let us analyze this just a little further. Maybe this mom would have done better to deal with this emotional outburst by openly confessing it to herself, and then asking her son to forgive her for her actions. It may not have stopped the embarrassing moment in the church sanctuary, but at least the child would have experienced a modeling of his mom demonstrating how to correctly deal with her inappropriate actions. When your child has an emotional moment, it is a good thing to take time and embrace that moment and capitalize on it by slowing down and talking to him or her about that particular emotion. If it is fear, then tell the child about that particular emotion. Name it. Describe it and label it. Cover the subject well enough so that your child will truly understand and have a clear view of that emotion. Teach your child how to handle it. This will put a "footing" in your child's life that will create coping mechanisms that will create stability in future situations. This will bridge a way into your child's successful future.

From my field observations as a parent educator, I can say that children who have had parents who are socially and emotionally stable (who are emotional coaches) experience the following:

A sense of security

A sense of worth and acceptance

More capacity of coping with life

More fun and laughter

More academic stability

Fewer problems with students and teachers

Better focus

Ease in overcoming teasing and embarrassing moments better

Less of a tendency to become angry and violent

A more flexible attitude and an ability to adapt to different people and circumstances

Fewer behavior problems

Our children need us as parents/guardians to help guide them into their future. If you do not have a plan now, then I suggest that you at least start to think about it and move toward getting one in place. When your child reaches maturity-whenever that may be-then you will have no regrets that you did your homework and learned about the EQ of life, and put it into action. Just remember that, if you are an emotionally stable parent, then your child will most likely be emotionally stable as well.

The next time you look at your home or the home of a neighbor, I ask you to reflect upon this part of the book. Emotional stability will be the anchor and strength that will keep your child from being blown away when the storms of life come sweeping by.

I truly love children. I love to watch them play and interact with others, especially their parents. When I observe a parent with a child, and I know that the child is stressed, then my antennae go up to see just how the parent will handle the situation. I know that, if the parent does not take advantage of the opportune moment to embrace the emotion that the stress is causing, then that moment in time may pass forever. If the parent passes it by and does not use his or her emotional coaching skills, the child will either suppress the emotion or vent her feelings through strong verbal discord or maybe some violent outburst. This can hurt others, as well as the child herself. It can create bitterness that can last for years and even a lifetime.

I would dare to say that there are many of you who are reading this book right now who, in your childhood, had an emotional hurt, and you may still be carrying that wound around today. That wound is with you because someone did not take the time to reach in and help you remove that emotional scar. Parents, if you are in this situation, then, for the sake of your children and their future, please seek help through a good counselor, a pastor, a good friend, or a parenting group session. Just make sure you are getting help from a knowledgeable and trustworthy source. I can assure you that you will not regret it. Getting in touch with your emotions can really help you get in touch with your children's emotions.

Again I say, stay in touch with the EQ connection. It can be a good friend to you as you develop yourself as a quality parent. Be the best that you can be. Don't half do the job! Give it all you have! Your children will be children only once. Sometimes opportunities knock only once while your children are still at home.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Parenting with a Planby Vernon Sigmon Copyright © 2010 by Vernon Sigmon. Excerpted by permission.
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