Page 66 - The Intentional Parent

they lay out, children will learn that you are “all talk and no action,” and that does not give you an effective leadership platform to guide your kids.
Depending on the temperament of your child (with particular emphasis on whether your child is more compliant, or stubborn and resistant to your requests), there are some children who will “test” your ability to stick to the consequences you lay out to the max, showing you that he or she is the leader no matter what you try to do to maintain your leadership role. With a stubborn, headstrong or willful child it is important to monitor and neutralize your emotions, especially when describing or delivering consequences. Children with headstrong temperaments will counter your attempts to deliver consequences with behavior that “pushes your buttons.” Parents often underestimate how satisfying it is for kids to see their parents as upset as they are when they go toe-to-toe over struggles to establish leadership.
The Intentions:
Teaching children the relationship between behavior and outcome is not easy, does not produce immediate results and requires lots of parental self-control -- in other words it is like every other parenting task!
Intentional thinking improves our leadership efforts and provides balance and moderation to our expectations:
I intend to make it a priority to teach my child the relationship between his or her behavior and the consequences of that behavior.
The Intentional Parent by Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D. 66