Judgmental Parenting and Obsessive Behaviors
Through the years of experiencing parenting, one experience stands out among the rest. The confrontational behaviors of judgmental parents and their obsessive behaviors more often reveals something about the person making the judgments rather than anything about the person being judged. But, how can one express that without sounding judgmental themselves?
During a recent confrontation with a friend, I was informed that my parenting skills were “soft and ineffectual”. I listened, agreed that I definitely have not been a strong and forceful parent and went on about my own business. Those particular characteristics have never been my personal choice, and over my years of parenting, I’ve learned that forceful parents (in my opinion) rarely obtain their ultimate goals. If the goal is children who follow the rules, forceful parenting generates a specific kind of rebellion that resists the acknowledgment of parental power and control. By leading with an open hand, children exchange viewpoints and develop relational strengths, acknowledging differences, and yet, more often abiding by parental rules.
The discussion preluded many confrontational bouts with my friend’s children as she leads by demand and control. I watch in silence, acknowledging that her choices belong to her. Rarely do I comment on her controlling and forceful parental style, because my opinion is just exactly that — my opinion.
Extensions of parenting styles, obsessive behaviors and judgmental actions erode relationships and often characterize difficult life choices. Children immolate their parents in ways parents can’t see, don’t understand and often choose not to acknowledge. We all appreciate when our children immolate our better behaviors, but when they duplicate our not so sweet characteristics, we blame those on someone, or something else. Yet, the reality is that we recognize our not so sweet characteristics as much as the better ones, but we are not ready to give credit where credit is do, or to take personal responsibility for those.
“That stubborn streak must have come from her father…” we say with a smile. Not only approving the behavior but setting a precedent for giving away responsibility. The desire to be self-perfect in our own eyes is transported to our children.
Friends accomplish the same task by blaming each other, or the other person’s spouse for misbehavior of children and often of the parents. The process develops an invisible wall between spouses, while creating a hedge between friends. Eventually, the hedge erodes, dies out and gives way to thorny brambles of jealousy and the friendship is damaged.
Damaged friendships show up in ways that often follow through with judgmental parenting and obsessive behaviors. “I’m a better parent than you” speaks loud and clear that you think you’re better than the other person. But more than that, it indicates that you know what is wrong with your friend’s children. Your friend probably disagrees with you, but won’t say so. And if they do say so, you may assume the friendship is over or at least damaged. Not so… More often, the friendship is strengthened because both realize there are different styles of parenting and neither is greater than the other. If by some chance there are agreements, they most likely will not be complete. Controlling your friend’s parenting style may please you for the moment, but at what point are you willing to take responsibility for the results of your friend’s parenting style?
In most cases, it’s enough to acknowledge that your friends have different parenting styles than yours and may be just as correct for their family as your parenting style is for your family. When it isn’t, it might be advisable to realize that if you have children and you’re judging other people’s children, your children may eventually be judged in the same or similar ways… how will you respond?
Still There – Almost 2 Years Later
The first of June, 2007 my son-in-law had a minor accident at the junction of 6th Avenue and Colfax in west Denver. While driving to a wrestling event, he swerved to miss a vehicle and hit a pole on the side of the road. That pole didn’t budge much, but it totaled his Ford Escort.
They called the police, and his sister-in-law (my oldest daughter) who was living in Denver at the time, to come get them. A friend of mine was already on his way to the wrestling match, and I called him to go to the scene, since he was closest. Bill took Kevin to his match and Brenna took the boys home with her.
Meanwhile Tatia and I shared the news with everyone at Cowboy Camp (we had just arrived there for the evening services) and left for Denver. Once again, that drive passed faster than the normal 4 hours, and we soon arrived at Brenna’s apartment. Everyone had ended up there earlier, after she took the boys to the ER. And after Kevin lost his wrestling match and got another bonk on the head.
He and the boys experienced minor concussions, but not so bad that Kevin didn’t wrestle that night.
The irony of this moment is that we’ve had occasion to pass that way a few times over the past two years, and each time, someone asks if the pole is still there. Kevin said the officer mentioned that several people had hit that particular pole over the previous year, before Kevin’s Escort collided with it.
When the wrecker picked up his vehicle, the pole came totally out of the ground and was left on the side of the highway.
Last night after attending the ROAR Colorado meeting with Cleve TidwelSean and I drove by the junction again. There’s construction going on, with concrete pilings lining the highway and when we got to the junction, sure enough, the pole is still there.
Core Influence – FREE
This is amazing! Frank Kern is giving away copies of Core Influence. You don’t even have to go find it on his site. You can get Core Influenceright here – FREE.
I strongly recommend that you click on the link and grab this FREE gift right now. It’s an amazing deal and he’s giving it away free for a limited amount of time. Don’t wait. Don’t put it off, go get it right now by clicking on the link above.
Book Reviews – In Store Events, Just Buy the Book
Borders offers a unique shopping mall perspective. You enter from the mall but pay by the exit. Um… My car is on the other side of the country over there, and I can’t leave here… I must stroll back through the store – only to find another book.
After three trips to the check out counter, I was willing to walk around the mall to my vehicle in the blinding snow storm.
Eradicating Pests – Natural Solutions for Unnatural Problems
Why didn’t I think of this? You’re probably asking yourself the same question. So, I’m going to answer the question first.
In a lifetime of problem solving, we rarely seek the simple solution first. There’s always that harder, more difficult option that comes to mind, and we’ve got something to prove. We must prove that we can do it ourselves.
With the call of coyotes circling the wagon trains (apartment complex) each night, the realization that we’re not the only beings existing on this trail became obvious. But, I didn’t expect to see coyotes inside the circle of civilization.
Time Sequencing – Frequent Posting…
It’s the duh factor… I’ve been posting via “other method” whenever I wasn’t available to the computer for a while now, because it just seemed less of a problem than factoring in the publishing time slot or missing a time slot. It’s important for my readers to get frequent posts on my blog.
So, today, I’m talking to a friend and rather than just totally screw up a conversation, because I knew there had to be a better way than I’d been using, I decided to ask.
Quirky as it may sound, I’d missed that EDIT offering beside the Publish word above the link I press each time I publish. To the point that I had literally taught my students a different method of posting — when they weren’t on the computer.
So, how is it, a teacher explains the precious moment of learning?
There’s always more and more to learn about any program where you post your writings online. It doesn’t seem to matter what you learn, due to the constant changing and upgrading of programs, there will always be more to learn. And honestly, you can never EVER stop learning.
Know Your Traffic – That’s Marketing
Who’s that visiting your website? This past week, I decided to check my viewers and see if I knew who they are and why they visit my website. I didn’t find many surprises.
There’s a whole host of folks who find my site when they search for Victoria’s Secret, because of an article I wrote about shopping almost a year ago. When we shop the mall together, my daughters invariably end up at Victoria’s Secret. They love the underwear and bras they find there – besides – it’s the one place their brothers won’t follow them. I was rather surprised when I actually got a client from those visitors — the marketing article I wrote was rather interesting, and the client liked my tongue in cheek writing style.
There are several visitors who bookmarked my website some time in the past, who still visit from their bookmarks. The articles on those pages aren’t specifically interesting, but those readers keep going back to those articles for more reading materials.
One reader lands on my blog because I write about my kids and she likes to keep up with them. Actually, there are probably several of those, because I have a large family. And there are several who just stop in to see what I’m doing, if I’ve written in an update or what’s going on in my life. Though I often write personal experiences, I rarely get into my personal life very much. It’s just not necessary to share that part of me — so if you’re looking for deep stuff, don’t look here.
There are a few who look me up just to rant at me for whatever reason. I ignore them mostly and figure I’m saving some other poor soul from a ranting comment… No deal here. I have a delete button and know how to use it.
There are many who look up my site based on Google Searches for various search terms that have been used in my blog posts. I believe the strangest one was “pillow abuse” that I wrote as a joke, when my grandson, my daughter and life was keeping me up most of the night. I did get a few comments from that particular post — mostly good ones.
Through the years, I’ve found it interesting that more people email me than comment on my blog. At least, I did until just recently. A commenter mentioned in an email that her comments were too personal to post on my blog, she didn’t want everyone to see them.
Can you think of any reasons knowing your market would help you to write more specific topics, or to sell more product?
The Branding Iron – Brand Recognition for Marketers
Brand Recognition drives traffic and brings buying market to identifiable product marketers. The question of branding came up in discussion earlier today, and the recognition dripping title of The Rich Jerk came to mind. Of all the identities in Internet Marketing that might happen across the page in a day, this one probably drives me crazier than about any other. But, there he was, his shock of black hair tossed ironically across his singular eyebrow in defiance of natural beauty, standing steadfast against the corner of my browser waiting for me to click on his link (even in my mind).
In I-Marketing the branding iron comes out whenever the buttons and banners flash an image at the reader. Surfers take an average of 8 seconds to stroll across a page and hit the left button on the mouse, more often an image will control their action than words. Branding your buttons and banners with images means you’ll be recognized. The art of adding a signature icon to your buttons or banners isn’t new, but it is branding magnificence at its best. Use it or lose it, some might say — but in I-net Marketing the phrase means traffic.
The Rick Jerk made a name for himself by pulling traffic with anger and rude comments. The Branding Iron for the Rich Jerk was the thick black hair falling across an eyebrow in his notorious icon. Marketing gurus on the Internet find ways to integrate identifiable icons in their buttons and banners, and move their buttons and banners into the mainstream with paid advertizing.
The phrase Advertize your Business means something to the average internet marketing junkie because that’s how they bring people to their website, and become identifiable in the marketing world of web-surfers. Of course, advertizing will bring recognition to your brand if you use the Branding Iron to generate quality ads with your branded icon on the ad.
Monetize Your Blog — Don’t wait!
When I found Carl Ocab’s blog several years back, I realized he was about 13 years old. I became a regular reader on his blog because I liked the fluent, friendly tone of his articles. His information was right on target and I recognized the importance of having a “gimmick” when I recognized his. Designing my own blog was fun, way back in the beginning because my gimmick was my talkative style. I loved sharing the day to day parts of writing that did bring in cash money and profit, so that’s what I wrote about.
Later, I realized I had more readers who came by to see what was new in my information. So, I added in that kind of information too. There were other commentaries and notes, but more than anything, I realized I had readers who stopped by just to see what I was writing about and read my blog.
The point is, there was plenty of traffic coming to my blog, traffic made it profitable. Whether I was marketing ads, clickbank affiliate products or other information products, making money wasn’t a big deal, because that was what I’d done with my blog. Monetizing was part of the process of writing.
From the beginning, I had monetized offerings on my blog. Whether it was what I sold for myself, or what I sold for others. I was always making money. You can monetize your blog from the beginning.
Blogging Fun for Non-Writers: Oh Yes You CAN Write!
Blogging means stringing words together in sentence forms, making a few paragraphs relevant to a specific topic, and having a point. Most of the time, I can do that – as can most anyone who speaks fluently in some language or other. But, there are other times – when I don’t do that. As a blogger, I know that my readers expect some non-fluent, rambling essays that roll from topic to topic, stopping no where in particular and going no where specific. That’s the part of blogging that brings readers back for the fun of the ramble. Readers understand that the mind occasionally meanders through the woods, out onto the prairie and back into the mountains to find a river filled with trout and a nice camping spot where you can build a fire.
The dance of writing blogs and collecting a selection of dedicated readers is profitable in many ways, and dynamic in many others. First, and foremost, I get loads of encouragement from my readers who love what I write. There’s just something magical about getting comments on what I write that tell me how much people relate to my articles and information, or how they used my information to generate their own “blogging to the bank” project online. It makes me feel good when readers recognize their own ability to replicate my efforts on their own, making a difference in their own lives.
The point is, nobody has to be perfect at writing to be a blogger.
Or a published author…
If you’ve ever read a book, you’ve read over punctuation errors, spelling errors, grammar errors and …God rest your merry soul… story formation blunders. Editors don’t even catch all the errors in published books. It’s virtually impossible to catch all the errors in a book and fix them all. There literally comes a point in editing when you simply PUBLISH. And the reality… most readers don’t see any errors in a book.
A few nights back, we were watching a movie on DVR (that spiffy little thing that comes with Dish network and allows us to capture the movie for watching later) and my son-in-law said, “Hey, did you see that. The guy just entered the building twice.” There were seven people in the room and he’s the only one who caught the editing error. We backed the movie up three times before all of us saw the same error. The discussion that followed included wondering how often we miss editing errors.
Everyone on the planet remembers the Winter 1972 JC Penney Catalog, page 386 (I probably have got the page wrong) where a man’s “manhood” was hanging out of the underwear in a multi-model display of whitey tighties. But, I don’t remember noticing it myself. It was the page of the catalog that was passed around 8th grade with 112 thirteen-year-olds giggling behind their fists that brought the picture to my attention.
Errors happen, but writing blogs is profitable and fun. If you can’t get past the errors, you’ll be stuck in edit mode forever and the stories will never be published. Edit your work for errors, write well and send it off to the publisher. Your readers will love you for publishing!
