School is out for the summer and children everywhere are running, jumping, and playingoh, wait. That could be wrong. I personally know of two children who are fighting over whose turn it is to play a video game. This has been going on all summer and as their mother, I sure do wish they would figure out how to work it out. So, how do I, as one of the adults in the house, help them with that?

It seems as though parents are often the biggest contributors to their childrens behavioral problems. More and more, parents choose to say nothing to children who are misbehaving or choose to distract them instead of teaching them how to work things out. This teaches them nothing.

So many parents put their kids in front of the TV or buy them things to keep them occupied instead of interacting with them or giving them more responsibility. In our house, we limit the amount of TV and computer game time for our kids to 2 hours a day. Now, to some people, 2 hours a day of TV and computer game time might seem like its too much, however, in our house thats the first privilege thats taken away when we discipline them. (In fact, right away this morning, which is Monday, this privilege was taken away for the whole week.)

The kids also have daily jobs to teach them responsibility. Every day, they have to get their jobs done or they can forget about their 2 hours.

When they fight, we have a conversation about it. I use some of my coaching techniques on them, which usually works. Occasionally, they have to think about it for several minutes, which is also good because then they come up with their own solutions.

As a mother, sometimes I feel as though I am one of the few parents (besides my husband) who discipline my kids or show them how to behave. A couple of weekends ago, I had a talk with someone elses child who was doing something she shouldnt have been doing and her parents said absolutely nothing to her. They also said nothing to me when they found out I told her that her behavior was irresponsible and inappropriate. Imagine that?

Now, having said all of this, I have seen some parents teach their kids proper behavior and I love hearing their techniques. One family I know shared this technique: every time their daughter treats their son badly, she has to write I will not be mean to my brother 25 times. The next time she does it its 50 times, then 75 times, and so on. What a great idea it seems to be working well for them.

Please dont misunderstand me. I am not the perfect parent by far. However, I do try to make sure my husband and I teach our children how to solve their problems, how to behave properly, and how to communicate effectively. These are simple guidelines that we could all use.

The point here is that we as parents must help our children find their way through childhood. We are the adults here. They are counting on us to share our wisdom.