Scary Parenting: Part Three

Children need desperately to have adults in their lives they can fear....in the biblical sense. Fear of one's parent, whether heavenly or earthly, is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom.

ParentGuru: Better Parenting Starts Here
Thousands of stressed parents are finding their way to better parenting with the help of ParentGuru.

Parenting With Love and Leadership
Weekly Substack newsletter by Parenting Expert John Rosemond.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:41

Hey, hello out there and welcome or welcome back, as the case may be to, because I Said so the only podcast on the worldwide universe, wide web, where you will hear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the amazing truth about the mental health industry in America. You will hear the amazing truth which no mental health professional knows or will tell you about children, and you will hear the truth about child rearing, which we now in America, for various weird reasons, called parenting. Okay, I'm your host, john Roseman, and my websites are at johnrosemancom, parent gurucom. I've got a weekly sub stack that you can find at substackcom. I do this weekly podcast. I'm a busy guy. I'm a busy guy and I am broadcasting today from the top of Rosemond towers Kind of like Trump towers, except a lot smaller Rosemond towers in New Bern, north Carolina. Okay, well, I'm glad you joined us and I hope you enjoy it and you profit from it.

Speaker 1: 2:16

This is the third in a series on what I call scary parenting. Scary parenting, which is my answer to the ridiculousness, the idiocy of gentle parenting. If you didn't hear either or both of the first two episodes in this amazingly astounding series, too bad, no, not really, I'm just kidding If you didn't hear either, or both of the first two episodes in this series. You can catch up by going to wherever you are right now. Be assured they are priceless. Mothers of America, I implore you, come to your senses. Throw off the shackles of gentle parenting, which is nothing more than a plot Concocted by mental health professionals and big pharma. They figure, and correctly so in many cases. The two years of trying to get gentle parenting to work, to live up to its promises, is going to turn you into a raving lunatic who will then turn to them for help. Okay, so gentle parenting, what is it? It's the Emperor's new clothes. The Emperor's new clothes, which is nakedness. The Emperor's, in other words, america's mental health industry and America's pharmaceutical industry, are parading around in the buff naked, trying to convince a gullible public that they really have something of value to offer.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Gentle parenting is merely the new term for the same old, same old junk parenting they have been trying to market since I was in graduate school, 236 and a half years ago. During that time, gentle parenting has been called democratic parenting, meaning that parent and child are equals. It's been called collaborative parenting, which means that children can be reasoned with. It's been called positive parenting, which means that punishment is bad, and so children should never be punished In every case. Every time they rolled out what is now gentle parenting, just under a new title, parents got really excited and jumped on the bandwagon, only to eventually discover that no form of parenting invented by mental health professionals is going to work.

Speaker 1: 5:22

Because mental health professionals and remember folks, I am one, I'm a psychologist, I'm actually licensed by the North Carolina Psychology Board, who regrets the day they ever gave me a license. Yes, they do. Mental health professionals by and large there are two exceptions, one in Montana and one in Alabama don't know what they're talking about, especially when it comes to children, child ring families, marriages, pretty much, you name it. They don't know what they're talking about, as was the case with yours truly. Mental health professionals are taught to babble in graduate school, and they're taught how to make babbling sound erudite, which means high brow, like men's sub material. That's what I was taught, with the difference between me Again, I'm a psychologist, aren't you impressed? And them is that I realized I was babbling. It took me a few years, but I finally realized I was doing nothing but babbling and I stopped babbling, that is. And when I stopped babbling. I dedicated my career to reviving scary parenting, which is nothing more than how most children were raised in the 1950s. I was raised that way For the first seven years of my life. I was raised by a single mother, who was a lovely, intelligent, affectionate and funny human being. And yet my mother taught me what scary parenting was all about, although she never used the term scary parenting. So what? What is scary parenting?

Speaker 1: 7:24

Okay, in the first two episodes of this three-part series on skeday parenting, I explained that an authentically skeday parent simply demonstrates Through repetition that he or she means exactly what he or she says. Notice, I only used two pronouns, because that's all there are. If you say no, you mean no. When you say no, you don't mean maybe baby. No, you can't go with your friends to the mall and stay out until midnight means exactly that. And because you mean exactly that, nothing your child says or does will get you to change your mind.

Speaker 1: 8:21

That's scary parenting. Well, it's the first characteristic of scary parenting. You mean exactly what you say, especially when you say no, which you should really be saying like at least 30 times a day. No, I mean you don't want your children to want to live at home. You don't want that. You want them to move out and you want them to move out as early as possible. Anyway, first characteristic of scary parenting you mean exactly what you say, especially when you say no. The second characteristic of scary parenting is scary parents don't care one bit, not one little incy weency, teensy weency, tiny iota of a bit If their children don't like them. If a five year old child screams I hate you, I wish you were my mother, that is very scary mother. This very scary mother is unmoved and simply says well, that's not surprising. If I was you right now, I'd hate me too. It's perfectly okay to hate me. Just don't cross me. And at that the scary parent just ups and walks away, whistling either sunny side of the street or the immigrant song.

Speaker 1: 10:12

What have you been doing up until now? You've been engaging with your child. You've been engaging in various forms of back and forth, engaging in arguments, mostly engaging your child in stupid discussions about why he hates you and how it's not nice to hate. Stuff like that. Engaging, huge mistake. Now, as a result of listening to this fascinating podcast, you're no longer going to engage, because adults folks listen to this very carefully. Authentic adults don't engage with children. That's what it means to be the adult in the room. You don't let your child define the terms of engagement.

Speaker 1: 11:14

A mother recently told me that her 13-year-old daughter had started cursing at her. What should I do when my daughter curses at me? She asked me you should stop engaging with her. I said, folks, when you engage with a child under those circumstances or similar circumstances, you have sunk to the child's level and you have already lost. So I told the mother just walk away. Stop letting your daughter define the terms of the engagement. Stop it. Just say, yeah, well, I can tell you need some privacy, walk away. And the mother looked at me like I was nuts and she said you mean, my daughter experiences no consequence for cursing like a sailor at me? Oh, absolutely not. I said no, no, no, no, no, she experiences a consequence, but you're not going to do what most parents do almost all parents do, 99.999% of parents do which is try to deliver a consequence in the heat of the moment.

Speaker 1: 12:35

Consequences delivered in the heat of the moment are usually unenforceable, like all right, that's it. You are never going to have Christmas again in your life, ever. Do you understand me, young man? Yeah, when you do that, you later you know you suffer consequence hangover, you feel guilty about having gotten into an argument with your child and exploding and you go and apologize to your child and you take your child out for an ice cream cone across the you know something along those lines and you forget about the consequence altogether. No, no, no, no, no, no. Never deliver or describe a consequence in the heat of the moment.

Speaker 1: 13:26

So I said to this mom just say to your daughter something like oh well, I can tell you need some privacy and walk away in the heat of the moment, do nothing, just walk away. Being a scary parent, you see, it means being unpredictable. So I told this mother. I said, like I don't know, maybe a week later your sassy 13 year old daughter asked your permission to do something she wants to do with her friends and you say oh gosh, you know what? I just remembered that vile name. You called me a week ago and well, gosh, golly, gee. But I guess my answer is no, at which point the sassy 13 year old will blow sky high and she will call the mother for various vile names. And I told the mother that. I said you know it's going to happen again. When it happens again, just say the same thing, walk away.

Speaker 1: 14:29

Which means it's time for me to tell you that when you become a scary parent, it's going to take four to six weeks before your child gets it and starts getting into line with the new scary parenting program. During that period of disorientation, as he comes to grips with the realities of being an obedient, respectful child, who's afraid of you Again, afraid of you not because you act like a lunatic, but afraid of you because you're acting like an authority figure. During that period of disorientation, as he comes to grips with the realities of living with a scary parent, you may find him curled up in a fetal position in the corner of his room, sucking his thumb and humming to himself it's okay, don't worry, it's a phase, ignore it. And so, once again, I'm just kidding, but there will be a period of adjustment for all concerned. In fact, another scary parenting rule do not explain what you're doing to your child, and if he asks something along the lines of and parents have really told me stuff like this Mom, why have you been acting so weird lately? Just look at him for a few seconds and say I have no idea in the world what you're talking about and walk away If you think about it. That in and of itself is rather scary in a Joan Crawford sort of way. And folks, that's a wrap.

Speaker 1: 16:14

You've been listening to another exciting episode of Because I Said so, I'm your host, john Roseman, johnrosemancom, parent gurucom. We got some webinars coming up you might be interested in. Glad you joined us. I hope you keep joining us every week on this adventure into the depths of parenting that we're taking. In the meantime, until we meet again, keep on rocking in the free world, folks, because if we don't rock it, we're going to lose it.