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Computer addiction and your kids.

It’s been a long time since I wrote about my kids and their computer addiction. The first time I wrote about the problem was three plus years ago. My two oldest teens were staying up to 4 in the morning after went to sleep. They were getting unsocial, grades were slipping and they weren’t going out anymore.

I took the computers away except for school and never in their room. The computer addiction was quite apparent at this time. They were screaming, slamming doors and sleeping a lot. We talked a lot with them at this point. They weren’t happy but started to come out of their room. What came out of their mouth, made me want them back in their room but it slowly got better. They literally transformed to much more enjoyable kids again.

In the words of Marshall Mclewen, our society is becoming a nation of vidiots. But I don’t think even Marshall could have predicted the computer addiction of today. To you parents, who have young children, do yourself, and your children, a favor. Keep their computer in a public room so you can monitor their time and content. I would highly suggest the computer should only be for educational endeavors. For you parents, of teens, use the same rule. Keep their computer in a public area. No computer, during the week for anything but school stuff. On the weekend, only let your teens have an agreed upon time frame for using the computer.

Computer addiction is insidious and all around you. Your child’s growth is partly based on real socializing with you and their peers face to face. Create the computer rules of the house so it empowers your children to grow.

Good luck,

Dr. Bocknek

In my opinion, we have come to a point in society of polarization. It seems that most people, who are vocal, are either way left or way right.

I want to say something on this point. When 9/11 took place, we as a country, stood as one. We reprioritized what was important as a nation. We became one people. It lasted for months. All the nonsense, that is being argued now on the news, never would have been discussed. The petty partisan politics wouldn’t even be discussed.

In my opinion, our country, and seemingly the rest of the world, is in a moral pre 9/11 mentality. In my opinion, teenage parenting should be the center point of discussion of society. The majority has completely forgotten about our youth and the next generation. The educational system is not the problem. The government is not the solution. In my opinion, the decay of the family is the problem. I go to endless PTA meetings and constantly hear how the educational system is failing our kids. I believe this is crap. I believe it is the parents and adults who are often failing our kids.

I believe until parents take teenage parenting and family as their priority over pleasure, blaming of others, and excuses as to why we are where we are as individuals and families we are doomed to a rough ride. Until we stop expecting our government to solve our financial problems and personal problems we are in big trouble.

I pray for enlightenment for the masses and for leaders to stop pointing their finger out to them and turn it to themselves and say I am the cause. When that day comes. We will all be alright.

Just a thought.

Good luck,

Dr. Bocknek.

Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for marriage, parents and families

Continuing on with this teen parenting story, I said to my friend “Don’t you think it is inappropriate for this parent to be doing this to his child”? He gave some answer about artistic freedom and how it was beautiful. Not wanting to start an argument I just basically told him that he had no idea of the effect taking those pictures of the child might have on that child and neither had the parent. He admitted it was the first time he had ever thought of it that way.

So here is the issue in teen parenting. It is not okay anymore to not know what your child or teen is doing at all times. We, as parents, have roughly eighteen years to mold our children into ethical, moral, and responsible adults who will be a benefit and a contributor in our home and society. The first four years are basically  for just loving them because they are too small. That leaves fourteen years to train, lead and teach them.

In teen parenting, the parent must be a leader. The parent must take the leadership role away from the teachers, away from their friends, away from the internet. For the teachers reading this, this is not an insult to you. It is a benefit to you. You have been saddled with the lazy parent syndrome. A teacher’s job is to teach subject matters that empower kids to think and learn. You are not substitute parents. In fact, if you read the data 40% of teachers quit the profession after 2 years. I suspect a lot of that reason is because you have been frustrated with having to be surrogate parents rather than educators of the next generation.

For parents, who think that teen parenting is a liaise faire event, I can tell you teen parenting is a do all you can to lead and guide event, and hope you did enough so your teens will succeed in life event.

In teen parenting, your child needs a simplified environment with guidance about the key issues. The key issues are doing well in school, being honest, respectful, and helpful. Our job is to teach them these values in an incredibly loving, guided, responsible fashion.

Please read teen parenting and what is okay part 3.

Good luck,

Dr. Bocknek

Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for marriage, parents and families

I don’t usually talk too much politics on this sight but after reading and listening to Nancy Pelosi’s latest stupid idea I felt like I just couldn’t sit still.  I am not going to blame this party or that or the notion of pro-life or pro-choice at this time.  But her idea of increasing condomn distribution to our young people as part of the bail out package is just ridiculous. Her reasoning was if we have less pregnancies there would be a decreased population so a smaller tax base.

I believe an important choice available to handle the teen pregnancy issue is tough love parenting.  I just did a talk last night at a business woman’s dinner meeting and the anger I got when I said that I was against condom distribution in schools.  I explained that that data shows that the more we have talked about condomn use the more pregnancies we got.  I even gave a concrete example of one of our local high schools where there is right now an implanted condom program and right alongside of it is about 20 teens who are pregnant.  In my opinion, the reasoning behind this is when parents have a weak relationship with their children at home and then the conversation about sex is so strong at school it is just mere exposure.  In other word, the more you focus on something the more likely it is going to happen.  Kids hear what they want to hear at school.  Then, when you add movies like Juno that normalize teens getting pregnant and a likewise television series on the same subject, getting pregnant is just another inconvenience.

When I talk about tough love parenting, I am not talking about constant punishment and no joy.  I mean the parent knows everything that is going on with their child.  The parent leads the kids with values and expectations.  The parents lets the child knows about responsibilies, not just to themselves but also to the family.  The parent also let’s the child know about consequences of their actions, also that what the child does outside the home reflects on the family positively and negatively.

The other side of tough love parenting is bonding with our children.  That is constantly sharing our trials and mistakes we made when we were young and show them how we handled things poorly and that we are going to be there to minimize the chance they will make the same mistake.

When I see the anger I saw last night I know how far we have gotten from responsible family life.

Dr. Robert Bocknek is a problem solving expert for parents and families

See Dr. Bocknek’s courses on takebackthehome website or write him at bocknek@takebackthehome.com

Tough love parenting is a term which is thrown around, usually with the meaning that the parents have tried everything and nothing worked so now we have to make our child miserable until they behave.  Here’s the thing.  Kids need guidelines and leadership, from the parents, in their life.  It’s no wonder that kids from single parents are 3 times more likely to have a run in with the law than two parent homes.  If you exclude two parent homes where one of the parents has an addiction the data skews even more to 5 times more likely to have a run in with the law.

So then, if the family is a two parent home with no addictions, the main reason why tough love parenting is needed is that the parents have been lacking in guiding and leading their child for quite some time.  Rather than be offended whether this is true of you or not lets do a quick quiz and see how you do.

tough love parenting quiz

1. Do your children have chores that must be done by them?
2. Do they do them? or Do they complain when you remind them?
3. Are their grades in the top 20% of their class?
4. Do your children talk back to you often?
5. Do you honestly enjoy your children’s company?

These are only 5 questions but there could be many more.  If you answered no to at least one of these questions or answered yes to #4 then you need a boot camp on rules and parenting.

Here’s the thing, what a lot of parents call tough love parenting really ought to be renamed leadership parenting. Often simple guidelines like the ones mentioned in the quiz above, when enforced, are enough to totally transform your child into just a great person who is a joy to have around.  If you need help creating this kind of consistency, I highly reccommend you contact Dr. Bocknek at bocknek@takebackthehome.com or visit the website at takebackthehome.com.  Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for parents and families.  You or your family can take one of his courses or can have him come to your town for one of his empowering talks or seminars.  If you are considering painful tough love parenting steps beyond what what the quiz talked about, its not to late to first try Dr. Bocknek’s easy to follow and phenomenally effective guidelines to a great home.

Good luck.  Sincerely, Dr. Bocknek, the problem solving expert for parents and families.

www.takebackthehome.com, www.keyboardculture.com

One can tackle the effects of divorce on children from many angles but no matter what you say the numbers of divorces are staggering.  World wide, it averages over 58%.  Because the goal of “the take back the home project” is not to drag you down into depression about your family issues or crises, I want to spend a few moments talking about how to empower you going through the divorce process.

The effects of divorce on your children could be disastrous or a time for bonding, loving and a chance to rise above who we normally are.  Its like the old saying “when you have lemons, make lemonade”.  Divorces are painful.  Normally nice people say awful things and behave in a way they would ordinarily be ashamed of.

To minimize the effects of divorce on your children, as the parent you must take some important steps.  Before we say what the steps are, we need to understand something about ourselves.  We are not fixed entities.  In other words, we are not like a table.  A table, no matter whether it is cold or hot or there is a divorce going on, unless you burn it to the ground, will remain to be a table.  Everyone will agree it is a table.  We as humans are not that.  We are what our actions are.  If I am being mature and appropriate at this moment then in this moment I am a mature and appropriate adult.  If I am screaming hysterically two minutes later then at that moment I am a hysterical adult.  So, in other words, we are fluid and constantly changing.

To minimize the effects of divorce on children, then, it is critical to be acutely aware of what your actions are because your actions will determine whether the effects of your divorce on your kids will be empowering or disastrous.

How do we facilitate empowering actions?  Empowering actions are driven by empowering questions that make us think in ways that lead us to constructive action.  For instance,  Instead of “Why is this happening to me”?  we might ask “Since this is happening what things can I say to my kids that will help them get through this?”  You could even improve on this, “what three things can I do today and the rest of this time so the effects of the divorce on my children won’t hurt their life”?  If we ask bad questions our brain goes nuts with destructive thoughts which will often lead to bad behavior on our part. Great questions lead our brain to come up with empowering solutions.

Empowering steps to take to minimize negative effects of divorce on children.

1) Ask of yourself empowering question? (as mentioned above)

2) Be honest, in how your actions could have been better in the marriage.  (share them with your kids)

3) Share with your kids you are a team and teams have ups and downs, but great teams always come through.  Remind yourself and them of this often.

4) Be the leader, keep playing your role and make sure the kids play their role.

Divorces stink but if we are smart we can learn empowering lessons of life from them.  Good Luck!

Dr. Robert Bocknek is “the Problem Solving Expert for Parents and Families”.  See him at takebackthehome.com and at keyboardculture.com.  or write him at bocknek@takebackthehome.com.

The sexless marriage is considered probably the number 1 cause of divorce today. The reasons why there is no sex in the marriage are varied.  In this talk we won’t discuss the medical reasons and solutions.  If there is interest please just blog back or contact us at bocknek@takebackthehome.com and we will set something up.

The sexless marriage comes about because there was a change in the dynamics of the partners.  Marriages are not things like tables and chairs.  A table is a table no matter what happens.  Any four people, no matter what issues are going on in their life, are going to look at the table and say that is a table.

Marriages are different.  They are based on what you do on a given day.  If you are rotten to your partner on Tuesday then on Tuesday you have a rotten marriage and probably on Tuesday you have a sexless marriage.  On the other hand, if on Tuesday you realized you were rotten and called your partner up and apologized profusely, with sincerity, because you realized that person you were rotten to is the one person in life you shouldn’t be rotten to because you love them to death and they love you the same…the odds are you have a good chance of having a great marriage on that day and maybe not have a sexless marriage.

So you can see that in isolating any particular day how the dynamics of a marriage can change dramatically based solely on our actions.  The essential point to this discussion is that sexless marriages are a direct reflexion of our actions.  Our situation is never set in stone.  It can get worse or better on a moments notice.  The great thing is that you are totally in control.  You get to decide whether you are good or bad, caring or rude, seductive or evasive.

Expectations must be reasonable.  Your marriage can stop being a sexless marriage when you have overcome the time and energy you put into creating a sexless marriage.  For instance, if you were having an affair, the energy you gave to this act is huge to overcome.  You have to be great with massive intensity and possibly for a prolonged period of time.  You must understand the anger that is coming back to you and find ways to get past it.  If you can’t put in the energy and time then you don’t want it bad enough.  If you let your body go you need to put in the time and energy and discipline to regain some of that something that made you attractive to your partner.

In part 2 of the sexless marriage we will discuss the kind of steps that you can take to regain the intimacy in your marriage.

Dr. Robert Bocknek is “the problem solving expert for families”.  Go to his website at takebackthehome.com or email him at bocknek@takebackthehome.com.  He has great courses for you and your family and is available for empowering lectures.

Teenage parenting part 2 is a continuation of teenage parenting part 1s discussion of how crucial the understanding of each persons roles plays in the success of the family.  Many families I have counseled who are having significant problems with their kids have a situation where the family for whatever reason has become a child centered situation.  By this I mean the family evolves around what is best for the child.  As with all good intentions it sounds like a good idea but as with many good intentions the results are far different from what was intended.  What has been most often found in the child centered family are spoiled children who think the world revolves around them.  What often follows next is they go out in the world and  they act out because they aren’t the center of attention anymore. So what we put forth is a family centered family.

When forming a teenage parenting family or any family for that matter visualize a circle.  Next, put in the center of that circle the word “family” and put the word “child” with a line through it.  From this point on your family will be a family centered family.  In other words, what is best for the family as a whole will be the guiding light for the parents as they lead the family.

How do we know what is best for the family?  We start by writing all family members names on the circle equally apart.  We then attach the roles each person plays in the family, (as written down in teenage parenting part 1), and put those by the family member’s name.  We then draw a line from each person’s name to the center of the circle where the word “family” is.  This is the new construct from which all family decisions get made.

When dealing with the difficult teenager as mentioned in the teenage parenting part 1 we can now create the situation in family meetings to show each member of the family how we are doing.  The difficult teenager can now see their place in the family and how it affects the rest of the family.  When the difficult teenager sees their place in the family we as parents can then go over with them how we can help them.  With the family centered diagram the difficult teenager can really see the negative effect their actions can have and how they can really hurt all those people they really love.  It will call them forth to be a better family member.

Teenage parenting, using the family centered paradigm, changes the confrontation of parent vs. teen to how the parent can help the teen fulfill their role in the family.  It takes the blame out of the discussion and gives the teen a new perspective of how their actions do make a difference in the family.  We can further carry this, that the teen can see how what they do can negatively undermines the family and more empowering the teen can then better see how fulfilling their roles can incredibly positively affect how the family succeeds.

This technique in teenage parenting has helped hundreds of families completely change.

Dr. Robert Bocknek is “the problem solving expert for families”. You can visit him at Takebackthehome.com and soon at keyboardculture.com.  You can also email him a question at bocknek@takebackthehome.com

Computer addiction in our kids has become a huge problem in the family.  Although computer addiction and computer game addiction are not exactly the same thing, for this discussion we will treat them as such in this blog.

The first point in understanding  how we develop into having a computer addiction or a computer game addiction is to understand, we are what we do. We are not fixed as one one way or one behavior our entire life.  If we were we would be the same person at 10 years old as we are at 40 years old.  So, if we are what we do then we are most likely to become what we spend the most time doing.  Does this make sense?  Therefore, if our teens spend most of their free time on the computer, they have a huge potential to developing a computer addiction.

The second point is why is spending a lot of time on the computer a bad thing. It is bad because our teens and children are like sponges.  Everything they get exposed to gets absorbed.  For parents, who are concerned about the negative effects of too much computer,  you have a right to be.  You, as parents, I’m sure want to be the backbone of your children’s moral and ethical persona.  That’s why you are careful who your children play with and who your teens hang out with.  In the past, you felt safe when your kids were home.  The computer has taken that safety away.  If not carefully monitored computer addiction is a real possibility.

Symptoms of computer addiction are a loss of control to being on and lying about how much time they are on.  Anger when the parent sets limits to the time being spent on the computer.  The parent finds despite being punished the child is still breaking the rules.  Lower grades.  Shorter temper with parents when asked about what they were doing on the computer.

What to do about computer addiction. Your child or teen doesn’t need to be diagnosed as a computer addict or computer game addict by an expert for you to do something about it.  If you feel your child or teen is exhibiting any of the above symptoms or you would just rather they go out and play or read a book, facilitate change.  You, as the parent are the moral and ethical backbone of the family if you choose to be.  If you don’t do anything then you are choosing not to be.

Five Steps to handling computer addiction:

1) Set how much time they can be on.

2) Enforce the rules

3) Their door must be open when they are on the computer

4) If necessary, use child block soft ware to limit what they can see.

5) If they won’t follow the rules, take the computer out of their room and put it in a common room so you can watch them.

Computer addiction can be a real problem with children and teen social development.  It doesn’t have to be.

Dr. Robert Bocknek is “the problem solving expert for families”.  For questions regarding computer addiction or other important family problems see his sight at takebackthehome.com or soon to be at keyboardculture.com.