Improving parental control begins with a "can do" attitude. As long as you doubt your ability to achieve it, you handicap yourself with self-doubt.

The “can do” attitude not only facilitates parental control. It is also a great gift to give to our children.

You Can Do It – Wisie for Children Inspirational Video

Few things frustrate a parent more than a child whining in infantile helplessness, expressing the “I can’t” attitude.

Parents reinforce the “I can’t” attitude in their child when:

• They find something for the child that the child can find
• They do something for the child that the child can do,

But there is a more subtle way that we hold our children back. It is by expressing the “I can’t” attitude ourselves.

We actually have more parental control than we may realize, but without realizing it, we may be misusing that power.

The attitude that you express is an emotional pattern that you instill in your child. Your parental control may actually be responsible, therefore, for the “I can’t” attitude that emanates from your child.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you control your child naturally and automatically through what you do and how you do it, what you say and how you say it, even how you feel and think.

If your child seems out of your control, it is not because you lack parental control, but because you are exerting that control in a way that works against the best interests of you and your child.

Children become like those they spend time with. We control or shape our children’s behavior and attitude through the behavior and attitude that we demonstrate around them. We produce little facsimiles of ourselves!

Begin employing the power of your parental control more consciously and more wisely by exercising a higher level of self-awareness and self-control around your child.

To develop your child’s self-reliance and self-confidence, so that he will take on life’s challenges more courageously and competently, begin by practicing a self-confident attitude yourself, particularly in the face of your parental challenges.

If you parent in a state of exasperation and overwhelm, you express an attitude that says, “This is all too much for me. I’m a victim.”

While this attitude expresses a weakness, it expresses that weakness rather strongly. While it seems to express, “I’m out of control” it actually expresses, “I’m using my power of parental control to make you express helplessness.”

Teaching children that they really CAN master their challenges, achieve their greatest goals and solve their problems is an intrinsic aspect of responsible parenting. It teaches children to be responsible.

We need to teach our children this lesson with more than words. We need to teach them by:

• Not doing for them what they can do for themselves.
• Refusing to lead our lives in thestressful overwhelm that causes us to feel like victims.
• Parenting in a state of calm, self-confident ease.

It’s certainly not constructive to criticize or complain to your child about how annoying you find his helpless attitude. This just reinforces the child’s sense of helplessness.

And positive parental control requires more than reminding your child over and over that she really can be successful.

To improve our children’s attitudes we need to:

• Honestly face and release our own insecurity and self-doubt.
• Take on worthwhile challenges that we find intimidating.
• Practice the attitude regarding positive parental control that says, “I can do it!”