No. 850 DO YOUR KID'S MISBEHAVE?
No. 850
Jim Davidson -- NEWSPAPER COLUMN
DO YOUR KIDS MISBEHAVE?
Do you have any idea what it costs to rear a child in today’s society? According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a middle-income family with a child born in 2007 will pay a tidy sum of $204,060 to care for that child until his or her 18th birthday. Since we have had mostly low inflation since that time, I am confident that figure today would still be pretty accurate. For a middle-income, two-parent, two-child family, expenses for one child ranged from $10, 930 to $12,030 per year, depending on the age of the child, with expenditures on teenagers being the highest.
From my own perspective, every child is precious in God’s eyes and there is no way we could ever put a dollar figure on the worth and value of any one of them. However, as parents we want to rear our children in a way they turn out to be happy, well adjusted, successful and productive human beings. One way to measure whether or not we have succeeded is how they behave in private and in the public square, the latter being where others can see how they conduct themselves. Again, this does not determine their worth or value, but it does let others see if we have done a good job, at least in this area of life.
Along these lines, sometime back I discovered a neat program that is designed to help parents enhance their relationship with their children. Since children will be taught behavior values in school, this program is designed to help parents to be consistent at home with many of the same techniques used in the school setting. This program is for children, ages 3-10, and is called Behavior-onics, a rewards-based program that provides parents with positive disciplinary tools for the home that are the same as those used in school. With this unique program you will be able to create a consistent discipline system throughout your child’s day.
Further, Behavior-onics is designed to enhance your relationship with your child and to better prepare them for school and life. One of the essential elements of Behavior-onics is its basis in authoritative-discipline style. Recent studies have shown that children who grow up in a predominately authoritative-discipline environment have a greater chance of scoring higher on achievement tests, have better vocabulary skills, and have fewer discipline problems. Additional benefits include opportunities to engage in expressive language, higher confidence levels, foster logical thought, elaboration of concept, and higher-level thinking skills.
One of the reasons Behavior-onics is so effective is that it was developed by educators who are also parents. Here is what Jenny Carpenter, kindergarten teacher and a user of the program, has to say about it: “Often times parents ask pre-school, head-start and kindergarten teachers like myself, ‘What we can do to help our child succeed in school?’ Now, I have a tool that actually has resources that parents can physically use at home with their children. Behavior-onics is not just a pamphlet but a program with tangible, professionally developed materials that parents will use with their children each day.”
The cost of Behavior-onics is $28 and includes a DVD, We Track Together Board with dry erase marker, We Play Together Book and We Talk Together Calendar. Going back to what I said earlier, if you have young children, when you consider the cost of rearing a child in today’s times, this could be a great investment in your child’s future. It can be ordered from their web site: www.behavior-onics.com.
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Davidson is a public speaker and syndicated columnist. You may contact him at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034. To begin a bookcase literacy project visit www.bookcaseforeverychild.com. You won’t go wrong helping a needy child.)
