How to be a Good Parent for Your Child
Host: Unfortunately, it is not what you say anymore about teen parenting teenager. The philosophy was to be a parent first and a buddy second. In other words, say, for example, set some limits, show some understanding, show some forgiveness. Is that sure?
Warren M. Seigel: One of the things that I always tell the parents is your teenager doesn't need a friend. They have plenty of friends available to them in school. What they need is a parent and you are the only one who can be their parent, whether you are their mother or their father. They need role models, they need people that they can look up to. Even when they sit there, and make believe that you are a jerk, and they talk about you as if you are, which shows that deep down inside they know that you are their parent and you can't be replaced by anyone else. So the most important thing you can do, to raise a healthy teenager, it's not to be their friend, not to be their buddy, not be a school and their friends or, but to be their mother and father, and their role models, set a good example.
Host: So a good parent is the alternate guidance counselor?
Warren M. Seigel: I think that's even tougher than a guidance counselor, because a guidance counselor gets weekends off. At 5 o'clock or 4 o'clock, when the school closes, the guidance counselor gets to the home. To be a parent is the most difficult job you can ever have. It's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, very poor pay, and you get no time off for good behavior. It is a lifelong commitment and we have to recognize that. Hopefully before you have children, but certainly once you have children, you have to recognize that, there isn't a way out. This is forever -- divorce, separation nothing changes. Your parents are going to be your parents for ever and ever and your children are always going to look up to you, no matter how valuable or invaluable you might like to think you are, they are always going to be looking up to you, for the rules and the regulations, and finding out what you believe in. So that they can ultimately come to some self determination, some point where they say this is what I can become.
Host: I always tell everybody, everyone of my pencils has an eraser. So entitled to make mistakes, make corrections and that's a good example that they should learn down the road, is that sure?
Warren M. Seigel: I think that's sure, but I also think it's important for teenagers to learn that there are certain mistakes that cannot be erased, and that they have to recognize that when they make the decision, they have to look at, is this something that's going to have long term consequences. You used an example today of a hero in our state who made some bad decisions allegedly, made some bad decisions and I think we can help adolescents go from what we call concrete thinking which is, I do something, I don't worry about long term consequences. Two, abstraction, that is everything that I do that has the possibility of impacting on the rest of my life. We read in newspapers and magazines about kids taking pictures of themselves in very questionable positions and putting them on the Internet. We have to let adolescents know that that is not safe, because that often cannot be erased.
Host: So, in other words, it is not an easy job and when you then become the parent, and you have read the job description, you may think about doing it bit may be little slow?
Warren M. Seigel: My father told me long time ago, if anybody actually tried to take a course in parenting before they have children and they found out that is a lifelong commitment, how difficult it is and how tough it is going to be, probably most people would never have children. We have children for many, many reasons, but once we have children, we have to recognize that the prime responsibility we have to our kids is their emotional and physical growth and development. Keeping them safe for the rest of their lives and most of us don't turn out so badly after all.
Host: I think we want is to see they are being successful?
Warren M. Seigel: You see them being successful, you see them being emotionally and physically healthy and most importantly, you see them to the day where they turn around and say, you know what - I thank you, for what you did.
Host: You don't really die when you die -- influences on your children live on -- and that is sort of like an extension of you. Is that true?
Warren M. Seigel: Certainly, I would like to think so.
Host: Thank you very much.
Warren M. Seigel: Thank you.
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