AMMENHEUSER FAMILY TENETS

Family Tenets

These are the major principles we raised our children on:

• This is the absolute #1 – reinforce the Golden Rule from day one by living it. Children learn what they live.
• Instill the belief that friends should enhance your life - not erode it, tear it down or suck the energy from it. Who needs friends like that(?)!
• Eat together every night at the kitchen table with no TV on. Talk about the day and anything else. It really doesn’t matter the subject. Obviously as the children grew into their pre-teens and beyond this became much more difficult with their extra-curricular activities. But by that time, the habit had been developed, respected and still practiced when available.
• When it comes to physical discipline – keep the big picture in mind. Does the issue really deserve a spanking? Probably not. I can vaguely recall one or two times when the kids actually got a spanking in their pre-teen years. It was painful as a loving parent. Afterward, they actually came back stating they deserved it and understood why.
• Reverse parenting roles. Obviously there were other times when a child needed some “re-direction” regarding lessons of life. My wife and I would reverse roles playing good/bad cop. When times were tough and we had to reinforce lessons on the children, my wife and I would discuss who would be the good or bad cop in the conversation to be had with the children. We would switch roles when another lesson needed to be engrained later. This resulted in no one parent being the “one to go to” when an issue arose. The children learned there is an open dialog with both parents and they should not fear discussing issues with either of them.