CFD Psych

When I was young I loved playing football. I loved it with a passion. The thought of not being able to play was such a horrible idea to me that I would be glad to behave myself reasonably well to insure that football wasn't taken away. My parents well knew how much I loved the game, and they also didn't misuse their power by threatening to pull the rug out from under me at the slightest offense. It was understood however that if I did anything "real bad", I would be taken out of football. I made sure that this was not going to happen. I made mostly good choices, and certainly didn't test my parents on the principles involved as I could just tell they meant what they said.

Today's youth usually don't develop a sport or hobby to the point of falling in love with it. That's too bad because children need to immerse themselves in a real sport or art deep enough to become positively addicted to it with a passion. If they do, they won't wanna lose it. They will play it safe....and that's a good thing. If there's no love for anything but let's say an XBox, then electronics can be used as leverage and the privilege of using electronic devices can be leveraged as a potential "loss of privileges'. That will work, too, but not at the depth level that comes with losing a sport or an art where the person has labored to learn the skills through hard work and sweat labor rather than "thumb exercises" on a joy stick. Young people will tend to not misbehave too badly when they really love something and desperately don't want to lose it. For assistance with child and adolescent behavior problems or parenting issues, please feel free to contact me or another child psychologist for a consultation at Child and Family Development.