Introduction

For those of you who are familiar with my work and have read my other books, you know by now that I am a one-trick pony. This means that there is one central theme in all that I do. That central theme is personal responsibility. In my first book, Shut Up, Stop Whining & Get A Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life, I emphasized my theme in terms of personal development. In It’s Called Work for a Reason! Your Success Is Your Own Damn Fault, I exploited my message of personal responsibility in the area of business. Then I used it again in You’re Broke Because You Want to Be: How to Stop Getting By and Start Getting Ahead in the area of personal finance. I followed that up with The Idiot Factor: The 10 Ways We Sabotage Our Life, Money, and Business. In that book, I once more pound home the idea that you must take control of every area of your life, stop blaming others for your problems and be willing to do whatever it takes to create the life you want. Four books with the central theme of personal responsibility. I am back again to harp on that theme this time in the area of parenting. Our society is a mess today and will only get worse because parents are not taking responsibility for teaching their kids the principles of how to lead successful, productive lives. That trend has to stop and stop now! My intention is to turn that cycle of destruction around in this book.

“I have great kids, Larry. I don’t need this book.”

I know you have great kids. All kids are great. And if you don’t believe it, just ask their parents. Rather than argue that point, I am going to give in and just say all kids, in the beginning, are great kids. Kids come into this world as blank slates that you, the parent, get to write on. Whatever you write on that slate will determine whether your great kid will turn into a great adult or whether he will become a leech on society. So while your kid is a “great kid,” that isn’t really the point, is it? The real point is to teach your kids to become the best adult version of themselves they can be.

Is this book for you?

This book is for the parents who love their kids, want the best for them, and are willing to do whatever it takes to turn that kid into a great adult. Maybe they just need a reminder of what’s really important and that it’s time to get back to basics. Or maybe they need a wake-up call so they can turn a bad situation around. Or maybe they need a kick in the pants to tell them they have been messing up and they need to get back in control of their family.

This book is for the millions of hardworking parents with normal situations and regular kids who want to raise these kids to be responsible adults who will make a good living, be good people who do the right thing and grow up to raise their own good kids. It is for the single mom and the weekend dad and for the parents who have solid marriages. It is for parents like those who are serious about raising responsible children.

What you can expect from the book:

In this book I am going to cover exactly what has gone wrong with parenting and the lack of it and why kids end up the way they are and acting the way they do. I am going to give you many examples of what I consider to be bad parenting and point out the long-term effects that kind of parenting is having on our society. I am going to talk about what I believe we should teach our kids so they will grow to be responsible adults. That is my one goal for every parent: creating responsible, productive adults.

What you can’t expect from the book:

I am not going to deal with the people who should never have had kids to begin with. We all know those folks are everywhere! They are on television being arrested for abuse and abandonment. They are running to the sperm bank or getting fertility treatments so they can have another eight kids when they can’t afford to take care of the six they already have. Some people should not be allowed to reproduce. I am talking about people who take no interest in their kids, and who have no values worthy of passing on. That’s all I am going to say about these worthless wastes of skin. Kids are both a privilege and a responsibility. If you aren’t ready for the responsibility, you shouldn’t get to experience the privilege of having them. And if you aren’t ready for the responsibility, try birth control or learn to keep it in your pants.

I am also not going to deal with any of the extreme issues that many parents face like raising children with mental or physical challenges, though most of the parenting principles I am addressing here would apply to those kids as well. I know that many kids have very special needs that require special attention. I am also not addressing child abuse, whether it is sexual, physical or mental. I don’t have the expertise, the credentials or the inclination to write about that.

In fact, this isn’t much of a “how-to” book at all. I am not going to talk about how to change diapers or how to get little Jimmy to drink his milk or brush his teeth. I am not going to tell you how to get little Sally to clean up her room. I am not going to hold your hand and pass out basic information about every parenting issue you have already faced or will eventually face. I simply cannot address every situation you are ever going to come up against, so don’t expect me to. Besides, there are plenty of books out there that will teach you all of that basic stuff better than I ever could.

Ultimately, how you teach your kids is always going to be up to you, because every kid is different and requires a unique, personalized approach. Plus, most parenting lessons can’t be planned in advance. Most lessons are taught “on the fly” as the situation occurs. No true “how-to” can work in those circumstances.

This is actually more of a “what-to” book. I am going to show you what to teach your kids more than how to teach your kids. In the long run, it’s what they know that is important. The method you use to get that information into their brains is up to you.

“What gives you the right to teach parenting, Larry?”

That is a fair question since I am known as either a business consultant or a personal development guru or a financial coach. Yet that is exactly what gives me the right to talk about parenting. Besides, I am not really teaching parenting and we need to get that straight from the outset. I am teaching fiscal responsibility, discipline, consequences, goal setting, education, love, charity, ethics, how to work and how to have fun along with many other principles of a productive life. These are the principles that I have taught in every one of my books thus far. These are the principles every person must learn and adhere to in order to lead a successful, happy, financially secure life. These are the “what-to’s” I just referred to. All I am doing in this book is offering the lessons I am best known for on a level where they can be taught to children. I am not teaching parenting, I am teaching life.

In every book I have written, I point to my personal experience as my right to teach others what to do. I clearly point out what I have done wrong in my personal life, my business life, with my money, what consequences I experienced and what I did to overcome the mess I made. I teach the lessons that I learned the hard way. I also teach what I have learned from my reading and study on the subject.

This book is no different. I am going to cover what I did wrong as a parent and what I learned from my mistakes. And I am going to cover what I did right as a parent and the influence it had on my now adult sons. You will also get the benefit of the research I have done by studying the works of many of the world’s leading parenting experts.

But what most gives me the right to talk about parenting comes down to just two reasons: Aaron Tyler Winget and Patrick Mason Winget. Two responsible men, who tell the truth, take responsibility, work hard, pay their bills and contribute to society. Anyone who can raise two good kids when there are so many idiots roaming the streets has a thing or two to teach others.

I can’t fix your kid.

You may have purchased this book thinking I am going to teach you the keys to fixing your kid. Sorry. This book is not about fixing your kid. First, I don’t really believe your kid is broken; therefore he or she doesn’t need to be fixed.

“What? But I want my kid fixed!” Too bad. That’s not what I’m here to do. I know your kid may be a mess, but it’s not your kid’s fault that he is a mess. And believe me, I know there are a lot of messed-up kids out there. But again, it’s not their fault. The fault lies with the parents.

Therefore, this is not a “fix-your-kid” book. This is a “fix-the-way-you-parent-your-kid” book. When you fix the way you parent, your kid will get fixed. That’s the sequence. I want to be very clear so you won’t be surprised: It’s not about them; it’s about you! Like I said a few pages back, if you want to fix your kid’s behavior, change your own behavior.

That is going to be your biggest obstacle in this whole process of raising responsible, productive kids: becoming a responsible, productive parent. And don’t tell me you are a responsible parent who has done everything right and you still have kids who are a mess. That’s not how it works. Let me repeat a basic premise from all of my books:

MEANING . . .

Everything in your life gets better right after YOU get better and nothing in your life is ever going to get better until you get better.

This isn’t going to be an easy process because it requires that you get better by taking a long, hard look at the way you are raising your kids. And you have to get better long before your kids are ever going to get any better. If your kids are a mess, it’s time to take responsibility for it. Consider what you have done wrong as a parent and tell yourself that you are ready to do whatever it takes to improve your skills so you will end up with a responsible, productive adult. Remember, your kids are your own fault.

So let’s get started. There is no time to waste!

A few words of warning:

Warning #1.

I hate it when people tell me how great their kids are. Nothing makes me want to puke quicker than someone who goes on and on about how cute their kid is or bores me with all of their kid’s accomplishments. Yuk! I bet you feel the same way. Here is my problem: I can’t explain how I believe you should parent your kids without telling you how I parented my kids. I can’t talk about what to teach your kids unless I tell you what I taught my own kids. Therefore, you are going to hear quite a bit about my boys. Sorry. I am not going to go on and on about how great they were though, I promise. Because the fact is, they weren’t all that great. They were just kids. Some days, they were pretty good. Some days, I wanted to choke them out. Most days, they were just kids. They are both men now and I’m proud of the kind of men they turned out to be. But trust me when I say they were idiots a good part of the time growing up. I will do my best to keep a good balance between describing the idiot kids they were and the responsible adults they became so you won’t want to puke. But remember the most important thing to take away when I talk about my sons is the lesson involved in the story. And I promise, there won’t be a story unless there is a lesson.

Warning #2.

I take a hard line on discipline. I believe lines should be drawn in the sand in terms of acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior. When those lines are crossed, consequences must be imposed. Those consequences must be carried out whether you are busy, preoccupied with other things, whether it is convenient, whether you feel good, and even when your heart isn’t in it. You drew the line; it was agreed upon with your child and a deal is a deal. If you have a problem imposing consequences for unacceptable behavior then you are going to hate this book.

Warning #3.

I speak in generalizations. I make blanket statements that apply to most people in most situations. There are exceptions. I recognize that. I am fully aware that there are few situations that there are no exceptions for. So don’t bother pointing the exceptions out to me. I don’t discount the fact that there are exceptions to every point I make in this book. I just don’t intend to deal with them.

Warning #4.

I quote a lot of statistics in this book. I don’t footnote every statistic I use. That’s not my style and it doesn’t seem to be the style of those who read my writings. I don’t make stuff up. The statistics quoted all came from reliable sources. If you want to find out where they came from, then I encourage you to do a little research: Google it. You can find verification for every statistic in the book by investing just a few minutes of your time by doing a Google search.

My personal request to you.

You are not going to agree with everything I say in this book. In fact, I hope you don’t agree with everything. If you did, you wouldn’t be thinking on your own. I don’t want blind followers, I want fully aware, engaged people to read my words and agree where they feel they should and disagree where something opposes their own personal belief system. A good healthy disagreement means you are involved and thinking. Being involved and thinking critically is always a good thing whether you agree or not.

My request to you is this: If you find something I say that you vehemently disagree with, move on. Go ahead and disagree with me on that one idea and keep reading. Don’t throw out everything else that you might be okay with and be able to use simply because I lose you on one point.

I once received a letter in response to something I said in my book The Idiot Factor: The 10 Ways We Sabotage Our Life, Money, and Business. The guy told me he had to discount the contents of the entire book, even though he saw application for a good bit of it in his own life, simply because he disagreed with a statement I made about bottled water. All I could think of was how sad that is. One line that had almost nothing to do with the overall message of the book caused this guy to abandon things he openly admitted he needed to do.

Please don’t do that with this book. Parenting is a touchy subject. Talking to people about their kids and pointing an accusatory finger in the faces of the parents causes people’s hackles to rise! All I ask is that you be open enough to find one thing in this book you can use to raise a better kid. One good idea is my goal for you. One idea so that at the end of the book, you can close it, and have the resolve to take action to improve the life of the person you brought into this world and are in charge of. Deal? I hope so.

Okay, that’s it. Are you ready to get started raising better kids? If so, get your pencil and keep reading.

Before you begin:

I am a huge believer in making books interactive. My books all include worksheets to fill out and this one is no exception. I want you to get out a pencil right now and go to work on the next few pages before you even begin to read my suggestions on raising good kids. Please don’t skip the exercises as these will form the basis for your entire approach to parenting.

Begin with the end in mind.

If you want to build a house, you begin with the end in mind. You visualize the finished product and then create the plans to make your vision come to fruition. You hire an architect, find a builder and go to work. Your general contractor keeps close watch on all the subcontractors to make sure they are doing their job and that the project stays on track. You put your time and your energy and your money into the project to make sure what you picture in your mind is what you actually end up with.

That is exactly what parenting is about, too. You begin with the end in mind. Only, in parenting, you are the architect, the builder and the general contractor. There are some subcontractors in there, too. Those subcontractors are grandparents, family, friends, babysitters, teachers, coaches and others who will have periodic and temporary responsibility for your child’s development throughout their life. As the general contractor you are in charge of those subcontractors to make sure they do their job and help you keep the overall project on track.

Imagine this: You decide you want to build a beautiful new house, so you go to the lumber yard and order a bunch of lumber, some pipes and wires, a cabinet and some doors, then throw in a toilet bowl, a sink and some lawn seed. Then you have all of that stuff delivered, piled up at your building site and sit looking at it with no plan at all. Would you do that? Of course not. That would be stupid. But that is how most people parent. They parent without a plan. They have all this fun creating the baby and then nine months later when the baby gets delivered they’ve got the diapers, the nursery, the bottles and the formula, but they don’t have a plan to create the end product. They don’t know what kind of adult they want to raise. Sure, they may say things like, “He’s going to be a doctor!” Or, “She could be President of the United States!” But do they have a plan to get them there? Rarely.

Parents may spend a lot of time looking into the future and picturing the end product, but most haven’t put a lot of time into figuring out what has to be done every single day to make sure it happens. It’s not enough to just picture the end product; you also have to focus on the daily effort it takes to get there.

That is my approach in this section. I want you to begin with the end in mind. I want you to think about what kind of adult you would like to create. That is what parenting really is: creating adults. I may have hooked you with the title, but I want to make one thing clear to you right now: This book is not about how to stop raising irresponsible kids; it is about how to create a plan for raising smart adults. Few parents think far enough through the process of parenting to understand that concept.

The subtitle of this book is A Guide For Raising Responsible, Productive Adults. I know some will say, “Didn’t you mean to say Kids instead of Adults?” No, I meant adults. I don’t believe you raise kids as much as you raise adults. If your children stayed kids forever I would have written about raising kids. But they don’t. Kids grow up and become adults.

You create the adults the rest of us will have to put up with. You typically have your children under your roof for eighteen years and then they begin to make their own decisions and the rest of us end up living with the consequences of those decisions. You have them for eighteen years as children, but the rest of the world has them for about another sixty years as adults. Your few years at the beginning are what create the person they become after you get them out of the house.

In order to figure out what those first eighteen years are going to entail for you as the parent, you must begin by looking at the adult you want to create.

Let’s visit the time machine.

Stop thinking of your kid as he is today. Forget that he is a drooling ten-month-old in his high chair throwing Cheerios. Instead, picture your kid at the ripe old age of thirty-five. What do you want him to look like? What habits do you want him to have? What lifestyle do you want him to embrace? How much money would you like for him to be earning? Do you want your kid dependent on you? Unable to make decisions? In debt? Still living at home? Still going to school? Out of work? In a series of bad relationships? Those are the questions you must ask yourself before you even enter into the whole “raising-a-child” mode. Picture your kid at thirty-five and work backward.

Why do I want you to do this? I have seen way too many parents looking at their thirty-five-year-old kid wishing they had done things differently when their kid was little. Their thirty-five-year-old “child” is broke, unhappy, can’t figure out how to be in a relationship, may still live at home or is still dependent on them. And that thirty-five-year-old will go out there and pass on the same faults when they have kids of their own.

If you are looking at a thirty-five-year-old disaster, face it folks: It is too late. You have failed as a parent. You have failed yourself, your child and your child’s children. You have failed society. And all of us will end up bearing the burden of your failure. Thanks! Think of that the next time you bump into a thirty-five-year-old idiot; you should send his parents a thank-you note because it’s their fault.

Hindsight is 20/20.

You’ve heard that old saying. Twenty-twenty hindsight is fine when you are thinking on Monday about how you shouldn’t have washed your car on Sunday because you heard it would rain and sure enough, it did. It’s fine when you are looking back at how some investment didn’t turn out to be your finest decision. While the consequences may be serious, a bad investment normally isn’t a life-destroying issue. However, looking at your thirty-five-year-old disaster of a human being and wishing you had done things differently is not okay. Twenty-twenty hindsight doesn’t matter at that point. It’s too late. You can’t go back and re-raise your child. You have to have foresight when raising your kid. That’s what I am trying to help you develop with this exercise: foresight. I want you to have the foresight to actually design the thirty-five-year-old adult you want your child to eventually become.

Take the time right now, yes, right now, to fill out these pages.

(Click to download three page PDF with the following 4 questions. Print the file then fill out your answers)

Congratulations! You have just written your own book on how to raise a productive, caring, smart, loving, responsible, well-adjusted adult. Now that you have written yours, read mine.



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