Dr. Guarendi delivers advice to parents

By ROB HERBST
The Catholic Week
MOBILE — Catholic clinical psychologist Dr. Ray Guarendi has a message for parents who’ve had adult children leave the faith.
Stop beating yourself up over it.
Dr. Guarendi was the featured speaker at Archangel Radio’s 1410 Dinner for donors on Dec. 3 at the Ezell House in Mobile. The author and nationally syndicated radio host, whose program ‘The Doctor is In” can be heard at 12:30 p.m. weekdays on Archangel Radio, delivered his advice on parenting, discipline and raising children Catholic with a heavy dose of humor.
For those second-guessing their parenting skills, Dr. Guarendi urged those to look to Jesus Christ as an example.
“Could He get most people to follow Him? Oh you think you're better?” he asked rhetorically. “ 'Can you do a miracle? Can you even do a crummy card trick.' Our Lord himself couldn't even get most people to follow him. Who do we think we are?” 
While tempting to do so, Dr. Guarendi also stressed parents shouldn’t push their adult children back to the faith.
“You do what you can, you do your very best, you teach them, you raise your odds, but you have no guarantees,” he said. “Then you beat yourself up and start acting stupid because you push on them. … Jesus sent out the Disciples two-by-two. He said ‘if they don't listen to you, shake the dust off your feet.’ Our Lord didn't say ‘keep going back.’”
Dr. Guarendi is the father of 10 children and also had plenty of advice for parents currently raising children.
For example, parents must discipline their children. If not, someone else will. He stressed that “Discipline without love may be harsh, but love without discipline is child abuse.”
He added: “We discipline because we love that kid. If we don’t do it now, somebody else will – a judge, a landlord, an Army sergeant, a police officer, an employer. Ultimately they are going to get discipline and the world hurts.”
Some have said it’s more challenging now because children have changed. 
Dr. Guarendi disputed that and said what parents need is “the perception of authority.”
“Many parents had ‘the look,’” he said. “Remember ‘the look?’ You look at a kid now and he shouts back ‘what are you looking at?’ … Kids haven’t changed a bit, but people have changed.”
They’ve changed because of what Dr. Guarendi called “psychological correctness.”
“Culture is in big trouble when psychological correctness is replacing moral correctness,” he said. “More and more people are asking the question ‘is it normal’ as opposed to ‘is it right?’ A 3-year-old throwing a meltdown fit is perfectly normal, but it’s not good. A 14-year-old can be snotty, surly and disrespectful if you let them. It’s normal, it’s not right. The question is not ‘Is it normal?’ Sin is normal.”
Also needed to effectively parent are confidence in oneself and patience.
Dr. Guarendi said not all discipline measures will work. He estimated his father’s discipline “worked about 50 percent of the time.”
“You can’t parent with resolve if you’re second-guessing yourself,” he said.
Society has also become less patient, he said, and that lack of patience can affect parenting skills.
“I get up in the morning, I put my mug in the microwave, I punch in 60 seconds and then I said there at the 30-second mark like a lunatic … ‘Come on, come on, come on, I don’t have all minute!’”
Dr. Guarendi compared children’s behavorial problems to that of going to confession. Many people will confess the same sins repeatedly. 
But if that’s the case, why don’t parents have the same patience with children?
“It’s the same (sins) I’ve been telling for the last 35 years … we’re allowed to do that. But if the kid doesn’t learn after three months of sitting in a chair, (we think) what is wrong with him?
“I can’t give you the will. It’s not a how-to, it’s a will-to.”