Nineteen Ways to Exasperate Your Child 1. Failure to be happy, hopeful and confident in God 2. Endless criticism/fault-finding 3. Failure to listen 4. Nagging/deriding their efforts 5. Constant yelling 6. Failure to spend time individually with children 7. Unfair, harsh, inconsistent, or nonexistent discipline 8. Conflicting messages 9. Unwillingness to admit personal sin/seek child’s forgiveness 10. Unapproachable disposition 11. Deferred aggression 12. Lack of encouragement/compliments 13. Overprotection 14. Partiality/favoritism between children 15. Setting unrealistic goals/expectations 16. Failure to show love/affection 17. Neglect (physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually) 18. Lack of standards/double standards 19. Unwillingness to model desired behavior.