Whether you're a single parent, a mom, dad, grandparent, aunt, uncle, teacher, or some other family member, you have some way of dealing with children. There are lots of parenting books and other resources out in the world and I don't have time to go over everything that I've learned. Today, my goal is to give some guidelines and ideas to help you deal with children in a loving way, that helps them grow into the person you want them to become.
Influence Pyramid
In my parenting class we discussed how when we have a problem with a child or another person, we tend to go directly to correction or communicating. This is usually not the best way to deal with a problem. The solution to a problem is always below the level where we we think the solution is. For instance, if my sister borrowed my shirt and got it dirty and I was upset, my first reaction would be to correct her. But, what I should do is listen and learn why she got it dirty and then communicate and teach her what she could do to prevent this or why this upset me. It would do no good to yell at her and say she can never borrow my clothes again. This wouldn't teach her anything and I might be judging too harshly for something that wasn't even her fault. Could be that someone threw something at her and it got the shirt dirty. So, I could listen and help her come up with better ways of being more careful with using other people's things. By teaching, I'm giving her the opportunity to learn and become more responsible in the future.
If you see a problem, you need to first think about how your way of being is towards that person, am I upset with this person or seeing them as an object instead of a person. Which means that I'm not treating this person the way I would treat myself, not thinking about their feelings and how I'm acting towards them. Then you would make sure you have relationships with those who have influence like family or friends. Next, you need to look at your relationship with that person or child and build on it. This means taking time to talk to them and listening, doing fun things with them, making sure that they know you love and care about them. Then you just continue up the pyramid from there. The most influence comes from those that you feel care and love you, that aren't just going to try to correct you, without listening and understanding. There's a lot more to this and you can read about it in the book-The Anatomy of Peace by The Arbinger Institute.
Unconditional Parenting
There's another great book called Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. Talks about how children need to feel unconditionally loved, this means you love them no matter what. Even though we all love our children, we need to show our children this through what we do and say, especially when they do something we think needs disciplining. When it comes to discipline for some reason, people tend to have the assumption that children are inherently bad and that we must correct them or punish them to make them good. I would say that children are inherently good and need to be taught rather than punished when they do something you don't agree or approve of. For instance, the author's daughter was four years old and one night she wouldn't get into the bath as she promised she would do and yelled loud enough to wake up her baby brother. Instead of taking the conditional approach, which would be to take away reading a bedtime story as they did each night and being told why she would get that punishment, he took the unconditional approach. He talked to her and explained what she did wrong after she had calmed down and read her the bedtime story. The point of unconditional parenting is to teach that your love is there no matter how they act, while still helping them learn what they do wrong and what they should do, while trying to understand why they act out. In her instance, she possibly could have been jealous of her new baby brother and all the time and attention he was getting. So, by taking away the story time, she would have thought it was true that her parents didn't love her as much as the baby and didn't want to spend time with her. I know this probably sounds weird, but I can't explain everything right now, so I would highly suggest reading the book to understand better. Also, please don't read just the beginning, the explanations really start towards the last half of the book.
Guiding Principles
There are 13 guiding principles to unconditional parenting.
1. Be Reflective. Before acting, be honest with yourself about your motives, make sure you aren't being overly controlling and are treating them in a fair and understanding way.
2. Reconsider your requests. Think about the age of the child, if the request is fair or necessary. For instance, if your kid won't practice the piano, should they be allowed to stop doing piano if they don't like it? Will they end up disliking music? Have you discussed with the child and listened to what their feelings are on the matter.
3. Keep your eye on the long-term goals. Do you want your child to grow up to be ethical, intelligently curious, content with themselves, have good healthy relationships? Then does it matter in the long run if they spill some milk or lose their temper? Are you teaching them in a calm and loving manner how to deal with these issues, without just punishing them?
4. Put the relationship first. Being right isn't necessarily what matters, said a father. If you constantly punish a child, instead of listening and learning, while also teaching and spending quality time with them, how will they feel about how much you love and care about them? If children feel safe and loved, they are more likely to explain when they do something wrong, come to us when they're in trouble, look to us for advice and to want to spend time with us.
5. Change how you see, not just how you act. What do you see when a child does something inappropriate? Do you see a child that needs to be punished or a problem to be solved together, an opportunity to teach rather than making the child suffer more? The working with is much better than the doing to approach. The way you respond comes from how you make sense of what happened.
6. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Learn to take your children seriously, they're people too. Don't dismiss your children's fears or feelings. Acknowledge how they feel, let them feel understood and important.
7. Be Authentic. Just because you're a parent, don't try to make your kids think you're perfect. Let them know you make mistakes too. Let them know you get frustrated, distracted or tired too. Also, don't be afraid to say you were wrong and apologize. This is important because it sets a powerful example of how to apologize and that it's ok to make mistakes and that things are sometimes our fault.
8. Talk less, ask more. We may be so busy explaining our point of view that we fail to hear the child's. Our first priority is to figure out the source of the problem and to recognize what the child needs. Listen without judgement and ask open-ended questions that allow the child to say how they feel and what happened, not judgmental questions.
9. Keep their ages in mind. Don't set unrealistically high expectations. For instance it's not reasonable to expect a toddler to sit quietly through a long dinner. Very young children can't grasp the obligation entailed by making a promise, so it's not appropriate to hold them responsible if they don't keep a promise. If a child is fidgety, that's normal, don't punish them for not being able to hold still. Parenting takes patience.
10. Attribute to children the best possible motive consistent with the facts. We usually don't know for sure why the child acted the way they did. Our beliefs can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. What you think, influences the way you act. If you see a child as a troublemaker and treat them that way or in the way you speak with them, you may create a belief in the child to become what you think they are. Even if you don't say anything, just in the way you way you treat them or over-control them may lead them to think you don't trust them and act in that way. Give the benefit of the doubt, accidents happen and things aren't always what they seem. Most importantly expect the best from your child, in their motives and who they are. Acknowledge the good, more than the bad.
11. Don't stick your no's in unnecessarily. More parents are consistently saying no. Children are told this literally every day, many times. Keep track and see how many times you say no compared to yes. When there's danger of course say no, but if it's not, make sure your motives are fair. Children are much more likely to listen, if you say yes more often. For instance, if your child wants to do a craft, but you don't want to take the time and you don't have anything urgent to do, say yes. I know I always appreciated my parents doing things with me and helped me feel I was important enough to turn off the TV and do things with me.
12. Don't be rigid. Make exceptions on the rules for special occasions and make sure they know they're an exception and shouldn't expect it all the time. Be understanding, everyone has an off-day, including children.
13. Don't be in a hurry. Be able to take time to let your kids do things on their time, especially when they get in the stage of doing things themselves. Make time to be able to let the child calm down from a tantrum or to stop doing something. If a child is going to have trouble sitting somewhere, bring a toy, book or something to help them succeed in behaving. Savor the time you have with your kids and make time for them, they grow up too quick.
My Thoughts
There's a lot that comes with being a parent and there are many challenges. Overall, I think it's best to take an authoritative parenting stance and have good reasonable demands of children, but let them have a say in those demands and consequences, when they're old enough to understand. This means working with your children to help them succeed and giving them opportunities to make their own decisions. We want our children to grow up and be able to take care of themselves and that means letting them practice, before they are on their own, so that we can help them learn and become capable adults. This will mean more talks and having them help decide what their limits or boundaries are and knowing why they're in place. Especially, make time to talk about problems you foresee and coming up with solutions and explanations of what's right and wrong. This can prevent many problems and issues and helps them know where you stand. Most of all, be a good listener and try to see things from their perspective, treating them the way you want to be treated. What are some parenting methods or things that you've seen in parents that you think are good at showing love?
Below are links to Haim Ginott who wrote a great parenting book and is actually quite entertaining. These clips are pretty short, so feel free to watch them all.
Below is a link to a great comedy piece, that helps you see things from your child's perspective.
Below is a link to the teacher of my parenting class doing a presentation about schools and teaching morals. He also has some other great videos that you might see on the side that are good.
Below is a link to a talk by President Thomas S. Monson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints about morals and why they're important.
My references for my post are The Anatomy of Peace and Unconditional Parenting.
Another great book to read would be Mindset The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck and helps you learn how to reach your full potential and how you can help your child reach their full potential.
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