Good principles of parenting

Let’s keep in mind that our parenting will keep changing as we gradually grow into it and as our children grow older and their needs change. It is in constant evolution. What we need to keep stable are some fundamental principles of good parenting. They will hold us in good stead in times of turbulence and change throughout our parenting years.

 Consider the following principles:

• Unconditional Love

  Love your child for who they are, not just for what they do. Your love is their safe haven in the world. Unconditional love means that despite behaviour that you do not like, you still love the child. It is only behaviour driven by some anxiety.

• Active Listening

  When you listen to your child with an open heart, you show them that their voice matters. It's the key to understanding and connection. Effective listening allows the child to feel heard and valued. They are then more inclined to  go to you when they are anxious and need to be heard.

• Setting Boundaries with Empathy

  Boundaries are like the walls of a safe playground. Set them with love and understanding, so your child can explore the world confidently. Boundaries allow the child to know where they stand and what matters to you the parent.

• Positive Reinforcement

  Praise their effort and progress, not just the end result. Your encouragement fuels their motivation to learn and grow. Be specific when praising. Let the child know what is valued in the praise.

• Teaching Through Example

  Your actions speak louder than words. Be the role model you want your child to follow, and they'll learn from your example.

• Embracing Mistakes as Learning

  Mistakes are stepping stones, not stumbling blocks. Show your child that it's okay to make mistakes; it's how we learn and improve. Let them see in your own life how you use mistakes to inform your life. Talk openly about how mistakes are a great learning tool.

•  Provide a safe haven

  A child that feels safe takes more risks and learns more confidently through their home environment. Set it up so that conversation is encouraged and affirmation is given regularly. Let there be no judgement on their efforts.

•  Set up a positive learning environment

  This should be a creative space where your child feels safe to talk about issues, develop ideas and discuss topics. Allow your child to explore their thinking in a home and family environment that is open to ideas and questions all the time.  They will feel free to be creative and extend ideas and thoughts well beyond the conventional.

We can never be the perfect parent. That is a myth. We can however be a parent that understands and works hard to practise some basis principles that hold strong and true through your rearing years.

“Learning some basic principles of parenting provides a safety zone for good parenting.”

— Gail J Smith

Do you ever feel like you have hit rock bottom as a parent?

We all have those moments and sometimes they turn into hours!

In my work as a school principal, I was always noticing the major changes and adjustments that families made as time went on. Crisis can hit, but as time went on, circumstances shifted and new life came into what were very difficult situations.

Fear is often an issue with parents when they think about the worst-case scenario. They think about the dreaded, ‘What if’ factor. This can become quite a preoccupation. It can cloud common sense responses to situations and can limit a parent’s ability to open their minds to options.

Here are some ideas to keep you going and to remind you that being human, making mistakes, etc. is all part of parenting:

• Nothing is permanent. If you have a crisis or just hitting rock bottom, it will pass. Time has a way of shifting the ebbs and flows of life experiences. Everything has its season.

• Children keep changing and evolving. Their thoughts and ideas keep shifting and their needs and demands will change as we, the parents, change with them. Therefore, worrying unduly or overthinking about one issue is pointless. Sometimes preoccupying ourselves can mean the problem just disappears, without any of our interference.

• The problems children have are children’s problems, so I recommend putting things into perspective and worrying less. Children’s problems come and go and they often take charge of them themselves. Everything of course within reason.

• Your children will surprise you! When it comes, enjoy the challenge and try not to become anxious about its implications.

• If you are getting tired from just parenting, perhaps you are working at it too hard. Are you overthinking matters? Perhaps you are demanding too much control? Some of the best parenting I have seen came from relaxed and easy-going people who were quite happy to let things just be at times and not interfere too much with their children’s issues. Simply having a presence can at times be enough.

• Don’t forget to not lose yourself in parenting. Allow some time for yourself to develop who you are. The happier you are as a person in your own right, the better you will be as a parent. Think about exercising or doing some activity that gives you joy. Permit yourself to be a parent that makes room for yourself.

• If you are feeling overwhelmed, learn to reduce the pressure. Find ways to cut back on planned activities or slow down from adding to the list of things to do. Your child wants you as a happy parent, not a fatigued parent. Less is better when it all gets too much!

• Be honest with your child. If you are tired tell them. If you haven't the time to do what is requested, talk about it. Your child needs to learn and understand your limits. Be authentic with them and they will appreciate your honesty. This is how they learn empathy, compassion and tolerance. This is also about setting responsible boundaries that support your needs.

• If you are hitting a low point, seek out friends and companions that have a similar journey. A lot can be gained by having such a support group to call on. We all need to rely on others. Parenting has been around since the cavemen.

• Sometimes saying less when things get heated is the best way not to overcomplicate situations and tire yourself out. We often try to be available and solve situations on the run. Saying less and even silence at times creates some emotional respite which can be a calming time.

• If discipline is needed, are you the one to deal with it if you are not in the right space? Perhaps delay discipline if you are not able to deal with it at the time. You need to be well and in a good mental space to be disciplining children.

• Try not to be critical of yourself as a parent. You are doing the best you can. Don’t compare yourself to others. You can go into dangerous emotional spaces when you do this comparison. Your child loves and values you for who you are, warts and all so keep up with just loving your child and doing your best. By the way, I have never met a perfect parent!

 Finally play often with your child. The more you play, the less intense you are and that greater feeling of being connected to your child tends to wash away some of those feelings of it all being too much. Play is a wonderful healing agent. We all need to play from time to time.

         ‘Self care is turning some of the nurturing energy you give to your child, towards yourself.’

                                                                       -Kristi Yeh LMFT

Faults! We all have them.

Do we sometimes focus too much on the faults that we see around us? Children by nature of being children are frequently making mistakes from practical matters through to their fragile emotional growth. I say all hail faults! Have often do you hear your child say:

“It’s not my fault.” At an early age, a child struggles to own a fault.

The key here is to focus more on virtues and gifts that we see present in our children. We certainly teach our children to manage faults and we do this in a gentle and caring way. We teach them to manage their faults and we praise their efforts when they show improvement.

Now that school has resumed children are exposed to various learning situations that will challenge them both inside the classroom and outside. They begin to recognise through the support of teachers, that making mistakes is acceptable and that we learn to strengthen the fault line by practice, effort and determination. Their world in school will be a daily exercise of managing success and checking in when faults occur. Our job as parents is to support them by accepting that we all make mistakes and have faults that can be worked on with support and encouragement. Let us take out the negative undertone of the word, “fault” and see it as an opportunity to grow. I am inclined to replace the word with “mistakes”.

Consider the following thoughts:

• Are you a person who tends to notice faults before you notice the best of the person? If this is the case keep reminding yourself that focussing on faults only exacerbates one’s feeling of failure or disappointment in someone else.  It is not difficult to develop a negative mindset about someone if you just focus on their faults.

• Talk about how you have been working on yourself to improve in some area. Perhaps your fault is never being on time. Talk to your child about what you are doing to improve in this area. It’s important to show the child that naming the fault is the first job in taking control. Once named it puts things into perspective.

• When your child talks about how they are struggling to succeed in an area, talk about the times you have seen improvement. Build on the positive times when you did see improvement.

“I can see you are struggling with maths. I remember how you mastered the times tables last year. That was a great success”.

• Remind your child that we all have faults. It’s part of the human condition. Many of our great achievers over time struggled with faults and worked hard by taking risks and working on improvement.

It’s all about developing the best disposition and owning those faulty areas in which improvement can take place if you so wish to work on them.

“I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect.”

— Spike Lee

Make the most of your mistakes

We all make mistakes and thank God for that!

Einstein, the great physicist, was famous for commenting on how repeated mistakes led to his final discoveries. We need error to check our thinking and stimulate us to look for other ways and processes to be successful. Having said that, it is still often a concern for some children when they make a mistake. Some children develop a fear of making a mistake. In working with children it often appeared to be tied up with their belief that they will let their parents down. Unfortunately, the more they are conditioned to hanging onto this fear, the less they will try as they feel more secure in just not having a go! After all that makes them feel more secure!

Teachers often struggle with this issue in the classroom. At the risk of sounding too sure of myself, I see this problem generally in first children. They are more inclined to be cautious and only take one step forward and sometimes two steps back!

We need to understand that they fear disappointing others. Therefore, we need to reassure them that we applaud the effort not the outcome. It is all about celebrating, 'having a go'.

 Here are some suggestions for supporting the child through this habit forming problem.

•  As a family set up a 'having a go' sheet. Every time the child tells you that they really had a go over some tricky situation put a tick on the sheet and agree to some reward when the chart has completed ten ticks. This is all about changing patterns and affirming the effort.

• Be spontaneous and when you notice an attempt, affirm the child.

• When you look at the school work that comes home, take care to comment on the work completed and the effort made. Avoid highlighting the mistakes.

          Here you say:

           “These are where you have growth curves to learn more. We all have growth curves.”

             Talk about your growth curves that you are working on to improve yourself.

• Across the week when chatting, talk about one situation where you had a go even though it was hard. Discuss how you felt? Take care not to talk about too many successes. Just focus on the effort you took. Keep in mind their fear of disappointing you. Reinforce how happy you are when they simply, 'have a go'.

  You could say,

            “ I love your efforts. You always have a go and that is what I love about you”

There are some excellent children's feeling books obtainable in most libraries. This could be a great way of talking about fears of making mistakes. Talk to the school librarian or to the local librarian about suitable books. Remember, we are changing their thoughts on what really pleases us. It is all about the effort.

“ Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

— Albert Einstein

We need to understand that children fear disappointing others. We need to reassure them that we applaud the effort not the outcome. It is all about celebrating, 'having a go'.

How to give children a way of understanding failure.

Growing up is such a learning curve on so many levels!

As an adult we understand through our developed emotional intelligence that failure happens to all of us. We also understand that sometimes it takes time and effort to turn failure into success.

We also learn that failure is another way of learning and growing stronger.

A child who has less experience and is not emotionally mature enough to understand failure can see it as quite a blocker to their learning. They can shut down quite easily, being more comfortable in not doing anything rather than “having a go”. The more frequently this happens, the longer it takes to change the patterns.

It is quite common to hear parents comment on how their child has stopped trying as they are scared of failure. After all, in their mind, the best defence is just not doing the work, if it gives you feelings of being unsuccessful. As a parent, this can be quite daunting, especially if you feel that you are always affirming them for their efforts.

I have seen this pattern in many children and no surprises, it is often the first child that struggles in this area. There is no simple answer, as it does require the child developing a set of skills to overcome this fear and this takes time and perseverance on the part of the supporting family. Below are some suggestions for supporting your child's developing  emotional awareness.

With a child who is finding their work never adequate or good enough, affirm different aspects of their work not just offering an overall affirmation.

“I really like the way you drew the line on the page. It's very straight”

 “I am so impressed that you started that sentence well.”

Here you are building positive comments in that are real and the child can see that it is genuine.  But take care not to constantly affirm as the child disengages from excessive, general affirmation.

Talk openly about failures that you have had to deal with and discuss the ways you solved the problem or at least handled the situation. Here you are reinforcing the concept that failure is part of everyday life. This is effective coaching without forcing solutions on a child.

There are wonderful books on building self worth and coping with failure. Book stores that cover emotion and feelings are excellent for this purpose. As you read the stories of how failure was a process that a child had to work through, discuss similar times in your own life.

Keep a success journal. This means that every time your child has felt that they overcome a feeling of failure, write about it as a family. Remember, we are affirming the efforts or tools that the child used to overcome the fear.

Also a success jar is fun where you add a marble every time a child works through a fear of failure.

Talk to your child's teacher about the areas that they notice cause anxiety in your child. This gives you some ideas on what areas to affirm at home. Remember to be specific when affirming.

Use the scale approach.

“You are anxious about that test? On a scale of one to ten how do you feel? Now what can we do to drop that number and slow the anxiety down?”

Here you acknowledge that sometimes you will still have anxiety about the problem but by finding ways to lower the fear, you can cope so much better.

Keep in mind that it is important to recognise their fears and not downplay their importance. This way they know you are really listening to them.

“It sounds to me like you are really worried about talking in front of the class. Tell me more about that feeling.” By listening honestly, the child will be comfortable in talking about their fears.

Discuss with the whole family how important it is to acknowledge the child's fear and encourage other less stressed siblings to not underplay their fear.

Learning to cope with fear is a gradual process and once a child develops some tools to cope better and feels success from this, they begin to strengthen their emotional maturity and identify in themselves the cues that lead to fear of failure.

Affirmation for your child's good work and success is important.  How much is too much and when is it needed?