Do we accept what parenting brings us?

Do we all want perfect children? I am not quite sure what that is “perfect”. In fact I would question any parent who says that their life as a parent is perfect and their children give them a perfect ride.

Life isn’t like that and the child will naturally want to grow and develop in ways that at times causes us some tension and stretches our imagination. Children are growing up in a different world to their parents and are being exposed to many and varied differences, not the least of which is technology driven.

Accept what parenting brings. It will take you on an amazing voyage where you will discover in yourself different and unexpected ways to grow. Imagine that! You too will grow with your child.

As a young parent we have expectations that we will be the best parent we can possibly be. I would say to this that you probably are but the unknown is how the child grows and how they manage their challenges in their world. How will they challenge us? How do we meet those challenges head on, or gradually work with them in consultative ways? These are the big questions.

In working with families, it was not uncommon to hear parents talk about the unacceptable challenges that were put in front of them. They had no expectations that parenting would challenge their values, their thinking, put them in uncomfortable positions and more importantly force them to operate in ways that they thought impossible. They were feeling uncomfortable.

Their whole world could be turned on its head by children’s behaviour and attitudes to life. Parents can also look around and find that parenting for others seems easier.

Here I say what a wonderful challenge for you, the parent, to be given the opportunity to think differently and to work closely with your child through their shifting world. Parenting should change and adapt to the growing needs of the child. It is not static and will demand the parent reflect on their values and ideas and at least consider different ways of looking at life.

Teachers can see from time to time the fatigue of parents in trying to understand their child’s behaviour or school performance. It was not uncommon as Principal to support teachers in their supporting of parents struggling with their child’s lack of achievements.

The question I pose here is, whether as a parent we become unhappy when the child’s behaviour is not what we expect. Are we expecting standards that suit us? Are we wanting them to operate like us?

Here are some thoughts on how to accept that parenting will surprise us and ultimately delight us.

• Take care to enjoy the differences you notice in your child. Often, we look for the similarities in our children and reward them. I was good at Maths and so I expect you to be as well.

• Be prepared to be surprised. This should be a regular feeling. Enjoy the moment and comment on the surprise.

“Wow. I am so impressed that you choose such different colours to wear out.”

• Talk about how you love the differences that you notice in your child. This gives the child a feeling that they can express themselves comfortably around you.

• As a family, talk about how everyone is different and how those differences make a wonderful family tapestry, rich in difference and woven with unique story and experiences.

• If there are behaviours etc., that you do not like and have reason to talk about them, do it in such a way that you are not stifling their right to see things differently.

“I would like to talk about those clothes you are choosing to wear to the beach. I have some concerns about their suitability. Perhaps let’s start by telling me why you think they are suitable.”

Here you are not condemning their ideas in fact you are demonstrating an interest in listening to their reasoning. Even if after negotiation the child will need to change their clothes, affirm the fact that they are developing their own style and this is a good thing. Include at least one aspect of their dress choice to show you value their opinion. Perhaps you could go shopping to learn more about what they like.

If the child realises that you value their opinions, they are less likely to be reactive to your opinions and values.

If parenting seems to bring less stress to other families from your observations, do not make comparisons especially verbally to your child. Your journey is unique to you and the child. Sometimes parents feel that they are burdened with more difficult children. Every family has their challenges.

Children will also compare if you are very visible and verbal about your burdened parenting. In working with children, I have heard them wish to be in another family so they can be like them. Be proud of the uniqueness of your own family.

Accept what parenting brings. It will take you on an amazing voyage where you will discover in yourself different and unexpected ways to grow. Imagine that! You too will grow with your child.

“There are two things a parent should give a child.

One is roots, the other is wings.”

— Author unknown

Problem solving – it’s a great way to support our children’s learning

Parents often ask teachers how can I best help my child learn?

A child’s intellectual development is influenced by many factors, not the least of which is the support given by parents who are actually the first educators of their children. By the time a child is at school, their understanding of the world has grown immensely and most of this is through parental education, family influences etc.

What is most helpful to a child is to learn how to learn and, in this area, a parent can be a powerful influence. This is about setting up situations where you encourage your child to explore optional answers. You encourage them to look for alternative methods to solve problems. Simply giving the child answers, is not encouraging their inquiring attitude to learning.

If a child develops from an early age that finding out information themselves is satisfying, they will continue to rely on their own resources, which will grow into quite a knowledge bank. They will also grow more intellectually independent and feel confident in their own abilities to search for the answers. They will not rely on others. This is independent thinking and is all about learning how to learn. It is about being in control of your own learning.

Here are some thoughts on how to help your child develop independent skills in problem-solving.

When you child asks a question throw it back to them.

“What is important to know here?”

“What do you know so far about that issue?”

“Why is that issue worth knowing?”

This is all about questioning their interest and getting them to reflect on why they want that knowledge. How useful will that knowledge be to their problem?

Ask the child how they would go about getting the necessary information. Here is a time to guide them giving them some direction in where else to look. Once the child has researched the problem, find out what they have learnt to date and suggest other aspects of the problem which could be considered.

“It looks like you have great information there. I was wondering have you also looked up google etc….”

This is all about questioning the value of the information they have gathered and exploring other points of reference in which the child can research.

Finally, you may ask, “Have you reached a clear understanding of that situation? Tell me about it.”

All these tactics are encouraging your child to question, probe and leave no stone unturned, to come to a conclusion based on good research. Note how you are not solving the problem but assisting the child in discovering a process to follow. You are not making judgements on how they research the problem, but certainly you can encourage them at an appropriate time to think of alternative ways to look at the problem.

In working with children, teachers always start by posing questions and from that question, the real work of problem-solving begins. The joy in this process is that the child is fully engaged and keen to seek out information themselves. For them, it is so rewarding to be in charge of solving the problem. As a parent being a catalyst in encouraging open thinking and an inquiring mind in your child, is, in fact, teaching them how to learn. This is a lifelong process for all of us.

“All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.”

— Martin Fisher

Teach your child to develop staying power

So much of this modern technologically driven world is all about fast moving, immediate satisfaction and moving on quickly. Sometimes this flows on into other aspects of a child’s life - finding grit and sustaining the effort. Perseverance is a key word here and it is all about a child keeping on trying, having a go and showing determination to achieve a task. It is easy to say that this doesn’t suit me and so I will just move on to something else less arduous.

As a parent, it is valuable to talk about how rewarding it is to persevere and the process of doing something, carrying it through its stages, is really the success criteria. How often do our children see the value of just having go and being consistent in their efforts to achieve a tricky goal. The more we encourage them to stay motivated over difficult tasks, the better they grow in valuing their own capabilities.

Here are several strategies you can use to encourage staying power in your children.

I appreciate that this is not an easy task but there are several strategies you can teach them to keep up the staying power.  

• Talk about the staying power you need sometimes to complete a task. For example, have you started gym and find it difficult but you are determined to keep going top reap the benefits?

• Perhaps you are studying at work. Talk about the rigour and effort you need to put into simply getting better. Put simply, no pain, no gain.

• Talk about the success you feel personally when you go through the trials and difficulties of working at something.

• If your child is involved in sporting activities such a swimming club etc., the effort to get better, increase fitness and performance can be quite demanding. Talk about how the child feels after they succeed.

• Set simple goals with your child.

“I know you are keen to get better at Maths. Let’s put an extra twenty minutes into learning maths at the end of every day.”

Once goals are set and achieved, talk about the process and how putting effort into the process had such successful outcomes.

In working with children who were reluctant to push themselves, we would start by talking about people they knew that were successful, especially their heroes. We talked about how they got to be so successful and focussed on the great efforts and sacrifice they made to achieve their goals. We then talked about simple tasks that the child achieved with some effort. It was about building on small strengths.

Teachers are very skilled at building on small achievements with children. They affirm regularly and celebrate when the child takes that extra leap with effort. For a parent, it is about being alert to any staying power that the child demonstrates and affirming the effort. Keep in mind here that we are not always affirming the result, but the progressive effort and endurance shown by the child.

As humans, we are very in tune with avoiding the hard yards and sometimes choosing the easier route. Demonstrate to the child that sometimes going that extra distance gives tenfold results. Act as a coach and give guidance not direction or instructions.

“Great effort. So, you think that in a week you will be able to speed up on your spelling test. What will you do to achieve this goal?”

Here you are listening to their desire to improve and supporting them with some guidelines for small improvements.

Helping the child increase their staying power is about strengthening their self-resolve.

“It always seems impossible until it is done.”

— Nelson Mandela

The importance of keeping attachment strong.

Attachment of the parent and child starts well before birth. The desire to attach, be comforted and feel secure, is such a precious and necessary part of our development. Young parents work hard to ensure that bonding happens early with the infant. As the child grows and reaches out for independence, the need to be strongly attached is still ever-present but it takes on different forms.  

When the child starts school there is certainly giant leaps in the desire to develop independence, but be aware that they still want their attachment with their parents, strong and consistent. As they reach out for independence, consider the following important facts which contribute to healthy bonding.

As the child grows and reaches out for independence, the need to be strongly attached is still ever-present but it takes on different forms.

• From time to time, simply repeat how much you love them. Perhaps you merely love all the precious things they do. The message is simply that you are bonded to them through unconditional love.

• When they reach for more independence, just reassure them that you are always available.

“It sounds like you really want to walk home independently. Just remember I am around if you need me.”

If this is the case, talk to your child about how you always felt that your parents were there. Discuss how this made you feel.

• Talk to your child about what makes them feel happy. Do they trust that you are always present for them even in difficult times? This is worthy of discussion.

• As a family are you openly affectionate? Being affectionate with cuddles and sitting together closely is an important part of feeling bonded. This can happen with children of all ages. There is not a time of growing out of this habit. Although as a teenager they may give you some grief about being affectionate around peers. This is natural!

• Write occasional notes to them about how much you love them. Put these notes in their lunchbox or bedroom. These are just little surprises. They are reassuring reminders.

• Talk positively about your child in front of others. Let them hear what you publicly feel about them.

• If you were fortunate enough to have loving parents yourself, talk about how you felt attached to your parents. What special gifts did they have which brought you together?

• Spend time with your child at bedtime. Talk about the special things that make you feel close to your child. Be quite specific.

• Do practical, happy activities together such as singing, dancing, camping and doing interdependent activities such as cooking, cycling etc. All these ongoing activities remind the child that they are happily attached to their parents and sharing common grounds when it comes to enjoying life.

Throughout their growing years keeping attachment steady is all about reassuring the child that whatever the growth curves, you still love the child unconditionally.

When I became a Principal, I was disappointed that I had lost a strong contact with children as I was not actively involved in their teaching. From time to time, I would produce and direct school plays and I felt the closeness once again with students as we were bonded closely throughout the play, having a common purpose.

To keep your family attachment strong, you need to work on building the family story together and sharing in substantial parts of your lives across different periods.   

“The propensity to makes strong bonds to particular individuals is a basic component of human nature. ”

— John Bowlby, www.allaboutpsychology.com

Learn to be a coach, not an instructor to your child.

Coaches are there to guide and give advice gained from their well earnt experience and training over many years. They are valued because they are not forcing their opinions on you. They are merely giving you the wisdom of their knowledge. They are quite unemotional when it comes to giving advice, but they weigh up all the options in the light of all the information given to them and invite their client to consider the various proposals they make.

What is a significant benefit of coaching is the fact that a coach is an advisory body and leaves it to the client to decide if, how and when they will proceed with suggestions.

Do you allow your child to decide for themselves and learn from their decision?

Consider taking on the role of coach with your child. This will involve being less in control of decisions made for the child and more reflective on looking at options. A child will always value a parent who uses less power and includes the child when making decisions. Being a consultant takes practice on the part of the parent and can be a trial and error process. A parent can start with a child from an early age:

“I have been looking at all your toys. Some are dangerous when you walk on them and some are soft. These are the dangerous ones. It would mean less hurt on your feet if you packed these away first.”

Here you are stating what you know about the safety of the toys. You then point out which one is dangerous when walking around. You leave the decision to the child to move that toy first.  Of course, sometimes you need to give more instruction, but just starting with little examples is an excellent way to become a coach to your child. You are giving sound advice and inviting them to consider the options.

In working with children at school, it was quite common practice to put the options on the table, discuss the pros and cons and then leave the decision to the child. This gives them more ownership of their decisions and they begin to recognise that using the information gained is beneficial to their outcomes. Once a child develops a taste for being a significant part of making their decisions, they usually act very reliably to ensure they take further ownership of decisions. This is all about developing their self awareness and no surprises, self confidence.

 “I hear you want to walk home from school on your own. Let’s look at some factors that concern me and then we can discuss what’s possible”

Note here as consultant you are putting forward experienced reasons why this decision may not suit. Using this approach,  the child is more likely to value your opinions and be less intolerant of the negative reasons you may present.

 If you simply talk about all the negative reasons why the child cannot walk home, they are not included in the decision which to them may seem unjust and also too much use of power.

By putting forward your cases and debating all the reasons both positive and negative, the child feels included in the final decision.

Sometimes being a coach can involve simply putting forward your knowledge about a matter that is under discussion.  For example, if a child talks about smoking, it is a chance to simply state your views on smoking backed by some facts. Such coaching can happen incidentally. It does not challenge any thing particularly it merely outlines your knowledge and beliefs about a matter under discussion.

 Such subtle coaching is an excellent way to get your message across about a range of matters.

When working with children it was often a time for the child to set goals after deciding what they would want to work on. A helpful mechanism was to suggest that they set a goal with a timeline and a plan to check in afterwards. This came from coaching them in areas in which they wanted to improve.

“So it seems to me that you are planning to work on improving your writing. How about setting a time in which you would like to achieve that goal?”

Notice here that expectations are not placed on the child, rather the child sets the plan with your guidance. No pressure attached.

Coaching is about assisting a child to make decisions guided comfortably by your knowledge and experience. It is not intrusive. It allows the child to think for themselves but with responsible guidance.

Children can see failure as part of their success

This certainly sounds contradictory! However, what is important here is the fact that failure happens all the time from the moment a child tries to open a jar with a firm lid, knocks over blocks through to failing at school through friendships, learning in the classroom, etc. It is a daily event.

What we need to teach our children is that failure is an acceptable way of growing and learning. It is a natural part of our life occurring on a regular basis. Einstein would say that unless he failed in his experiments regularly, he would not learn where next to go in his work.

As a parent, we work hard to affirm and reassure our children that they can succeed. This is of course very important. However, we should teach them, that through our mistakes, we can grow and succeed. Failure is a sign that we have discovered an area in which to grow.

 One of the best ways to do this is to use your own examples.

Don’t forget to applaud a child when they attempt to work through their failure.

“Gosh, I have tried to make that recipe work. Sadly, I failed. I will get some advice from my friend who seems to make is so well.”

“Sadly, I was not successful in that job application. I will ask them what skills I needed so that I can improve my application next time.”

“I missed that turn off on the freeway. I will have to pay more attention to the road signs in future”.

The above examples illustrate that whilst you were not successful, you would use the experience to gain more insight. This is the key, teaching children that through error we find new ways to learn.

Don’t forget to applaud a child when they attempt to work through their failure.

“Well done. When you saw that you did not do well on that spelling test you checked in with the teacher for help. Bravo!”

In the school setting, teachers would often affirm children when they demonstrated that they had developed ways to work through their own problems. This was about taking ownership for their failures and understanding how to get the best from that experience. This was seen as success and applauded!

When working with children anxious about failure, it was quite common to chat about the times they had succeeded by working through a problem. It was about training them to recognise the value in just, ‘having another go’, finding a new way forward, experimenting with options.

“You didn’t find a friend on the yard when the bell went but you went looking for someone new on the yard. That was a clever way of moving on.”

There is an awareness that if everything comes too easily to a child, they will not learn the art of dealing with failure. They need to gradually work on the skills of being successful in managing their failure, turning it around and using it to grow.

Children need to recognise failure as a growth curve where they will embark on a new strategy to work through the problem. This makes them successful. Of course everything within reason.

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

— Einstein

How to build a child’s strengths.

Let’s face it, the more we feel stronger and confident in ourselves, the greater capacity we have to be successful and most importantly, like ourselves.

The best way to have success is to recognise that we do have strengths and that these are special highlights of our ability to cope. We also have low-lights that we need to work on. Recognising our low-lights should be seen as growth curves where we need to keep on  working towards improvement.

For a child, dealing with emotions, regulating emotions is hard work. It is always best to start by focusing on strengths that are visible, repetitive and which give the child a feeling of success. This could be anything from being able to pack up their toys at an early age, through to having an aptitude for Maths.

The best way to affirm is to acknowledge the actual presence of strength in what they do or say.

For example:

“I really like the way you write in your book. You have a neat and very attractive style of writing. This shows me how skilled you are in this area.”

Notice that the emphasis is on being specific in relation to the skill that you have noticed. When it is repeated:

“Once again you show me how well you can write. I will ask you to write down the grocery list. This will be a help to me.”

It is also about utilising the skill and demonstrating how such a skill can cross over and be useful on different levels. This teaches the child that they have very capable skills which impact on others.

“You tidy the toys so well. I hope you will help me tidy my room it is such a mess”.

By giving them the awareness that their strengths are useful, they will begin to develop stronger relationships and will find their own application for their skills.

 Whilst working with one child, who lacked some personal confidence, especially in school work, we all recognised how strong he was in sport. He was asked to help the younger children develop their games and this gave him personal pride and led to his improved overall self esteem.

Strengths are a wonderful building block upon which children grow on so many levels not the least of which is self awareness. The more self aware we become, the greater capacity we have to manage and value our strengths. It also helps us put our vulnerabilities in a better, more manageable perspective.

The best way to affirm your child’s strength is to acknowledge the actual presence of strength in what they do or say.

Let’s look at developing real independence in our children

The world today is a cautious place and there are very sound reasons why we need to consider how best to keep our children safe and away from harm’s door. Having said that, it is also vital that the child learns to be independent and starts from an early age to resolve matters for themselves.

In my work as a Principal, I was very aware that children these days lack resilience and this reflects how society in its determination to keep children safe, over nurture and choose to make decisions for children to secure the right outcome.

My observation and work with children also led me to recognise that  independent children, actually learnt fast, took risks and thought about matters in a more open ended way. They were children who felt comfortable in their own skin, happier in themselves generally and showed an inner confidence and emotional maturity that paid off for them in many ways.

How do we feel satisfied as a parent that we are keeping them safe, but actually letting them come out from their cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly.

I recommend providing slow and progressive opportunities to show independence. This can start as early as the sandpit where they need to clean it up to make it safe and clean to use.

There are many occasions in the home environment where a child can show and develop independence. The kitchen is a prime example. Are they responsible for taking out rubbish out? Do they choose the décor for their room?  

Giving our children a range of domestic responsibilities is a great start. We can overtime move into more areas where independence can grow.

Homework is a classic example. If they choose not to complete it, the teacher will deal with providing consequences. Are they able to be dropped off at the corner with friends and walk to school? There are many examples and in most cases children feel so successful when they take a leap of independence.

Of course the independence they especially enjoy is when they are given personal freedom. By negotiating with your child, this is all possible. As the child gets a little older, with gradual support in being independent, you also begin to have more confidence in their ability to cope. This feeds into their overall awareness that you trust them.

It is best to remember that in order to make our children safe, they need to be aware and in tune with what is around them. This only comes from personal experience on their own part. When we over nurture, a child switches off their accountability button and learns little about how to understand the world. Such delayed maturity is a dangerous thing as children get older.

Keeping them safe is to set them free gradually. If a child is aware that you value and trust that next independent step which they aim to take, you build strong bonds which are lasting.

“I never teach my pupils, I only provide the conditions in which they can learn.”

—   Albert Einstein 1879-1955

If a child is aware that you value and trust that next independent step which they aim to take, you build strong bonds which are lasting.