Small Steps to Great Parenting Read online

  I also address play. It’s a tricky subject in today’s academically pressured world, but playtime can be used to develop creativity, and confidence, and learning – both your children’s and your own.

  Part Two looks at turning challenges (an inevitable part of the parenting experience) into opportunities, to move from a ‘reaction’ mode to a ‘conscious and intentional’ mode. The core principles of ‘awareness’ parenting are applied, in the context of the baggage that we all bring to our own families. Our own family backgrounds are very much linked to what we experience as parents, but they offer an opportunity to strengthen the connection we have with our children. There are many more suggestions for handling day-to-day challenges in the family.

  In Parenting Vision for Challenging Times, you will bring your own ‘core values’ into your awareness to face challenging times. Self-Disclosure Time is crucially important for helping you understand (and let go) of old parenting patterns from your own parents, and create a new ‘system model’ for connecting with your children. Valuable insights into the words that parents tend to use over and over again are covered in The Echo of Your Words; these often lead to power struggles rather than fostering connection.

  You will probably be aware of the new buzz word ‘transitioning’. This is at the core of Chapter 13, dealing with the child’s perspective. It offers more practical solutions for changing the atmosphere and energy at home, or when simply moving from one activity to another. The role of routine is discussed in the next chapter, especially for problem areas – bedtime, screen-time, and the morning rush. These tips help to bring order to the busy household, and make more time for fun! Another tricky area is sibling relationships. You can actively sow the seeds for lifelong friendship between your children, and learn how to deal with conflicts between them. Setting boundaries in a calm, confident and healthy way is covered in Parental Authority, with a focus on getting the balance right. Boundaries that are too strict or too weak create more problems than they solve.

  Last, but not least, I discuss the importance of Parents as a Team – possibly the most important aspect of parenting! You will be shown ways to work together as co-parents and learn how this affects your children.

  How to read this book

  It might seem obvious, but please read this book in sequence. From front to back. Later, you can dip into it or use the index to find something specific. The background information and practical tips build upon each other to grow your knowledge and understanding as you go through it.

  My overarching aim is to show you how to create the kind of connection you have always wanted with your children. This kind of relationship sometimes feels a long way away from the daily reality, but if you read my suggestions each day and embrace them as your family grows, your learning will become the most natural way to parent. It will take lots of practice with your ‘parenting muscle’ to begin with, but will quickly become easier. And it will be fun! And in the years to come, you will love the results.

  INTRODUCTION TO PART ONE

  ”A hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”

  - Forest E. Witcraft

  Good versus positive parenting: preparing for life

  Are you a good parent? Yes, you are. You are reading this book and that speaks volumes! You love your children and you sacrifice your time, energy and money to give them everything they need. But the real question is: Are you an effective parent? Being an effective parent means that you invest your time and energy to reach a parenting goal, which is a long-term, meaningful goal. What is your parenting goal?

  An effective parent realises that his or her job is to prepare a child for life, not by thinking that life can be made ‘perfect’ for them, but with the understanding that a confident, independent child with a sense of self-worth, efficacy and belonging will grow up to be an adult who can cope effectively with whatever life brings. In this respect, home is the practice ground for life. It is easier to learn and practice everything at home, and children can practice interpersonal relationships within a warm and protective environment.

  Here’s one example of the difference between ‘good’ and ‘effective’ parents. A parent who sleeps alongside his seven-year-old daughter, to help her get to sleep, is a good parent, giving time and energy and sacrificing his own needs, such as spending time with a partner or winding down for the evening. However, an effective parent will teach her to fall asleep by herself, thereby teaching her how to self-regulate her feelings in a competent and healthy way. It is this feeling of competence that creates a sense of capability which will accompany her over the years, throughout her schooling and into adulthood.

  So, if your parenting goal is to prepare your child in a healthy way for life as a good and decent and capable adult, then consider how your actions today may bring you closer to this goal. This concept is at the very core of this book.

  Focus on the relationship versus discipline

  Most parenting books focus on the negative aspects of children and how to make them behave, how to cope with challenges in their eating and sleeping, how to deal with tantrums and toilet training, and so on. But as I pointed out before, focusing on the negative in this way will not yield the results you want – neither in the short term nor the long term. Throughout my experiences as a mother, family therapist and researcher, I have learned that the focus should be on the positive. This allows parents to empower their children, by tapping into their own and their children’s strengths, in order to deal with any challenges. When you use ‘positive parenting’ during your everyday interactions with your children, they learn more from you than you can imagine.

  React positively in daily interactions

  Why is it important to react in a positive way to your children during your daily interactions? To start with, it is the fastest way to motivate them to cooperate with the endless tasks of the daily routine. Children like to cooperate. They actually love to take part (believe it or not!) and they want to make you proud. In an emotionally warm and positive environment, they will thrive.

  The first thing to understand is that reacting positively doesn’t mean never saying ‘No’. It doesn’t mean that you need to serve your children’s needs and wants all the time. What it does mean is that reacting in an assertive, conscious, thoughtful way – with respect for the child – brings kindness, warmth and positive energy to the relationship. Reacting positively creates a positive environment – and this simply makes a home a nice place to live.

  When the atmosphere in the home is one of constant threats (If you don’t do it, I will…) and peppered with punishments, raised voices and time-outs, or if it’s one in which you constantly do for them what they can do (and should be doing) for themselves, then you may achieve good behaviour – for a time (this outcome is debatable, as I explain later). But don’t mislead yourself into thinking that you have assimilated your values or that you are enriching your relationship with your child.

  The alternative approach, using positive parenting techniques, not only serves your short-term goals of achieving cooperation, to create a relaxed atmosphere in the home and let you enjoy being with your children, but also strengthens your parent–child relationships. It teaches children something of your own values and increases their capabilities in the long term. A positive attitude will give you much more than a focus on discipline can offer.

  Imagine the home you want to create

  Imagine a scenario in which you have to choose between two families who have invited you to be their guest for a long weekend. You know nothing about either family, but you are allowed to peep through their windows and observe them for some time before you decide. You can’t hear them – only watch their body language. Through the lounge window of the first house, you see a mother and a boy of about seven. You notic
e that the mother’s body language is rigid and tense and she is pointing a finger at the boy. You guess that he’s done something to upset her. He doesn’t seem to be particularly bothered by this reaction, and continues to play on the iPad in his hands. Then a girl comes down the stairs, a little older than him, and sits beside him on the sofa. The mother is doing something in the kitchen, although it’s difficult to see exactly what, and it is clear from her body language that she is not happy.

  Now you look through the window of the second house. A young boy of a similar age is setting a table for dinner. The father is doing something in the kitchen, and again you can’t see what it is, but you can see him looking at the boy from time to time with a warm smile. The older sister comes down the stairs, looking relaxed. The parent says something to her and she starts to help her brother with the table setting, chatting away as they work. Then they take out a pack of cards and start to play a game.

  Which house would you like to stay in for the weekend? Although you couldn’t hear anything, you can tell how the children are probably feeling in each house, and you can guess in which one they are more likely to feel empowered – which is what we all want for our children. Is your family more like the one in house one or house two?

  The impact of positive daily interactions

  Some parents I meet are initially sceptical about the difference that positive daily interactions can make to their children’s lives. In practice, they find the benefits are many-fold. I have outlined just a few here.

  BRAIN CHEMISTRY

  Daniel Siegel, a New York Times bestselling author, neuropsychiatrist and inter-personal neurobiologist, explains in his book Parenting From The Inside Out that non-verbal communication, such as tone of voice, body posture and smile, can affect the physical development of a child’s brain. This in turn can have a lifelong impact on his or her ability to relate to other people. It is astounding that simply by reacting in positive ways you can influence your child’s brain! Of course, you influence the brain also when reacting in negative ways, which is what you want to avoid.

  MODELLING

  When parents invest in positive interactions, their children learn about themselves and about how to connect and relate to others, to communicate, to deal with success and challenges and to be with themselves and others. Parents are the most important role models for any child, especially because they learn from actions – not words. The findings of a recent study by Redding and his colleagues in 2016 revealed that parents who implement positive parenting techniques that they had learned on a course, experience more warmth towards their children and self-efficacy, and less hostility and stress.

  INNER VOICE

  Peggy Omara, the author of various parenting books and articles said: ‘the way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice’. In your everyday interactions with your children, you have the opportunity to grow their positive inner voice. You can build lifelong skills such as responsibility, curiosity, compassion, kindness, empathy and inner motivation by responding in a positive manner.

  Make the ‘in-between’ moments matter

  Do you remember what sort of home you used to return to from school when you were a child? Was it a smiley, warm, relaxed place? Or a grumpy, lonely, stressed one? Can you recall moments in which you felt joy and happiness? Exactly what kind of good things do you remember?

  When I began asking parents on my courses these questions, it amazed me that it wasn’t the big events they remembered most. It was the everyday ones: When I went to the market with dad … When I helped mum with the cooking … When dad stroked my hair before I went to sleep … When I rode my bicycle with my brother. Other parents remember things that might seem quite mundane: When we watched the TV together and I felt my mum was enjoying it with me … When we walked in the park … When my dad read me stories.

  The truth is it isn’t about birthday parties, trips abroad or shiny new computers, but the small moments – the moments in-between – that count. Moments where the child felt their parent was present in a warm way. These are the moments that fill our lives, day in and day out. In these moments, the magic happens.

  Some people argue that nowadays things are different, with this so-called ‘screen generation’ that jumps from the iPad to the iPhone to the laptop, and these screens satisfy their wants and needs. I strongly disagree about this. I can promise you something: when you ask your child the above questions about their good memories in thirty years’ time, you will see that nothing has changed. They, as we do, will appreciate and be touched by the times their parents were present, connected and warm, and able to ‘hold them in their mind’.

  If your childhood home environment was warm and positive, you will probably find it easier to react in positive ways to your own children. But if you experienced stress, or grew up in a negative atmosphere, it might require more awareness and work for you to communicate positively. In either case, you cannot change your history, but you can create a positive and enriching environment for your children today. You can decide how to raise your children and which moments to create for them to remember.

  “Mindful” versus “perfect” parenting

  It can be overwhelming to know that in every interaction with your child you have the power to either wound their inner voice or to nurture a positive self-image. No-one expects parents to be positive all the time – it really isn’t possible. Even if there were such a parent, I’m not sure the situation would be beneficial for the children. Some children’s frustrations can be regarded as healthy, and necessary for them to learn how to cope in a healthy way with life’s challenges. What I would like you to consider is about being mindful in the way you usually communicate at home.

  Your behaviour is the mirror of your habits, and we all know habits are hard to change, but once you decide that you want to grow (and I say grow, rather than change, to acknowledge that we are all on a journey of development), then you can start using the simple tips in the next chapters. They are very easy and you will be surprised to learn that such small changes in the way you react make a huge difference to your parenting experience.

  Live the change – and reap the rewards

  I often hear parents say (following a workshop or session) that the first step for them was hearing themselves when they said something negative to their children. Afterwards, they became aware of their reactions and the effect they have on their children. Then they decided to practise and learn how to connect in a positive way. After some time, when reading over the notes they made during an early lecture or workshop, they can’t believe they needed to write such things down, because the way they have come to think and act have become a natural part of who they are as parents.

  In Part Two of the book, you will learn how to turn your challenges into opportunities. I will focus on how to react in positive ways to situations of conflict with your children, to help reduce your (and their) frustration and difficult behaviour. Recent research in this area (Bor et al., 2002) reveals that facing conflicts with the foundation of positive and healthy day-to-day relationships reduces negative child behaviours such as aggression, extreme tantrums and opposition. Thus conflict is likely to become less frequent and less intense, turning instead into something that can be worked through, in which you can contain your children’s feelings in order for them to be made sense of. While acknowledging that every child has their moments, a positive base will empower you to deal with them in a healthy way. So let’s put our actions where our heart is and commit to positive parenting techniques.

  CHAPTER 1:

  POSITIVE WORDS CREATE POSITIVE REALITIES

  “Talking doesn’t mean you have said something. What really matters is the message your words carry, not the sound, but the reverberation it causes on the soul.”

  - Michael Bassey Johnson

  Here we focus on ways you can use positive language in everyday interactions to create a positive atmosphere at home.
Try using one a day if you can.

  Reinforce the positive to address the negative

  Parenting is a very creative job! We need to look for the positive even in the most challenging situations. I find that when I use positive language, I create a positive result. For example, when we were waiting at the doctor’s to see a GP, I noticed that my young daughter started to lose patience after fifteen minutes. She started moving in her chair, up and down, becoming more and more restless. I picked up on what I saw and said:

  ‘I really appreciate your patience. You have a lot of patience to wait so nicely. Do you want us to play something until we get called in?’

  What do you think happened then? My daughter was more patient. What we notice and express in an empowering way is what grows. Children can recognise these qualities in themselves, and this is what builds their positive self-image. A parent once told me that her son was allowed to watch one programme on TV straight after school, but wouldn’t always agree to turn the TV off afterwards. After hearing about my technique in a workshop, she responded to her son’s request to watch TV by saying:

  ‘Yes, you can watch your programme. I am really proud that last week you turned the TV off at the end of it.’