I was chatting with a mom this week and she said "everything is feeling hard lately."
Her son won't listen, he freaks out over minor things, her daughter pushes back on everything... And honestly, she was just exhausted and starting to wonder if she was doing everything wrong.
Here is a quick story I told her.
Imagine you are taking a walk or hike with your child. You see a fork in the path. Your child wants to go right, but you know that left is the safer and better path.
-Do you force your child to take your path?
-Beg and plead with them?
-Give in and go down their path?
-Yell and scream at them for not going down yours?
Well, the path is a metaphor.
Often we know that getting ready for bed, cleaning up, brushing teeth, eating dinner, not pulling the dogs tail or leaving the park is the right path.
But our kids simply don't have all the skills and development to always meet our expectations.
Here's a little illustration I created for my path metaphor:
👉We have an expectation that our child will do the thing we say, or behave in the right way.
If our child doesn't meet that expectation - we need to take an action to get our child back to our path.
So how do we get our kids doing what we say - to meet our expectation (without begging, pleading, yelling, threatening or punishing?). Well, that is the ultimate parenting question isn't it?
Here's the answer: it depends (oh you hate me so much right now don't you...)
The "right" response depends on your child's age, state and capacity in that moment.
Of course there is no ONE way because kids are all different and all situations are different.
➤But, here's the good news:
🧰 You CAN get a TOOLBOX full of tools you can pull out and quickly sort through and determine what action is the best one in that moment.
Let's go through some examples:
1️⃣ You tell your child it's time to leave the park, or come inside or stop playing. Your child freaks out, ignores you or whines.
ACTION: You could pull any number of tools out of your toolbox
🔨 Use play- you could switch to play mode and play a game to get your child moving
🔨 Adapt for the win - how can you create a win for your child? Maybe they can listen to a song on the way, bring a fun toy with them, or act like an animal on the way there.
2️⃣ Your child will not clean up after themselves, or doesn't want to pick up the toys
🔨 Chunking - break it into smaller parts so it's not so overwhelming. Tell your child "put all of the blocks in this bin"
🔨 Ask for their help - If you have a strong willed child, ask them for their help "Hey bud, I have a problem I hope you can help with. Can you help me figure out how we can get all the toys put away before lunch?"
Those are just 2 examples of how you can learn the tools and plug and play them into your situation.
➤You don't need to memorize this - it's a SYSTEM. You learn why kids don't listen, what responses work and don't work, and you learn the tools. Then you just plug them in.
More tips and scripts just make it all feel overwhelming so you don't know where to start. You need a repeatable system you can rely on when your brain is fried.
I hope this is helpful 🫶
Learn the full 5-step PEACEful Parent Method and finally know what to do in the moment https://heartstringparentcoaching.ca/peaceful-parent-method/
P.S. The PEACEful Parent bonus - The Peaceful Helper has 25 common scenarios and exactly what to do, so you are never guessing. Check out a quick preview of the course and bonus HERE
Helping you with sibling fights, misbehaviour and tantrums with playfulness and connection.
