Announcing: Top 6 uncommon ways to become a better parent.
Forget cookie-cutter parenting advice. These 6 simple ideas will help you discover your own parenting style and transform the way you parent.
This edition of Toolbox Tuesday starts with one of my favorite quotes above.
It’s a reminder that parenting is not binary. You can be many things at the one time. Both firm and soft. A rule-setter and a relationship-builder. Wise and fun.
Parents are put into boxes, which is wrong. “She’s a strict mum.” “He’s the fun guy.” “They’re inconsistent parents.”
Sound familiar?
You can be many types of parent, responding to your child according to different circumstances. This week’s article will help you find your own style, so you won’t fit neatly into one parenting box.
Enjoy!
Photo by Bewakoof.com Official on Unsplash
Finding your own style for parenting success
Find your own parenting style.
The internet is awash with parenting advice. Much of it follows a similar pattern:
Child has a problem. Here’s how to fix it.
That’s the cookie cutter approach.
That’s why parenting sounds easy on paper, but hard to put into practice.
These practical ideas, that you won’t find anywhere else, will help you become a better parent:
1. Ask parents you admire how they do what they do.
The trouble with parenting a small family is that everything is new. At every development stage everything is new.
Look at the parents you hang around with and notice how they manage battles, organise their family, deal with conflict or whatever else they do.
Copy their successes.
Ask them how they do it – whatever it is they do.
Mentoring (and this is a form of mentoring) is the fastest way I know to develop new skill and abilities.
Smart tip: Befriend a parent whose kids are two or three years older than yours and lean on them for advice.
2. Know your best parenting self.
It’s the nature of the parenting beast to be hard on yourself. We have a negativity bias when it comes to our parenting escapades. “Why did I say that?” “If only I hadn’t have done that!”
Here’s a trick to help you feel better about yourself and helps you do better – whatever do stands for.
Think about when you are at your best as a parent. I’m usually my best parenting best self when I’m teaching, or helping my kids do something new. I’m generally (or like to think) I am patient, attentive and positive.
What about you? What are you like when you’re at your parenting best?
Next time you feel like losing it with your kids take a few big breaths and remember your parenting best.
Then act from as your parenting best self – in my case, with patience, attentiveness, and positivity.
Become a better parent from the inside-out.
3. Escape the eternal now.
Nature has a way of keeping parents in the present moment. That probably served us well in cave man days when they were threats all around us. Staying in the present kept us alive.
But the propensity to anchor ourselves in the present has its drawbacks as we often see kids’ issues as problems to solve immediately. Immediacy becomes the norm, preventing us to look too far ahead.
Develop the habit of thinking ahead- more than the end of the week or school term. Lift your head above the parenting parapets one or twice a year and develop a longer-term parenting plan.
My Parenting by Design article will show you how to develop a longer-term parenting strategy.
4. Add reflection to your daily routine.
Do you journal? If so, do you journal daily?
Congratulations, you have found a wonderful way to deal with daily stuff. You’ve also found a great way to better yourself.
If you don’t journal, then spend a few minutes on a regular basis reflecting on your kids, your parenting and yourself. The good, the bad and the ugly.
Reflection can make you feel bad if you focus on the negative stuff. But if you keep a balance, it can help you feel good about yourself; appreciate the magic moments and help you NOT to repeat those awful parenting moments.
At least, minimise them.
5. Spend time in your child’s shoes.
You can do this literally by spending some time at their childcare, school or after school event.
You can also spend some time in their shoes by seeing the world – their world – through their eyes.
See what it’s like to be a four-year-old always looking up at people. Or what it’s like as seven-year-old who’s anxious about returning to school after a long holiday. Or a thirteen-year-old who has one foot on childhood and one adulthood and resents both.
Spending time in your child’s shoes will help you be the parent that your child needs. And that is a powerful state of parenting being.
6. Fine tune your antenna to see your child’s best.
What you focus on as a parent expands. When you notice your kids arguing then tends to be all you see. You miss the kind sibling behaviour often because it’s nuanced and you’re just not on the look out for it.
Your attention is alike a TV antenna (I’m showing my age) that can be finetuned to pick up the signals that you want. Make a concerted effort to recognise (and praise) the behaviour you want and ignore (downplay) the behaviours that annoy you.
You can’t ignore everything but choose your battles and pick up their negative behaviour using a neutral tone and minimum words.
Discipline like a neutral cop, is the way to go.
Finally….
I’ve helped so many parents over the years become the parents that they want to be. I can help you.
Success as a parent is simpler than you think:
· Ask parents you admire how they do what they do.
· Know your best parenting self.
· Escape the eternal now.
· Add reflection to your routine.
· Spend time in your child’s shoes.
· Fine tune your antenna to see your child’s best.
I’m introducing a new feature to Toolbox Tuesday. Each edition will feature a parenting tool that will help you become a better parent.
Each tool will have at least three features. It will be:
Practical - you’ll be able to use immediately
Respectful - it’ll keep your child and your dignity in tact
Transferrable - it can be used in multiple situations
This week’s featured tool is:
Banter
Banter is light-hearted conversation and chat between parents and kids.
It’s a keystone tool that builds relationships, creates a great family atmosphere and is a necessary entry point for deeper communication with teenagers.
It’s fun, carefree and playful. It’s not teasing, taunting or hurtful.
At times, light-hearted banter between kids can cross a line and can be offensive. So banter needs boundaries and limits. It should never offend. If it does, then it’s teasing or even bullying, not banter.
Relationship-builder
Traditionally, fathers have a lock on banter. They tend to see the lighter side of situations more easily than mothers. I suspect this is becauset dads don’t carry the same parenting load as mothers. I could be wrong!!!
But regardless of gender the ability to have some light-hearted fun with kids is essential for building solid bonds with children and teens
Atmosphere-changer
Sometimes family-life can be tense, even stressful. Light-hearted banter lightens the mood putting a smile on the dial of everyone.
Pro tip: Be the mood you want in your family. If you want the family mood to be pleasant then lighten up with some well-placed banter.
Conversation-starter
Families that engage in banter talk with each other on a deep level, when needed. Banter gives parents permission to have difficult conversations with teenagers about tricky issues such as sexuality, risk-taking and alcohol usage.
If you don’t have some fun with your child or teen then it’s almost impossible to talk on a deeper level, when required. Banter breaks down barriers, revealing vulnerabilities.
It also helps drop the mask that parents and kids wear.
How to use
There are only 3 rules for successful banter:
Ensure that you pick the right time and place. Banter falls flat when it’s given out of context or runs across an agenda that another parent has.
Be in a playful mood when you engage in banter, otherwise it can be seen as sarcasm or manipulation.
Know how to stop. You need to be able to dial down the fun as well as dial it up.