The Ultimate Guide to Parenting
When we become parents, most of us aren’t handed a guidebook with step-by-step instructions on how to raise little human beings. Parenting is one of the greatest adventures one can go on — and that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. If you’re reading this, chances are, you are a parent and you’re looking for some helpful tools — a roadmap of sorts — to have in your parenting toolbox.
Today, that’s exactly what I’ll be sharing in this mega-blog post filled with a roundup of all the cornerstones of my practice. As a certified life and parenting coach, I help stressed-out parents that want to restore harmony in their homes and reclaim their lives.
So sit back, relax (maybe even grab a cup of tea or coffee), and let’s dive right in!
Part 1: The Basics
As humans, we all have needs. It’s essential to identify what those needs are for ourselves and for our children.
These universal human needs ( as introduced by Tony Robbins) include:
Certainty
Variety
Significance
Love & connection
Growth
Contribution.
As a certified Robbins-Madanes© coach, I believe Tony Robbins' classification of these needs can apply to all of our families. Keep in mind that you can fulfill these needs in a positive or negative way and it’s imperative that you do it in a positive way.
I go into this in way more depth here, but in summary:
Children need certainty to feel safe and secure. Children need to be able to depend on predictability. As parents, we can provide predictability by setting boundaries and clear guidelines and by following through on any consequence or punishment.
Children need variety to keep things stimulating and interesting. Kids are curious beings with wild imaginations. When there’s not enough variety, kids will find other ways to get variety (perhaps in mischievous ways).
Children need significance to feel like they matter. Oftentimes, if children aren’t made to feel significant or important, they may seek significance in a negative way to get the attention that they are seeking.
Children need love and connection from the moment they’re born. As parents, the love and connection we show our children early on will impact them for the rest of their lives.
Children need growth to feel purposeful and excited about moving forward in life.
Children need to feel like they are contributing so they can realize that their lives have meaning. This helps them go on to be well-rounded adults who know that their actions matter.
2. Determine the role you play in your family
According to a well-known social model known as the “Drama Triangle” developed by Stephen Karman, people usually fall into one of 3 categories: victim, persecutor, or rescuer. The Drama Triangle is well known and widely used in therapy. The premise of this model is that these 3 categories of people are able to fulfill their same needs in a more appropriate and positive way. When I first observed this model, I realized that it was very relatable and appropriate to use for families. We always have that one family member who is a victim or persecutor or a rescuer. How can they change to become more meaningful and helpful while still fulfilling their needs? Read this blog post where I outline exactly how.
3. Learn about how your childhood affects your parenting
The coping skills that we learned as children to get us through tough times eventually become what shapes our decision-making and how we react to things as adults. These coping skills were present if you felt like you couldn’t: speak your truth, fully express yourself, or get a bad grade. Similarly, you may have felt like you were always living for somebody else. If this is the case, as an adult, you may be a people pleaser. As a parent, this means that you might also have a difficult time following through with discipline.
This is such a deep topic and there’s still so much more to cover. I go into this in a lot more detail in this blog post.
4. Create a Parenting Mission Statement
Your parenting mission statement will be your anchor and your rock. This is what is going to drive you and help you make decisions for your children. When you feel that you do not have the ability to follow through on a consequence when your children are misbehaving, come back to your mission statement.
How do you create a parenting mission statement you ask? Lucky for you, I made you this free template to create your own parenting mission statement.
5. Make time to connect with your kids
The first thing parents want to do when they meet me is help them get their children to listen. I have many strategies for listening that we’ll get more into shortly. The real first step parents need to take is to build a connection. This is what will make listening and behaving the foundation for your family. The real question should be, how do you build that connection with your kids? The first step is getting yourself into the habit of actively listening to your children. Once you have mastered listening, it will be easier to teach your kids the same.
There are many ways in which we all connect to each other. Each of your children may respond to a different approach when they want to connect.
These approaches include, but are not limited to:
Giving Compliments
Creating Times of Connection
Providing Physical Interaction
Completing Thoughtful Acts
6. Validate your child’s feelings
As we’ve discussed, children (just like us) have needs. Feeling validated is one of them. In certain instances, children may get very upset because they don’t feel like they have a say in certain situations. They don’t feel heard, seen, and feel powerless. This doesn’t feel too good.
I can’t emphasize enough the importance of validating your child’s emotions. When they are upset, anxious, or misbehaving - chances are - there’s a deeper reason behind it. Sure, they might be hungry or sleepy and just need some quiet time for a bit. But other times, they may be trying to communicate how they’re feeling and you might be missing it. Let’s take this example:
Your child might have anxiety about riding the bus when school starts in a few weeks. You may not want to engage in an argument before the need arises, but this is the exact moment in which you should bring it up. You avoid the trigger because you are uneasy about the confrontation that will most likely ensue. Let that gut feeling be a sign to you that you need to be proactive, not reactive. Talk openly with your child about their concerns and help them feel more comfortable.
7. Learn how to get your children to listen without yelling
As parents, we spend so much time trying to avoid any type of tantrum, confrontation, or resistance from our children. Trust me, I understand doing everything in your power to try and escape them. I did this for years with my kids.
This is a juicy topic that deserves a whole other blog post (coming soon), but let’s start with two basic approaches:
Approach #1: Countdown Strategy
It is time to leave the park, but your child wants to stay. Suddenly your lovely afternoon has morphed into a meltdown. Take a breath and then try to put yourself in their shoes. Understand that they are enjoying themselves and need to be warned when they are leaving so that they have time to finish what they are doing. Take the time to walk over to your child, look them in the eyes, alert them that you are leaving in 5 minutes and that they should wrap up whatever it is that they are doing. Let them go back to playing and then walk over again to give them a 1-minute warning before you are about to leave. Finally, walk over and say, “we are leaving” if the toddler decides to throw a tantrum at this time, grab their arm and escort them to the car without saying anything. Again, you should try to avoid anger, frustration, and becoming flustered.
Approach #2: Choices Strategy
To demonstrate the use of choices in the park scenario at the end of the playtime we could say, “you have a choice, you can leave here easily and quietly, and we will go to lunch as we planned, or you can scream and yell, and we will just go home”. If your child yells and screams, allowing the consequence to occur, and remind them that it was their choice that led to it. This takes the blame off you and teaches them to take responsibility for their actions.
The purpose of this strategy is to let the child feel like they are in control as you are giving them two choices to choose from.
8. Easily get your children off electronics
I have all my clients create an electronic basket check-in. This means that, at designated times, kids need to put all phones and electronics into a basket that can not be accessed until all their priorities are done.
It’s almost so simple that I hesitated to put it in here! However, so many of my clients have told me that this is absolutely game-changing.
*** This can be an actual basket or just an area of the house where electronics get dropped off.
9. Let your child “fail”
This is a tough one for parents to deal with. Remember to go back and read your parenting mission statement and realize that we experience growth through failure. As adults, we know that many times when we are given advice we may not listen to it/learn until we experience failure for ourselves; children are no different. The sooner they learn this the better. You don’t want to experience this in college for the first time etc. Don’t insist on perfection.
10. Accept and love your child for exactly who they are
Children are not your chance at a do-over in life. They are not your opportunity to be the actor, singer, or jock you wished you were. This is your opportunity to teach. You want to teach commitment and how to be the best that you can be even if your best is average. Not everyone is gifted or exceptionally smart, but everyone has their own strengths. Steer away from your child’s deficiencies, instead, find the strengths in your child and play them up.
Keep in mind that there can be negative repercussions when you push your child to do something that is your vision and not theirs. They can have long term self-confidence issues and won’t know who their true self is. They need to step into their true selves and if you want them to be successful, then you need to foster who they want to be, not what you want them to be. If they want to grow up to be a valet and you don’t help them pursue that dream then they will be resentful and bitter towards you later on.
As your kids grow they may forget what you said, but won’t forget how you made them feel.
— Kevin Heath