Have you ever felt defeated by your child?
Every child will take direction from you when they feel good.
The question in parenting is what to do when they don’t feel good?
You may have experienced what happened to me yesterday, at some stage before.
What I am about to show you has nothing to do with my child being absolutely horrible or my parenting not working.
It explains why there is so much conflict in our world today.
For the second day in a row, my son rebelled when it came to getting dressed.
He point-blank refused putting on his school uniform and kept himself busy with everything but "going with the program”.
What I needed to do was to leave the room.
My son was so wound up, I felt raged like never before.
You would think that running a business called “effortless parenting” would exempt me from rage, powerlessness, feeling defeated or wanting things my way.
You are mistaken.
My job is not to help you stop misbehaviour, my job is to guide you through these moments in parenting when you want to throw in the towel.
You may know this expression from boxing and wonder how this relates to parenting?
What I am demonstrating now is closely related to any combat sport you know:
Going to a fight requires both parties to go along and to step into the ring.
You would expect that both athletes had a total agreement beforehand.
What happens if one of them doesn’t show up?
Yes, you are correct:
There is no fight that day.
Mind-blowing analogy, wouldn't you agree?
The difference is of course that we need our child to co-operate so that we can get on with our day. Here is the crux of the matter: We are rushing through our routines, often not being aware what this feels like for younger people. You need to make time to see your child while you are in the flow of having an interaction with them. This concept is new to a lot of parents. We were brought up ourselves in very different ways. Times are changing:
threatening
bribing
overprotecting by doing it for them or
lying to them
no longer have a place in this generation’s hearts.
You may wonder how to stop the old way of parenting?
For me it is like changing a diet: You cannot just cut out junk food, you need to replace it with nourishing food you enjoy eating. Finding a parenting style that replaces the traditional one, is simpler than you think. Every parent deserves a calmer home and this is what I can offer. Leave me a comment below or send me an email if you have experienced something similar before: effortlessparenting@gmail.com
Click here to work with me and to find out when to walk away and when to stay.