Parenting Mistakes; Pulling the Good Out of Every Situation

Have you ever had one of those moments when you correct your child in a way that feels totally wrong and fills you with regret? You know…where you yell too loudly, grab too roughly or say something that previously would have been totally unacceptable?

We all have limits that we live within—our boundaries that determine acceptable and unacceptable behaviours. When we cross that line, we have reached our limit in more ways than one…and once we cross it we feel terrible!

But what if I told you these situations that fill us with so much guilt and cause us to wonder if we have ruined our child for life, are actually opportunities for us and our children to grow? When we use these opportunities to reflect on what we have done and take strides to make amends, we actually strengthen our relationship with our child. It is only when we ignore the situation and “stuff” the resulting feelings that we risk becoming desensitized and derailing from our goals as a parent.

From a personal perspective, these situations cause us to reflect on our lack of control; to think about the bigger picture and hence why we don’t want to parent that way; and to recognize areas where we might need help. Perhaps our stress at work is squeezing its way into our home life, or perhaps our stress is resulting from our home and work life being virtually the same thing. Upon deeper reflection we might recognize a pattern developing or a trigger that is causing our blow-up. We might discover something from our upbringing sneaking its way into our current world or that our own lack of experience is causing a situation to get out of control.

In short, taking time to think about why the situation occurred can help us recognize when we need a break, or when some personal development is required.

From our child’s perspective this situation allows us an opportunity to give our child a genuine apology—no buts, excuses, or blaming included. It allows us to show him we are in fact human (and therefore do make mistakes) and to model self awareness. All of these are critical life skills that our child will definitely need at some point in his life. Our kids learn more from what we do than what we say. Showing him these skills in action is a beneficial outcome of this situation.

So the next time you find yourself flying off the handle and behaving in a way you’d be very embarrassed to have go public, recognize it as an opportunity to teach, learn and grow. Your being bothered by these situations is a good thing and suggests you are not the kind of parent that would use these ideas to excuse reoccurring behaviours of this nature. The fact that you are human is a good thing…it’s when you start beating yourself up for being human that it becomes a problem.

Does Parenting Really Have To Be This Hard?

There was a time in my parenting life, when I really wondered if the amount of effort I was putting into raising my kids was worth the effort. I had a lot of great reasons for parenting the way I did, but on the more trying of days I couldn’t help but think I was making it harder than it needed to be.

Looking at it now I realize I found this job so hard for the following reasons:

1. I cared a lot about doing a good job and being a great parent
2. Because I cared about doing a good job, I was putting a lot of energy into being self aware and analyzing why things had gone the way they did
3. Because I was analyzing things so much and really looking for the “reason” behind things, I was taking both my own and my kids mistakes/failures personally
4. Because I was taking things personally I was allowing self-doubt, guilt and uncertainty to weigh me down

I thought this would be an interesting revelation to share with fellow parents. Parenting (in my opinion) is harder when you really care about doing a good job. The other reasons were caused more by my own efforts and less from anything my kids were doing.

If I hadn’t cared so much, I might have just reacted – punished when it suited my purpose and raised kids who listened to me because they felt they had no other choice. I don’t mean to be minimizing the challenges faced by parents who have taken this route or to even suggest it is wrong, but I can tell you this…

Today I have strong, positive relationships with my kids. They truly are wonderful teens – sure my son wears his pants too low, exhausts me with his negotiating and has a real “smart” mouth at times. He’s a “C” average student in high school and I’m sure will make some “interesting” choices as life goes along. Despite this, he is well liked, communicative and respectful most of the time.

My daughter gets involved (sometimes causes) all kinds of friendship drama at school and has a look that can kill from twenty feet away. Her room is messy beyond belief and she avoids chores like the plague. But she is also very caring, determined, self assured and creative. She excels at school and is quick to pick up when people are not respecting her boundaries.

Both of them make me laugh a lot and bring way more joy into my life than they could ever take from it. I have, and will continue, to make numerous parenting errors…but somehow I now know these things only add to the parenting experience.

So, if you are parenting young children, putting in a lot of effort and questioning if it is worth it, I believe it truly is. I think I would have benefited from hearing that back when those feelings were surfacing for me and that is why I share this story.

I would love to hear your thoughts and stories…

Debbie Pokornik is the owner of empowering NRG. She is the author of Break Free of Parenting Pressures and believes all parents can use support at some point in their parenting experience. For other great parenting tips or to book Debbie for keynotes/workshops, go to http://empoweringnrg.com/

Effective Listening; How to Open Your Mind, Your Heart and Your Ears

Empathic Listening is a tool aimed at helping people connect and really hear what another person is telling them. To do it correctly, we must imagine ourselves in the other person’s situation and try to relate to how they are feeling. It is done with open ears, mind, and heart. Our goal is to detach from our own feelings and work on understanding the feelings of the other person. This can be challenging if what we are hearing affects us as well, but it is a key piece to getting the whole story.

The main strategy of Empathic Listening is the following:

• Identify the speaker’s feeling behind the words (anger, disappointment…)
  
• Empathize--try to think how you would feel in that person’s situation and share these thoughts with the speaker (warning: do not say I know how you feel!)
  
• Reflect back what you have heard, clarify if necessary
  
• Assist with problem solving ONLY if requested to do so

Example of Empathic Listening with child’s emotional outburst:

Child: I hate Grandma!

Parent: You sound angry. What’s going on?

Child: Grandma’s mean, she never plays with me

Parent: Hmm, I don’t think I’d like it if my Grandma never played with me, especially if she used to play with me a lot.

Child: Yeah. Now she’s always busy with the baby.

Parent: (nodding) So, do you think the problem is that she’s spending too much time with the baby?

Child: Yeah. Can I have a cookie?

Two important points:

1. Getting past the strong opening statement the child uses can be a hurdle for many parents. Those are BIG words, and if we want to find out where they are coming from we have to ignore our own emotions and listen for our child’s.
   
2. The child ended the conversation without asking the parent to help fix the problem. Parents love to fix problems, even when they are not asked to do so. In this case, and in more cases than you might imagine, the child just needed to be heard. His feelings were making him uncomfortable resulting in his strong opening statement. At some point he might bring it up with his parent again and ask for help with ideas, but if not, it is far more empowering for him if the parent just allows the conversation to end there.

Example of Empathic Listening with a bullying disclosure:

Child: I pretended to be sick because Bart said he was going to bash my head in and teach all the wimps at school a lesson!

Parent: Wow that sounds pretty scary.

Child: I’m not scared, I’m mad!

Parent: Okay, mad makes sense too… if it were me I think I’d be both mad and scared.

Child: Could I stay home tomorrow?

Parent: I wish I could let you. I don’t think I would want to go back either. I think the school might get upset though.

Child: They won’t care. You can just tell them I’m sick.

Parent: You know what Bart is doing is not okay. He has no right to treat you or anybody like that. What he’s doing is bullying. How about we come up with a plan to help you work through this problem?

In this case the parent raises the idea of problem solving together. Bullying is a serious issue that only arises when there is a power imbalance of some sort. Often our kids will need some guidance to work their way through it.

If the child responded by saying, “No. I’ll deal with it myself,” the parent could agree but end with a check back statement. “Okay, how about I check in with you again on the weekend to see how it went?” The result would be a child who feels supported, cared for and empowered by his parent’s belief in his ability.

Sometimes we have trouble identifying the name of the feeling and in fact the speaker himself might not be clear how he feels. Don’t get caught up in identifying the feeling or it could become a circus, (i.e., Are you mad? No. Irritated? No! Frustrated? No! Furious? NO!) The idea is to connect with the person by trying to understand his feeling. Guessing it right is not that important. We will never truly know what’s going on inside another person. If he says he is not angry despite his clenched jaw, red face, and throbbing temple, accept it and move on.

Finally, despite our perfect use of Empathic Listening, sometimes our child will not be receptive. If that’s the case (you can tell because he is escalating instead of calming) ditch this tool and move into self preservation. Calmly say something like “I can see you’re not ready to talk about this now, let me know if you want to talk later.” Then walk away and refuse to engage in further argument.

Exerpted with permission from Break Free of Parenting Pressures; Embrace Your Natural Guidance by Debbie Pokornik.

Raising Leaders - Being a Great Boss, Can Help Us Raise Great Kids

Anyone can boss people around…but not everyone will be a great boss. If we can focus on the qualities that separate an ordinary boss from a really great boss and then apply them to our parenting strategies, we will raise great kids.

Ten qualities that a great boss will possess are:

1. Patient with good self-control. A great boss is predictable in that he stays calm and controlled despite the situation. He does not allow his emotions to determine his reaction, but instead uses them to guide him on a path to discovery. Patience and self-control are two things that can challenge us when dealing with our children. Practicing these skills with our kids is a win-win situation.

2. Clear expectations. Expectations are not a guessing game when you have a great boss. This type of leader will be clear on what she wants from you and when she expects it done by. With our kids this might translate into The table needs to be cleared before you go outside.

3. Acknowledges a job well done. We all like to hear when we’ve done a good job and especially appreciate being told what it was we did well. With our kids we can do this by using effective feedback which tells them what they’ve done well and why we like it. Thanks for setting the table it makes my job easier when you help out.

4. Cares about the individual. For a boss, this means knowing a bit about the employee’s life outside of work – birthdays, weekend plans, sick children, etc. For parents, this involves knowing what their child is dealing with in life at the moment, who his friends are, his IT interests (sites surfing, games playing, shows watching) as well as his current hobbies.

5. Teaches, then trusts. A great boss will show you a new task, allow you to try it, make sure you understand it, and then trust you to do the job. With our children, this training is often severely lacking. To really learn something most of us benefit by having it broken down in steps, by being given an opportunity to try it out (hands-on) and by slight, positive adjustments being made when things go wrong. A great boss wouldn’t assume you know the details just from watching, yet often that is what we expect from our kids.

6. Provides assertive correction. A great boss will calmly, yet clearly tell you when there is a problem with something you’ve done, complete with an explanation of why this behaviour is a problem. This boss will not accept excuses or shirking of responsibility, but is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. A great boss believes in you and recognizes mistakes are an inevitable part of living. Paying attention to how you are correcting your kids can make the difference between teaching them the lesson, and making them feel “faulty” for making a mistake.

7. Role models desired behaviours. A great boss does not say one thing and do another, unless he’s very clear about his reasons for this discrepancy. It is critical we remember our kids learn far more from what we do than what we say. As much as possible we want our behaviours to match the values we are trying to teach.

8. Promotes independence and interdependence. A great boss allows employees to be individuals within the boundaries of company standards. She doesn’t try to make clones of herself, but recognizes the unique talents each person brings to the table. She also expects people to work together for the good of the company. While our kids might seem to be a lot like us, they are individuals and will benefit most when we recognize and support that. If we allow our child to be her own unique self while working towards a common set of family goals, we will have a much happier team.

9. Avoids micro-managing. A great boss gives us a task, ensures we understand the details and timeline and then allows us to do it. When we want our kids to do things we often ask (or tell) them, wait a moment and then nag at them to do as they were asked. Besides being irritating, this tells our kids they do not need to do what we ask until our level of nagging hits a certain octave!

10. Promotes mutual respect. A great boss promotes a respectful relationship by treating her employees with respect. Orders are given sparingly and without personal attack. Ordering our children might seem more efficient, but in the end it will cause a lot of extra work. Watch the tone of voice you are using with your kids and be aware of how much you are ordering, rather than asking or suggesting.

Our children really are the bosses of the future. If we can keep these qualities in mind and practice them as much as possible in our family environment, we will have future leaders who are ready and able to be great.

Debbie is the owner of Empowering NRG and author of Break Free of Parenting Pressures: Embrace Your Natural Guidance. She believes all parents can use support at some point in their parenting experience and has made it her mission to help with this task. For more info go to http://www.empoweringnrg.com

Understanding Empathy, Seven Tips for Raising Compassionate Children

Empathy is about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and trying to relate to what they might be feeling. Out of empathy comes caring, consideration, compassion and even remorse (if you are unable to think how your actions might hurt another person, how can you possibly feel bad for what you have done?). Some people purposely turn off their empathy to eliminate getting hurt and others are not stimulated to create the empathy pathways in their brain in the first place.

Seven tips for encouraging empathy:

1. Help kids become aware of their own feelings by pointing out what you see. “I can see you’re disappointed” “I understand your disgust…”
   
2. When your child does something hurtful to another person, ask her to think about how it might feel if the roles were reversed. Try to get her thinking without making her feel bad for making a mistake. “I want you to think about how you would feel if someone took away your favorite toy and wouldn’t let you have it back.”
   
3. Share your own feelings and take full responsibility for them. “I’m furious the dog ate my food while I was on the phone – I was looking forward to eating that sandwich.”
   
4. Model empathy to your child. “I can understand why you might feel that way. I would feel angry if someone did that to me.”
   
5. Use situations around you to discuss how other people might be feeling. Tactfully talk about situations you witness or use the characters in movies and TV shows. “She looked like she felt embarrassed when the store clerk laughed at her – what do you think?”
   
6. When people have to care for something living, they often develop a sense of connection which helps to teach empathy. Teach your kids how to take care of something living – a plant, animal, bird or reptile.
   
7. Have your kids act out a short story (fairy tales work well) and encourage them to really immerse themselves in the roles. To be a great actor you have to think carefully about how your character would be feeling which is what empathy is all about.
   

Developing empathy is important for all of us. Getting along with others, being able to wait your turn, treating people with compassion, feeling bad when you mistreat others are all dependent on our ability to care about how that other person might feel. Tuning into others helps us be caring people.