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As a mom of four children through birth and adoption, I’ve been there and done that in terms of parenting. I’ve made more than my share of mistakes and have had my share of successes as well. I’ve also had the privilege of interviewing the top parenting experts over the last almost 17 years we’ve been doing the Creating a Family podcast. It can be hard in the heat of the moment (and there are plenty of hot moments in parenting) to remember too many “rules”. Listen for my top two tips for parenting.
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Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Welcome to Weekend Wisdom by Creating a Family. This is Creating a Family's opportunity to answer your questions. We try to get questions from our audience and every week on the Sunday,
we spend about five or ten minutes answering your question. Send us your questions please to info @creatingathamily .org.
You can put in the rail line Weekend Wisdom, it's not essential, but it will be faster and easier to get. to me. All right, so without further ado, let's talk about this week's topic,
which is my two top parenting tips. I am a mom of four through birth and adoption. In other words, I've been there and done that in terms of parenting.
And I've made honestly more than my share of mistakes and have had my share of successes as well when it comes to parenting. I've also had the privilege to interview the top parenting experts over the last almost 17 years we've been doing the Creating a Family podcast.
And by nature, I'm a person who likes to distill things down to their essence. And I think that's particularly handy when it comes to parenting, because it is too hard in the heat of the moment.
And with parenting, there is plenty of hot moments. It is just too hard to remember too many rules. So I'm going to tell you my two top tips for parenting.
And when I say I, I'm really not taking the credit for them. This is not unique to me. I am distilling it for you, shall we say? All right, the first tip is to praise the behaviors you want.
To help your child understand which behaviors you want to grow in them, you need to first look for the tiny seeds of these behaviors that already... exist in what they are doing.
And even if you feel like you are focusing on only the tiniest thing, target the positive attention on that little seed to encourage it to sprout. Go out of your way, and sometimes this takes force on your part,
to notice positive behaviors. And to help you do that, we've got a few practical ideas to implement this step. But one, be specific with your praise of the positive behaviors,
for example. James, I really appreciate it when you say please when you ask for things. Or Lekisha, I see you use your words to ask Cameron for the tory rather than taking it from him.
Or Elijah, I appreciate when you call to tell me you're going to be late, even if it's only a little late. That means I don't worry so much. Or Juan, I know it's hard to stop playing video games when the timer goes off.
I see you breathing deeply rather than yelling about how to stop. Good job, buddy. The second practical idea for implementing this tip, our first tip, is making your praises outnumber your corrections.
And you want that ratio to be offered by a long shot. You want to shoot for a goal of six praises for every one correction that you do. And that sometimes forces you,
if you know that you're limited on how many corrections that you've made. you're allowed to make if you're going to honor this rule, it makes you forced to take a count to 10 before you call out your child's unacceptable actions.
Another practical tip for implementing this is don't expect perfection. My parenting mantra for all of my children was progress not perfection. And you need to call out any progress you see your child making towards the behavior.
For example. example, Antoine, you did a great job trying to negotiate with your brother about cleaning the playroom. I know it's hard to keep your cool when he's not working as hard as you feel you are. Now,
how can I help? Because tempers are seeming to get a little hot here. And the fourth implementing idea is to narrate your child's behavior with positive input on the details of what goes into the behavior you want to see.
Let me explain that by an example. I see you working hard to breathe deeply four times before you answer your brother. I know that means you've been practicing, thank you.
Or Jesus, I see you looking at that timer to see how much screen time you have before you start the next game. That is such a good idea because it helps you know if you'll be able to finish the game.
So the idea is basically you're narrating the steps along the way and giving positive insight. All right, so that's our first tip, which is praise the behaviors you want. Our second tip is ignore what you can.
Paying attention to preferred behaviors gives us space to ignore the things that we are able to ignore. The L adage of don't sweat the small stuff is particularly apt when parenting.
What we pay attention to will increase, period. Even negativity. negative attention can be a payoff for your child. Now, I know, I get it,
I've been there. I know that it is not easy to just, quote, let it go. So how do you ignore challenging behaviors? And which behaviors do you ignore? Here are a few suggestions to help you choose what to ignore and how.
First thing, this suggestion is more of a how to prevent some of the negative behaviors by nipping them before. they start. Look for what is leading up to the child's poor behavior.
In other words, what triggers lead to a de -escalation of behaviors? For example, noticing that when kids play together for too long, it ends up in a fight. Or maybe you notice that he always has a tantrum when he hasn't had food within a couple hours.
It might mean that when she is quiet and uncommunitive in the car ride home, she will fall apart with the slightest dish. These are the things that you can notice ahead of time that gives you preparation to try to hit them off at the pass.
Overlook if at all possible behaviors that are slightly annoying. Remember that we want to focus on the positive. And we don't want to "waste" our few corrections on something that is simply annoying.
Does your child need to fill every quiet space with chatter or questions? If so, calmly answer one or two, then occupy yourself in another room before you feel your annoyance rising.
Or another example, does your child constantly click his pin over and over and over and over while he's doing his homework, or drummer fingers on the keyboard constantly? Yes,
these are annoying, but do you really need to call them out and correct them? All right, the third suggestion, consider the timing of the child's behaviors. [BLANK _AUDIO] Redirect the behavior by meeting the need without attending to the behavior.
In other words, try to figure out if there is a need that the child has to be met and they're acting in such a way to get that need met. For example, here's a cheese stick and a glass of water.
I think you must be feeling empty right now, or another example. Let's get you into a quiet place with some Legos while you recharge your emotional battery. All right. All right. I know. suggestion, even when negative behavior occurs,
try to pick one positive action to spotlight along with the correction. If possible, look for something positive to start with. So here's an example. I see you're really angry right now,
and I saw how you tried to talk with Amani first before you hit her. Good for you for using your words, but we don't hit people. What else could you have done when your words didn't work? Now,
how are we going to make it work? this up with Imani? That would be an example of noticing something positive, addressing that first, but then still having the correction, because it is not okay to hit people.
A good rule of thumb is to think to yourself, "Is this childish or willful behavior?" Exercise effort to let childish activities go by the wayside.
And remember, our kids who've experienced trauma, abuse, neglect. neglect often act younger than their chronological age. So be gracious with this assessment, especially in the heat of the moment.
So if we see our kids behaving in a way that's driving you crazy, but it could be not willful behavior, give them the benefit of the doubt. All right, before you leave, let me remind you that creating a family has a newsletter.
It's free, of course. It's an e -newsletter. It comes to you. once a month and we curate the best of what we found in that month to help you be the best parent possible. You can subscribe to the newsletter at creatingathamily .org /newsletter.
And thanks for listening today. And remember, send us in your questions at info @creatingathamily .org. See you next week.
