mindbodygreen – Leony Vandebelt
Sometimes, we want to scream at our kids. Usually this impulse comes out of frustration or another acute emotion in the moment of a temper tantrum or outburst. But most us also know that yelling and punishing actually can damage our children’s self-esteem and their trust in us, ultimately creating unhealthy coping mechanisms and leading to even more bad behavior in the future.
Instead, raising children with compassion and healthy boundaries will help them grow up into self-confident and emotionally healthy adults, and will make your parenting experience much easier in the process.
This article will give you insights and tools to raise children without yelling and punishing. In the first half, I’ll offer tips that we can do ourselves as parents to feel more balanced and less triggered into having our own outbursts; the second half includes day-to-day tips for how to help your children themselves feel more grounded and less prone to emotional outbursts.
1. Cultivate self-care rituals and treat yourself with kindness.
The more we take care of ourselves, the more worthy we feel of having our needs met and our boundaries respected. When we feel tired and have no energy, it is much harder to deal with our children’s outbursts. Plus: the better we feel about ourselves, the less we feel guilty about making “mistakes” or “not doing things right.”
So, in addition to making sure to find self-care rituals such as meditation, yoga, exercising (and/or whatever else works!), talk to yourself as you would talk to a child, not as a harsh critic. Acknowledge your own feelings, how stupid or irrational they might seem to you. If you accept and love them, they will be released instead of staying stuck.
2. Honor your own boundaries.
If our children cross our boundaries too far, or too frequently, it’s often because we let them. But we will eventually lose our patience, so remember that. I totally understand: we avoid saying “no” sometimes because we want to avoid a tantrum, or we want to be “the good guy.” However, as parents, affirming healthy boundaries is our job. Loving our children doesn’t mean that we have to give them what they want all the time. And sticking to your guns will ultimately prevent tantrums in the future.
3. Have age-appropriate expectations.
When we take our children to public places, we simply cannot expect them to behave like adults. A young child won’t sit still for an hour in a restaurant like a grown adult.
While it’s great to want to go out with our children, we must also remember that they are allowed to have their own experience. So we must commit to trying our best not to feel embarrassed, offended or guilty about their reactions. When we let go of these unrealistic expectations, we give ourselves freedom to have a much more enjoyable experience ourselves.
4. Don’t project your fears.
When we worry about our children’s misbehavior and fear that they might be aggressive in a given context, our children will pick up on this energy, and will likely stick those labels on themselves. If a child starts to think that he/she is “bad,” that often leads to more misbehavior.
5. Heal your own inner child.
Children can trigger unresolved emotions in us, causing us to feel hurt and frustrated, perhaps about our own childhood experiences or current difficulties elsewhere in our lives. Our children can also reflect those unresolved feelings when they pick up on them. So embrace the parts of you that are still hurting. Acknowledge and accept your own feelings from or about your past without judgment and give that child in you all the love and validation it never got, or that it currently needs.
by MindMake via MindMake Blog
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