Before having children I thought that being a mother is the most rewarding job in the world, that your kids love and listen to you unconditionally and they bring peace and joy in the house.
6 years and 3 kids later, I realize how ignorant I’ve been.
Sometimes I think that my kid’s secret mission in life is to make sure me and my husband get constantly trained in conflict management and creative problem solving. I don’t yet feel I master this positive parenting tips business completely right, but over the past years, I developed some ways of keeping the situation under control. Below are 3 of the tactics most used in our house.
Give them a warning ahead: These kids are busy, play is a serious business for them. My kids would come home and tell me with a straight face: “I’m so tired, I had to play so much today!” So when I want them to follow my agenda, it doesn’t always work. To avoid me running late everywhere because I have to wait for them to finish their stuff, I took the habit to give them an advance warning. I often feel that we as parents expect too often for our kids to drop things on the spot when we ask them. Instead I tell my kids 5 to 10 minutes ahead that we need to leave (or eat, sleep, …) so they have the time to finish up whatever they are doing at that moment.
Teach them patience: Kids often want the same toys at the same time. Often you as an adult only notice when it’s too late. By then it’s impossible to say who had the toy first. Rather than taking the toy away or putting one child ahead of the other, I prefer to go for a compromise where they both get to play in turns. To do so, I use what I call my “count to 30” technique. I’m using this technique now for more than 2 years and for us this works every time.
Leaving them space: I got to accept that my kids are wild and that they need to get rid of their energy in some way. I don’t want them to feel that it’s wrong, rather I look for ways to give them the space and the place to be themselves. This can be in different ways, such as letting them go and shout as loud as they want in the garage (or another space where they don’t disturb anyone), making a corridor in the living room so they can run, sitting down with them from time to time and let them climb all over me, …
This is just a grasp of how I try to raise my energetic kids in the best way and let them grow as the beautiful persons they are. Love and acceptance bring you a long way, but some little positive parenting tips and tricks can help a lot as well 🙂
Do you have any good techniques you use with your kids? I’m definitely interested!
I love the last point, so simple but yet powerful if every parent would accept and understand its importance. thanks for a great and straightforward post.
Marwa @BlossomFamily.net