If you are parenting a screaming toddler or a teen who won’t listen or cooperate, I can guarantee that the following strategies will reduce tensions and bring you closer together.

1 Listen

Parents think that they are listening to children when really they are trying to educate, inform, dismiss, distract, blame, interrogate, correct, judge or ignore. The best clue is: if the emotional temperature rises from your response, it’s time to stop and listen.  Learning to really listen will help you to understand your child and what makes them behave the way they do. To be blunt – it begins with shutting up. Be a mirror to what they are showing you – reflect what you think they mean or feel. “You seem reluctant to talk right now.” “You are really sad that you didn’t go to your friends house”. Listening can truly transform your relationships.

2 Be Kind

Getting angry and aggressive hurts you as much as it hurts your children. Staying calm and using kind words and actions will impact upon your child and yourself more than any other strategy you can apply. Do you respond better to kindness or anger?

3 Pick Your Battles

Do you spend all day being critical and nagging about anything and everything? Perfection is not required. When the bar is set high all the time, you leave little room for your child to ‘win’ and feel great about themselves or their accomplishments. Where is your focus – on the negative or the positive?

4 No Blame

As soon as you play the blame game your children will quickly fire up and react badly – what’s the point when you take sides or point the finger. You want your children to continue to communicate with you about the important issues. If you use “You always” or “You never” or even just “YOU” too much, there will be more fights and arguments than you can handle. Stick with simple facts to describe exactly what you see and eliminate blame.

5 Be Playful

When you are playful, you teach your children to have a light heart and not be so serious. It gives you the opportunity to repair tensions by bringing FUN back.

For more information or to book a private coaching session in the comfort of your own home, please call Clare on 0418914871