{"id":69785,"date":"2024-03-06T10:06:25","date_gmt":"2024-03-06T03:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alternatech.net\/?p=69785"},"modified":"2024-03-06T10:06:25","modified_gmt":"2024-03-06T03:06:25","slug":"10-gentle-parenting-techniques-that-make-me-a-better-mom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/10-gentle-parenting-techniques-that-make-me-a-better-mom\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Gentle Parenting Techniques That Make Me a Better Mom"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. Put empathy front-and-center\n
Empathy is the most important aspect of gentle parenting, and it needs to be a part of everything that you do. Your kids aren\u2019t just little robots programmed to follow orders. They\u2019re living, breathing beings with very real thoughts, feelings, and needs. Put yourself in your kids\u2019 shoes. Remember what it was like to be little. The great thing about parenting is that we\u2019ve already experienced what it\u2019s like to be little, so it\u2019s a lot easier to empathize with our children.\n
2. Set reasonable age-appropriate boundaries\n
Before you set a boundary, ask yourself if it\u2019s reasonable based on what your child is actually capable of doing. Not what you think they should be able to do, not what you want them to do, but actually capable of doing based on their development.\n
For example, you may want your 2-year-old to sit quietly at a restaurant, share nicely with others, and not throw a tantrum in the middle of the store. However, developmentally speaking she\u2019s just not capable of those things yet. Kids don\u2019t develop abilities such as self-control (including emotional control) and sharing until around age 4.\n
3. Set boundaries with reason\n
Along with setting reasonable boundaries based on my kids\u2019 ages, I am also a strong advocate of setting boundaries with reason. By that, I mean that I don\u2019t make arbitrary \u201cbecause I said so\u201d rules. Every single rule that I make has a logical and justifiable reason behind it.\n
Take healthy eating for example. I don\u2019t just tell my kids, \u201cBecause I said so\u201d when they ask why they can\u2019t have chocolate for breakfast. Instead, I view it as a teaching opportunity and openly discuss with them why it\u2019s so important to eat right.\n
Kids are more likely to respect- genuinely respect in the literal sense- a rule if they understand why it matters. That\u2019s important to me. I don\u2019t want my kids to just blindly follow orders now. I want to give them boundaries that will help them throughout their entire lives, and the only way I can do that is if they actually understand the reasoning behind a rule.\n
4. Don\u2019t be afraid to say \u201cyes\u201d sometimes\n
Let\u2019s go back to healthy eating. When we\u2019re home, I focus on feeding my family real homemade food. That means saying no to and limiting (or outright eliminating) processed junk, sugary snacks, and other stuff that\u2019s not really good for anyone, let alone kids.\n
However, when we go on vacation, I say \u201cyes\u201d more often. We still eat healthy for the most part, but I relax the rules and let them have things that they don\u2019t often (or ever) get at home. Some would find that inconsistent, but I explained to my kids upfront that vacation rules are different from home rules. So they know not to expect the same laxity at home if that makes sense.\n
5. Raise your words, not your voice\n
One of my favorite gentle parenting quotes comes from the poet Rumi. It goes, \u201cRaise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.\u201d Unless your goal is to terrify and terrorize, yelling at your kids doesn\u2019t really accomplish anything. Think about it, how do you feel when someone screams at you?\n
Just about every parent has snapped at some point and shouted at their kids. I\u2019m not saying you\u2019re a bad mom if you have. I\u2019m just saying that we need to try harder- as hard as humanely possible-to hold our tempers and speak to our kids with the same level of respect that we expect from them.\n
6. Treat your kids the way you expect them to treat others\n
This goes along with the last one, but it extends beyond just not yelling at your kids. The golden rule of doing unto others as you want them to do unto you goes for parenting, too. Treat them the way you want them to treat you, and the way you hope they\u2019ll treat others.\n
Also remember, respect is earned, not freely given. While you can expect your children to show you respect, if you want them to genuinely respect you, then you have to earn it. You have to show them that you\u2019re worthy of true respect by showing them that they are worthy of it, too.\n
\u201cWhere did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?\u201d- Jane Nelson, author of Positive Discipline\n
7. Discipline the action, not your child\n
Discipline in gentle parenting is all about focusing on the actions and making the consequences fit the infraction so that your kids learn and grow. If your son breaks something because he was careless with it, don\u2019t ground him from the TV for a week. TV had nothing to do with his actions, so why should it be included in the consequences? Instead, you could maybe set up a \u201crepayment plan\u201d where he does chores to earn the money to pay for the damage.\n
Another part of this one is focusing your comments focused on the action itself. Don\u2019t humiliate your child or make them feel bad about themselves. Again, that\u2019s not exactly a gentle way to parent. One of the easiest tricks I use is to avoid starting sentences with \u201cyou.\u201d For example, don\u2019t say, \u201cYou\u2019re such a slob,\u201d or \u201cYou never listen,\u201d or \u201cYou failed this test because you weren\u2019t paying attention.\u201d Instead, focus on the action and the \u201cwhy\u201d behind it.\n
\u201cTantrums are not bad behavior. Tantrums are an expression of emotion that became too much for the child to bear. No punishment is required. What your child needs is compassion and safe, loving arms to unload in.\u201d\n
8. Help them learn from their mistakes\n
By giving consequences that make sense, you\u2019re helping your child learn actual lessons from their mistakes. That\u2019s really the goal of discipline, isn\u2019t it? We all want our kids to grow up knowing that there are right and wrong ways to do something and that it\u2019s important to learn and grow.\n
Going back to the example above, after your child \u201crepays\u201d you for whatever he broke, ask him what he learned. He may tell you that he learned he needs to be more careful in the future and that it\u2019s hard work making enough money to buy the things we want. Let him know that you\u2019re proud of him for recognizing that.\n
\u201cObviously, you want to teach your child [the difference] between right and wrong, respect and being kind to others, whether it\u2019s their sisters or parents. You try to teach them by example, talk to them and explain certain situations. But there\u2019s also a time to put them in time out or let them know they\u2019ve made a mistake and try to learn from it.\u201d \u2013 Eli Manning\n
9. Be willing to learn from your own mistakes\n
Let me be very blunt and clear, you WILL make mistakes as a parent. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. There\u2019s absolutely no such thing as a parent who gets it right 100% of the time.\n
So, just as you expect your kids to learn from their mistakes, you have to be willing to learn from your own. I constantly reevaluate everything I think I know and ask myself if there is something I can do better or something that I need to change. As parenting teacher Hannah Guari Ma explains, the only way to inspire a certain quality in kids is to model it in ourselves.\n
\u201cI believe that the best way to inspire a quality, or even a habit, in our kids is to cultivate it in ourselves. This means that parenting is a constant journey of learning and growth, of looking outward, toward my children, to see the areas in which I need to work at improving myself.\u201d\n
10. Make connecting with your kids a priority\n
Gentle parenting is all about communicating with your kids, and you can\u2019t really do that if you don\u2019t take the time to truly connect with them. Make family time a priority. Take an interest in the things that they like. Spend vacations together, and eat dinner together as often as possible. Just be there with them in the moment every moment that you can.\n
It sounds trite, but our kids really do grow up so fast. We only get one shot at raising them right. So, let\u2019s make sure we\u2019re focusing on what really matters and doing our best to raise them to be kind, compassionate, confident, happy, and healthy. Who knows, they just might one day change the world.\n
I think the best part of being a parent is when your little one looks up at you and just smiles and stares because they know you are their person. Like nobody else is as important as you. They know that you have them like nobody else ever will. The connection is indescribable. \u2013 Proud Happy Mama\n
I\u2019ll leave you with one final quote that I really love, from Alain de Botton: \u201cTo be a parent is to be a chief designer of a product more advanced than any technology and more interesting than the greatest work of art.\u201d Our kids are true marvels, the real wonders of this world. As long as you treat them that way and treat them like the miracles that they are, all of these gentle parenting techniques will come naturally.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1. Put empathy front-and-center Empathy is the most important aspect of gentle parenting, and it needs to be a part of everything that you do. Your kids aren\u2019t just little robots programmed to follow orders. They\u2019re living, breathing beings with very real thoughts, feelings, and needs. Put yourself in your kids\u2019 shoes. Remember what it\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":69786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"\u201cRaise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.\u201d Unless your goal is to terrify and terrorize...","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[642],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-69785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-moral-story"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Raise-your-words-not-your-voice.-It-is-rain-that-grows-flowers-not-thunder.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inovatestory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}