At the beginning of the school year, I joined a parenting group at Laura's preschool's church called CAPstone. We meet twice a month with speakers and have discussions yadda yadda...
So we had a speaker this week who made it worth the entire year, even if I didn't get anything out of the rest of the speakers and companionship, which I do. Dr. Steve Kahn is a parent psychologist here in St Paul. Basically, he just said everything I needed to hear at that moment.
In a nutshell, good parenting is largely about those moments right after your kids make a "mistake". How you handle yourself. Its about being at your best when they are at their worst. And the "mistakes" the kids make are exactly what they are supposed to be doing at that age. And your job is to give the consequence and move on. You can't extrapolate to how they are going to behave in 10 years based on whether they hit their sister or talked back today. There's no need for hours of weighty guilt trips. Give your consequence, then sit down and eat dinner with them. Sounds kinda hokie when I say it, but he hit home in my brain when many many other parenting experts have just made me roll my eyes.
1 comment:
So glad you had such a great experience! God always has a way to whisper in our ear what we need to hear!
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