Parenting techniques to help you maintain your sanity
By Shanna Bunce, MD, New Ulm Medical Center (Re-printed with permission from WomenInc. Magazine)
Trying to balance motherhood and all the other aspects of your life can seem like no balance at all. As a working mother of three boys, I know how parents can often feel like they are careening from one end of a teeter-totter to the other, trying to keep either end from hitting the ground too hard.
How can you keep it from crashing? The short answer is that you really can't. Perhaps that's where to start with successful parenting techniques: your expectations have to be realistic. Maintaining a career and family is a balance – but an imperfect one. Everything changes and you are constantly putting out mini-fires.
One of the biggest stressors as a working parent is the simple fact that you are a parent and your child's behavior has a tremendous impact on your stress level. Reining in our children so their behavior doesn't push us over the edge is central to success in the balancing act.
Here is my "Top Ten" list of parenting techniques to help you maintain your sanity.
- Prep your children. Tell your kids where you are going, what is going to happen and what you expect of them. As parents, we assume that children know how to act when they may not. For example, "We're going to the nursing home to visit grandma and you need to not run up and down the hallways. You need to be quiet and respectful of the people grandma lives with." We can't assume that children automatically know what we expect from them.
- All privileges need to be earned. Look around the house and determine what should be reserved for privileges: television, video games, internet time, going out with friends, or talking on the phone. They have to earn privileges by good behavior. At the end of the day when all their chores and homework are complete give them their privileges. You should also tie special treats to some good behavior. "Tommy, you did a really great job picking up your room last night, let's go out for dinner." Tommy doesn't have to know that you're really going out for dinner because it has been a long day and you have nothing prepared.
- Give positive feedback. In the workplace, we can be very negatively oriented. If you make a mistake you hear about it, but if you do something good you don't always hear about it. We tend to take that home to our children. When they do something good, make sure you recognize them for it. Be specific about what they did. You will break down your child's self-esteem if you are constantly criticizing them.
- As parents, we are the bosses – not your child's friend. Friendship will come later in life. When you are talking with your child or early teenager, you are the parent, you have to maintain that authority. It can be appropriate to ask them to take the reins in certain situations, but not consistently because it puts them in the driver's seat, which can set you up for power struggles.
- Give your children choices – but maintain control of them when appropriate. Using the proper words with your children in this instance can make a world of difference. For example, don't say "You have to get a flu shot today, okay?" You are asking for his or her permission. Who is the boss – you or the child? Instead say to him or her, "You have to get a shot today, would you like to sit on my lap or on the exam table? Would you like it in the right or left arm?" The child then feels like they have a little bit of control over the situation, even if they have no control over the fact that they have to get a shot. In fact, giving your child choices even when in the big scheme of things they don't have a choice, can make things go much more smoothly. If your little princess wants to wear her frilliest frock to the ball game, pick out three appropriate outfits and tell her she is to choose from them. She still gets a choice, but now it is an appropriate one.
- Teach by example. If you yell, your children are going to yell. If you smoke, swear, disrespect authority, they are going to do these things. If you tell the truth and admit your faults, they are going to tell the truth and admit their faults.
- Children should always have consequences to their actions, but make sure the consequences are obtainable as a parent. If you threaten a consequence then you have to be prepared to follow through. Often we threaten when we are upset or angry, so we go overboard. You have to follow through on what you tell your children (good or bad) or they won't respect you.
- Develop some rules of behavior that will be punished automatically and follow through with them. Don't give second chances. Don't follow the "three strikes and you're out" plan. You need to outline the rules: "if you do these things then you will be immediately punished." Obviously, if you are dealing with a one-year-old then you won't set them down and tell them, but don't give them second chances because you are training them. If your toddler hits you, they go in time out – don't warn them that they will go in time out if they do it again. Put them in time out after the first offense, and then they know definitively that hitting is not acceptable.
- Don't over schedule your children. This can be detrimental in several ways. If they are used to being involved in multiple activities each week, they get bored when they have nothing to do. Children should have some down time so they can learn to occupy themselves. Over scheduling also reduces that essential one-on-one time that parents need to have with their children. Over scheduling can drive children and parents to exhaustion, leading to a very grumpy group of family members. Have your children learn that downtime is normal.
- Make sure your children have responsibilities at home. Having responsibilities is not only a way for them to earn privileges but it also gives them a sense of self-worth. Having the kids help take care of the house creates an atmosphere of teamwork. The family should run the household as a team.
In all these techniques, consistency is also important so you are not sending mixed messages to your children.
An example that hits close to home for me of how these techniques work in a working mother's life is bringing children to the doctor. This is often a very stressful experience for children and harried mothers. Prepare your child for what is going to happen and your expectations for their behavior. Discuss consequences for misbehavior before the visit. Be firm during the visit. Commend them during the visit when they behave well. Follow through on any misbehavior. Use their good behavior as an excuse to reward them (and you) with an ice cream treat!
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