John Gray - Children Are from Heaven - Positive Parenting Skills for Raising Cooperative, Confident, and Compassionate Children

For active children, parents need to focus on a few of the primary feelings, but acknowledge what the child is doing or wanting to do. For example, you might say, “I know you have stopped everything to come over here and get a cookie. You are really angry because you want a cookie and I want you to wait until after dinner.” If a child is active, you can succeed in giving better understanding by just elaborating a little on what is physically happening or not happening and by letting the child know directly what you want him to do.

For responsive children who need redirection, you could add a little phrase like this, “I know you want a cookie now . You are really angry because you want a cookie and I won’t give you one. Let’s go over here and wrap up this cookie for you to have after dinner. Tonight we are going to have pink salmon and fluffy white potatoes. Look at these potatoes . . .”

For receptive children who need more rhythm, add the element of time and it will work a little better. Use the phrase, “I know you want a cookie now . You are really angry because you don’t want to wait. Right now it is time to get ready for dinner and after dinner it will be time to eat dessert. First we eat and then we have dessert.” Receptive children need a little rhythm and then they can relax.

Each of these four different approaches works best when applied to the appropriate child, but the original example would also work. Remember that every child has a little bit of each of the temperaments. Any of these approaches will work.

When it comes to dealing with our children’s resistance, there are generally two different approaches: soft love and hard love. Hard-love parents mistakenly believe, “If I tolerate my children’s resistance, then I will spoil them. They must always remember who is boss.” Although this limited thinking is now out of date, it is still partially true. To have a healthy sense of security in life, children need to always remember that the parent is the boss.

Although children may love being the boss, it works against their well being. Children need to play in the magical world of childhood without the burden of being responsible.

Too many choices will create an inner insecurity that gives rise to a host of problems. A child will disconnect with his or her natural willingness to cooperate and become demanding, selfish, needy, or just more resistant. An updated adjustment to the old adage, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is “When a child forgets who’s boss, you spoil the child.” The new message we need to give our children is that it’s okay to resist, but remember mom and dad are the bosses.

It’s time to update and adjust the old adage,

“Spare the rod and spoil the child.”

The wisdom of the past must always be updated with new adjustments. To create order in society, we no longer need to take adulterers and stone them outside the city walls. In a similar way, we don’t need to spank our children or be intolerant of their resistance. Hard-love approaches must be rethought and adapted to meet the new needs of every generation.

The hard-love approach teaches children who is boss, but does not tolerate children’s natural resistance. While fear- and guilt-based approaches used to work, they now create their own set of problems. As we have already discussed, children do not need to be beaten and punished to create a willingness to cooperate. Children are born already willing to cooperate, but if they are not permitted to resist, they will either be weak and obedient, or they will attempt to find their inner power through rebelling.

Punishment may make them obedient in the short term, but later on they will rebel. Children today are rebelling earlier and earlier. This rebellion not only makes parenting more time consuming, difficult, and painful, but it obstructs a child’s natural development.

Some experts today will say it is good for your child to rebel at puberty, that it is normal for a child in puberty to stop talking to his or her parents or looking to them for love and support. Although things do change at puberty, it doesn’t mean a child has to rebel against the parents or stop going to them for support. The huge disconnection between parents and teenagers is not normal or healthy — it is just common.

The huge disconnection that is occurring

today between parents and teenagers is not

healthy — it is just common.

Though teenagers naturally feel a greater need for peer support, this does not mean they no longer have a need for their parents’ guidance and love as well. It is not a given that a teenager will defy or rebel against their parents. Yes, it is a time for them to explore their individuality, but this does not mean that they will rebel or disconnect from a healthy willingness to cooperate, please, and follow the direction of their parents.

To live a fulfilled life today, it is not enough to surrender your will to the rules and live obediently under the rule of the boss. It doesn’t help our children to break their will and teach them to follow rules mindlessly and heartlessly. Children today have the potential to create the lives they want.

Our children have the power to make their dreams come true, but this power must be nurtured. It is a creative power.

When there is a problem or obstacle, a creative child or adult does not just accept and give in. Instead, creative people look for another way, a way to get what they want and to serve the needs of others as well. By awakening the spirit of cooperation in our children, this kind of creative intelligence is awakened. By raising our children to simply be obedient, we fail to give them the winning edge they need to compete and succeed in the world today.

In raising merely obedient children, we fail to

give them the winning edge.

Success in life doesn’t come from following rules; it comes from thinking for oneself and following one’s heart and inner will. This natural ability is first nurtured by strengthening the child’s willingness to cooperate. Demanding obedience from your children numbs their inner will. It closes their mind and heart and disconnects them from their potential to create the life they are here to live. When children get the message that it is okay to resist, but remember mom and dad are the bosses, they have the opportunity to keep their mind and heart open and nurture the ability to know their own will and wish in life.

Success in life doesn’t come from following rules,

it comes from thinking for oneself and

following one’s heart and inner will.

When parents are able to respond to a child’s resistance calmly, without threats of punishment or disapproval, then a child gradually learns how to deal with the resistance she experiences in the world. When confronted with someone who is not willing to cooperate, she knows how to deal with the situation without mindlessly giving in or demanding that the other person give in.

Positive parenting teaches children to navigate through life’s obstacles with understanding and great negotiation skills.

They know with certainty the power of listening to minimize resistance and increase a person’s willingness to cooperate.

What was done to them, they do to others. When parents listen more to their children, their children automatically learn how to listen as well.

Many parents have given up hard parenting. They recognize the importance of listening, but don’t understand the importance of being the boss. They seek to avoid their children’s resistance by listening and then placating the child. They listen, but then cave in to their child’s resistance to make the child happy. They cannot bear to see their children unhappy, and so they make whatever sacrifice they can to please them.