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

2.To minimize resistance and improve communication, listen and nurture — don’t fix.

3.To increase motivation, reward — don’t punish.

4.To assert your leadership, command — don’t demand.

5.To maintain control, give time outs — don’t spank.

These five skills work to awaken our children’s willingness to cooperate. The fuel that makes these skills work are the five positive messages (see “Introduction”). Without these skills, we cannot effectively put the five positive messages into action, but it is the five messages that make the skills work. The five skills and five messages are interdependent.

The first message — it is okay to be different — nourishes our children’s need to feel loved and special. Without our understanding and accepting how each child is different, children cannot get the nurturing they need to be cooperative.

The second message — it is okay to make mistakes — is essential for children to feel good about themselves and continue to be motivated to please their parents in a healthy way. If mistakes are not accepted, then children either give up trying or give up themselves in the process of trying.

The third message — it is okay to have negative feelings — makes it safe for children to grow in an awareness of what they feel inside. This awareness is essential for keeping children in touch with their healthy need for parental guidance and approval, which in turn triggers their willingness to please and cooperate.

The fourth message — it is okay to want more — opens the doorway for children to develop a strong sense of self and direction by knowing what they want. Children who know what they want are most easily motivated by the possibility of more. They not only want more, but learn how to delay gratification when they can’t get it right away. When children have permission to want more, they quickly respond to rewards as well as to the opportunity to please their parents.

The fifth message — it is okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are the bosses — is essential for all the skills of positive parenting. Children must always have permission to resist if they are to cooperate. They must be able to resist if they are to make their feelings and wants known to others as well as to themselves. This message strengthens children’s willpower, which in turn strengthens their natural will and wish to please and cooperate.

When the five positive messages are the basis of parents’ approach to parenting, then the five skills of positive parenting are most effective. In the next five chapters we will explore these messages in greater detail. With this increased insight, parents will be able to make decisions and respond to their children in ways that nurture and support their children in becoming who they truly are and developing the special gifts they have to share in this world.

Every child is born unique and special. In practical terms, this means that children may be very different from what parents expect them to be. They have their own special gifts, and they have their own unique challenges. To meet their challenges, they will have their own special needs. As parents, our job is not only to tolerate differences, but also to embrace them. This is most effectively accomplished when we are able to recognize what each child’s special needs are and to fulfill those needs.

The absence of this positive message is, “Something is wrong with my child. He or she needs to be fixed rather than nurtured,” or “My child is bad and needs improvement in some way.” Having such an attitude is one of the biggest mistakes parents make. Children need a clear message that they are okay and that differences are fine and to be expected.

The absence of acceptance

manifests itself in the statement

“Something is wrong with my child.”

Applying the five skills of positive parenting makes this acceptance much easier. It is usually when parents are not getting the cooperation they need that they begin to think their children are bad or something is wrong with them.

With a greater awareness of how children are different, a parent is not so quick to assume the worst when those differences show up. Rather than resist the differences, parents can nurture children in ways to bring out their unique gifts and strengths as well as to assist them in overcoming their weaknesses.

Every child is a unique combination of different characteristics determined by gender, body type, temperament, personality, intelligence, and style of learning. To be aware of the possible differences, combinations, and permutations of all these factors prepares a parent to accept and embrace the differences. With this expanded insight, it becomes easier to recognize that one child is not better than another, nor is there any one way to be.

Being different doesn’t mean one style is better than another.

Often parents mistakenly assume that they know what is best for their children. Even if a child is an apple tree, they persist in trying to help the child be a good pear tree. This kind of help restricts a child’s development. Although children are born with an inner blueprint of who they are and what they are here to do, they need their parents’ acceptance, love, support, time, and attention to call forth and nurture their potential.

Parents are not responsible for how children turn out, but they are responsible to do their best to bring out the best in their children. Parents need to remember that every child has a unique journey and purpose in this world. To presume that a parent knows best how their children should turn out is to play God.

Children are from heaven. They have within them the seeds of greatness. It is not for parents to determine children’s destiny. Instead, parents are to create the fertile ground for children to grow into who they are supposed to be and not who the parent thinks they should be. This special support and acceptance of differences empowers children with the strength and confidence to make their dreams come true.

Gender differences show up more strongly at adolescence, but clearly, from day one, boys will be boys and girls will be girls.

Every child, regardless of gender, has his or her own unique balance of male and female characteristics. Acceptance is important.

Quite often, a mother or father will tend to assume that what is right for her or him is right for their child. This is a mistake. By recognizing common gender differences, it becomes easier to accept and respect certain behaviors and needs that seem foreign. We should not assume that what works for us will always work for our children.

A lack of understanding gender differences can also prevent mothers from appreciating what their mates have to offer and vice versa. Quite often, the mother will instinctively know what is best for a girl, but not for a boy. A father will instinctively know what is best for a boy, but not for a girl. This is because we tend to give our children what we would want or need and not necessarily what they need.

Unless educated about differences, people commonly assume that others should react and behave the way they do.

With an awareness of possible differences, we don’t immediately assume that something is wrong when others don’t react or respond to life the way we would.

Boys in general will have special needs that are not as important for girls. Likewise, girls will have needs that may not be that important for boys. Of course, the most important need is love. But love is shown in many different ways. A parent demonstrates love primarily by caring and trusting.