Do your kids stress you out? Do you find yourself becoming anxious when you think about their behavior, and how it might impact their future? Do your children know how to “push your buttons” and draw you into an argument?
If so, you're not alone. While parenting has its rewards and joys, it can also be exhausting, frustrating and challenging. Many parents wish they could have a peaceful home with less conflict and more understanding.
What's the most effective way to learn how to be a calm parent? Believe it or not, it starts with focusing more on yourself and less on your kids. You have the most control over yourself and your response to a given situation.
Learn positive parenting tips and calm parenting techniques in these articles from Empowering Parents.
If you're a parent, you've probably been there: your child says or does something that pushes your buttons, and the next thing you know, you're yelling and screaming at the top of your lungs. And they're responding in kind. Afterward, you feel drained, upset, and frustrated. You wonder why it always has to come down... Read more »
Why is it so difficult to control our anger with our kids? There are many reasons, but I think it’s mainly because we allow ourselves to get angry and lose control. When we react emotionally to our kids and lose control, we’re allowing our kids to determine how we behave rather than the other way... Read more »
Does your child's behavior make you feel out of control? Do you find yourself walking on eggshells so that you don’t “set him off?” It might be your five year old who has tantrums and acts out, or perhaps it’s your teenager who fights with you all the time. Your consequences mean nothing to him,... Read more »
What’s one of the keys to avoiding constant fights with your child? Believe it or not, it’s the same skill that will help you through any crisis situation—your ability to remain calm. When your child is upset, anxious or angry, keeping your cool is half the battle. It’s a way for you to put out... Read more »
Calm Parenting—most of us aspire to it, desire it, and even promise ourselves we’re going to do it—but it’s so difficult to sustain. We know how important it is to parent from our principles rather than from our fears, but despite our best intentions we lose it and end up yelling at those we love... Read more »
Our kids have the uncanny ability to get under our skin and bring out the very worst in us. We can lose our tempers and yell at our kids in a way that we would never do with a child who wasn't our own. Indeed, we often treat our loved ones the worst. Here's the... Read more »
As a parent, you naturally worry about your child's future. It's part of being a parent, and it makes sense. A healthy dose of worry motivates you to set limits and keeps your child safe and on the right track. Nevertheless, too many of our worries are excessive and just don't make sense. Especially when we... Read more »
Patience. It’s something many of us in the Empowering Parents community wish we had more of. In my coaching sessions, I often ask parents how they respond when their children act out. Most express the desire to develop more patience with their kids. But what exactly is patience? For many people, including me, patience means remaining... Read more »
Have you been looking back on the last year, reflecting on how things went with your child? If so, perhaps you feel frustrated when you think about his or her behavior—and your reaction to it. Maybe you feel like no matter what you do as a parent, nothing changes. But understand that positive change can... Read more »
The new year gives us a chance to pause and ask ourselves the big questions: “How am I doing? How can I improve?” If you’re a parent, perhaps you resolve to be a calmer one, a more consistent one, a stricter one, a more involved one. Maybe you’re thinking about the gap between the parent... Read more »
