Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting
This book is great for babies right up until school aged kids. Since I have toddlers, I skipped the parts about older children and will revisit it as they get older.
Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids has a few key points talked about throughout the book. Staying calm, connecting, and allowing your children to feel what they are feeling without using punishment.
“Some children are born with more difficult temperaments, and for those children our inner work as parents is even more important. But regardless of what your child brings into the world, the way you respond to her will shape her ability to make the most of her life. Your child will delight and exasperate you, thrill and annoy you. By accident, really, your child will ask you to grow, too. If you can notice when you’re triggered and restore yourself to equilibrium before you take action, if you can soothe your own anxiety, if you can reflect on your own experience and make peace with it, you can raise happy, emotionally healthy children who are successful in every sense.” pg. 5
Key points:
Regulating Yourself
- when a kid is misbehaving, it’s a cry for help. Younger kids tend to act out when they do not know how to handle their big feelings. Their brains have not developed enough to properly communicate how they are feeling and a temper-tantrum or physical violence is usually the result.
- Kids need our love and acceptance. They need to know we still love them even if they hit their younger sister. They want to please us and the more love we give them the easier it is for us to work through their anger. If we yell and or hit them, all it does is make them fear us.
- Parents need to model good behavior for our children. If we stay calm in a difficult situation, they will see that and hopefully learn that’s how they are supposed to behave. Even though anger might get the best of us parents, we need feel it, and try to let it pass. Your child is not the enemy, even though it might feel like it mid tantrum.
- Parents are human and sometimes let anger get the best of them. Remove yourself from the situation and take a deep breath. Once you have calmed down, tell your child you are sorry for yelling and that is not how to react when you are angry. This is the best way to show your child you also make mistakes, but can fix them and work on reacting differently the next time.
Fostering Connection
“Children need an attachment figure to feel grounded. That’s hardwired for survival; the parent provides the secure base for the child to feel safe enough to explore the world. When we “push” children into emotional independence, research shows, they become more needy. Sometimes they get overinvolved with their peer group and fixate on other children as attachment objects.” pg. 52
- Family rituals are really important, such as eating dinner together as a family. You can start this as early as infancy and should continue into the teen years when kids are easily distracted by peer groups.
- “Special Time” is important to have with each child. Find a small block of time, even just 15 minutes, to be alone with each child as often as possible. Make it an exciting time for you and your child and take turns deciding what to do.
- “Twelve hugs a day. Bonding is primal; for most children it’s dependent on feeling physically connected to you. As the family therapist, Virginia Satir famously said, ‘We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need twelve hugs a day for growth.” pg. 71
- Really listen to your children. If you are not able to listen to their feelings at that moment, then make sure to talk as soon as they have your undivided attention. Sometimes, your child just needs to vent so try not to intervene with parenting advice at the moment.
Coaching, Not Controlling
“Whether we know it or not, we’re constantly coaching our child on how to handle emotion. In fact, most of our interactions with our child are emotional exchanges of one sort or another. The way we as parents respond to our child’s feelings shapes his relationship with emotions – his own and others’ – for the rest of his life.” pg. 91
- Empathy for your child is one of the best ways to connect with him or her. If you show your child you understand why he or she feels the way they do, then they are able to learn to manage their emotions. It also teaches them to have empathy for others.
- Let your child express his anger in a safe way so he or she can work through it and learn to manage it. If a child is taught that anger is bad then they will learn to repress it, which can cause the anger to unconsciously come out unregulated.
- No punishment, including time outs, no yelling and hitting. When a child is punished he will think he is a bad person and most of the time he continues to act that way. It ruins the connection we have with our child and teaches them to avoid another punishment rather than understand what they did wrong. Time outs leave a child alone with his big and scary feelings. He doesn’t feel he can be loved since he was so bad.
- “When we repeatedly break our connection with our child, whether in the name of discipline or independence, it undermines the close relationship we’ve worked so hard to build.” pg. 102
- Use loving guidance rather than punishment to deepen your connection with your child and build their self-esteem. Let them know you still love them despite throwing the toy at the dog. Set clear limits and teach them why we do not throw things. Love and support have been proven to raise better behaved and well adjusted children.
- “When we coach our child through turbulence, it’s an essential time to stay connected…when kids are in the grip of strong emotions, it’s a signal that they need to reconnect with us.” pg. 91
- Wait until after your child calms down before trying to connect. Look him or her in the eyes when you explain the rules and limits if they have misbehaved. When you give your child options they are more likely to cooperate because they feel they have some control.
- Empower your child to solve problems and make their own decisions. You are there for guidance and to keep everyone safe. Children like when they are asked to problem solve; when they are having a hard time with a limit you set, see what they think they could do next time. This also allows him or her to take responsibility for something they might have done wrong.
If you decide to read this book or not, you may be left with other questions, like I was. Ahaparenting.com is website ran by the author and it is a great resource for specific questions. There is a question section from parents just like us and answered by the author. I have been having trouble with my older daughter hurting her younger sister and this part of the website was a huge help. It was really helpful to know other parents are going through the same thing and I now know how to go about trying to manage it.
Since I read this book, I have noticed a huge change in my two year old. I was using the time-outs (what I liked to call time to yourself) and it was not working. Since my daughter doesn’t nap anymore I do give her some alone time to rest, but I do not use this as a way to punish her. Giving my daughter options has limited the amount of tantrums she is having. Always staying calm is really difficult for me, but I am working on it every day and it has made me a better mom and overall happier person. We are still struggling with the anger she has towards her younger sister, but I know this is all normal and I continue to repeat myself in a calm way, “We do not hit people, please come to me when you have these angry feelings toward your sister.” I always give her hugs when she is spiraling out of control and it really calms her down. I will continue to hold her and tell her how much I love her while she’s crying. As soon as she calms down that’s when I talk to her about what had just happened.
I hope this review has inspired you to look at the way you are connecting with your child. There is a reason why they say parenting is the hardest job in the world!
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