Thank You for the Opportunity to Parent You

I have three young daughters that behave like most little kids do. Sometimes they are fantastic, sometimes they misbehave. As a father, I enjoy my kids. I like to eat with them, play with them and parent them. My goal is to raise three daughters that make the world a better place. I view it as my responsibility to teach them how to be good people.

When the kids are behaving well, parenting is easy. During these periods it actually doesn't feel like parenting since there isn't a correction. It's just hanging out. However, I think we are parenting at these times as well, since we are models of what good behavior is and as that example, it's up to us to demonstrate the behavior we would like them to replicate.

Parenting gets more challenging when the child exhibits behavior that is inappropriate. This may be as simple as getting out of bed in the evening, or as distressing as a temper tantrum, or even as serious as aggressive behavior towards another child.

One of my parenting theories is if you teach kids well when they are small, this will help decrease the number of problems down the road for them as they grow up and can cause more serious trouble to themselves and others.

I find dealing with a whiny kid in-front of others a bit awkward. Similarly, it's more difficult to parent in social settings when the kids throw a tantrum. I can remember Julia on Halloween laying on the sidewalk kicking and screaming. Cars stopped to see what was the matter. I had to explain that she was having a tough day. i felt like, why can't I get this small child to behave in a congenial manner.

Other times, it will be late in the evening and the kids will keep calling us from their bedroom to check on them. They cry, whine and get out of bed. Each time they try our patience.

These are just small examples. No doubt, if you are a parent, you've been frustrated and tired when it comes to dealing with your kids. Recently, I've found that I can change my attitude to when it comes to parenting my small children.

Here is my new parenting technique. Every-time my children misbehave (which is more than I thought), I say "Thank you for misbehaving, this gives me an excellent opportunity to parent you." Then, I bring the child to their room and sit them down on the bed and explain what they did wrong. Then we practice the behavior we want or the appropriate reaction in many cases. If an apology is warranted, we practice looking the other person in the eye and delivering a sincere apology. Here is a simple example, Georgia is playing with a doll that Julia wants. Julia pulls Georgia's hair out of frustration. Then, I walk Julia to her room and explain that the doll is Georgia's and that it is inappropriate to pull another person's hair. Pulling hair hurts the other person and there are much better ways to resolve situations where someone has something that we want. Julia's only two, so it takes a bit of explaining. We talk about how pulling hair hurts. I say things like "Julia, pretend you want this doll, can you ask an appropriate way to play with it?" She usually says "No." So, we have to keep practicing, until she gets it. Usually, she'll come around and say "Georgia, can I please play with your doll?" Or, "After you're done playing with your doll, may I please play with it?" We practice these types of things about five times or so.

Next we work on the apology for pulling her hair. I say "Julia, let's practice an apology for pulling Georgia's hair." She will sometimes say "Sorry" in a baby voice and I have to remind her to use a big girl voice and remind her to be specific. For example, the apology I'd like her to give is "Georgia, I'm sorry for pulling your hair. I know it hurt you and I won't do it again."

Now that I've been doing this for a few weeks, it has caused some confusion. Especially for my five year old daughter. She says "Do you want us to misbehave so you can parent us?" I must lay on the thank you part a little too thick. The other thing she says "I'm going to be really good, so you can't parent me." This is more of what I want.

My wife has formal parenting education training, while I rely on techniques from my parents or my own ideas. While it may seem odd to thank the child for misbehaving so that I can have an opportunity to parent them by showing the right way to behave, I think it does help by viewing the situation with a positive attitude, although it may be a little strange. I will say, this is one of my ideas:)

But beyond having a positive attitude and viewing it as an opportunity, I think the real benefit is the role playing and practicing of the behavior we want. My wife says this is a proven parenting technique. The girls seem to have a much better understanding of the right way to behave and deliver much better apologies after practicing them a few times.

The good news is, I'll get several opportunities to improve my parenting skills.