What attributes do you want your child to have when they’re grown?
Without exception when I ask this question I get these kinds of responses…
👉 Kind
👉 Motivated
👉 Empathetic
👉 Compassionate
👉 Passionate
👉 Driven
👉 Service-Oriented
👉 Focused
👉 Loving
So…how do we help our kids develop these traits when we use punishments, bribes, threats, yelling, lectures, reasoning, sarcasm, shame, bribes, belittling to raise them?
Doesn’t seem like a great plan.
There are over 100 different studies 🙌 that show how punishments, rewards, and consequences are not creating the lasting changes we are hoping to create for our children. In fact, many studies have shown how they are detrimental to children…so why do we use them?
Our society has come to believe that controlling our child’s behavior is parenting.
We hear things like…
✔️ We should be under control.
✔️Our child’s behavior should be controlled.
✔️ Our child’s emotions should be controlled.
But what are we really teaching them? That it isn’t okay to be a messy human? That they should ever get upset? That it isn’t okay to be frustrated?
Our world is obsessed with control.
The only thing we have control over is us.
What if instead of trying to control our kids, we just focused on ourselves? ☀️
Often we are so focused on trying to change or control our kid’s behavior that we don’t notice how out of control we are.
What if we stayed focus on showing up as the most ❤️ emotionally mature human in the room?
What if our parenting success was measured by how WE RESPOND to our kid’s off-track behavior instead of on THEY RESPOND situations?
What if we believe our kids were doing the best they could in the moment?
Maybe then we’d feel so much compassion ❤️❤️ for them trying to deal with something that wasn’t working that we’d be able to set a limit from a place of empathy?
How would that change things for you?
Years ago I used to think rewards and punishments were the keys to changing my child’s behavior.
I read so many books that assumed that behaviorism worked and used that as the foundation for all their suggestions.
And here’s the thing…
Our brains get confused because if the prize is big enough or the pain great enough the child complies.
But at what cost?
👉 At the cost of the relationship?
👉 At the cost of us being able to help our kids embody all those amazing qualities we want for them?
👉 At the cost of love and connection?
If you could get rid of punishments, lecturing, shame, rewards. and belittling will make a huge difference in your ability to connect with your kiddos.
💃 Just this one thing alone can change the relationships and feelings in your home. 💃
