#nonviolent parenting

[saboramii]

If your baby, your toddler, your child has a tendency towards using their hands to hit others & animals:

Do not reprimand & tell them “No!”. Do not smack their hands to “show how it feels”. Do not use negativity or violence in any way, shape or form to teach a child a positive habit, behavior or tendency you would like them to inherit.

Rather, block the child’s hands and give examples of how one uses their hands:

“Our hands are for being gentle” and SHOW them.

“Our hands are for eating”

“Our hands are for high fives”

“Our hands are for drawing” etc!

Model your Word. Be consistent. Our hands are not for hurting others.

Nor should our voices & utterances be.

[kmeger]

Danger!

I spend a decent amount of time on the change my view subreddit (assuming you've heard of Reddit) and every once in a while there's a spanking change my view. Most of the time it's "I think spanking is bad, CMV". Occasionally it's the other way around, but I usually find myself commenting on the first comment and the response is almost ALWAYS, "spanking should never be done out of anger, only in extreme circumstances to protect your child from danger." This response is so insanely common, and I'm not going to get into ALL the reasons I'm against it, I'm just going to challenge you to this view: 

Adults understand danger. Children do not understand danger. If a child is in a dangerous situation, is it their fault that they are there? Is it their fault you took them to a crowded mall? Is it their fault you left the stove unattended, let them play in the front yard by themselves, took them camping, put the knife down in their reach? No. It's not. I completely understand the frustration, but punishing your child for danger that you put them in is irrational. Protect them from danger, pull them out of those situations, emergencies happen I get it. But it's just a poor justification for physically hurting them. There are ways to teach without violence and when they're too young to understand them, that's when they need you to protect them the most. 

That said, there are also neurological reasons why spanking actually can be rather ineffective, but I don't have good solid sources for those claims so I'm not going to post it now, but it just takes a basic understanding of how learning occurs and how the limbic system works. Gabor Mate has some amazing research on it. One day I'll gather all the sources. For now, just keep your kids out of danger and don't blame them for getting into it! I'm guilty of it too, but I don't justify it and I recognize that my reactions were poor and could have been handled better. 

[kmeger]

Negotiation

Ok, I get how I am relentlessly talking about the book Parent Effectiveness Training, but every time I open to a new page I get about 39 new epiphanies that I want to share with EVERYONE. 

I've talked about the importance of I-Messages (the proper way to share your feelings that gives you ownership and doesn't blame the other) and mentioned active listening (how to decode messages without judgment so that your children and others feel understood), but there's a third main part of the book: negotiation. Creating that win-win like I mentioned in the permissive parenting post. 

One of the most common beliefs in our society is the idea that "children want rules and limits". Which is true to an extent, but we believe that the way to implement those rules is by creating a win-lose conflict resolution with a "my house, my rules" kind of solution. However, you can enforce these limits with a win-win and in doing so, actually gives the child more responsibility and intrinsic motivation. 

I came across this quote in the book:  "A person is more motivated to carry out a decision that he has participated in making than he is a decision that has been imposed on him by another" 

It's important to note that it's not about compromising because that's lose-lose. It's about negotiating a deal that works for both of you. We have started doing this with Nate. We straight up say "how can we both win?" And he's getting really good at trying to come up with solutions, but still struggles as it is a new concept. So the other day he wanted to eat cereal while watching his show. I didn't want him to eat in the living room. I told him that I feel frustrated when he eats in the living room because it gets in the carpet and makes a mess that is harder to clean up. So he went in the kitchen and dragged a chair over to the edge of the kitchen so he could see the TV. I pointed out to him that I won because he was eating in the kitchen and I was happy about that, but also that he won because he was able to eat while watching his show. 

I'm really excited about this new tool because I can see the way he is starting to think of solutions to problems. Not only is it giving him more responsibility, but it's an incredibly useful skill he's learning. Barking orders doesn't teach him anything about how I feel about certain things, he only does things so I don't bark orders at him. 

This book has SO much common sense in it to the point you think "why didn't I just already do this?" But it's laid out in a way that makes it so easy to understand. I just can't get enough of it! No book comes more highly recommended than this one. Plain and simple. The world would be a better place if EVERYONE read it! 

[emotionalabuseawareness]

Beyond the Labels: Parenting with Respect

There are a lot of parenting theories swirling around right now. I’ve found that I can relate to many of them and sort of fit with some of them. But I don’t really belong to any of them. I never found a group and followed along. And in searching for how or why I came to my particular set of beliefs, I came to this conclusion:  

I treat my kids with respect.

Parenting gets really simple when you realize your children are human beings. Your children are not pets, slaves, or property. They are human. Just like you. They have thoughts, desires, feelings and needs, just like you. When you are considering a parenting choice, just ask yourself a simple question: how would I feel?

We ascribe so many negative qualities to our children. Stubborn, rude, disobedient, liar, loud, selfish, mean, strong-willed, disruptive. We say that our children won’t pay attention, are too rowdy, too lazy, talk back, don’t listen. Our children don’t want to share, won’t hug our friends, won’t sleep alone, want too much attention, have tantrums, won’t eat what we serve, won’t take naps.

But take a moment to look at yourself.

Read full article here: http://unnecessarywisdom.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/beyond-the-labels-parenting-with-respect/

[theconcealedweapon]

Original Source

[ordream]

When we force children to submit to unwanted affection in order not to offend a relative or hurt a friend's feelings, we teach them that their bodies do not really belong to them because they have to push aside their own feelings about what feels right to them. This leads to children getting sexually abused, teen girls submitting to sexual behavior so 'he'll like me' and kids enduring bullying because everyone is 'having fun.'

Irene van der Zande, taken from Nonviolent Parenting

[theriverunderground]

It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."

-Frederick Douglass