Positive Parenting During the Pandemic : Part 1

Part One

This is a 3-part blog, so watch for it as it evolves to help you help yourself parent like you have superpowers—you do and  we’re going to uncover them!

What Positive Parenting Means

While there’s a technical description for positive parenting that you can Google, The Kid Code meaning is:

• to feel supportive towards our kids and ourselves,
• solution- (not problem-) focused,
• truly wanting wellbeing everyone involved,
• able to recognize the inherent goodness in a child even though they can press every button we have as though they personally installed them.

How I Can Help You?

If you’re new to my work, here’s what you need to know: I am certified in conscious conflict resolution (see my bio) and have been focusing on helping parents  get ‘right now relief’ in an upset with their children (and anyone else) for twenty years and that’s what I want to share with you. Upsets take all the fun out of life—if you feel like you’ve lost your belly laugh and playfulness under the weight of parenting with the added stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s not lost, it’s just forgotten and we’re going to find it together.

Positive Parenting Strategy #1

Blessing Mistakes

Because ‘right now relief’ is my occupation, I’d like to share one of the stress-reducing, connection-creating strategies from The Kid Code because the pandemic has added to everyone in the family feeling more stressed and out of control than ever before.

Since there is never a good reason to feel bad when we make a parenting mistake, (because it’s not a solution), and we all make parenting mistakes—try this next time you make a mistake like this:

• holler at your kids,
• judge them,
• be impatient with them,
• get entangled in their temper tantrum, etc.

Say this to yourself, and feel the truth of the statement, “I matter more than the mistake.” Then make your mistake right (apologize, etc.), learn from it if there’s anything to learn, and let it go (more about how to do that another day). This strategy can drastically and immediately reduce the stress in your family life and improve emotional health.

For now, every time you make a parenting mistake give yourself grace, not grief by realizing that you do matter more than the mistake, and that despite what we’ve been taught (that we’re bad or dumb if we make mistakes), we are capable of showing ourselves and others kindness when a mistake is made. In fact, it’s more natural for us to be kind than cruel to ourselves. How we know this to be true is to see how we feel when we’re kind and how we feel when we’re cruel. When we’re in our natural states (like kindness), we feel natural. When we’re in a negative state (such as cruel) we don’t feel natural because it’s not natural, it’s ego trying to help us, but it can’t.

When your child makes a mistake, rather than using an authoritative parenting style, you are invited to say (and feel the truth of the statement) “You matter more than the mistake.” That doesn’t absolve them of responsibility because part two of Blessing Mistakes is to make it right, so you have to invite them to notice that taking responsibility actually feels better than denying, justifying, ignoring, or hiding a mistake. Before you can invite a child to become aware of how they feel when they duck a mistake in any way, you’ll have to begin to notice it in yourself.

Occasions to use Blessing Mistakes with kids are when they: tell a lie, fight with a sibling, are bullying someone, or demonstrate any other bad behavior. It works to bring peace back to the family in a short time any time someone is negative, too, because negativity is also not in our nature.

If we want to be positive parents, (and I haven’t met anyone yet who said they wanted to be a negative one)—then we have to make some simple changes, like using the Blessing Mistakes technique. That’s not too hard to do because once you feel the relief it brings, you’ll want to come back for more peace next time you make a mistake.

Why Bother Making A Few Changes?

Next let’s talk about why we want to make some changes that will make us feel like the positive parent we all want to be.

Kids Are Suffering

Parents don’t want their kids to suffer, and yet research shows that our kids are suffering more now than ever. This contradicts the evolutionary law that our kids should be mentally, emotionally, and physically more developed than us.

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention says that there are:

• 4.5 million kids in the US 3-17 years old diagnosed with behavioral problems.
• 4.4 million kids of the same age group have been diagnosed with anxiety.
• 1.9 million with depression.
• 6.1 million with ADHD.

(Source: March 22, 2021. Data and Statistics on Children’s Mental Health. Sponsor: CDC. Accessed June 2021.

https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html)

Those numbers tug at the heartstrings for the kids of today; where are they going to end up if they don’t have strategies that take them back to their joyful, carefree nature? We all know that we can’t have a good life or make good decisions if we have a stressed or depressed life.

Parents Are Suffering

And how are parents doing? Before the pandemic parents were suffering from stress. Now, the American Psychological Association is ‘sounding the alarm’: “We are facing a national mental health crisis that could yield serious health and social consequences for years to come.” (Source: Oct. 2020. Stress in America. Sponsor: American Psychological Association. Accessed: June 2021. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2020/report-october)

Stress is on the rise and is debilitating for parents and kids. That means fractured relationships, and misery is also on the rise. No one wants that life, so let’s take baby steps from feeling like we’re putting out fires and pulling our hair out to finding our positive and peaceful parenting powers.

If you feel like you need a little extra help or can’t wait to learn more about positive parenting and use the positive parenting tips you learn in your daily routines, we have certified teachers who can support your parenting journey. Today, during your coffee break you can learn one strategy to make your life easier.

The strategies are that quick and easy to learn.

Blessing mistakes uncovers your superpowers as a parent because doing the strategy leads you back to clarity and compassion. From that place we are great parents! For more information on Blessing Mistakes, buy the book or take a course.