I am pretty sure I didn’t do “gentle parenting” with my kids.
To be clear, Penn and I don’t really have to discipline our children. They are wonderful kids and on their way to be amazing adults. But when they were toddlers having a tantrum, I can’t say that I was gentle. But should I be? I want to raise our kids in the best way possible.
Is it too late to change my parenting?
Promoting A Vision
Enter our dear friend, Dr. Hope Seidel, a parenting coach and pediatrician. When I posed this question to Dr. Hope, she responded: “Why do you think you need to change, Kim? Because a book told you so?” This is why I need Dr. Hope in my life and why I am so glad she joined our podcast discussion this week.
Dr. Hope explained that our relationship with our children is a partnership. You want to be conscious in your parenting. Sometimes that means you don’t save the day. You let them struggle, let them regulate their emotions (regulate your emotions too) and anchor everything with unconditionally loving your children. It’s important to ask yourself:
What am I hoping my kids will be, and am I creating a home that promotes that vision?
There’s So Much To Look Forward To
It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day that there is a disconnect between your vision and the environment you create. At the end of the day, we mostly want to raise our children to be self-sufficient adults. Our achievement culture puts a lot of emphasis on success in work, school, and extracurricular activities. There is rarely an emphasis on life skills.
Dr. Hope reminds us that capable adults should be able to complete the following skills:
Be able to handle failure
Be able to do things they don’t want to do
Take instructions from a leader (that’s not their parent)
Communicate what they need and regulate emotions
Identify when they need help and ask for it
Learn to manage money
Do basic chores even when you’re busy
While it is our goal to create successful self-sufficient humans, I can’t help feeling sad thinking about my kids not needing me anymore. Dr. Hope has kids a little older than ours and she reassures me: “There’s so much to look forward to, you just can’t see it yet.”
Listen to our show and let us know what you think:
