What are the qualities you want to see in your child when they grow up?
Do you want them to be trustworthy?
Independent?
Resilient?
Creative problem-solvers?
Critical thinkers?
Most people agree on the qualities that would be ideal to instill in their children by adulthood. Aside from the above, we want them to:
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Have a great relationship with us, to feel connected.
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Have an internal motivation to work and be independent
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Be content or happy
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Take risks, make mistakes, and have the resilience to try again
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Be able to ask us questions
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Have the confidence to speak up for themselves and their bodies
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Trust in their inner voice
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Set personal boundaries
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Make decisions using critical thinking
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Know how to build good habits
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Show respect to themselves and others
And I imagine there are many more not listed here.
At the same time, many of us are raising our kids with the exact opposite skills. Not intentionally, but because that is how we were raised and what we understand parenting to be. It is what society teaches us:
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We want our children to learn to have a voice and yet we tell them “don’t talk back.”
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We want our children to think critically yet we demand compliance, and “don’t make me repeat myself.”
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While we tell our children to protect their bodies, yet they still are required to give their great aunt a hug even though they don’t know her and she squeezes their cheeks too hard.
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We want our children to learn respect and politely use their words, while we snap at them, yell at them, shame them, and punish them for not being “good.”
Most of all, we want our kids to feel loved – meanwhile we tell them they aren’t good enough because we are too busy to listen, too busy to spend time with them, and over-correct them.
Instead of cherishing them as the beautiful spirits they are, we try to mold them to make up for our deficiencies.
These ironies are not new. This has been parenting in America for a long time — hundreds of years, if not longer.
The beautiful thing is that we now have the skill sets to change our parenting. It is a simple path, but not necessarily easy. It involves some vulnerability and learning new skills and acknowledging where we were hurt growing up. However, when we do the work, our children reap the rewards tenfold AND so do we.
In the Modern Parenting Mindset, the premise is to use awareness of our feelings and needs to communicate with our children and partners so we can each get our needs met.
We focus on listening as well as communicating our feelings and needs, and through our modeling, our children learn those skills, too.
We creatively problem-solve together because each situation and relationship is unique – our children get the opportunity to practice collaboration and creative problem solving, too.
We feel our feelings which in itself is healing and results in less anger and disrespectful behaviors. Feelings also illuminate our inner guide – the compass of our intuition which we have been taught by mainstream society to ignore.
We have awareness and respect for our own needs and the needs of our child which teaches children that we are people to be respected and so are they.
We forgive ourselves, our children, and others – after all, we are human and it is very human to make mistakes.
Let’s revisit the list of the skills and qualities we want our children to have when they become adults. With the Modern Parenting Mindset, we have the opportunity to model and teach all of these skills through respectful communication. We don’t need punishment, consequences, or lectures. We just need love and the Golden Rule.
Holly Storm is a parent of two lovely boys. She helps thoughtful parents communicate and connect with their children. Holly is a certified parent coach through the Jai Institute.