If you're anything like me, you sometimes wonder how your parenting skills are. Or, maybe somedays, they're great, and other days you know they're not quite up to "gold" standard.
For our family, we have some interesting "dynamics" in our home with a 2 year old, 4 year old, and 9 year old in the mix. There is sibling rivalry, a big age gap, a small age gap, and of course trying to balance time between all the kids. How do people with more than 3 kids do it?!?
Over time, people can form bad habits...and I think as parents we can do the same. Sometimes it gets to be the same old, same old, trying to "discipline" them the "right" way, sometimes without making positive changes to achieve this. In my life, I find I'm generally trying to keep the peace and keep everyone happy... and I don't always give a lot of attention to the way I'm working through everyday issues.
Recently, my hubby & I noticed what we were doing wasn't always working...so I first signed up for the Ontario Early Years Newsletter via email, and started to receive information about parenting classes.
I signed us up for the COPE (Community Parent Education Program) through our local Ontario Early Years Centre - it's a 10 week program for parents of kids ages 3-12. Perfect for us! Lucky for me, my hubby is a good sport and is joining me. (Okay, whatever - I pretty much signed us up and said, "Guess what you're doing honey?")
We've attended 2 weeks so far -- and honestly I feel like we've already walked away with some great tools for problem solving, resolving conflicts and generally building healthy relations with our kids. I'm so excited about it, I felt it necessary to devote an entire post to this topic!
I won't discuss everything in the course, but there are a few things that have really worked for us.
Positive reinforcement. Simple. Easy. Tell your kids they're doing a great job at something when they're doing it. It's amazing the rewards that come from that simple action. They start to WANT to be better behaved because they just eat up the praise!! We have a tick sheet from the program that we as parents can check off when we really pay attention and praise our children...
Ignoring behaviours. There are certain things that we can let go. For example, we discovered that the big "SIGHS" that my oldest lets out when he's frustrated...let it go!! Ignore it. Doesn't get much easier than that! You're pretty much doing nothing. It's sort of like I've always said..."Pick your battles".
So what happens when the sighs turn into "that sucks" or "I don't care" or worse? Well, we are going to work on that this week. It's problem solving.
We are going to discuss it with him, and make a plan for alternative words or phrases to use. It will give him time to vent his frustrations as well (such as, my little brothers play with ALL my toys all the time!!). We are hoping to come up with a plan for appropriate language, and also what he needs from us as a family to make him happy too. I have a feeling some "alone" time for my oldest will be in the cards... It's a win win situation.
So, those are a few of the highlights of our class so far. I'm looking forward to the next 8 classes...it's fun, it's open conversation and the facilitators do a great job of ensuring everyone in the group is able to participate.
If you're interested, check out your local Ontario Early Years Centre - they have wonderful playgroups for ages 0-6 years, as well as a variety of workshops and courses for kids and their parents. The course we are taking has free childcare, and they even feed the kids a healthy snack while we're there.
It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, how many kids you have, where you work...when you walk in the door, they are there to support people to become better parents and stronger families.
It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, how many kids you have, where you work...when you walk in the door, they are there to support people to become better parents and stronger families.
The feedback and positive environment really makes me think of one of my favourite sayings, "It takes a village to raise a child"
Peace & love,
Keri
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