Kids! They can be so challenging. But we were all once kids. So, it should be easy right? We just tell them to do the things that we were told growing up and they should just fall in line. But that is so far from the truth. It also seems like every generation is just different on top of the fact that every kid is different in their own right. I’m sure we’ve all had those challenging times as parents where one kid goes off and does something, another kid goes off and does something different, and you have to parent them differently because they respond differently and react differently. So, what do you do? How do you parent these different little human beings. I’ll tell you when I first became a parent, I had really high expectations you know, college, big goals, sports and dreams and all these things but as I have learned as a parent my expectations have become lower. Whether that’s good or bad I don’t know, but it’s just like, let’s make it through this. So now my expectations are literally don’t go to jail and become a contributing member of society. If I have achieved those two things then I will consider my parenting a success. Part of the reason why I’m writing this right now is because of parenting challenges I’m having. So hopefully this will help some of you out in your parenting challenges then we can all get through this thing called adulting/parenting together.
So, I’m going to share with you a little story that I know everyone has experienced at some point in time in their parenting. We’ve all had those times when you’re doing your best to parent your child but for some reason they just want to be stubborn and say no to everything you do. But you’re trying really hard and trying to be that good parent but it can be frustrating. You know I come from a military background so there are times when I just want to go straight militant and get in people’s face and yell and bark orders and make things happen because that’s how I’ve been trained and to be honest it gets stuff done pretty quick. But I think I can only go so far and your house is not the military. We actually want to have our children like us after they leave and we have to deal with them the rest of our lives. Also, some of the kids aren’t going to respond well to that and they’ll probably just rebel and push back more. Those are generally the kids that wouldn’t do well in the military either. So, what do you do?
A while back I had the opportunity to take an emotional coaching course and become an emotional coach. Now this course mainly had to do with emotional coaching your children in this way of parenting. Now I know you all think, “oh not another parenting book or parenting course,” but this was different and of course it had to do with emotional intelligence since that’s what I talk about a lot. It was a way to really connect with your child on an emotional level and being able to get them to do well in life and really understand them. Because if you think about it you remember those times when your parents were really upset with you and you had the idea in your head of what was right and what was wrong and they had a completely different idea but nothing was ever communicated and you were just yelled at and told not to do that anymore or whatever and you never knew why. Or they just gave you the “it’s my way or the highway type speech.” Well it doesn’t have to be that way and this emotional coaching taught you really how to tap into understand what your child is going through and what they are thinking and feeling in the process. It helps you understand what you are thinking and feeling and then you can connect with them and really come to a mutual understanding of what’s going on and what you want them to do or what they need. Because a lot of problems, in fact most problems are just from miscommunication or not understanding each other. So you can use this emotional intelligence to understand each other. Your child can understand you and you can understand your child and therefore make the parenting situation a lot better. Going back to the story of your kid not listening and not doing what you want them to do, how can you apply this emotional intelligence technique to get into your kids head or emotions to understand what’s going on? I guess one of the main things you need to do is really listen to the kid so that you can understand how to best help them. Don’t go in there with the attitude of, “I know what’s best and I need to fix things right away.” Go in there and just truly listen and try to understand what your kid is saying. For a second even go back to when you were a kid and you felt you weren’t being listened to or you didn’t understand and try and think of those moments and really try to understand where your kids from coming from. Take into account there character and how they might be seeing things or reacting to things or their experiences and why they might react that way, so you can really understand them and what they’re trying to say. Next once you’ve truly heard your kid, try and put yourself in their shoes and understand how they are truly feeling at that moment. What are they truly feeling and why? Then you can begin to understand where they’re coming from, understand their emotions, and then try and manage the impact. Of course, this time you have to understand your emotions and where you’re coming from. Take that minute to pause so you don’t come in there all upset and heated. Take a minute, take a step back, breathe, cool your emotions and then understand where they’re coming from. So now that you kind of understand the feelings all the way around, you can manage that impact. Now you can go in and have that calm discussion with your child and come to a solution to this problem. It also helps to have them come up with the solution to this problem because then they really feel like they’re part of the discussion and part of the solution. They want to feel important, and they want to feel heard. So, if you do that, it can make it a little bit easier.
Now this is just one way to tap into the emotional intelligence and be able to understand your child. Like I said at the beginning every child is different so it might be a little different but as you know, you know your children best and you can apply this technique as you need or other emotional intelligence techniques, but the key here is to SEE your child. So, Stop, Evaluate, and Empathize. Stop, take a pause, understand your emotions, understand their emotions, and then you can manage the impact. All the while you’re evaluating that situation and then show empathy. Remember when you were a child and how they felt, then really listen, and then have them work with you to come up to us with a solution for the problem. I hope that helps a little bit in our parenting. I know it’s not much but hopefully it will help you in your quest too at least keep your kids out of jail and make them a contributing member to society. Remember to be good and love others.