More Supportive Parenting Skills

Children have blackboards...

• “It is like they are standing in front of you holding up their personal blackboard saying write on it what you think of me...write on it what you want me to think of myself. This is so powerful. You, as parents, from the minute they are born, begin to write message about them on their personal blackboard. There are intentional and unintentional messages written there.”

Making connections with your children behind walls

• Listening is love
• Love has a tremendous power to pull down invisible walls
• Look over the wall and hear the cry: listen for what they really need, my friend’s problem could be there own
• Find the loose brick: show interest in their interests
• Dismantle the wall: effective communication- love, trust, and respect
• Love: constant, given first, given freely, regardless of their choices
• Trust: have to trust, compliment
• Respect: “The quality of our communication with our children will improve in direct proportion to the amount of respect we show them when we talk together.”

The art of emotion coaching:

• Helping children understand the different emotions they experience, why they occur, and how to handle them
• Comforting them, listening and understanding their thoughts and feelings, and helping them understand themselves
• Help children feel loved, supported, respected and valued

1. Understand how you deal with feelings
• Their child’s feelings are important.
• Their child’s feelings and wishes are okay, even if their actions aren’t.
• Experiencing negative emotions, such as sadness, anger or fear, is important. 
• Negative feelings are a chance for parents and children to grow closer.
• Understanding what causes their child’s feelings is important.
• Negative feelings are an opportunity for problem-solving
2. Believe that your child’s negative emotions are an opportunity for closeness and teaching
• a child’s negative feelings are more likely to go away when children talk about them, label them, and feel understood and feel closer to parents
• once you feel understood, you are more willing to take guidance
3. Listen with empathy and understanding, then validate your child’s feelings
• Share simple observations
• Avoid questions you already know the answer to
• Share examples from your own life
4. Label your child’s emotions
• help your child transform a scary, uncomfortable feeling into something identifiable and normal
• has a soothing effect on the nervous system
5. Set limits while exploring possible solutions to the problem that caused the negative emotion
• Set limits
• Identify goals
• Think of possible solutions
• Evaluate the proposed solutions based on family values
• Help your child choose a solution

Supportive Parenting Skills

Favorite quotes:

• "We should remember that saying 'I love you' is only a beginning. We need to say it, we need to mean it, and most importantly we need consistently to show it. We need to both express and demonstrate love." - Elder Bednar
• "Feeling the security and constancy of love from a spouse, a parent, or a child is a rich blessing. Such love nurtures and sustains faith in God. Such love is a source of strength and casts out fear. Such love is the desire of every human soul." - Elder Bednar
• "When the Lord created parents, he created something breathtakingly close to what he is. We who have borne children innately know that this is the highest of callings, the holiest of assignments." - Sister Holland
• "Parenting has almost nothing to do with training. It has everything to do with your heart." - Sister Holland
• "But it helps us to always remember that these are God’s children as well as ours. And above all, it should give us a perfect brightness of hope to know that when we need help we can go through the veil to get it." - Sister Holland

Loving our Children:

• Spoiling is giving your child things in place of love
• Best adjusted children have the highest levels of parental love
• Children need to be physically touched through appropriate affection
• Praise your children's accomplishments but let them know your love for them is not based on their success
• Home should be a safe haven for children where they can feel relaxed, safe, and secure in a happy, loving environment.
• Children need rhythm and routines in their lives

Being involved in your Child's life:

• Quality time is giving your child your undivided attention, having your mind in the moment with your child, not focusing on something else.
• Take interest in your child's interests
• Be involved in your child's school and other activities

Philemon & 1st Timothy

1st Timothy 4:12

• Scripture: “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”
• Principle: If we are to be an example of the believers, then we need to show it in word, conversation, charity, spirit, faith, and purity.

I really love this scripture. It was the mutual or young women’s theme one year when I was a youth and I loved it ever since. I looked up this scripture on lds.org and I didn’t look through all the talks, but it is one that is quoted very often in general conference. Just for curiosity sake I found 5 talks from President Monson that the title includes the phrase “be thou and example” or something very close to that. I also found 11 more talks that he quotes this verse of scripture in. I also found 3 talks that President Hinckley quoted this scripture in, 2 talks with the “Be Thou and Example of the Believers,” and many other conference talks that quoted this scripture. I really liked these quotes from President Monson when speaking about this verse. He says, “We need not wait for a cataclysmic event, a dramatic occurrence in the world in which we live, or a special invitation to be an example—even a model to follow. Our opportunities lie before us here and now. But they are perishable. Likely they will be found in our own homes and in the everyday actions of our lives. Our Lord and Master marked the way: ‘[He] went about doing good.’ (Acts 10:38.) He in very deed was a model to follow—even an example of the believers. Are we?” In another talk he says, “I share a three-part formula to serve as an unfailing guide to meet this challenge issued by the Apostle Paul: 1. Fill your mind with truth; 2. Fill your heart with love; 3. Fill your life with service.” I know that as we follow this counsel from the prophet, we can become better examples of the believers!

Philemon 1:8 

• Scripture: "If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account" 
• Principle: If we have been wronged, then we can place that burden on the Savior. 

I know that this is easier said than done, but I believe it is in large measure why the atonement is in place. The atonement is such as much for the sinner as it is the one that was sinned against, or hurt. Sometimes through no fault of our own we are hurt, it is only through the atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ that we can let that go and move on. If we don't, we might just end up punishing ourselves. I feel like this might be a portion of what was trying to be taught here, that many times we are not strong enough, or we do not have the capacity to forgive on our own, but if we allow the Savior to help, he can make up the difference, he is the difference.

Explain your rules and decisions

Be clear about what you expect

• Explain specifics
• Set them up to succeed

Reasoning with your child

• Explain the reason behind the rule
• When explaining rules to your children your explanations must be...
• Under 6 years old: reasonable and truthful
• 6-11: reasonable and logical
• 11+: reasonable, logical, and consistent with other things you have said or don't

“Your child should respect you because you are the parent, but obey you because you are correct.”
Hear your child’s point of view: even if you don't agree with it
Admit your mistakes: this will allow your children to feel comfortable to come to you with their mistakes.

Be consistent

Be consistent from day to day
Significance of routines- makes things consistent and lessens need to parent on little things

• Regulate internal clock by making children get up at the same time in the morning
• Routines help the family function effectively

Importance of a united front: Support each other in the decision that is made- “parenting is no competition”
Be consistent without being rigid: Have consistent discipline that fits the situation
Identify your nonnegotiables

• Should be a short list
• Be flexible on non-important matters and don’t bend on significant ones

Establishing rules and setting limits

All children need rules and limits

• “The most important thing that children need from their parents is love, but a close second is structure.”
• Have expectations for proper behavior and limits on freedom
• Helps children manage their own behavior

Be firm but fair: “When you know you are right, be firm.”

Importance of monitoring

• Should always be able to answer these questions...
1. Where is my child?
2. Who is with my child?
3. What is my child doing?
• Know plans before they leave and report on what actually happened
• Don’t spy on them- unless you feel they are in danger

Handling conflicts over rules

• Look at changing the rule if it doesn’t fit
• Collaborate: look at revising the rule to accommodate the situation better 

Relaxing limits as child matures: gradually

Preventive Parenting Skills

Preventing Inappropriate Behavior

1. Anticipate trouble: consider ages and personalities of your children and guess their likely responses to various situations
• Help them adjust, explain what is going on, be alert, plan, caution
2. Give gentle reminders: builds trust and self-confidence in children
• Use gerunds: -ing, work good for preschoolers, instant response in the shortest, simplest, gentlest reminder, means right now to children
• Examples: walking (to get them to stop running), talking (to get them to stop being loud), or playing nicely (to get them to stop fighting)
• Nonverbal: nodding, catching your child’s eye, smiling as you shake your head, touching gently on the shoulder or arm
3. Inject humor: can offset anxiety and increase child’s cooperation
• Have to have a cheerful attitude, avoid sarcasm, laugh at yourself, taking ownership of your imperfect behavior and allows children to do the same
4. Offer choices: gives them opportunity to be in control of a portion of their lives, can lead to greater cooperation when you can’t give them choices. Also teaches them to make decisions.
• Make sure the choices are all acceptable to you, can’t be threats, can’t be arbitrary statements
• Start training your children for decision making by offering daily task choices
• Give 3 options: don’t rush them, praise them for the choice they made, use the words "choose" and "decide" so children know they are involved in the process 
• Give reason for not offering any choices