Are you up for a challenge that could change your life, and the lives of your children?
Are you tired of wasting energy with your kids? Does is seem that the whining and complaining is going to drive you crazy? Has screaming become you new way of talking? Are you eager to have a more positive and healthy relationship with your kids? Have you had enough with your kids not paying any attention to you?
Well maybe it’s time to start the Terrific Parenting 30 day challenge!
Step 1. You can’t nurture more positive behavior by investing your energy in negative behavior.
This is a critical fundamental that many of us just don’t get. If your child happens to be an easy child, who has few oppositional or challenging qualities, then you can “sneak by” without coming to head to head with this critical lesson.
However, if you have a child who is more oppositional, strong willed, resistant or non-compliant, then you must understand this fundamental principal, or otherwise life will get ugly.
Let me ask you to imagine this. Suppose I have been magically following you around your house for the past year, and I have been carrying two huge buckets. On the side of the first bucket is a plus sign for positive behavior. Every time that you engaged, noticed, smiled at, or talked to your kids
during a positive or healthy moment, I put a penny in the positive bucket.
On the other hand, I have another bucket with a big negative sign. Every time that you invested energy in a negative behavior, I dropped a penny in this bucket. In other words, every time you were nagging, reminding, prodding, pushing, arguing, giving nasty looks, or even “commanding” your children to change their current behavior…you get a penny.
What would these two buckets looks like?
Many of the parents I work with tell me like it looks like the negative bucket is overflowing, and there are a few pennies in the positive bucket. This is a problem.
So, the first principal to master is: You cannot nurture positive and healthy behavior by consistently investing your energy and time in negative behavior. So what do you do instead?
Step 2. Obsess on watering seeds, and starving weeds.
Seeds refer to positive, healthy and productive behavior. There are seeds of happiness; there are seeds of responsibility; and there are seeds of kindness. These are all the behaviors we want to nurture.
Then, there are weeds! Weeds include all the negative behavior, such as whining, complaining, negotiating, arguing, not listening, disrespect, kids squabbling, and general attitudes of negativity.
Your home may be place where you invest your energy in weeds more than seeds. If you take the 30-day challenge, you can turn this around.
How do you do this? You start watering seeds very heavily. For the next 30 days, obsess on moments of thoughtfulness, kindness, hard work, and responsibility. When the kids are carrying their plate from the table to the dishwasher, touch them on the shoulder and smile. When they help to carry in the groceries, gently wink at them. While they are doing their homework, walk by and give them a 30 second shoulder rub. When they are playing well together, walk by and smile, or bring them a cup of juice, or give them a thumbs-up.
In addition however, you must “starve weeds.” You must avoid giving your energy to weeds, or otherwise they just keep growing. Have you noticed that you can bring harsh consequences upon these “weed like behaviors” and they just still don’t seem to go away? It’s because you keep watering them…watering them with your attention and energy.
So over the next 30 days, see what happens when you start ignoring those weeds. That’s right! Ignore the weeds. I know it’s hard. I know it’s tough. I know it’s annoying. But you still have to show them that
this negative behavior is not worthy of your attention.
The world will not invest in these negative, annoying and unproductive moments. So…to prepare them for the real world…you must teach them you will walk away. Repeatedly walk away!
Step 3: Be patient! Seeds take a while to grow.
As you go through the next month, do not expect magical results at the end of a week. I would encourage you not even to expect magical results by the end of two weeks.
But, if you consistently put your energy into moments of positive, and healthy behavior, and consistently walk away from more negative behavior, you will see a dramatic shift in your household over the next 30 days.
It is not unusual to struggle with this for a while. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Why? Because we area all creatures of habit. What I am asking you to do is to change your habits first, and then your children’s habits will follow. You must lead in order for your children to follow.
As your children discover that you are now investing your life energy into positive and healthy behavior, they will learn to follow. However, they cannot lead you down the path of more positive behavior, you much lead them! Have a wonderful 2007!
