The things I could do better at...

 The things that I have learned in this Parenting Skills class that I am going to work on implementing into my parenting skills repertoire are mostly focused on two major things that I learned in this class. One of those is emotional coaching. The other is the effective punishment elements. I feel that these would be very useful in my parenting bag of skills. I don’t see myself using the second one very often but I feel it is good thing to have when you are needing something of that caliber. While I do see myself using the emotional coaching more than the elements of effective punishment. I am glad that I have learned both things in this class. I know that using these lessons in my parenting will help make me a better parent and one that is more relatable for my children.

The emotional coaching, I have seen several places and I have tried to implement it with my children but it has always sounded fake or insincere when I have tried to use it on them. I am wondering if I just need to practice going through the steps and that with time it will come more naturally and easily to me to help them work through their emotions and validate the way that they are feeling. I’ve seen it several times on Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood but I didn’t realize at the time that what the adults were doing was called emotional coaching. I struggle with emotions myself and so to turn around and coach someone else still seems a bit silly in my mind but I don’t want my children to grow up feeling like they can’t fully express their emotions and that everyone has emotions sometimes and that it really is ok to talk about them. I have heard some people mock others on talking about their emotions and at the time it did seem a bit silly to talk about emotions but at the same time I am wondering if the person who was talking about their emotions wasn’t possibly going about it in the wrong way. When I see the coaching going on during Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood it doesn’t feel silly or like the children are being overly dramatic about what they are feeling and the adults that are helping them don’t push the children either. This technique of helping children work through their emotions and helping them realize that all people have emotions is a good thing.

The elements for effective punishment are different for me to use because it goes through a series of steps of things that you should say as the parent towards your child. When you run through scenarios using these elements it really drives the point home of how the child is in trouble, what was expected of them, the parent’s disappointment, and then what the punishment will be. I like that all the different elements are broken down and spelled out. As a kid I sometimes felt that the only reason why I was in trouble was because a parent was having a bad day and I did some little thing that was annoying and so set them off and now I am being punished for it, no lesson was learned other than be wary of bad moods, and how do you correct that behavior other than sit down and shut up, which isn’t really a solution at all. I don’t have plans on implementing this in my daily life. I have pretty well-behaved children as a general rule and we do understand one another. I am thinking that this would be handy to know so that if you are ever faced with a situation like this you know the steps to take to make it known what happened, how it went wrong, what can be done to correct it, and what the punishment will be.

Learning about emotional coaching and elements of effective punishment I am hoping will let me take another step forward in my parenting skills. Using emotional coaching will help me to relate to and be a better parent for my children. Using the element of effective punishment will help me when the need does arise for me to reprimand my children and correct their course that they find themselves on. These two main lessons that I have learned about during my parenting skills class I feel will be the best lessons that I will work on implementing and using in my life.

The things I got right...eventually

 Over the years I have learned a lot about parenting and what type of parent I would like to be towards my kids. I have seen many different types of parenting over my years. I had tried one way of parenting and it really didn’t work. I did learn my lesson on what type of parent I would like to be though through the years. There was in incident about 10 years ago that changed my life in a most profound way. I had a big change in how I parent. At the time I wasn’t very happy about the change but I knew that it had to happen. I learned a lot of lessons and some I implemented in my own life and others I let them go. I learned that you have to look at things from the child’s perspective and not just your own view point. You needed to reach back into your dusty memory and remember what it felt like to have your parents say what you were saying to your child right now and remember how you felt.

I took a class on Becoming a Love and Logic Parent and it was eye opening. It gave me things to think about that I hadn’t ever thought about before on how to parent and letting your kids fail at things and how you want them to fail at the little things now and not shelter them because if they learn from failures now they are less likely to fail as they get older because the lessons have already been learned.

I am not saying that I now get everything right and that I haven’t learned anything from my class that I’m currently taking on parenting skills. I am going to say that I did learn a lot of the lessons that were taught and I can see the difference now in how I implement parenting skills in my life. I have learned new lessons in my current class about things that I thought I was doing alright on and other things that I knew that I could do better at but I didn’t have the skills or the knowledge of how to do better than how I was currently doing.

I have read some books that have changed how I view things and how I want my children to be raised. I would have to say that one of the books that helped me was a story about Mr. Rogers’ life. I had heard all these crazy rumors and I was curious to see if they were true and what I learned from that book has shaped the way that I view his shows and the spin off show called Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. I had no idea that Mr. Rogers wanted to specifically reach out to children of all ages and help them deal with their lives. I knew it was an educational show but I had no idea the lengths that he went to so that he would be the most effective in reaching children on their level. Now as I watch the show I understand what he is trying to do and I can more fully appreciate the ways that he is teaching and I try to learn what he is doing and how he is talking and implement that into my parenting skills. Honestly sometimes I am successful and others I really am not and it’s ok because I am trying.

I try to be an understanding parent and I try to reserve my anger for when my children don’t come to me or tell me right away or lie to me. I feel like if they know that they can come to me with anything that I won’t be mad. I might be disappointed and I will tell them such but I try not to dwell on it and we press forward changing what can be changed and correcting the mistakes. I do get angry when they lie and when they don’t come to me about things that are bugging them. I want to hear about things that they have done even if they weren’t the best of choices because I am there to help them and I want to help them. I tell my children that if they want my help they have to tell me the whole truth so that I know what I can do to help them move forward in the right direction and give them counsel as to what they should do that will be the most helpful to whatever situation that they find themselves in.

Using the Gospel to help in Parenting

In one of my semesters of doing Pathways I was in a religion class that studied “The Family: A Proclamation”. I know that there was a lot of tasty tidbits in there about parenting and I did learn a lot about family structure. I had heard a few talks over the years directed towards parents and children. I just never had put it all together that you could come up with your entire parenting philosophy from the scriptures but it does make sense given how many talks there are. I also didn’t know that there was a book about parenting made up of prophets quotes and the lessons that they taught. I found it amazing that the more I read the more it obvious is became that this is truly divine guidance given from Heavenly Father on how to raise His little ones. There are many different prophets that have spoken about this over the years but they all have the same theme and overarching message.

 

 

I like what President Hinckley said about his father, “He only laid his hands on me to bless me.” That really says something about a better way to raise your children. I’ve heard so much that kids today need a good spanking in their lives and I have to deeply disagree. I am of the firm belief that what everyone kids and adults need right now is some respect. Respect for themselves and respect for others, all others. I don’t think that a spanking would solve much; it might make them pause but I don’t think that it would teach the lesson that so many need to learn.

 

Brigham Young says that we should get to know our children and their needs and wants (Deseret Book Co, 1941) (Hinkley, 1994). I like the idea of having a relationship with my children and that I know them. I like the feeling of knowing what they like, want, and need. I feel it makes our relationship deeper and better because when I do correct them; they know that I’m not just saying the words but that I mean them and I want them to understand.

 

I asked my son what he wanted to do as an extra-curricular activity because I had found the time that he could add one in. I was happy that he honestly told me what he wanted and he didn’t feel embarrassed or feel the need to hide what he truly wanted to be his extra-curricular activity. He wanted to work on his ball room dancing. I was pleased and started looking for ways to add it into his life. I did find a lower level of dancing and I signed him up for a month of lessons and it was not what either of us were expecting. I apologized to him after the first lesson and I asked him if he wanted to continue and that I would keep looking for a better dance class and to please understand that it might be the next school year before we are able to add it in due to finances. He understood that I was still trying to find him a dance class that was on his level and he finished out the month of dancing and he did do a performance in the summer. I did find the better dance class and he is now currently going to it. His school pays for the classes which is really helpful!

 

I have done several papers where you read a quote from the prophets or some scripture and then write about how it relates to parenting. I read in D&C 121: 41-46 about how you can “reprove sometimes with sharpness when moved upon by the Holy Ghost” (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 2013). I enjoyed this as it says sharpness not physical. Going back to giving the USA a spanking it might make everyone pause but I don’t think that that is the sharpness that is being spoken of here. When I heard with sharpness, I know that rudeness isn’t what is intended or belittling talk either. The sharpness I feel is more getting you to stop what you are currently doing without degrading you as a person. I like also that it is with the guidance of the Holy Ghost. There have been things in my life where I have asked for help and received it from the Holy Ghost.

 

I know that as a parent I will be looking to the gospel library, not just the scriptures but conference talks and other teachings of the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

 

References

Deseret Book Co. (1941). Discourses of Brigham Young. In D. B. Co. Deseret Book Co.

Hinkley, G. B. (1994, November). Save The Children. Ensign.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (2013). Docterine and Covenants. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

 

My Biggest Takeaways from My Parenting Skills Class

 I was given this as a final project and I had to give it some thought about what are the biggest lessons that I have learned in the past 6 weeks in this class. For the most part I've looked at it in a way like a matchup between my cumulative knowledge that I've gained from taking Becoming a Love & Logic Parent, Mr. Rogers, my own experiences, Daniel Tiger, and various other places in my life and what an actual parenting curriculum would be and what is being taught on how to be an effective and good parent. 

After giving it some thought I came up with a rough list that I'll refine over the next three posts...

1. I need to use the gospel library more often for parenting help. I would say scriptures but there are talks and pamphlets that are used as well that are so very helpful and a hidden gem of a resource that I really hadn't even thought of to use.

2. Using my knowledge I have actually gotten a lot of things right. I haven't always gotten things right but when I use my cumulative knowledge that I have gained when I took the Becoming a Love & Logic Parent it was a big game changer for me and how I viewed my role as a parent and that there is another way to raise children.

3. I need to be better at emotional coaching and using that 5 elements of effective punishments. I don't really honestly punish my kids a lot but I feel like this would be a better tool in my arsenal that would be much more effective and more complete than what I've been using.

Dr. Steinberg's Principle #8

Parenting Skills

 I feel that I have been doing well in my parenting skills class. I have been using what I have gleaned over the years from Mr. Roger's, Daniel Tiger, Love & Logic, and all the other little sources along the way.

I do have several things I do still need to work on incorporating into my parenting skills as a parent and I shall keep trying.

While in the drive-thru of Chick-fil-a the other day I told my son that I was in a parenting skills class. He turned to me and asked why I even needed to take the class.

I chuckled and said, "I guess I must be doing something right if you think that I don't need help."

Prophets on Parenting

 I noticed three recurring similarities between the prophet’s quotes on parenting. The common themes that stood out to me where: know your children, not exercise harsh punishments, and control your temper. I noticed that they kept talking about these main three topics again and again. The differences between expressing anger and acting out in anger are very different in that one is verbal and could be done in a calm way while the other is physical and usually involves some sort of physical punishment. Seeing these messages over and over in different prophet’s quotes really helps build my testimony that I am on the right path in that I know that as we strive to express our feelings in a calm way and with explanation that we will be better communicators and more emotionally stable people.

 

I know that emotional coaching isn’t something that comes naturally to most parents. I have found watching re-watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood are good sources for emotional coaching in that they do go over a lot of emotions that are felt by children. I was reading a biography done about Mr. Rogers and he would regularly talk with a child physiologist about his show and going over new strategies and ways that he could reach children on their level. I found it fascinating and I started watching his shows watching for the ways that he would reach out to the children to pull them in and help make them feel safe even when expressing difficult to express emotions such as anger. Reading the quotes from the prophet’s just reaffirms what I was seeing in the response that my children give when I do use emotional coaching on them.

A Facebook Post

 I saw this post on Facebook and had some interesting thoughts...

Facebook Post

The post poses a question but I don't feel as though it is complete in the possible senarios.

"17 yr old who is suppose to be at home on zoom class gets caught skipping classes and mom dealt with his case. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS is this abuse or discipline?"

I am wondering ..."If she had a healthy relationship with her son and spent time with him in the first place this video would never happen..."

If this mother had a healthy relationship built on respect for her son I don't think that this video would have ever come into being. There wouldn't have been a fight because the son would have wanted to get his work done, not just for his mother but for himself as well.