Fair Firm and Fun
How children learn from us
There’s a reason, toddlers get teeth, bang around for almost a year learning to walk, push through potty training, lose and live without their favorite things, and learn how to have a full night’s sleep. I believe it’s because we all need to know that life is not always fun and games.
The sooner we teach our children that we will make it fun and games when possible but…there’s always going to be lots of times in a day that we all need to be doing things that we really would prefer not to do.
When it comes to allowing our child to feel uncomfortable even for a moment to learn patience, hear a necessary ‘no’ or eat food they push aside, we don’t feel good about it and we may even avoid teaching because we don’t want to disappoint them, even though they may be learning something important.
If we don’t show strength in teaching, our child will show strength in resisting. Soon, our baby understands that all they must do to get what ‘they think’ they want is push harder than we do.
Families must have a hierarchy so that we can be firm, fair, and fun, this way we dont have to spend hours a day explaining ourselves, children trust that we know what we’re doing and they dont have to worry about a thing, we have it handled.
Even though we love to think of our children as friends, I know because I was committed to making sure my firstborn child loved me more than anyone, it’s actually not fair on them. When we teach children how to listen, learn, help, and be respectful it allows everyone to enjoy the time we have together.
When children trust that we have things handled, they relax and stop trying to find something to argue or worry about. This one change in our beliefs can directly impact how our children feel about us and how they treat us - with respect or not, and how they feel about themselves - worrying or not.
How to have the last word
Is it possible to run a home, have meaningful work, be an attentive partner and an engaged, and loving parent?
I say Yes! Yes with a caveat.
I tried being my child’s best friend. It felt great until it didn’t.
It didn’t once she was smart enough to realise that even though (I had convinced her), she was the smartest and most important person in the room, why did I have the last word? Can you see how that can be confusing - for anyone.
Our job as the parent is to parent.
I know, babies and kids are really really cute and they look even cuter when they smile than when they get disappointed.
Nobody likes disappointing their children however, being a parent you may have realised by now, means that many times a day we have to be doing things we dont like and so do our children.
My theory is that the happier we can be doing those things, the ones we would prefer not to be doing, the happier our lives.
Most of our lives are taken up with stuff we just don’t want to do, so, we can either be moody and grumpy or we can ‘put on a happy face’, and get it done. This somehow makes the boring parts of my day go faster leaving us in a better headspace for the time spent with the ones we like and love.
The job of parenting means that we need to be teaching, guiding, encouraging and leading a lot of the time. The attitude in which we do that will determine how our efforts will be received by our little darlings.
Fair, Firm and Fun is my preferred model.
If we make parenting playful it goes toward the possibility to making life playful too. Yes, its possible to get a lot done in a day and still enjoy yourself, it all depends on your perception.
When your children see you happy and lighthearted, they want to listen and learn from you because instead of feeling like you should listen to them, they see that you have things handled and they have a lot to learn from you.
It’s then, they that they will relax and stop trying to boss you around.
