“If there is any­thing that we wish to change in the child, we should first exam­ine it and see whether it is not some­thing that could bet­ter be changed in our­selves.” - C.G. Jung

Post writ­ten by Leo Babauta. Fol­low me on Twit­ter.

If you’re a hyper­par­ent, you might not even know it — we par­ents tend to be in denial about that sort of thing.

But if you are, you might want to learn to relax — for your kids’ sake, and for yours.

Hyper­par­ents are spot­ted when they are try­ing to edu­cate their child from the womb, and expose them to the most intel­lec­tu­ally stim­u­lat­ing music and art and lit­er­a­ture before the kid can crawl. They obsess over every­thing, from whether the child is learn­ing fast enough to how safe every sin­gle thing is to every lit­tle scrape and bruise. They are over­pro­tec­tive, over­bear­ing, over­whelm­ing to the child.

I admit, I was a hyper­par­ent once, and still can be some­times. It’s a habit I’m try­ing to break, with some success.

And for those of you who are hyper­par­ents, and will admit it if only to your­selves, I’d like to share some things I’ve learned, in hopes that it’ll help.

Be fore­warned that some of these sug­ges­tions take a very dif­fer­ent approach to par­ent­ing than the tra­di­tional meth­ods — I’m not sug­gest­ing every­one fol­low them, espe­cially if you’re not will­ing to break with tra­di­tions. What I am sug­gest­ing is that these meth­ods will help you relax, will help your child feel freer and less con­trolled and more able to explore and learn on her own, and could pos­si­bly result in a bet­ter rela­tion­ship with your child and a hap­pier child over­all. I don’t have proof of that yet, but I have a strong hunch based on how my kids react when I do these things right.

1. When you get angry, pick them up and hug them. Instead of scold­ing or spank­ing or time outs or other con­trol­ling meth­ods, try love. It’s a much bet­ter response, and you’re teach­ing your child through your actions rather than your words.

2. Make this your mantra: treat them with kind­ness, treat them with respect. Seems sim­ple, but it’s sur­pris­ing how lit­tle respect we give to kids, because they’re kids.

3. Drop your expec­ta­tions of the child. Often par­ents have high hopes of the child doing well aca­d­e­m­i­cally, or in sports, or of becom­ing a pro­fes­sional, when that’s not what the child wants. Or the par­ent hopes the child will be a cer­tain type of per­son, and tries to steer the child toward that — a mild, kind child, or a bright, cheer­ful child, or a stu­dious, hard-working child — but that’s not who the child is. Drop these expec­ta­tions, and cel­e­brate the child, as she is.

4. Let her play, let her explore. Stop being so over­pro­tec­tive. Allow the kid to be a kid. Let her run around out­side, ride a bike, explore nature, play with fire. Teach her, of course, about safety and dan­gers, but let her be a kid.

5. Say yes, or some ver­sion of yes. Instead of say­ing no. Often par­ents have an instinct to say no. But this is con­trol­ling and stress­ful, to both child and par­ent. Stop try­ing to con­trol the child, and give him some free­dom. That doesn’t mean you can say yes all the time, because you have needs too, but it does mean you can say “Yes, we can do that … but per­haps later, when I’m done with what I have to do now.”

6. Stop try­ing to overe­d­u­cate, and get out of the way. Par­ents try to impart all kinds of knowl­edge on kids. So do schools. But kids learn nat­u­rally, with­out us. Get out of the way, stop try­ing to force the kid to learn what you think he needs to learn. Encour­age him to explore, and read, and fig­ure stuff out. Get him excited about things. When he’s excited about some­thing, he’ll learn. When you force it on him, he’ll do what he’s forced to do, but not learn much other than you’re controlling.

7. Just focus on mak­ing the next inter­ac­tion with them pos­i­tive. Many of these changes are dif­fi­cult to make for par­ents, as we have deeply ingrained habits, stem­ming from our own child­hood. So just focus on the next inter­ac­tion. Just try to make the next one a good one. Don’t worry about when you screw up — just apol­o­gize if you’ve bro­ken a trust, and move on.

8. Take a moment to pause, and see things from your child’s per­spec­tive. If you get angry, it’s because you’re only see­ing things from your per­spec­tive. The child has a com­pletely dif­fer­ent view of things, and if you can under­stand that view, you won’t be mad at the child. You’ll try to make things bet­ter for her.

9. If the kid is “act­ing up”, try to fig­ure out why, and meet that need. Often it’s a need for free­dom, or atten­tion, or love, or to be in con­trol of his own life. Fig­ure out what that need is, and find a more pro­duc­tive way to meet it.

10. The kid is already per­fect as he is. You don’t need to change him. You don’t need to mold him into the per­fect per­son. He’s already per­fect, just as he is.

And now, relax. Enjoy every moment with your child, because they are too few, too imper­ma­nent. Trust me — my old­est daugh­ter is 16, and I can’t believe how fast her child­hood has come and gone. Cher­ish this time with them, and make every moment a good one. You’ll never regret those moments of hap­pi­ness, those moments when you said yes, when you let your child play, when you stopped con­trol­ling and started loving.

“Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unpro­tected.” - Red Buttons

Tagged as: Life, parenting, relax, Success

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