What Parenting Methods Really Work?

As a parent it seems like there are more than a million differing forms of advice from people, books, and internet sources ready to dish out advice on what the best strategies are for parenting and they all include the handy phrases like “if you want your kid to be successful or happy follow these exact steps”.
So my question is how do you sift through all the different views out there? How do you know you’re doing things right? Trial and error seam too risky when dealing with another person’s success and overall growth in life, right?

When we had our first baby girl she was perfect in every way. Her brown hair and big brown eyes brightened every day and she was so easy, a great sleeper, she was always sensitive and observant and did everything we asked her to do for the most part parenting was a breeze. I thought we must be doing everything right and then number two came. Our bouncy active beautiful blond haired and sky blue eyed girl flipped our whole world! She too was perfect but deffinatly knew how to give us a run for our money.  Right from the beginning she was always on the go and very physically driven and now that our attention was divided our first had more reason to act out too. With each new day the rise of chaos seemed to follow as well. I felt so overwhelmed with just surviving that I lost focus on just loving my kids and enjoying these young years. 

I determined that something must be done, I could no longer just “wing it” anymore I needed some kind of frame work or game plan so I started reading anything I could get my hands on about parenting and how to understand and connect with different personalities. This left me feeling so overwhelmed all over again because of all the contradictive and overabundance of parenting methods I found. In one book I read about discipline strategies it said “If your child is acting out or throwing a fit simply hold them down in a firm way (but make sure you’re not hurting them) and wait for them to stop, then proceed to describe what they did was wrong, and then they will turn and say thanks for loving me and treating me like an adult, I understand now I promise to not do that anymore.” I was sure that whoever wrote that book had never actually had kids because that was differently not how my kids responded. I felt like giving up and that’s when I remembered the John Gottman institute online, I had read their relationship books and loved them and I remembered they had help for parenting too.

I got their book on Emotion Coaching. I can’t even begin to describe how relieved I felt when reading it! It turns the table from focusing on what is the perfect way to make my kid turn out and behave properly to remembering that your kids are valuable people with valuable insight. Their feelings and points of views should be validated and it provides research and statistics backing up that the kids that are taught to trust their own emotions and not be ashamed of them will have a great advantage in life. If emotional understanding is in place 
then it could lay the groundwork for connections within families. This then provides an environment where success is no longer contingent upon the perfect parenting strategy. It may take time and practice but through connecting with our children on their emotional level we can be confident in applying our own unique parenting ideas, because we will be fully aware of the needs of our children in our own lifestyle. 

It also points out over and over again that it is okay to mess up, we’re people and kids actually learn to not be so hard on themselves if they see their parents mess up and then apologize for it. We may often feel like we have to be this immovable wall and demand a strict rule of conduct or that it’s our job to create the perfect child because others will think we are a horrible parent if we don’t. But anyone that has had children can attest to the fact that they come pre-built with their own personalities and outlook, this book really focuses on just connecting with your child and as you do that you will know better what the individual will need as far as discipline or help in their life.

I could always tell my daughters were different, that was obvious at a glance, but it wasn’t until after applying what I learned in this book that I was able to better understand how to connect with them and not feel like there was this perfect child mold I had to squeeze them into. When I have time with just Emery how we connect is finding a quiet spot and just talk and talk and talk, and if I do need to discipline her giving her time out or talking about the problem usually is all she needs. Then with Ebony If I want to connect with her we build towers to wreck, or hills to run on, or just tackle and tickle until we’re blue in the face, and when it comes to disciplining she becomes so easily overwhelmed that it doesn’t work to just put her in timeout, believe it or not I have to give her a hug first for her to hear anything I say and then we may do a small time out or using as few words as posable to keep her attention and tell her what we can do. These are just a few things that I was able to figure out and learned how to tell if my children were progressing or degressing and if our parenting motheds were helping or hurting their overall success.

This is the link to their Emotion Coaching packet they also have a news letter for help if you subscribe to their free emails

https://www.gottman.com/product/emotion-coaching-the-heart-of-parenting-video-program/