The 3 C’s Of Good Parenting

Harper’s Parenting Tips – From Infant To Toddler

00:20 – Composure
00:47 – How though do we maintain our composure as parents?
03:29 – Consistency
03:44 – What we say should be very firm
04:50 – Compassion
05:00 – Hold them and make them feel safe

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Hey everybody, Harper Jones here with Bow-Tiger and you’re watching Saturdays with Harper. Today we’re going to talk about the 3 Cs of good parenting. The 3 Cs of good parenting are; composure, consistency and compassion. So the first one, composure, this is not for your child. Because as we all know toddlers cannot keep their composure all the time. They’re in fact toddlers, their brains are developing and as toddlers they’re allowed to have what we call toddler tantrums. It’s going to happen, it’s bound to happen. They’re trying to understand who they are, what they are, etc., in the world. So we have to allow tantrums with our kids. That’s not to say that we allow extravagant tantrums, but the frustration in little children, that is pretty normal.

How though do we maintain our composure as parents? Because most of the time I feel like we’re more frustrated than the children actually are, yet we have to be the ones who are consistent in what we do and what we say, etc. and aren’t the ones who freak out in a situation. The reason we want to do that first of all is because our children really reflect off of us. If we’re angry they’re likely to be angry, if we’re sad they’re likely to be sad. Their emotions kind of play off how we’re feeling and how we’re responding to things. So make sure that you, as best as you can maintain composure. I am the first to say that a lot of the time, maybe not a lot of the time. We’ll say 50-50.

I’m not able to maintain my composure all by myself and everything’s just hunky-dory, because I have a daughter who likes to test the limits and test me a little bit. So I have to find ways to kind of help myself out with this maintaining composure. The first thing that I do is I use the breathing technique, I’m a big fan of yoga. Of course in the morning and at night, to help me out throughout my day. But I really utilize the breathing technique of deep breaths. It has to be at least four seconds in, four seconds out. Doing about 10 of those deep breaths if I’m in a really stressful situation. Even if my daughter is in the room and she’s trying to drive me up the wall.

If I can just close my eyes and take those deep breaths, it really helps me gain my composure back and figure out how to deal with the situation and how to help my daughter deal with the situation. There are times when she has driven me almost so crazy will say, over complaining or frustrating or maybe she’s crying or she’s throwing a big tantrum. What do we do at that point? Because it’s very, very difficult. Especially for you moms or dads who are stay at home parents. I really applaud you, because you deal with this day in day out. Just all throughout the day and you never know when it’s going to happen. It doesn’t really matter the emotions you’re having at the time, the only thing that matters is how can you better control the situation?

If you’re so frustrated to the point of feeling angry, which we’ve talked about in another video. Go ahead and step out of the room. Make sure your child is in a safe area, like their bedroom. Just not anywhere like the kitchen or the bathroom where they can get into things. Make sure they’re in a safe area, shut the door and maybe walk a little ways away from them. Whether it’s just going outside in the backyard for a minute, whether it’s stepping into the garage. Which I find to be a very nice and quiet place a lot of the time. Moving yourself away from this situation, even for a minute or two. You can listen to one of your favorite songs, listen to some relaxing music. Do your counting, do your breaths. Things like that.

It allows you to gain your composure back. So the second thing, the second C that we were talking about was consistency. It’s very, very important for us as parents to be consistent in what we tell our children. We don’t want to change our opinion too often and we also don’t want to change instruction to them or what we’ve said to them. What we say should be very firm and what we said the first should remain the same thing we say. We don’t even have to repeat ourselves a lot, we’ve made our point and that’s that. The children need to understand that you are the parent and you are the child, and unfortunately until they’re a little bit older what the parent says goes.

For example, they’re in the store and you’re on aisle one, say 1 of 16. Your child asks you for a candy, they want a candy that’s on aisle one. You say no. If you said no on aisle one, when we get to aisle five and now they see the macaroni and cheese or something else that they want. If it’s not on your list, if it’s not something that you guys have decided you’re buying for the week. You have to stick with a firm no, because aisle one was the firm no. If we get to aisle 12 and decide to say yes for the popsicles, our toddler has essentially defeated us. So make sure throughout the whole grocery store aisle one through 16, you keep a firm no on things that were not on your list or you weren’t expecting to purchase for your child that day. Otherwise, they will make it routine.

So the third C and I feel that it is a very important C, and that is the C for compassion. We have to have compassion for our children. We have to be compassionate and hold them and make them feel safe when they’re scared, or when they’re sad or they’re upset about something. Don’t ignore or sort of dumb down their feelings, their feelings are very, very important. If not more important, than even adults feelings. Because their brain, their mind is trying to grow. They’re trying to develop into who they’re supposed to be. They’re trying to figure all of these things out, and they need to feel that their emotions and what they’re feeling at different times throughout their lives are important.

So make sure that you do show your child compassion, give them hugs. Make them feel the warmth of a parent. That you’re here for them and throughout their lives you will be here for them. Okay so guys, this is of course Saturdays with Harper and again we will be back next week. If you guys are watching this video on Facebook or YouTube or social media, please be sure to check out our other blogs on bow-tiger.com and we’ll see you in a bit. Thanks.