Let us be wonderful Mom & Dad

All the time it’s common to hear from your friends that they decide to make resolutions to change their behavior and improve their performance and make a new start, this is often a personal goal and doesn’t necessarily include how you treat others. If you a parent then it’s a good opportunity for you to review your behavior towards your children and fix anything you are unhappy with.

One of the most complain I hear from clients how come to my office is that the difficulty in dealing with their children, and the loses of ability to control their reactions towards their children’s’ behaviors and revert to shouting as a discipline. The fact we have to know that the way a parent reacts is the reason the child continues to have discipline issues. it is important to remember that you are the example your child copies, so if you treat your child a certain way, you can expect them to copy your behavior and may not always like what you see. So may be this is a good time to review some aspects of parenting I will discussed  below the most habits parents come to me to change as a suggestion to add to your new month parenting resolutions in order for your family to be happier, healthier and more satisfied .

Habit one : I often shout and lose my temper quickly when my child is behaving badly.

ü Solution : Do not respond immediately to your child if he/she is behaving badly. stop and give you time to think  before you take action .your hesitation will give your child the message that when they are angry about something that they shouldn’t respond with more anger and that this simply increases the problem. take deep breath and trained yourself to take calmly back to your child explaining to them why you are upset or not happy with their behavior and what you can both do to work together to correct the problem in the future and remember always to be on your child’s level, don’t stand over them but go down to be in eye contact as your body language will automatically be domineering to small child if you don’t bend down.

Habit two : I fight constantly with my child to get them to eat healthy food and stop asking for sweets ,I usually give them a sweet just to stop the fight.

ü  Solution : The first step if you want your child to avoid eating sweets and to enjoy a healthy balanced diet, then you mast lead by example .if you regularly order take away or eat cake and sweets and expect your child not do .then the situation will never change .your child will duplicate your behavior and believe that what is good for you is good for them .Try to give them a positive example of eating be reviewing and changing your own approach to food and encourage them your child to try the foods you eat .Do not cook alternative foods for your child or adopt foods adding sugar or sweets to attract them to eat .This simply will encourage an unhealthy attitude towards sweets and increase the demands from your child for more of the wrong kind of food. Your child will eat the new foods you offer when they hungry but you have to control what is offered and preserve. the rule for introducing a child to new food is that if you offer it up to ten times and encourage small tastes that your child will adapt their likes and dislikes to include this new food .Avoid argument about sweets by removing sweets completely from your home and tell relative and friends not to offer your child a sweets .if you enter a shop and they offer your child a treat thank them and refuse and encourage your child to say no too. All these things send message to your child that you don’t encourage unhealthy eating .In the Same if you prevent something  you have to give your child the alternative ,So make sure you always have a Tupperware container with healthy snacks to hand, seeds, sliced carrots and cucumber ,raisins and dried apricots …etc

Habit three : I’m tired when I get home from work and my children are very demanding. I need to have a break and time for myself and there are never enough hours in my day to meet the demands of home work and my children, How can I make quality time available to spend with my children?

ü  Solution : Most parents, especially working parents feel that they don’t have enough hours in their day to meet all the demands on them. A large part of parental stress is to do with being overloaded but the solution to the problem is a matter of choice .everyone chooses to do what they want in their day. You choose to put the extra load on yourself. The only way to reduce this load and priorities other things such as time with children is to evaluate how you spend your time .if you are one of these people who don’t know where times goes then to get organized you can try some of these tips .

-keep day diaries listing all the things you have done and a time estimate of how long each item took you .keep this diary for one week and at the end of the week study your habits.

-see how much time you use that could be saved in other ways for example maybe you can reduce your daily shop every few days.

Everybody wins by saving time and effort on the road –an added bonus is its environmentally friendly and cost effective by cutting down on your car usage. Highlight in your dairy the time you usually spend with your children and your partner or family .Decide which part of the day is the best time to fit in quality one to one time and schedule some time everyday to be with your children without being distracted by phone calls or work commitments. Let your child join you when you are doing household tasks. They can even help when you are cooking or cleaning house .Not only are they spending quality time with you, improving communications and language skills but they are learning a valuable life skills that they can use later.

Generally, children love to spend time doing jobs that mum and dads do and you will be surprised how capable they actually are when you give them specific instructions and allow them to try. Each time they will get better and more competent and enjoyable. I wish you start the next month with new version include positive and achievable goals, re-arrange your priorities to enjoy your life more and make choices that suit your goals instead of being forced or pushed into doing something you would rather not. Do not compromise on the important issues for the sake of doing more and more .you decide your priorities and only you can stick to them, wish you success, God bless you.