By Lisa Smith, The Peaceful Parent
I recently wrote about how we can find it really difficult when we feel that others are watching how we are parenting and when we feel that we are being judged by them.
I wanted to give you a practical strategy to cope with situations just like that.
First, I want you to consider moving away from saying to your child, “Don’t talk to me like that,” or “Stop yelling at me,” or “Stop disrespecting me.”
Why?
The thing is that when you use phrases like this, you’re making yourself the victim in your mind.
You’re saying that your kid is doing something to you and you are the victim.
This puts you even more in opposition to each other.
So, what we wanna say is something like, “Honey, we don’t talk like that.”
Or, what you could do is go straight to suggesting a do-over.
What’s a do-over?
A do-over is where you go back to the point just before things went crazy and act it out the way you wish it would have gone.
A do-over doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be in the right direction. Having fun or a bit of humour in a do-over is also totally allowed.
You could just go straight to telling your kid, alright, we’re gonna do this over. Say this in a very calm and matter-of-fact voice.
Part of the do-over is for yourself.
You’re practising the habit of thinking ‘My kid is not doing this to me. He/she/they are just doing it.’
