Adapt our parenting to your child
Your child is the greatest teacher you will ever have. Every child is unique and as a parent you are uniquely positioned to become the expert for your child. Figuring a child out and how to work with them is one of the most rewarding things you can do as a parent. This is instead of butting heads, while you try to shape them into a predetermined mold. The trick is we need to be prepared to undertake the detective work involved and be willing to adapt. That is not to say that we throw the boundaries out the window, children need structure and limits, but making accommodations where possible will help your child thrive and make daily life more enjoyable.
Understanding Your Child
- Learn all you can about your child’s temperament. See our Temperament Guide
- Be flexible
- Adapt expectations and parenting to support your child
It's important to set children up to have success. Understanding their temperament and what they are developmentally capable of is an important first step. Giving them tasks that they are capable of doing will help them feel good and be ready to take on slightly more challenging tasks. It's helpful to start off young with tasks such as cleaning up toys, emptying the dishwasher, washing dishes, and sweeping or vacuuming. When your child can contribute to the family chores, they will gain a sense of satisfaction and deepen their feeling of belonging.
When we can understand how we can regulate our own actions to work with our children instead of being at constant odds, this shifts the focus away from trying to change children to fit in to meeting and supporting them in their uniqueness and innate characteristics.
Child Temperament: How We Start to Become Ourselves | David C Rettew | TEDxBurlingtonED
Override Principle helps us understand how we can regulate our own actions to work with our children instead of being at constant odds. Essentially this shifts the focus away from trying to change children to fit in and meeting and supporting them in their uniqueness and innate characteristics.
