Parenting

When it comes to certain situations, we’ve adopted a FAFO approach, but we try to teach our son morals as well. Like if we tell him not to do something and he continues to do, an then gets hurt, we tell him that’s why we told him no, and he found out the hard way why to listen to us.

We try and incorporate a lot of values/morals through storytelling and books we pick to learn about things like helping, sharing, working hard, being honest, etc.

For behavioral teaching we model and correct in the moment with no yelling or hitting. If he doesn't listen it's usually because he's 1. Hungry 2. Overtired 3. Overstimulated 4. Testing a boundary. Redirection and patience are key. Screaming just teaches them to be scared not obedient or respectful. It's not easy but we do our best. And when we do lose it, we do deep breathing (birthday candle blow out style) to reset our nervous systems together and start over again from there.

When they're young stories and modeling will be the strongest teachers. Play time is learning time. Beyond that being consistent and holding your boundary are so important. Spoken as a mom to a soon to be 18 year old, 2 year old, and one on the way.

You can find a lot of great resources online or videos to learn about early childhood development and learning to best accommodate your child's needs and help reset your thinking from "they're a bad child" to "they're having a hard time" and helping them regulate themselves. They're so little and learning; how we react will give them space to learn and be better than our parents were with us, or give them extra work as adults to overcome. With that in mind, it goes by so fast, do what you can and do your best so you have few regrets and learn along the way!