Parenting Tips on how to become your child’s best friend

Parenting is tough, the toughest job in the world. You keep reading on parenting tips and you are still not sure if you have done enough. The struggle these days is to draw the line between being a cool parent who is more like a friend v/s a disciplinarian who needs to teach a child about manners and discipline.

Picture this:

Yes to situations or demands obviously gets you more brownie points from your child and the child tend to start seeing you as her friend.

However, these pictures shouldn’t be considered in isolation.

1. A Yes today may lead you to say many more Yes in the future, because even if you forget, your child will keep reminding that you said a yes last time.
2. If you say No all the time, then you come across as a strict mother who can’t really come close to the child.
3. And if you balance the number of Yes and No, then you are confusing the child. She wouldn’t really understand what to expect from you.

A child would obviously want to do everything we consider bad- play long hours, get dirty, spill paint on bed-sheet, watch TV throughout the day, cry, hit, snatch etc. For these entire one after the other repetitive tantrums, do you keep saying No, do you keep saying Yes, do you keep saying Yes and No both? Am I supposed to maintain a log now and count the number of times I agreed to her desires and times when I didn’t?

Ceteris Paribus (other things like money, time, health etc. remaining equal), why do we want to say a No when a Yes doesn’t really harm the child? Can I not teach her good manners by agreeing to whatever she wants to do? After all I don’t want to restrict her creativity.

It would be an ideal state to be in for both the child and us. If we kept saying yes and she kept learning good things.

There is a beautiful concept used in theater called Yes, And. What it says is if you are live in front of the audience and a fellow actor says a line which is not in the script, you can’t say “You are going off the script”. What you need to do at that point is improvise and say “Yes, and add your line which gets the two of you back in the script”. Example:

Yes, And is a beautiful concept which is being taught in even corporate now. Don’t just refuse or say no. Accept & build on what the other person has said.

Will this work with a child? Of course it would. Try it and let me know.

You would all agree it is easy to distract kids, when we really want to. Carrot & stick approach doesn’t work with them. Carrot & Carrot works wonders. We can get them to do homework, study books, and do puzzles if we bring in excitement to all of it. Agree to something they want and in return get them to agree on things you want.

I shall be waiting for you to try it with your children and come back here to share your thoughts!