This post is all about how to have hard conversations with kids through mindful parenting and proactive parenting techniques. Parenting skills don’t magically appear when your children are born and it’s OK to feel a little lost sometimes. Raising resilient kids that can withstand the challenges in life isn’t easy but it IS doable!
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What’s Inside…
Mindful Parenting
Every mom has been there. You desperately want to give your kids the best. When they are tiny little babies and you look at their faces you just know… “I’m going to do everything possible to give them a great life.”
What you aren’t considering in that moment is all that life will throw at you, at them and the fact that you aren’t perfect. You’re going to lose your temper. There will be times when, despite your best efforts, things will go horribly wrong.
You may be asking yourself, what do you know about it? Well, I’ve raised two beautiful children who are both in their 20’s now. (So hard to believe but true!) Looking back at what worked and what didn’t… here’s what I know.
Every day I just choose to do a little better than yesterday. Never forget your end goal! Raising resilient kids that won’t crumble when bad things happen can be a challenge. It takes a lot of effort and laser focus.
Proactive Parenting Is Key
You will have to have hard conversations with your kids over the years. The key is to use proactive parenting skills and most important, mindful parenting techniques.
Being a mom can be one of the most difficult and sometimes thankless jobs out there. Yet, ask any mom and we will all day the same thing. “I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
This post is meant to encourage moms who are struggling through any stage of motherhood or preparing for raising your little ones.
7 Mindful Parenting Strategies
It’s my hope that these mindful parenting strategies will give you some ideas on how to raise resilient kids that come to you when they’re struggling.
Grab a cup of coffee or tea and let’s dive in!
Acts of Love
There are so many ways to show your children you love them. When they are babies and throughout their lives you do this on the most basic level through providing their essential needs.
Showing acts of love goes so much further than that though. You show love in everything you do as a mom.
Finding things your children enjoy and taking the time to learn about it and participate in it with them is an act of love.
No matter how young or old your children are (even your adult children) you can show them love by genuinely showing interest in what’s important to them.
Be Honest
As much as you want to protect your children, honesty is the way to go.
All too often you may find yourself in a situation where withholding information, twisting the truth or flat out lying seems like a good idea.
Don’t get caught in this trap. Is it possible you avoid a catastrophe in the moment? Yes, possibly… but the fallout later is not worth it.
Consider this. If you avoid exposing your child to the harsh reality of life when they are small, how will they build the skills to cope with them as an adult?
Remember that you will be there rooting them on and encouraging them when life gets hard. Your biggest and most important job as a parent is to help them gain the skills to be a high functioning member of society and a good person.
Instead of avoiding the truth, help them understand the cause and focus on the negative action itself.
Avoid The Blame Game
Even when your children are small they will experience their own versions of the harsh reality of life.
As a toddler this may be a sibling stealing a toy or a peer being unkind on the playground.
One of the things that I appreciated most as a parent was the ability to speak to the situation at hand rather than blaming the situation on a person.
Talk to them about the thing that happened that was negative. What caused it? Is there a way to prevent it from happening again?
Even the youngest of children can understand these conversations. When your children are teens this will be a skill you need to avoid alienating them.
When their trusted friend makes a poor decision you want them to trust you to be objective. If they don’t, they will look for guidance in others.
Don’t Avoid Hard Conversations With Kids
Whether you have small children at home, teens or adult children talking to them about things that really matter is important.
So many parents assume their kids won’t care to have a conversation about (insert just about anything here) so they avoid hard conversations.
Your kids are your world and having hard conversations is one of the toughest things you will do as a parent.
TIP: Get practice talking to your kids about difficult topics when they’re still young. If at all possible prepare yourself for the teenage years now.
The idea here isn’t that you are telling your four year about the harsh reality of life.
The goal is to focus on the conversation itself and make it genuine. One talks the other listens and vice versa.
When it really matters you’ll be glad that you have a relationship where honest conversations are the norm. If you really struggle with having hard conversations with your kids or even uncomfortable conversations just remember this.
If you don’t, someone else will.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
In simpler terms…. Pick your battles. Your child is in the process of becoming the amazing adult they will be later in life.
They are going to screw up. There will be things they will do that you can’t understand. But, you will love them through every bit of it.
Today, the dirty clothes on the floor, avoiding chores, annoying habits may seem very important.
In reality, they are little things. The key to mindful parenting is to keep your eye on the end game and when you’re most frustrated, picture them as adults and remember… this is just one tiny piece of the puzzle.
Learn With Your Kids
One of the best things you can do with your children is to learn something with them.
Learning together is a great way to bond with your kids and show them you are human too.
As uncomfortable as it can be, let your kids see you struggle. Even better than that, let them see how you overcome those struggles.
Life lessons can be learned in the simplest of tasks.
Keep in mind that your kids are learning life lessons all the time. They learn more about how to cope and handle life by watching how you struggle, than they do in your success.
Talk through how you go through the process of solving problems. Raising resilient kids requires you to teach them how to solve problems on their own.
As humans, we all start to shut down when the challenge we are facing seems insurmountable. Focusing on the process rather than the problem itself makes it easier to cope.
The last thing you want is to teach your kids to settle with being a victim of a situation and not have the skills to rise above whatever injustice or situation landed them in a bad situation.
Make Time For Fun
Almost every parent wishes that their child or children will have a better life than you did. Even if you were raised by good people, had a good childhood and found success, you are probably wanting more for your kids. You work to provide that to them.
The question is, are you teaching them the value of time and relationships?
Even as you work the long hours and go through the daily grind your children are watching you and learning what normal looks like for you. Your normal will be what they know.
Do you take time to dedicate to your children with no distractions? Is there time set aside on a weekly or monthly basis for family fun? Do you dedicate time to your significant other?
You can teach your kids to place value in the important relationships in their life by modeling prioritization of your time for the people that matter most. Doing so is not only good for you and keeps you fueled to continue on in your busy life. It’s also an opportunity for you to show your children that fostering healthy relationships is worth the time and effort.
Look back on your own life and consider when you learned the most important lessons. Most likely the catalyst for that lesson was either a failure or a difficult situation in your life. Failure is only an opportunity to learn and do better in the future.
Mindful Parenting Techniques For Raising Resilient Kids
The reality is, you are human and you are going to get it wrong. You are going to screw up as a parent. It’s totally normal and even expected.
What matters is what you do when that happens. You can choose to be the kind of parent that isn’t afraid to apologize when you make the wrong choice. Your kids will learn so much in those moments of vulnerability.
Not only will your kids learn how to handle communicating with others when they make the wrong choice or a bad decision, they will learn they can trust you.
When your children are small and all of their basic needs are met, they naturally trust you. You as their parent can almost do no wrong.
As your kids become teens that won’t be the case. They are finding themselves and figuring out who they want to be. Just being anyone other than them makes your opinion contradictory.
Create an environment and relationship with your kids where they trust you, even as a teenager by communicating openly and honestly.
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Be sure to leave a comment below and share what you do to practice mindful parenting. What struggles do you face in raising resilient kids?
Let’s encourage each other through this process!
This post was all about mindful parenting and how to use proactive parenting techniques as you are raising resilient kids that will thrive in life.
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