Are you an emotionally safe person?
Many parents think that if they just parent with the right set of techniques, their child will grow up to be successful. However, according to author Joshua Straub, techniques aren’t always the key to parenting.
“The posture from which we parent, not the techniques that matters most.”
Behavior modification techniques like rewarding good behavior providing consequences for bad behavior works for younger kids, but in order to be successful parents must employ other modes of correction.
“That’s great for younger kids, but it’s the most basic of moral development, it doesn’t engage the brain of our kids the way that two-way communication does.
What posture should we have with our kids?
A longitudinal study done over 75 years by researchers in Harvard found that the key point to personal fulfillment and happiness is the warmth of personal relationships.
In other words, kids who grew up and succeeded in life consistently had warm, personal relationships in their formative years, especially with their parents.
According to Joshua, one of the most important things parents can help their kids develop is emotional self-control.
“We’re trying to help our kids develop self-control so that when we launch them into college, or when they leave the home, they’re making decisions even in stress and fear on their own with self-control, emotion-regulation, cognitive flexibility.”
Often, when we’re stressed or anxious we can’t always think straight.
“When you’re in that fight or flight mode, you have an inability to truly think, that’s why we say to people who have just experienced a crisis, don’t make any major decisions, don’t sell your home, don’t quit your job, don’t leave your spouse, don’t make any major decisions.”
Unfortunately, as parents when our kids are display this fight or flight mentality we tend to try to lecture them into submission.
“We try to talk to them, but the reality is it isn’t going to connect from point to point because they’re not thinking straight, that ability to be warm, that ability to be lead in grace rather than truth, if we lead in grace, as parents we can become that piece for our kids to calm their brains so that we then can begin to reason.”
We want our kids to learn how to reason and research shows that the safe, warm environment allows the brain to grow and develop the ability to reason.
Highlight: Is your relationship with your kids emotionally safe?
