Discipline: Top Things Cool Parents Should Do to Stay Calm

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Eyinade Eweje

Children are quite a handful. As a parent who constantly has to guide them and curb their excesses, it’s easy to get worked up and lose your cool. However, doing that is always counterproductive. Find top things you should do to enable you always stay cool, calm and collected when your kids push your buttons…

Manage Stress

Juggling a lot of responsibilities with parenting takes its toll on your health, so you must keep your stress level at the barest minimum. A happy, rejuvenated parent is more likely to approach issues calmly. Get useful tips to help you relieve stress here.

Know When You’re About to Burst

Be determined to stay in control of your emotions; don’t let your emotions control you. Though doing this is tough, constant practice will definitely help you get better. Once you realize your temper is on the rise, taking a deep breathe or walking away for a bit to calm yourself down will minimize the number of times you find yourself yelling, hitting, having unproductive bouts of arguments or power struggles. You will also be modelling good anger management skills to your child.

Be proactive

What are the usual misbehaviours your child displays that often get your blood boiling so hot? Are there clear, fair and age-appropriate rules and consequences for these misbehaviours? Do existing ones need to be reviewed to make them more effective? Are there things you can do to make it easier for your child to obey those set rules? Is your child taking you for granted because you only nag, issue empty threats, offer bribes or even beg to him to behave?

Reviewing the highlighted questions and taking necessary steps may help your child listen to you more, giving you less reasons to be provoked.

Note that when a child is misbehaving, it’s no use trying to force them to do the right thing as the more they refuse to obey you, the angrier you get. Avoid the power struggle – reminding them of the consequence(s) and following through immediately is a better option. That way, they either decide to listen or face the consequence(s).

Choose your battles

Children are just children, after all, and sometimes, they do very annoying but rib-cracking stuffs. Don’t let the constant demands of parenting make you lose your sense of humour – allow yourself laugh, and then register your disapproval firmly.

Other times, especially for toddlers, all you really need do is distract them from continuing with that inappropriate behaviour by transferring their attention to something else they’ll find engaging or fun.