#ScoopsFromMendTheGap

A strategy is a sure way of getting your desired results without fail. Parenting has a strategy, MendTheGap offers you this strategy. Here’s a quick peep into MendTheGap talkshow yesterday. Enjoy!

– Separate your life at work from home; do not pour the stress from your workplace on your children.

– Parenting is a calling. Every parent is called, but practising the call and making the experience worthwhile is something else.

– Set boundaries early, do not wait until your child becomes a teenager to start setting boundaries.

– Use the set boundaries to expand capacities; if the boundaries are not effective, review them.

– While setting boundaries, you must establish your threshold. E.g. If he/she does not align/behave, what would I do?

– Your actions towards the behaviour of your children must be corrective, not punitive.

– Set boundaries, but be flexible.

– Do not let your children be able to predict you too much. If they do, they may consider your approach ineffective.

– Teenagers need you to have a relationship with them. In their words, “… if you want to know what I am up to, I need to know that you won’t judge me or start shouting”.

– Own up to your mistakes, apologise when you are wrong. Parents are not always right.

– Stop ‘preaching’ to them using the mistakes they have made, speak to them.

– Teens must be made to realise that their friends shape them, whether they are aware of it or not.

– Having a holistic approach to parenting will help you handle some of the detours you will come across.

– Clarify the vision of the family from the onset. Ask, “what kind of child do I want to bring up?”

– Principles do not change, but situations/circumstances will. What principles are you passing on to your children?

– We cannot have a one-size-fits-all rule for every child.

– Schedule family meetings; have an agenda.

– Have a special time in which your children are allowed to express themselves, even if you are upset with something they mentioned, don’t show it.

– Take steps to address everything presented.

– When teenagers feel that you do not ‘hear’ them, they will revolt.

– Your children have expectations of you just as you have expectations of them. #Accountability

– The world out there wants to steal your teen from you, but you have a part to play in keeping your teen with you.

– Try relationship, not coercion.

– Just as we have in the workplace, it is ok to call an emergency meeting at home too.

– Create a balance between using your authority and building relationship with your teenagers.

– Culture has undermined the authority of parents, trying to steal our teens from us. We need to consider having a relationship with them.

– When correcting your children, let your approach communicate love. There are actions children interpret as hate.