A Fascinating Technique Called “Peaceful Parenting”
With the growing trend in creating space to work on our mental health, everyone knows that a little peace and mindfulness can go a long way in contributing to happiness, energy, and higher self-esteem.
Therefore, it’s no wonder that including these practices in the way we parent our children can lead to their independence, joy, and success in the future.
This technique is called peaceful parenting, and it was developed first by Dr. Laura Markham, but is now practiced by many parents all over the world.
Learning how to incorporate this technique into your parenting style can not only improve your child’s wellbeing but also your own. Let’s take a closer look.
What is Peaceful Parenting?
Peaceful parenting combines several parenting approaches while also incorporating the idea that parents should consider their own emotional regulation as well as their child’s.
The three main ideas of peaceful parenting include creating a strong bond between parent and child, being mindful of your emotions and past traumas as a parent, and “coaching over-controlling.”
Here’s how these ideas work together to create a parenting style that can benefit both parents and children:
- Creating a strong bond means spending lots of quality time together, making your company a safe and comforting space for your child, encouraging physical touch and emotional openness, and eliminating distractions like electronics that may become a priority over interacting with your kids
- Mindfulness of your emotions as a parent can allow you to regulate how you’re feeling before you jump straight into anger, jealousy, or fear. This will allow you to compose yourself before interacting with your child, disciplining them in a helpful way rather than an aggressive way, and set a positive example for them right off the bat.
- Coaching over controlling means finding the perfect balance between discipline and lenience. Rather than immediately presenting your child with a consequence, you may encourage them to look at a scenario as a learning experience. You can encourage them to change their behavior because it will lead to a better outcome, rather than instilling fear through a punishment.
How to Parent Peacefully
Incorporating these methods may look different for every family and every child. It will also depend on your child’s age and stage of development.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
- For younger children, peaceful parenting techniques may look like taking deep breaths, speaking gently, or removing them from the situation during a tantrum.
- For school-aged kids, you may find yourself leading the way in some mutual problem solving when they make a mistake and then coming back later to talk about what went wrong and why.
- For older teens, it may mean taking the time to listen and connect before immediately punishing as well as presenting the benefits of positive choices that they can make at this age in a calm manner.
Why Peaceful Parenting?
Peaceful parenting may sound difficult, and the truth is that it certainly can be. It can be extremely tough to calm yourself down before expressing your emotions more constructively, and learning how to do this takes a lot of work.
However, implementing emotional mindfulness, connection, and appropriate corrections for your kids can help break cycles of trauma that can lead to negative emotions further down the road.
Your kids will eventually understand and appreciate the connection and understanding you offer them as well as exhibit it in their own behavior after seeing it modeled for them.
Not only will you be more emotionally bonded with your kids, but they will become more emotionally intelligent adults who are likely to pass on these traits themselves.
Conclusion
Peaceful parenting, while difficult work, can benefit both your children as well as yourself. It can help your entire family to learn how to be more mindful of the strong emotions you all experience, and effectively communicate them to each other.
Peaceful parenting teaches kids that their actions have impacts on others, but that they also have the power to make their own positive choices.
Such a lesson is invaluable and hard to learn elsewhere, and it will likely stand the test of time; choosing to parent peacefully can radically influence the way a child lives life from beginning to end.