Helping You Navigate Your Journey Through Parenting: Parenting with the End in Mind
- By Loretta Boronat
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- 20 Feb, 2019
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Do you ever feel like you are spinning your wheels as a parent, just trying to navigate from one task to the other, feeling like what is the point of it all? According Parent Educator and Family Coach Kim DeMarchi, many of us need to view parenting as a marathon rather than a sprint. Think about the adult you envision your child becoming and start from there. Ask yourself what type of characteristics you see them having. Are they funny and hardworking or confident and respectful? While this exercise has no right or wrong answers, it can help you to identify the values that you want to instill in your children and your long-term parenting goals.
Key Takeaways:
- We should parent our kids with one overall idea in mind. That is, 'what kind of person do we want our kids to be, when they are an adult?'
- It's helpful for both parents to make a list of characteristics, that they want their child to have. You may not agree on everything.
- Use the list to help you teach your child traits you want them to have, rather than just punishing them at the moment with no long term result as a guide.
"If those lifelong skills of problem solving, respect, communication and self-control are truly what I’m aiming for, perhaps I will choose other means of disciplining my child."
