The first step in overcoming any challenge or creating change is to be aware of what’s happening. Awareness means observing everything: yourself (your feelings, words, and actions), your children, the environments at home, school, and work, your activities and your routines. 

When you notice all of these components you may begin to see patterns, cycles, or predictable trends. Everything you observe becomes a clue to resolving whatever problem you are facing. 

This new awareness can create discomfort, so please be gentle with yourself and have compassion for everyone involved. It’s also important to employ other strategies to move forward in creating positive change in your family. 

As you decide what to do next, you can support your increased awareness by journaling your observations and thoughts. Recording the details as you piece them together will give you more clarity and evidence of progress along the way.

2) Listen with Purpose

Most struggles within a family are between two or more people. As we interact with each other, we engage in communication: expressing and receiving, speaking and listening. As an empowered parent who is gathering clues for deeper understanding, your intention to be an active listener is essential. 

Listening with purpose means setting aside distractions (the phone, the laptop, the dishes, the laundry) and engaging your eyes, ears, and heart. 

Our kids know when their message goes in one ear and out the other. They deserve to have their requests, complaints, struggles, and celebrations received with undivided attention and empathy. 

In our hectic schedules it can be challenging to listen with purpose to everything our children want to tell us. The goal is to set aside at least a few minutes each day when you can offer your child the precious gift of your full, open-hearted listening.

3) Hold Space

Do you remember the scene from Pixar’s Inside Out when Sadness listens to Bing Bong? She didn’t persuade, counsel, or cajole him; she simply sat with him and let him recall his memories and describe his feelings. Sadness was holding space for Bing Bong.

Parents carry the notion that they know better than their children, so it must be their job to solve problems and fix discomforts. Not true. 

When children are hurting the parent’s main job is simply to be present, withholding judgment, evaluation, comparison, and advice. In the moment tough feelings arise, holding space is all that is required. Only once the moment has passed is it the time to consider other strategies.

4) Get Curious

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it’s going to save your relationship with your children. As I mentioned earlier, parents naturally have a tendency to give answers and offer solutions. When we do, we miss an important opportunity. 

There’s a beautiful space of growth and learning in the unknown, or at least the willingness to not have all the answers. Getting curious allows you to remain open to new information, broader perspectives, and limitless possibilities.

With curiosity, any challenging situation with your children becomes an opportunity. When you slow down, ask powerful questions, and reserve your own assumptions, you open the door to your child’s inner landscape. You gain a deeper understanding of what is motivating their behavior and what is keeping them from the ease and joy of the situation. 

The more curiosity you can bring into the problem-solving process, the more open your child will be. Curiosity creates a cycle of authentic concern and vulnerable sharing, which then strengthens the relationship between you and your child. As your child experiences this pattern they gain more trust in you, which makes all the other strategies easier to implement.

5) Simplify

In our market-driven capitalist society we are inundated with never ending choices. Consider how many brands of grape jelly or toothpaste there are in the grocery store, or all the different streaming entertainment providers you can choose, or all the ads and offers that pop up on every website you visit. We live in a world overrun by complex systems that offer to enhance our lives, when really they just overwhelm us.

Our children feel the pressure too, and it shows in their decreased attention span and increased desire for stimulation, both of which result in significantly higher rates of ADHD diagnosis  today than 30 years ago. 

Parents are the gatekeepers of the household schedule, environment, devices, and activities. You have the unique opportunity and responsibility to structure your child’s life in a way that supports rest, learning, play, and free time. 

If you sense that your child is exhausted, overextended, or stressed out, you’re probably right. You can evaluate your weekly schedule and daily routines to see where you could eliminate some of the busyness and create more room for relaxation and play. 

You can take inventory of all the toys, books, games, and stuff that crowds your child’s space and make a plan to remove items and reduce clutter so their attention is not pulled in a million directions while they sit in their room. 

You can develop the discipline to create limits on the time and content allowed with screens, and brainstorm nourishing activities to replace the video games, shows, or social media.

The choice to simplify and the determination to see it through is tough in the modern age of technology and on-demand access to everything. Let your commitment to your personal values and your family’s well being fortify your resolve, and you’ll be rewarded with a greater sense of calm and ease for the whole family.

6) Choose Playfulness

Before you let this suggestion overload your system, let me clarify the difference between playing and being playful: playing is the act of engaging with your child in an activity that brings joy and satisfaction, while being playful is the intention to maintain a lighthearted energy and joyful attitude while engaging in any activity. 

Playing with your child means setting aside all other distractions and joining your child in their world. We’ll talk more about this in our final strategy. Being playful doesn’t require a special time or place; it’s available at any moment you choose.

Parents fall into the adulthood trap of taking themselves (and everything) too seriously. Once you’ve mastered caring for the newborn and your child’s physical health and survival is quite secure, you can ease up and bring some humor and silliness into the scene. 

This comes more naturally to some parents than others, and at times it can be easier with younger children and more strenuous with older children and tweens and teens. 

Don’t let the eye-rolls and sarcastic remarks deter your efforts. Keep trying different ways to lighten up and when you get a slight smirk or even a tiny chuckle you know you’re in the zone.

How can playfulness possibly teach my kids to cooperate and follow rules? Don’t they need to know who is in charge? 

Being playful is not the same as being permissive. Parents can still hold firm boundaries, enforce limits, and expect cooperation… all while using a playful tone and positive energy. 

Imagine the difference between a manager saying “Your sales are weak this month. You better pull it together or you’ll be working overtime,” versus “Your sales are limping along like a peg-leg pirate. Let’s light a fire and see what kind of magic you can work this week.” The message is the same (your results are subpar and you have limited time to reach your goal) but the delivery is entirely different (threat versus motivation). 

Playfulness is the hidden language that holds a valuable message: I love you, I care about you, I accept you. Children’s brains until the age of seven undergo rapid growth in the emotional centers, and those areas support connection to the cognitive areas once the brain reaches full maturity many years later. 

When parents make comments with sarcasm, shame, or blame, the emotional response from the child blocks the actual message, creating a story in the child’s mind that they are bad, unsafe, or unworthy. 

When you communicate with joy, spontaneity, and laughter the child’s emotional response enhances the message, creating beliefs that they are accepted, loved, and secure.

All of these strategies (awareness, listening, witnessing, curiosity, simplifying, and playfulness) lead to the ultimate goal, which is also our final strategy.

7) Create Connection

All humans have an innate need for connection and this need is present from birth. Children literally depend on their parents for survival during the first years of life, and the need for social connection continues long after basic physical and safety needs have been met. 

Numerous research studies indicate how critical it is for children to have a reliable and secure relationship with a caregiver in their early development. 

While the importance of cultivating this parent-child bond is monumental, the practical steps to create it can be quite small. 

An infant cries and receives a loving snuggle, a song during a diaper change, or silly game of peek-a-boo. A toddler erupts in frustration and finds a lap to lay in, a hand to hold, or a smile for reassurance. A child pouts at the playground and welcomes a quick wink or gentle embrace. 

Connection is built through the regular, intentional small acts of loving attention that you can offer to your child. 

The connected relationship is mutually beneficial and multi-faceted. Fostering connection from the beginning strengthens the bond between you and your child. It lays the foundation for your child to go out and take risks, knowing they can come back to you for safety and security. 

You can also rely on connection when you need to restore a breech in your relationship. After all, we are human and make mistakes every day. Prioritizing connection through a meaningful apology and commitment to do better the next time reinforces the relationship and models to your child how trust, vulnerability, and forgiveness heal temporary disconnections.

Utilizing these strategies in your parenting will allow you to support your child in the ways they need you most, while providing the freedom for your child to become the incredible person they are meant to be. 

As a parent you are a leader and role model in your family, and you get to create the environment that helps your family thrive every single day.

You can also be a role model and guide for other parents who want to transform their homes into havens of unconditional acceptance, mutual love, and daily joy. When you become a Jai Certified Parenting Coach you not only get to see how these strategies enhance your own family life, you get to share this with countless other families who want this, too.