Don’t stop at the cool mom, be the extraordinary mom!
A lot of moms out there might remember the quote from Mean Girls, “I’m not like a regular mom, I’m a cool mom.” We don’t want you to be just a regular mom, or even a cool mom.
Studio 5 Parenting Contributor Heather Johnson shares how you can be an extra-ordinary mom. She has four extra things that will take your parenting to the next level.
To contact Heather for counseling, email blog.familyvolley@gmail.com, or visit www.familyvolley.blogspot.com.
How to be the Extraordinary Mom
- Parent from their potential
As parents it is easy to parent our children according to what they are doing right now. So, when they break something or talk back, we parent from that place. When they come home late for curfew or get bad grades, we parent from the mistakes they make. Instead, we should be parenting from our children’s potential! What we hope they can become, and the potential we know they have.
One way to parent from potential is to give corrective feedback in a kind and loving way. And to resist being condescending.
- Look for the unmet needs
When our children choose poorly and struggle, it is the outward representation of an inner, unmet need. To take our parenting to the next level, we need to be looking for the unmet needs instead of focusing on the behavior. We do this by listening. Listen, listen, listen. As parents we need to be able to get to know our children well enough that we can see their shortcoming and insecurities. Then we can help them.
- Delegate
We tend to think that we should delegate to our kids so that it will lighten OUR load. We want to delegate because we understand that our children need responsibility and opportunity to grow! We can do all the things that need to be done. We can do them faster and usually better. When we push our kids aside to get a task done more quickly, it might get done, but no one has grown or developed.
It is important to give then things to do specific to their development.
- Don’t be afraid of their freedom to choose.
Letting our kids choose can be scary. Especially as they get older, we can’t be afraid of them choosing. We have to celebrate the opportunity and because we love them, celebrate that they can make their own choices. We should want them to choose because we love them, and we know that learning comes from choosing. We must work off of what we know instead of what we what we are afraid of. We KNOW that choice leads to growth. We are AFRAID of them making bad choices that are a reflection on us or make more work for us.
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