One of my favorite parenting books is Your Baby Your Child by Penelope Leach. She does an amazing job presenting a psychological approach to parenting, really digging into the why she suggest things should be done a certain way.
My son is strong willed (and a friend questioned me the other day….”I wonder where he got that from?) So I thought I’d bring up her suggestion for keeping an easy child. My son is past the point of being a toddler, but maybe theses tips could be applied to my 18-month-old daughter.
The example, in the section one year to two and a half years of age, is getting your toddler to help pickup blocks. She uses gentle suggestions and the analogy of a competition, saying “I bet I can pick up these books before you pickup those blocks.” In the end, the toddler doesn’t put the blocks away because dad said so, they put them away because they wanted to.
Self direction is big, whether you are analyzing education, corporate culture or personal life. We all perform our best when we decide upon the next action to take, rather than someone demanding we do something.
Leach also looks at the opposite effects. Have you ever demanded your son or daughter do something? Who hasn’t? What happened? If they are a typical toddler or strong willed, you’ll get a similar oil and water effect that I received with my kids. They do the opposite of what you are demanding.
As fathers, we must get creative in presenting our demands. Rather than presenting demands, competitions as the above example work well. Games, rewards and and making something as fun as possible can have the same effect.
She goes on to say that if your son or daughter reaches the next state of growing up feeling that you are on his or her side that he will behave as you wish. But if he or she sees you as overpowering, incomprehensible and basically against him, your son or daughter will see you as unpleasurable and throw trying to please out the window.
That can sound like a lot of pressure, but I interpret that in the form of a question to myself. Am I battling with my kids or are we working together? No matter where life takes them, they are going to need to learn to work with people, so it is our role as dads to help them learn these skills.
Father Through Me 