Everyone loves to give parenting advice, so here you go (even tho Bari won’t read this and the rest of us here are probably past our child-rearing years anyway - lol):
1) Humor. Just like in a marriage, making each other laugh lightens the hard times and builds a lasting bond. Bonus: they’ll want to hang out with you when they’re all grow…
Everyone loves to give parenting advice, so here you go (even tho Bari won’t read this and the rest of us here are probably past our child-rearing years anyway - lol):
1) Humor. Just like in a marriage, making each other laugh lightens the hard times and builds a lasting bond. Bonus: they’ll want to hang out with you when they’re all grown up.
2) Fake it ‘til you make it. What do you do if, for example, your partner is out of town and you’re in a restaurant and you told your kids they couldn’t have a soda with dinner and that if they asked again you’d leave, and they did ask again because they’re testing and so you have to leave… except, you’re starving and god were you were looking forward to eating out and you bloody well don’t want to make dinner, and they’re having tantrums and sobbing “Mommy, no!” and heads are turning and all you have to do is relent and everything will be so easy, relief is so close…? You apologize to the waitress, get up and walk through the freezing winter dark to put those screaming kids back in the car and you drive home and you make grilled cheese sandwiches while they writhe and cry and tell you how mean you are and you’re dying inside and the whole time you act like you are totally, totally fine. Try always to project to your kids that you can handle whatever they throw at you, that you’re confident you’re doing the right thing for them, that you know it’s all going to be fine. This, for me anyway, is acting. It’s a brutally hard role sometimes, but your kids need to believe you’re rock solid so they can flail and experiment and make mistakes. (Gordon Neufeldt is the guru for this kind of authoritative - not authoritarian - parenting. Highly recommend.) And, for all the momentary pain, it’s worth it. My kids never again pushed me on what they could order in restaurants.
3) Sleep. One of the most basic and actually helpful parenting books is The Seven O’Clock Bedtime. Do whatever you can to get those kids to bed on time. The earlier the better. This applies through their whole childhood including the teen years (no phones in the bedrooms!). The author of the book said people were always asking her for her parenting tricks because her kids were so well behaved, and she was like, the only trick I got up my sleeve is their bedtime.
4) At the end of the day, if you do nothing else, love them and let them know they’re loved. No matter what they may do.
Everyone loves to give parenting advice, so here you go (even tho Bari won’t read this and the rest of us here are probably past our child-rearing years anyway - lol):
1) Humor. Just like in a marriage, making each other laugh lightens the hard times and builds a lasting bond. Bonus: they’ll want to hang out with you when they’re all grown up.
2) Fake it ‘til you make it. What do you do if, for example, your partner is out of town and you’re in a restaurant and you told your kids they couldn’t have a soda with dinner and that if they asked again you’d leave, and they did ask again because they’re testing and so you have to leave… except, you’re starving and god were you were looking forward to eating out and you bloody well don’t want to make dinner, and they’re having tantrums and sobbing “Mommy, no!” and heads are turning and all you have to do is relent and everything will be so easy, relief is so close…? You apologize to the waitress, get up and walk through the freezing winter dark to put those screaming kids back in the car and you drive home and you make grilled cheese sandwiches while they writhe and cry and tell you how mean you are and you’re dying inside and the whole time you act like you are totally, totally fine. Try always to project to your kids that you can handle whatever they throw at you, that you’re confident you’re doing the right thing for them, that you know it’s all going to be fine. This, for me anyway, is acting. It’s a brutally hard role sometimes, but your kids need to believe you’re rock solid so they can flail and experiment and make mistakes. (Gordon Neufeldt is the guru for this kind of authoritative - not authoritarian - parenting. Highly recommend.) And, for all the momentary pain, it’s worth it. My kids never again pushed me on what they could order in restaurants.
3) Sleep. One of the most basic and actually helpful parenting books is The Seven O’Clock Bedtime. Do whatever you can to get those kids to bed on time. The earlier the better. This applies through their whole childhood including the teen years (no phones in the bedrooms!). The author of the book said people were always asking her for her parenting tricks because her kids were so well behaved, and she was like, the only trick I got up my sleeve is their bedtime.
4) At the end of the day, if you do nothing else, love them and let them know they’re loved. No matter what they may do.