Positive Parenting: A Guide for Engaging and Connecting With Your Child

By Kathleen A. Matchunis

Are you a busy parent, grandparent or guardian desperately searching for a way to connect with a child in your life?

If you are experiencing challenges with your child, are tired of wading through long, theory-based books and just need to quickly find solutions and guidance on how to implement those solutions, this book is for you.

In Positive Parenting- A Guide for Engaging and Connecting with Your Child you will find practical strategies to address a number of common topics which present themselves as challenges to most parents like how to:

- Lay a foundation which encourages positive parent-child communication
- Identify challenges and potential problems
- Avoid communication pitfalls
- Learn how to collaborate with your child to find solutions

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642553314

Book preview

expertise!

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to give you the positive communication strategies that all parents need to have good relationships with their children from a young age through adulthood.

Unlike many other parenting books, where you might have to read through many pages and wade through a lot of material to find specific strategies for your particular parenting challenges, this book has a clear list of solution-oriented options which you can try in each chapter. It is a gold mine filled with nuggets of information you can easily use if you don’t have time to read the whole book.

All of these strategies are general guidelines and will need to be adapted to fit your child’s personality and/or special needs. Some parents are naturally great communicators with their children. Others need some ideas and support. That’s okay! What’s important is that we are all striving to be better parents, right?

This book provides a brief overview of communication at each level of development, with emphasis on the tween/teen years and beyond, since that is the time when most kids become less communicative with their parents.

If you are just starting your journey down the parenting road, then you are in the proactive stage of communicating with your child. Those of you who are in this stage will benefit most from Chapter 1: Building a Solid Base of Communication. You will learn how to set the stage, develop the right mindset, and create a base for future positive communication with your child. This is a short section with some basic guidelines. Be sure to read the other sections for a glimpse of what the future holds.

If you are parenting a young child, you might be discovering that some of your current parenting strategies are not getting you the results you want. For those of you with young children, I would recommend that you start reading Chapter 2: Communicating with Your Young Child. Be sure to stay a few steps ahead of your child by reading ahead so you are not caught off guard.

If you have a tween or teen, and your child has gone from being some sweet little kid to a swirling hot mess of hormones, start with survival strategies in Chapter 8: Surviving Hormone Hell – The Tweens and Early Teens. This is where communication with your child can get complicated.

If you have managed to survive the turbulent teen years and your child is transitioning to college and leaving home, guess what? It’s time to prepare yourself because the communication game will change again. Check out Chapter 13: Communicating in the Post-High School Years on communication with your college-aged child, and subsequent sections.

If your child has completed college or training and is out in the workplace busy adulting, you must communicate with them like an adult. Your child is now an adult, even though you may still see them as your baby. This stage is a transition for everyone. Your conversations will be very different since your child is now independent. I share special strategies for dealing with adult children which will allow your relationship to grow.

No matter how far you are down the parenting road, you will still benefit from reading the strategies outlined for each of the earlier stages of development. The earlier you start openly communicating with your child, the better, but the good thing is that it is never too late to create positive communication with your child. If you are late to the game, better late than never! When we know better as parents, we do better, and that benefits our kids.

Finally, keep in mind that it is only natural that you learned to be a parent—and how not to be a parent—by how you were raised. However, every child is different, and times have changed. What worked for you back in the day may not work with your child.

Parenting is challenging, and we all want to be good parents. Wherever you are in your parenting journey, you can always learn more. You will be interacting with your child on some level throughout the rest of your life. Communication is the key to a great relationship with anyone. I hope you find the strategies offered in this book helpful. I wish you all the best as you move through all the exciting stages of parenting.

Chapter 1:

Building a Solid Base of Communication

You have heard the horror stories of kids who slam doors in the parents’ faces, melt down, and clam up. You have seen well-meaning parents create little tyrants. You say to yourself, That will never happen to me!

Your own words may come back to haunt you when the door slams in your face the first time.

The mistake that many parents make is assuming that communication begins when their child learns to speak. In reality, there is a lot that goes into creating open communication before your child is born. You have a good nine months to discuss with your spouse or partner how you will raise your child, and to create a cohesive plan. It is said that babies recognize their parents’ voices before birth, so talking to your baby before he or she is born is a preliminary step to building communication.

Communicating with Your Infant

Babies initially can only communicate through crying. How you respond to your baby’s crying will lay the groundwork for your communication with your child. Will you proactively engage your child in communication? Will you simply respond and tend to your child’s needs? Or will you react immediately and try to anticipate every need your child