During a Las Vegas event sponsored by Univision, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stated that President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 election was “one of the most courageous” choices made by any president.Vice President Kamala Harris described President Biden’s decision as one of the most courageous actions a president could take, emphasizing that he placed the nation’s interests above his own, as reported by the press pool. Her comments were translated into Spanish for the audience.

Harris made these remarks in response to a voter who expressed concerns about Biden’s exit from the race and indicated support for Donald Trump. The voter sought clarification on Harris’s ascent to the nomination without a competitive primary process. Biden concluded his re-election campaign on July 21, following mounting pressure from significant Democratic leaders and donors regarding his age and capability. After his exit, he promptly endorsed Harris, who secured sufficient support from Democratic delegates to claim the party’s nomination.

In a recent interview with ABC News’ “The View,” Harris remarked that there was “not a thing” she would have done differently than Biden as president. This statement was quickly highlighted by Trump’s campaign, which aims to position the former president as a candidate for change in 2024.

Harris asserted that Biden, despite not frequently appearing on the campaign trail, has been a vital partner and supporter. She contrasted Biden’s actions with Trump, who has yet to concede his loss in the 2020 election. “We, as American citizens, face a choice between a path that values the rule of law and democracy or one that admires dictators,” she emphasized, as reported by the press pool. The Trump campaign has not yet responded to requests for comments on Harris’s statements.

Have you ever felt like you’re in a never-ending battle trying to get your kids to put down their screens or say no to junk food? You know it isn’t great for them, but when you try to set some limits, all hell breaks loose! And then, not only are you dealing with a full-blown meltdown, but you’re also left feeling like a crappy parent and secretly wondering if your kids are out to get you. Trust me, if you’ve been there, you’re definitely not the only one!

The good news is that establishing and enforcing boundaries can help you navigate these challenges and restore harmony in your household. When you implement boundaries correctly, it’s not just about resolving the immediate conflict; it’s also an incredible opportunity to help your kids build resilience.

To create effective boundaries, it is essential to first clearly define our role and our children’s role within the family structure. As parents, it’s our role to ensure our children’s safety, and our age and experience equip us to fulfill this crucial role. Our children’s primary role is to communicate their emotions freely with us. Once we grasp these distinct roles, the process of setting and maintaining boundaries becomes more straightforward and intuitive.

When setting a boundary, one key thing to remember is that your boundaries shouldn’t depend on your kids doing anything. There’s a big difference between making requests and setting boundaries. When you make a request, your kids might go along with it, or they may not. But boundaries? They’re different. Boundaries are all about you taking action, not waiting for your child to do something.

Let’s say you want your kid to stop watching TV because they’ve already reached the daily limit you’ve set. The way to enforce this boundary is by turning off the TV or taking the remote and turning it off yourself. Repeatedly asking your child to turn off the TV is about as effective as trying to convince a squirrel to give up its acorn stash – it’s a losing battle that will likely lead to frustration and tension for both of you.

When you turn off the TV, brace yourself for a rollercoaster of emotions from your kids. They might get upset, mad, or sad. You might hear them crying, screaming, or complaining. And here’s where you have to step up and do something crucial: validate their emotions. Let them know that what they’re feeling is totally normal and that you’re there to support them.

You might say something like, “I know you didn’t want the TV to be turned off. I bet you’re pretty upset right now, and I totally get it. I’d probably feel the same way if I were in your shoes. It seems awful, but we can’t watch any more TV.” This step is super important because we want our kids to know that their feelings cannot override the boundary, and the boundary cannot invalidate their feelings. This is also a step that most parents struggle with.

It is difficult for parents to offer support to their kids when they are experiencing difficult emotions. They usually react in one of two ways: either they tell their kid they’re overreacting and dismiss the emotion, or they give in to avoid the meltdown. Sound familiar? Throughout history and in numerous societies, challenging emotions have often been deemed unacceptable or have been suppressed. Our society has had a low tolerance for anything other than happiness and positivity.

When we struggle to listen to our kids or acknowledge their challenging emotions, it can lead them down two paths. Some kids learn to lash out or become aggressive when they’re feeling big feelings. They might explode because, deep down, they feel unheard and unseen, and that unmet need for validation pushes them to the brink.

On the flip side, other kids who don’t feel seen and heard might learn to shut down and bottle everything up. They start to believe that the only way to get attention and approval is by hiding their true feelings and just going along with whatever they’re told. They become little people-pleasers, always putting on a happy face even when they’re hurting inside.

If we really think about it, neither of these outcomes is what we waSetting boundaries for kids, Screen time limits for children, Managing children’s screen time, Junk food limits for kids, Enforcing boundaries with children, Effective parenting strategies, Children’s emotional resiliencent for our children as they grow up and become adults. We don’t want them to be aggressive and explosive, but we also don’t want them to be pushovers who never speak their truth. It’s a tough balance, but it all starts with making sure our kids feel heard and validated, even when their emotions are intense or uncomfortable for us to deal with.

Every time you set a clear boundary and stick to it while acknowledging your child’s feelings, you give them a little mental workout. They’re learning that they can handle disappointment, frustration, or anger without falling apart. They’re discovering that their emotions, even the tough ones, are valid and manageable.

Over time, these small moments of emotional resilience start to add up. Your kids begin to develop a stronger sense of self, knowing that they can navigate life’s challenges with the tools you’ve given them. They learn to face their feelings head-on rather than shying away from them or letting them take over.

So, while enforcing boundaries might feel like a battle in the moment, it’s really a gift in disguise. You’re not just solving a problem; you’re helping your children build the mental strength and emotional agility they’ll need to thrive in the long run. And that’s a pretty amazing thing!

About the Author

Namitha Raju is a Certified Master Parent Coach. She coaches parents to develop deep connections and peace in their relationships with their kids. Her company, Beautiful Bonds, is based on the principle that emotional growth, healthy relationships, and personal transformation are the keys to fulfilling parenthood. Dr. Raju received a Ph.D. in Psychology, where she studied early development. As a mom of two kids, she found that her academic experience couldn’t rescue her from her day-to-day parenting challenges! Her curiosity led her to garner the expertise necessary to inculcate deep connections between parent and child. She serves parents virtually throughout the US. If you would like to find out more, please visit https://beautifulbonds.me.

Several schools are introducing kids to the concept of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset as part of their social-emotional learning program. It’s a great awareness tool, thanks to studies by Stanford University researcher Dr. Carol Dweck.

Dr. Dweck’s research discovered the two main ways people think about their ability to do things: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. Her research looks at the sources of these two distinct mindsets, their role in motivation and self-regulation, and how it influences achievement and interpersonal relations. The illustration above shows how people with growth and fixed mindsets go through their lives. When I read this for the first time, I felt a punch in my gut because I could relate to many of the beliefs listed under the fixed mindset. It didn’t feel good at all! The fixed mindset develops from interactions with parents who employ a controlling or dominant parenting style. When we were growing up, the power-over way of parenting was the most prevalent. Sadly this parenting style, which is quite pervasive even now, has adverse effects on emotional growth.

“In daily interactions, parents who employ this parenting style seek control over their children, indirectly through blaming, shaming, sarcasm, or directly through yelling and punishments. The result is a power struggle, ‘parents versus kids,’ a winner and a loser.”

Ultimately, this weakens connection and communication between the parent and child. Additionally, it erodes the child’s sense of self-worth and confidence. And this is where children learn limiting beliefs, such as, ” I’m only loved and accepted when I fall in line.” This conditional acceptance from parents lays the foundation for a fixed mindset, rigid beliefs about self, and inflexibility to grow emotionally. As progressive parents, we all want to raise kids with a growth mindset where things are not black or white but where there is a continuum of possibilities and hope. We can achieve this goal by providing unconditional acceptance to our kids. Sadly, it is hard to provide unconditional acceptance when our subconscious thinking and attitudes are only familiar with conditional and controlling versions of parenting because of the way we were raised.

This vicious cycle is hard to break without support. Mindset changes take time, but I am grateful I took the leap because the changes I saw in myself directly impacted my parenting, and I started seeing my kids showing much more openness than before! If you aren’t sure how to turn things around in your parenting, you aren’t alone! Join the growing community of conscious parents who want to transform their parenting style and raise kids with a growth mindset.

About the Author

Namitha Raju is a Certified Master Parent Coach. She coaches parents to develop deep connections and peace in their relationships with their kids. Her company, Beautiful Bonds, is based on the principle that emotional growth, healthy relationships, and personal transformation are the keys to fulfilling parenthood. Dr. Raju received a Ph.D. in Psychology, where she studied early development. As a mom of two kids, she found that her academic experience couldn’t rescue her from her day-to-day parenting challenges! Her curiosity led her to garner the expertise necessary to inculcate deep connections between parent and child. She serves parents virtually throughout the US.  If you would like to find out more, please visit https://beautifulbonds.me.

A clever advertisement recently released (https://youtu.be/36SDHEwSA_U) by Bournvita, a children’s health drink company in India, promoted a social message. In this ad, they changed the packaging of their health drink and presented it in unimaginable containers (such as a glass cleaner, a soap box, a toilet cleaner, a tissue box, etc.) to see how someone would react to a different container shape instead of how it is meant to be. They used this analogy to urge parents not to force kids to choose a profession against their will and make them something they don’t want to be! The ad ended on a note urging parents to show “Faith not Force.” My article today is inspired by this advertisement. 

A survey by joblist that interviewed working people and parents found that 40 percent of working people felt pressured to follow their parents’ career advice, while 2 out of 3 parents said they were disappointed when their children didn’t pursue their desired careers. It is thus no surprise that many parents, despite their best intentions, end up feeling misunderstood by their kids and their kids feel unsupported in their career choices. As parents, we want the best for our kids. For many parents, one way to define best is by seeing their kids achieve financial success. There is no typecasting or judgment here. This definition reflects a valid need. We all know how hard it is to live without financial security. 

Some parents are so concerned about their kid’s future that they take it upon themselves to make career decisions for their kids and expect kids to implement them! There are also many other parents who encourage kids to pursue their interests but keep reminding their kids of their goals so often that kids start to rebel and lose interest in pursuing anything well! So while a huge parenting objective is to help kids be financially secure, it is often executed using some form of force. 

Let us first ask ourselves, “what is our real goal as parents?”. We all want our kids to lead happy, fulfilled lives. I don’t think any parent would disagree with me on this. And as parents, we consider financial stability as a means to help our kids become happy adults, and this is something kids also understand. What then is lacking in the process that leads to rifts instead of collaboration between the parent and child?

The inability of the parent to express their best intentions to kids without using force or control is at the core of this issue! Parent-child connection is directly linked to the quality of decisions kids make as they grow. Parent-child relationships that are collaborative open a child to receiving their parent’s ideas and life experiences and using them to evaluate their own emerging ambitions and interests. Even if parents are unfamiliar with their kid’s area of interest, faith in their child can inspire parents to support their kids. Then what stops parents from building that great relationship with their kids? What stops parents from showing faith over force?

Actually, it’s not surprising that force overtakes faith in our parenting. This is how most of us were raised; it’s the traditional way of parenting, a style carried out for many generations! In traditional parenting, compliance is seen as respect and often extracted through forcible means (shame, threat, yelling, comparison, nagging, sarcasm, etc.). Previous generations have followed the rules and complied with authority to survive. We end up repeating the same cycles because that is what is familiar to us. 

Further, while complying, one cannot be creative or courageous. Especially in today’s age, success comes from collaboration, innovation, and courage, not compliance! Whether you pick a career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) or non-STEM fields (Arts, Sports, etc.), success will come to you through your passion, not just a college degree. Our job as parents is to kindle our kid’s interests so that they grow to feel more passionate about it.  

Research in the last two decades from neuroscience and child development identifies the drawbacks of traditional parenting. Any parental consequence that affects a child’s self-worth or self-esteem, even if it’s not harsh, leads to kids’ non-compliance with parents. Other negative effects the child experiences might include depressive feelings, behavior problems, and poor conscience development, making them incapable of making sound decisions. 

And suppose you do attempt to be aware of some of the conditioning patterns and don a new face to parent differently. In that case, you are quickly caught in the ‘scarcity’ trap, another facet of traditional parenting. The scarcity mindset is the belief that there isn’t much to go around and only a few can succeed. So naturally, this mindset breeds competition and  the other hand, an abundant mindset developed by adopting a peaceful parenting style allows one to view the world differently. We can start to see non-hierarchical relations and infinite resources, and possibilities and drop the constant fear that lingers about our child’s future.

Our kids need us to be their safe harbor, their guide so that they can navigate the complexities of life and make good decisions for themselves, especially their career decisions since that will dictate the direction and quality of their life. So it is upon us to transform how we parent, making our kids feel seen, loved, and empowered by moving away from the traditional, controlling style and towards a transformational, peaceful parenting style. Because … if we can’t provide it to them, who will?

About the Author

Namitha Raju is a Certified Master Parent Coach. She coaches parents to develop deep connections and peace in their relationships with their kids. Her company, Beautiful Bonds, is based on the principle that emotional growth, healthy relationships, and personal transformation are the keys to fulfilling parenthood. Dr. Raju received a Ph.D. in Psychology, where she studied early development. As a mom of two kids, she found that her academic experience couldn’t rescue her from her day-to-day parenting challenges! Her curiosity led her to garner the expertise necessary to inculcate deep connections between parent and child. She serves parents virtually throughout the US.  If you would like to find out more, please visit https://beautifulbonds.me.

Most of us are aware of the controlling parent and the lenient parent. A controlling parent manages their kids’ behaviors using dominating techniques such as threats, yelling, shaming, sarcasm, or punishments. Parents who use control don’t like it but feel compelled to use it. Moreover, with time, the threats go up in intensity. Otherwise, they don’t work. While this method might produce obedience, it doesn’t teach kids why the desired behaviors matter. Further, kids learn to find less desirable ways to get the things they want, such as sneaking or lying.

Lenient parenting, on the other hand, has its own pitfalls. A lenient parent may decide not to be involved in actively managing kids’ activities (e.g., getting homework done, screen time decisions, junk food) to avoid conflict. They let kids make their own rules! This early and absolute independence can affect kids negatively in the long run. With an underdeveloped brain, kids often cannot make safe or healthy decisions and have a hard time with limits as they grow into adults. 

In today’s age, most parents unconsciously swing between these two parenting styles! Let’s understand how. Even though most of us don’t agree with the controlling style of parenting many of us were raised with, it can be really difficult to invent a different parenting style for our kids. We end up employing a milder version of the same controlling style! We leave out the harsh punishments that were aversive for us, but we find it difficult to get rid of the milder counterparts, such as sarcasm, shaming, or lecturing, which serve a controlling role. And we feel justified in doing so because we think kids need to learn the right way! 

But any form of control inevitably leads to a disconnection from our kids. When the disconnection becomes too bothersome, many parents stop controlling and let the kids take control instead. This shift into a permissive style continues until the parents realize that kids can’t manage on their own, ultimately bringing out the dominant parent once again. 

If you find any of this familiar, don’t fret. Such “pendulum parenting” is more common than you think. More than anything, it is important to realize that these alternating parenting styles we adopt over time are simply coping mechanisms to manage our own emotions! This leads us to the question: What’s the right way to parent? How do we get our kids to listen to us without being dominating or lenient? 

The answer to these questions is a transformational way of parenting that has evolved by diving deep into the world of emotions, feelings, and needs. This new style emphasizes that the feelings and needs of every member of the family matter. The practice of accepting what you are feeling and needing and what your child is feeling and needing allows you to shift your focus from behavior-based parenting to connection-based parenting. When you parent from curiosity and connection, kids are receptive to parents because they don’t feel judged. 

Making the shift from behavior-based parenting to connection-based parenting, however, isn’t easy. It takes practice, patience, and a willingness to mess up! You can start by self-examining your fears concerning your child, expectations from your child, expectations from yourself as a parent, your own disappointments, and your history and conditioning. All this is a lot to unpack, and it can be overwhelming without an objective and trained guide. It is usually helpful to seek structure and support. While this journey toward transformational parenting can be bumpy, I highly recommend it to parents who want to enjoy their parenting and see their kids living fulfilled lives. 

About the Author

Namitha Raju received a Ph.D. in Psychology where she studied early development. As a mom of two kids, she found that her academic experience couldn’t rescue her from her day-to-day parenting challenges! Her curiosity led her to garner the expertise necessary to inculcate deep connections between parent and child. As a Certified Master Parent Coach, she helps parents bring communication, connection, and peace into their relationships. Her company, Beautiful Bonds, is based on the principle that emotional growth, healthy relationships, and personal transformation are the keys to fulfilling parenthood. She serves parents virtually throughout the US.  If you would like to find out more, please visit https://beautifulbonds.me.

A clever advertisement recently released (https://youtu.be/36SDHEwSA_U) by Bournvita, a children’s health drink company in India, promoted a social message. In this ad, they changed the packaging of their health drink and presented it in unimaginable containers (such as a glass cleaner, a soap box, a toilet cleaner, a tissue box, etc.) to see how someone would react to a different container shape instead of how it is meant to be. They used this analogy to urge parents not to force kids to choose a profession against their will and make them something they don’t want to be! The ad ended on a note urging parents to show “Faith not Force.” My article today is inspired by this advertisement. 

A survey by joblist that interviewed working people and parents found that 40 percent of working people felt pressured to follow their parents’ career advice, while 2 out of 3 parents said they were disappointed when their children didn’t pursue their desired careers. It is thus no surprise that many parents, despite their best intentions, end up feeling misunderstood by their kids and their kids feel unsupported in their career choices. As parents, we want the best for our kids. For many parents, one way to define best is by seeing their kids achieve financial success. There is no typecasting or judgment here. This definition reflects a valid need. We all know how hard it is to live without financial security. 

Some parents are so concerned about their kid’s future that they take it upon themselves to make career decisions for their kids and expect kids to implement them! There are also many other parents who encourage kids to pursue their interests but keep reminding their kids of their goals so often that kids start to rebel and lose interest in pursuing anything well! So while a huge parenting objective is to help kids be financially secure, it is often executed using some form of force. 

Let us first ask ourselves, “what is our real goal as parents?”. We all want our kids to lead happy, fulfilled lives. I don’t think any parent would disagree with me on this. And as parents, we consider financial stability as a means to help our kids become happy adults, and this is something kids also understand. What then is lacking in the process that leads to rifts instead of collaboration between the parent and child?

The inability of the parent to express their best intentions to kids without using force or control is at the core of this issue! Parent-child connection is directly linked to the quality of decisions kids make as they grow. Parent-child relationships that are collaborative open a child to receiving their parent’s ideas and life experiences and using them to evaluate their own emerging ambitions and interests. Even if parents are unfamiliar with their kid’s area of interest, faith in their child can inspire parents to support their kids. Then what stops parents from building that great relationship with their kids? What stops parents from showing faith over force?

Actually, it’s not surprising that force overtakes faith in our parenting. This is how most of us were raised; it’s the traditional way of parenting, a style carried out for many generations! In traditional parenting, compliance is seen as respect and often extracted through forcible means (shame, threat, yelling, comparison, nagging, sarcasm, etc.). Previous generations have followed the rules and complied with authority to survive. We end up repeating the same cycles because that is what is familiar to us. 

Further, while complying, one cannot be creative or courageous. Especially in today’s age, success comes from collaboration, innovation, and courage, not compliance! Whether you pick a career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) or non-STEM fields (Arts, Sports, etc.), success will come to you through your passion, not just a college degree. Our job as parents is to kindle our kid’s interests so that they grow to feel more passionate about it.  

Research in the last two decades from neuroscience and child development identifies the drawbacks of traditional parenting. Any parental consequence that affects a child’s self-worth or self-esteem, even if it’s not harsh, leads to kids’ non-compliance with parents. Other negative effects the child experiences might include depressive feelings, behavior problems, and poor conscience development, making them incapable of making sound decisions. 

And suppose you do attempt to be aware of some of the conditioning patterns and don a new face to parent differently. In that case, you are quickly caught in the ‘scarcity’ trap, another facet of traditional parenting. The scarcity mindset is the belief that there isn’t much to go around and only a few can succeed. So naturally, this mindset breeds competition andthe other hand, an abundant mindset developed by adopting a peaceful parenting style allows one to view the world differently. We can start to see non-hierarchical relations and infinite resources, and possibilities and drop the constant fear that lingers about our child’s future.

Our kids need us to be their safe harbor, their guide so that they can navigate the complexities of life and make good decisions for themselves, especially their career decisions since that will dictate the direction and quality of their life. So it is upon us to transform how we parent, making our kids feel seen, loved, and empowered by moving away from the traditional, controlling style and towards a transformational, peaceful parenting style. Because … if we can’t provide it to them, who will?

About the Author

Namitha Raju is a Certified Master Parent Coach. She coaches parents to develop deep connections and peace in their relationships with their kids. Her company, Beautiful Bonds, is based on the principle that emotional growth, healthy relationships, and personal transformation are the keys to fulfilling parenthood. Dr. Raju received a Ph.D. in Psychology, where she studied early development. As a mom of two kids, she found that her academic experience couldn’t rescue her from her day-to-day parenting challenges! Her curiosity led her to garner the expertise necessary to inculcate deep connections between parent and child. She serves parents virtually throughout the US.  If you would like to find out more, please visit https://beautifulbonds.me.

Most of us are aware of the controlling parent and the lenient parent. A controlling parent manages their kids’ behaviors using dominating techniques such as threats, yelling, shaming, sarcasm, or punishments. Parents who use control don’t like it but feel compelled to use it. Moreover, with time, the threats go up in intensity. Otherwise, they don’t work. While this method might produce obedience,
it doesn’t teach kids why the desired behaviors matter. Further, kids learn to find less desirable ways to get the things they want, such as sneaking or lying

Lenient parenting, on the other hand, has its own pitfalls. A lenient parent may decide not to be involved in actively managing kids’ activities (e.g., getting homework done, screen time decisions, junk food) to avoid conflict. They let kids make their own rules! This early and absolute independence can affect kids negatively in the long run. With an underdeveloped brain, kids often cannot make safe or healthy decisions and have a hard time with limits as they grow into adults. 

In today’s age, most parents unconsciously swing between these two parenting styles! Let’s understand how. Even though most of us don’t agree with the controlling style of parenting many of us were raised with, it can be really difficult to invent a different parenting style for our kids. We end up employing a milder version of the same controlling style! We leave out the harsh punishments that were aversive for us, but we find it difficult to get rid of the milder counterparts, such as sarcasm, shaming, or lecturing, which serve a controlling role. And we feel justified in doing so because we think kids need to learn the right way! 

But any form of control inevitably leads to a disconnection from our kids. When the disconnection becomes too bothersome, many parents stop controlling and let the kids take control instead. This shift into a permissive style continues until the parents realize that kids can’t manage on their own, ultimately bringing out the dominant parent once again. 

If you find any of this familiar, don’t fret. Such “pendulum parenting” is more common than you think. More than anything, it is important to realize that these alternating parenting styles we adopt over time are simply coping mechanisms to manage our own emotions! This leads us to the question: What’s the right way to parent? How do we get our kids to listen to us without being dominating or lenient? 

The answer to these questions is a transformational way of parenting that has evolved by diving deep into the world of emotions, feelings, and needs. This new style emphasizes that the feelings and needs of every member of the family matter. The practice of accepting what you are feeling and needing and what your child is feeling and needing allows you to shift your focus from behavior-based parenting to connection-based parenting. When you parent from curiosity and connection, kids are receptive to parents because they don’t feel judged. 

Making the shift from behavior-based parenting to connection-based parenting, however, isn’t easy. It takes practice, patience, and a willingness to mess up! You can start by self-examining your fears concerning your child, expectations from your child, expectations from yourself as a parent, your own disappointments, and your history and conditioning. All this is a lot to unpack, and it can be overwhelming without an objective and trained guide. It is usually helpful to seek structure and support. While this journey toward transformational parenting can be bumpy, I highly recommend it to parents who want to enjoy their parenting and see their kids living fulfilled lives. 

Do you recognize any of these recurring themes in your parenting?

*Wails* I need the iPad. I’m in the middle of something! I hate you. You’re so unfair!

*Whines* I hate this! I don’t want this. You never make anything I like!

*Yells* I didn’t do it. Stop accusing me! Get out of my room!

*Groans* I don’t want to do it!

 How do you react when you hear something like this from your kids? How does it feel? How do you feel about your kids in those moments? How do you feel about yourself in those moments?

Let’s dive deep into a power struggle and see what is going on for us at such times. I have named this difficult interaction with our kids and what ensues the parenting struggle pattern because it is a pattern that repeats itself from time to time.

This is how the pattern looks:

1. A parent encounters difficult behavior
2. The behavior triggers a bodily response in the parent
3. A state of frustration or acute helplessness pushes the parent to use a controlling technique (lecture, sarcasm, yell, blame, shame, punish) to ease their discomfort
4. The kid feels disconnected and distant from the parent
5. When the parent sees the child’s disconnection, no matter how justified they feel in their actions, most of the time, they feel sad about the child’s disconnection from the child.
6. At this point, some parents are reluctant to continue holding boundaries in order to rebuild the lost connection until they encounter the next challenge.

Interestingly, this pattern reveals that our “controlling techniques” are essentially coping mechanisms to overcome the acute discomfort we are experiencing!

Let’s understand this pattern through the lens of nervous system science. As soon as we encounter a difficult situation, our nervous system shifts into a “fight, flight, or freeze” response. In this state, our prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that can voluntarily control our thinking, emotional responses, and behavior, cannot be accessed. We only have access to our reactive lower brain, which augments our anger or fear reactions, compelling us to lecture, be sarcastic, yell, blame, shame, or punish. We clearly can’t employ effective communication in this state with anger and fear as our resources. As a result, our kids naturally learn to shield themselves. They construct an emotional wall to disconnect from us, mainly to protect themselves. This makes it even more frustrating for parents whose best intentions didn’t work and ended up worsening their relationship. As kids mature, parents want them to seek their help if they ever get into trouble or find themselves in a difficult situation. But kids hesitate to approach parents in these situations because they perceive their parents as judgmental.

So what’s the answer here? The first step is to become aware of this pattern. Once you gain awareness, the next question is, “What do I do to break free from this cycle?” Many factors can contribute to the trigger that sets off the pattern. While there can be strategies you could use to escape the onset of this pattern, a lot of the time, you can be in a state of acute discomfort that disables you from accessing any strategy!

But there is hope. You can work on reducing the frequency of these triggers and these states of discomfort and frustration. Start by introspecting your fears concerning your child, your expectations from your child, your expectations from yourself as a parent, your own disappointments, and your history and conditioning. All this is a lot to unpack, and it can be overwhelming to traverse your emotional map without an objective and trained guide. It is usually helpful to seek structure and support from a parent coach. Whatever you do, remember that what you are going through is hard, and it is important that you treat yourself with kindness!

About the Author

Namitha Raju is a Certified Master Parent Coach. She coaches parents to develop deep connections and peace in their relationships with their kids. Her company, Beautiful Bonds, is based on the principle that emotional growth, healthy relationships, and personal transformation are the keys to fulfilling parenthood. Dr. Raju received a Ph.D. in Psychology, where she studied early development. As a mom of two kids, she found that her academic experience couldn’t rescue her from her day-to-day parenting challenges! Her curiosity led her to garner the expertise necessary to inculcate deep connections between parent and child. She serves parents virtually throughout the US.  If you would like to find out more, please visit https://beautifulbonds.me.

Wouldn’t praising kids encourage them to do well? The answer is ‘No!’

I won’t be surprised if you think, “What’s wrong with encouraging my kids?” I am myself recovering from being in the ‘good-jobbing-camp’ for a very long time and still catch myself saying it occasionally! I always assumed that saying “Good job” encouraged kids. I believed praising kids was a valuable parenting skill to build a kid’s confidence. While praising may seem like it encourages kids to do well, surprisingly, I have learned that it erodes a child’s inner confidence! 

Let’s start by backtracking a bit. Many of us have grown up in a home where our parents were quite frugal with their praises but liberal with their disapprovals, and we felt unappreciated. This led us to believe that praising our kids can help their confidence. It turns out that just as criticism negatively affects one’s self-esteem, praise has its own fair share of negative impact! When I first learned about the way praise negatively affects one’s confidence, I was somewhat surprised.  A disappointment followed this revelation because I felt miserable about having deliberately practiced praising for so long!! 

Let me first share why praising our kids is not a good idea. Any praise aimed at our kid’s character or the outcome (e.g., smart, intelligent, pretty, brave, good job, excellent grades) focuses on something a kid has no control over! A kid can only control what he can do, not what the result is. Moreover, praise is an external motivator that hinders one’s ability to build intrinsic motivation. Let us take a specific example where an adult praises a kid who solves a puzzle by saying, “You are so smart!”. To secure this reputation or acceptance from the adult, kids may not attempt a more challenging puzzle for fear of losing this “reputation” in case he/she may fail. This causes pressure each time he/she sees a difficult problem at first.

Instead of exploring it further, they start withdrawing under the pressure of not being able to meet the expectation that has been set for them. Thus praising takes away our kid’s curiosity to explore challenging tasks.

Moreover, when adults who are usually very vocal in their praise are silent in their response to a child’s task, it sends a message to the child that they are not good enough. Further, in the case of activities where there aren’t any opportunities for praise, kids may tend to avoid it or be apathetic about it.  No matter how young our kids are, they are in the process of finding an identity for themselves and can quickly latch on to labels like “smart or intelligent, or kind.” This dependency or addiction on others’ praise to feel accomplished doesn’t serve kids well in their self-growth. Kids can lose their internal compass in assessing themselves and may not build the ability to self-evaluate. Another side effect is that it creates “people-pleasers” who tend to go out of their comfort zone to do things for others to receive acceptance and maintain desirable labels! 

So, what’s the alternative to motivating our kids?

The best alternative is not to say anything when they do something. The idea is not to ignore them or their work but to stay away from any kind of evaluation, positive or negative. It’s best not to say anything because the completion of the task or activity without any external influence will provide the child with an opportunity for self-evaluation. If that feels like a difficult transition for you and your child, then participate and engage with the kid and get curious about your kid’s activity in the task. Instead of telling them what you think, you can ask them what they think about it. For example, in the case of the puzzle example, you can say, “How do you feel about completing the puzzle? Did you use any strategy to work through it?”. These questions try to bring the child’s focus back on their own actions, as the parent provides the scaffold for their thinking processes. 

Parents have shared with me that in their relationship with kids, offering praise or showing approval for a job well done is the only time they feel like they are connecting with kids. However, if we think deeply, this conditional connection is not our intent for our kids. Conditional acceptance kills our kid’s curiosities, depriving them of developing the critical qualities that make them lifelong learners!

So, if you are, as I was, in the “good-jobbing-camp,” I would encourage you to reconsider your approach. As parents, we want to consider our motives for offering praise. Let us ask ourselves if our comments will give them a sense of control or if it will make them seek us for approval. As parents, we are all doing the best we can to ensure that our kids can achieve their maximum potential. I hope this revelation helps you in this endeavor!

About the Author

Namitha Raju is a Certified Master Parent Coach. She coaches parents to develop deep connections and peace in their relationships with their kids. Her company, Beautiful Bonds, is based on the principle that emotional growth, healthy relationships, and personal transformation are the keys to fulfilling parenthood. Dr. Raju received a Ph.D. in Psychology, where she studied early development. As a mom of two kids, she found that her academic experience couldn’t rescue her from her day-to-day parenting challenges! Her curiosity led her to garner the expertise necessary to inculcate deep connections between parent and child. She serves parents virtually throughout the US.  If you would like to find out more, please visit https://beautifulbonds.me.