Why do us parents get frustrated with their children? Many might say it is because children do things they aren’t supposed to, or they don’t do what they are supposed to. However, this isn’t why parents get frustrated, this is simply when parents get frustrated.
Why us parents become frustrated, is because we have an EXPECTATION that our children will do what we want or stop doing what they don’t want when we tell them. We have this expectation because we are trying to control our children.
Before you read more, know that by what I am about to say I do not mean we will not do things to train our children. I will talk about child training after, so please bear with me for a minute while I start to sound crazy.
The solution to not being frustrated is simple: Unless speaking of a case of life or death or harm, stop trying to control your children. Stop expecting that they will do what you want and stop expecting that they will stop doing what they are not supposed to. The solution is to allow your children to choose to do whatever they wish.
Again, this does not included scenarios where your child can be killed or harmed, but probably about 99.9999999999999994% of the situations with our children are not life or death or situations where they could be severely harmed. If you are not trying to control your children, you will be much more likely to be frustrated when they misbehave.
As I said earlier, this does not mean we do nothing to train and discipline our children, this is simply addressing our ATTITUDE and MINDSET in how we approach training and disciplining them.
In the book “Boundaries with Children” by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, one of the authors states the correct attitude of child-rearing like so:
“The goal is not to control the children to make them do what you want. The goal is to give them the choice to do what they want, and make it so painful to do the wrong thing that they will not want to.”
The way we train our children is by giving them the freedom to make their own choices and making bad choices very unpleasant for them. If this is our attitude or mindset when our children make the wrong choice, it doesn’t affect us negatively, only them.
We might feel sad for our teenager because they miss out on seeing friends, lose video game or internet privileges, or sympathetic with our 7-year old that now has to do extra chores or our toddler that receives the swat on the behind, but it doesn’t disrupt your life or aggravate you; it’s their problem. They are the ones to receive the consequence. Too bad for them, doesn’t affect you.
When we take this stance, we can remain kind, caring and compassionate with our children even when delivering the consequences. Being this way when disciplining our children has been scientifically proven to help the child focus more on the consequences and think rationally and learn from the experience. However, when we get angry, shame, threaten and condemn our children it takes the focus off of the consequence and on how “mean” we are. The child then doesn’t learn a lesson, they only learn how volatile, grumpy or nasty their parents can be.
Again, our mindset and attitude is not to control the child's behavior, but to simply make the bad choices as uncomfortable and unpleasant as possible. Whatever the child chooses doesn't matter. It doesn't affect you if they make dumb choices, they are the ones who suffer. You're there to support and guide them through the consequences of their choices, take responsibility for them.
Can we do this all the time and perfectly in every situation? No. But we can try to have this attitude as much as possible, and our blood pressure levels will thank us.
For those that haven’t read these books, I would really recommend “Boundaries With Kids” By Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, and “Parenting With Love And Logic” by Foster Cline and Jim Fay. They have been very impactful in how my wife and I have decided to train our children, has given us a lot more patience, brought more compliance from our toddler, as well as strengthened our connection with her.
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