The Parenting Pyramid Parents
Ever wonder why your child/teenager doesn’t listen to you? Do you ever wonder if your parenting skill are up to par? Or where you went wrong for your child to end up as they are? Well, I hate to break it to you, but most of it is on you. But there is a way to make things better. This is the parenting pyramid. A guide to show parents how to parent. We start from the bottom and work our way up.
Personal Way of Being
This section has nothing to do with your children and everything to do with you. How do you treat others? How do you treat your spouse, neighbor, co-worker, children? How are you as a person? Are you a good person? Or are there areas that need some improvement? This section will define the rest of your relationships. It will determine how you parent.
The husband-and-wife relationship
This section deals with just that, husband and wife. How is your relationship with your spouse? Do you fight? Argue? Miscommunicate if you communicate at all? Or do you show love, patience, and understanding with your partner? Your relationship with your spouse will determine your relationship with your children.
Parent/Child Relationship
This section is where you can make or break your relationship with your children. You cannot teach them anything if they don’t like you. Just because you are the parent doesn’t mean they are going to listen to you. It’s time to face the hard reality and realize that those days are over. Developing a relationship with your children is the best way to get them to listen to your counsel. When is the last time you took advice from someone you didn’t like? Spend time with your children and invest your time in them. Learn what they like or don’t like. Avoid teaching in this section, this is the section to get to know them, not to lecture them. Resist the urge until they come to you.
Teaching
Many parents want to discipline their children when they have done something wrong or messed something up. But whatever method parents want to use to discipline their children, it must be followed by well-established appropriate teaching. Teach your children what they did wrong and why it’s wrong, and then find an appropriate consequence. When you discipline before teaching, the lesson will go in one ear and out the other. Teaching opportunities arise when your children have made a mistake, or if they come to you with questions or asking for advice.
Correcting
“The effectiveness of our correction of our children, whatever method we use, will always depend on the effectiveness of our prior teaching of them” (Arbinger Company). Correcting is linked to teaching. However, correcting is more of the discipline aspect of teaching. Teaching comes first, and then the correction or the consequence.
When it comes to discipline, many parents when they were young have been hit physically or have done the hitting as a form of discipline. I will share with you why this is the least effective method of discipline. In some cultures when a child misbehaves, the parent tells them to go outside and find a stick so they can beat them with it. In a particular story, the mother asks her child to go find a stick. After some time, the child comes back with no stick. Crying, the child says “I didn’t find a stick, but here is a rock you can hit me with instead”. The point of this story is that children don’t see a difference in the objects you use to physically discipline them. They don’t care if it’s a stick, belt, coat hanger, or your hand. It is traumatizing to them and does not teach them anything except that beating them is ok and normal. Physical discipline throws everything out the window. It throws out the parenting pyramid. “Children who are spanked, hit, or slapped are more prone to fighting with other children”(Steinberg).
Collaborating Consequences
Children over the age of 8 are old enough and mature enough to understand right from wrong. They also are mature enough to collaborate a consequence after being taught by a thoughtful parent. Many parents underestimate their child’s ability to think and reason for themselves. Have you ever heard or said “you’re just a child, you don’t know what you want”? The fact is, children do know what they want. They might not be able to express it the same as adults, but they know and have the ability to make their own decision, as long as they are guided correctly.
This brings me to my last point. The parenting pyramid is a guide to show parents the steps they can take to improve their relationships with their children. An important point I want to make is that whatever step you are on, don’t go on to the next step until you have established the step you are on now. For example, don’t try to improve your marriage if you are struggling with being a good person. Don’t try to improve your relationship with your children if your relationship with your spouse is struggling and so on.
Parenting takes practice, and like most things, you won’t start getting the hang of it until all your children are leaving the house.
References
The Arbinger Institute. 2008. The Parenting Pyramid. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://content.byui.edu/file/91e7c911-20c5-4b9f-b8fc-9e4b1b37b6fc/1/Parenting_Pyramid_article.pdf.
Steinberg, L. 2004. The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting.