Today’s podcast is an important one. I am going to share my number one parenting rule/tip/strategy for all parents, regardless of how old your children are. It is a tip that was shared with me long before I had kids and it stuck with me. Maybe my years of coaching and teaching helped give me some experience with this strategy before I had my own kids, but gosh kids are cute and their ability to get you to sway from this rule is sometimes downright magical…

This rule we are going to talk about today, this strategy/tip/rule is one that I believe to rank up there as one of the most important ones! It’s a rule that we all could use a refresher on. If you are like me, you likely slip a little bit once and a while and if you don’t catch it early on it can turn from a tiny snowball into an avalanche of whining, constant negotiations, yelling, screaming, anger and frustration.

The basis of this rule can be summed up in the following quote:

“People treat you only one way — the way you let them!”

Now think about your kids, how do they treat you? Do you have little ones who ask over and over again for something you’ve said no to until you finally say yes? Do they “ignore” you when you ask them to stop playing video games or watching TV to do something you’ve asked (for the zillionth time)? Do they roll their eyes at you when you ask how their day was? Do they use foul language or call you names, tell you they hate you?

If you answered yes to any of these things, I want you to take a moment and think about how you got to this place? How did you lose control and lose their respect? Because that’s what has happened. You have allowed your child to believe that THEY are in control and that they can have what they want when they want it. You have lost your position as the one who sets the expectations around the behavior in your house and I will venture to say that you have lost their respect.

Listen in today and learn the 4 steps to getting back on track and gaining the respect of your children. Change is possible and it can happen!