What Is Peaceful Parenting?
It’s all over this website, so I guess I better define it! This is a responsive parenting style promoted by Dr. Laura Markham, my mentor and author of the books Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids; Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings; and the Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids Workbook. This relationship-centered approach to parenting is supported by contemporary neuroscience and attachment research and involves guiding kids to be the best, self-motivated versions of themselves, instead of using bribes, rewards, and punishments to force them into a mold that might work for us, but not for them. It is similar to other responsive parenting styles such as respectful parenting, Hand In Hand parenting, gentle parenting, and conscious parenting, and can be characterized by three three big ideas and five preventative maintenance practices explored below.
Three Big Ideas
Big Idea #1:
Regulate Your Own Emotions
In order to support your child, you need to be regulated. If you aren’t, they can feel it and they will react to the way you are really feeling, despite what you tell them about how you are feeling. And when it comes to them learning to regulate their own emotions, watching you do it is much more impactful than instruction from you or their SEL teacher.
Big Idea #2:
Connect With Your Child
Unless our children feel connected to us, they won’t follow our lead. This is why peaceful parents focus on building a strong connection with their kids even when things are going well, in addition to making a point of connecting with them when the parent needs to intervene to hold a limit or support the child during a moment of struggle.
Big Idea #3:
Coach, Instead of Controlling
Of course, no matter how strong your relationship with your child, there will be times when they need your support to meet expectations. Traditionally, this is done through punishment, bribes, and rewards. But in peaceful parenting it is done through emotion coaching, empathic limits, and problemsolving.
Five Preventative Maintenance Practices
Incorporating these practices into your life will both help build connection with your child (Big Idea #2) and also help keep your family out of the “breakdown lane,” dealing with child meltdowns instead of enjoying your time together.
Empathy 24/7
All humans want to be seen, heard, and understood. We do this for another by offering our presence and holding space. While it’s probably unreasonable to aim to do this 24/7, the point is to do it as often as possible.
Welcoming All Emotions
The more capacity a person has to live with all of the complicated emotions that come from being human, the more resilient they will be. That’s why it is so important for parents to work on expanding their own capacity to be with their children’s full-range of emotions.
Roughhousing
This rough-and-tumble play is a great way to give kids the opportunity to work through their fears (thus making them less likely to have meltdowns) while both parties experience a surge in bonding hormones, which build trust.
Special Time
This practice may be the single thing that peaceful parenting is most known for. Turning off our phones and giving our kids our complete attention while doing whatever THEY want, doesn’t just help them feel important, it gives us to opportunity to practice our presence so that we can get a little closer to empathy 24/7.
Routines
While it is not helpful for children to feel like slaves to the clock, routines—and the predictability they provide—are a source of felt safety. They also can be used as a way to build connection throughout the day, reduce the parent’s role as “head cop” and enforcer of expectations during transitions, and ensure everybody’s basic needs are met.
Of course, doing preventative maintenance isn’t the same as being peaceful.
That’s where my free “Embody Peace” workbook comes in.
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