Create a Loving Home: Here’s One Parenting Coach’s How-to Guide
One of the most important things we do as parents is set the tone for a happy, harmonious home.
Often, as a parent coach, that is where I start when I am working with a client.
Parents might come to me, say, to learn how to deal with their 6-year-old’s violent outbursts.
Rather than starting with my focus on the child, I first lay the groundwork for creating a more loving home.
Love is the glue that holds us all together, and when it is palpably present, everything in the house feels easier.
Here are 5 Steps to Creating a Loving Home.
Focus on the positive.
Did you know that our brain has five times the number of receptors for dangerous/negative input as for pleasurable/positive input?
That means that your children are five times as likely to absorb your negative comments as your positive ones. That means that to have your children feel you have said more positive things at the end of the day, your ratio of positive to negative has to be 5 to 1!
Think about that. If you had a video camera following you around for a full day, would you be recorded saying five positive things for every negative thing you said? I am not even sure I would, and I am a pretty positive-focused person!
So, here’s your challenge: At the end of every day, I urge you to write down five positive things about every person in the house.
Some days, you’ll have to repeat what you said the day before, but as time goes by—and you are more and more on the lookout for the positives—you will see all the beautiful, generous, thoughtful and helpful things your family members are actually doing.
From there, all you have to do is to state your observations out loud to your family.
2. Kiss in the middle of day.
When my husband and I had three kids at home, we often felt like we were ships passing in the night.
Even now, when we both work at home and the kids are grown and flown, it can be dinnertime before I exchange words with him.
But according to John Gottman, a world-renowned relationship expert, all it takes to reduce your cortisol levels and boost your oxytocin levels is six seconds!
Imagine how good it would feel in the middle of a busy day to lower your blood pressure and to release the feel-good hormone that strengthens your bond with your loved ones in just six seconds?
In addition to making you feel better, your kissing each other reminds your kids that you are a united parenting team.
You are also setting a great example for your kids of what a loving relationship looks like.
The best part of all? Your kids can get in on the act with a six-second hug. They’ll get the same physiological benefits that will help them feel bonded and close.
Have you hugged your kid today?
3. Radiate love and approval
My godmother Aunt Maggie had a special talent: She radiated love and approval every time I saw her.
Having a person in your life who absolutely radiates love and approval even as they gently correct you or suggest you behave in a different way is an enormous gift. It invites you to believe in the best in yourself and it invites you to show up as your best self.
Try spending a whole day just radiating love and approval of your child’s goodness.
When they walk in the room, let your face light up like the sun bursting over the horizon.
As you walk by them sitting on the couch, give their shoulder a warm squeeze.
When they call you from another room, instead of yelling back, What?!, get up and go to them with love in your eyes.
Without saying anything, you have the power to bring your kids back to themselves. When they were babies, it was your warm, loving presence that helped them feel secure. You can still do that for them—even your teens!—as they grow.
So, before you ask them to get their feet off the coffee table or remind them they need to get their homework started if they are going to go Taekwondo, beam full-wattage love and approval at them.
I promise you’ll get more ready cooperation. And if you are really lucky, they might even shine their love right back!
4. Give an enthusiastic yes.
Use the power of a warm, excited yes to make your parenting partner or your child feel truly seen and appreciated.
Especially if you are the person in your house who is always running the agenda, the one who is keeping everything on track, you might always be saying, “Sorry, not now.”
And it’s true the laundry does need to be put in, the onions do need to be chopped, the casserole does need to be taken out of the oven.
What if instead, when one of your family members makes a bid for attention, you turn to them with warm enthusiasm and say, Yes! I would love to do that! Let me turn off the stove. I’ll do the laundry later!
I know your checklist still needs to be checked off. But how about just for today? Just for today, you pause and take the 10 or 15 minutes it will take to have your child or partner feeling more grounded and connected.
Ryan, a super busy client of mine who feared that he was losing his connection with his twelve-year-old daughter, followed this advice for a week.
At our next session he was practically in tears relating how happy and relieved he felt as his daughter was once again laughing with him and lovingly teasing him as she beat him playing Mario Cart. She even asked him how his day was before he asked her.
What relationship in your household needs a quick transformation?
5. Special Time is the Silver Bullet of Parenting
If you are not using the technique of Special Time, which I first learned of from Patty Wiffler of Hand in Hand Parenting in Palo Alto, CA, you are missing out on a big opportunity to connect in a really significant way with your kids.
Special time is different than just spending with your kids for a few reasons.
The main reason is that you 100% put the child in charge of directing the activity—even to the point of putting aside your grown-up voice.
Let’s say your child wants to build a tower with spaghetti and playdough. They are breaking things and spaghetti pieces are getting all over the place. They are putting too much playdough on the top and it is making the tower unstable.
You are thinking, wait, here’s a better way to do that. Let me show you how!
No. You are not going to do that. Because in special time we put aside our adult voice and we let the child lead, we are going to put aside our corrections and suggestions.
Instead, we are going to act almost like a child ourselves (a perhaps more subservient child) and follow our children’s lead. Rather than bringing our wisdom to the situation, we bring a child-like curiosity, where our child—not us—has all the answers.
For a more complete description of Special Time, go read my blog HERE.
What are you going to do to create a more loving home?
Which of these ideas feels the most doable? What can you start today?
What might require more support?
As a parenting coach, I help parents all the time to create a more loving home.
In fact, often, when they come to me about problems with a particular child (trying to “fix” the child), we spend our first two or three weeks of coaching focusing on creating a more loving home.
I call that preparing the soil before we plant the seeds of change.
Could you use some help with that?
A complimentary Getting to Know You call will help you decide if Parenting Coaching is right for you. Let’s talk!