While all parents love their kids to bits, it’s not rare for them to ponder the question: “Can’t parenting just be a little easier?”
Jen Lumanlan, author of Parenting Beyond Power and founder of the Your Parenting Mojo podcast, put in hours of research and worked with thousands of families to discover that, yes, parenting can be easier.
The oodles of research also had her find out something else: “The same tools that make parenting easier will help transform the world,” as her website states.
Lumanlan will pack her research-backed learnings into a one-and-a-half-hour-long “highly interactive” workshop at Kinder Books children’s bookstore at the River Market, 810 Quayside Dr., on Monday, Sept. 18 (10 to 11:30 a.m.) and Wednesday, Sept. 20 (6:30 to 8 p.m.).
In the session, Lumanlan, who has delved into topics of raising emotionally healthy boys, raising girls with a healthy body image and the right way to talk about race to children in her 175-plus-episode podcast, will explain why conventional methods like “time-outs, countdowns and consequences” might not be the best ways to deal with your little one’s bad behaviour.
As per Lumanlan, those methods will only teach kids that it’s okay for more powerful people to control others — and it’s a lesson that they’ll take out into the world.
So then, what are the tools that’ll help a parent meet a tantrum with grace?
She suggests a “simple yet revolutionary framework” to help parents look beneath their child’s behaviour and find their needs.
“Just as your own interactions with your parents shaped who you are, your interactions with your children shape how they will be in relationships with you — and with others in the world,” explains Lumanlan on her website.
As per the parenting expert, “When we use power to get our children to comply, they then use power over others in the wider world.”
“Sharing power with our children doesn't mean we're in a free-for-all: instead it means we're in a relationship with them where their needs and our needs are met on a regular basis ... and that makes parenting easier.”
And it might also change the world, she adds.
