I had this wonderful thought when the kids were firmly in the toddler and preschool phase that if I could just get to the school stage, I would truly thrive. Packing lunchboxes, managing schedules, setting out effective routines… easy, right? Turns out I was hopelessly misguided.

Back talk, defiance, bedtime battles, sibling rivalries, power struggles, the ability to push our buttons with agile ease…. I didn’t predict that all of these would be waiting as well. I wish I could say that I take all these detours in my stride and have the uncanny ability to think on my feet and come up with great strategies to combat the bad behaviour. That would pretty much be a superpower in my book. One that I definitely do not have.

(Yet.)

We’ve had a bit of a complicated year with school. Behavioural problems, meetings with teachers and the Assistant Principal, misunderstandings with friends, a rather dramatic bullying incident (in which he was the unfortunate victim) and a strange refusal to learn or engage at various points throughout the day.

At home things haven’t necessarily been any easier. Attitudes can escalate from elated to enraged in seconds, the family walking on eggshells because no one wants to provoke him, constant clashes of will and a fierce determination to do everything his way.

It would be remiss of me to only paint the negative. We also relish in the moments of peace, the insightful observations, the love of reading, attempts at writing stories, his leadership of siblings, devotion to basketball and explosions of creativity.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.

But lately, we had been wondering…. what are we doing wrong? Why aren’t our parenting methods working. In fact, why do they just seem to be provoking battles and explosions? Is it us? Him? A combination?

Salvation came in the form of a Facebook advertisement – the story of an ‘ex-yeller’, a mother who had grown so tired of the person she was becoming and decided to try a complete shift of her approach. It wasn’t the first time I had seen it. The gods of marketing deemed it necessary to continually show me, particularly given the title of this blog. I had glossed over it so many times because, I reasoned, what more information on parenting can there possibly be that I haven’t come across before? And how the hell can you ever be a mother without yelling? It seemed par for the course, somehow. Dave took the bait and clicked, sending us into the free webinar and a session that was entitled ‘Get Kids to Listen Without Nagging, Reminding or Yelling‘.

It was painfully convicting.

One hour later we had realised that so many of the things we were doing (and had been doing since we became parents) were actually unintentionally causing power struggles, ‘parental deafness’, and trapping us all in the cycle of re-learning the same lessons.  Thankfully, however, we weren’t left in the wallowing haze of our self-lament as there were many strategies outlined in the webinar to help us change our ways. We also signed up on the spot for the online course, realising we were in dire need of some better strategies.

I suppose I had heard about Positive Parenting before. It sounded nice. Completely unrealistic, but nice. Sitting with the child while they flailed about in rage, talking to them in a nice calm voice all the time, empathising with their dramatic moods and never sending anyone to time out. All of those things I could see myself doing for about five minutes and then (when my Patient Voice had been utterly exhausted) screeching at them hysterically with even more venom because I had TRIED and it did NOTHING!

We are a bit over a week into it now and I’m cautiously optimistic. We have made many, many mistakes as we try to relearn years of neural pathways related to our reactions and strategies. It has been surprising. It has been brutal. Devastated reactions from the kids when we have stood our ground when we would have negotiated in the past. We have sat down together and talked about why our morning routine was just leading to Mummy cracking it and how we could all work together to change that. We have removed most words of praise from our vocabulary and replaced them with encouragement instead.The kids are all helping with their ‘family contributions’ now (mostly) without complaining – with the washing, table setting and wiping now being taken care of by their remarkably capable hands. And I haven’t counted to three in a week!

There are long roads to travel before we ‘can’t remember the time we yelled at the kids’ or the mornings are working like clockwork without the need for any reminders. But, that writhing sensation in the pit of my stomach after a series of continual disrespectful interactions has lessened, I’m looking less longingly at the bottle of wine during crazy hour, and there have been extended moments of really enjoying hanging out with the kids rather than just bossing them around.

It is, shall we say, more of what I hoped being a parent would be, and not the disappointing and stressful reality that was beginning to take over.

Have you tried Positive Parenting before? Or have you found other ways to raise kids that work just as well? I would love to hear your tips and stories!