Liberated Parent Thought for the Day

-----Original Message-----
From: andreaparentcoach@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2013 16:34:48
To: Andrea's iphone<andreagooldy@gmail.com>
Reply-To: andreaparentcoach@gmail.com
Subject: Liberated Parent Thought for the Day

How exactly do we use empathy in our day to day, hour by hour and sometimes, minute by minute interactions with our children??
Check out excerpts from my new favorite, albeit older book from 1990, "Liberated Parents, Liberated Children : Your Guide to a Happier Family"

** Good feelings don't flow in until the bad ones have been emptied out. **

All feelings are permitted, actions are limited.
We must not deny a child's perceptions.
Only after a child feels right, can he think right.
Only after child feels right, can he do right.

Here are two examples from page 24 of "Liberated Parents, Liberated Children"
The first one is having to do with an older child's (Often only a toddler himself) jealousy or difficulty with having to adjust to a new baby, and being forced to share mommy and daddy's attention.
"This morning the baby was sleeping and Roger kept running in to pull the blanket off of her. I was about to whack him and say, 'you're a big boy now - you should know better!'
But I remembered what you told me the other day about good feelings not flowing in until the bad ones have emptied out. So I just restrained his hand and said, "hey Roger, I have been thinking about how the baby must bother you sometimes. Even when she's sleeping, I'll bet that just having her in the house, just seeing her can sometimes make you mad.'
He gave me a long grateful look, and said, 'Baby's cold. Cover her.'

The second example is regarding sharing. "Nancy's friend was at the house this morning and demanded that I make Nancy share her new Tinkertoy. For the first time I thought about how Nancy might feel. And a strange thing happened. Instead of being angry with Nancy, I found myself feeling almost tender.
I said, 'It seems to me that it must be very hard to share a new toy. People like to have new things to themselves for a long time.' Then to Nancy's friend I said, 'When Nancy is ready, then she will share.' Nobody said a word, but a half hour later, I actually heard Nancy announce, 'Okay Barbara, I'm ready to share now!"

- Just by accepting a feeling it was enough to make a difference - And WOW, what a difference! Instead of irritated parents trying to impose their adult views upon balky children, here were parents who had really tried to listen and understand – here were children who had been hurt, and who had felt understood – children who had been free to respond more lovingly

From "Liberated parents, Liberated Children : Your Guide to a Happier Family " by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
Also Authors of the classic book "How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk"