Quotes About Parenting

No existe una forma de criar a los hijos libre de defectos.

Estar presente significa poner todo tu ser –tu atención y tu conciencia– cuando estés con tu hijo.

So don't think of discipline as a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, remember how important it is to discipline this one child in this one moment.

Parents often respond to their child's behavior by focusing on the surface level of the experience and not on the deeper level of the mind.

It's not how our parents raised us, or how many parenting books we've read. It's actually how well we've made sense of our experiences with our own parents and how sensitive we are to our children that most powerfully influence our relationship with our kids,

When we help our children name their pain and their fears, we help them tame them.

When kids are given whatever they want all the time, they lose opportunities to build resilience and learn important life lessons:

The parental response, then, undermines both of the primary goals of discipline—changing behavior and building the brain—because it sidesteps an opportunity for the child to think about her own behavior and even feel some healthy guilt or remorse.

Mindsight is the basis of social and emotional intelligence, and we can model this for our children as we help guide the development of their changing brains.

when a child is upset, logic often won't work until we have responded to the right brain's emotional needs. We call this emotional connection "attunement," which is how we connect deeply with another person and allow them to "feel felt." When parent and child are tuned in to each other, they experience a sense of joining together.

spoiling has nothing to do with connecting with your child when he's upset or making bad choices. Remember, you can't spoil a child by giving him too much emotional connection, attention, physical affection, or love. When our children need us, we need to be there for them.

stage, and what they are ultimately capable of. This is how we use our own mindsight skills to see the mind behind our children's behavior.

Would you like to walk to the car? Or I can carry you there. It's your choice." Then she'd need to make it happen. So yes, we want to always connect with our children emotionally.

Ultimately, then, kids need us to set boundaries and communicate our expectations. But the key here is that all discipline should begin by nurturing our children and attuning to their internal world, allowing them to know that they are seen, heard, and loved by their parents—even when they've done something wrong.

Y cuando un padre o una madre está alterado, es muy difícil que un niño esté tranquilo y feliz.

Debemos procurar que nuestros hijos, además de sentirse seguros y vistos, se sientan consolados en sus horas más difíciles. Eso no significa –ni mucho menos– que los rescatemos de toda situación dolorosa e incómoda. Es un hecho que a menudo cuando más aprenden y maduran

Right now, your child's brain is constantly being wired and rewired, and the experiences you provide will go a long way toward determining the structure of her brain.

Part of truly loving our kids, and giving them what they need, means offering them clear and consistent boundaries, creating predictable structure in their lives, as well as having high expectations for them. Children need to understand the way the world works: what's permissible and what's not.

other words, on top of our basic brain architecture and our inborn temperament, parents have much they can do to provide the kinds of experiences that will help develop a resilient, well-integrated brain.

It's easy to see when our kids aren't integrated—they become overwhelmed by their emotions, confused and chaotic. They can't respond calmly and capably to the situation at hand. Tantrums, meltdowns, aggression, and most of the other challenging experiences of parenting—and life—are a result of a loss of integration, also known as dis-integration.

survive difficult parenting moments, and they want their kids and their family to thrive. As parents ourselves, we share these same goals for our own families. In our nobler, calmer, saner moments, we care about nurturing our kids' minds, increasing their sense of wonder, and helping them reach their

We're also not talking about wearing yourself (and your kids) out by frantically trying to fill every experience with significance and meaning. We're talking about simply being present with your children so you can help them become better integrated.

Our children need repeated experiences that allow them to develop wiring in their brain that helps them delay gratification, contain urges to react aggressively toward others, and flexibly deal with not getting their way.

También es esencial tener en cuenta que por mucho que los sentimientos de nuestro hijo nos parezcan frustrantes y absurdos, para él son reales e importantes. Es fundamental tratarlos como tales en nuestra respuesta.