People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children.
(Bill Watterson)

It is so easy for adults, feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilities of adulthood, to forget how difficult it can be to be a child. Whether age 8 or 18, it is sometimes just plain hard to be a kid. School is either incredibly difficult or incredibly boring, and relationships are seemingly always full of melodrama or pain, and body image and hormones are, well, major issues. Such is the story of being immature, growing up, and in constant need of validation.

But all of that is not even the hardest part. Sometimes, the hardest part about being a kid is having to relate with us parents. Even those of us with the best intentions will usually project some of our own unfulfilled hopes, and our worry-filled fears, upon our kids. And it leaves kids feeling the weight of all the unmet expectations of the family. We parents usually don’t even recognize this process, but it’s the driving force behind so much of our feelings of disappointment, and behind so much of their disobedience.

That’s the force we’re all trying to curtail with ScreamFree Parenting. And the first step is asking yourself, in a calm way, one question:

Would you have liked having you as a parent?

Peace,