Working Hard on Parenting Well Pays Off

by Kathy Slattengren, M. Ed., Priceless Parenting (sign up for monthly parenting newsletter and receive 20+ printable charts for kids and parents)

Being a parent certainly presents plenty of difficult challenges. Who can ever forget trying to stay cool, calm and collected while your child has a meltdown! However, the time and energy you put into becoming the best possible parent you can be starts paying off when your children become teenagers. When my youngest turned 13 and my oldest was 16, we started to appreciate the benefits from the hard work we put into parenting.

They're teens who are generally responsible, helpful and a lot of fun to have around. Did we just get lucky? No, we spent a lot of time learning from parenting experts and then invested significant time and energy into changing our own behavior. We spent years practicing things like responding with empathy instead of anger to misbehavior, guiding our children to solving their own problems instead of solving it for them and avoiding lecturing, yelling or nagging.

They are not rebellious teenagers because they don't have a reason to be rebellious. At this point they are in control of most of the important decisions in their lives like: when/where/how to do homework, who to hang out with, what to do with their free time, how to handle time commitment conflicts, when to go to bed and when to get up. We've slowly built up their level of freedom and responsibility over the years so that they now have the skills to make wise decisions.

Could they make a major mistake like trying drugs or getting pregnant? This certainly could happen but is less likely because they know they are responsible for dealing with the consequences of their decisions. We've often told them that the quality of their lives will depend on the decisions they make.

Where are these parenting skills taught? You can discover the universal parenting skills that have worked well for countless parents by taking Priceless Parenting's online parenting classes. The investment you make in improving your parenting is the best investment you'll ever make!

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About Kathy Slattengren