Nowadays, many parents are in a hurry and they want quick answers to quick questions. It is easy to be tempted to make use of simple methods. In her book about parenting, Ingegärd Gavelin writes about how our stress, worry and strong feelings can ris ...
Nowadays, many parents are in a hurry and they want quick answers to quick questions. It is easy to be tempted to make use of simple methods. In her book about parenting, Ingegärd Gavelin writes about how our stress, worry and strong feelings can risk leading us to a situation where we lose close contact with our children.
But if we allow ourselves time to listen, and try to understand, then our children can help us to solve the problems that crop up in life. And when parents listen, they help their children to think in turn, so that the children too may understand themselves. In that way, children and parents can find ways out of difficult situations. By our very attitude to our children, we can actually influence our picture of the child, and in turn the child’s own self-esteem, or, as the author puts it:
Children have no use for ‘perfect parents’ – you can’t learn anything about life from such parents. What is decisive, is how we can handle conflicts and everyday bickering with our children, and how we can look after ourselves so that we have the energy to be good parents.
Ingegärd Gavelin has a degree in Social Studies, and she has specialized in teaching parents. She started one of Sweden’s first Parent’s Clinics, and between 2008 and 2010 she has given advice on parenting on the web edition of the main Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.