Secret Mission – Support an Interest
Case File: Empowering
Your Parenting Secret Mission:
Show your child how to do something instead of banning them from it.
Your child wants to cut food, use the scissors, feed the dog, climb the tree…
Sometimes it’s something messy, sometimes it’s something dangerous or just flat out inconvenient, and we as parents get the urge to ban that interest completely.
Today the secret mission is to find some way to honor your child’s interest AND your needs. Can you show the proper places for them to put their feet while they climb? Can you spend ten minutes showing how to use a knife, or give them a plastic knife and some bananas to cut? Can you show how to cut slips of paper instead of her hair?
Yes, this depends on ages and stages, but often, very often, we can find at least some small part of an activity a child is interested in and show them how to do it safely or in a way that meets our needs for less mess, and so on rather than banning it all together.
64 Positive Things to Say to Kids
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