Parenting Mistakes We All Make...And What To Do Instead!

When you’ve got loads on your plate, you want the time spent with your kids to be enjoyable, not a marathon of nagging. There is a better way…

Do you imagine how much valuable time you would save if your children did what you asked – when you asked them to do it? ‘many parents make discipline more time-consuming and stressful than it really needs to be,’ says tanith carey, author of mum Hacks: time-saving tips to calm the chaos of Family Life (crimson Publishing). Of course, like everything in parenting, it’s easier in principle than in practice. But there are a few things parents do that can actually be counterproductive. tackle these and you might even get the kids to listen the first time you ask them to do something, instead of the fifteenth.

1. Shouting at the kids

TIME WASTER : Yelling at the top of your voice may work the first time – by stunning children into submission. It’s a default that many of us resort to, especially when we are tired and stressed – and we fool ourselves that a ‘shock and awe’ moment will jolt them into doing what we want them to do or to ‘really teach them a lesson’. The truth is that the novelty quickly wears off and you’ll simply teach your kids to switch off and close down – or scream back at you. plus, you’ll waste your own time and destroy your peace of mind by feeling like a terrible parent afterwards.