The No Cry Discipline Solution (8 page)

Building a Strong Foundation

25

Daddy and Evan, age 2

have more than 100,000 hours to interact and connect. It would

be absolutely, utterly impossible for all of those hours to be bliss-

fully happy and precisely choreographed. There will be plenty of

rough spots, uncalled-for anger, and mistakes—both on your part

and your child’s. To even attempt perfection would be ludicrous

and stressful, yet as parents most of us criticize ourselves unneces-

sarily over every negative situation.

Raising a child requires that we make many decisions every

single day, from the insignifi cant to the life-altering. Sometimes it

is obvious that you have made the right decision, other times it is

unclear, and from time to time it’s apparent that you have made a

mistake. Nearly every mistake that you make as a parent has been

made by a multitude of parents throughout history.

What is more important than any single action is your overall

philosophy and approach to raising your child. When love is your

foundation, parenting skills are your structure, and your goal is to

raise your child to be a good human being with whom you can

26

The Foundation for No-Cry Discipline

have a pleasant lifelong relationship, then it is likely things will

turn out as you hope.

Contemplate your most important goals for your family and

determine which values you will use to guide your decisions. Learn

good parenting skills and use them on a daily basis. And then,

forgive yourself and your children the mistakes that will inevitably

happen along the way.

Relax More and Stress Less

Oh, my! The millions of little things I’ve stressed about during

the past eighteen years! Messy rooms, dirty faces, lost toys, peas

not eaten. Not a single one of these things means anything today.

Those insignifi cant, trivial details certainly make up a large part of

life, but when they cause a disproportionate amount of angst they

conceal the many little joys that children bring into our lives.

View the little things for what they are—little things—and

don’t let them get in the way of taking pleasure out of every single

day of family life.

Mother-Speak

“ I always say ‘appreciate every step of the way.’ Don’t look

ahead and wish the children were older and in school, or

out of school and independent. Don’t look behind and be

sad over the fact that they grew up so quickly. Just enjoy

the moment. Every stage has its pros and cons. No stage is

perfect, and every stage passes eventually.”

—Bonnie, mother to Ariella, age 16; Yonina, age 14; Dovi, age

12; Mordechai, age 10; Yedidya, age 6; and Liora, age 2

Building a Strong Foundation

27

Enjoy the Play More

Be willing to join your little ones in their incredibly enchanting

play a little bit more often. You don’t always have to have one eye

on the clock when you’re immersed in playtime with your child.

Let the answering machine pick up a few more messages. Ignore

the
ding
of incoming e-mail messages on your computer until the

fort is complete, the clay zoo is built, or the book is fi nished.

Mother-Speak

“ I was trying to fi nish all my errands today and clean my

house. As I was trying to mop the kitchen fl oor, my daugh-

ter kept standing right in front of me, making it impossible. I

tried to explain to her that Mommy needed to mop. I tried to

distract her with a toy and take her to another room to play,

but she just kept coming right back. So fi nally I decided the

dirty fl oor wasn’t that important and sat down with her on

the fl oor to read a book with her. After a few more books,

she went off contentedly to play on her own and I fi nished

the fl oor.

“Your comment about not watching the clock while you

play with your child made me think of myself, obstinately

trying to mop the kitchen fl oor while my little girl stood right