FAYE PALMER - Positive Parenting, Toddler Discipline & Potty Training: Potty Train Your Toddler In 7 Days Or Less, Educate Without Shouting & Positive Parenting Strategies For Happy & Healthy Children

Positive Parenting, Toddler Discipline & Potty Training: Potty Train Your Toddler In 7 Days Or Less, Educate Without Shouting & Positive Parenting Strategies For Happy & Healthy Children

FAYE PALMER

Published by Devon House Press, 2021.

Are you ready to take a deep dive into parenting? It does not have to be a sink or swim approach. Many parents feel at a loss for realistic parenting ideas. Others may think they have all the answers, but fall short when their offspring do not seem to fit the profile handed down from their parents and friends. Parenting can be exhausting, challenging and rewarding, all rolled into one adventure. A real life adventure.

This book, with its deep dive approach, will unpack many genuine ideas and guidelines to happy, healthy parenting. What qualifications do you think you need to be a parent? Teaching, nursing, a touch of psychology and some sports coaching will all find their way into your list of parenting skills. There is no one size fits all to being a parent. A book like this will open your eyes to different perspectives offered in the parenting niche.

There is no wide road, with a supersonic car, to get to your destination. It really doesnt matter what walk of life you come from or your educational background. Your qualifications, your age, and your experience in life will contribute to your parenting skills. However, navigating the unexpected twists and turns on this parenting journey may bring you some surprises. In my experience, parenting is challenging. There is no simple formula to follow. The greatest difficulty comes with trying to manage individual characters and personalities. Children have different strengths and weaknesses. They grow and develop at different rates. Children are not built to fit a common mold. It really comes down to experience and being open to trying new ideas. Every parent will find themselves having to circle back on their journey and try other tactics. This book is full of practical and thoroughly researched ideas on parenting for just that kind of situation. If at first you dont succeed then you can try again.

Start with the end in mind, is one of the principles of parenting I read in Stephen Coveys book on the 7 Habits of Effective Families. It is easy, as a parent, to feel you're floundering in a sea of diapers and discipline problems. Goal setting is a very important part of raising a family. I wish I had that simple principle in mind when I first started parenting. Books of all kinds are a great asset, but knowing what your goals are, is a very helpful principle to put in place. Through reading different publications, articles and parenting websites I have been struck by how much valuable information is available. The novice parent wants to devour every scrap of information. There are never enough hours in the day when you start out with your new baby. Finding a book that offers practical ideas, and is well researched, really helps sharpen parenting skills.

Kahlil Gibran, in the Prophet, uses a powerful analogy to bows and arrows to show a parents role in preparing their children for life. He says:

You are the bows from which your children, as living arrows, are sent forth.

How does this analogy resonate with parenting?

• A bow needs to be flexible to create the ability for the arrow to fly forward towards the target. In the same way parenting styles need flexibility, and an added amount of strength to stand firm in the face of adversity. Parents will find in the pages of this book strengthening and encouraging messages. Positive guidelines to assist the bow.
• The string of the bow must be strong and stretch to give added power to the flight of the arrow. There are times in your parenting journey when that string will seem stretched to its utmost capacity. The string, representing your parenting principles, needs to be able to hold fast and keep strong to ensure that arrow travels towards its target.
• The aim must be accurate to enable the arrow to find its way, straight and true, on its flight path. This is where having parenting goals, and knowing what your aim is, will count the most. The arrow will fly in the direction you aim for and having that end in mind will always help you find the true path for your arrow to follow.
• The arrows, the offspring your children, need feathers to guide the arrow through the air. The feathers or fletching are not just random decorations they are carefully chosen wing feathers needed for guiding the arrow on its flight path. Your parenting styles are those feathers you choose to attach to that arrow. They help to send the arrow flying through the air destined to make its mark and reach the target. Turkey feathers are reputed to be the best. In the production of the arrow the feathers are carefully chosen by sorting them into left- or right-wing groups. If the arrows are not sorted into their specific groups they bend in opposite curves. Feathers from the same wing side will fly in a straight and true flight path. If an arrow should spin or be disrupted in its path the feathers help to stabilize it in flight and make the arrow fly more accurately. Parents who choose sound complimentary parenting skills will feather their arrows and help them fly confidently.
• There is an archer, the overall guide of our universe. In the circle of life, the archer uses the bow, the parents to propel the arrows, the children in a purposeful manner. This is the nature versus nurture component of parenting. Nature gives our children gifts from the universal origins of nature, and parenting nurtures those gifts, to help children be the best they can be.