Peaceful Parenting Success Stories

[LovePrevails]

Parents! Tell me how Peaceful Parenting changed your life...

 

particularly if you didn't know it when you started a family.

[GA_Freeman]

We have had an excellent experience with peaceful parenting. I had no experience with peaceful parenting. I come from a family of a single mother. My mother and father divorced before I was born. I never met my actual father until I was 19. So, he was only a father and name. My mother was everything that has been discussed on the show. She was violent, religious (Baptist), uneducated, brutal, neglectful and she used me to be the male figure in house when she wanted to. Meaning that I was supposed step up and act as the man a certain times and certain decisions (that I did not want). However, I never actually had a voice. The violence stopped when I was 16 and she came after me with a tennis racket and I took away from her.

I now have two boys of my own, nine and 12. Here is the reality of spanking; I have hit my nine-year-old a total of two times that I remember. However, my nine-year-old reports three times. I trust him on this because he has displayed an excellent memory and I think that I am wrong and he is right. I heard of Stefan about three years ago and started listing. The discussion and argument about parenting struck me immediately and as soon as I realized how wrong violence was and how badly it has affected me I immediately knew it had to stop.

Now the beautiful thing about this is that after stopping and adopting the principle that violence was not going to be involved in parenting, eventually, my nine-year-old who was younger at the time, was able to state that he was afraid that I was going to hit him. I was out of town traveling on business and he told this to my wife. She called me and told me and first I didn't believe it because we had had two years of very peaceful parenting. However, I think this just gave him the confidence to be able to bring this up.

Because I was on a business trip and not at home I spoke to him over the phone. He explained to me his specific memories of the spankings. He was very specific and for as young as he was, somewhere between three and five when it happened, he had an excellent memory. I remembered two of the stories where I had smacked him hard on the butt as he was running up stairs because I was mad. The fact is that I remember these because I know it hurt him and left a giant red mark on his bottom. I remember those two because when I came to FDR I realized how awful and wrong those actions were. This understanding was reinforced when my nine-year-old told me he remembered those and added one more that I did not remember. He told me that he was afraid that I would hit him in the face.

I have never felt smaller or more ashamed than when my nine-year-old told me about how he felt when his dad hit him hard.  I knew he did not understand why he was hit and there was no explanation for it, all that had happened was he had done something other than what I had wanted.

I did my best to apologize multiple times and to express that this would never happen again and make sure that he understood that I understood how horrible this was and that I was there to protect him. I told him that that was nothing he ever had to be afraid of for me again and since then, I have worked hard to prove it.

For me, the first thing that I had to do was simply to commit to no acts of violence and no threat of force. Then I have read several books including parent effectiveness training and the six pillars of self-esteem. I am still working through the self-work in those. I can tell you now that I work hard to help my children and let them express and teach them open and honest expression of anger, frustration, fear and pain. We always encourage joy but most important is that they understand that they can express where they are right now.

The big change that happened over the last three years is the decrease in anger and frustration in my nine-year-old. He responded to anger with violence. He would attack his older brother, scream at him, slam doors, go into rages over different things. I truly believe that this was a response from what he saw as an appropriate response to anger because of the way that I had treated him. His mother had a role, by the way that she yells and threatens and communicates. However, the threat of violence is off the table and I work hard to bring about negotiation. His tendency for angry violence has mostly left, no more slamming the doors, much less yelling and he and I are very honest with one another. I work hard at having a good relationship, meaning, expressing my own needs and being open to my child's needs, we are able to treat each other with love and trust.

[Diki]

GA_Freeman - What a powerful story. I'm glad you were able to work through it and have a stronger relationship with your sons.

 

I'd like to share a little story about the first time I saw peaceful parenting really take effect in our house. This was all before I had ever heard of FDR and the term peaceful parenting.

 

My son was 3 (perhaps 4) and my wife and I had been discussing our parenting approach as we weren't convinced we were doing well. Our son was stubborn, easy to anger and seemed unresponsive to negotiations. One day I took him to the toilet and after he finished he took a lot of toilet paper off the roll to wipe with (He'd only done a pee). I remember quashing my initial anger and instead asked him why he had used so much paper. He said he didn't know why. We ended up having a long chat about how toilet paper is made from wood, which comes from trees and they spend many years growing etc. He was genuinly interested and seemed to have a good grasp (for a 3 year old) of the concept that wasting paper was also wasting trees. After the chat, I asked him how much toilet paper he thinks he needs to use after doing a pee and he decided that one sheet would probably be enough. A couple of days later he was in there on his own and I snuck up to check on him. He pulled off loads of toilet paper and then I heard him say quietly to himself "ah, it's (inaudible)" - he then proceeded to wind all the toilet paper back up onto the roll and neatly took off one little sheet.

 

I had this surge of pride run through me. It was such a small event, such a miniscule moment in his life, but for me it was huge. This was the moment that I knew if I put the work in and explained things to him calmly and clearly and in an engaging way that he would respond with interest and maturity. From then on, I've tried to remember that story when parenting poses challenges and when I finally got introduced to FDR and started listening to the Peaceful Parenting discussions it all clicked into place.