Hey all you lovely parents! I’ve been checking out the message boards, and noticing a trend in parenting posts. Most questions on parenting have to do with kids acting up and parents at their wits end with what to do and how to deal with it. When your kids are super duper upset, and yelling at you the unspeakables (“I hate you,” “You’re mean!”), our first reaction is to get upset with them and yell back. But when your child sees that their reality is stronger than yours, when they can make YOU react emotionally to things that they do, they know they have power over you.

As Eckhart Tolle says, in my faint translation, “Negativity can not arise when one of the two in a relationship is not feeling negative emotions; for the person that is totally conscious and without ego will bring the person that is feeling pain into a calm and conscious state.”

Think about that quote as your child is working on getting over his “terrible two’s.” As you get angry, you are only feeding his anger with yours. Or as I like to say, “Put shit in, get shit out.” And this rule is valid not just when interacting with your children, but when interacting with ANYONE. Why? Because the negative energy that you use throughout the day stays inside of you, so when your children see you acting upset around other friends and family members, they see it as a normal behavior; something that is acceptable when interacting with others. That transcends into their brains and they will use it on you and others.

Remember, children don’t have any basis for what is socially acceptable. So when they see negativity, they will deem it as a platform for socially acceptable behavior.

Let me address one more thing. Anger is something that stays inside people; that is why some parents will remain “disappointed” and “upset” even after their kids’ time-out has ended. This is the wrong thing to do. You are essentially holding a grudge against your child. Dumb, ain’t it?

Instead, after you have laid down the law, go back to being the loving, happy, silly parent you always are with your kid. Act as if their naughtiness had never happened. The only time you gotta be “Superwoman” is when they act up. Never hold a grudge. Superman wouldn’t.

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Love, Anthony