The skills you will use to meet the need for a sense of belonging are:
- Skill #1: Spend one-on-one time
- Skill #2: Spend family time together
- Skill #3: Get to know your children
- Skill #4: Make positive deposits
The skills you will use to meet the need for a sense of personal power are:
- Skill #5: Give choices
- Skill #6: Teach life skills
- Skill #7: Set goals with your children
The skill you will use to meet the need to be heard and understood is:
- Skill #8: Acknowledge negative feelings
The skills you will use to meet the need for boundaries are:
- Skill #9: Give attention to good behavior
- Skill #10: Making requests
- Skill #11: Teach values
- Skill #12: Create rules
- Skill #13: Enforce rules
- Skill #14: Use consequences wisely
- Skill #15: Problem-solve together
Now watch this.
When you set and enforce boundaries, you’ll want to be working on building a good relationship with your children. Otherwise, your children won’t care much about boundaries.
In other words, setting and enforcing boundaries will be exhaustive and frustrating if you have a weak relationship.
To strengthen relationships, meet the first three emotional needs.
Then your children will be more receptive when you set boundaries and more responsive when you enforce boundaries.
You will use parenting skills #1 through #8 to meet the first three emotional needs and strengthen your relationships with your children.
You may be wondering how I came up with these 15 Essential Parent Skills.
I assembled them from the dozens of parenting books I’ve read, from the countless parenting websites I’ve visited, and from the hundreds of parents who have attended my parenting classes.
I’ve done the research so you don’t have to.
I want you to know what took me years of research to discover.
These 15 Essential Parenting Skills will help you keep your children from going down dark paths leading to:
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Unplanned teenage pregnancies
- Poverty and homelessness
- Crime and incarceration
- Terrorism
- Pornography addiction
- Gang involvement
- Violence
- Fail marriages
- Child abuse
- Suicide
At the same time, these skills will help you reduce your struggling and enjoy the parenting journey.
This website and my book are my contributions to making lives better and building a stronger society. It must start with the family.