Any of us could talk about parenting strategies ad nauseum. I have no greater wisdom. I'll just share two bits of advice I found helpful. And one belief.
Most young humans don't misbehave. It's their job to explore the world, test boundaries, learn. It's the parent's job to preserve the boundaries. Reassure the child the world is safe and predictable. Stuff like bed time rituals are super important to keeping everyone sane.
Ages 0-8, imprint your child with your values. Ages 9-12, have fun together. Ages 13-25, keep them alive.
Cognition is social. We resonate off each other. Model the behavior you expect, your kids will pick it up.
yup 7.30PM in our house and we eat together most of the time make our own food (from scratch and involve the kids in making sure they help out) and we give them more and more responsibility plus allow them to get hurt (free range).
This sounds normal to a lot of people but in New York it's not that normal. How they will turn out we will see :)
Ya, that's one thing I did get right. My son always helped me in the kitchen.
At first, it was just help by "washing" the vegetables. What kid doesn't like to play in the water?
He'd eat anything he helped prepare, even if he didn't like it much (eg mushrooms). Because he had a relationship with his food.
Now he's quite the foodie. Makes serviceable Phad Thai, curries, etc.
Another house rule was "One 'No thank you' bite". I didn't make any of the kids choke down foods, like my parents did to us. But they had to try everything at least once. They were often happily surprised.
Also, my boys get to decide what to eat once a month and help to do it. Ther is just one rule. They can't choose the same which means we got the burgers, lasagne, pasta with butter and parmesan and curry chicken out of the way fast :)
Most young humans don't misbehave. It's their job to explore the world, test boundaries, learn. It's the parent's job to preserve the boundaries. Reassure the child the world is safe and predictable. Stuff like bed time rituals are super important to keeping everyone sane.
Ages 0-8, imprint your child with your values. Ages 9-12, have fun together. Ages 13-25, keep them alive.
Cognition is social. We resonate off each other. Model the behavior you expect, your kids will pick it up.