Mad River Behavioral Health

Raising children requires open and honest communication. The only way children will ever participate in an open and honest dialogue is if they feel safe to speak openly and honestly. If you as a parent create any sensation of fear, even the slightest amount, if you are angry, harsh, critical, or punitive, you are creating a sizable obstacle to effective communication with your children.  All problem solving and all skill development requires safety and trust. Children may forgive our transgressions, but they will not necessarily forget. Now, with that said, I have never met a parent who did not lose their sense of calm at least every now and then.  So, what do we as parents do when we make parenting mistakes? The first step is always to take a step back, take some time to consider what went wrong and to regain a sense of calm.  It may take a while to figure out what went wrong, but once we do regain our composure we will want to go back to our children and apol...

Parenting requires two key elements: trust and faith. It's very important that parents trust their children and have faith in their innate goodness and capacity, while continuously working to develop the required skills, ability, and character. With constructive proactive parenting the likelihood is very high that your children will turn out to be the good, capable, successful adults they were born to be.  Believe  this. Believe in your child’s natural goodness and innate ability from birth on. The probability of a good outcome declines as parents implement parenting plans and methods that are based in fear, anxiety, anger, and mistrust. For example, if you believe that children are inherently sneaky and dishonest, you are likely to parent them in a way that increases their sneakiness and dishonesty. Similarly, overly restrictive parenting designed to increase child obedience and safety often inspires increased rebellion and risky behaviors. Trust I often he...