Getting 2017 off to a good start with new family rules

One of the things I’ve been thinking about doing after attending parenting workshops with The Parent Practice to review is to sit down with Big Girl and create some rules. I was initially worried about having rules, and I assumed we were all on the same page anyway.

But I’ve since realised rules make much more sense. At the beginning of the month I had a go at creating some rules together with four-year-old Big Girl, and I’ve been delighted to now get some more input from parenting expert Melissa Hood, founding director of The Parent Practice, on her ideas surrounding rules, some of which are from her book Real Parenting for Real Kids:

Communicate expectations
Most families have expectations of how we want our children to behave but we don’t always communicate those so clearly to the children. It seems only fair to them to let them know how we want them to behave rather than expecting them to guess! Without guidelines on how to behave children may behave in ways others don’t like with the result that people, including their parents, don’t enjoy being with them and often criticise which is not good for the child’s self-esteem.

Children need boundaries and limits to keep them safe and teach them lessons for life
We adults need to use our experience and sense of perspective and our more mature frontal lobes to set the boundaries or children may well choose to go to bed whenever they like, eat as many sweets as they choose, or play computer games beyond levels we think are healthy and they would probably never do homework or make a bed and would thus miss out on forming good habits in childhood which would stand them in good stead in adult life. Following the codes of behaviour of the family unit or society at large doesn’t mean that we want to raise mindless automatons – we want our children to be able to have opinions and express them–and we also want them to be able to function well in a community.

Some parents don’t like the idea of rules at home
They may think that kids have plenty of rules at school and want the home environment to be more relaxed. Most people develop negative associations with rules because their enforcement is generally punitive and rules have become associated with anger, criticism, blame and punishment. If you think about our experience of rules in the wider world they’re usually expressed in negative terms –don’t walk on the grass – and our attention is only drawn to most rules when we’ve broken them. If you’re parked neatly, parallel to the kerb and within the park space and for the allotted time you don’t find a little note on your windscreen commending you on your civic-mindedness. But if you overstay at a meter by even a few minutes (in London at least) you will get a reprimand in the form of a ticket.

But rules don’t have to be negative
Some families shy away from the idea of rules thinking they will sap spontaneity and be too restrictive. That’s a good thing to be thinking about. It is important that rules aren’t too constraining. Here are some ideas for ensuring that rules are positive and helpful, not negative: As one of the trainees on our Facilitators course, Penny Marr, said:’Rules should feel more like a scaffold which supports than a vice which grips.’

See more tips on how to get started with rules on Saturday 28 January

London-based parenting course provider The Parent Practice runs regular parenting courses and parenting workshops in Clapham, Chelsea, Barnes, the City and Earlsfield and upcoming courses include 5-week and 10-week positive parenting courses and workshops on topics like Raising boys – Channelling physicality, encouraging cooperation and boy discipline and Raising girls – Friendships.

Tags: Barnes, Chelsea, Clapham, Earlsfield, Family, Parenting, Positive parenting, Rules, The Parent Practice