Hayley Goldberg is a licensed marriage and family therapist, mother to three fabulous college age kids, and a parenting coach. She created Heart of Connecting to support parents of toddlers and preschoolers who feel they are at the end of their rope with their little ones because she remembers those days so clearly.

Of all the environmental influences on our children’s development, the family has the most profound impact on our children’s development – and parents set the tone for the family.

That means successful parenting starts with a safe and respectful relationship between parenting partners and healthy communication is a key element of that relationship.

When our co-parenting relationship models respect for one another and our little ones get to see us being supportive of each other, and enjoying being together, we create a stable, loving, and positive home environment for our kids to develop, learn, explore and grow.

Now I know we all come to our parenting, and move along our parenting journey, with varied relationship and life stressors. Some parenting teams manage the stress while others become more like dueling partners, making cooperation and communication difficult, and parenting politely and respectfully hard.

But the bottom line is stress is inevitable in life and relationships and how you manage the stress and show up in your parenting relationship matters a lot- because constant conflict between parents harms children.

When I coach with parents, more important to me than each partner’s parenting styles (unless there’s abuse involved) I’m looking to see how the parents sitting across from me relate to each other.

Are they are able to have a respectful, productive and supportive conversation around parenting and their parenting struggles?
Does each parent allow their partner to talk or is one parent dominating the conversation?
Do they allow for differences in opinion?

Navigating the parenting world isn’t easy. At the end of the day we want to be good parents but some of us may not be good communicators and problems arise.

Here are four essential parenting tips to help your communication flow:

1. Clarity is about saying exactly what you mean. Disagreements arise when we aren’t clear about our requests, our timeline, and our needs. You could say, “I will get the snacks and diaper bag ready. Can you please help me by getting Mikey dressed for the park with sunscreen and his hat on.”

2. Keep your focus. Remember the reason for your communication and stay focused on your child. This isn’t the time to re-hash past problems or situations and how they were handled. Other conversations may specifically need to address something from the past to clear the air and move forward. Keep focused on what’s needed with a particular conversation.

3. Keep calm. I know it’s hard – really hard! Try not to jump to conclusions or over-react. Blaming, criticizing or accusing your partner is never helpful. Neither is being rude, sarcastic or placing demands on your parenting partner. Be mindful of your tone as well.

4. Cooperation and Compassion. There’ll for sure be times when you or your partner make a mistake, feel overwhelmed, or need some help. Your partner may need additional support from you. This is the time to step up with compassion. Compassion helps set a positive tone for your communication, your relationship and your parenting results.

As parents we want to do what’s best for our kids. We don’t want to do harm. Communicating and sharing information effectively on a regular and ongoing basis is critical to good co-parenting.

Changing patterns of behavior in our parenting is hard, and it can be confusing and challenging to try new things. It’s also so easy to give up when something new doesn’t work out and then to come up with plenty of excuses about why it doesn’t work and resort back to old habits.

I want you to know my support is always available.

If you relate to any of this information and want to learn more about how I can help you, or if you want to schedule a free phone conversation to see if my coaching is right for your family, please email me at hayley@heartofconnecting.com

Follow me on facebook or on Instagram @heartofconnecting

Your child’s potential is limitless. Their success begins with you. Your parenting counts!

Warmly,

Hayley aka Your Toddler & Preschooler Parenting Coach

Follow me on facebook or on Instagram @heartofconnecting