Proud moment

Whilst what I class as good parenting may come naturally to a lot of people, it doesn't come totally naturally to me.  I have had to read and understand the intricacies of the growing and maturing mind so that I can manage my expectations, understand where the little man's behaviours and motivations come form and nurture him accordingly.

The approach I want to take has a label of course and it is Positive Parenting. This is by no means permissive and is about mutual respect and understanding, setting relevant boundaries and helping your little human learn and grow in a way that is appropriate to them, the core thing for me is respecting them as equals.

Now that Leo is getting to an age where he understands that he can have an opinion, I am starting to be able to practice the things I am learning.  He isn't a particularly wilful child, so its not a regular thing where we have to have a debate about what happens next. However, last night he had been listening and grooving away to some music on my phone and he loves to carry it around whilst it is playing.  As it got towards bath time I let him know that I would be taking my phone back when the water started to run.  That time came and of course, he didn't want to let me have the phone and got quite annoyed when I made a move to take it.  Instead of just taking it off him anyway and causing a meltdown, I sat with him and just kept saying to him that it was time to say goodbye to the phone and Mummy would really like him to give it to her.  He tried to make a break for it a couple of times, so i just gently blocked his way and repeated my request,  After a minute or so, he happily passed me the phone and ran off to Daddy to get into the bath,

This moment might seem like nothing to some and I am sure there are plenty of people that have the thought process that I should have just taken it off him, but I wouldn't do that to an adult so why should I do that to a child.  We had a mutual interaction and he willingly did as I asked without any tears or hardship, and it was lovely.

I know there will be times when I will have to put my foot down and absolutely will upset him, but I am hoping that he will understand well enough that it wasn't done from a lack of respect and they will be few and far between.  Right now I am mega proud of him and I am pretty proud of myself too.