A child runs and spills coffee on you. Instead of shaming them, acknowledge it was an accident, ask how they can help fix it, and let them repair the mess. It takes practice but works.
We're grabbing a cup of coffee in peace and our child runs past, knocks our arm, coffee spills all over the place, and we scream, "Why can't you look where you're going? How can you be so dumb? I told you not to run!" Now, what if we responded differently, in a way that avoids shame and allows our kids to repair? What if we said, "Oh no, coffee spill! I know you didn't do it on purpose. What can you do to make it better?" Parenting like this and being able to choose our response takes some thought and practice, but it isn't hard to change our approach. If you like the idea of parenting this way, give me a thumbs up in the comments below and hit follow to make sure I make more stuff like this.
