Would you like to be a more peaceful parent but don’t know where to start? Well Lauren O’Carroll, ADHD Parent Coach, is offering one of our lucky readers the chance to win a 1 hour session with her.
Her Lauren explains more about what peaceful parenting is and why it’s an effective parenting method.
What is Peaceful Parenting?
Peaceful Parenting is a science-backed approach that emphasises connection over traditional discipline methods that rely on punishments and rewards. At its core, peaceful parenting is about building strong, trusting relationships between parents and their children, fostering an environment where children feel safe, understood and trust their parents enough to confide in them.
The three underlying principles of peaceful parenting are:
Parental Self-Regulation:
It’s important that the parent is able to manage their own emotions so they can remain calm in challenging situations. The first stage of learning to regulate one’s own emotions is experiencing repeated co-regulation with a trusted adult (often a parent). Co-regulation is where our brain’s mirror neurons pick up on someone else and up or down-regulate to mirror the other person’s. Remaining calm prevents escalation and shame and creates space and opportunity for learning and constructive problem-solving. Of course, self-regulation can be incredibly challenging for parents to achieve, especially if they have not experienced co-regulation themselves.
Connection:
The second principle stresses the importance of connecting deeply with our children’s experience and feelings. As Dan Siegel puts it, “our children need to ‘feel felt'”. By validating our children’s emotions we help our children to trust their feelings and themselves. It reduces power struggles and promotes cooperation as children are more likely to respond positively when they feel understood. (This works equally well for adult relationships!)
Setting Empathic Limits and Emotion Coaching:
Peaceful Parenting is not permissive. It involves setting clear, consistent limits but we do so in a way that respects the child’s feelings and autonomy. Challenging behaviour is addressed by looking at the root cause of the behaviour rather than punishing the outcome of the root cause as this is very rarely within our children’s conscious control.
Peaceful Parenting draws on neuroscience, child developmental research and polyvagal theory. It aims to foster long-term emotional resilience and a deep parent-child relationship. Instead of relying on fear and control, peaceful parenting focuses on guiding children with love, empathy and respect.
More about Lauren
Lauren is an ADHD mum of 2 girls with a passion for helping neurodiverse parents and parents of neurodiverse families to access the wisdom of current science-backed parenting research and reduce overwhelm and chaos in their homes.
She is a Peaceful Parenting coach and educator certified by internationally renowned founder of the Peaceful Parenting movement Dr Laura Markham. She also trained with Dr Sharon Saline, internationally acclaimed author of ’What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew: Working Together to Empower Kids for Success in School and Life’. She has over 20 years management experience within charities and the NHS and was a founding member of the ADHD charity Addaptability.
She believes that neurodiverse individuals have a fundamental purpose, and that it is our role as parents to help our children grow and flourish into who they are designed to be. The way we do this is through our connection with our children and providing the scaffolding they need as they learn and grow.
The Prize
Up for grabs is a 1 hour parent coaching session with Lauren from Positively Parenting valued at £150. All you have to do is fill in the below form to be in with a chance of winning it.
Good luck
Terms and conditions
- Entrants must live in the UK
- Only the prize listed will be won there is no cash alternative
- Positively Parenting are responsible for organising the prize
- Competiton closes 13th November at midnight.