LoveParenting: How to parent a high needs, Spirited preschooler with gentle parenting?

0:00 hey parenting junkies present play is coming up find out more by visiting the link below this video with parenting junkie hey guys welcome back to the parenting junkie the place to go to love parenting and for parenting from love today I'm really excited to be collaborating with rose from the wholesome feed channel so head on over and check out her amazing channel Rose talks all about peaceful gentle parenting holistic ideas and

0:31 breastfeeding I know you're gonna love her videos and today we're both going to be talking about genital parenting and the high needs preschooler really frustrating and dream to have a high needs preschooler and try to figure out how am i how am I gonna gentle parent them how I'm gonna be peaceful in my parenting style for them if you hear from roses channel a huge welcome to you my name is Vito and a mindful parenting coach and I put by here every Monday and

1:03 my main focus is helping parents reclaim independent play presence of mind and peace of mind while we have young children at home so if you have a preschooler or a young child who you feel has extra high needs who is extra sensitive or extra emotional extra active perhaps then this video is absolutely for you and by the end of it you will have five strong tips to get you started in managing a peaceful parenting approach with a child who

1:35 might be referred to as spirited now you might want to be taking notes during this video don't worry I've got you covered I've created a printable cheeky PDF with 20 ways to stay patient with your spirited child and you can go ahead and download that absolutely free by clicking the link below number one is to take a break if you are with your child all of the time if you're that primary Caregiver you do need to find valves to

2:05 release stress and energy you need to be distanced from your child so that you can see them more objectively sometimes when were with a child all day every day when we're the only one with them the whole time we can really get suffocated and touched out and so many parents come to me almost asking permission to take a break from their child saying that they feel unsafe using a babysitter or that they feel nervous about a preschool

2:32 setting etc and however it works for you however it works in your life you do need times probably most of us do need times away from our children we need time to refresh many times to set ourselves apart as individuals and remember who we are to Center ourselves to digest the things that we need to digest and that we're learning without being actually parenting all the time we don't do anything as intensely as we parent it can be 24/7 literally but

3:05 every car needs to fill up gas and every relationship needs time apart and every project needs time to breathe so that we can really just think on it and come to it afresh so please if you're looking for permission here it is his permission to take a break this also means just getting support look parenting is not something that was designed to be done alone and when you're with a high needs child or a spirited child it's even more

3:32 obvious that it's impossible to do it alone or at least impossible to do it well so if you want to do it well get the support I promise you it's so much more about the quality than it is about the quantity focus on the quality of your time with your child rather than the quantity of hours that you spend with them every single day number two is self care and this leads directly from number one if you are not

3:57 taking care of yourself if you are not radically prioritizing your own self-care your mental physical and spiritual well-being it's going to be almost impossible for you to peacefully parent no child I was recently approached by a mother who's suffering from depression and has two little spirited children at home and she asked me can we parent peacefully if we have depression my short answer was no because we can't give what we don't have if you don't have inner peace if you

4:29 don't have inner abundance if you don't have inner joy and unconditional love for yourself how are you possibly going to extend that to a child who's particularly demanding and needy you have to have an overflowing cup before you can spill some of that love over into your child's cup and that's why self-care and prioritizing self-care is going to be a major thing on your list now self-care could be the typical you know bubble baths and good night sleep

5:00 or it could be a lot more than that it could be about developing your own project it could be about prioritizing your mental health your physical health it means different things to all of us but basically what I'm saying is put yourself and your needs very high if not the highest on your priority list and that will necessarily spill over to your preschooler number three is to get tools look I've argued elsewhere and you can watch my video on parenting education I

5:30 don't think this stuff comes naturally to us I think that we need tools because most of us didn't see peaceful and respectful parenting happen at home or in the families around us if you're committed to being a gentle parent towards your child but your child is particularly spirited or demanding you're not going to know how to do it what to say how to set you know your environment in motion your schedule in motion in a way that supports you and

5:57 your child best so I highly recommend getting the tools now I want to point you in the direction of a couple of great resources particularly for parents of spirited children although everyone can benefit from these one is the book raising your spirited child by Mary shigeko chica i hope i'm pronouncing that right it's a fantastic book and her work is very helpful in reframing a lot of behaviors that are typically looked at as bad behaviors and understanding

6:26 that it's in fact spirited behaviors and what that type of temperament means and needs it's a fantastic book and you can get the link to it below another book I highly recommend is listen by Patti whittler I have trained in the professionals course of the hand-in-hand parenting approach Patti wakeful is approach and I absolutely love everything that's taught that filling up your toolbox in a way that feels good to you and feel supportive to you it's

6:52 critical when you have a spirited child number four is to learn to reframe everything you know when you have a child who has intense outbursts or really defiant people are so quick to label these behaviors as disorders things like being defiant and oppositional having meltdowns and tantrums being sensory sensitive etc we call these disorders so quickly when really it's just an expression of the diversity of human cognition we are all

7:24 different and we all have different temperaments and different sensitivities and some of us are highly sensitive and highly persistent and high needs in many ways that's also normal the key is to look at it in a way that is at least neutral if not even positive every single child and every temperament and behavior within that child has a silver lining or even an outright and obvious benefit something majestic beautiful and

7:54 wonderful about it and if we choose to focus on those aspects of our children it will make parenting them so much easier and more joyful not to mention what it will do for their own self-concept so rather than looking at your child is having a problem as being difficult as being exhausting as being needy and challenging and demanding or having kind of disorder look at them as being a unique perfect being with all of their own strengths characteristics and

8:28 approaches beliefs preferences that will serve them throughout their lives let me give you an example sometimes people will say a child is incredibly stubborn and they'll say how difficult it is to parent them because they don't budge and they're so stubborn but the truth is that being really stubborn is a sign of being persistent and persistence is an amazing quality the ability to really follow through to work for your desires and keep at something until you succeed

9:00 now granted it might not be easy to parent a child like that when you just want them to get on with it and let it go I know but it's also an amazing quality that we can both admire and even aspire to in our own lives it's really about redirecting and guiding those characteristics to positive and productive outlets rather than to conflict or chaotic expressions you want to actively actively reframe and

9:33 actively refrain from labeling negatively any of those characteristics that are coming through in your child one of the tools that I love for this is from simplicity parenting and it's called the golden child exercise and the point of this exercise is to cultivate a sense of loving towards your child to really soften towards them and be gentle towards them from that loving energy even when they're at their worst quote

10:03 unquote so when you see them in that light and when you hold that frequency of love towards them that will elevate your vibrations both yours and your child's into a place of love I also want to point you in the direction of a live coaching session I held with Maggie which was about her deepest darkest feelings towards her spirited child you see how transformative that was for Maggie who had real feelings of hatred towards her seven-year-old because of

10:33 how spirited and difficult Maggie found her to be number five is to consciously cultivate patience often parents will ask me I set a limit I told him he may not hit his brother I blocked his hands I did it gently I was communicative and he did it again two minutes later it's not working I really want to dissuade you from this way of thinking I want you to take the long haul view this is not a

11:03 sprint it's definitely a marathon childhood development takes years you've got to really take note of how much they do change but also you have to take the long-term view that change takes time when you want to get on a new diet lose weight become kinda have a better relationship with your partner or build a better business is it an overnight thing you know did someone tell you you know it's not nice to gossip and then overnight you stop gossiping no it takes

11:32 us a long time to build new habits one of the examples I've been given recently is that of the toddler learning to talk if you think about the evolution of them learning to say a certain word say it's water okay water for those of you fine understand my accent right we want them to say water by the end of the process but to begin with they might be saying Baba Oh gah gah and then it evolves into

11:59 WA and ventually what a lot of water water water and they can finally say it properly it took months we understand this and we don't turn around to the baby say it's not Wawa I told you water I told you it's water why are you still saying well ah we don't get angry that because we hold space for the patients that it takes for that development to happen but somewhere around the age of three four we lose

12:26 that patience and we expect our children to learn things much quicker I said don't hit why you still hitting but that's like saying I said say water why are you still saying Wawa it's not taking into consideration the fact that development takes time you aren't going to the German hitting you know the major big weight straightaway are you that would totally break your body and it wouldn't build your muscle expecting are high needs and spirited children to just

12:56 snap out of it isn't respectful of that process either we need to come at this with bucketloads of patience and expect for it to take notice months but yes if you like this video and you think it could help other parents who in spirited children please give it a like so it can become more discoverable and of course subscribe to the channel here on YouTube each and every one of you means the world to me if you're looking for a

13:21 supportive community of like-minded parents I warmly invite you to join our love parenting with avatars Facebook group plus head on over to the parenting junkie comm and sign up the email updates so I can give you my free pdf guide ten easy steps to transform your home into a play inducing haven keep on loving parenting and parenting from love because your kids need you almost as much as you need them the parenting junkie