We know that parenting is the biggest responsibility we will ever have.

But we’ve been told such different things about the nature of that responsibility.

If you grew up in an evangelical church, chances are you were told that a parent’s job is to teach them to obey, because children are naturally deceitful and wicked. Their spirits need to be defeated and their will broken so that their hearts will be inclined to Christ instead.

You may have heard that you have to punish kids consistently and often for every infraction, because otherwise they will walk all over you. They will not learn to respect authority or to obey.

Children see you the way they see God; if they don’t obey you, how will they ever obey God?

You need to make them obey, so that they will recognize their need for God.

Their salvation is largely in your hands.

That’s a toxic way to approach parenting.

It ignores child development. It ignores children’s legitimate needs. And it makes children out to be the enemy.

It even gives a distorted view of who God is!

And when our approach towards our kids is one of trying to control their behaviour or punish them for wrongdoing, we often push them away from us. We can create insecure attachment. They can grow up not being able to share themselves with us, and so they become secretive.

Outwardly they may be very compliant, but they feel far away from you. Why? Because they don’t feel as if they are safe.

But we can also go to the other extreme.

We can be so afraid of driving our kids away or of breaking their spirit that we don’t know how to say no and don’t know how to set limits. And eventually we become a household where children don’t listen to us–which can still lead to power struggles!

Whether you’re authoritarian or permissive, kids aren’t being properly taught how to function in the world, and, as we talked about on this week’s podcast, life is going to be chaotic.

What if there were a better way to parent our kids?

What if you could parent the way God parents? What if you could approach parenting not in a way to control your kids but to train them? What if instead of punishing your kids for every infraction you learned to recognize what it is they need in the moment, and use these things as teaching opportunities?

What if you could stop getting into power struggles and stop yelling, but find creative, positive ways to address behavior?

What if you could learn to be firm but kind? To set really clear boundaries, but also get your kids involved so that they feel part of the process and they don’t chafe against it?

What if you could understand WHY your kids act up, and WHY your discipline techniques don’t work–and find something that instead brings harmony?

That’s what I want to help you do.

So many of us grew up in harsh homes, and we want to break the cycle, but we have absolutely no idea how.

We’ve been told that to not spank our kids is tantamount to handing our kids over to the devil–and so we’re scared stiff to try something else, even though spanking isn’t working and makes us feel awful.

We feel like we’re always having the same conflicts with our kids, and the home is chaotic, and we just want peace. We want to enjoy our kids.

We’re tired of yelling. We’re tired of the power struggles. But we literally don’t know what else to do.

On the podcast this week Wendy from Fresh Start Family joined us to talk about compassionate discipline.

So many of you loved her podcast! (and other ones we’ve done with her). We talked about how to get out of the yelling and power struggle mindset, and she walked me through some things with my grandkids too.

We only scratched the surface, and we want to provide more help.

So Wendy and I are offering a FREE workshop on what positive parenting looks like–parenting with connection, compassion, but also firm discipline.

All you have to do is sign up!

It’ll be next Tuesday, November 19, at 1 pm EST (so 10 am in California, and in the evening in Europe), and it would be awesome if you could join us live so  you can ask questions. (Plus there will be door prizes for those of you who are there live!).

But even if you can’t be there live, you can still watch the video afterwards if you sign up now. 

If you’re tired of making empty threats; if you’re tired of the behaviour you don’t want repeating; if you’re tired of feeling disconnected from your kids–I really do want to help.

And I want to help you stop this cycle where you ask them to behave; you threaten them; they act up more, and finally in anger you yell or spank. Or just want to go lock yourself in your room. (I did that once!)

I wish I had had Wendy when Rebecca was 2, because we handled her tantrums all wrong. And I wish I had had Wendy when Rebecca was 11 and I was constantly in a power struggle with her and her little sister over chores. We honestly didn’t know any better.

But now we can! And I see Rebecca handling her so differently, and it’s absolutely lovely to watch.

I don’t want to become a parenting blog, because even though my husband is a pediatrician–marriage is my thing.

But so many of you are here because you’re tired of bad teaching about marriage. And you know what? The same bad teaching has infiltrated into our parenting.

So while I don’t want to spend a lot of time tackling this myself, I do want to point you to people who do it well.

I’ve hosted this webinar for two years now, and each year we get a whole new cohort that desperately wants better help at how to discipline in a way that is compassionate yet still firm. It’s like this generation is figuring it all out for themselves, because we know what previous generations did didn’t work. I don’t want you to have t figure it out for yourself, and I want to help. 

Wendy helps. And I hope you can join us!