Little Monkey is here to provide information to help make parenting easier. This is so parents can make informed decision – whether that decision is on where to take their kids to play on the weekend by using our child-friendly directory to our new project – “Parenting Talk Series” – 30 minutes recorded interview with subject experts on all things parenting uploaded to our blog for the convenience of parents to watch whenever they like.

On our first episode of our “Parenting Talk Series,” we interviewed Odette Umali from Gordon Parenting and Deepa Gupta from Supportive Parenting by RAE for tips and advice on connecting with your child to encourage better behaviours.  Below is a recap of what we spoke about to help busy parents. We hope you find this interview useful!

• Parenting journey is two ways as parents are learning as well and need new skills all the time

• Parent’s stress during the pandemic is magnified with the extra work added on parents. One of the major stress are kids’ behaviour during this time as everyone’s needs demand to be met while at the same time parents have to learn how to guide kids during this unprecedented time.

• Each family have their own “acceptable behaviour” for the kids base on their family’s values and background. And new “acceptable behaviours” can be set as the family grows together. So, each family needs to decide what is the baseline or acceptable behaviour for their kids.

• When these “acceptable behaviours” are set – it helps parents and child as it’s easier for both to know what is expected from the child. If parents are inconsistent then it confuses a child on what is expected of them on how to act.

• Kids want to be good and looks to parent for validation. And as parents want kids to be happy, kids want parents to be happier.

• Advice/Tips on encouraging good behaviour during good and challenging time:

1. Acknowledge the issue and empathize/show compassion to both the child and yourself, the parent
2. RAIN – Recognize the issue, allowed the feelings, identify and nurture
3. Spend time with the kids – quality over quantity to get to know the child as that opens up more communication. Helps the child to also understand who we are as parents

• Remember to seek help/assistance if parents are feeling overwhelmed. Contacts for both Gordon Parenting and Supportive Parenting by RAE are below.