During the first year of my twin boys life lives I asked my good friend and transformational coach and singer songwriter extraordinaire Tiamo if he had studied any particularly great books on parenting and if he recommends any. His answer was an unequivocal yes: there is one book I would absolutely recommend.
It’s called “The Parent Shift”.
One of the biggest takeaways I got from the book is this… There are basically four ways you can approach raising your kids
- Low Emotional support and high standards
Among Asians, Arabs and people from the Indian subcontinent this seems to be the dominant approach. High standards means expecting things from the kids such as excellent academic performance, cleaning up after themselves, and all round being on their best behaviour at all times, especially around company. Low emotional support means despite the high standards if you do anything wrong you’re getting severely told off by angry, frustrated, upset parents. - High emotional support and low standards
This is the polar opposite and when I was growing up, I was amazed that this approach was used by some white English parents. The kids would receive high emotional support, so much so that they never feared getting told off no matter how badly they behaved. This was quite comical to me at the time. In fact my Asian and black friends used to have a good laugh at how soft white parents seem to be. Obviously this isn’t a universal thing – There are some Asian and black parents who use this approach and there are some white parents who are very strict and have very high standards. - Low emotional support and low standards
This is obviously the worst of both worlds. In this scenario the parents are very strict, get upset and frustrated and never make it a priority to give the children any kind of emotional support… but at the same time they don’t have any expectations or structure that would support the kids performing well. - High emotional support and high standards
This is the ideal that the book recommends and it’s what I aim for. And in many ways it stands to reason.. the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) never told off, scolded or raised his hand towards any member of his household.
He was known as being the most gentle and kind and loving of people. At the same time everyone around him was inspired to pray five times a day and endure tremendous difficulty standing shoulder to shoulder with him supporting his mission, and they ultimately positively transformed the face of the world as we know it today.
It looks to me that the prophetic parenting ideal is to give an extremely high level of emotional support and to maintain high standards.
The only way this ideal is possible is to completely separate the standards you expect from your own emotional state. If the child underperforms your job is to simply NOT get upset angry and frustrated… but instead neutrally maintain whatever consequence you decided and agreed in advance would happen.
If the child is upset, crying or having a tantrum, your job is to emotionally support them to get over it emotionally first before and independently of implementing any consequences for their misbehaviour.
The secret source to making this happen is, of course, The Psychological Switch.
If this approach sounds good but theoretical and you’re not sure how to apply it… you want specific examples of how someone might implement this, then instead of me giving random examples, I recommend we just get on a coaching call together I walk you through it step-by-step in a way that’s relevant to you and your kids.
To apply for a “Session” with me, the first step is to sign up for the Switch Masterclass and watch it carefully:
