#My3Things This Week: A Positive Parenting Motivator

After writing a letter to myself at a parenting course recently, it got me thinking about how as a parent I tend to only focus on my failures and faults, which really isn’t good for old self esteem and confidence!

So in a bid to start valuing myself a bit, I have created a new, weekly post called #My3Things.
You guys are all welcome to put your three things in the comment below so that we can keep each other positive and motivated for the week ahead.

Each week I will list three things that have not gone so well that week, three things I want to focus on improving next week, and ending the post with three things I’ve done really well. The reason it’s in this order is because you should always end on a positive!

It’s not about telling yourself off, or criticising, it’s about self improvement and acknowledging the skills and good things about us which we seem to ignore. Yes it starts by looking at what wasn’t too good, but this is so you can reflect on why these may have gone wrong and then look at how to avoid this next week- we learn from our mistakes.

I don’t want my son growing up to only focus on the negatives, and due to me being his main role model I have to show him how to see the positives by showing that I do this too, so here goes!

3 Things That Were Not So Good This Week

• I had to end the French adult placement I had staying with me earlier than planned this week, because he started to try to overpower me, and created a very depressive atmosphere in the home. The clincher was when I reminded him what time he needed to leave with us the following morning and his response was: “We will talk about this later as I am going to be sleeping in the morning.” And then later threatening me, maybe because he thought he could due to me being a single parent.

• Bedtimes- Chunk is really not responding well to going to bed at the moment, possibly due to the humidity and how he seems to be fully in the terrible twos mode. Some days I have managed ok, other days yes I have shouted (especially when he has been getting out of his bed for one hour, it’s humid and I am desperate to get some work done!)

• Chunk has been hitting, biting, throwing objects at people and generally being very defiant this week. I have told him no firmly, but have also heard myself threatening the time out, and in positive parenting you are never supposed to use threats, just say no and then put them on quiet time or time out if they continue.

3 Things I Want To Focus On Next Week

• Reducing the amount of time out threats I give, and sticking to the PP technique instead
• Keeping my calm if he continues to be difficult at bedtime through counting to ten out loud and reminding myself that a calm mum is more likely to get him to sleep.
• Getting my healthy eating in a much better routine.

3 Things I’ve Done WELL This Week

• Kept my cool when the French ‘un’ gentleman was rude and attempted to control me in front of my son.

• Identifying that the atmosphere in my home was having a negative affect on me and my son and then tackling it by talking to the company and getting the man moved on.

• I have been using positive praise during Chunk’s play a lot more, and being more consistent by following through with the techniques.

Now It’s Your Turn…

If you want to get involved then I have created a new#My3Things linky below for bloggers (please comment on other people’s posts to motivate them!) and non-bloggers can use the comment section below with your three things!

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