“It’s time for some tough love parenting,” my friend told me, but I’m pretty sure she was trying to convince herself. Her son had been taking advantage of her, and she was over it. Her gentle nature hadn’t been serving him—or her—well lately. She said, “He’s not going to like it, but I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Parents are hardwired to protect their children from harm and discomfort. But some moments of disappointment or frustration are necessary to drive home important lessons. Could tough love parenting be the solution you’re looking for in one of these 3 scenarios?
1. The Disobedient Child
2. The Forgetful Child
If one of your kids is a chronic forgetter of homework, leaver of lunches, and misplacer of jackets, some tough love parenting may be in order. When your child calls in a panic from school to ask you to bring the missing assignment, think long and hard about it, especially if this is a recurring problem. Let her take the zero. Let her go without lunch and be hungry for a few hours. Natural consequences are excellent teachers. Let them do their job.
Natural consequences are excellent teachers. Let them do their job. Click To Tweet3. The Lazy Child
No kids like chores or hard work, but home is the first place where work ethic can be taught. Sometimes tough love parenting means using the very thing the child was trying to avoid. For every chore that’s skipped, another gets added to the list. If the chores are not done by a set time, privileges are lost until the work is done. Help your child stay on track with one of our printable chore and responsibility charts. There are different versions appropriate for different ages.
The greatest challenge in tough love parenting is overcoming your own discomfort. We don’t want to see them get zeros on forgotten assignments. Making them walk to school because they broke the rules around driving worries us. We hate the hassle of taking away privileges and devices. But parenting is inconvenient when done right. Your children are worth it, and tough love now may be hard to give, but it’s better than what life might deliver later on when they’re adults.
In what area have you tried to use tough love parenting?
