The Parenting On Track™ program is not about having perfect kids. Kids are kids and they will do what they do. This program is not about being the perfect parent either, but it is about focusing on you as a parent. It’s about asking what you will do, not what you will do to make the kids do what you want them to do. It’s about what kind of parent you want to be and what kind of choices you will make.

Here is a story from one of our moms to illustrate.

One Saturday, I was at a workshop for most of the day and the rest of my family -minus the youngest child, who is 5 years old, went skiing. G went to a neighbor’s house whose 12 year old daughter watched her until I got home. I drove in the driveway and walked over to G playing in the snow and said hello. Her reply was “awwwwwmaaaaaam! I hate you!!!” Curious? well not really. There she was in the middle of the woods in snow that was deeper than she was with the undivided attention of a 12 year old girl. They were whacking sticks on the trees, and looking for the perfect parts of the tree to complete the snowman 10 feet away looking very bare and white.

Before Parenting On Track™ a child screaming, “I hate you” at me when it was time to be picked up was a button. A button that sent me head-over-tea-kettle into all sorts of things that pointed at me being a bad mom who

• had no control over this child
• no parenting skills to discipline her
• and must be doing something sooo bad that her child hated her.

Forget that it also meant we would not get out of the place without a fight.

After Parenting On Track™, this child screaming at me sent me moving, not thinking or analyzing or paralyzed or fighting. It sent me walking, moving my feet and getting G’s stuff out of the house and going to the car, not acknowledging the statement what-so-ever, but moving the process of leaving forward. I kept moving and G did too. She put the sticks in the snowman’s face, gave back the gloves and the socks she had borrowed and hopped in the car.

We drove for awhile and she said, “Can I play with M- again sometime?” I said, “yes’. She asked me if everyone else was home yet and I said I did not know. Pleasant ride home. Pleasant conversation, Lovely time. Wonderful child. Wonderful moment.

Later that night, I was kissing her good night and she said, “Mom, I don’t hate you. I just did not want to leave.”

I know that this 5 year old child of mine is more than the 5 second outburst of this afternoon. I know that focusing on myself and taking responsibility for myself made room for my daughter to regroup, apologize and move on.

So take some time and identifying those nasty little buttons. I guarantee it will benefit everyone in the family. For more on Buttons check out Chapter 2 of our Parenting On Track™ program.