Leo P. - Connection Parenting - Parenting Through Connection, Instead of Coercion, Through Love Instead of Fear

'~ ..
here is a concise,
simple, eminently readable and instru,ctive summary
of the knowledge Pam has gained through these years of devoted service.
I can't recommend this book highly enough and will surely promote it
at every opportunity." - Joseph Chilton Pearce, author Magical Child
Connection
Connection instead otCoercion,

Through Love instead ot Fear
"Connection Parenting is utterly The level of cooperation parents get from their
transformational. If all parents read children is usually equal to the level of
and applied its wisdom, the world
would be transformed. Bravo!" c~nnedion children feel with their parents.
- Pam Leo
- Christiane Northrup, MD, author, Mother-
Daughter WISdom
Connection Parenting is based on the parenting
"Connection Parenting contains the series Pam Leo has taught for nearly 20 years.
sacred grandmother wisdom that will Pam's premise is that every child's greatest
reconnect us with our children." emotional need is to have a strong emotional
- Suzanne Arms, founder, Birthing The Future, bond with at least one adult. When we have a
author of Immaculate Deception bond with a child we have influence with a
child. Pam teaches us that when we strengthen
"Our best hope for transforming the lives our parent-child bond we meet the child's need
of children is Connedion Parenting." for connection and our need for influence.
- John W. Travis, MD, MPH, co-founder,
Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children
"This book offers practical, compassionate
"Empowering, simple, and undeniably parenting tools that are sure to make it an
true, Connection Parenting will help to instant classic. This is the parenting book
change the face of parenting, as we know I have been waiting for!" .
it." - Kali Wendorf, editor, Kindred Magazine - Lisa Reagan, co-founder, Families for Natural Living
"Connection Parenting has captured the "Parents will wish Connection Parenting
essence of good parenting with pro- had been around from the beginning of
found and compassionate advice." their parenting experience, but this well-
- Aletha Solter, Ph.D., director, Aware Parenting
written, practical guide makes it clear
In~titute, author, The Aware Baby that we can begin right now:'
: Jane Sheppard, executive director, Holistic Pediatric
Association, editor/publisher, Healthy Child Online
"Pam Leo dares to step outside the box
to teach parents what it takes to truly
connect with a child."
c".~ .. The mother of two grown daughters and
grandmother of three, Pam Leo has been
- Bonnie Harris, author, When Your Kids Push working with families for more than thirty
Your Buttons and What You Can Do About It years as a childcare provider, parent educa-
tor, childbirth educator, doula, grief work
facilitator, and parent mentor. With a
"Connection Parenting offers a positive passion for learning, teaching, and writing
about optimal human development Pam
and proactive approach to parenting has been the Empowered Parents columnist for the Parent
within today's limitations and pressures, 6- FIlmily paper in Maine for the last ten years. Pam is also
a founding member of the Alliance for Transforming the
without a load of guilt and blame Lives of Children. Visit www.ConnectionPuenting.com
placed on busY parents:' ,
- Jen Noble, editor/publisher, Parent 6- Family
ISBN
Over the years I have followed Pam Leo's laudable work as a
teacher of parents and expecting parents. No other issue facing us
today is so critical as this work of hers, re-establishing parental
bonding with infant-child as nature intended. Indeed, our
survival as a nation and species is dependent on this reconnec-
tion. And here is a concise, simple, eminently readable and
instructive summary of the knowledge Pam has gained through
these years of devoted service. I can't recommend this book
highly enough and will surely promote it at every opportunity.
Joseph Chilton Pearce, author, Magical Child
Connection Parenting is utterly transformational. If all new (and

seasoned). parents and grandparents read and applied its wisdom,
the world would be transformed. Bravo!
Christiane Northrup, MD, author, Mother-Daughter Wisdom
(Bantam, 2005), The Wisdom of Menopause (Bantam, 2001), and
Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (Bantam, 1998 )
Connection Parenting is the book we will all wish our parents

had read when we were born and passed on to us when our
children were born. For parents and grandparents who want the
best for their children of any age, Connection Parenting contains
the sacred grandmother wisdom that will reconnect us with our
children.
Suzanne Arms, Founder of Birthing The Future, author,
Immaculate Deception
Our best hope for transforming the lives of children is connection

parenting.
John W. Travis, MD, MPH, author, WeI/ness Workbook, cofounder
Advance Praise
Connection Parenting heralds the encouraging news that parent-

ing really is evolving, and with it, humanity. Pam Leo gently,
irresistibly, invites us to cross over from the habitual and uncon-
scious coercion of our children, to conscious connection with
them. Empowering, simple, and undeniably true, Connection
Parenting will help to change the face of parenting, as we
know it." Kali Wendorf, editor byronchild magazine - Australia
Connection Parenting speaks to the very heart of what both

children and parents need in order to thrive, rather than merely
survive ... connection. Supporting parents in strengthening the
parent-child bond is the responsibility of each and everyone of
us, and the prerequisite to the well-being of our world.
Meryn Callander, President and cofounder Alliance for
Transforming the Lives of Children (aTLC)
Every child, every parent needs Connection Parenting. Pam Leo's

brilliant work, Connection Parenting, is on the top of our
reading list.
Ray CastelJino, DC., RCST Clinic Director: BEBA, Director:
CastelJino Prenatal and Birth Training, Adjunct Faculty: Santa
Barbara Graduate Institute
As a mother and a grandmother, reading Connection Parenting

filled me with both great sadness and great joy. That I didn't have
the book's crucial information when I was raising my children
makes me sad. My joy is that I will give Pam Leo's book to my sons
and daughter. With its wonderful information, I know that my
grandchildren will be able to rejoice in their enriched childhood.
This book gives adults tools to rewrite and repair our old tapes so
that we can better communicate with our children and with one
another.
Marilyn Milos, RN, Founder and Executive Director
National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource
Centers (NOCIRC)
Advance Praise
Connection parenting is the perfect extension of in-arms,

continuum, or attachment parenting with our little ones-and it
fits in our present day culture in a way that makes it accessible to
families from all kinds of backgrounds and belief systems.
Barbara Wishingrad, Founder and President,
The Rebozo Way Project
Pam Leo's Connection Parenting urges us to use what time we

DO have to connect with our children, and to make an effort to
create that special one-on-one time. Her poignant words offer a
positive and proactive approach to parenting within today's lim-
itations and pressures, without a load of guilt and blame placed
on busy parents.
Jen Noble, Editor/Publisher Parent & Family
Among the hundreds of parenting books available today, Pam

Leo's handbook, Connection Parenting, is like a breath of fresh
air. Don't be deceived by its simplicity. She has captured the
essence of good parenting with profound and compassionate
advice.
Aletha Solter, Ph.D., Director of the Aware Parenting Institute,
author, The Aware Baby
Pam Leo dares to step outside the box to teach parents what it
takes to truly connect with a child. Her "minimum daily require-
ments" of connection are the vitamins of everyday parenting.
Bonnie Harris, author, When Your Kids Push Your Buttons and
What You Ca n Do About It
I am delighted with Pam Leo's book. It has a host of practical

ideas anyone of us can use to enjoy our children or grand-
children.
Diane Gossen, author, It's All About WE;
Rethinking Discipline Using Restitution
Advance Praise
I loved Connection Parenting because it gently encouraged me to

connect with my kids in ways I hadn't guite heard before. Thanks
Pam, for sharing this wisdom in a powerful yet uncomplicated
way.
Tom Adams, Founder, Kid Flourish
Pam Leo's Connection Parenting is a breath of fresh air. It is sure

to sweep away cobwebs of confusion parents typically discover
when looking for answers in the burgeoning landscape of parent-
ing books and their often conflicting philosophies.
Grounded in field-tested experience for three decades, Pam's

illuminating insights into the components of creating and
preserving the sacred bond between parent and child picks up
where basic attachment parenting and Continuum Concept
recommendations end. This readable book offers practical,
compassionate parenting tools that are sure to make it an instant
classic. This is the parenting book 1 have been waiting for! Thank
you Pam!
Lisa Reagan, co-founder Families for Natural Living
US Contrib uting Editor, byronchild magazine
Parent Representative, Holistic Pediatric Association
The only solution to the unsustainable skyrocketing cost of

medical care is preven tion. The groundbreaking book
Connection Parenting powerfully and effectively addresses root
causes of many ills in our society-alienation, violence, substance
abuse, depression and other mental illnesses. Pam Leo's clear
vision of how to foster bonding and attachment at the beginning
of life and to sustain it through continuing connection with
children offers practical assistance for families everywhere.
Connection parenting offers true hope for preventing the unsus-
tainable skyrocketing cost of medical care in our society today.
Kent W. Peterson, MD, FACPM, FACOEM, former Executive Vice
President American College of Preventive Medicine
Advance Praise
As a family physician I advised a lot of parents on issues around

child raising. I took Pam's course, and have recommended it to
countless patients over the years. The feedback was consistently
positive. It's great she's making this information more accessible,
I love idea of book/parenting groups coming together to learn
and practice connection parenting. This book will have an Oprah
sticker on it before you know it!
Leigh D.Baker, D.O.
Pam Leo's Connection Parenting work has transformed our fam-

ily interactions and continues to bring forth the best in all of us.
Her work in its purest form creates a paradigm shift so profound
that it not only alters one's perspective of children and childhood,
but also gives us an opportunity to view the adults around us with
deeper compassion and less judgment. Leo has attained the level
of Mastery of the Interpersonal Dynamic, giving a new genera-
tion of human beings hope for having a childhood from which
they need ·not recover.
Anne Archambault, CH, parent
The parents of the children in my Brain Gym practice and the

students in my courses are very eager to learn from all Pam's years
of experience and from her deep understanding and profound
honoring of the uniqueness of each individual child. I'll just keep
a supply of her books in my office-the parents' "Bible" and
encourage each family to buy a copy. Connection Parenting is the
perfect baby present for every new parent.
Beth Stoddard, MBA, Licensed Edu-K Consultant
and Brain Gym® Instructor
Advance Praise
Pam Leo taught her Connection Parenting series, "Meeting the

Needs of Children" several times at our halfway house for women
in early recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. Some of the
participants were women trying to regain custody of their
children, some had grown children, and others were hoping to
have a family in the future. Without exception, the women found
that by learning about Connection Parenting they changed they
way they saw their children, their parents, their families.
Pam's gentle and compassionate exploration of the human devel-
opmental need for connection allowed many women here [in our
program] to greatly appreciate their own need for connection, as
children, as adults, in addiction, and in recovery. She gave them a
unique, non-judgmental language for understanding human
relationships based on the natural and vital bonds between us all.
Teresa Valliere, LCSW, CCS
Crossroads For Women, Inc.
Connection Parenting:
Parenting through Connection
instead ot Coercion)
through Love instead ot Fear
5~ Pam Leo
~w
Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc.
DEADWOOD, OREGON
Dedication
To the children of the world,

this is a gift of love from me, and all the children
who told me what to say.
Pam Leo
Connection Parenting: Parenting through Connection

instead ot Coercion, through Love instead ot Feal-
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

© 2005, 2007 Pam Leo
ISBN: 978-1-932279-76-4
SECOND EDITION
No part of this publication may be translated, reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, in whole or in part, electronic or mechanical including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without
prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Publisher and editor are not liable for any typographical errors, content mistakes,
inaccuracies, or omissions related to the information in this book.
Product trade names or trademarks mentioned throughout thi s publication

remain property of their respective owners.
Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc., Deadwood, OR

www.WyMacPublishing.com (54 1) 964-3314
Requests for permission or further information should be addressed to:
Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, 15115 Highway 36, Deadwood, Oregon 97430
Cover illustration by Kelley Cunningham, www.kelleysart.com

Index by Pueblo Indexing & Publishing Services, www.puebloindexing.com
Printed in the United States of America
Connection Parenting Disclaimer:

Connection Parenting addresses the challenging behaviors ca used by unmet
emotional needs, specifically the need for human connection.
Lack of adequate connection is not the ca use of all challenging behaviors, nor is
more connection the cure for all challenging behaviors.
Many children are diagnosed with learning problems and behavior disorders caused
by physical and/or emotional sensitivities. Connection Parenting can reduce the
amount and intensity of these children's challenging behaviors by not compounding
their sensitivity with unmet- emotional-need behaviors. However, children with
sensitivity caused behaviors and their parents will need other support to address
those challenging behaviors in the various environments in which they occur.
IV
Connection Parenting
Foreword
As the executive director of the Holistic Pediatric Association

(HPA) and a mother seeking to be the best parent I can be, I
am delighted that Pam Leo has written Connection Parenting.
At last, we have a parenting book that gets to the heart of what
it takes for children to truly thrive and be happy and healthy.
Many parents will wish this book had been around from the
beginning of their parenting experience, but this well-written,
practical guide makes it clear that we can begin right now. As
Pam points out, "parents are always doing the best they can
with the information, resources, and support they have at any
given moment. It is never too late to create a stronger connec-
tion with our children." We can toss out the useless guilt about
what we didn't know, or have access to, when they were
younger, and begin, right now, to turn around our relation-
ships with our children.
The more connected and in tune parents are with their chil-
dren, the more they can trust their own wisdom in knowing
how to treat them. The HPA promotes discarding the notion of
pediatricians in an authoritarian role, and replacing it with a
new paradigm of partnership between parents and pediatri-
cians working in the best interest of the child. Parents are the
"experts" when it comes to their own children and already have
v
Pam Leo
the innate wisdom to know what to do. However, we must

deeply connect and bond with our children, and with our own
inner guidance, to sense what is going on with them. Otherwise
we get caught up in our omnipresent fear of disease, of going
against established protocols, and of being judged. This fear
may lead us to follow the "norm" and prevent us from making
choices that are best for our children.
In our pediatric seminars for practitioners, HPA teachers talk

about paying attention to the family dynamics and what's
going on with the child in relationship to the family. Children
need to feel valued, listened to, and honored. Addressing the
emotional stress of the child is at the heart of holistic pedi-
atrics. How many chronic diseases might begin to disappear
once parents begin to deeply connect with their children and
become more in tune with their children's emotional n'eeds?
There is a strong psycho-emotional correlation to illness.

Disconnection and lack of a strong parent-child bond can be
the underlying cause of many illnesses. When parents become
aware of what may be happening emotionally, and begin to
meet the emotional needs of the child, the symptoms of many
chronic illnesses may subside.
Our most important job as parents is to create and maintain a

strong bond and loving connection with our children. This is
the key to our children's happiness and optimal health and
development. Connection Parenting tells us how to do this in
a helpful, clear, and encouraging way. It shows us how to meet
VI
children's emotional needs now, so they can grow up to be

healthy, truly thriving, self-empowered adults.
Discipline can be a very confusing issue to parents. Connection

Parenting delves into the true meaning of discipline and offers
new skills and tools for true discipline through connection.
Pam Leo describes how to listen to and talk to our children so
that they feel loved and heard, and explains the difference
between punishment and discipline. Pam says; "The goal of
true parental discipline is not to control children's behavior by
hurting them when their behavior is unacceptable, but rather
to teach children to do what is right. We cannot control any-
one's behavior but our own. We can learn to decode children's
behavior and respond to their needs, instead of react to their
behaviors."
Connection Parenting is a compassionate, insightful, and

timely gift to parents. Pam Leo celebrates the true essence of
children, shines the light on children's emotional needs, and
explains why children's unmet needs are the cause of most
behavior problems.
I have read no other parenting book with as much potential

and impetus for change in this wounded society where many
individuals' needs were not met as children. Connection
Parenting provides the tools to help us to heal hurt and dis-
connection and create the connection children need to be their
optimal selves.
VII
Pam Leo
Happy, well-connected children who feel valued are healthier

and more whole on all levels. When we follow the guidance
given in this book, we will have a strong, positive influence in
our children's lives. In addition, we will help them to develop a
connection with their own true essence and happiness so that
they can become the unlimited individuals they have the
potential to be. When we connect with our children on a regu-
lar basis, we teach them to connect with themselves, and this is
the greatest gift we can give to anyone.
I sincerely encourage parents to follow the wisdom put forth

here and make it a priority to create a strong, loving bond with
your children. By following the guidance in this book, we can
begin to turn the tide, and create a different world in which
people love, honor, and respect themselves and each other, a
world of true health, harmony, and peace.
- Jane Sheppard
Executive Director
Holistic Pediatric Association
Santa Rosa, CA
Vlll
Table of Contents
Preface .............. . .............. ............ 11
Introduction .................... . . . .......... . . . 15

The Missing Connection
chapter One ... ................................. 29

Connecting with Ourselves
We are always parenting the best we can. Whether we consciously
parent the opposite from our parents or we unconsciously parent
the same way our parents did, our parenting is influenced by the
way we were parented. We can consciously decide to keep the best
and change the rest.
chapter Two . ... . ...... ....... .... . .. ..... ... . .. 41

Connecting with Children through Respecting Children
Respect is the foundation of connection. We teach children respect
by modeling respect. We model respect by treating children with the
same respect we expect.
Chapter Three .... . ...... .. .... ... ....... .... ... 57

Connecting through Listening to Children's Feelings
When we learn how children heal their emotional hurts, we gain a
new level of confidence and skill in responding to crying, anger, and
temper tantrums.
Chapter Four . .............. .. ..... . ............. 77

Connecting through Filling the Love Cup
How we treat the child, the child will treat the world. We teach
children what to believe about themselves through how we treat
ix
Pam Leo
them. Filling their love cup builds their self-esteem and self-worth
and creates connection.
chapter Five . .......... . ..... . .... .. ... ..... .. .. 99

Connecting through Communication that Builds
Relationship
Whether communication leads to connection and cooperation or
disconnection and conflict depends on how we communicate.
Chapter Six .. . . .. ... .... .. ... . .. .. .. .... .... ... 121

Connecting through Decoding Children's Behavior
Children communicate their emotional hurts and needs through
their behavior. When we learn to recognize children's acting-out
behavior as a communication of an unmet need, we can respond to
children's needs instead of react to their behavior.
chapter Seven ... .... .. ........... .. .. ... .. . ... 163

Connecting with Our Own Needs
Parents have needs too. Families work best when everyone's needs
are met.
A cknowledgments . . . . .. .. .. ................ . . . 179
Recommended Book List .. . ... . .. . . .. . ...... .. . 182
Connection Parenting Web Links ...... . .. ...... . 191
Index ...... . . . ..... . . . ... ..... .. . . ..... . ....... 197
x
Preface
Dear Reader,
I once read, "People don't care how much you know until they
know how much you care." When I became a parent more than
thirty years ago, I wanted to learn how to nurture children so
my two daughters could grow up to have the best life possible.
The information in this book is the result of my search for
answers.
I have independently studied child development, psychology,

sociology, and anthropology for more than thirty years. Every
new book I read contained another piece of the parenting
puzzle. For twenty-two years, I provided family childcare for
children, ages two through ten. I have more than 55,000 hours
of experience being with and observing children, in addition to
parenting my two daughters and co-parenting my grand-
daughter. This work is a synthesis of my experience and my
research.
In 1989, I created the Connection Parenting workshop series,

"Meeting the Needs of Children." In sixteen years of teaching
the series, I have learned as much from the parents, grand-
parents, childcare providers, and teachers as I have taught. The
concepts presented here have been thoroughly field-tested.
For many years parents in my classes have been asking, "When
XI
Pam Leo
are you going to write a book about this kind of parenting?" I

have wanted to write this book ever since I created the class,
but I wasn't ready. I knew there were more pieces to the puzzle.
I have finally accepted that I will never have all the pieces. So I
am sharing the pieces I have.
This Connection Parenting book is designed to give you the

experience of the Connection Parenting™ classes. This is a
workbook, not just a book to read. What you know when you
finish reading this book won't be nearly as important to you or
to your children as what you do when you finish this book. If
you read the book, you will undoubtedly gain some new infor-
mation, insight and understanding. If you do the exercises,
you'll have the strongest foundation for putting your insight
and understanding into practice.
*If you do read the whole book without stopping to do the

exercises, I hope you will reread it and do them. It will be the
difference between the experience of reading a bread recipe
and that of baking and tasting the bread.
Your experience of Connection Parenting will be even richer if

you bring other parents together and meet weekly to read and
discuss the seven chapters as a group. Through learning
Connection Parenting together, your group becomes your
community of connection-parenting support.
I hope that the book provides not only information and

inspiration to support you in building strong bonds with your
Xli
children, but also validation and appreciation for the

"connection" parenting you are already doing.
May Connection Parenting bring more understanding, love,

joy, and connection to your relationships with children.
With my love and caring,
- Pam Leo
XllI
Introduction
Why do some children grow up to become a Gandhi

and others a Hitler?
What happens from birth to adulthood that

determines that difference?
The Missing Connection
A consistent, loving connection with at least one adult is

essential to create the healthy, strong parent-child bond that
children need to thrive.
There is, and has been for many years, an abundance of well-
documented research on what conditions help children thrive.
Research shows that a secure bond with at least one adult is
vital to the brain development that determines children's opti-
mal physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.
Why do we spend time and money to do research and then not

disseminate the results of that research?
Parents are not told that our most important job is to secure
and maintain a healthy, strong parent-child bond. This critical
information, about the conditions that children need to thrive,
has not made its way into the media. Parents hear far more
15
Pam Leo
about what new product to buy that will hold their babies than
they do about the importance of holding their babies in their
arms. What our children need most, money can't buy. Our
children need human connection. A healthy, strong parent-
child bond, created through consistent, loving connection, is
essential to our children's wellbeing and optimal development.
This bond is also the key to our effectiveness as parents.
Many children are in crisis. Parents are reading parenting

books and taking classes. Many of us are looking for answers
because we are struggling. Parenting has always been work, but
it hasn't always been a struggle. Our grandparents and great-
grandparents didn't read books on parenting or take parenting
classes. Did they already know about bonding? No. Our great-
grandparents didn't know about bonding either. It was not
what they knew that made parenting different for them, it was
how they lived.
In our great-grandparents' day, children's need for human con-

nection was met naturally by a lifestyle that supported a strong
parent-child bond. Babies were born at home, they were breast-
fed, and spent their early years at home. The mother-infant
bond and parent-child connection was not compromised by
separation. Parents' and children's lives were more connected.
Our lifestyle has changed dramatically. Today most babies are

born in the hospital and are bottle-fed. This early compromise
to connection is compounded by the reduced amount of time
parents and children spend together. Many infants and young
children spend long days away from their mothers and fathers.
16
The stressful pace of modern living, the loss of extended

family support, and the ever-increasing amount of time adults
and children spend with television and computers have further
weakened the parent-child connection.
Because that vital parent-child bond grew naturally and was

not created consciously, when our lifestyle changed we were
unaware that those changes were eroding the parent-child
connection essential to our children's wellbeing. Even though
the adults didn't know something was missing, the children
did. Children's un met need for connection began to show as
behavior problems.
Instead of addressing these behavior problems by asking,

"What is not right for our children? Some adults asked, "What's
wrong with our children?" Rather than looking for the cause of
children's behavior, they focused on finding ways to change or
control children's behavior. The answer they found to control-
ling children's problem behaviors was authoritarian parenting,
control through coercion. Time has shown that coercion
increased behavior problems instead of solving them.
Meanwhile, other adults asked a different question about the

behavior problems, and they found a different answer.
Children, like all living things, do not thrive when their needs
are not met. If a seedling isn't growing well, we look at the
growing conditions. We ask, "Is it getting enough sunlight? Is
the drainage adequate?" When we get the plant's growing
conditions right, the plant thrives. When we get human
growing conditions right, children thrive.
17
Pam Leo
The strong bond that once grew naturally must be cultivated

now. It was changing how we lived that weakened the parent-
child bond. Now it demands changing how we live to
strengthen the bond. There is a growing population of parents
who are adapting their lifestyle to create conditions that meet
their children's need for more human connection.
The parenting practices that create the secure connection

infants and toddlers need for a healthy, strong parent-child
bond are now known as attachment parenting. Attachment
parenting promotes natural childbirth and keeping babies in
human contact through breastfeeding, wearing babies in
slings, co-sleeping, and caregiver constancy in the early years.
My work on strengthening the bond with children of all ages,
through providing consistent, loving connection, is becoming
known as Connection Parenting.
Connection Parenting is not a "new" way of parenting; rather,

it is a return to providing the parent-child connection that
children need. We cannot go back to the old lifestyle where
parents and children were connected naturally by how they
lived. So, let's go forward and intentionally create the condi-
tions for connection in our new lifestyle and provide our
children with the strong parent-child bond they need to thrive.
What is Connection Parenting?
Connection parenting is parenting through connection

instead of coercion, through love instead offear.
18
The parenting model that most of us grew up with was author-

itarian parenting, which is based on fear. Some grew up with
permissive parenting, which is also based on fear.
Authoritarian parenting is based on the child's fear of losing
the parent's love. Permissive parenting is based on the parent's
fear of losing the child's love.
Connection Parenting promotes parenting practices that create

and maintain a healthy, strong parent-child bond. Creating a
strong bond is our primary work as parents and the key to our
children's optimal human development. Children survive
without a strong bond, but they don't thrive.
Both authoritarian parenting and permissive parenting are

reactive. Connection Parenting is proactive. We do not focus
on ways to discipline children when their unmet need for con-
nection results in uncooperative or unacceptable behavior.
Connection Parenting focuses on maintaining the consistent,
loving connection that meets children's need for a strong par-
ent-child bond.
Most of us grew up with parenting based on coercion or

threats. While threats of punishment or consequences accom-
plish temporary compliance, threats create disconnection and
undermine the parent-child bond. Coercion is a quick ftx, like
the donut tire we use until we can replace our flat with a real
tire. We wouldn't head out for a long journey on a donut tire.
Parenting is a long journey.
Parenting through connection instead of coercion challenges

our beliefs about what parents are "supposed" to do with
19
Pam Leo
children. Many parents say they wish children came with an

instruction manual because they often find parenting advice
confusing and contradictory. One expert or book says to do
one thing, and another says to do the opposite.
Advice that promotes coercion is counterproductive to effec-

tive parenting. The level of cooperation parents get from
children is usually equal to the level of connection children feel
with their parents. Coercion weakens connection and under-
mines the strength of your bond. Whenever you feel confused
about parenting advice, ask yourself, "If I follow this advice,
will I create a connection or a disconnection with my child?"
Connection Parenting is not an instruction manual that teach-

es you how to control your child's behavior. It is a book about
children's need for connection and the importance of meeting
that need. Children have many of the same needs and also
many different needs. Children are the experts on their needs,
and they are always trying to tell us what they need.
Connection Parenting is about listening to children and find-
ing our best ways to meet their needs.
Parenting through connection is not a quick fix. Building a

strong bond with a child takes time, effort, and commitment.
Do you remember the little pig that built his house out of
brick? He put in the time and did the work to build a strong
house. When the big bad wolf came along, he couldn't blow it
in like he could the houses of straw and sticks. If our children
are to survive and thrive, they need adults who take the time
and do the work to build a strong bond.
20
Parents also need that strong bond. Our parenting effectiveness

is in direct proportion to the strength of the connection we
have with our child. When we have a strong connection, we
don't have to resort to coercion.
We parent through connection, not coercion,

because we build strong bonds only by connecting.
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Pam Leo
Parenting Through Love Instead ot fear
Can you imagine threatening your partner

or good/riend by counting "One... two ... three... JJ
if he or she did not do what you wanted?

One of the biggest issues in schools today is "bullying." Parents
and teachers struggle daily with how to stop this behavior.
Without realizing it, adults teach bullying behavior to children
by modeling it when they use the threat of their physical size or
power to make children do things. This is parenting through
coercIOn.
When I hear a parent counting "One ... two" at a young child, I

always wonder what the parent told the child would happen if
the parent gets to three. Is it the threat of a spanking, being
yelled at, or being put in time-out? Perhaps it is the threat of
abandonment (I am going without you) or the withdrawal of
love and approval.
Whatever the threat may be, I rarely hear "three." As intended,

the threat compels the child to do whatever the parent wants.
Parents use threats to get children to cooperate because that
was what adults modeled when we were growing up. Most of
us are familiar with the phrase "or else." We did what we were
told out of fear, even if we didn't know what the "or else" would
be. While counting appears to be a magic form of discipline,
there is no magic in threats. Children know that adults are
bigger and more powerful than they are and comply in self-
defense.
22
If the only way we can get children to do what we ask is by

intimidating them, how will we get them to do as we ask when
we are no longer bigger and more powerful? Ask the parents of
any teenager if counting still works. Not only do threats no
longer work, children learn to use threats to make others do
what they want.
Parents often see uncooperative behavior as a challenge to their

authority. Once we understand that uncooperative behavior is
a communication of a child's unmet need, a hurt, or the
response to an adult's unrealistic expectation, we do not have
to take the behavior so personally. Parents and children both
have needs. Children who are deeply absorbed in play will not
want to stop playing and go with us to the bank or the store.
When an adult needs to do one thing and a child needs to do
another, there is competition to get their needs met. This com-
petition turns into a power struggle when we use the power of
fear instead of the power of love.
Our bond or connection with a child is our most powerful

parenting tool. We create a strong bond over time when we
lovingly and consistently meet a child's early needs. Threats
communicate, "What you think, feel, want, or need is not
important." Threats undermine the parent-child bond. When
we learn to relate in ways that show children that their needs
and feelings matter, we strengthen the bond and avoid power
struggles.
Lack of resources is the most common reason for competing to

get our needs met. If we had more resources, we would not
23
Pam Leo
have to bring the child to the bank or the store because there
would be someone else to stay with the child. As long as there
is lack of resources, there will be competition between parents
and children to get their needs met. Until we figure out how to
bring more resources into our lives, we have to find ways to
cooperate and collaborate if we are to stop teaching children to
be bullies.
We can use conflict resolution skills in our daily interactions

with children. Just as children learn bullying from what adults
model, they can learn conflict resolution and problem solving
skills instead.
Very young children learn conflict resolution when we model

it. We can teach an older child to find another toy to exchange
with their younger sibling instead of snatching their toy back.
When two children want the same toy at the same time, we can
help them "problem solve" a solution.
When there is a power struggle because the parent wants to run

an errand and the child wants to stay home, we can say, "Let's
problem solve to find a way for both of us to get what we need."
Maybe the child could take the toy in the car or perhaps the
errand could wait until tomorrow.
When we are ready to leave the playground and the child wants
to stay longer, we can offer a compromise of staying five more
minutes and having more fun when we get home. Often, it is
not that the child doesn't want to leave as much as it is that she
doesn't want the fun to end. We teach children that everyone's
24
needs are important by honoring their needs. From our exam-

ple, they learn to honor other's needs.
We may not have the time or the resources to meet a child's

need. Sometimes, even after we offer a compromise, the child
is still unable to cooperate. Then, we communicate that par-
ents have needs too. If setting the limit still makes the child
unhappy, we listen to those feelings before we move forward.
It is never okay to tell young children that you will leave with-
out them. Threatening abandonment terrifies young children.
When a child has a tantrum about leaving, the tantrum may
not be about leaving. The disappointment of leaving may be
the last straw that unleashes an accumulation of little frustra-
tions. The child may need to empty out the stresses of the day.
A child 'c an move forward more readily when we say, "I know
you're sad and it's okay to cry;' instead of "Stop that crying or
I'll give you something to cry about!" When children finish
crying, they feel better and are more able to cooperate.
Children are delightful to be with when we meet their needs

and nothing is hurting them. Whenever a child responds neg-
atively to a reasonable request, we look for the hidden hurt or
the unmet need. Once we acknowledge everyone's needs, we
can work on problem solving.
I have learned to say, "When you behave that way I know some-
thing is wrong. We love each other and people who love each
other don't treat each other this way. Can you tell me what you
need or what's hurting you?" If I can remember to stop and ask
25
Pam Leo
that one simple question, it changes the whole context of the

power struggle. That question communicates, "I love you, and
what you feel and need matters to me."
Sometimes there isn't a way for both people to get what they
need. However, not getting what we need is easier to bear if we
are treated in a way that allows us to keep our dignity.
Threatening or counting at a child communicates, "I am bigger
and more powerful, and you'd better do as I say, or I'm going
to hurt you." When a big kid says to a smaller one, "Do what I
say, or I'm going to hurt you;' we call it bullying. When an
adult communicates the same message to a child by counting,
we call it discipline.
Treating children in ways that take away their dignity teaches

them to do the same to others. If we want kids to stop bullying,
we have to stop bullying kids. The power of fear is easy and
quick, but short-lived. The power of love requires more work
and takes longer, but children never outgrow its influence.
The children who now depend on us to meet their needs while

they are young will one day be the adults we depend on to meet
our needs when we are old. They will be able to give only what
they have received. Let's parent through connection instead of
coercion, through love instead of fear.
26
Basic Premises ot Meeting

Children's Needs
Through Connection Parenting
• The greatest emotional need of every child is to bond

securely to at least one other human being.
• Our most important task as parents is to secure and main-

tain a healthy, strong parent-child bond.
• Maintaining connection is the key to loving, effective par-

enting and to our children's optimal human development.
• Parents are always doing the best they can with the informa-
tion, resources, and support they have at any given moment.
• The level of cooperation parents get from their children is

usually equal to the level of connection children feel with
their parents.
• What children want and need most is to be with us and to

do what we do.
• Children want to be with us to maintain connection.
• Children want to do what we do because we are their models.
• All behaviors are need-driven. We do what we do to get our

needs met.
• When children's needs are met and nothing is hurting them,

they are delightful. When children are not being delightful,
their behavior is telling us about something they need.
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Pam Leo
• At times, children are not able to identify or communicate

with words what they need or what hurts. Children commu-
nicate by acting out their needs and hurts through their
behavior (thus acting-out behavior) .
• We can't teach children to behave better by making them

feel worse. Children behave better when they feel better.
• We can learn to decode children's behavior and respond to

their needs, instead of react to their behaviors.
• It takes the same amount of time and attention to meet

children's needs as it does to deal with the behaviors caused
by their un met needs.
• The only conflict that exists between parents and children is

between the strategies that we use to get our needs met.
• Whether we are u nconsciously raising our children the way

our parents raised us or we are consciously trying to do the
exact opposite, the way we parent is influenced by the way
we were parented.
• Parenting never used to be and was never intended by

nature to be a one or two person job. Families work best
when everyone's needs are met. It does take a village to
meet the needs of children and parents.
• We will never become perfect parents who raise perfect

children, but we can learn how to make it better for our
children, for us, and for our world.
• It is never too late to create a stronger connection with

our children.
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chapter 1
Connecting With Ourselves
We did the best with what we knew;

now we know more so we can do better. - Oprah
The more we learn, the more we expect of ourselves. One rule

in Connection Parenting workshops is not to use this informa-
tion to beat yourself up for what you didn't know or couldn't
do. Making ourselves wrong for not doing it right doesn't serve
our children or us.
When we read a new parenting book or take a class, we often

feel guilty for not already knowing or always doing what we
learn. It is important to make the distinction between guilt
and regret. Guilt is what we feel when we knew better and
didn't act on what we knew. Regret is the sadness we feel when
we learn something new that we wish we had known earlier.
Making this distinction between guilt and regret is important
as we embark on learning some different ways of parenting.
Most of us know what we need to do to be physically healthy,

yet we don't practice what we know all the time. Some days we
eat healthy foods and some days we eat unhealthy foods. One
week we exercise regularly and the next week we don't exercise
at all. If we grew up eating healthy foods and getting regular
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Pam Leo
exercise, it is easier to do that consistently as adults. If we

didn't grow up eating healthy foods and getting regular exer-
cise, we have difficulty forming those new healthful habits as
adults. It is easier to walk a beaten path than it is to break a
new trail.
Whatever we experienced as children comes automatically to

us as adults. If we are trying to parent our children differently
from the way we were parented, the new ways challenge us. Just
as we will be healthier if we eat well and exercise some of the
time, our parenting will be more nurturing if we practice
connection parenting some of the time.
The more often we remember to parent through connection,

the stronger our parent-child bond will be. The stronger the
bond, the better able our children will be to weather the times
when we parent in less nurturing ways.
The parents who attend my Connection Parenting series want

to become the best parents they can be. Parents are always
doing the best they can, at any given moment, with the infor-
mation, resources, and support they have. I've never met a
parent who woke up in the morning and said, "What could I do
today to really mess up my kids?"
There is always a gap between learning a new way and being

able to do it consistently. Scott Noelle, parenting coach and
author of articles on conscious, holistic parenting, describes
this as, "The gap between the healthy parenting ideals you
embrace intellectually and what you're capable of doing in the
here and now."
30
Becoming better parents means we will always be learning. It

also means we will be living in the gap sometimes between
what we are learning and what we can do. The more we learn
about healthier parenting, the more we will live in the "gap." As
we strive to become more loving to our children, we must also
strive to be more loving to ourselves.
Ancora Imparo - I am slittlearning.

- Michelangelo
Parenting practices are cultural. The way we parent is influ-

enced not only by how we were parented, but also by the
parenting practices observed in our culture. The United States
has become a weak bonding culture. We don't have to observe
weak bonding parenting practices just because that is what our
culture dictates as "normal." We can choose the healthy, strong-
bond paren ting practices our children are programmed
biologically to expect and need for optimal human develop-
ment.
Every parent I have ever known has wanted life to be better for
their children than it was for them. Many parents regret that
they did not have the information or support to practice
connection parenting earlier. In Connection Parenting work-
shops, the feedback I get most often is, "I wish I'd had this
information from the beginning." I, too, wish I'd had this infor-
mation from the beginning.
It is never too late to strengthen our connection with our

children. Every moment is a new opportunity to strengthen
the bond.
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Pam Leo
Where did we learn how to be a parent?

Parenting our children is the most important and challenging
job any of us will ever have. Unlike all other important jobs,
parenting is the one for which we get no formal preparation,
education, or training.
With the help of the parents in Connection Parenting classes, I

created the following exercises to empower you to learn and
consciously choose parenting practices that will strengthen
your bond with your children.
Preparation tor Connection Parenting
REMINDER: Although it will be tempting to only read or even

skip these exercises and keep going, I implore you to take the
time to do them. Write them down, because all the "light
bulbs" will be in your words, not in mine.
* I recommend that you write the exercises in a ~

special, permanent parenting journal that you ~~
can add to over the years and track your \b ·
progress.
M'y Parenting Goals:

What do you hope to give and not give to your children?
To get the most out of this book you need to identify your
specific parenting goals.
Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper or on a page

in your parenting journal.
32
In the left column, write a list of what you want for your
children. (Anything that nurtures-unconditional love,
encouragement, self-esteem, or confidence.) This is the
nurturing list.
In the right column, write a list of what you don't want for
your children. (Anything that hurts-yelling, spanking, etc.)
This is the hurts list.
Your Parenting Inheritance:

What did you get or not get from your parents? The more
conscious we become about how our parents' methods
affected us, the more conscious we become of how our parent-
ing affects our children.
When you've completed the two lists, put a check mark next to
anything in the nurturing column that you got as a child.
Put a check mark next to any thing in the hurts column that
you got as a child.
What do you notice about your checkmarks in each column?

Which column has the most check marks?
"IMPORTANT NOTE: Our parents were doing the best they

could with the information, resources and support they had.
Every generation of parents softens what they got for their
children. If what we got was harsh, imagine what our parents
got. We parent our children best when we can forgive, heal, and
not pass on hurts.
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Pam Leo
M~ Parenting Strengths:
The nurturing you got will support you in providing what you
want for your children. Use the check-marked statements in
the nurturing column to begin a list of your parenting
strengths.
M~ Parenting Challenges:
Begin a list of parenting challenges with the unchecked state-
ments in the nurturing column. The nurturing you did not get
will be challenging to give. You need to learn actively how to do
that kind of nurturing because you did not have a model of
how to do that for your children.
More Parenting Challenges:

The hurts you check-marked in the right column are models
you had of how to treat children. You don't want to pass those
hurts on to your children. Add the check-marked statements in
the hurts column to your parenting challenges list. Where you
have emotional hurts, you have emotional healing work to do.
We are less likely to pass on our hurts when we do our own
healing work.
The next exercise requires the participation of another person.

You can choose your parenting partner, another parent, or a
close friend. The purpose of this exercise is to bring your
unconscious parent training to a conscious level so you can
choose which parts of that training you intentionally want to
repeat and which parts you want to replace.
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Mini-biograph~:
Take turns sharing your mini-biography by doing a listening
partnership. When one person is telling their biography, the
listenersimply listens and does not interrupt by commenting
or asking questions.
• Tell your name, age, and where you grew up.
• Tell how many children were in your family and your birth
position: only child, twin, oldest, youngest, middle etc.
• Tell the story of your parents, keeping in mind that we can

take neither credit nor blame for their story, it's simply their
story. Example: My parents are still married after 40 years.
They were divorced when I was two. My father was an
alcohol'ic. My mother died when I was eight.
• Tell about discipline in your family-your own and your

siblings. Recall one fond memory from your childhood-
vacation, holiday, special time with a grandparent etc.
• During the coming week, following the mini-biography

exercise, notice what you do and say as a parent.
• What do you do and say that is the same as the way you
were parented?
• What did your parents do and say that you find yourself
repeating, but want to do differently?
• Add these to your parenting challenges list.
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Pam Leo
• Add the following to your parenting strengths list:
• What do you do and say that you have already consciously

chosen to do differently than your parents did?
• What did your parents do or say that you have consciously

chosen to repeat and pass on to your children?
• What do you do and say as a parent that you feel good about?
Take a few minutes to appreciate your strengths.
Your lists of parenting goals, strengths, and challenges are your

maps for the parenting journey. Connection Parenting is your
guide.
PUZZLE PIECES:
(~ When Your Kids Push Your Buttons by Bonnie

~ Harris
(~ ScreamFree Parenting - Raising your Kids by

~ Keeping Your Cool by Hal Edward Runkel
(~ Don't Let Your Emotions Run Your Life - How

~ Dialectical Behavior Therapy Can Put You In
Control by Scott E.Spradlin, MA
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Connection Parenting Terms and Tools
Throughout this book, I use the terms connection and discon-

nection. I define those terms as follows:
Connection - feeling loved and listened to.

Disconnection - feeling hurt and unheard.
Many parents who attend my classes say that they are there to
get new parenting "tools." In Connection Parenting, there are
only two tools.
The goal of Connection Parenting is to meet proactively

children's need for connection. Whenever the optimal level of
connection gets too low, children communicate their need for
more connection through their behavior. When a child's
behavior challenges us, we use tool # 1.
TOOL # 1: Connection
Provide children with a consistent, loving connection through
eye contact, loving touch, respect, listening, and spending time
working and playing together.
Whenever we question how to respond to a child's behavior, we

ask ourselves, "Is this response connection or coercion?" Look
for a way to respond to the behavior without creating a dis-
connection. Connect before you correct.
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Pam Leo
TOOL # 2: Reconnection
Sometimes a child's behavior pushes our buttons and we react
before we connect. We can tell when our reaction has caused
disconnection. A child who feels hurt and/or unheard will
either:
Attack - cry or scream
Or
Retreat - won't make eye contact with, won't talk to us,

and rejects our touch
As soon as we realize our reaction has created a disconnection

we reconnect with tool #2.
The) R's of reconnection are:

Rewind - acknowledge our hurtful behavior ("What J said
was hurtful")
Repair - apologize and let the child know he did not
deserve our behavior
Repla~ - respond with love and listening
We will always know when connection is re-established. When

children feel connected, they make eye contact with us, they
talk to us, and they welcome our touch.
You now have the Connection Parenting tools. However, tools

are only useful when we also have the skills to use them. The
rest of this book is devoted to supporting you in developing
and practicing the skills to use the Connection Parenting tools
to maintain connection and build the strong bonds children
need to thrive.
38
Before you read Chapter Two

Getting the most from this book
The lists you created in Chapter One will direct your use of the
material in the rest of this book. You will be asked to refer to
your list of parenting goals (what you do and do not want to
give to your children) in other chapters.
The seven chapters of this book are organized to replicate the

seven sessions of Connection Parenting™ "Meeting the Needs
of Children" workshop series. The classes meet for two hours
each week and participants have a week between each topic to
put what they have learned into practice, and return and share
their experiences. If you are reading this book with a book
group that meets once a week, I recommend that you do a
chapter a 'week. If you are reading this book on your own, I
recommend doing no more than a chapter a day to get the
most from each chapter.
We learn in three ways: explanation, example, and experience.
The explanations and examples in this book teach about

connecting with children. Learning from experience will come
from practicing connecting with children. This chapter
explains why we need to treat children with the same respect
we expect. The examples of the difference between treating
children with respect or disrespect explain why disrespect
causes disconnection and respect creates connection.
The explanations and examples in this book are from

Connection Parenting classes. The part of the Connection
39
Pam Leo
Parenting class that I cannot replicate in this book is the check-

in. Each week, class participants hear how other parents, in
other circumstances, interpreted and implemented the infor-
mation from the previous session. One of the advantages of
reading this book with a group, or with at least one other
person, is that you get to experience the wonderful sharing,
feedback, and support.
40
chapter 2
Connecting with Children through
Respecting Children
Children learn what they live.

- Dorothy Law Nolte
I am embarrassed to say I had been teaching my "Meeting the

Needs of Children" parenting series for many years before I
discovered the work of Joseph Chilton Pearce through his
book, Magical Child. Even though I was teaching parents to
meet children's emotional needs, ] wasn't telling them why it is
so important. It was through Pearce's work that] made the
connection about connection. Understanding the vital impor-
tance of the parent-child bond pulled all the puzzle pieces
together.
Meeting children's emotional needs creates and maintains the

essential bond they need to thrive. The bond is a child's con-
sistent, loving connection with at least one other person.
Studies show that many infants and young children, in orphan-
ages, whose physical needs were met, "failed to thrive," or even
died from lack of touch, attention, and connection.
Children's emotional needs are as important as their physical

needs. Those orphans died from non-organic failure-to-thrive
41
Pam Leo
because they had no consistent loving connection with at least

one adult. If infants can die from the lack of a consistent
loving connection, and strongly bonded children thrive, might
that explain why children with a weak bond survive physically
but do not thrive?
One of children's most basic emotional needs is to be treated

with respect. The foundation of Connection Parenting is
treating children with respect. Children need to be treated with
the same respect that we expect if we are to meet their need for
connection. Disrespect hurts. Hurts cause disconnection.
Disconnection undermines the strength of the parent-child
bond.
For too long, children have been treated as second-class

citizens, as "less than" adults. The idea of treating children with
the same respect we expect feels strange to parents who grew
up hearing "children should be seen and not heard." I have
asked many parents who grew up hearing that phrase, what it
meant to them as children. Most say it meant that they were
supposed to be quiet and how they felt or what they had to say
didn't matter.
Adults often make the mistake of thinking that, because

children are smaller, and have less information, and less expe-
rience, they don't have the same feelings we have. Children do
have the same feelings, and they are more tender and vulnera-
ble. The same words or actions that hurt our feelings and make
us feel disrespected feel the same way to children. Dignity is
not something we acquire when we become adults. All of us are
42
born with human dignity. The same words or actions that take
away our dignity also take away children's dignity.
One of the most common complaints I hear about children

"today" is that they don't treat anyone or any thing with
respect. How can children give respect without first receiving
it? Children are not born being disrespectful; that behavior is
learned. Children imitate parents, family members, friends,
caregivers, teachers, and television. The more children are out
in the world, the more models they are exposed to. We can't
keep children from ever seeing models of the kind of behavior
we don't want them to imitate, but we can be more selective of
which models we expose them to, especially on television.
We cannot expect children to understand and practice the

Golden Rule if we treat them in ways that we would not want
to be treated. The wisdom "what goes around, comes around;'
and "as you sow, so shall you reap" applies to how we treat
children. It behooves every adult who wishes respect, to treat
children respectfully. Whether children grow up under our
roof or not, they live in the same world we do, and their behav-
ior impacts our lives.
If you question whether your words to a child are disrespectful,

ask yourself, "Would I say those words, in that tone of voice, to
my good friend?" If not, it was disrespectful.
In class, I read a brilliant piece by Erma Bombeck entitled,

"Treat Friends, Kids The Same." Bombeck imagines having
friends over for dinner and saying to them those phrases that
many of us heard growing up.
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Pam Leo
"Shut the door. Were you born in a barn?"
"I didn't work over a hot stove all day to have you nibble like
some bird."
"Sit up straight or your spine will grow that way."
Parents roar with laughter at the thought of speaking to their

friends that way, and then realize it is just as disrespectful to say
those things to children. Treating children with the same
respect we would give our friends doesn't mean we should treat
children as adults, or that we should be permissive, or never get
angry.
Most of the disrespectful things adults say to children are so

automatic, we have already said them before we realize it.
Human beings are like tape recorders. Every word we. hear is
recorded permanently in our subconscious. Adults carry
"recordings" of the disrespectful words they heard as children.
When a child's behavior pushes our buttons, our recordings
"play" and we find ourselves repeating what we heard as chil-
dren. Have any parents not heard themselves say their parents'
words to their children?
Children have never been very good at listening to their

elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
- James Baldwin
Ninety-five percent of what children learn comes from what

adults model. Children are mirrors; they reflect back to us all
that we say and do. Whenever adults speak, we are role models
44
for the children in our presence. Children record every word

we say to them or around them. Every time we are disrespect-
ful to a child, we are modeling how to be disrespectful.
Children do what we do, not what we tell them to do. When we

treat children with disrespect, they learn to be disrespectful.
We teach respect by modeling it and by giving children the
same respect we expect. The language we grew up hearing is
the language we learned to speak.
Ironically, adults often try to teach children to be respectful by

treating them disrespectfully. When adults instruct children by
criticizing, lecturing, shaming, ridiculing, giving orders,
screaming, threatening, and hitting, it hurts children. When
human beings are hurt emotionally, our thinking shuts down.
When 'a child's thinking is shut down, he can't learn what the
adult intended to teach him to do or not to do. He can only
record and imitate what is modeled. If we are committed to
maintaining connection with our children, we must acknowl-
edge, expose, and work on eliminating treating children with
disrespect.
We must become the people we want our children to be.

-Joseph Chilton Pearce, author ofMagical Cbild
Treating children with respect requires a change of heart that

comes only from a major shift in how we view children and
how we define respect. Modeling the behavior we want chil-
dren to learn is the respectful way to teach them, If we expect
children to have manners, to share, to apologize, to be honest,
45
Pam Leo
kind, respectful, and loving, we must do and be those. Learning

to teach children through conscious, intentional modeling
takes time, practice, and our willingness to see and change our
behavior.
Parents are the primary models in the early years. Children

need adults who model the behavior they expect. When a child
doesn't behave in the ways we expect, we ask ourselves, "Am I
providing a model of the behavior I expect and will accept
from my children?"
Remember: Our children record and imitate all that we say

and do. Learning to teach by intentional modeling is simple,
but not easy. Stopping our old tapes from playing is difficult.
While we are training ourselves to be as respectful to children
as we are to adults, our buttons will get pushed. Our old disre-
spect tapes will play and create disconnection.
We reconnect by using tool # 2 - Rewind , Repair, and Replay.

Saying, "rewind" is an acknowledgment that we caught
ourselves communicating in a disrespectful way. We repair by
apologizing. Then we replay the scene by treating the child
respectfully.
When we model correcting our behavior with rewind , repair,

and replay, then we can remind children to "rewind" when they
speak or behave in disrespectful or unacceptable ways. They
will know from our example that they, too, can reconnect by
rewinding, repairing, and replaying their way of speaking or
behaving. When we give children the same respect that we
46
expect, we model respect and we maintain connection.
Walking our Talk: If we choose to remind children to be

respectful by saying, "rewind" when they are disrespectful, we
must give children permission to remind us to rewind when we
are disrespectful.
Practicing Connection Parenting

Some of the disrespectful ways adults treat children have been
said and done to children for so long, we are often unaware
that they are disrespectful.
When you were a child did any adult ever:
• Prompt you to say please and thank you?
• Insist that you say you were sorry?
• Force you to share your toys?
• Demand that you to hug or kiss family members or friends

when you didn't want to?
• Give orders instead of requests?
• Talk about you in front of you as if you were not there?
Can you remember how it felt to be treated that way?
As children, we believed we deserved the way we were treated.

The way we were treated was our model of how to treat
children.
Now, as an adult, do you ever:
47
Pam Leo
• Prompt children to say please and thank you?
• Insist children say sorry?
• Force children to share their toys?
• Demand that children hug or kiss family members or

friends when they don't want to?
• Give children orders instead of requests?
• Talk about children in front of them as if they were not there?
When considering these questions, many parents squirm in

their seats because most of us have treated children this way at
one time or another. I know I have, and sometimes still do
when my buttons get pushed and I don't catch myoId coercion
"tapes" in time. Then I have to rewind, repair, and replay.
How we treat them is what we teach them .
When we model using coercion, we teach children to use coer-

cion. We have heard a child say to another child, "You're not the
boss of me." Our job as parents is to be our children's leaders,
not their bosses. We want our children to follow our leadership
out of trust, love, and respect, not out of fear.
Examples of Treating Children with the

Same Respect We Expect
We maintain connection with children and strengthen our

bond when we practice the Golden Rule and give children the
same respect we would give our friends.
48
We teach children to be courteous b~

modeling good manners.
Prompting children to say please and thank you embarrasses

them. We don't say, "What do you say?" or "What's the magic
word?" to our friends, but children hear it all the time. Do we
always say please and thank-you to children and each other? If
not, we are modeling that sometimes you say it and sometimes
you don't. Children then imitate the model of sometimes you
say it and sometimes you don't. If we expect children always to
say please and thank-you, we model always saying please and
thank-you to them and to each other.
One of the hardest parts of teaching manners by modeling

courtesy instead of instructing children to be courteous is that
we feel embarrassed when our children forget. We fear that
people will think we are not teaching our children manners.
Whenever children don't remember to say thank yo u to some-
one, we simply thank the person. The person is appreciated
. and children see our model of courtesy.
We teach children to apologize b~ sa~ing,

"I' m sorr~," to children and to each other.
When children know they have done something wrong, they

experience a loss of dignity. Insisting that children say they are
sorry increases their loss of dignity. Losing dignity is an emo-
tional hurt. When children feel hurt they cannot think well.
When they cannot think well, they cannot learn. Children need
our support to regain their dignity and to figure out a way to
49
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make amends. Instead of insisting children say sorry, we help

them think of a way to make amends. (Getting a cold cloth for
a boo-boo, gluing a broken toy)
We teach generosit~ b~ modeling sharing.
Forcing children to share their toys is coercion. When we use

our size and power to force children to share, they comply out
of fear, not generosity. Expecting young children to share is an
unrealistic adult expectation.
Children learn to share by seeing models of sharing. Even

though we do model sharing many things with children, we
don't model sharing toys. We teach sharing toys by modeling
sharing toys. Instead of always buying toys for your children,
try having your own toy box and sharing your toys with your
children and those who come to visit.
Adults claim the right to decide which of their possessions they

will or will not allow children to use. Children learn to say,
«This is mine, you may not use it;' from the model of adults
saying, «This is mine. You may not use it." That message teach-
es children that when we own something, we get to decide
about it. If they own something, they expect to be able to
decide about it. Being respectful means that we respect chil-
dren's right to decide about their things. This means being
more selective about what we give to children and what we buy
for our own toy box or for the family. Most children own more
toys than they know what to do with. Children don't have to
own toys to have use of them.
50
As with manners, we fear that others will think we don't teach

our children to share if we don't force them to share. Sharing
our toys and inviting children to bring some toys they will not
be forced to share demonstrates that we choose to teach shar-
ing in a different way.
It is an adult's job to meet a child's emotional

needs. It is not a child's job to meet an
adult's emotional needs.
Did you ever have to hug or kiss a relative even when you did
not want to? Do you remember what that felt like? If adults are
to be respectful to children, we offer affection instead of
demanding it. Demanding that children hug or kiss family
members or a friend does not teach children to be affectionate.
It teaches children that they don't get to decide about their
bodies.
We offer affection by saying, "I have a hug for you, would you
like to have it?" Sometimes children say no just because they
can. Usually children accept with delight if they have a bond
with the person who is making the offer.
When grandparents, other relatives, or friends request or

demand affection from our children, one way we respect our
children's feelings, and protect them from "having to" fill an
adult's need for affection, is to offer ourselves in their place. "I
guess Sammy doesn't have any hugs or kisses today, but I do."
If we aren't kissing great-grandma goodbye, we have no business
51
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demanding that our children must. If we expect children to be

affectionate to others, we model being affectionate to others.
We don't have to hurt an adult's teelings to

respect a child's teelings.
We can be pro-active by talking to children and brainstorming

ideas that protect everyone's feelings, before we visit people we
know may ask for affection. Sometimes children feel fine about
giving a "high-five" or throwing kisses if we talk about it ahead
of time. The ham radio term for hugs and kisses is 88. We often
say "88" for quick good-byes, phone good-byes, and good-byes
for people who request or demand affection.
Children respond to invitations
We feel diminished when someone is giving us an order or

command rather than making a request. Children feel the same
way. We get more cooperation from children with an invitation
than an order. When we give orders, we create a disconnection.
Children want to be with us and to do

what we do.
The most "magic" word I know is "Let's." "Let's pick up the

toys." "Let's go brush our teeth." "Let's leave our muddy boots
by the door." Let's say let's. It works!
The only time "let's" doesn't gain cooperation is when there is

already a disconnection. Then we need to reconnect before we
52
say "let's." When a child refuses to cooperate with a respectful,

reasonable, request or invitation there is a hurt somewhere that
needs addressing before we can reconnect.
Include the child in the conversation when we .

need to speak to another adult
about a child in the child's presence.
We start talking about children in front of them when they are

babies and can't speak for themselves. Then we forget to stop
doing that when they are old enough to speak for themselves.
Can you even imagine talking to your friend Ted about your
friend, Polly, as if she were not standing right there? Adults do
this to children all the time.
As a childcare provider, I was expected to tell parents about the

child's day when they picked up their child. I learned to be
respectful to children by including the child in the conversa-
tion. I would say, "Let's tell Mom/Dad about our day."
Sometimes the child would join the conversation and some-
times she would say, "You tell;' and run off to play. Either way,
I was being more respectful.
We must become the change we want to see in the world

- Gandhi
Parenting is work no matter how we do it.
Parents often say, "But coercion works." Yes, it works, but for
how long and at what cost? If children do what we ask or
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expect only because we coerce them, we will always have to be

there to give instructions and orders. Teaching through model-
ing takes longer than teaching through coercion. Modeling
alone will not produce the behaviors and values we expect. It is
having a strong bond with their model that causes children to
want to behave in ways that maintain connection. Children
with a strong bond, who have learned from our modeling, are
more likely to do what we expect without being told.
Coercion parenting is a quick flX but doesn't build a strong

bond. Connection parenting takes more time, but it builds a
strong bond. We either do the work of creating a strong bond
when they are younger or we will do the work of dealing with
behaviors caused by a weak bond when they are older. It takes
the same amount of time and attention to meet children's need
for connection as it does to deal with behaviors caused by their
unmet needs.
Treating children with respect maintains connection and

strengthens the bond. Coercion may work when children are
little, but when they are big we need something much stronger
than coercion. Connection is stronger than coercion.
Treating children with respect means adopting new ways of

treating and talking to children. It takes time to form new
habits. During that time when our buttons are pushed we often
react and resort to coercion. Whenever we do, we use tool #2.
We rewind, repair, and replay to reconnect.
54
In ,SJour Parenting JournaL
ltIJ
~~
~
p~ Refer back to your list of parenting goals. As you read
them, do you see anything on your list that treating
children with more respect would support your efforts to give
children the nurturing you want to give them?
Refer back to your list of parenting challenges. Do you see any-

thing on the list that treating children with more respect would
support your efforts in avoiding the hurts?
~ Escape From Childhood by John Holt
(~ When I Am Little Again and The Child's Right To

~ Respect by Janusz Korczak
~ Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce
55
chapter)
Connecting through Listening to
Children's Feelings
It is our job to protect children from harm, but we cannot

protect them from emotional hurts. Disappointment, frustra-
tion, fear, embarrassment, feeling left out, and loss are part of
the human experience. While we cannot protect children from
experiencing those emotional hurts, we can support children
in healing from their hurts.
It is not our job to stop children from crying. Once we under-

stand how children (and adults) naturally and spontaneously
heal emotional hurts, we can support rather than thwart the
healing process. Children heal their own hurts when they have
the safety provided by adults who are willing to listen to their
feelings.
Have you ever felt upset and had a friend listen without inter-
rupting by giving advice or trying to fix it, while you talked,
cried, and complained? Once you emptied out the hurt feel-
ings, can you remember how much better and connected you
felt to that friend? Children feel better and more connected to
us when we listen to their feelings without interrupting, giving
advice, or trying to flX it. Listening to children's feelings builds
connection and strengthens the bond.
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Healing Emotional Hurts
Human beings heal emotional hurts through the natural,

spontaneous process of releasing the painful feelings that result
from hurt. If you observe young children you will notice that
they spontaneously cry when hurt, upset, or frightened .
Research on human tears shows that the tears we cry of
emotion contain stress hormones. Tears release pain and stress.
Other ways we release emotional hurts and stress are
screaming, raging, talking repeatedly about the hurt, shaking,
laughing, perspiring, and yawning.
Without this information, parents and caregivers don't know

what to do when a child cries or rages. If our attempts to com-
fort or fix the problem don't stop the crying, we become
frustrated and even angry with the child. Children need adults
to stay with them and support them while they release their
pain instead of stopping them from crying. Interrupting the
crying interferes with the natural healing process.
wh~ and How Adults Stop Children tram

Healing Emotional Hurts
Because our parents did not have this information, most of us

grew up hearing, "There, there it's okay... don't cry. There's
nothing to cry about. Don't be a sissy. Big boys don't cry. Stop
that crying or I'll give you something to cry about!" If we grew
up hearing those responses to our feelings, we carry those
recordings and say the same phrases to our children when they
cry or get angry.
58
Young children learn to shut down the emotional healing

process when they get messages that it is not acceptable to
express their painful feelings. These ten different responses
close down children's emotional healing process:
• Invalidating - "There, there, there's nothing to cry about or

be afraid of."
• Shaming - "Don't cry. Be a big boy/girl. Don't be a sissy.

Don't be a baby."
• Threatening - 'TIl give you something to cry about!"
• Placating or fixing it - ''I'll get you a new one."
• Distraction - "Let's go get a cookie."
• Isolation - "Go to your room until you can stop crying."
• Ignoring - Unspoken or spoken, "I won't talk to you until

you stop crying."
• Outdoing - "You think that's bad, listen to what happened

to me."
• Guilting - "You have so much; you shouldn't be upset over

this."
• Humoring - Child falls on the pavement, "Did you hurt that

driveway?"
All of these responses give children a clear message: "Shut

down the expression and release of your painful feelings."
If you are reading this book with a book reader's group, pick a
partner and take turns telling what you recall being said when
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you were a young child and you were crying or angry. Take one
minute for your telling, and then listen for one minute to your
partner.
This is also important information to exchange with your

parenting partner. It will help you understand why each of you
responds the way you do to your children's crying and anger.
If you are not in a book group, make a journal entry that

describes what you recall being said when you cried or got
angry.
Most of us experienced some interference when we released

our painful feelings, and it was usually gender-specific. It was
somewhat acceptable for little girls to cry, but not to be angry.
It wasn't "nice" or lady-like to express anger. It was somewhat
acceptable for little boys to express anger, but not to cry, which
was considered being a sissy or a crybaby. As a result, many
grown women cry when they feel angry and many grown men
get angry when they feel hurt, because those were the only per-
mitted avenues of expression. Females get angry and males feel
grief. Feelings are not gender-specific.
Storing Emotional Hurts
We need the attention of another person while we release our

painful feelings. We need someone to listen to us. Children
know this. Have you seen a child fall on the playground and
then look around to see if anyone noticed? If no one
60
acknowledges seeing the fall, he probably won't cry. He knows

there is no one to listen. If someone does notice he fell, he may
cry and cry. When there is a big cry over a little hurt, the tears
are about more than this hurt.
• When emotional hurts occur and there is no one to listen, it

doesn't feel safe to release the painful feelings.
• Children (and adults) store unreleased hurts.
• We store the tears that we don't cry.
• When someone cries, the crying may be about more than

the current hurt.
• When someone listens, the current hurt triggers the release

of stored hurts.
• When we invalidate children's feelings, they learn to stop

trusting their feelings.
• We say, "Don't express your feelings." Children hear, "Don't

feel your feelings."
• We say, "I can't accept your feelings;" children hear, "1 can't
accept you."
Children desperately need us to accept them. Rather than risk

rejection for expressing their painful feelings, children learn to
stop expressing their feelings.
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Control Behaviors
Children learn to control the release of their feelings just as

they learn bladder control. When children learn that it is not
acceptable to release their bladders spontaneously in response
to them being full, they develop control over those muscles so
they can "hold it" until they make it to the appropriate place.
When children learn that it is not acceptable to release their
feelings, they develop the control to keep them inside.
In order to control the release of their feelings, children

develop control behaviors like nail biting, hair twirling, and
chewing on clothes, hair, and pencils. Young children have not
had the time to develop much control over releasing their feel-
ings. The smaller children are, the less capacity they have to
store hurts. Typically, as children get older, they gain more
control and have a greater capacity to store hurts.
However, some children release more often and more intense-

ly than others do. A sensitive child experiences hurts at a
deeper level than others do. His cup fills faster, and he needs to
empty it more often. Children who release hurts often, have
more hurts to release or simply may not be able to hold hurt
inside for long. If you have a child who tantrums frequently
and intensely you may have a "spirited" child.
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Emotional Satet~
Once children develop control behaviors, the only time they

release their feelings is when they feel safe or when they have
no more room inside to store them. Safety is the explanation
for why people say children act "worst" with their parents.
Whenever the safety is sufficient, the release of painful feelings
is spontaneous. Parents are usually their children's "safe" place.
Children frequently hold in their hurts when they are away

from their parents. Parents may hear glowing reports from
others about how their child behaved all day, only to have their
child erupt into a tantrum the moment they come home.
Safety is also the explanation for why children sometimes erupt

into a tantrum in response to having had lots of loving atten-
tion. When we spend time connecting with children, they feel
loved and safe. If there are hurts lurking inside, our loving
attention provides the safe place that triggers release.
Parents feel frustrated when they have spent time and attention
connecting with their child, and now the child is dredging up
old hurts that feel like criticism. Please remember that part of
connecting is creating the safety that allows children to release
and heal the stored hurts that get in the way of connecting.
Safety has the same affect on adults. Adults are experts at hold-
ing in painful feelings. There could be an accident, an illness or
a death, and we hold our feelings in until our safe person walks
though the door, and then we fall apart.
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Temper Tantrums
Having no more room to store hurt is the explanation for tem-

per tantrums. A temper tantrum is spillover. Imagine that
every child has a cup inside to store the unreleased hurts. The
cup fills with unreleased hurts. Then one more hurt happens,
and the child explodes with crying, anger, frustration, or rage.
Our efforts to reason, comfort, or to fIX are useless. We don't
know why the child is behaving this way, and we don't know
what to do. The hurt we did see didn't seem to warrant this
intense response. The tantrum is the release of the accumulat-
ed hurts we didn't see.
Tantrums push our buttons. We may feel anxious, angry, or

embarrassed. The child's release of painful feelings triggers the
pain of our unreleased hurts. Once their cup spills, children
lose control. Since we can't usually calm the child, it helps to
focus on keeping ourselves calm. Children depend on adults to
be their safety net. A child lost in a tantrum needs the adult to
stay calm and keep him from hurting anyone or anything while
the hurt empties out.
Crying and tantrums are not misbehaviors or manipulation;

they are healing behaviors. Tantrums appear to be manipula-
tion because the most common trigger for a tantrum is the
disappointment and feeling of loss a child experiences when
we say "No." The "no" is the last straw, the final drop that
unleashes the hurt. Children grieve the loss they experience
when we deny their request. If this "no" is the hurt that occurs
when there is no more room in the cup, the cup spills.
64
Whenever we say no to a child, either we can expect a little cry-

ing to grieve the disappointment or we can expect a tantrum.
There is a bright side to tantrums. Releasing the pain of emo-

tional hurt clears the way for emotional connection. Any
parent who has been with a child after a full-blown tantrum
has probably experienced the "rainbow after the storm." Once
the child releases the pain, the child's delightful, natural nature
returns. The child is usually calm, cheerful, affectionate, and
cooperative.
Looking tor a Limit
Have you ever heard the expression "cruising for a bruising"?

Do you ever have days when it feels like children are pushing
the limits 'and being demanding? When a child's stored hurts
cup is full, the child might push for the "No" that will be the
final hurt that spills the cup. The child is not cruising for a
bruising. The child is looking for a limit. You do yourself and
the child a service. if you set a limit. Trust and know that the
child will release the stored hurts and feel better when the cup
is emptied.
A Reason to Cr~
Making the change from interrupting the release of feelings to

supporting that release is a challenge. It is also an opportunity
to connect strongly with your child. The more we know about
supporting the emotional healing process, the better we listen
instead of interfering. It is easier to accept a child's release of
65
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feelings when we understand why a child feels hurt. It is more

difficult to listen when we don't know why the child feels hurt,
or we judge the hurt to be no reason to cry. There is no such
thing as "no reason to cry."
Summary points on why children cry:
• If someone is crying, there is a hurt.
• Because no one knows what it feels like to be inside another

person's body, we cannot make a judgment that another
person has no reason to cry.
• We may not know what is causing the painful feelings, but we

do know how to listen.
• It matters that we listen, not that we understand.
• When children hurt, they need to express and release their

feelings to heal the hurt.
Don't Take Release ot Hurts Personall!:;!
When children (and adults) hurt, they sometimes release the

hurt by speaking or behaving in hurtful ways. Their release
may be a verbal attack on the listener. It is not easy to listen
when we feel attacked. We listen better when we remember
feelings are not facts; and when we remember not to take the
release of feelings personally. When a child says, "I hate you!"
the child is using the most powerful word she knows to express
the intensity of her feelings. The child doesn't hate you; she
hates the pain she is feeling.
66
Acceptable Outlets tor Releasing Feelings
Feelings are not right or wrong. We accept all feelings . We do not

accept all behaviors. There are acceptable and unacceptable ways
of expressing feelings. We allow Billy to express his angry feel-
ings. We don't allow Billy to express his angry feelings by hitting
Tommy with a truck. When Billy is angry, adrenaline floods his
body. He hits, kicks, pushes, spits, bites, or throws because he
doesn't know what to do with that surge of energy.
Children need adults to provide acceptable outlets for their

adrenaline rather than shutting it down. We support children in
healing their emotional hurts when we help them redirect their
anger energy. The time to introduce acceptable outlets for anger
is before anger erupts. Providing clay to pound, newspaper to
rip, or a mad pillow to hit gives children acceptable ways to
express their anger.
Children also need to see adults model using acceptable outlets

to express anger. If an adult expresses anger by ripping newspa-
pers, then the children will imitate that behavior. If an adult
expresses anger by swearing and slamming the door, the child
will too.
In ~our Parenting Journal:
Write what you recall about how your parents

expressed anger. Describe how you express anger. Do
you ever express anger in the same ways your parents did?
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Pam Leo
A Hurt-filled Child
Sometimes children release their hurt or anger by hurting

another child. Children only hurt others when they are hurt-
ing. A hurtful child is a "hurt-filled" child. When we punish a
child for being hurtful, we hurt the already hurting child.
Punishment does not take away the hurt or teach the child not
to hurt others. Trying to change the hurtful behavior of an
aching child by punishing her is like pulling off only the top
part of a weed. If we don't get to the root, the hurtful behavior
pops up elsewhere. As long as the child carries the hurt, the
hurtful behavior will erupt again.
Time-out
Many children are sent to time-out when they hurt ,another

child. Time-out is a punishment. Sending a child to time-out
for hurting another child is like hitting pause on the VCR. The
hurtful behavior stops only during the pause. When the child
is allowed to play again, the hurtful behavior continues because
the hurt is not released. Forcing a child to go to time-out does-
n't work; moreover, it causes disconnection. Forced time-out is
coercion. Children don't stay in time-out because they want to.
They stay in time-out, if they stay, out of fear.
ConHicting Parenting Advice
Many parenting experts tell parents to use time-out to disci-

pline. Time-out is not discipline; it is punishment. While
68
time-out is less physically hurtful than corporal punishment, it

is still punishment. Time-out is emotionally hurtful and caus-
es disconnection. Advice that undermines connection weakens
the parent-child bond and is counter-productive to effective
parenting.
Time-In
When I learned how we heal from emotional hurts, and that

time-out teaches children to stuff their feelings, I knew I had to
find another response to children. I changed time-out to time-
in. A hurt-filled child needs safety. Time-in creates safety
through connection.
Practicing Time-In
After attending to the child who got hurt, connect with the
hurt-fllied child by asking her to sit with you. Create safety by
saying; "Can you tell me what is hurting you that made you
hurt your friend? I know you wouldn't hurt your friend unless
something was hurting you." Seeing the best in the child cre-
ates connection and safety. The child may not be able to tell
you about the hurt with words. The safety of connection allows
the child to release the hurt. The child releases either by crying
or by raging. Once the child releases the painful feelings and
heals the hurt, the hurtful behavior ceases.
Time-out Is tor Adults
There is a place for time-out. Time-out is to be taken, not
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Pam Leo
given. If a child's release of painful feelings triggers an adult's

stored hurt, and the adult becomes angry, the adult takes a
time-out. When adults take a time-out to calm down, children
learn to do the same.
Facilitating Emotional Healing b!) Intentionall!)

Creating Satet!)
No matter how many messages we give children that it is okay

to release their feelings, they get so many messages from the
rest of the world that it is not okay, that they will still store
hurts instead of releasing them. We proactively reduce temper
tantrums when we intentionally create safety at the time the
hurts occur.
Stored hurts not only build up to a tantrum; they block the

channel for connection. Intentionally creating safety allows the
child to release the painful feelings in the moment and con-
trolling and storing hurts is reduced.
Time-in is an example of intentionally creating safety. We sup-

port the natural healing process when we refrain from
interrupting the release of feelings. We facilitate the healing
process when we intentionally create safety by connecting. We
connect by acknowledging, validating, accepting, and listening
to feelings.
Practicing Facilitating Healing b!) Intentionall!)

Creating Satet!)
Acknowledge the feelings: "You feel really sad right now."
70
Validate the feelings: "It's really hard to say goodbye isn't it?"
Accept the feelings: "It's okay to cry."
Listen to the feelings: 'Til hold you and be with you while you
cry."
An emotional hurt is like a splinter. Facilitating emotional

healing is like taking out a splinter. When we get a splinter, the
finger hurts until the splinter comes out. Taking out a splinter
is not pleasant, but we don't leave splinters in because it's
unpleasant to take them out. Facilitating emotional healing is
not a pleasant job either, but we do it because the healing can't
happen until the splinter of emotional hurt comes out. Until
the hurt comes out, the love can't get in.
Cleaning House
You may encounter the backlog from the "black bog." A child
may cry about a pet that died three years ago. The backlog of
hurts in the black bog, at the bottom of the cup, surfaces when
we allow the release of feelings. It feels like you have created a
crying monster until the old hurts empty out. As the cup emp-
ties, the rate of release slows down, and we do not have to listen
to feelings so frequently.
when We Can't Listen
We won't always be able to listen. Sometimes we reach our limit

of being able to listen. When a child's release of painful feel-
ings, triggers our unhealed hurts, we can no longer listen
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because our attention shifts to our stored pain. We use our

control not to release our painful feelings on the child. Now is
the time to take a time-out and give the child a distraction.
Distraction doesn't give a child a negative message about

releasing feelings. We can say, "I need a time-out from listen-
ing. Do you need to keep crying or can you take a break from
crying and get a drink of water or look at some books?"
Distracting a child from completing the release only postpones
it. The hurt goes back into storage and comes out at another
time when triggered by another hurt.
Distraction doesn't always interrupt the release. If the child

can't stop, she will continue on her own. Meantime, take a deep
breath and distract yourself. A very young child will usually
follow you if you try to leave the room for your tim~-out. You
may have to sit down and disengage until either your upset
subsides or the child's does.
We may not always be able to listen for as long as they need, at

the time they need. We listen as often and as long as we can.
When we listen, we support children's emotional health and
healing, and clear the channel for connection.
What do we do with our stress and stored

emotional hurts?
We learned control behaviors when we were children. As

adults, we no longer have a cup to hold our accumulated hurts.
We have a lake of unshed tears and unhealed hurts. In order
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not to feel those painful feelings, we may numb out that emo-
tional pain with nicotine, alcohol, drugs, excessive eating,
excessive shopping, excessive television viewing, and excessive
working.
To be the loving parents we want to be, we need opportunities

to release our old hurts and current stresses. We can't connect
with children or listen to their feelings when our attention is on
our pain and stress. Our connection channel becomes blocked
with stress. Adults can provide stress release for each other by
taking turns listening to each other. When two adults have this
information, they can support each other through listening
sessions.
This is how listening sessions work. Each person gets the same
amount of time. Listening partners listen to each other without
giving advice, trying to ftx it, or asking questions. The adult
being heard gets to release painful feelings from current stress-
es and old hurts. When the agreed upon amount of time ends,
the listening partners switch roles.
Listening partners create safety for each other by agreeing to

conftdentiality. Each partner agrees not to repeat anything said
in the listening session without asking permission. Adults who
have regular opportunities to release emotional hurts and
stresses, feel happier, enjoy children more, and have increased
ability to listen to children's feelings .
Connecting through listening, to children's feelings is a chal-

lenging and rewarding part of loving and caring for children.
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Listening to children's feelings is vital to maintaining a strong

bond. Once we learn to acknowledge, validate, accept, and lis-
ten to children's feelings, parenting is forever different.
Responding to children's feelings with love and listening is one
of the most powerful ways we connect with children.
~ In ~our Parenting Journal
l~ Look at your parenting goals. How will listening

to your children's feelings support you in what you
want to give to your children?
Look at your parenting challenges list. How will listening ses-

sions with another adult support you in avoiding passing on
hurts?
The "Connecting through listening to children's 'feelings"

process is derived from the work of Patty Wipfler, founder of
The Parents Leadership Institute in Palo Alto, California, and
sixteen years of experience teaching my "Healing the Feeling
Child" workshop.
This chapter on clearing the way for connection through lis-

tening to children's feelings is only the beginning of what you
can learn about the value and process of listening to children
and adults.
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Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy

Kurcinka.
The Explosive Child by Ross Greene
Aletha Sol ter - The Aware Baby, Tears and

Tantrums, and How Young Children Flourish
www.awareparenting.com
Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D.

www.playfulparenting.com
Patty Wipfler's Parent Leadership Institute

workshops, booklets, tapes, and website are rich
resources for adults who want to become more
skilled at listening to children and other adults.
www.parentleaders.org
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chapter 4
Connecting Through Filling the
Love Cup
"How we treat the child, the child will treat the world. JJ
Human beings have a nutritional need for vitamin C and when

that need is not met, we cannot survive. For example, sailors
died from scurvy on long sea voyages because they didn't know
about a vital missing element in their diet. In 1747, a ship's
doctor, Jalnes Lind, discovered that something in citrus fruits
cured scurvy. Nearly fifty years later, in 1795, when the British
Royal Navy began supplementing the sailors' diet with a daily
ration of lime or lemon juice, sailors stopped dying of scurvy.
Human beings also have a biological and emotional need for

human connection. When that need is not met, we survive but
we do not thrive. Human beings have an incredible ability to
adapt to most living conditions that allow us to survive.
However, we do not thrive when we have to adapt to living
conditions that do not meet our biological and emotional
needs.
Children today have to adapt to living conditions that do not

meet their biological and emotional needs. A vital element is
missing in their living conditions. The sailors were unaware
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that they were missing a dietary element essential to their

health. As a culture we have been unaware that the essential
element, key to children's wellbeing, is missing for many chil-
dren in today's lifestyle.
The element missing in the sailors' living conditions was foods

containing vitamin C. The missing element in our children's
living conditions is also "C" - connection. Just as we have a
minimum daily requirement of vitamin C to survive, we have
a minimum daily requirement of human connection to thrive.
There is, and has been for decades, an abundance of well-

documented research confirming that a strong parent-child
connection is essential to optimal brain development.
Connection, and lack of adequate connection, affects children's
physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing.
Children's need for a strong parent-child connection used to be

met naturally by how we birthed and nurtured children and by
our lifestyle. Over time, changes in the way we birth and nurture
children, combined with today's hectic lifestyle, have compro-
mised drastically the strength of the parent-child connection.
Parents today have busier lives, less support from extended

family, and less time with their children than ever before.
Between work, childcare, school, lessons, and activities, many
parents and children are together for only a few waking hours
a day. Even when we are with our children, we are preoccupied
with daily life maintenance, the telephone, the television, the
computer, and the stress of trying to do more than we have
time to do.
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Just keeping a roof over their heads, food on the table, and
clothes on their backs (as our parents used to say) demands so
much of parents that there is little time or energy left for lov-
ing connection. The strength of the parent-child bond has not
been compromised by lack of love, it has been compromised by
our lifestyle. While Connection Parenting won't give you more
time, it will support you in spending the time you do have with
your children, in ways that meet their emotional need for
connection.
Children need at least one person in their life who thinks the
sun rises and sets on them, someone who delights in their exis-
tence and loves them unconditionally. In today's lifestyle,
having the time and attention to delight in our children is as
difficult as trying to stop and smell the roses while running a
marathon. However, if we knew that smelling the pleasant
aroma of the roses would spur us on to win the race, we would
pace ourselves to include rose- smelling time. Once we become
aware of children's biological and emotional needs, we can
learn to nurture them in ways that meet those needs.
Two of children's most important emotional needs are healthy

self-worth and healthy self-esteem. Children's self-worth is
their belief about their worthiness, what they believe about
how they deserve to be treated. Their self-esteem is their belief
about how capable, competent, and valued they are. Children
are not born with any beliefs about themselves. Children learn
what to believe about themselves from how we treat them.
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Children alwa,Ys believe the,Y deserve how

we treat them.
If we treat children lovingly, they believe they are lovable. If we
treat them badly, they believe they are bad. Children who are
not treated as worthy and valuable believe there is something
wrong with them. They believe "it is me" rather than there is
something wrong with the way they are being treated. How we
treat children determines whether they have healthy or
unhealthy self-worth and self-esteem.
There are two lasting bequests we can give our children:

One is roots; the other is wings. - Hodding Carter
Giving children "roots and wings"
The gift of roots is the gift of healthy self-worth. Healthy self-

worth is a core belief that one's needs matter and that one is
worthy of being treated with love and respect. We give children
the gift of roots and a strong bond by spending enough time
connecting with them to give them the message that they are
worthy of love. When we treat children lovingly, they learn to
love themselves and others.
The gift of wings is the gift of healthy self-esteem. Healthy self-

esteem is a core belief that one is capable, competent, and
valued by others. We give children the gift of wings by allowing
them to do what we do and providing opportunities for them
to become capable and feel valued. When we value children,
they learn to value themselves and others.
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The Roots at Health~ Selt-worth:
Filling the Love Cup
Just as children have a cup to store their unreleased hurts, they

have an emotional fuel tank or love cup. Children's love cup
holds their emotional fuel. Their emotional fuel is the atten-
tion, connection, and nurturing they receive from the people
they love.
Meeting children's emotional need for connection by filling

their love cup is as important as meeting their physical need for
food. Spending time filling a child's love cup is proactive par-
enting. Just as children get cranky when they get hungry, they
get cranky when their love cup gets low on emotional fuel.
Most difficult behaviors are either the release of emotional
pain - a hurts-cup spillover or a communication signaling lack
of connection - an empty love cup.
Filling the Love Cup with "High" Qualit~ Time
In today's culture, we talk about spending quality time with

children. We know that children need attention, but attention
is not the same as connection. We can pay attention to children
and still not connect with them emotionally. Children need
high quality time to meet their minimum daily requirement
for connection. We provide high quality time by engaging with
children.
Adults consider taking children to the playground spending

quality time with them. For children, quality is determined by
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"how" we spend time with them. Taking children to the play-

ground and watching them play is quality time because we are
giving them attention by watching and acknowledging their
gravity-defying feats on the monkey bars. Playing tag with chil-
dren at the playground is high quality time because we connect
by engaging in the activity witlt them. We give children atten -
tion by watching and acknowledging them. We provide
connection by engaging with them. Attention feels good, but
connection feels better. Children seeking attention are
requesting connection.
The single most important skill parents

can acquire is playing.
- Lawrence j. Coben author Playflll Parellli7lg
Filling the Love Cup with Pla~
Actively playing with children is the most powerful way we

connect and fill a child's love cup. The kind of play children
crave the most is the kind of play most parents do the least.
This is the physically active play of chase and capture, hide and
seek, piggybacks, pony rides, and the roughhouse wrestling
that makes children giggle and laugh and ask for more, more,
and more. This kind of play emotionally connects adults and
children and strengthens the bond.
Most parents actively play with babies. We patty-cake, peek-a-

boo, and bounce them on our knees. We sacrifice all dignity
doing silly things to make babies laugh. However, once they are
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bigger and can play by themselves or with other children, we

usually spend much less time actively playing with our chil-
dren.
There are some adults, often, but not always, dads, who seem to
excel naturally at this kind of physical play. However, few chil-
dren get as much as they need of this kind of play. Whether we
don't have the energy, are too distracted, too busy, or we just
never learned how, because no one played actively with us, we
usually aren't as playful as our children beg us to be.
Even if playing doesn't come naturally to us, we can learn how

to be more playful, and communicate our love for our children
in ways that strengthen our connection. Lawrence J. Cohen,
author of . one of my favorite parenting books, Playful
Parenting, says, "Unlike many personality changes we might
like to make, better playing skills can be pretty easily learned."
I can confirm that what he says is true. I have never been one
of those adults who excelled at physical play. I didn't get much
of that kind of playas a child, thus, I didn't initiate that kind of
play with my children or my grandchildren. Since reading
Cohen's book, to the delight of my grandchildren and their
friends, I'm getting good at playing, roughhousing, and
silliness.
For parents like me, for whom physically active play doesn't
come naturally, learning to play is work. The exciting aspect of
the work of learning to play is, the pay is priceless. The smiles,
giggles, laughter, affection, and connection that bubble up
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from a rollicking playtime can change our whole day, even our
whole relationship with a child.
Knowing first hand, the value of this kind of play, and hearing
the excited reports of parents' experiences with being more
playful, I now see playas one of the most important ways we
connect with our children. Play is the language of children. As
Cohen points out, children already know how to use play to
connect, to heal their hurts, and develop confidence. Physically
active play not only fIlls a child's need for attention; it fills the
need for touch and deep connection.
Children lose confidence when they feel powerless. They dis-

connect either by withdrawing or by trying to control things.
We help children regain their confidence when we play role
reversal games that put the child in the powerful role . Nothing
gives us a more accurate picture of how our children see us
than playing the "pretend the child is parent and the parent is
the child" game. Children delight in making us brush our teeth
and forbidding us to jump on the bed. The more we beg them
for what we want, the more they laugh.
Laughing together is a powerful way of connecting with each

other. Children delight in silliness and often use it to try to
connect when they need a refIll. Instead of thwarting silliness,
we can initiate it, or at least join in. We can usually turn the tide
of a power struggle by getting silly instead of bossy. When chil-
dren are giggling over our silliness, they are also reconnecting
and getting the refill they were requesting through the power-
struggle behavior.
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While the quality of the time we spend with children cannot

replace the quantity of time children need with us, we increase
the quality of connection when we actively engage with
children. Filling children's love cup with the eye contact,
physical touch, laughter, and connection that occurs during
play makes play the "high test" of emotional fuel.
Filling the Love Cup with One-On-One

Connection Time
We spend high quality time with children when we play togeth-

er on a family outing. One-on-one connection time is different
from high quality time. Connection time is time spent
connecting one-on-one and is essential to maintaining con-
nection in any close relationship. Just as couples need
alone-together time to maintain their connection, children
need one-on-one time with the people they love.
A weekly one-an-one date provides connection time to build a

strong bond. One mother shared that she turns the weekly gro-
cery shopping into one-an-one time by rotating whose turn it
is each week to help her shop and stopping for a special treat
on the way home. One dad shared that he spends one-an-one
time with his children by taking turns taking his children on a
date to, what he calls, "go out for coffee."
How we spend one-on-one connection time with each child

depends on the child's age and interests. The more time we
spend with a child, the more we know the child. The more we
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know a child, the better we become at spending connection

time in a way that fills her cup. One-on-one time may take
many different forms as long as it is time spent together that is
fun and fills the child's love cup with the feelings of being
noticed, accepted, and loved.
Many children refer to one-on-one time as "special time:'

While one-on-one time is special because it makes children feel
special, it is not an extra privilege to be given as a reward for
good behavior or to be withdrawn for unacceptable behavior.
Children need connection time as much as they need to eat
and sleep.
Making the commitment to spend one-on-one connection

time is an investment in your relationship with your child.
Connection Parenting Principles:
#1 We meet children's emotional needs best when we listen

enough to keep their hurts cup empty and connect enough
to keep their love cup full.
#2 Children who feel connected are happier, healthier, more

loving, and more cooperative.
#3 Uncooperative behavior is often a communication of the

unmet need 'for connection.
#4 The level of cooperation parents get from their children is

usually equal to the level of connection children feel with
their parents.
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#5 Spending one-on-one time with our children does not take

"extra" time.
#6 It takes the same amount of time and attention to meet

children's emotional needs as it does to deal with behaviors
caused by their unmet emotional needs.
#7 Either we spend time meeting children's emotional needs

by filling their love cup or we will spend time dealing with
behaviors caused by their unmet needs. Either way we
spend the time.
special Time
Children love it when we give their "special" time a special

name. Your child's name is special. My granddaughter and I
call our one-on-one special time "Maggie time." Giving con-
nection time a name gives children a new way to request
connection. Instead of communicating their need for connec-
tion through their behavior, they can "use their words."
Filling the Love Cup E:ver~ Da~
Most adults have close friends and family members with whom
they have a bond. No matter how long it has been since they've
seen each other, they can always pick up where they left off the
last time they were together. These bonds have formed over
many years of sharing experiences of closeness.
Unlike adult bonds, children's bonds are still forming. It's not
enough for children to know we love them. Children need to
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feel connected. If a young child doesn't see Grandma for six

months, no matter how close and connected they became dur-
ing their last visit, it usually takes some time to re-connect and
re-establish trust and closeness. Children need daily doses of
closeness and connection to build and maintain a secure bond.
Children are like re-chargeable batteries, and the people with

whom they bond are their re-chargers. The younger they are
the more often children need to connect with their parents. If
we observe toddlers, we see them play, explore, and frequently
return to check-in and connect with their parents for a quick
recharge. As children get older, they can go longer before they
need a connection re-charge but not too long.
Children use up their emotional fuel getting through the day.

The more stress children experience, the more emotional fuel
they use. Just as we feed children nutritious food every day, we
refill their love cup with emotional fuel every day. We would
never tell a child, "We don't have time to eat today but we will
eat all day on Saturday."
Weekly one-on-one connection time together builds the bond;

daily one-on-one time maintains the connection.
Making Time tor One-On-One

Connection Time
Somewhere I read that people need fifteen minutes of one-on-

one, human connection, each day to feel safe. Of course, this
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does not mean that children need to spend "only" fifteen min-
utes a day with their parents. It means that, in order to feel safe,
children need at least fifteen minutes a day of the time they
spend with their parents to be one-on-one connection time.
While fifteen minutes a day may be the ideal, spending even ten
minutes a day of one-on-one time with your child provides the
consistent connection children need to maintain a strong par-
ent-child bond.
In today's hectic lifestyle, we need to schedule one-on-one

connection time with the people we live with, and love the
most, if we are to meet our children's biological minimum
daily requirement of connection to build and maintain a
strong bond. Even ten minutes of one-on-one time a day, for
each child, is a challenge to accomplish on busy days. For
parents who have three children, that is a total of thirty
minutes a day.
Providing one-on-one connection time with each child

requires planning, communication, and flexibility.
Planning:
While one-on-one time doesn't take extra time, it does take

extra effort. With everyone in the family going in different
directions, weekly and daily one-on-one connection time isn't
likely to happen without planning how and when we are going
to have that time together.
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Since every family situation is unique, there is no one way to

make it happen. Some parents stagger the children's bedtimes
and spend one-on-one time with each child in the evening.
Some parents spend time with the older child while the
younger one is napping or they spend time with the younger
one before the older one gets home from school. Couples often
trade off so that each child can have one-on-one with each par-
ent. The more children you have, the more planning it requires
to make sure each child gets one-on-one connection time.
Communication:
Families with more than one child and single parent families
will need to enlist the support of others to make opportunities
for one-on-one time with each child. Communication is vital
to planning when and how we will arrange for the support to
create that time. It helps to look at the month ahead, the week
ahead, and sometimes even the day ahead, to find times that
will work for everyone.
Flexibilit~:
Planning would be simple if we could plan to do one-on-one

connection time with each child at a certain time each day.
However, even if we plan that certain time every day, unex-
pected events change our plans. While it is important to make
plans, we also have to be flexible about our plans. We may plan
to spend special time later in the day, only to find that a child
needs connection time in the morning. If we aren't able to do
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one-on-one time as planned, we don't give it up for the day like

a missed appointment; we reschedule.
Be flexible and try to find another window of time somewhere

else in the day. Create an opening for one-on-one time by hav-
ing fun together on the way to or from an errand or
appointment. We must plan for time together, and we must
become masters at seizing the day, the hour, and the moment.
Rituals are moments taken solely for the purpose

of connecting. - Bed" Bailey PIl.n.
filling the Love Cup with Rituals
Another way that we provide connection is through rituals. In

her book, I Love You Rituals, Becky Bailey teaches parents to
provide daily doses of closeness through creating connection
rituals. We can provide connecting moments to fill the love cup
by creating rituals for bedtime, wake up, mealtimes, hellos,
good-byes, baths, seasonal changes, birthdays, and holidays.
You probably already do connection rituals that you have never

called rituals. Singing together in the car, dancing around the
dining room after dinner, and making pancakes together on
Sunday morning are all rituals when we do them regularly. The
more rituals we create, the more we create opportunities for
connection.
By taking a few moments to notice a child, to touch a child in
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Pam Leo
a loving way, or to be silly instead of serious, we create

moments of closeness that ftll the love cup with connection.
When we say goodnight we can ask our children, "What made
you feel loved today?" If we are spending moments of one-on-
one connection time daily, they will be able to tell us at least
one thing.
Filling children's love cup gives them the gift of healthy self-
worth, which is really self-love. Self-love is vital to becoming a
loving human being. Many of us grew up being taught that it
was being conceited to think too highly of ourselves. We
weren't taught to love ourselves. Then, we grow up and we are
told that we can't possibly love anyone else until we learn to
love ourselves! We teach our children to love themselves by
loving them. We love them by noticing, accepting, and appre-
ciating them, and by spending time connecting with them.
The Wings ot Health~ Selt-esteem
Filling children's love cup with connection meets their

emotional need for healthy self-worth. To meet their emotion-
al need for healthy self-esteem we fill their love cup with
confidence. Parents do much for their children to let them
know they are loved. However, knowing they are loved is not
enough. Children need to feel valued. Children gain compe-
tence and confidence from what we do "with" them rather than
from what we do "for" them. When children work with us they
learn how to do for themselves and for others. When they can
do for themselves and make a contribution to others, they feel
competent and valued.
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There was a time when children's contributions helped the

family survive. Children's contributions to the family were val-
ued, and children were considered assets. This is no longer true
in our society. The work most parents do today does not
require the help of their children. In today's society, children
are considered liabilities because they hinder parents' availabil-
ity to work outside the home.
Children want, need, and can do meaningful work. Though

children usually cannot help their parents with their work out-
side the home, it is vital to children's self-esteem that we allow
and encourage children to participate in the work we do at
home. We reinstate children as assets to the family when we
provide opportunities for them to become capable and
valuable.
Children learn by doing. Learning to do new things takes time

and practice. Giving children opportunities to become capable,
competent and confident requires a willingness to give up per-
fect. It is quicker and easier to do it ourselves because we've had
lots of practice. Letting young children help takes time and
patience, but the more often we let children help, the sooner
they become capable of making a real contribution.
Children have a similar "Catch 22" that adults have. We can't

get a job if we have no experience, but we can't get experience
unless we can get a job. Adults don't let children do things
because they don't know how, and children don't know how
unless we let them do things.
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Pam Leo
Parents assign children chores to teach them responsibility.

Children resist doing their chores when chores are jobs that
children are sent to do by themselves. Children want to help,
but they also want to be with us and to do what we do. We get
a very different response to doing chores when we say, "Let's do
this job together."
Children love to help us make dinner, wash the car, plant the
garden, and rake the leaves. The chores that adults view as
work, children view as play. Adults are product-oriented. We
want to get the job done and get the result. Young children are
process-oriented. For them, process is everything. They are
thrilled to break the eggs and stir the batter, and may not even
care about eating the muffin once it is baked.
We can turn a chore into connection time by including

children in the process. When children need connection and
we need to make dinner, we meet everyone's needs by letting
them help make dinner. Letting children help is a double win-
win. We get dinner made and provide connection time all at
once. Children get the connection they need and an opportu-
nity to build confidence by becoming competent. Working
together builds healthy self-worth and self-esteem!
Allowing children to work with us is only one of the ways we

fill children's love cup with confidence and build healthy self-
esteem. Children are born with gifts. Some children are
naturally artistic, musical, athletic, or mechanical. Some chil-
dren love animals, books, bugs, or ballet. Children feel valued
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when we respond to their interests and gifts with encourage-

ment and provide opportunities for them to follow their
interests and develop their gifts. Filling children's love cup with
confidence gives them the wings of healthy self-esteem.
A child is not born a Gandhi or a Hitler. Children are born with

temperament, needs, gifts, and potential. How those unfold
depends on how we treat them. Both nature and nurture deter-
mine who children become.
In his book, Instead of Education, John Holt compared human

beings to bonsai trees. The seedling you bonsai, by clipping its
roots, wiring its branches, and depriving it of what it needs in
the early stage of its development, becomes a dwarfed minia-
ture of the .potential within that seedling. If that same seedling
is given what it needs, it grows straight and tall. Human beings
can also become dwarfed miniatures of their innate potential
when they are deprived of what they need in the early stages of
their development.
What people become under one set of circumstances

does not tell us very much about what they might have
become under another. - John Holt
The childhood experiences of Gandhi, the man of peace, and

Hitler, the man of war, were as opposite as the adults they
became. Little Mohandas Gandhi had a loving, strong bond
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Pam Leo
with both his parents. Little Adolf Hitler was severely abused.
They had completely different childhood experiences and role
models. Gandhi brought to the world the lessons of peace and
love he experienced and learned in his family. Hitler brought to
the world the violence and humiliation he experienced and
learned in his family. Who might little Adolf have become if he
had grown up in the Gandhi family?
Resiliency research shows that children who overcome an abu-

sive and/or neglectful childhood and become adults who do
well in their lives had at least one person who connected with
them. If those children had the potential to succeed in spite of
abuse, and un met needs, whom would they be if nurtured and
loved?
Let's raise children who won't have to

recover trom their childhood .
Children who have been loved and encouraged have healthier

self-worth and self-esteem than those who have not been well
treated. How well children cope with change, stress, loss, and
uncertainty depends on:
• How securely bonded they are
• What we teach them to believe about themselves
• How connected they feel
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• How much safety they are given to release and heal their
emotional hurts
• Their innate temperament and sensitivities
We nurture our children's resilience when we focus on their

strengths, spend enough time with them to stay connected, and
create safe spaces for them to work through their fears and feel-
ings. Children with healthy self-worth and self-esteem are
emotionally strong. We can't protect our children from the
inevitable stresses and losses that are part of living, but we can
help them build their boat strong enough to weather the
storms of life.
Until we can give our children a better world,

we' ll have to give our world more
resilient children.
We have the opportunity and responsibility to nurture and

protect our children's human potential. When we give children
the gifts of feeling loved and valued, they can use their roots
and wings to give their gifts to the world.
Filling the Love Cup
Tell your listening partner, or write in your parenting journal,

one experience when an adult spent one-on-one time with
you. How old were you? What were the circumstances? How
did you feel? Tell your listening partner, or write in your par-
enting journal, something you felt valued for in your family.
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Write a list of ways to spend one-on-one connection

time with each of your children.
Write a list of the rituals you already have and ideas for new
ones.
Write a list of home tasks that you can do with your children.
Write a list of ways to notice, encourage, and support your

children's interests and gifts.
~ Your Child's Self-esteem by Dorothy Corkhill Briggs
~ Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen
~ I Love You Rituals by Becky Bailey
(~ Nurture Your Child's Gift - Inspired Parenting by

~ Caron B. Goode
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chapter 5
Connecting through Communication
that Builds Relationship
"Please talk to me like I'm someone you love." -A parent
Every word we say to children affects their self-worth and self-

esteem. Our words either encourage children or discourage
them. How we talk and how we listen determines whether
communication leads to connection and cooperation or dis-
connection and conflict.
Children's motivation to cooperate comes from feeling

connected. Speaking respectfully and listening with love builds
connection. When children feel connected to us we have
influence. Speaking to children in disrespectful, unloving ways
breaks connection. When we break connection, we lose
influence. Without influence, we resort to coercion.
When connection is weak or broken and children are not coop-

erating, we feel frustrated or angry. We say the same things to
children that we heard as children. We don't intend to criticize,
blame, shame, threaten, or yell; but sometimes we do.
In his book, Predictive Parentin~ Shad Helmstetter says our

brains operate like tape recorders attached to computers. As
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children, we record and file every word we hear. Our files

become the programming that runs our behavior. As adults,
when our buttons get pushed, our old "tapes" automatically
play, and we act from our early programming.
When children are fighting and we intervene, the first words

we hear are "he/she started it." How often, when we have con-
flicts with our children, are we the ones who "started it" by
speaking in a disrespectful way or by not listening with love.
Speaking disrespectfully breaks communication by shutting

down children's listening. Being criticized, blamed, shamed,
threatened, or yelled at feels like an attack. When we feel
attacked, we disconnect and defend by fighting (resisting) or
fleeing (ignoring) . When children are defending, they have no
attention or motivation for listening.
It is our responsibilit~ to communicate in a wa~

that allows children to listen.
Children's words don't always express what they need or feel.

When we don't understand or respond to children's expression
of their needs, children react in one of two ways:
They express their needs more loudly
They suppress their needs by withdrawing
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We maintain connection with children when we listen for the

needs and feelings behind their words.
Listening with love is listening with empath~

and compassion
We listen with love to hear the needs and feelings behind chil-
dren's words. Listening with love means putting our needs and
feelings on hold so we can focus on the child. Instead of focus-
ing on how the child's behavior is making you feel, you focus
on how the child feels.
Listening with love examples:
"When I hear you say (or see you do) hurtful things, that tells
me something is hurting you. Can you tell me about what is
hurting you?"
"It sounds like you feel ... " (angry, sad, disappointed,
frustrated, embarrassed)
The way we talk and listen to children comes from the old
programming we received as children or from new communi-
cation skills we acquire as adults.
Communicating respectfully does not mean we are never sup-

posed to feel or express frustration or anger. It means learning
to express our upset feelings in a respectful way.
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We can:
• Replace our programming with new communication skills
• Express our needs and feelings in a respectful way
• Listen with love to maintain connection
• Provide children with a model of communication that builds

relationship
Replacing old Tapes with New

Communications Skills
Remember: No beating ourselves up for what we didn't know

OR our programming!
Sa~ing, "Don't"
If we heard "don't" many times a day as children, we have

"don't" tapes. "Don't jump on the bed. Don't hit your sister.
Don't touch the stove." We are programmed to tell children
what we don't want them to do, which is counterproductive to
cooperation and connection.
Telling children what we don't want them to do doesn't teach

them what we want them to do. Children cooperate more read-
ily when we tell them what we expect. Giving information gives
them the opportunity to tell themselves what to do.
Children's brains record every word we say to them. Every time

we say, "Don't;' children's brains record what we don't want
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them to do. The word don't gets their attention, but what they
record is, "Jump on the bed. Hit your sister. Touch the stove."
"Don't" feels like an order and a criticism. Orders undermine

children's self-worth by making them feel that their needs and
feelings don't matter. Criticism erodes children's self-esteem by
making them feel incapable. Orders and criticisms break con-
nection and invite power struggles.
New Skills:
We maintain connection and reduce power struggles by

respectfully telling children what we do want them to do.
Example:
Instead of" Don't hit your sister."
Give information: "Hitting hurts. You may not hit your sister.'
State your feelings: "I feel upset when I see someone I love
hurting someone I love."
State your need: "I need all of us to feel safe."
Listen with love: "I know you must be upset too because the
only time you are hurtful to others is when something is hurt-
ing you. I'm willing to listen to your feelings."
Make a request: "Are you willing to work together to find a safe

way to tell your sister how you feel?"
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If the child says no, we need to do more listening. The child will
be able to reconnect when all the hurt is released.
Parents in my classes are amazed when they realize how often

they say "don't" and how challenging it is to stop saying don't.
We cannot think clearly when our buttons have been pushed.
When a child is doing something that is upsetting to us it is
quicker and easier to say, "Don't do that" than to think of what
we do want the child to do.
Sometimes we must protect children from their lack of infor-

mation, experience, or control. When you must respond
quickly, try using another word. "Stop! "Danger!" "Hot!"
"Sharp!"
We may never eliminate saying, "don't;' but we can reduce our

use of it. When you catch yourself saying, "Don't;' follow it by
telling children what you do want them to do.
Yelling
Sometimes, even the most loving parents, yell at their children.

Some parents yell because they were programmed to yell by
being yelled at frequently as children. Others yell only when
they get really frustrated or angry. Yelling hurts children's
feelings, self-worth, and self-esteem, and it instantly breaks
connection.
Yelling frightens children. Being yelled at is an attack and it
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triggers the fight or flight response. Some children defend by

fighting - yelling back at us. Some children defend by fleeing -
trying to escape either physically or emotionally.
Unless we are yelling, "Dinner is ready:' yelling is either inten-

tional intimidation to frighten a child into doing what the
adult wants or the unintentional release of frustration or anger.
Children learn to communicate by imitating the way we com-

municate. Intentionally yelling at children to get them to do
what we want is bullying. It teaches children to yell at people to
get them to do what they want. Unintentionally yelling at
children is the loss of control. It teaches children that yelling at
people is an acceptable way of dealing with frustration.
While yelling is challenging programming to change, there is a

simple way to interrupt yelling and reduce the emotional
damage yelling causes.
New skills:
Tell your children that you are working on not yelling and ask
for their help. Give your children permission to interrupt your
yelling. Tell them they can remind you to stop yelling by cover-
ing their ears as a non-verbal reminder or by saying either,
"You are yelling at me and it hurts my feelings," or "Please talk
to me like I'm someone you love." Respond to the reminder
with rewind, repair, and replay.
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Example:
Rewind: "Thank you for reminding me, I forgot or I got

frustrated."
Repair: ''I'm sorry; you didn't deserve to be yelled at. What you
did was not okay but yelling at you is not okay either."
Replay: "Let's start over. I feel frustrated because I need ... "
Giving children permission to remind us not to yell:
• Empowers children to defend themselves from yelling

without having to fight or flee
• Protects their self-worth by letting them know they

don't deserve to be yelled at
• Builds connection by showing regard for their needs

and feelings
Giving Orders
If we grew up being ordered instead of asked, we have "giving

orders" tapes. Giving orders is disrespectful. It breaks connec-
tion by communicating disregard for a child's needs and
feelings.
New skills:
We maintain connection and foster cooperation when we give

invitations - "Let's", and by using transition information
phrases - "It's time to" - "as soon as" - "when we finish ... ".
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Example:
Instead of "Go brush your teeth."
Invitation: "Let's go brush our teeth."
Transition information: "It's time for teeth brushing." "As soon

as teeth brushing is done, it will be story time." "When we
finish our snack it will be time for teeth brushing."
When invitations and transition information don't result in

cooperation, there is a disconnection or a non-relationship
cause for the behavior.
Warnings
We are programmed to remind children to be safe by telling

them to be careful. Being careful is different in every situation.
Saying "Be careful" is like saying "Don't. It doesn't teach them
how to be careful. By the time children are older they have
heard be careful so many times they resent the implication that
they don't know what to do. They respond to the reminder
with "I know, I know! I'm not stupid."
New skills
We keep children safer by giving information than by giving

warnings. Young children need to learn how to be careful.
Example: "Hold onto the railing. Take small, slow steps. Use
both hands"
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As children get older and we have already taught them how to

be safe, instead of saying, "Be careful:' we ask them to tell us
how they are going to be safe.
Example:
"Tell me how you will stay safe riding your bike to the store."
Asking older children to tell us how they will stay safe is a win-
win. When we ask children to tell us how they will be safe they
feel less annoyed than when we say, "Be careful." We still meet
our need to remind them to be safe because, by them telling us
how they will be safe, they remind themselves.
Other Communication Programming that

Breaks Connection:
Lecturing, being sarcastic, accusing, blaming,

shaming, criticizing, name-calling, and teasing
The above communication styles not only break connection,

they also damage self-esteem and self worth. We interrupt
those connection-breaking programs the same way we inter-
rupt yelling.
Ask children to help you stop speaking in those ways by giving

them permission to remind you to stop, by covering their ears,
or by saying, "Your words are hurting my feelings or please talk
to me like I'm someone you love." Respond to the child's
reminder with rewind, repair, and replay.
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Example:
Rewind: "Thank you for reminding me. I got upset and for-
got."
Repair: ''l'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You

don't deserve to be spoken to that way."
Replay: "I don't like what you did, but I always love you. I want
to start over."
The most effective way I know, of speaking respectfully and

to listen with love, I learned from the Nonviolent
Communication SM (NVC) Process, developed and taught by
Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D.
The speaking process uses "I" messages to describe what you

are experiencing.
Observation: "When I see ... "
State what you see without interpretation or judgment.
Feelings: "I feel. .. "
State your feelings rather than your thoughts.
Needs: " ... because I need."
State your need or a value rather than a preference or a

specific action.
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Requests: "Would you be willing to ... ?"
State a concrete action you would request to be taken rather

than make a demand.
Example of using this process to maintain connection:
Observation: "When 1 see toys all over the living room ... "
Feelings: "I feel frustrated ... "
Needs: "Because I need help keeping the house in order."
Request: "Would you be willing to pick them up now?"
If the answer is no, there is disconnection (or another behav-

ioral cause) because when children feel connected they care
about our needs and feelings. We reconnect through listening
with love.
Speaking in "I" statements allows the listener

to listen instead ot detend.
The listening process uses "You" messages to describe your

understanding of the other person's experience.
Observation: "When you see .. ."
Feelings: "You feel ... "
Needs: "Because you need ... "
Requests: "You would like ... ?"
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Example of using this process to maintain connection by

listening with love:
Observation: "When you hear me asking you to pick up your

toys again."
Feelings: "You feel annoyed?"
Needs: "Because you need to do something, else right now?"
Requests: "Would you like me to ask you when you will be

ready to pick up the toys?"
Listening through "You" statements allows you to check your

understanding of the other person's experience. It allows the
other person ,to feel understood or to correct your understanding.
Learning to speak and listen in these loving, respectful ways

takes time, effort, and practice. The extra time we spend now,
learning to maintain connection by communicating respect-
fully, we save later in the extra time we won't spend
reconnecting with rewind, repair, and replay.
In carpentry, there is a guideline for saving time and work:

Measure twice, cut once. In Connection Parenting, the guide-
line for saving time and work is: Think twice, speak once. It is
less work and takes less time to stop and think before we speak.
Otherwise, you do the reconnection work every time you break
connection by speaking, without stopping to think about how
to communicate respectfully.
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Communication skills that Build Connection ,

selt-worth, and selt-esteem
Listening with ~our e~es as well as with

~our heart:
Imagine how it feels to be three and always talking to an adult's

knees. When speaking to children it is respectful to position
your body to be on eye level with the child. Eye contact let's
children know we are listening.
Sa~ing~es instead ot no as otten as possible:
Other than "Mama" or "Dada," most children's first word is

"No" because they hear it the most. Children grow up hearing
far more of what they can't do than what they can do. Children
with healthy self-esteem have a "can do" attitude. We support a
can do attitude toward life when we support children in look-
ing for what they can do.
When children are doing something we don't want them to do,

we can tell them what they can do. If children make a request
that we can't honor at the moment, if we stop and think before
we say no, we can tell them when they can do, what they can't
do now.
Example:
Instead of saying no when toddlers reach for the forbidden,
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pick up something they can touch and say, "Here, this is for
you."
Instead of saying no when a child asks for a cookie, say, "Yes,

you may have one after dinner."
Instead of saying no when a teenager asks to attend a party, say

"Yes, if you can satisfy all my concerns."
Giving choices:
There are many circumstances in children's lives over which

they have no control or choice. Children need some power and
control over their life. We empower children and avoid power
struggles when we offer choices. Choices need to be in keeping
with the child's age and the information and experience they
have to make choices.
Examples:
"Do you want the red cup or the blue one? Do you want eggs
or cereal? Do you want to go to the playground or have a friend
over today?"
Asking children what they want for dinner or what they want
to do is frustrating to them. That is too many choices.
Even when there is no choice about what to do, there is usual-

lya choice about how to do it.
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Example:
"The doctor says you need to take this medicine to get well.
Not taking the medicine is not a choice. Do you want to take it
in a spoon or in some applesauce? Do you want to take it now
or in five minutes? Do you want to take it in the kitchen or in
the bathroom?"
In these situations, the more choices we offer, the less power-

less a child feels.
If choices don't result in cooperation we need to keep stating

the necessary action and keep listening to the feelings until we
reach connection.
There are situations over which there is no choice.
Example:
"You may not play in the street. Playing in the street in danger-
ous. It's my job to keep you safe. Do you want play in the yard
or in the house?"
If children refuse to choose, we need to continue to set the limit

and listen to their feelings. Once they have emptied out their
upset, they can think well again and make a choice.
Telling children what ~ou need instead at

telling them what the~ need
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Some adults avoid giving orders by telling children, "You need

to ... "
The truth is the adult needs the child to ... It is more accurate
and more respectful to say, "I need you to get your shoes on so
we can go."
eliminating sa~ing "Oka~)) when we are not

ofFering a choice
Some adults try to soften orders or make sure the child heard
the order by following the order wit\;} saying, "Okay?" Children
are completely literal about language. Children hear the
question "Okay?" as a choice and feel confused if we get upset
if they say no.
Describing behavior instead otjudging b~

criticizing or praising
Most of us grew up hearing "good girl or boy" or "bad girl or

boy" depending on whether our behavior pleased or displeased
adults. Judging children as bad or good sends the message that
they are worthy of love only when they please us. Children
need to know that they are always worthy of love, even when
they make mistakes, lose control, or don't please us.
When we criticize or show our disapproval of children's behav-

ior by saying "bad boy" or "bad girl;' children hear and believe
that they are bad instead of that their behavior was unaccept-
able. Telling children they are bad, doesn't teach them how to
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behave in a better way or motivate them to want to.
Saying, "Good boy" or "Good girl" is also a judgment of the

child rather than the child's accomplishment. Even though
praise communicates approval, approval is judgment. Children
need appreciation and encouragement rather than praise and
approval. Approval is not appreciation or encouragement.
The old theory about human behavior told us that praising

children builds self-esteem. In addition, old theory said that if
we use positive reinforcement, by praising their "good" behav-
ior, our approval would encourage them to repeat that
behavior. New research shows that praise and approval does
not build self-worth and self-esteem or motivate children to do
better. Children need appreciation and encouragement.
Children have a great need for connection, attention, appreci-

ation, acceptance, and encouragement to feel good about
themselves. If adults don't have influence with children
through connection, they resort to threats or positive rein-
forcement to control children's behavior. Positive
reinforcement sounds nicer than threats but both are manipu-
lation. Threats manipulate children into complying out of
their fear of punishment. Positive reinforcement manipulates
children into doing what we want by taking advantage of their
need for our love and acceptance.
Saying, "It makes me so happy when you share;' sounds like

encouragement to be generous, but it is actually manipulation.
Children become motivated to share, not out of wanting to
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give to the other child, but out of their need for attention and
approval from the adult. Praise teaches children to feel good
about themselves only when they please others.
Controlling children's behavior through manipulation when

they are young backfires when they are older. If children only
feel good about themselves when they please others, they are
more vulnerable to peer pressure. When pleasing their friends
is more important to them than feeling pleased with them-
selves, they will choose to please their friends.
Other than attempts at positive reinforcement, praise is intend-

ed to show love and appreciation. Saying "Good girl" or "Good
boy, "isn't bad, but it isn't encouragement. We can do better
than that for our children.
We encourage children to feel pleased with themselves by

appreciating them instead of evaluating them. We show appre-
ciation by noticing them and describing what they are doing or
have done. When your programming wants to encourage by
saying, "Good boy' or "Good girl," encourage by noticing,
appreciating, and describing instead.
Examples of encouraging by noticing, appreciating, and

describing:
We say, "You picked up your toys. Thank you for the help!"
Child hears: I am helpful.
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We say, "You left your mudd y boots outside. Thank you for
remembering."
Child hears: I have a good memory.
We say, "You made it to the potty, you did it!"
Child hears: I'm big. I'm capable.
We say, "You swam all the way across the poo!!"
Child hears: I'm a good swimmer.
We say, "You put every piece of silverware in its own place.

Thank you for organizing th em."
Child hears: I'm organized.
We say, "You picked some flowers for me. Thank you for your
thoughtfulness."
Child hears: I am thoughtful.
We say, "You put gas in the car before you brought it back.
Thanks for taking responsibility for that."
Teen hears: I am responsible.
When we notice, describe, and appreciate what children do,

they feel pleased with themselves.
Our saying "Good" is as challenging to change as our saying

"Don't." While we are practicing becoming more fluent in
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noticing, appreciating, and describing, if "Good" is already out

of your mouth before you can catch it say, "Good for you!"
then notice, describe and appreciate.
Interrupting our old "tapes," and learning respectful speaking

and listening skills are essential to parenting through connec-
tion instead of coercion. Learning new communication skills is
the simple, though not easy, part. The hard part is overriding
our old programming when our buttons get pushed. It is chal-
lenging not to fall back into disrespectful ways of speaking and
listening that cause disconnection. That's why we need rewind,
repair, and replay.
The way we talk to children will be the way they talk to us and
to others. More importantly, it will be the way they talk to
themselves.
Practicing Connection Communication
6IjJ In ~our Parenting Journal,
1.fJ List the daily conflicts you have with you, children.
Then ask yourself, at those times of conflict when
my children resist or ignore, am I either "playing my tapes"
(speaking without thinking) or not listening with love?
Once we are aware of our part in creating conflict, we can over-

ride our old programming and use new communication skills
to change the way we speak and listen.
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Pam Leo
As we change our behavior) children change

their behavior.
Raising Our Children Raising Ourselves

by Naomi Aldort
Parenting From Your Heart-A presentation of

Nonviolent Communication ideas and their use
by Inbal Kashtan
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids

Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
Predictive Parenting by Shad Helmstetter
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chapter 6
Connecting through the Discipline ot
Decoding Children's Behavior
We can 't teach children to behave better by making

them feel worse.
When children feel better, they behave better.
As new parents we hear, "Enjoy your children while they are

little." Yet, how much time do we spend enjoying our children?
Many parents spend much of the day struggling with their
children. How has this come to be? What makes parenting
today more often a struggle than a joy?
Many people say, "Kids today are different, I would never have
behaved that way as a child." Parents today are confronted with
child behaviors that their grandparents didn't experience in
raising their children. When our children's behavior drives us
crazy, we need to look at our behavior:
• How much connection time have we spent with

our children?
• How busy are we?
• How stressed are we?
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When we are enjoying our children, we are spending time con-

necting with them. We aren't rushing them from one place to
another. We aren't anxious, stretched too thin, and circling in
busyness.
Children's behavior is different today because childhood is dif-

ferent today. Parents' lives are busier and more stressful than
our grandparents' lives. We do more, go to more places, and
expect children to keep the same pace. Children now go to day
care, preschool, school, athletic games, lessons, and appoint-
ments. They often spend as much time, if not more, getting to
and from these activities, as they do participating in the activ-
ity.
Children need connection time with their parents, time for

unstructured play, and time to "just be." Kids don't .get much
of that today. Children are frequently in transition from one
place to another. Most children today spend less time in their
home, with their family, than children ever have.
Parents tell me that transitions are the times of the most con-
flict with their children. Getting them out the door in the
morning and into bed at night is often a struggle. It seems that
what we enjoy about children also drives us crazy about them.
Children live in the now. Their attention is completely on what
they need, feel, or are doing, right now.
We are not in the now when we are rushing to "get out the
door" or trying to get them into bed. We are thinking about
where we are going next and what we have to do next. We are
focused on our agenda.
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When children need time to connect with us, or they need time
to "just be:' they know that getting out the door, or going to
bed means those needs won't get met. To children, transition
often means sacrificing their needs to meet our needs and they
naturally resist. When children resist our agenda, we see their
behaviors as problems.
The reason parents, caregivers, and teachers most often state

for attending my parenting workshops is that they want better
tools for dealing with children's problem behaviors.
Natural logic forbids belief in the evolution ofa species

with the characteristic ofdriving its parents to
distraction by the millions.
- jean LeidlojJauthor ofTbe Contintltlm Concept
As our lifestyle and our way of birthing and nurturing children

changed, the connection between parents and children began
to erode. This loss of connection affected children's behavior.
Children act out their unmet need for connection through
behaviors that push our buttons.
It is hard to remember to use loving, respectful communica-

tion when children's behavior pushes our buttons.
What problem behaviors push your buttons?
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Pam Leo
6Jjj In ~our Parenting Journal:
~ Make a list of child"n's behaviors that push yo",

\__ buttons.
In my workshops, participants create a group list of "button

pushing" behaviors. Some behaviors that frequent their list:
Temper tantrums - whining - not listening - hitting - talking

back - not cooperating - teasing - bullying - refusing to share
- fighting with siblings - refusing to get dressed - refusing to
brush their teeth - arguing - calling names - hurting others
Why are children behaving in these ways?
Children want to do well. Children want, need, and deserve to

feel accepted, liked, loved, valued, and appreciated by their par-
ents, family, friends, caregivers, teachers, classmates, and
community. My experience of children is that when children's
needs are met and nothing is hurting, they are happy, and their
behavior is not a problem. When they are not doing well, their
acting out behavior is a request for our help.
Human beings communicate in many ways. Besides using

words, we communicate with our eyes, facial expressions, ges-
tures, body language, and behavior. Because adults most often
communicate verbally, we tell children, "use your words." Even
when children have language, they cannot always identify and
articulate their needs. When children cannot use their words,
they communicate their needs by acting them out with their
behavior, thus "acting out" behavior.
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... all our behavior is our constant attempt to reduce

the difference between what we want
(the pictures in our head) and what we have
(the way we see situations in the world)
- lVilliam Glasser, M.D. author Control Tbeory - A New
Explanation of How We Control Our Lives
5ehavior as a communication ot need
Behavior is need-driven. We do what we do to get our needs

met. Children depend on adults to meet their physical and
emotional needs. When children have an unmet need, they feel
discomfort. Because they cannot meet their own need, they
must get our attention and communicate their needs, so we
can help them.
Babies cry because they are in pain or to attract our attention

to their needs. Parents of infants learn the difference between
a cry of need and a cry of pain. However, babies give subtle
cues that they have a need before they cry, such as squirming
and wriggling. They cry when the need becomes painful.
When we have a strong connection with children, we are more

likely to notice their early, subtle cues of need, before need
escalates to pain. The less connected we are, the less likely we
will notice children's cues. If we don't respond to children's
cues, they have to become more emphatic in communicating
their needs to attract our attention.
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Pam Leo
For example, a baby starts squirming and rooting when he feels

the discomfort of hunger. If the mother is holding her baby, she
notices the squirming and responds to the baby's communica-
tion of hunger. If the baby is alone in a crib and the mother
cannot see and respond to the visual cues of the baby's need,
the discomfort escalates to the pain of hunger. The baby cries
from the pain and to attract mother's attention to his need.
A baby's cry is a communication designed to bother us and

move us to action to meet the baby's needs. In the same light,
children's needy behaviors, by design, are supposed to bother
us, and move us to action to meet the child's needs.
Escalation from need to pain happens, even when children

have language, if the parents do not respond to the early com-
munications.
For example, a child very pleasantly says, "Mom, I'm hungry,

when are we having lunch?" Mom is busy writing and says," I'll
just finish this paragraph and then I'll make us some lunch."
Mom gets caught up in her creativity and doesn't leave her
work to make lunch. The child comes back ten minutes later
and finds no lunch ready and mom still at the computer. The
child communicates her need more emphatically by scream-
ing, "I'm hungry! You said you would make lunch, and you are
still at the computer!"
Now the child has Mom's attention. Mom reluctantly leaves the
computer, starts making the lunch, and the phone rings. The
child comes into the kitchen, sees Mom on the phone, and
126
melts down in a temper tantrum. Mom has to hang up the

phone, embarrassed because she can't hear over the tantrum.
Mom, frustrated by her unmet needs and the child's behavior,
now has to deal with the temper tantrum.
Is the child having a tantrum because she is a "bad" child? No.

Is the mom intentionally ignoring her child's needs and being
a "bad" mother? No.
They were both just trying to get their needs met.
Power Struggles
Children need love most when they appear to

deserve it least.
Children resort to communicating through unloving, uncoop-

erative behaviors when they have unmet needs. Those
behaviors trigger our old hurts of feeling unnoticed, unaccept-
ed, unappreciated, or unloved. When children's behaviors
push our buttons, we lock into an emotional power struggle
with the child. Each of us is struggling to be the one to get our
needs met.
A power struggle is two people tr~ing to get

their needs met without connection.
In his Nonviolent Communication SM work, Marshall B.

Rosenberg, Ph.D., uses the terms "power-over" and "power-
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with." His terms accurately describe the difference between dis-

connection and connection. A strong connection between two
people means they have influence or power "with" each other
because each has a high regard for the needs and feelings of the
other.
When there is a weak connection or disconnection between

two people, there is no high regard for each other's needs and
feelings. Without that high regard, we have no influence or
power "with" the other person. Without influence, we resort to
power "over" the other person to get what we need.
W'hen you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.

- Bob Dylan
Connection means we trust that others will help us get what we

need. Trust translates into cooperation, and people work
together so they both get what they need. Without connection,
we are alone. We cannot depend on anyone else to help us get
what we need. We have to meet our needs without regard for
anyone else's needs. No trust translates into conflict.
Decoding behavior means looking tor the

intention behind the action.
To maintain connection by honoring children's needs and feel-

ings, we learn to decode the language of behavior.
128
We already have experience in decoding behavior, especially if

we have a dog. When a dog goes to the door, we decode that
behavior, and let the dog out. If we do not understand what the
dog's behavior means, and we don't let the dog out, the dog
finally resorts to going on the floor instead of outdoors. Not
understanding the dog's communication of need did not take
away the dog's need.
The dog's unacceptable behavior was unmet need behavior,

not bad dog behavior. When children are "acting out" to com-
municate a need, it is not bad child behavior. Rather it is often
an unmet need behavior.
When we change our thinking about behavior, we change our

language, too. Acting out behavior, misbehavior, or naughty
behavior is often "needy" behavior. It is our job as adults to
meet children's needs and teach them acceptable ways of com-
municating their need, until they are old enough to meet their
own needs.
It is also our job to teach children acceptable behavior. Most

adults were programmed to teach children acceptable behavior
through punishing them for their unacceptable behavior. The
approach that adults use to teach acceptable behavior depends
on either our old programming or new information and skills.
Corporal Punishment as Discipline
Most of our parents believed that as long as hitting did no

permanent physical damage, then physical punishment would
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"teach us a lesson." Hitting children has been accepted as a

form of discipline in our society for so long that some parents
cannot imagine that it is possible to discipline children without
hitting them. It is not only is possible to teach children accept-
able behavior without hitting them, it is impossible to teach
children acceptable behavior by hitting them.
Parents intend to teach their children to be courteous, respect-

ful, responsible, kind, and loving. Children learn from what we
model. Hitting is not courteous, respectful, responsible, kind,
or loving. Hitting is violence. When we model violence, we
teach violence. The only"lessons" hitting can teach children are
to hit and to fear and distrust those who hit them.
It is not nice to hit people; children

are people. .
Dr. Daniel F. Whiteside, former Assistant Surgeon General,

reported, "Corporal punishment of children actually interferes .
with the process of learning and with their optimal develop-
ment as socially responsible adults. We feel that it is important
for public health workers, teachers, and others concerned for
the emotional and physical health of children and youth to
support the adoption of alternative methods for the achieve-
ment of self-control and responsible behavior in children and
adolescents."
Hitting children hurts their bodies, hearts, and minds. Instead

of sending the message that their behavior was bad, being hit
130
causes children to believe that they are bad. Research shows

that hitting children diminishes their self-esteem. There is even
evidence from a British study that children who are hit may be
less able to learn because physical punishments reduce chil-
dren's IQ.
Despite all the research, which shows that hitting children fails
to teach them acceptable behavior and damages them emo-
tionally, intellectually, and physically, many children are still
being hit in the name of discipline.
When I ask parents why they hit children to "discipline" them,

I found three common answers.
• "I was hit when I was a kid, and it didn't hurt me any. It's the
only way' to make kids mind."
• "Until now, I didn't know there was anything wrong with hit-
ting my kids. My parents hit me when I was bad, and I just
thought that's how you discipline your kids."
• "I know it's not good to hit my kids, but sometimes I get
angry and frustrated and I don't know what else to do."
Not all adults who were hit as children grow up to be hitters.

However, most adults who hit, were hit or witnessed hitting
when they were children. Adults who were hit as children say
that they remember being hit, but they don't remember why.
This is more evidence that hitting fails as a form of discipline.
Being hit activates the fight or flight response in human beings.
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Pam Leo
When someone hits us, our rational thinking shuts down. All
we can think about is protecting ourselves by hitting back or
running away. If we cannot think about why, or even which
behavior was wrong, neither can we learn the right thing to do.
We cannot teach children acceptable behavior by hitting them.
Spanking is a euphemism for violence.
• When a big kid hits a little kid , we call it bullying.
• When an adult hits a child, we call it spanking.
• When an adult hits another adult, we call it assault.
• When the adults in a family hit each other we call it

battering or domestic violence.
Why then, when the adults hit the children in the family, do we
call it discipline? No matter what name we give it, a swat, a slap,
a tap, or a spanking, corporal punishment is not discipline; it is
violence.
Hitting breaks connection and trust.
Non-corporal Punishment as Discipline
Many adults who refrain from using corporal punishment use

the punishments of loss of privileges, being grounded, timeout,
and threats as discipline. The theory behind the use of punish-
ment as discipline is that, if the punishment is painful or
unpleasant enough, it will "teach" the child acceptable behavior
132
by making the child fear future punishment for repeating the

unacceptable behavior.
Punishing children does not teach them the intended lesson of

acceptable behavior. Punishment teaches children to be sneaky,
to lie, and to avoid being caught. The reality of punishment is
that it is about controlling children's behavior through the use of
fear. When we punish children, we model bullying. By our exam-
ple, we teach children to get what they need by controlling other
people through the use of fear.
We have only to look at the rate of repeat offenders in prison to

see that punishment does not work to deter people from repeat-
ing unacceptable behavior. Punishment causes children to think
more about the wrong that was done to them than the wrong
they did. Punishment undermines children's natural desire to
behave in ways that bring them love and acceptance. Using any
kind of punishment as discipline breaks connection and trust.
True Parental Discipline
Most of the time, when people say discipline they mean punish-
ment. Although we use the words punishment and discipline
interchangeably, as if they have the same meaning, they are
different. Punishment is defined in the dictionary as "arbitrary
harsh treatment for wrong-doing." True parental discipline
means teaching or training children to do what is right.
Punishment is not discipline because it does not teach children
to do what is right.
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Pam Leo
Making Restitution:
When ,Sfou do something wrong, ,Sfou can

choose to make it right.
We teach children to do what is right by modeling acceptable

behavior and by teaching them about making restitution.
Children need to know that they can choose to make it right
when they have behaved in unacceptable ways.
When our behavior as a parent is not what we want it to be,

and we use the reconnection tool of rewind, repair, and replay,
we model making it right through restitution. We teach chil-
dren acceptable behavior by teaching them how to make it
right.
• When children spill their milk, we teach them how to clean

up a spill.
• When a child breaks a window, we teach him that he can

choose to take responsibility for repairing or replacing it.
• When a child hurts someone's feelings, we teach her that she

can choose to apologize.
Punishment gives children the message:
You did wrong and now you must suffer because you are bad.
Restitution gives children the message:
You did wrong, and now you can choose to make it right.
134
Punishing children teaches them to believe that they are bad.

Making restitution teaches children to believe in their ability to
make it right.
In the introduction to her book, It's All About WE: Rethinking

Discipline Using Restitution, Diane Gossen describes
Restitution as (C • • • a genuine paradigm shift from external
discipline, which coerces and alienates youth to internal
discipline, which strengthens and embraces youth."
If the only reason children have for not doing something

wrong is the fear of being punished, what guidelines will they
have for behavior when no one is there to punish them? The
goal of true parental discipline is not to control children's
behavior by hurting them when their behavior is unacceptable
but rather to teach children to do what is right. We cannot con-
trol anyone's behavior but our own. True parental discipline
leads children to self-discipline.
In spite of the fact that punishment doesn't teach children to

do what is right, many adults still punish children for unac-
ceptable behavior. Though punishment may stop a challenging
behavior temporarily, if the behavior is a communication of an
unmet need, some form of needy behavior will persist.
We cannot punish people into not

having needs.
/
For example, I have a physical need to eat to survive. If I had no

food and no legal way to get food, I would steal food rather
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Pam Leo
than die. I would steal food even though I know that stealing is
wrong and that I would be punished if I got caught.
If I am caught stealing food and punished, will punishing me

for stealing food teach me not to be hungry? No. If I were in the
same position again, with no other way to get food, I would
repeat the behavior of stealing food, even though I know pun-
ishment is the consequence.
You cannot teach me to not have my physical need for food .

Just as punishing me for stealing food cannot teach me to not
be hungry, punishing children for needy behavior cannot teach
them not to have their emotional needs of attention and
connection.
When we don't meet children's emotional needs, they are

compelled by their dependency to communicate their needs.
When children communicate their unmet needs through their
behavior and we react by punishing their behavior, we are
trying to cure the symptom instead of the cause.
Though we may stop needy behavior temporarily by threaten-

ing punishment or bribing with a reward, if the need still
exists, some form of acting-out or needy behavior persists.
We can't teach children to behave better b~

making them teel worse.
Punishing children for expressing their unmet emotional

needs through their behavior makes children, who are already
136
feeling disconnected, feel worse. Children behave better when

they feel better. When we learn to decode behavior, and meet,
or at least acknowledge the need that the behavior is commu-
nicating, the child changes her behavior. If the behavior is
being caused by an unmet need, once the need is met or
acknowledged, the child stops acting out since there is no
longer an unmet need to communicate.
We begin the process of decoding children's behavior by ask-

ing, "What is causing this behavior?" How we answer that
question is influenced by our beliefs about children. In our cul-
ture, adults believe and assume many negatives about children.
fIJ
~'1)
\' Pr
---
Make a list of ten of the most negative words you
have ever heard anyone say about children.
In the parenting workshop, we make this list as a group.
These are ten of the most common words that appear on the
list:
Rude - selfish - manipulative - brat - mean - disrespectful -

noisy - messy - stupid - ungrateful
Whether or not we think we have any of these beliefs about

children, if we heard those words often enough for them to
appear on the list, they influence our thinking about children's
behavior.
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Pam Leo
than die. I would steal food even though I know that stealing is
wrong and that I would be punished if I got caught.
If I am caught stealing food and punished, will punishing me

for stealing food teach me not to be hungry? No. If 1 were in the
same position again, with no other way to get food, I would
repeat the behavior of stealing food, even though I know pun-
ishment is the consequence.
You cannot teach me to not have my physical need for food.

Just as punishing me for stealing food cannot teach me to not
be hungry, punishing children for needy behavior cannot teach
them not to have their emotional needs of attention and
connection.
When we don't meet children's emotional needs, they are

compelled by their dependency to communicate their needs.
When children communicate their unmet needs through their
behavior and we react by punishing their behavior, we are
trying to cure the symptom instead of the cause.
Though we may stop needy behavior temporarily by threaten-

ing punishment or bribing with a reward, if the need still
exists, some form of acting-out or needy behavior persists.
We can't teach children to behave better b~

making them teel worse.
Punishing children for expressing their unmet emotional

needs through their behavior makes children, who are already
136
feeling disconnected, feel worse. Children behave better when

they feel better. When we learn to decode behavior, and meet,
or at least acknowledge the need that the behavior is commu-
nicating, the child changes her behavior. If the behavior is
being caused by an unmet need, once the need is met or
acknowledged, the child stops acting out since there is no
longer an unmet need to communicate.
We begin the process of decoding children's behavior by ask-

ing, "What is causing this behavior?" How we answer that
question is influenced by our beliefs about children. In our cul-
ture, adults believe and assume many negatives about children.
ffJ
~'1)
\' Pr ' Make a list of ten of the most negative words you
--- have ever heard anyone say about children.
In the parenting workshop, we make this list as a group.
These are ten of the most common words that appear on the
list:
Rude - selfish - manipulative - brat - mean - disrespectful -

noisy - messy - stupid - ungrateful
Whether or not we think we have any of these beliefs about

children, if we heard those words often enough for them to
appear on the list, they influence our thinking about children's
behavior.
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Pam Leo
When we ask the question,"What is causing this behavior?"

none of those beliefs about children can be the answer because
those beliefs are judgments, not causes.
There are many causes for children's behavior. Some of the

many causes of challenging behaviors are:
• unmet need for human connection
• unmet physical and/or emotional needs
• stress caused by a child's emotional environment
• environmental conditions that compromise a child's

physical wellbeing
• physical and/or emotional sensitivities with which a child

is born
• sensitivities that are part of a child's innate temperament
• physical and/or emotional sensitivities or challenges

caused by stresses during and following birth
• sensory processing challenges
Behaviors are either caused or learned. Children imitate every-

thing we say and do. Some of children's challenging behaviors
are learned behaviors. We cannot expect children not to imitate
behaviors that we model.
138
6fjj In !Jour Parenting JournaL
1.f21 Look" yom list of button pu'hing beh.vio" .nd

check mark any behaviors on your list that YOll
model to learn if you are reinforcing unacceptable behaviors by

modeling them.
While there are many causes for behavior, there are only four
kinds of behavior.
Needy behavior - caused by an unmet physical or emotional

need
Healing behavior - the release of emotional pain
Sensitivity or temperament behavior - reactions caused by

innate temperament or physical or emotional sensitivities
Happy behavior - the state of well being when physical and

emotional needs are met
Think about how children behave when they are happy. What
do they do?
Make a list of ten ways your children behave when

they are happy.
In the parenting workshop, we make this list as a group. These

are the ten most often cited happy behaviors:
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Pam Leo
Smiling -laughing - singing - humming -listening - sharing

- helping - cooperating - hugging - playing
In ~our Parenting Journal or below:
Compare the "needy:' button-pushing behaviors list to the

happy behaviors list.
Need~ behaviors:
Temper tantrums- whining - not listening - hitting - talking

back - not cooperating - teasing - bullying - refusing to share
-fighting with siblings - refusing to get dressed - refusing to
brush teeth - arguing - calling names - hurting others
Happ~ behaviors:
Smiling -laughing - singing - humming -listening - sharing

- helping - cooperating - hugging - playing
What do you notice about the two lists?
The behaviors listed are the opposite of each other. Children

are happy when their needs are met and they are not in pain.
They are not acting out because they have no hurts or unmet
needs to communicate. Look back at your list of "needy,"
button-pushing behaviors and rename those behaviors as
unhappy behaviors. Do you feel compassion or empathy for
the child who is unhappy because he is in emotional pain or
frustrated by an unmet need? Do you feel a shift in your atti-
tude toward the child's behavior?
140
This shift in attitude about children's behavior is key to con-

nection parenting, to parenting through love instead of fear.
A change ofheart is the essence ofall other change and

is brought about by a re-education of the mind.
- Emmiline Pettrick Lawerence
when we get new inFormation] our awareness

changes.
New information: Children's acting-out behavior is the

release of emotional pain, a communication of unmet need, or
a sensitivity reaction.
when our awareness changes] our attitude

changes.
New attitude: Now that I know this behavior is not a challenge

to my authority, I want to find out what is hurting my child or
what he needs.
when our attitude changes] our actions

change.
New actions: You connect with the child by listening and

letting him know you are on his side.
It is onl~ when our actions change] that the

outcome is diFFerent.
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Pam Leo
New outcome: When parents and children feel connected, they

care about each other's needs and feelings, and they work
together.
Meeting Children's Needs vs.
Making Children Happ~
When parents first hear about solving behavior problems

through meeting children's needs, they often confuse meeting
children's needs with making them happy.
What's the difference between meeting children's needs and

making them happy?
Meeting children's needs does not always make them happy.

Children need to brush their teeth to have oral health. Being
told that it's time to brush their teeth may not make them
happy. Telling children they can skip brushing their teeth
would make them happy, but it wouldn't meet their "real" need
to have a parent who will support them in having oral health.
Making children happy is different than trying to keep them

from being unhappy.
If we bring home a puppy, we make children happy. Buying

them a toy so that they won't cry when we say no is trying to
keep them from being unhappy.
We often try to keep a child from being unhappy to meet our

need for harmony. We know that if we pacify them, we won't
have to listen to the release of feelings that the disappointment
of not getting what they ask for may trigger.
142
When children ask for excessive material "things," it is because

they have learned to try to fill their love cup with "things". It
doesn't work for them any better than it works for us. We live
in one of the most affluent societies in the world, yet our
country has some of the most emotionally needy children in
the world.
Meeting children's emotional needs

sometimes means loving them enough
to sa~ no and set limits.
Children push the limits when they need to release stored pain.
They are pushing "for" a limit, not against it. Children push
the limits by asking for candy, toys, or privileges to distract
themselves, from their pain. When we set the limit or say no, the
no or the limit is the disappointment that overflows the hurts
cup and allows children to release the pain that is making them
unhappy.
Meeting children's emotional needs by saying no or setting a

limit and then accepting and listening to their feelings, meets
their "real" need, which is to release their painful feelings.
Unless we learn to decode children's behavior, we won't know
what the "real" need is.
The discipline ot decoding behavior is

a tive-step process.
The five steps are:
1. Disciplining yourself to resist reacting to the behavior
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Pam Leo
2. Remembering that behavior is a communication of need
3. Asking yourself the question, "What is causing this behavior-

what is the intention behind the action?"
i. Is this a physical or an emotional unmet need?
ii. Is this the release of emotional pain?
iii. Is this a sensitivity or temperament reaction?
4. Connecting by acknowledging that the child is expressing a

need or a hurt.
5. Addressing the need or listening to the release of hurt.
Remember: Connect before you correct. Our brains only work

well when we feel safe. To teach children acceptable ways to
communicate their needs requires that they know we are on
their side.
Children do well if they can, if they can't, we need to

figure out why so we can help.
- Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. author, The Explosive Child
Decoding unmet ph~sical needs
When we ask, "What's causing this behavior?" It is easier to

begin with unmet physical needs.
144
Examples:
"Is this child hungry, ill, or tired?"
"Is this child reacting to sensory overload?"
"Is this child reacting to stress overload?"
If there is no apparent physical cause for the behavior, we look

for unmet emotional needs. To do so requires awareness of
children's emotional needs.
~ In ~our Parenting Journal:
1!{J List childcen's emotional needs .
In the patenting workshop, the group creates this list together.

These are 25 of the most often identified emotional needs:
Unconditional love - loving touch - affection - acceptance -

appreciation - attention - connection - respect - being
listened to - guidance - safety - security - stability - down
time - play - healthy self-esteem and self-worth - a sense of
belonging - feeling valued - friendship - emotional release of
pain - freedom - some control over their life - predictability -
trust - positive role models.
Reviewing this list, do you think most children get these emo-
tional needs met every day? Why do many children have unmet
emotional needs?
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Pam Leo
Some of the reasons children have unmet emotional needs are:
• We lack information about children's emotional needs.
• We follow advice that goes against meeting our children's

emotional needs.
• We can't pay attention to our children's needs because our

attention is on our unmet needs.
• Children are not getting enough connection time.
Most often, the reason children have unmet emotional needs is

that our lives are too busy and we don't have enough time to be
with and connect with them. Parents' lives are too busy because
there are not enough adult resources to do all that needs to be
done. The loss of the extended family has been devastating to
parenting and to childhood. Until there are more people to
meet children's emotional needs, there will be unmet need
behaviors to decode.
Decoding unmet emotional need behavior
One of the first signs that a child is feeling disconnected is a

drop in the level of cooperation. When a child is uncoopera-
tive, we can take him gently aside and quietly ask, "What is this
behavior about? What do you need?"
Even if the child cannot tell us, if the behavior is caused by an

un met emotional need, asking the question, "What do you
need?" creates connection. The first step to cooperation is con-
nection.
146
Remember:
The level of cooperation parents get from their children is usu-

ally equal to the level of connection children feel with their
parents.
Decoding release ot emotional hurt behaviors
When children's behaviors are physically or verbally hurtful to

others, they need our help to find acceptable ways of releasing
their emotional pain. We acknowledge the child's pain and
provide the child with an acceptable outlet for releasing the
pain. We say, "Stop hitting. I understand that you are hurting
too, but you may not hit your brother. You may hit the "mad"
pillow.
Decoding sensitivit~ reaction behaviors
If your child's emotional needs are fulfilled and the child's

behavior still exhausts and frustrates you daily, your child may
have sensitivity challenges. When we don't know that children's
behaviors are reactions caused by their innate temperament or
other sensitivities, we cannot support them in doing well.
Children with sensitive temperaments or physical and emo-
tional sensitivities and challenges want to do well, but they
need additional support.
The following are some resources for parents who need infor-
mation about other causes of challenging behaviors:
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Pam Leo
Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
The Explosive Child-New Approach Jor Understanding and

Parenting Easily Frustrated and "Chronically Inflexible"
Children, by Ross W. Greene Ph.D.
The Out-oj-Sync Child by Carol Stock Kranowitz, Larry B.

Silver
Smart Moves-Why Learning is Not All in Your Head, by

Carla Hannaford Ph.D.
I am the Child, Using Brain Gym with Children with Special

Needs, by Cecilia Freeman with Gail Dennison
Stopping Hyperactivity-Unique and Proven Program oj

Crawling Exercises Jor Overcoming Hyperactivity, by Nancy
O'Dell and Patricia Cook
When we seek out information and resources, we find tools

and support to help us, help our children, to do well.
It takes time to reprogram our reactions to children's acting

out behaviors, to learn to decode behavior, and to learn about
and teach restitution. While we are living in the gap between
how we want to parent and developing our connection parent-
ing skills, it is easier to stop using spanking and punishment if
we have some loving alternatives in discipline.
148
It Wouldn't Hurt To Tr~ the Following:
• When a small child is about to touch something dangerous or

breakable, catch their hand, name the danger emphatically,
"Hot!", then show them what they can touch instead.
• When children are about to do something dangerous, like

going into the road or climbing on a bookcase, gather them
into your arms, tell them "Danger!", and explain to them why
their behavior frightens you. The word danger is more effec-
tive than saying "NO!".
• When you tell children to stop doing something ten times,

you teach them they can do something ten times before you
act. Speak once, and then go over and tell them what they can
do instead. Telling children what we don't want them to do
doesn't teach them what we do want them to do.
• Children need to be taught how to behave in stores, restau-

rants, etc. We can teach them at home by "playing" store or
restaurant.
• Children need to be noticed and encouraged. When we give

enough positive attention and connection, children don't
have unmet emotional needs to communicate through acting
out behavior.
• When a child is having a temper tantrum, the child is pour-

ing out built-up hurts, disappointments, and frustrations. All
we need to do is prevent children from hurting themselves, or
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Pam Leo
anyone else and let them pour out their feelings. As soon as
the feelings are released, their behavior improves .
• When you are stressed and feel yourself about to hit,

announce loudly, ''I'm feeling angry. I need this behavior to
stop. I'm taking a time-out:'
• For older children, make up a family code word or gesture to

use in public that signals them to stop what they are doing.
children who are "acting out" are usuall~

tr~ingto tell us, "I need more love."
The discipline of decoding behavior puts discipline into a new

context. Discipline ceases to be the job of punishing children
for their needy behaviors and becomes the job of meeting chil-
dren's needs and teaching them self-discipline. Children's
"acting-out" behaviors feel like a challenge to our parental
authority. Our self-discipline is required to resist reacting to
children's challenging behaviors. When we exercise self-
discipline by choosing to decode behavior instead of punishing
behavior, we teach children self-discipline by our modeling.
While learning to decode behavior may seem challenging, it

makes the job of parenting more joyful and less a struggle.
When we see parenting as the job of trying to control children's
behavior, parenting is a struggle because we cannot control
children's behavior. When we see our job as that of meeting
children's needs, we enjoy our children, because we can meet
children's needs.
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Reconnecting with Teens
Ideally, we would begin building a strong connection with chil-

dren before they are born, and nurture infants and children in
the ways that protect, foster, and maintain that connection
throughout infancy and childhood. However, if you didn't have
the information or support to practice the nurturing that
builds strong connections until now, you may have a teen who
is struggling with issues of connection deficiency.
The younger children are when we increase connection, the

more successful we will be at reconnection. Reconnecting with
older children means we have to compensate. If teens are get-
ting their connection needs met by their peers, then their peers
have influence with them. Depending on the age and level of
disconnection of your older child, you may need to do more
than supplement your child's connection deficiency with more
one-on-one connection time, to reestablish influence with
your child.
If a connection deficiency, or physical or emotional sensitivi-

ties are causing extreme coping behaviors, teens and their
parents need the support of professionals who specialize in
healing therapies.
A resource for parents of children ages eleven through seven-

teen in crisis: KidsPeace National Centers for Kids in Crisis®
www.kidspeace.org
The older children become, the more work it takes to establish
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Pam Leo
or reestablish connection. It is never too late to strengthen your

connection with your child. It is only late to do it easily.
Connection Parenting Is Proactive.
Children don't have a choice about being dependent on us to

meet their emotional need for connection. We do have a choice
about making it a priority to meet that need. Just as we plan to
feed our children every day, we can plan to provide connection
time every day.
There are three times in a day when children seem to need con-
nection most. Unfortunately, they are the exact times when we
feel we have the least to give. In the morning, we are hurrying
to get out the door. When we first get home in the evening, we
are hurrying to get dinner. At bedtime, we just want them to go
to sleep so we can get a minute to ourselves for the first time all
day. The needy behaviors that erupt at those times of the day
are usually the result of children's emotional needs conflicting
with our agenda.
Remember: It takes the same amount of time, attention, and

energy to meet a child's emotional needs as it does to deal with
the behaviors caused by unmet emotional needs. Either way,
we spend the time. We become proactive parents, instead of
reactive parents, when we make providing the connection chil-
dren need, when they need it, part of our agenda.
Some examples of proactive parenting:
152
• Including five or ten minutes of one-on-one connection

time in the morning can reduce morning conflicts and
increase connection and cooperation
• Spending the first ten to twenty minutes upon arriving

home, playing and being together can transform a needy,
whiny, angry child into a happy child who wants to help
us fix dinner
• Moving to an earlier "getting ready for bed" time allows us

to connect before we are too tired. If we want sleep time
to be 8 o'clock, then we plan bedtime for 7:30, so we have
lots of time together before we say goodnight
It is as difficult for children to fall asleep when they are emo-

tionally hungry as it is to fall asleep when they are physically
hungry. The biggest reason children resist going to bed is that
this is their last chance of the day for connection. It's also our
last chance of the day to get our needs met. When we end up
competing for those few evening hours, no one gets their needs
met.
Since part-time parenting is going to continue until we make

major changes in public policy toward valuing parenting, we
need to do all we can to be proactive in meeting our children's
emotional needs in our current circumstances. The more time
we must spend away from our children trying to earn enough
money to meet their physical needs, the more imperative it is
to spend the precious time we do have, meeting everyone's
emotional needs for connection.
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Pam Leo
There is no single factor more radical in its

potential for healing the world than
a transformation in how we raise children.
- Marianne Williamson
To move from coercion parenting to connection parenting, we

need inspiration, information, resources, and support.
It is my honor, privilege, and joy to be one of the founding

board members of an organization that provides all of these:
the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children.
www.atlc.org
The Alliance tor Transtorming the Lives of

Children (aTLC)
Inspiration:
The Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children is a con-
sensus-based, interdisciplinary, not-for-profit organization of
healthcare professionals, caregivers, scientists, educators,
artists, parents, and children who share a deep and passionate
concern for how we conceive, carry, birth, bond with, and care
for children.
We know that caring for our children as whole, conscious

beings has a profound impact on the adults they become; our
intuition tells us this and modern science confirms it.
aTLC envisions a world where:
154
• Every child is wanted, welcomed, and valued.
• Every family is prepared and supported in the art and

science of nurturing children.
• Adults honor childhood and respect each child's whole

being.
• Children joyfully participate in the vital life of family

and community.
aTLC is committed to:

• identifying the biological imperatives for developing
our children as whole beings-physically, emotionally,
and spiritually,
• defining the principles and specific actions that arise

from these imperatives,
• making this information accessible to parents, care-

givers, and policy makers,
• supporting families in implementing best parenting

practices, and
• enhancing birthing and parenting practices throughout

the world.
Intormation:
aTLC is assembling the most extensive collection of evidence-
based research and information on the optimal nurturing of
children ever assembled to be disseminated to parents.
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Pam Leo
A growing body of evidence now documents that the quality of

people's childhood has a major impact on their entire life. This
information is crucial to us all, at a time when families are fac-
ing the unprecedented pace and intensity of our high techllow
touch society. Neither medication nor the criminal "justice"
system, address the root causes of the rapidly escalating rate of
mental health disorders, addictions, violence, crime, and
suicide evident among our young. At the core of this crisis is
our culture's lack of awareness of the vital importance of a
strong and healthy parent-child bond.
We believe, and research confirms, it is not enough for our

society to diagnose and treat problems. We must prevent them.
The Alliance is dedicated to promoting this essential parent-
child connection that all children need to thrive.
In order to protect the wellbeing of our children and enrich the

future of our society, aTLC is dedicated to supporting parents
and professionals in making informed choices about con-
sciously conceiving, birthing, and nurturing children. We
gather and disseminate wisdom from many diverse sources,
recommend standards, inspire research, and publicize current
scientific evidence.
At the heart of aTLC are our Proclamation and evidence-

linked Blueprint for Transforming the Lives of Children.
These documents are a synthesis of leading scientific research
and a distillation of ancient wisdom into specific Principles
156
and Actions that will promote children's optimal growth and

development.
Resources:
A core function of the Alliance is to link and support diverse
organizations and individuals promoting innovative and pro-
gressive educational programs, services, products, and public
policies that will transform the lives of children.
aTLC's website offers information and resources, and pro-

motes dialog on conceiving, birthing, and parenting. The
website includes aTLC's:
• Proclamation and Blueprint.
• A growing list of affiliated organizations and individu-
als who promote one or more aspects of the Blueprint.
• Recommended books, articles, and other resources.
Support:
The aTLC WarmLine: A Family Support Network
aTLC offers a phone-mentoring program to provide parents,

parents-to-be, and caregivers support in applying the aTLC
Blueprint of optimal parenting practices to everyday parenting
concerns via a call-in center, ongoing parent mentoring
sessions, and teleclasses.
Mentoring sessions are based on the following aTLC premises:

• A healthy parent/child bond, from preconception
onward, is essential for effective parenting and a child's
optimal physical, emotional, and spiritual development.
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Pam Leo
• Parents are doing the best they can, at any given

moment, with the information, resources, and support
they have.
• Children are doing the best they can-at any given

moment-and their challenging behaviors are a way
of communicating their need for adult attention,
connection, and support.
• Children need a strong connection with their parents;

it is never too late for parents to strengthen this
connection with their children.
For information on accessing the aTLC Parent Support

Network visit: www.aTLCWarmLine.org or call 1-800-460-
6105
Other resources that have made a profound difference in my

work with families are:
The Therapla!j® Institute-

What is Theraplay®?
Theraplay is a short-term, therapist-guided play therapy for

children and their parent/caregivers which:
• Enhances attachment, self-esteem and trust in others
through joyful engagement
• Is based on the natural patterns of healthy interaction

between parent and child
• Focuses on four essential qualities found in parent-child
relationships: Structure, Nurture, Engagement, and
Challenge
158
• Creates an active and empathic connection between

child and parents
• Results in a changed view of the self as worthy and lov-

able, and of relationships as positive and rewarding
For information: www.theraplay.org
Or call 847-256-7334 in Wilmette, IL
Diane Gossen on Restitution-www.realrestitution.com

Offers books, videos, audiotapes, and training on teaching
restitution in schools and in the family.
Chelsom Consultants Limited 134 1lOIh Street,
Saskatoon, Sk S7N1S2
Call 1-800-450-4352 or email [email protected]
Center For Non-Violent CommunicationSM -A

global organization helping people connect with themselves
and one another through Nonviolent Communication(sm), a
process created by Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D. www.cnvc.org
Brain G!jm®
Educational Kinesiology is a program of physical activities that
help children and adults build the neurological connections
necessary for information to flow freely between the different
parts of the brain and the body. Brain Gym activities help any-
one who struggles with reading, writing, hyperactivity,
following instructions, concentrating, remembering things,
stress, anxiety, addiction, depression, confusing left and right,
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Pam Leo
maintaining hand/eye coordination, and being accident prone.

Brain Gym activities assist those cha llenged with dyslexia,
ADD, ADHD, and fetal alcohol syndrome.
Brain Gym is not only for those people with overt learning dif-
ficulties. All of us can benefit from Brain Gym activities.
Olympic athletes use Brain Gym activities to reduce stress and
improve performance. Brain Gym movements are simple and
can be done at home, in school, at work, and in play.
For parents seeking a resource to help their children, Brain

Gym is a win-win-win. The children get the tools and support
they need to get their body/brain connections working better,
the parents get these same benefits from doing the activities
and movements with their children, and the parent/child rela-
tionship is strengthened by the time spent together 'doing the
activities.
For information: www.braingym.org

Phone: (800) 356-2109 or (805) 658-7942
Brain Gym® International

1575 Spinnaker Drive, Suite 2048
Ventura, CA 93001
Academ~ tor Coaching Parents

Internatio na ITM
The Academy for Coaching Parents offers: training in coach-
ing parents and families, marketing yo ur business and
160
positioning yourself as an expert in your community, and certi-

fies your experience and education when requirements are met.
Training in the early nurturing and bonding of the whole
child-physical, emotional, social, mental, and spiritual-
provides the connections spoken of in this book. Pam Leo is an
Academy Instructor and teaches and certifies parent mentors in
Connection Parenting.
Founder: Caron B. Goode, Ed.D.
Telephone: 520-979-4470
Web site: www.AcademyforCoachingParents.com or
www.acpi.biz
The Institute ot HeartMath®-

The Institute of HeartMath offers learning programs for
improving student relations and academic performance, and
helps adults transform stress, anxiety, and anger.
For information:
www.heartmath.org
Or call 831-338-8500 in Boulder Creek, CA
Touch the Future- A Nonprotit Learning

Design Center
Inspired Resources for Parents, Educators, Caregivers & Coaches

www.ttfuture.org
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Pam Leo
~ In ~our Parenting Journal:
\~ Pnlctice decoding behaviors and meeting emotional

needs. Look at your list of button-pushing behaviors
and see how many problem behaviors you can solve by decoding
the behavior and meeting the real need.
It's All About WE: Rethinking Discipline Using

Restitution by Diane Gossen,
www.realrestitution.com
Unconditional Parenting -Moving From Reward and

Punishments to Love and Reason by Alfie Kohn
Control Theory - A New Explanation of How We

Control Our Lives by William Glasser, M.D.
Time-Out... For Parents: A Compassionate

Approach to Parenting by Cheri Huber &
Melinda Guyol, MFCC
162
chapter 7
Connecting through Meeting Our
Own Needs
Families work best when everyone's needs are met.
For six chapters, we have focused on meeting children's needs.

We have learned about children's emotional need for a strong
connection and meeting that need by:
• Connecting and reconnecting with rewind, repair, and

replay .
• Treating children with respect
• Listening to children's needs and feelings
• Filling children's love cups
• Communicating in ways that build and maintain connection
• Decoding children's needy behaviors and responding to

their needs instead of reacting to their behaviors
You now have six pieces of the parenting puzzle. The seventh
and final piece of Connectiotl Parenting is the "glue" that holds
the puzzle together. That glue is meeting the needs of parents.
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Pam Leo
When flight attendants demonstrate the oxygen equipment on

a plane, they instruct passengers, "If you are traveling with a
young child, put on your own oxygen mask first, then assist the
child."
Those same instructions apply to Connection Parenting. How

well we parent depends, as much on how well we meet our
needs, as it does on how well we meet children's needs.
We till our children's cup best when

our cup is tull
Imagine the following scenario.
Your good friend gives you the gift of a day off from parenting.
Your friend arrives at your home at 9 AM and says, "I'm giving
you the day off. I'm taking over all your duties. The children
will be cared for well. Here is some spending money, now go
have a great day, and don't return until 5 o'clock."
You have time, childcare, and money and, because your chil-
dren love this person and are excited about the day, you don't
feel guilty about leaving them. You spend the whole day doing
what you love to do. When you return at 5 o'clock, how do you
feel about being with your children?
"My cup is fIlled and overflowing. I'm happy to see you. I have
something to give, and I want to give it to you."
Children know how we feel about being with them. When we

want to be with them they feel worthy of love and attention,
164
and they believe they are loveable because we are attending to

them with love and respect.
You cannot till a child's cup it ~our cup is empt~.
Our needs are as important as our children's needs. If our emo-

tional needs were not met as children, we learned to believe
that our needs were not important. We often try to meet those
unmet needs by giving to others what we didn't get.
Contrast the first scenario with this one.
Your partner has been away on business all week. All three chil-
dren have been sick. The car broke down. You had to call the
plumber. The dog had to go to the vet. It's finally Friday after-
noon and 'you are expecting a call telling you what time your
partner will arrive. Instead, you get a call that the flight has
been grounded due to fog and your partner can't get home
until tomorrow. How do you feel about being with your chil-
dren?
"My cup is empty and I have nothing more to give."
Children always know what we are feeling, but they don't

always know why. When we don't want to be with children,
they take it personally. They feel they must be unworthy of our
love and attention. They believe they are unlovable instead of
knowing that we have nothing left to give.
Connection Parenting is not child-centered parenting. Meeting

the needs of children does not mean focusing so much on
165
Pam Leo
meeting their needs that we have no time or energy left for

ours. No matter how much we know about meeting the
emotional needs of children, we can only "do" what we know
when our needs are met.
Parents) unmet needs create a c~c1e of stress
Have you ever wondered, "Why do my children have to be so

needy and out of control when I am already so stressed?" We
are not at our best when we are stressed and neither are chil-
dren at their best when we are stressed.
Taking no time to meet our needs starts a vicious cycle. When

our needs are not met, we become stressed. More stress means
less connection with our children. The less we connect, the
more children communicate their need for connection
through acting-out behavior. The more children act out their
needs, the more stressed we become.
Stress is contagious. We do get stress from our children but we

also give it to them. It is difficult for children to feel content
and be relaxed when they are with adults who are not feeling
content and relaxed.
We parent better when our needs are met.
We don't do our best parenting when we are hurrying, worry-

ing, overwhelmed, and stressed. When I ask parents when they
feel best about their parenting, they recall vacation times,
weekend times, or times when they have returned home from
166
doing something relaxing. Imagine how different our parent-

ing might be if we could meditate, do yoga, work out at the
gym, get a massage, or do something we find relaxing every
day. When parents have time for themselves they have more
energy and attention for connecting with the children.
We are naturall~ more patient, understanding,

and loving when we are relaxed.
We have four brainwave states. When we are relaxed, we are in

either the alpha or theta brainwave state. Alpha is the relaxed
state we would likely be in while meditating, walking in nature,
knitting, painting a picture, playing a musical instrument,
listening to soothing music, or gazing at an open fire. Theta is
an even deeper state of relaxation where we access intuition,
inspiration, and creativity. We are naturally more patient,
understanding, and loving when we are relaxed.
When we are in deep sleep, we are in delta. When we are awake,

alert, thinking, and active, we are in beta. Beta without alpha
and theta is associated with stress, anxiety, and high blood
pressure. If we spend too many of our days going from delta
to beta, and back to delta without spending time in the relax-
ing brainwave states of alpha and theta we become stressed. We
function better, and are healthier, when we spend some time
each day in each of the four brainwave states.
I can only bring peace to my children when

I possess it myself.
- Katrina Kenison, autiJor ojMitte" Strings for God
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Pam Leo
We are more open to connection

when relaxed.
Just as our stress affects children's behavior, our relaxation

affects their behavior. I was telling a friend about children
being able to connect more when parents are relaxed and she
said, "That explains something to me. Whenever I sit down to
knit, my daughter comes and sits near me and we have great
conversations." Her revelation made me remember that when
I did family day care, the days the children napped best were
when I turned on a Mozart tape and knit while they napped.
Children are more relaxed when the adults around them are
relaxed.
Meeting the Needs ot Parents
We need at least ten minutes a day alone to relax and connect

with ourself. We need time to "just be" as much as our children
do. Many busy parents go days without taking that time. When
you make a commitment to have ten minutes a day to connect
with yourself, you find ways to do it.
Some examples:
• Keeping a book in the car and allowing ten extra minutes

to get where you are going will give you time to sit and
read for ten minutes
• Taking a long bath instead of a quick shower on occasion
168
• Getting up ten minutes earlier to have a morning ritual of

meditation, yoga, or reading the paper alone
• Creating a daily ten-minute workout
What you do for your ten minutes isn't as important as the

benefit derived from the feeling of nurturing yourself.
couples need to sta~ connected.
We need at least ten minutes a day to connect with our part-

ners. When couples make a commitment to spend ten minutes
a day connecting and get creative, they make it happen.
Some examples:
• Making a daily phone date to talk about anything but
children, finances, and life maintenance
• Emailing love notes to each other daily
• Creating a ritual of giving each other a back, foot, hand,
or head-massage daily
Taking ten minutes a day to stay connected is an investment in

your relationship and in your children's security.
Single parents need to talk to another adult.
Single parents need at least ten minutes a day to connect with

an adult family member or close friend. When single parents
recognize and honor that need, they find ways to meet that
need.
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Pam Leo
Some examples:
• Connecting with another single parent and using your

daily "coffee break" to take turns listening to each other
• Connecting with another single parent and having a

phone date each day to take turns listening to each other
• On days when all else fails, writing your thoughts and

feelings in a journal gives you an outlet for feelings
When parents have someone to listen to their needs and feel-

ing, they feel less isolated.
Parents Need Nurturing Too
If you are like most parents, you are so busy meeting your
children's needs that you don't take time to nurture yourself.
Parents need a nurture-m~selt date

ever~ week.
Ten minutes a day is a great way to maintain feeling connected

to yourself, but, at least once a week we need at least an hour to
do something nurturing that ftIls our cup.
couples need a date ever~ week with their

partner to nurture their relationship.
The lament I most hear from parents is "Since we had children,

I never get to be alone with my partner." Many parents try to
meet everyone's needs by "tag-team" parenting - working
170
opposite hours so one of them can always be home with the

children. No matter what working and parenting schedule par-
ents have, couples need time alone together to connect and rul
each other's cup.
Single parents need a nurturing date ever~

week with a triend or tamil~ member.
Single parents have to keep filling their children's love cups

every day without anyone there to fill their cup. Single parents
need nurturing from others.
Keeping~our Love Cup Full
Take five minutes now to think about what nurtures you.

Remember'how you nurtured yourself before you had children.
l~
-JI In ~our Parenting Journal:
~~) List at least ten activities that you find nurturing.
p".. Sample "Nurturing Myself" List:
Taking a walk on the beach
Working out at the gym
Having a date with my partner
Taking a nap
Reading a book
Playing or listening to music
Going for a hike
Meditating
Taking a bubble bath
Playing my favorite sport
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Pam Leo
Check-mark the activities on your "Nurturing

Myself" list that you do on a regular basis. How
many do you do?
The number of nurturing activities you check-marked on your

" Nurture Myself" list shows how you unconsciously rate the
importance your needs.
0- My needs don't matter at all.
1 - 2 My needs matter but not as much as my children's needs
3 - 6 My needs are important
7 - 10 My needs matter as much as my children's needs
6IJj In ~our Parenting Journal:
~ List you, «asons fo' not doing what is on youe

\.____ "Nurturing Myself" list.
In my classes, the reasons parents cite most often are time,

energy, childcare, guilt, and money.
Time: I don't have enough time to do all the things I have to

do, spend time with my children, and still have time for my
needs.
Energy: By the time I get the kids in bed at night, I don't have
any energy left to do something for myself.
172
Childcare: I don't have anyone to care for my children so I can

do something for myself.
Guilt: When I do get some free time, I feel too guilty to use that
time for myself, instead of spending it with the family.
Money: I can't afford to pay for childcare so I can do some-

thing for myself. Some of the things I want to do cost money. I
cannot afford the extra money to pay for the activity that
would fill my cup.
None ot us can do parenting well alone.
Lack of resources and support prevent us from doing what we

need to do to nurture ourselves. Unless parents have a lot of
support, they rarely take time for themselves or spend time
alone with their partner. Few families today have the support
of a live-in grandparent, aunt, uncle, or a nanny. Whether your
family consists of a single parent and one child; a mom, a dad,
and three children; two partners and two children, or a blend-
ed family with multiple moms, dads, and step-siblings, families
need more resources and support.
The ke~ to Connection Parenting

IS more resource.
Without the support of others to share in caring for the chil-

dren, it is impossible to meet everyone's needs. Creating more
resources makes it possible for parents to get their needs met.
Children need to know, trust, and depend on people other than
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Pam Leo
their parents. A "tribe" is the missing element that families

need to thrive.
We re-create the "tribe" by creating an "extended family of

choice." We adopt people we love and care about to be
"honorary" aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
Creating Resource
For those without the support of a biological extended family,

we create "extended family of choice" by inviting elderly neigh-
bors, single-parent families, and non-parent friends and
co-workers to come to dinner and do things with our family.
These gatherings cultivate relationships that benefit the
parents, the children, and the friends. The more children get to
know and love other adults, the more people they have to give
them love, attention, and connection. When children have
connections with other adults, parents don't have to meet all
their emotional needs.
For those parents with very young children, it is usually easier

to be away during the day than at bedtime. One way for parents
to have more time alone together is to have mini-dates at non-
traditional date times. Rather than trying to find a babysitter so
they can go to dinner and a movie on a Saturday night, parents
often find more childcare options if they go out for a Saturday
or Sunday morning brunch.
For those with older children, it works well to alternate child-

care with another family. All the children spend the evening at
174
one family's house while the other parents get to have a date or
time for themselves. The next time they switch. The children
love it, it doesn't cost money, and the parents get a break and
an opportunity to connect regularly.
For adults who parent alone for many hours, whether it's
because of being a single parent or because the other parent is
working, hiring a young person, between the ages of ten and
fourteen, as a parent helper can make a big difference. Paying
an older child a few dollars an hour to come in after school, to
play with the children for an hour or two gives a parent the
resource to take a little break, make dinner, make phone calls,
or spend one-on-one time with one of the children.
For single parents, connecting with other single parents can

provide nurturing to fLll your cup. Connect with another sin-
gle parent and do weekly dinner swaps. One day a week, each
parent makes double of a meal and gives the other parent a
night off from making dinner. Better yet, take turns having
each other over for dinner once a week.
Getting together, to help each other work, is a fun way to cre-

ate more resource for everyone. The adults rotate being with
the children, while the other adults help each other get dinner,
or get some projects done around the house or the yard. The
adults aren't isolated, the children have fun, and the work is
done.
When there are more people to care for the children, everyone
gets more of their needs met.
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Pam Leo
I have found some answers to creating resource, but there are

more answers to be found when we get inspired to be creative
about how we can work together to meet everyone's needs.
Let us put our minds together and see what kind oflife
we can make for our children. - Chie!Sitting Bull
Nurturing children is not only the job of parents. We all have a

stake in how well children's connection needs are met. The
children of today will be our world leaders before we know it.
I want to live in a world with adults whose childhood emo-
tional needs were met.
Practicing Creating Resource
~ In -your Parenting Journal:
\}r:\ Make a list of you, exi,ting ,uppo,t netwo,k.
Make a list of "possible" support people with whom you could

cultivate a relationship to expand your tribe.
Make a list of creative ideas for doing more of the activities on

your "Nurturing Myself List':
Make a list of the people you want to tell about Connection

Parenting.
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Epilogue
We want life to be better for our children than it was for us.
Connection Parenting is win-win parenting. We make life better
for children when we connect with others to create enough
resource to meet everyone's needs.
Children not only depend on us to meet their needs and build a

strong connection, they also depend on us to be a model of what
it looks like to be a happy, loving, peaceful adult, whose life has
joy, meaning, and purpose. The best gift we can give to our chil-
dren is to become that model by parenting through love and
connectiori.
This is the end of this book and what I hope will be the
beginning of a worldwide advance in returning to the nurturing
parenting that human beings need to thrive.
~ MUten String' fo, God by Katrina Ken~on
The following poem is dedicated to all parents who are striving

to give the nurturing they didn't get.
177
Pam Leo
I Was Born To Love
I was born to love.

I was born lovable.
I was born carr~ing m~ seed ot love.
I was born with needs.

Back then it was up to others to nurture m~ seed.
A lii could do was need.
Because other's seeds had not been nurtured,
Their seeds ot love had not blossomed
And the~ could not nurture m~ seed.
Without that nurturing, m~ seed could not sprout.

The love I was born with sta~ed locked inside.
Man~ ~ears ot unmet needs and unhealed wounds
Have buried m~ seed.
But that seed ot love is still inside ot me.
I was born to love.

It is m~ right and m~ responsibilit~
To do the digging that will uncover m~ seed ot love.
I can heal m~ wounds
I can nurture m~ seed ot love.
M~ seed ot love can still sprout and grow.
I can blossom into the loving being
I was born to be.
But now, it is up to me.
- Pam Jo Leo
178
Acknowledgments
When I read the acknowledgments in books, the authors often

say that their books could not have been written without the
support of the people they acknowledge.
Now, having written my first book, I understand why they say

that. It's true.
Since there is no way I can ever repay all of you who inspired
me, taught me, believed in me, encouraged me, and supported
me emotionally, financially, and technically, I now appreciate
you publicly.
My loving thanks
• to Caron B. Goode, my editor, mentor, and angel, for your

trust, patience, humor, heart, spirit, wisdom, skill, encourage-
ment, and support
• to Nancy Cleary, my publisher and fairy goddess-mother, for

your belief in this book from the first moment, your energy,
your flexibility, your listening, leadership, patience, "smiles"
and philanthropy of creativity
• to my mother, Eleanor Carver, for teaching me the meaning

of steadfast love
• to Carmine, for keeping your promise to help me deliver my

message to the world
179
Pam Leo
• to Tate, for being "the kettle tender"
• to my brother, Brad, for supplying me with a computer and

always fIxing anything that needed fIxing
• to my sister, Kathie, for your nurturing and caring
• to Grammie Jan and Grandad Merton, for all the child care,
meals, encouragement, cookies, and comfort
• to Leigh Baker, for all the years of your love, friendship,

listening, and generosity
• to Henry, for keeping myoId cars running all these years
• to my women's group of 18 years, Kathie, Debbie, Wendy,

Vicki, and Cat, for being there for me through it all
• to Nancy, John and Leah, for all the childcare/play-dates that

gave me time to write
• to the moms in my Parent Resource mother's group, for

your endless support in endless ways
• to Joseph Chilton Pearce, for your information, inspiration,

and model
• to the board members of the Alliance for Transforming the

Lives of Children, for hearing my voice and welcoming me
into the choir
• to Lisa Reagan, for recognizing the importance of

Connection Parenting and insisting I needed to know
Caron B. Goode
• to all the children, for teaching me about the needs

of children
180
• to all the parents, for allowing me to learn from their

struggles and successes
• to my first born daughter Leah B, for inspiring my quest for

answers and for now joining me in the quest
• to my second born daughter, Sage, for loving me all the

while I struggled to become a better parent, and for giving
me three beautiful grandchilren
• to my grandchildren, Magnolia, Lily, and Fox for the joy

you bring to my life and for teaching me there will always be
more to learn about meeting the needs of children
• to Darline, my bosom friend, for thirty-seven years of devot-

ed friendship, and for being the only person in the world
who is as excited as I am that I have an ISBN number
• to Marilyn, for your eleventh hour support
• to Jack, my favorite PITA, for more than I can say
• to Wendy, at Parent & Family, for keeping me writing all

these years
• to Jane Sheppard, for writing such an awesome foreword
• to all the authors who were my mentors, for their books that
gave me the pieces of the puzzle
lSI
Pam Leo
Recommended Books tor

'11 parenting philosophy is relevant only to the extent

that it promotes parenting practices which support
secure bonding." - Pam Leo
These books promote birth and parenting practices that sup-

port strong parent-child bonds. Some books are appropriate
for multiple categories and may be listed more than once.
Pregnanc,Y, Birth & Bonding:

The Continuum Concept
by Jean Liedloff
The Vital Touch: How Intimate Contact With

Your Baby Leads to Happier, Healthier Development
by Sharon Heller, Ph.D.
Untouched: The Need for Genuine Affection

in an Impersonal World
by Mariana Caplan, M.A.
Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin

by Ashley Montagu
Infant Massage: A Handbook for Loving Parents

by Vimala Schneider McClure
From One Child to Two

by Judy Dunn
182
Welcoming Your Second Baby

by Vicki Lansky
The Baby Book

by William and Martha Sears
The Birth Book

The Pregnancy Book

Nighttime Parenting
by William Sears, Mary White
Mind Over Labor

by Carl Jones
The Birth Partner

by Penny Simkin
Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for

Your Baby and Young Child
by Katie Allison Granju
The Family Bed

by Tine Thevenin
Magical Child
by Joseph Chilton Pearce
The Aware Baby: A New Approach To Parenting

by Aletha J. Solter, Ph.D.
Birth Without Violence

by Frederick LeBoyer
183
Pam Leo
Gentle Birth Choices: A Guide To Making Informed Decisions

About Birthing Centers, Bil·th Attendants, Water Birth, Home
Birth, And Hospital Birth
by Barbara Harper, R.N.
Immaculate Deception II: Myths, Magic and Birth

by Suzanne Arms
Birthingfrom Within: An Extra-Ordinary Guide to

Childbirth Preparation
by Pam England, Rob Horowitz
Spiritual Midwifery
by Ina May Gaskin
Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology And Culture

Shape The Way We Parent
by Meridith F. Small
What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Circumcision:

Untold Facts on America's Most Widely Performed
and Most Unnecessary Surgery
by Paul M. Fleiss, MD, and Frederick M. Hodges, D.Phil.
Parenting & Optimal Nurturing:
The Continuum Concept

by Jean Liedloff
Playful Parenting
by Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D.
Raising A Thinking Child

by Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D.
Raising a Thinking Preteen: The "1 Can Problem Solve"

Program for 8- to 12- Year-Olds
by Myrna B. Shure, Ph.D.
184
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families

by Steven R. Covey
Parent- Teen Breakthrough: The Relationship Approach

by Myra Kirshenbaum and Charles Foster
The Natural Cllild-Parenting from the Heart

by Jan Hunt
Your Child's Self Esteem

by Dorothy C. Briggs
The Vital Touch: How Intimate Contact With Your Baby

Leads to Happier, Healthier Development
by Sharon Heller, Ph.D.
Untouched: The Need for Genuine Affection in an

Impersonal World
by Mariana Caplan, M.A.
Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin

by Ashley Montagu
Infant Massage: A Handbook for Loving Parents

by Vimala Schneider McClure
Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood

by William Pollack and Mary Pipher
The Aware Baby: A New Approach To Parenting

Helping Young Children Flourish

When Your Kids Push Your Buttons

by Bonnie Harris
185
Pam Leo
I Love You Rituals

by Becky A. Bailey, Ph.D.
Magical Child
by Joseph Chilton Pearce
Theraplay: Helping Parents and Children Build Better

Relationships Through Attachment-Based Play
by Ann M. Jernberg Phyllis B. Booth
The Family Bed

by Tine Thevenin
Raising Resilient Children

by Robert Brooks, Ph.D. and Sam Goldstein, Ph.D.
Nighttime Parenting
by William Sears, Mary White
Beyond the Rainbow Bridge: Nurturing our children from

birth to seven
by Barbara Patterson
The Irreducible Needs Of Children: What Every Child Must

Have To Grow, Learn and Flourish
by T. Berry Brazelton, M.D. and Stanley 1. Greenspan, M.D.
Listening To Children (series of 8 small booklets)

by Patty Wipfler
Crying
Healing Children's Fears
Setting Limits With Children
Tantrums and Indignation
Reaching For Your Angry Child
Supporting Adolescents
Playlistening
Special Time
186
Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

by Myla and John Kabot-Zinn
Siblings Without Rivalry

by Faber & Mazlish
Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry

by Katrina Kenison and Melanie Marder Parks
Unconditional Parenting-Moving from Rewards and

Punishment to Love and Reason
by Alfie Kahn
Behavior & Discipline:

It's all about WE: Rethinking Discipline Using Restitution
by Diane Gossen
Easy To Love, Difficult To Discipline: The 7 Basic Skills for

Turning Conflict into Cooperation
by Becky A. Bailey, Ph.D.
For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and

the Roots of Violence
by Alice Miller
High Risk: Children Without A Conscience

by Magid and McKelvey
Tears and Tantrums: What to Do When Babies and Children

Cry
by Aletha J. Salter, Ph.D.
Building The Bonds of Attachment: Awakening Love In

Deeply Troubled Children
by Daniel A. Hughes
187
Pam Leo
Theraplay: Helping Parents and Children Build Bener

Relationships Through Anachment-Based Play
by Ann M. Jernberg Phyllis B. Booth
Playful Parenting
by Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D.
Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars,

Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes
by Alfie Kohn
Raising Your Spirited Child

by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
Kids, Parents and Power Struggles

by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
Time-Out... For Parents: A Compassionate Approach to

Parenting
by Cheri Huber & Melinda Guyol, MFCC
The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and

Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children
by Ross W. Greene
The Out-Of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping With

Sensory Integration Dysfunction
by Carol Stock Kranowitz and Larry B. Silver
Education & Activities:

Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk
by David Elkind
Learning All The Time

by John Holt
188
Escape From Childhood

by John Holt
Dumbing Us Down
by John Taylor Gatto
Seven Times the Sun: Guiding Your Child Through the

Rhythms of the Day
by Shea Darian
The Children's Year: Crafts & Clothes for Children and

Parents to Make
by Stephanie Cooper, Christine Fynes-Clinton and Marye
Rowling
Earthways: Simple Environmental Activities for Young

Children
by Carol Petrash, Donald Cook
Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together With

Children
by Sharon Lovejoy
Communication and Relationships:
Getting the Love You Want

by Harville Hendrix
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk
by Faber & Mazlish
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

by Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.
I Need Your Love: Is That True?

By Byron Katie
189
Pam Leo
Getting Real
by Susan Campbell
Saying What's Real

by Susan Campbell
Personal Growth:
The Power of Now

by Eckhart Tolle
Loving What Is
by Byron Katie
The Power of Intention

by Wayne Dyer
Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting

by Lynn Grabhorn
Magazines and Periodicals:
byronchild - The magazine for progressive families - Australia
Mothering Magazine
Edited by Peggy O'Mara
Connecting! e-Newsletter from the Parents Leadership Institute

by Patty Wipfler
Empathic Parenting The Journal of the Canadian Society

for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
190
Connection Parenting Links
'/1 parenting philosophyis relevant only to the

extent that it promotes parenting practices which
support secure bonding. "
These sites promote birth and parenting practices that support

strong parent-child bonds:
Birth
Academy of Certified Birth Educators http://www.acbe.com/
Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators

http://www.alace.org/
Association of Nurse Advocates for Childbirth Solutions

(ANACS) http://www.anacs.org/
Birthing from Within, An Extraordinary Approach To

Childbirth http://www.birthpower.com/
Birth Roots http://ourbirthroots.org
Birthing the Future http://www.birthingthefuture.com/
Doulas of North America http://www.dona.com/
Gentle Birth Choices (Waterbirth) http://www.waterbirth.org/
Hypnobirthing Institute of New York

http://www.hypnobirthingnyc.com/
191
Pam Leo
Midwifery Today Magazine http://www.midwiferytoday.com/
Mother-Friendly Childbirth http://www.motherfriendly.org/
National Association of Childbearing Centers

http://www.Birth Centers.org/
Parenting
Academy for Coaching Parents http://www.acpi.biz/
Alfie Kohn (Author) http://www.alfiekohn.org/
Association for Pre- & Perinatal Psychology and Health

http://www.birthpsychology.com/apppah/
ATLC Warmline http://www.atlcwarmline.org/
Attachment Parenting International

http://www.attachmentparenting.orgl
Aware Parenting Institute http://www.awareparenting.com/
Bonnie Harris (author) http://www.bonnieharris.com/
Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

http://www.empathicparenting.org/
Compleat Mother Magazine,

http://www.compleatmother.com/
Families for Natural Living

http://www.familiesfornaturalliving.org/
Infant-Parent Institute http://www.infant-parent.com/
Inspired Parenting http://www.inspiredparenting.net/home/
192
Mother Magazine, The http://www.themothermagazine.co.uk/
Mothering Magazine http://www.mothering.com/
Myrna B. Shure Thinking Child

http://www.thinkingpreteen.com/
The Natural Child Project http://www.naturalchild.com/home/
Northwest Attachment Parenting http://www.nw-ap.org/
The Search Institute http://www.search-institute.org/
http://www.kidflourish.com/Tom Adams Kids Flourish
Education
American Homeschool Association
http://wWw.americanh omesch oolassocia tio n.o rg/
Waldorf Homeschoolers
http://www.waldorfhomeschoolers.com/
Discipline
. Becky A. Bailey, Ph.D. (Author of Easy to Love, Difficult to
Discipline) http://www.beckybailey.com/
Center for Effective Discipline http://www.stophitting.com/
Diane Gossen Restitution for Children

http://www.realrestitution.com/
Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire

http://www. unh .edu/frl/index.h tml
193
Pam Leo
Murray Strauss, Co-Director of the Family Research

Laboratory http://pubpages.unh.edu/ -mas2/
No Spanking Page, The http://www.neverhitachild.org/

Project NoSpank http://nospank.net/
Don't Shake Jake (Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome)

http://www.dontshakejake.orgl
Optimal Nurturing
http://www.atlc.org/
byronchild Magazine http://byronchild.com
Holistic Pediatric Association http://hpakids.org
La Leche League http://www.lalecheleague.org/
Mothering Magazine http://mothering.com
Liedloff Society for the Continuum Concept, The

http://www.continuum-concept.org/
Parents Leadership Institute, Patty Wipfler, Listening to

Children
http://www.parentleaders.org/
Nurture by Nature Network http://www.nurturebynature.orgl
Playful Parenting, Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D.

http://www.playfulparenting.com/
Raising Resilient Children

http://www.raisingresilientkids.com/
194
Rebozo Way Project, The http://www.rebozoway.org/
Theraplay Institute http://www.theraplay.org/
Touch the Future http://www.ttfuture.org/
Genitallntegrit,Y
Doctors Opposing Circumcision

http://faculty. washington.edu/gcd/DOC/
National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource

Centers http://www.nocirc.org/
Nurses for the Rights of the Child http://www.cirp.org/nrci
The Ashley Montagu Resolution to End the Genital Mutilation

of Children Worldwide: A Petition to the World Court, the
Hague (Please visit this site and sign the petition.)
http://Mon tagun ocircpeti tion .org/ index. p h p?pcf= home
Personal Growth
Center for Nonviolent Communication, The

http://www.cnvc.org/
Getting Real Seminars and Coaching

http://www.susancampbell.com/
LifeCoaching.com http://www.lifecoaching.com/
Well ness Associates http://www.thewellspring.com/
World Cafe, The http://www.theworldcafe.com/
195
Index
A B
abandonment, as threat, 25 babies' cries, 126
Academy for Coaching back talk, 124
Parents International , Bailey, Becky, 91
160- 161 Baldwin, James, 44
acceptance, need for, 61 bedtime, 153
acknowledgement, 82 behavior
acting-out, 28, 150 acting-out, 28, 150
actions, 141 causes of, 138
ADD, 159- 160 as a communication of
addiction, 159- 160 need,125-127
ADHD, 159- 160 control of, 150
adolescents. see teens decoding, 128-129,
advice, conflicting, 68-69 143- 144, 146-147
affection, demanding, 47-48, describing, 115-116
51-52 . feelings and, 121
Alliance for Transforming the happiness and, 139-140
Lives of Children (aTLC), hurt, 147
154-158 problems with. see behav-
anger, 67, 150 ior problems
anxiety,159-160 sensitivity reaction, 147
apologizing, 45, 47-48, 49 behavior problems
appreciation, 117- 119 button pushing and, 124
arguing, 124 control behaviors and, 62
attachment parenting, 18 lack of cooperation, 23
aTLC. see Alliance for modeling and, 139
Transforming the Lives of needs of children and, 27
Children (aTLC) self-esteem and, 28
attention deficit/hyperactivity workshops and, 123
disorder, 159-160 birth, 16, 78, 155
attention, need for, 60-61, 82 blaming, 108
attitude, 141 Bombeck, Erma, 43-44
authoritative parenting, 19 bonding
authority, uncooperative adult, 87
behavior and, 23 cooperation from children
awareness, 141 and,54
197
Pam Leo
failure-to-thrive and, one-on-one connection

41-42 time, 90
importance of, 15-16, 18, communication skills,
27 104-111,112-119
listening to create, 57, 74 compassion, listening and,
by meeting children's 101- 102
needs,41-42 competence, 92
as parenting tool, 23 computer access. see media
time required to establish, confidence, 92
87-88 confidence, loss of, 84
brain development, 78 conflict, 128
Brain Gym, 159-160 conflict resolution skills,
breastfeeding, 16, 126 23- 24
bribes. see rewards connection
bullying, 26, 124, 132 after tantrums, 65
busyness, 78, 88-91, 121-123 behavior cues and,
125-126
c breaking through commu-
nication, 108
calling names, 124
Carter, Hodding, 80 corporal punishment and,
challenges, parenting, 34 132
child-centered parenting, before correction, 144
165-166 decoding behavior to
childcare, 173, 174 maintain, 129
choices, 113-114, 115 defined,37
chores, 93-95 enjoyment of children and,
coercion parenting, 19-21, 121-123
48,54 facilitating healing and,
Cohen, Lawrence J., 82, 83 70-71
communication invitations and, 52-53
babies' cries and, 126 modern lifestyles and, 123
behavior and, 125-127 one-on-one, 85-86, 88-9 I,
challenges for children, 28 153
forms of, 124-125 to partner, 169
"I" statements, 110-1 12 power struggles and, 128
for listening, 100-104 relaxation and, 167-168
nonverbal,124-125 as single parents, 169- 171
Nonviolent stress and, 166
Communication (NVC) with teens, 151-152
Process, 109-11 0, 128 time and, 121-123
198
connection parenting D
basis of, 19- 21 depression, 159-160
defined, 18 describing, I 17-1 19
as distinct from child-cen- dignity of children, 26, 42
tered parenting, 165-166 discipline, 133, 143, 148-149
exercises. see exercises disconnection, 37,42,69,
importance of resources 110. see also connection
and, 173- 176 disrespect. see respect
premises of, 27 distraction, 126- 127
principles of, 86-87 "don't", 102-104
proactive nature of, Dylan, Bob, 128
152- 154
respect and, 47-48
think twice, speak once, E
I II- I I2 educational kinesiology,
The Continuum Concept, 123 159- 160
control behaviors, 62, 84 empathy, 10 I- I 02
control of children, 17, 133, encouragement, 117-119, 149
150. see also power struggles energy, lack of, 172
Control Theory, 125 enjoyment of children,
conversations about children, 121- 123
47, 53 exercises, 32-36, 59-60,
cooperation from children 97- 98. see also journaling
as button pushing behav- expression. see communica-
ior, 124 tion
choices and, 114
connection and, 27, 86 F
disconnection and, 110 fai lure-to-thrive, 41-42
coordination difficulties, family of origin, 28, 30,
159- 160 33-34,45-46
corporal punishment, fear, as basis for parenting,
129- 132 19,26
counting, 22, 26 feelings
couple connection , 169 acceptable outlets for
courtesy, 130 releasing, 67
criticizing, 108, 115- 116 of children, 42
crying, 57- 58, 65- 66, 71 , stating, 109, 110, 1I 1
126. see also tantrums fighting, 124
cultural influences on parent- flexibility, 90-91
ing, 31 forgiveness of se lf, 29
cup. see love cup
199
Pam Leo
G instructions, difficulty follow-

Gandhi, 54, 95-96 ing, 159-160
gestures, 150 intentions, not meeting, 99
Glasser, William, 125 interrupting, 57, 105
goals, parenting, 32-33 intimidation, 105
Golden Rule, 43 invalidation, 59
Gossman, Diane, 135 invitations, 52-53
guilt, 29, 59 isolating, 59
It s All About WE: Rethinking
DisCipline Using Restitution,
H 135
happiness, 86, 139-140
142-143 '
healing emotional hurts
J
58-61, 72-73 ' journaling
health, connection and, 86 anger, 67
Helmstetter, Shad, 99-100 basics of, 32
Hitler, 95-96 behavior button pushing,
hitting, 103-104, 124, 124
129-132 children's emotional needs
Holt, John, 95 145-146 '
honesty,45 conflicts, 119-120 .
humoring, 59 crying and anger, 60
hurting others, 124 decoding behaviors, 161
hurts filling the love cup, 98
behavior and, 147 goals and challenges, 55
bringing up past, 63, 71 happy behaviors, 139-140
healing, 58-61, 72-73 listening to children's feel-
hurt-filled children, 68 ings,74
parents', 72-73 modeling, 139
personalization of, 66 negative words, 137-138
hyperactivity, 159-160 nurturing myself, 171-173
support network, 176
judging, 115-116
I
I Love You Rituals, 91
"I" statements, 110-112
K
"I Was Born to Love", 178 Kenison, Katrina, 167
infant feeding, 16, 126. see KidsPeace National Centers
151 '
also breastfeeding
Instead of Education, 95 kindness, 45, 130
Institute of HeartMath, 161 kinesiology, 159-160
200
L filling our own, 164, 165

importance of filling daily,
language, 58, 99- 100,
87-88
124-125,137-138
materialism and, 143
laughing, 84-85
one-on-one connection
Lawerence, Emmiline
time and, 85-86
Pettrick, 141
play and, 82-85
learning difficulties, 159-160
as problem prevention, 87
learning styles, 39-40
rituals and, 91-92
lecturing, 108
time, high-quality and,
Leidloff, Jean, 123
81-82
Leo, Pam Jo, 178
"let's", 53
lifestyles, modern, 121-123 M
limits, seeking, 65, 143 Magical Child, 41, 45
listening manipulating children,
as button pushing behav- 116-117
ior, 124 manners, 45, 47-48, 49
to children's communica- materialism, 16, 142- 143
tion, 126-127 media as form of separation
connecting through, 57, 74 from family, 17
diminished ability to, memory difficulties, 159- 160
71 - 72 Michelangelo, 31
healing emotional hurts modeling
and, 66 apologizing and, 50
with love, 101 - 102 coercion and, 48
meeting emotional needs conflict resolution skills,
by, 86 24-25
practice with, 59- 60 limitations of, 54
speaking in a way to manners and, 49
encourage, 100-104 parenting and, 27
love of respect, 44-46
connection and, 86 sharing and, 50-51
cup. see love cup as teaching tool , 134
hitting and, 130 modern lifestyles, 121 - 123
listening with, 101- 102 money, lack of, 173
of self, 92
teaching, 46 N
unconditional, 79
name calling, 108, 124
love cup
nature, 95
filling our children's, 97
201
Pam Leo
needs of children Nonviolent Communication

acceptance, 61 (NVC) Process, 109- 110, 128
articulation of, 124-125 noticing, 117- 119, 149
attention , 60-61 nUl1ure, 95
behavior and, 125-127
behaviors and, 27
connection, 77- 79
o
observation, 109, 110, III
decoding, 144- 145,
"ok", 115
146- 147
one-on-one connection time,
emotional , 146- 147
85-86, 88-91, 153
happiness versus, 142- 143
orders, 52, 106- 107
importance of meeting,
outdoing, 59
17- 18, 20
versus needs of others,
p
24- 25 , 28
parents' job to meet, 51-52 parenting
parents ' presence, 27 advice, 68-69
physical , 144-145 Alliance for Transforming
punishment and, 135- 137 the Lives of Children
wants and, 125 (aTLC) and, 154- 15 8
yelling and, 100 anger and, 69- 70
needs of parents authoritative, 19
adults' job to meet, 51-52 challenges, 34, 34-35
connection to partner, 169 ch iId-centered, 165-166
importance of meeting, by coercion, 19- 21, 48, 54
163- 164 diminished ability to listen
not being met as children, and,71 - 72
165 education, 29- 32
nurturing, 170-171 forgiveness of self and, 29
parenting ability and, goals, 32-33
166- 167 healing own emotional
relaxation, 167-168 hUI1S, 72-73
resources, 173- 176 journal. see journaling
stress and, 166 modeling and, 24-25 , 27,
time off of parenting, 164 44-46
ways to meet, 168- 169 single, 169- 171 , 175
needs, stating, 109, 110, 115 strengths, 34
" no", 112- 113, 143 tools, 37-38
Noelle, Scott, 30- 31 partner connection, 169
Nolte, Dorothy Law, 41 past, bringing up, 63 , 71
nonverbal communication , Pearce, Joseph Chi hon , 41,
124-125, 150 45
202
peers, influence of, 151 replay, 38, 105-106,

perfection as unattainable, 28 108-109, 134
permissive parenting, 19 requests, stating, 110, III
placating, 59 resilience, 97
play resources
importance of, 82-85, 122 Academy for Coaching
proactive parenting and, Parents International,
153 160-161
to teach desired behavior, Alliance for Transforming
149 the Lives of Children
Theraplay Institute, (aTLC),154-158
158-159 Brain Gym, 159-160
Playful Parenting, 82, 83 importance of, 173- 176
playground, leaving, 24-25 Institute of HeartMath, 161
positive reinforcement, lack of, 173
116- 117 need for, 23-25
power struggles, 24-25, 84, others as, 28
103,127- 128 Theraplay Institute,
powerlessness, 84 158-159
praising, 115- 117 as tools, 148
Prediciive Parenting, 99-100 Touch the Future, 161
proactive parenting, 149, respect
152-154 of children, 41-47
programming, language, communicating, 101- 102
99-100 hitting and, 130
protection of children, 57 language and, 99- 100
punishment, 68, 129-135 in practice, 47-48
reciprocal nature of, 43
R responsibility, children and,
92-95
reaction, sensitivity, 147
restitution, 38, 105-106,
reading difficulties, 159-160
108-109, 134-135
reconnection , 38
rewards, 116-117, 136
redirection of anger, 67
rewind, 38, 105-106,
regret, 29
reinforcement, positive, 108-109, 134
rituals, 91 - 92, 168- 169
116- 117
roots, 80, 81-92, 97
relaxation , need for, 167-168
Rosenberg, Marshall,
releasing feelings , 67
109-110, 128
repair, 38, 105- 106, 108- 109,
134
203
Pam Leo
S T
safety talking back, 124
discipline for, 149 tantrums, 25, 62- 65, 124,
emotional, 62-63, 70-71 149-150
giving choices for, 114 teasing, 108, 124
warnings and, 107- 108 teens, 23,151- 152
sarcasm, 108 television. see media
scaring children, 105 temper tantrums, 25, 62-65,
schedules, 90-91, 122 124, 149- 150
self-esteem Theraplay Institute, 158- 159
behavior problems and, 28 things. see materialism
corporal punishment and, threats, 22, 25, 59, 116, 136
130-131 time, 121- 123
"don't" and, 103 time commitment of parent-
impact of connection on, ing,28, 87-88,152-153,
79-80 169-173
nurturing, 96-97 time, high-quality, 81-82,
parents' words and, 99 85-86
wings and, 80, 92-97 time-in, 69
yelling and, 104 time, one-on-one, 85-86,
self-love, 92 88-91
self-worth, 80-92, 96-97, 99 time-out, 68, 69-70, 72, 150
sensitivity reaction, 147 time, quantity of, 85. see also
separation, 16, 17, 153 separation
shaming, 59, 108 tools, parenting, 37-38,
sharing, 45, 47-48, 50-51 , 148- 149
124 Touch the Future, 161
siblings, 90, 100, 124 "Treat Friends, Kids The
signals, 150 Same", 43-44
single parents, 169-171, 175 treatment of others, 26
Sitting Bull, Chief, 176 trust, 128
spanking, 129- 132
spirited children, 62 u
spousal connection, 169 unconditional love, 79
strengths, parenting, 34
stress, 72-73, 79, 159- 160
struggles, power. see power v
struggles validation, 59
support network. see value of children's contribu-
resources tions,92- 95
vitamin c, analogy, 77- 78
204
w
wants, 125
warnings, 107- 108
whining, 124
Williamson, Marianne, 154
Winfrey, Oprah, 29
wings, 80, 92- 97
withdrawal , 84, 100
words, 58, 99- 100, 124- 125,
137- 138
writing difficulties, 159- 160
y
yelling, 100, 104- 106
205

Leo P. - Connection Parenting - Parenting Through Connection, Instead of Coercion, Through Love Instead of Fear

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What are some of the parenting styles discussed in the book?

What are some of the parenting styles discussed in the book?

What are some tools and strategies recommended for strengthening the parent-child bond?

What are some tools and strategies recommended for strengthening the parent-child bond?

'~ ..

Connection instead otCoercion,

Connection Parenting is utterly transformational. If all new (and

Connection Parenting is the book we will all wish our parents

Our best hope for transforming the lives of children is connection

Connection Parenting heralds the encouraging news that parent-

Connection Parenting speaks to the very heart of what both

Every child, every parent needs Connection Parenting. Pam Leo's

As a mother and a grandmother, reading Connection Parenting

Connection parenting is the perfect extension of in-arms,

Pam Leo's Connection Parenting urges us to use what time we

Among the hundreds of parenting books available today, Pam

I am delighted with Pam Leo's book. It has a host of practical

I loved Connection Parenting because it gently encouraged me to

Pam Leo's Connection Parenting is a breath of fresh air. It is sure

Grounded in field-tested experience for three decades, Pam's

The only solution to the unsustainable skyrocketing cost of

As a family physician I advised a lot of parents on issues around

Pam Leo's Connection Parenting work has transformed our fam-

The parents of the children in my Brain Gym practice and the

Pam Leo taught her Connection Parenting series, "Meeting the

To the children of the world,

Connection Parenting: Parenting through Connection

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this publication may be translated, reproduced or transmitted in any

Product trade names or trademarks mentioned throughout thi s publication

Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc., Deadwood, OR

Cover illustration by Kelley Cunningham, www.kelleysart.com

Printed in the United States of America

Connection Parenting Disclaimer:

As the executive director of the Holistic Pediatric Association

the innate wisdom to know what to do. However, we must

In our pediatric seminars for practitioners, HPA teachers talk

There is a strong psycho-emotional correlation to illness.

Our most important job as parents is to create and maintain a

children's emotional needs now, so they can grow up to be

Discipline can be a very confusing issue to parents. Connection

Connection Parenting is a compassionate, insightful, and

I have read no other parenting book with as much potential

Happy, well-connected children who feel valued are healthier

I sincerely encourage parents to follow the wisdom put forth

Preface .............. . .............. ............ 11

Introduction .................... . . . .......... . . . 15

chapter One ... ................................. 29

chapter Two . ... . ...... ....... .... . .. ..... ... . .. 41

Chapter Three .... . ...... .. .... ... ....... .... ... 57

Chapter Four . .............. .. ..... . ............. 77

chapter Five . .......... . ..... . .... .. ... ..... .. .. 99

Chapter Six .. . . .. ... .... .. ... . .. .. .. .... .... ... 121

chapter Seven ... .... .. ........... .. .. ... .. . ... 163

A cknowledgments . . . . .. .. .. ................ . . . 179

Recommended Book List .. . ... . .. . . .. . ...... .. . 182

Connection Parenting Web Links ...... . .. ...... . 191

Index ...... . . . ..... . . . ... ..... .. . . ..... . ....... 197

I have independently studied child development, psychology,