1.
Helping children learn honesty is a huge part of them developing a secure experience with us. But it's less about extinguishing lying and more about creating an environment for them to feel safe being open with us.
Three tips for helping create that environment:
1. Recognize and manage your own anxiety and any impulse to use honesty as a way to control your children. Honesty and pressure to perform don't mix easily.
2. Understand that lying is developmentally normal and has a wide range of variance. Don't treat all lies as psychopathic impulses. Teach and validate their wide ranging nuances.
3. Remember that honesty flourishes where messiness is understood and given empathy.
Learn the power of modeling self-compassion to your kids, as it inspires authenticity and problem-solving, and helps them develop their own self-treatment based on how they see you treat yourself.
Learn how trusting younger generations to make the changes they see necessary can help make the world a better place in this thought-provoking video about the role of parents and the importance of allowing children to explore the world fully.
Learn how attuning to a child's interests and internal states can build their trust in their body, freeing them to confidently explore the world in this insightful video.