We simply function at our best when base our emotional connections with our children in positive activities that are strong, flexible, and enjoyable, such as high-minded parenting classes.
Compassion most definitely does not mean letting children get away with bad or selfish behavior. It does not mean that parents should go along with whatever children want. Nor does it mean overindulgence, generosity, or magnanimity. Compassionate parents go to parenting classes to be able to see beneath the surface of their children's behavior to get at the deeper motivations. They empower children to control their own behavior by teaching them to regulate their motivations.
Compassionate Parenting is certainly not perfect parenting. Some of the best parents in the world still take parenting classes and do not go a single day without making some error in what they do or say to their children. Fortunately, kids are extremely resilient when it comes to parental mistakes.
A major tenet of the Compassionate Parenting program is that whatever parents say and do matters far less than their emotional motivation, such as trying to be a better parent by taking parenting classes. Unless a child is deep into a destructive mode, almost anything a parent says or does in a positive mode will succeed. In fact, experiments show that children perceive even highly critical statements done with positive motivation such as caring and encouraging.
Regardless of what mode the child is in, almost nothing the parent who does not participate in the Compassionate Parenting program says or does in the negative or destructive modes will work. Without the foundation of the parenting classes, parents must not match the negative and destructive motivations of their children in kind. Doing so only reinforces the negativity and teaches kids the dangerous lesson that the one with the most power to be negative and destructive wins.
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