Parenting with Purpose: How to Raise Well-Behaved Children and Build a Strong Parent-Child Relationship

In this practical, eye-opening and action-oriented book, Nina Garcia explains how to use connection to raise well-behaved kids and strengthen your parent-child relationship.

You’ll learn:
• How to diffuse and prevent tantrums and outbursts
• How to better communicate with your child
• Practical advice on structuring your day around routines
• The secret to starting your day off right with your child
• How to parent calmly and not lose your temper
• And so much more…

Maybe you’re fed up with your child’s outbursts and wonder how many tantrums are too many. Or you want to address his behavior with empathy and patience rather than through punishment. Perhaps you want to lessen fighting as well as equip your child with the skills to prevent arguments in the first place.

You’ve tried time-outs. Counting to three before they’re really in trouble. Maybe you’ve lost your temper. Except nothing is working, at least in the long run. You continue to butt heads—and you’re exhausted with having to deal with yet another day of disciplining.

And here’s why: we’ve got this discipline thing all wrong. We assume discipline is about punishment, or we assume it’s what we need to take away from them to curb misbehavior. We mistakenly believe that the main purpose of discipline is to stop tantrums and outbursts at all costs, as quickly as possible.

Let’s get to the real definition of discipline: discipline is teaching our kids.

Because isn’t that what parenting really is? Your job is to arm them with the skills they need and would serve them well in the future so they grow into kind adults who can regulate emotions or empathize with others. They’ll be adults who treat others with respect and don’t expect the world to bow down to their wishes. The kind of person you’d want your child to eventually grow up to be.

With each outburst comes the opportunity to help them develop these skills. They learn more about their feelings and appropriate ways to express them. A child who can articulate “mad” can identify that emotion and use techniques to convey frustration. So that next time, there won’t be a tantrum to get their point across but rather a more mature discussion or a different way to control their temper.

And the best way to discipline is through connection. As ironic as it sounds, we need to connect with our kids when they’re acting up. The times when they’re most unpleasant are when they need us the most. Connection works to prevent outbursts as well as better handle them when they inevitably happen.

This doesn’t mean you’ll be permissive. You still need to enforce limits and set boundaries. You won’t let your child continue to jump on the couch or color on the walls when he’s not allowed to. But you focus on what you want your child to learn from the incident rather than only making sure he doesn’t do it again. Because yes, it’s important your child stops coloring the walls. But it’s equally important for him to develop the skills to communicate and make better decisions. You don’t accept the behavior, but you are there to guide him through it.

This book provides you with the tools you need to handle conflict as you see fit. What worked one day may not work the next. And what worked for your first child may be ineffective with your second. You don’t have to get it ”just right.”

Parenting with Purpose is for parents who want to raise their children using intention and mindfulness. Are you ready to raise well-behaved kids and strengthen your relationship with your child? Scroll to the top of the page and get your copy now.

Nina V. Garcia is a mom to three young boys. She started her blog, Sleeping Should Be Easy (sleepingshouldbeeasy.com), to record everything she was learning about being a mom. Parenting with Purpose is a result of many of the parenting principles she learned.

In addition to her blog, Nina's writing has been featured in other publications, including BlogHer, The Mid, and The HerStories Project.

She lives in Los Angeles.