Practice What You Preach

I don't want to be a harsh parent, but I also don't want to give into the demands of my child. Is there a middle ground where I can parent with kindness and firmness? Or is it a myth?

Jan 19, 2025

In our family, we have been doing weekly family meetings for a year. Family meetings have been a cornerstone in our family life. My son eagerly looks forward to them and it is our weekly meeting where we check in, and we tune into one another. A year ago, we barely convened together as a family. Yes, we had family outings and we went places but we weren’t really attached to one another. Each of us lived parallel lives and it felt so disconnected and that disconnection was present in my son’s behaviors. His outbursts, defiance, and just lack of connection with us was an indicator that something was not right. We weren’t operating as a family because we barely touched base with each other in an organic way.

Therefore, when I learned about family meetings in my positive discipline training, I jumped on implementing them right away. While family meetings are not rocket science and there’s no one way to do a family meeting, I have found the positive discipline framework of family meetings so empowering and liberating. The structure of it has helped us really connect and come together to really work with one another to come up with solutions and problem solve the challenges that we go through. Today, I would like to share with you a real life example of what came up in one of our recent family meetings. And I would love to get your thoughts and feedback on what comes up for you as you read a real life case study from our household!

One of the things that we look forward to in our family meeting is the family fun time. Family fun time is essentially where one of us picks a fun activity for all of us to participate in once the family meeting is over. When we started to do family meetings last year, we let our son pick the family fun time activities because we wanted him to be excited and interested in family meetings. After a couple of months, we agreed that each of us would take turns picking the family fun time activity just so that all of us gets a turn to choose an activity where we all participate together as a family.

The last family meeting was my turn to choose the activity and I chose to play a board game. However, my son was against it and he said that it was his turn to choose because he gave his turn to choose a family fun activity to his dad the last time so he wanted to watch a movie. I told him that it was still my turn because I was not aware that he gave his turn to his dad and that was an agreement between the two of them and it had nothing to do with me. And so the tears began. My son started to cry and was trying to pull all the stops so that he could have his way. I felt bad that he was crying and inside I was also smiling because it was adorable to see him advocate for himself so that he could have his way.

It was also a moment for me to really pause and think about how I wanted to respond to his request of choosing the family fun time activity. To be honest, a part of me really wanted to give in and let him have his way. After all, it’s a family fun activity that he gets to choose so what is the harm in it. However, this is where practicing what you preach is hard. In my group coaching sessions at Fob Village, we talked about the concept of kind and firm parenting, which is also known as authoritative parenting. When we interact with our children, the most effective way to communicate and hold our boundaries is with both kindness and firmness. Many of us are either way too firm and harsh with our children or we are way too conflict avoidant so in the guise of kindness we give in to our children’s demands.

When my son started to cry, I wanted to give in to his demands. It felt harmless to me but at the same time, I also felt unsure because I didn’t want this to be a precedence in the way we handle our disagreements. So in that moment, I took a deep breath and I held him as he cried and shared with me all the reasons why he thought he should choose. I validated the emotions that were coming up for him which was sadness, anger, and frustration and I gave him the space to feel his feelings. And in a calm and firm way, I told him that it is still my turn to choose and I want us all to respect our agreement of taking turns.

Once my son let his emotions out, I took out our family meeting binder and I suggested that we all brainstorm some solutions to work through this disagreement. However, all of the solutions that my son was proposing would enable him to choose the family fun activity for that day. And in a kind and respectful way, I asked the 4 positive discipline questions (the 3Rs and H) that we use as a framework to see whether the solutions are viable. The 4 questions are:

Is this solution reasonable?
Is this solution respectful?
Is this solution related?
Is this solution helpful?

If the solution does not fit the criteria of being reasonable, respectful, related, or helpful, we do not use that solution. As you can imagine, most of the solutions that my son was proposing was not reasonable because he wanted to choose the family activity, which was having a movie night. I still wanted to play board games because it was still my turn to choose. But the solutions that I was proposing was not reasonable to him so it just wasn’t going anywhere! What a conundrum! And the truth is during family meetings, there will be times where we won’t reach an agreed upon solution so we just revisit the problem the following week. And this was one of those problems that we had to revisit because we couldn’t agree upon a solution.

I really felt the need to be firm on my boundary of making sure we respect our agreements and that we maintain fairness in choosing the family activity. I made sure that as I held space for my son to navigate his emotions, I didn’t exercise power over him. I didn’t want to dominate, control, or create fear and resentment in him. I wanted him to know that his voice matters and what he feels is completely valid. He felt like he gave his turn to his dad last week so he wanted to have a turn again this week in choosing the family fun activity. However, I also didn’t want to have power under and give in to his demands just to avoid a conflict. I wanted him to learn that we all need to respect boundaries and commitments that we make to one another. Even in a disagreement, we need to come up with a solution that meets the needs of everybody.

That’s why I love the family meetings because it gives us an opportunity to brainstorm as a family. This is called having power with your children. This creates a partnership with them that is built on respect, trust, connection, and leadership. I wanted to hold the boundaries in a confident and sensitive way. I wanted to show my son that I am attuned to his emotions and that I wanted to work with him and listen to him while also confidently stepping into the role of the leader, the parent in his life.

So yes, we didn’t have a solution that we could agree upon during our family meeting. And we didn’t have family fun time that week. And that’s okay. Disagreements like this happens and I felt like we just needed some more time and space to figure out what we can do. And that’s exactly what happened. My son just needed some more time to sort out his emotions. And that’s when the magic really happens.

The next night my son comes into my bedroom and his eyes are all lit up. He excitedly tells me that he has a solution to our problem. He told me that he really enjoys family movie nights and he wants to have them weekly because that’s the only time he gets to watch television (we are strict about screen time with him). And that’s why he wanted to choose the family fun time activity last week because he wanted to watch a movie with us. When I proposed that we play a board game, he became sad because he wanted to watch something on the television which is why he was adamant about a family movie night instead of board games. So he proposed that we agree to do family movie nights on a weekly basis and he asked me whether I thought that was reasonable. I thought about it and I said yes. However, I told him that since we will be doing family movie nights weekly, we have to agree that we do other family fun activities after our family meeting so we can be more creative in our choices. He happily agreed to that so we made a list of other activities we could do together as a family for family fun time. The list included going to the arcade, making brownies, playing boardgames, going on a hike, stargazing with our telescope, doing puzzles, and planning an indoor picnic.

Alhamdulilah! We came to a solution and I am glad I stood my ground and gave my son the space to feel what he needed to feel as well as the time to help him come up with a solution that was agreeable for all of us. Children crave leadership from us. And they want us to be confident leaders who are connected to them. Being a leader doesn’t mean that we show our children who the boss is and get them to comply to our demands. It also doesn’t mean that we give in to our children and we let them do whatever they want and we constantly let them have their ways. It’s about showing up for them consistently with kindness and respect, even when it’s hard. It’s about holding firm to the boundaries, limits, and agreements that we set together. It’s up to us to model that balance between kind AND firm parenting. Children want to feel a sense of belonging and they want to know that are capable. Kind and firm parenting really helps to establish a culture in our homes so that our children can feel safe to express their emotions, but also know that they are capable of handling disappointments. And when disappointments and disagreements arise, they know that they have an adult who will guide them to problem solve for a healthy outcome insha Allah.

So essentially, I shared a real life case study of kind and firm parenting from our household and I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on it. Leave a comment below to ask a question and share what comes up for you as you read this blog post. How would you have handled this situation? Let me know!

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