Love motivates better than punishment—and I experienced this firsthand last week when it came time to battle my son over his ELA lesson.
I took a deep breath and announced, “Time to get off the computer and do school!”
My son reacted exactly as I expected by storming into his room with a declaration of hatred for ELA. He vowed not to do any school, and I geared up to shout my standard response, threatening to enroll him in the nearest public school with the meanest teacher on staff.
I paused and thought about it, though.
First off, having been a former classroom educator myself, I knew I wasn’t going to add that stress and anxiety to another teacher’s plate.
To call my son hyperactive would be an understatement.
Second, I had spent the entire week writing about the importance of love in various relationships. Would yelling an empty threat to send him away be an act of love or catharsis on my part?
Truthfully, I myself struggle when it’s time to teach ELA because it just has so many layers. If I chose to raise my voice, would he just end up feeling guilty for his valid feelings?
Having carefully weighed the situation, I found my inner calm.
I said gently, “I know you don’t like to do ELA, but learning to read will help you in so many ways. Don’t you want to be able to read things on your games without anyone’s help?”
Reluctantly, he agreed to join me at the table.
Coincidentally, the first activity came from his social emotional learning workbook. The worksheet gave a simple explanation of self-talk and instructed him to color in the self-talk bubbles he could use when he gets upset.
I asked him to read the first thought, I can do this. He read it grumpily then began furiously scribbling all over the bubble with a red crayon before hastily moving to the next bubble.
Finding Connection in Hard Moments
Wanting to encourage him to pause and let the idea sink in, I asked him, “Can you think of a time you were having a hard time with something?”
“I don’t know,” he replied in a tone you’d expect from Oscar the Grouch.
Undeterred, I prompted, “What about that time you got upset because you kept falling off that obstacle course in your game?”
At the mention of a video game, his eyes lit up. There it was—connection!
I asked him if he would’ve felt better telling himself something encouraging instead of saying he couldn’t do it. He agreed, and his whole demeanor changed. He read the other statements enthusiastically and rattled off examples of when he could use them.
In fact, the entire lesson went by without a single power struggle. He worked with an eagerness I hadn’t seen before.
After completing each assignment, he ran to me grinning from ear to ear to tell me how he used self-talk to get it all done.
He felt good about himself because he was doing what he needed to do, and I felt good about myself because I hadn’t raised my voice to get him there.
Choosing love nurtured not only my son’s sense of self, but mine as well.
This week we’ll branch out from acts of self-love and examine how the ways we express love for our children impacts their mental health.
Start your own journey of self-discovery with the printable: Love in Practice: 5 Reflection Prompts for Self-Growth included in this Emotional Regulation Toolkit.
Start with You: The Parent’s Guide to Gentle Limits
That gentle moment with my son motivated me to take a closer look at the connection between love and discipline.
Lately, there seems to be so much conversation about how millennials parent Gen Alpha—much of it negative.
Teachers take to social media to share horror stories about student behavior. Standardized test scores in reading and math continue in sharp decline. Slang like “skibidi toilet” and “6-7” raise concerns that internet culture may be rotting children’s brains.
The list of concerns seems infinite, and many of them do have merit.
People seem to blame most if not all of these problems on the rise of gentle parenting—a softer, more loving approach than the stricter methods of the past.
Do Gen Alpha’s issues mean that millennials have miscalculated? Not necessarily.
When people criticize gentle parenting, they often have permissive parenting in mind. Both styles encourage warm and nurturing parent-child relationships, but they differ greatly when it comes to discipline.
Gentle parenting simply discourages shame-based methods in favor of disciplining with empathy, respect, understanding, and clear boundaries. Permissive parenting, however, virtually abandons discipline altogether. Children get what they want and do what they want whenever they want.
Researching this topic forced me to confront the fact that some aspects of my parenting lean a little more toward the permissive side than I ever intended—specifically bedtime and screens.
My ADHD makes consistency a challenge for me in general. I set goals to consistently enforce bedtime and screen time limits, but I typically lose track of time in the chaos of housework, lesson planning, and hyperfocus.
For example, the extra ten minutes I have to write before I need to start dinner becomes a whole hour, and the whole evening routine pretty much goes downhill from there. And…so much for bedtime.
I offer this as an explanation—not an excuse. I know I need to invest more effort into establishing effective systems and routines not only for executive functioning but as an act of love.
The constant debates about gentle parenting on social media made me realize that I may not be alone in this quiet struggle.
If you have also fallen into the trap of permissive parenting, don’t condemn yourself. People struggle to enforce boundaries with their children for understandable reasons—childhood trauma, stress, substance abuse history.
On the bright side, we can change. Start by practicing self-love to release guilt—clearing away the mental noise so you can focus on setting consistent boundaries, one step at a time.
If you feel your parent guilt creeping in…
We can become more firm in our boundaries without sacrificing the warmth and nurturing tone that come naturally to us. In fact, doing that shifts us into the true definition of gentle parenting—discipline but with love and understanding.
However, showing love for our children involves more than just our manner of correction. We need to build acts of love into our daily routine.
Discover your parenting style with the gentle the Parenting Style Reflection tool for balanced discipline included in this Emotional Regulation Toolkit.
Read more: Self-Love Isn’t Selfish: Daily Practices That Transform Mental Health
Parents Magazine —What Is Gentle Parenting?:
A clear, beginner-friendly breakdown of what gentle parenting actually means.
Psychology Today—How permissiveness develops and how to course-correct with confidence:
Are You an Overly Permissive Parent?
How Permissive Parents Hurt Their Children
Starting the Day With Love
Motivated by my recent experience with my son and ongoing research on parenting, I sought to increase my positive interactions with my children. This inspired me to switch up my morning brain work routine.
After finishing my Daily Self-Love Check-In, I sat and thought about each of my children.
I asked myself, “What are some things they’ve done that made me smile recently?”
I contemplated my oldest daughter’s witty jokes, my middle daughter’s kind words from the night before, and the warm hugs my son gives me every time I leave the house.
Moments earlier, I’d been fuming about not one but two brand new rolls of paper towels I found mysteriously desecrated on the kitchen table—for reasons that remain unknown at this time of writing.
While I reflected on my children’s most charming moments, the agitation began to dissipate. The muscles in my jaw and forehead relaxed, and my lips curled up into a natural smile. My simmering mom rage had cooled almost instantly, and my heart brimmed with love.
It felt selfish to keep these feelings to myself. I wanted my children to know how much joy they brought into my life. Determined, I picked up a pen, wrote a short note to each child, then left them right on top of their keyboards.
About an hour later, my oldest found hers.
“Aww, thank you, Mommy! I’m actually not very funny though.”
Surprised, I responded, “What do you mean? I think you have a great sense of humor.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so.”
She beamed, and my heart swelled.
Starting my day with this exercise accomplished two things.
First, it helped me reframe my negative thinking about a minor inconvenience and release tension without exploding on my children first thing in the morning.
Second, it gave them affirmation that I look beyond their messy moments and see their beautiful qualities. It set the tone for the whole day, and we got through it without a single power struggle over schoolwork or chores.
I used to think I had to bribe my kids with material incentives like “treasure box” or classroom currency to get results like this. However, starting the day with praise seemed to encourage them to keep the positivity flowing by cooperating with me to get things done.
This little experiment showed me that simple written or spoken expressions of love inspire cooperation just as well, if not better, than toys or candy. I definitely intend to make these morning notes a regular part of our routine.
In fact, I designed a template of notes with sentence starters to make it a little easier. If you would like to try this out with the children in your life, you can download the printable love notes included in this Emotional Regulation Toolkit. I’d love to hear how it works out for you in the comments.
Creating Space for Connection
Though the love notes created a lovely moment of connection earlier in the day, a conversation I had in the evening showed me that my kids needed more than one expression of praise. They need a steady stream of love and positivity woven into our daily habits.
With dinner in the oven and a little time on my hands, I sat at my computer typing excitedly. My writer’s block of the past 24 hours had finally lifted, and the words began to flow freely on the page. Relieved that my writing career hadn’t ended after all, I refused to let the moment slip away.
A few minutes into the writing session, my oldest daughter asked if she could sit next to me as I worked. Without looking away from my screen, I invited her to take a seat. She watched me intently, asking questions about my blog post. Touched by her interest, I explained the concept enthusiastically.
My eyes, however, remained fixed on my screen.
”I wish we could just hang out and talk sometimes.”
I stopped midsentence and looked at her, feelings of guilt and shame welling up inside of me. My preteen daughter wanted my time and undivided attention.
We spent the rest of the oven timer talking about the card games we enjoy playing together and making plans to play them again. She seemed satisfied with that little bit of time, but it motivated me to commit to following through with game night this week—no excuses.
This interaction showed me the importance of scheduling time for connection, and I appreciated this lesson and opportunity for growth.
Children value our expressions of love and attention more than anything we could buy in a store. They won’t be young forever, so as parents we need to be intentional about putting their emotional needs ahead of other things as best as we can—even when things get hectic.
If you see yourself in my experience, I encourage you to join me in setting a goal to schedule quality time with your child this week. Put away the laptop, phone, or cleaning rag. The work will always be there, but our children will be grown before we know it.
Use the Connection Time worksheet included in this Emotional Regulation Toolkit to help you build consistent, meaningful quality time with your child.
Putting Love Into Practice
If this post inspired you to take the next step on your path to self-discovery and change, download the Love in Practice: 5 Reflection Prompts for Self-Growth printable included in this Emotional Regulation Toolkit.
Inside this printable, you’ll find:
- The Love Progress Report—Use this to identify areas of love in your life that need more care and intention. Track your growth throughout the month by completing a new one each week.
- Parenting with Love—Reflect on the balance between the positive and negative interactions you have with your child each day and consider changes you can make to encourage more connection.
Meaningful Actions to Try:
- Start your day by reflecting on your child’s positive qualities, and let them know how much they mean to you. You can use the Daily Love Notes templates included in the Emotional Regulation Toolkit to help you get started.
- Schedule uninterrupted time with your child this week. Even if you can only spare five to ten minutes, as long as you give them your undivided attention, it will go a long way toward making them feel loved and connected with you.
Book Recommendation:
- 180 Days of Social Emotional Learning Workbook Series for Grades K-6 (Secular)
Small Acts, Big Impact
My firsthand experiences taught me how meaningful acts of love assure children that they have a valuable place in the world.
While they look to us for discipline, we want to avoid using approaches rooted in shame that damage their self-worth. However, we need to avoid becoming overly permissive since that carries its own consequences: entitlement and poor emotional regulation.
Remember to practice self-forgiveness as you work toward setting firmer boundaries. My honest evaluation of my own parenting practices showed how ADHD and other mental health conditions can lead well-intentioned parents into this trap.
These challenges can make consistency difficult, both for ourselves and for our children, but we can start building new habits one small step at a time.
Ultimately, parents promote balanced self-love in their children through praise and moments of undivided attention. Our kind words become things they say to themselves, and our efforts to spend quality time convey the importance they have in our life.
Loving discipline, words of affirmation, and our time and attention set them up for long-term wellness since well-loved children become emotionally healthy adults.
Thank you for following along with my journey! If this resonated with you, please comment and share this post with anyone who needs a gentle reminder to give their children more love and attention. Subscribe to be notified when my next article goes live—we’ll explore how love shapes our relationships beyond ourselves and our children.
Keep it kind, respectful, and focused on self-love and growth—let’s make this a safe, uplifting space. 🌿