Intentional Parenting: An Active Approach

 In all areas of life, we get to choose whether we will be active, present, and proactive, or if we will be passive, absent, and reactive. This includes parenting. 

 

In this blog post, I will be sharing insights from Dr. Michael Popkins and his approach called active parenting. 

 

Popkin’s approach revolves around understanding the needs that children have. He then addresses the child’s mistaken approach if that need is not being met and what the parental response should be in order to meet the need. 

 

I will go over three of the needs that Popkin’s has identified with their associated approaches and responses. 

 

The first need that a child has is contact. This coincides with a sense of belonging. What does this look like? Contact includes both physical and verbal communication. While it might seem easy to remember to hold your child when they are a baby and infant, it is just as important to have physical contact with your children as they grow up. It won’t be as excessive and it will look different compared to when they are small, but it is still a necessity. For example, this could be hugs, high-fives, or playing games. It also includes being present for them and paying attention. When they tell you about their day, be curious, make eye contact, and show them that you truly care. What happens when this need isn’t met? Popkin’s says that the child’s mistaken approach in this case is undue attention seeking. For example, they might purposefully get in trouble with friends or at school. The mindset here is that negative attention is still attention, so they are willing to get into trouble if it meets their need of contact. Perhaps the child doesn’t realize all of this, but that is the underlying motivation to their misbehavior. To remedy this, the parental response is to offer contact freely. Pay attention to them. Give them daily care. 

 

The second need a child has is power. To some degree, children need to feel like they have a level of autonomy and can control certain aspects of their life. This is important in every stage, from raising a toddler to raising a teen. Children need to have choices. An example for a toddler could be asking them if they would rather wear outfit 1 or outfit 2. You get to control the options, but you still give the toddler the choice. This would be different than simply allowing your child to choose whatever they would like to wear wherever they go. In other words, you don’t have to let your kid wear their Halloween costume to church. Providing too many options can be overwhelming for your child as well. For teens, you could discuss together what appropriate consequences are and have them choose in a way what they think is fair within certain limits. Teaching choices and consequences is the appropriate parental response to children’s need for power. This helps them develop responsibility. Regarding consequences, it is also important to practice teaching natural consequences. Natural consequences are the natural result of an action. You will also want to make sure actions and given consequences line up logically. For example, if a child misuses their cellphone, the consequence would be associated with losing privileges with the phone and not something else. Overall, power is an important need for all children, and parents can address it while teaching responsibility. 

The third need a child has is protection. If this need is not met, the child’s mistaken approach is revenge. There is a quote that says that you can never get enough of what you don’t need because what you don’t need will never satisfy you. This is the same with revenge. It feeds itself and only worsens because it will never lead to satisfaction. Instead, the appropriate parental response would be to teach assertiveness and forgiveness. One of the best ways to do this is by example. Make and keep healthy boundaries with your child and others. Practice sincerely apologizing to your spouse and children when you make a mistake. Be emotionally vulnerable and practice standing up for yourself. Another parental response for the need of protection is to provide physical and emotional protection in the home by creating a healthy environment. 

 

Popkins goes over other needs such as withdrawal (the ability to step back and take a break) and challenge. I strongly recommend checking out his work. For additional resources, I also recommend ActiveParenting.com. Thanks for reading!