How To Help Parents Avoid This Parenting Problem: Make Parenting Skills More Effective

How many times have you watched kids create a block creation in the playroom?  If you said “more than I can count”, well…. same. Whether it is blocks, legos, magnatiles, or cards there is one thing in common for every sturdy and tall standing tower - a secure and stable base. 

And this is true for implementing parenting skills too! 

However, parenting skills can be a TON more complicated and complex than the giant magnatile tower. And parents often fall into this one trap when implementing skills - which is skipping to the “important part” and forgetting about the base.  Think trying to build a giant tower with one measly lego holding it up. Yup, a recipe for disaster.

For parenting and co-regulation skills the base starts with the parent. Meaning, oftentimes parents want to jump to the conclusion or outcome and breeze past or spend little to no time on the base.  They want to say what should happen, the boundary, the consequences, or the punishment.  But without the secure base it has greater likelihood to come crashing down. 

This can often look like a dysregulated parent attempting to regulate a child.  Check out more HERE about the science backed ways behind why that almost never works. 

So beyond building a base as a regulated parent, parents often miss the step of connection.  This step means having empathy and validation for whatever a child is experiencing in the moment.  Check out more relationship building tools HERE and validation supports HERE and HERE!  

The three ingredients of a co-regulated grownup who is showing a child empathy and validation is the strong base and support that is needed to make what comes next (the consequences, limits, rules, etc.) effective.  

Without this strong base? There is a significant risk of the child coming away from the experience having learned the following thing “my parent is mean” rather than reflecting on their own behaviors and outcomes. 

Without the strong base we take away any learning and self reflection that could have happened leading to a high likelihood of these unhelpful behaviors and patterns repeating themselves in the future. 


If you are looking for more support in your work with parents and caregivers in the playroom check out my course Holding Systems: Supporting Parents and Caregivers in The Playroom!  This course takes you in depth into parenting skills and regulation to up your play therapy confidence and competence! ​

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