I want to share a tip that has helped me greatly and has changed the way I parent - it's by changing your attitude and your perspective of your relationship with your child.
When you parent your child as 'YOUR' child, you tend to take the burden of their behaviour very personally, and see it as a reflection of you, as a failling parent.
However, I have discovered that when you see your child as 'GOD's' child, you are less likely to take their behaviour personally, and more likely to react better, by being more patient and forgiving.
Sometimes when I'm having a really tough time with my teenage daughter, I literally imagine myself as 'babysitting' or looking after God's child and not mine. If you think about it, our children do really belong to God. He entrusts us to look after them whilst we are on earth, but ultimately they are God's children, and not ours alone.
Somehow, this perspective takes away the stress of the whole motherhood responsiblity in having to have all the answers, and allows us to cry out to God for help more - I have on more than one occasion pleaded with God to deal with His kids, when I have reached the end of my rope.
Then I've walk away and most times, when I return later, I find a different, apologetic child, knowing that God has stepped in to take charge of the situation.
