Our focus as parents should be on helping things go right rather than on handling
them once they have gone wrong. Ask yourself these 4 questions;
Am I correcting my children without reaching them?
What is the quality of my relationship with my children?
What is the quality of my relationship with my spouse?
How pure is my “way of being”?
The answers are in the parenting pyramid.
Am I correcting my children without reaching them?
At the top of the pyramid is correcting behavior. This involves addressing and correcting your child’s misbehavior when it occurs. However, this step should not be the primary focus of parenting. Effective correction is most successful when the lower levels of the pyramid are strong. If parents jump to correction without a solid foundation, it can lead to ineffective discipline and strained relationships. Look at the pyramid. What is directly below correcting? Teaching. The effectiveness of our correction will always depend on the effectiveness of our prior teaching. Spend more time teaching them.
Beneath correction is teaching. This level emphasizes proactively teaching children the values, principles, and behaviors that you want them to adopt. Teaching is an ongoing process that occurs in everyday interactions and conversations. By clearly communicating expectations and modeling desired behaviors, parents can help children understand what is expected of them before misbehavior occurs.
What is the quality of my relationship with my children?
The next level is the parent-child relationship. This step underscores the importance of a strong, positive, and loving relationship between parents and children. When the parent-child relationship is secure, children are more likely to listen, respect, and adhere to the guidance provided by their parents. This relationship forms the basis for effective teaching and correction. Strengthen the bond of affection with your children so you can teach them.
What is the quality of my relationship with my spouse?
The parent relationship level highlights the importance of the relationship between the parents. When parents have a strong, supportive, and cooperative relationship with each other, it creates a stable and harmonious environment for the child. Children are highly sensitive to the dynamics between their parents, and any tension or conflict can undermine the effectiveness of parenting.
How pure is my “way of being”?
At the base of the pyramid is personal way of being. This foundational level is about the parents’ own inner state, attitudes, and overall well-being. It involves self-reflection and self-improvement, as parents need to be in a good place emotionally, mentally, and physically to effectively parent their children. When parents have a healthy personal way of being, they are more patient, understanding, and capable of building strong relationships with their children and partner.
The Parenting Pyramid emphasizes that the most effective parenting starts at the bottom, with the personal way of being. As parents focus on improving themselves, they can strengthen their relationship with their partner, which in turn improves their relationship with their child. With a strong parent-child relationship, teaching becomes more effective, and correction is more likely to be well-received.
If parents focus too much on correction without building the lower levels of the pyramid, their efforts are often less effective, leading to frustration for both parents and children. Therefore, the pyramid serves as a guide to remind parents of the importance of building a strong foundation before addressing behavior.
The Parenting Pyramid is a useful framework for parents to evaluate and improve their approach, ensuring that their parenting is balanced, effective, and rooted in love and understanding.
“Whenever drastic correction is called for with a child we should begin working on the three deepest levels of the pyramid immediately and simultaneously. In times of crisis the temptation is to let the corrective action use up all our energy. But this is a mistake. Ultimately, the problem with our child goes deeper than discipline—and so does the solution. This is the time to begin identifying, and doing, the kinds of things that the deepest levels of the pyramid recommend. It is the time for greater goodness, for greater emphasis on our marriage, for any ways—however small—to help rebuild affection. In such extreme circumstances, it may be a long time before we are in a position to teach. But that’s precisely what the pyramid reminds us: premature teaching will not be effective anyway. As we are patient, and as we do all we can where we can, we can make a deep and genuine difference in the life of even the most unhappy child.”
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