Peace and Parenting: How to Parent without Punishments

Today I want to help parents trying to implement connected parenting with their partners. I’ll talk about the challenges of using different parenting styles and how to avoid shaming your partner. I also have some great tips for getting your partner on board if they haven’t already started the connected parenting journey yet. Because what kids need the most is a consistent and supportive parenting...

If I asked any parent if they love their kid unconditionally they are more than likely going to say yes, but how do we show our kids this? Because it's a very different feeling coming from the child's side of things. We can tell them this over and over with our words but kids make this assessment based on how we act and more importantly react to them. Today I want to help you with some tho...

Today I want to explore how play can be a powerful tool to shift the mood of your family, salvage challenging interactions, and ultimately build connection with your kids. I’ll share with you the importance of timing and give you some practical tips for incorporating play into your parenting toolkit. Enjoy today’s episode? Please share it with a fellow parent or leave a rating and a review. Follow...

Have you at any time thought to yourself what is wrong with my parenting? Why are my kids so good with other people but with me, they throw tantrums, yell, scream, and disobey? It’s not because you’re doing something wrong it’s because you’re doing something right. You are likely their default parent which means you’re their only safe place to go when they need to unload their big feelings, but of...

When I say discipline, most of us immediately go to a vision of punishing our kids when they do something wrong, like confiscating something or time outs. For some, it can even mean physical punishments like spanking. That’s because we have a very traditional sense of the word discipline.  I don’t use any of these traditional forms of discipline on my kids, that's because they are watching ev...

Hey fellow parents, I’m Michelle Kenney, a former yeller, recovering perfectionist, and a reformed control freak. For the last 20 years , I have been helping parents find more calm and peace at home. I do this by helping them move away from yelling, threats, and bribes and into more connection with their kids . Every Tuesday & Thursday I release a new episode with practical tools, and evidence...

Today I want to talk about parenting from fear. As parents, we all want to protect our children from experiencing the hardships and pain we went through as children. However, in doing so, are we unintentionally hindering their growth and development? By examining where we are fearful in our parenting, we can recognize areas where we may need to let go and trust our children to make their own mista...

Society has set us up that a harsh word or a harsh tone is how we fix bad behavior. But if one child is receiving harshness because their behavior is difficult and hard to manage, we have to be mindful that everyone is watching and it is going to affect all of the relationships in the house. Download my FREE guide : Healing Ourselves Through Journaling Enjoy today’s episode? Please share it with a...

From a young age, the education system teaches us (and our kids) that grades are the metrics for assessing if they are doing well but this can put a lot of pressure on them. I have decided instead to give my kids responsibility for their own grades instead of constantly harping on them to get good grades. I want to help them focus on learning the material and understanding why they're struggli...

On the 200th episode, I reflect on a significant lesson I've learned: being my child's best friend doesn't eliminate conflict. I used to put immense pressure on myself to be perfect, but I've since realized that connected parenting is built on unconditional acceptance, not back-and-forth games. It's okay to make mistakes as a parent, and building a strong connection with our ch...

I believe every child needs to be a good decision-maker, but they can't become good decision-makers if they don’t have decisions to make. While giving advice may seem like good parenting, I think it actually hinders children's ability to learn from their mistakes. Instead, I suggest we listen to our little ones first and use some probing questions to help them make their own decisions. Wit...

If you’ve recently started on this connected parenting journey sometimes it's hard to know if you’re getting any results. Many of my clients are concerned that their kids are still misbehaving, and still fighting with each other, and still throwing tantrums. But that’s not how we measure your parenting, we measure by way of how YOU are feeling, whether you are calmer and more in control. Just...

In the early days of my parenting journey, I was all about activities and productivity, I wanted to get things done! I tried to fix my own childhood through my motherhood. I was providing everything for these kids, home-cooked meals, extracurricular activities, play dates, and structure but I was missing one big thing. And when I discovered it, everything changed. Enjoy today’s episode? Please sha...

Are you tired of asking your kids to do something and being met with resistance, complaining, and pushback? Today I want to share with you why this is happening and how cooperation comes when we first work on creating a strong bond with our kids. Enjoy today’s episode? Please share it with a fellow parent or leave a rating and a review. Follow Peace and Parenting : Instagram: @peaceandparenting Fa...

Today I want to read to you an excerpt from my new book Unpunished, it’s from the chapter entitled Road to Empathy and I share a story about how the shame around wanting to be the “good mom” was my biggest motivator to get my kids to school on time. Get your copy of Unpunished here www.unpunishedbook.com Enjoy today’s episode? Please share it with a fellow parent or leave a rating and a review. Fo...

If you’ve recently started trying connected parenting you may have the same question many of my clients have and that is “why is it getting worse?”. When you start doing away with punishments, rewards, and time-outs we often see a rise in quote-unquote “bad behavior” but listen in today as I share with you what’s really going in here and how it’s actually a necessary step forward in the journey to...

One of the first things we need to do in order to implement a connected parenting style is to change our mindset. But making this shift is extremely difficult because society has told us that children are inherently bad and that they need us to make them good. I don’t believe this is true and if we can get past the judgment and allow our kids to make mistakes and sit with them during the hard time...

Have you ever yelled at your child for leaving their clothes on the floor or not hanging their school bag up when they walk in the door? Today I want to unpack why it is that our children’s behavior can trigger us into wild outbursts of anger and how although we will never be able to control our kid's actions, we can control our reactions. Download my FREE guide: Healing Ourselves Through Jour...

If you were born in the ’80s or ‘90’s you were more than likely raised using shame and threats and punishments. This is no fault of our parents they were doing what they thought was right but this model doesn’t foster a great parent-child relationship. Coming in with empathy and understanding when our kids make mistakes infuses more connection into the relationship. And guess what, it’s not about...

Today I want to give you some ways to use those moments when your child is having a tantrum or big feelings as a way to connect with them. If we can use these moments well by giving them space and showing them self-regulation. It will teach them so much and do wonders for your relationship in the years to come. Understanding Big Emotions Course I am rolling out a new parenting mastermind this spri...

Many of us grew up with our parents teaching us lessons through correction, we would make a mistake or do something wrong and our parents would come in with phrases like ”You shouldn’t have done that” or “That was wrong”. In this episode, I'll show you how you come in with connection instead and why this goes further towards building relationship with our kids. I am rolling out a new parenting...

I recently made a post on Instagram where I told parents they should not say to their kids “You hurt my feelings” whenever they say something mean or unkind. This post garnered a lot of comments so I thought I would unpack it further in today’s episode. The parent-child relationship differs from our other relationships, we have to give our kids space to have big feelings and say things without sha...

I have had parents suggest that connective parenting can be construed as distracting or manipulative, I think there are times when this could be true, so today I want to share with you how you can avoid this and make coming in with connection and play a way to better the relationship before trying to better the behavior.   Working with individuals and couples is my most favorite work. We dive deep...

As parents, we often think that we need to step in between sibling arguments and rescue the child who is the victim of this aggressive behavior from their sibling, Today on the show I want to talk about using connection and empathy instead of shame and how this shift in how I handled these situations with my kids eventually helped them to think more clearly and even work things out without me.   C...

We might think that it’s our role as parents to modify and correct the behavior of our kids, and we often do that by using rewards and punishments. But this is an archaic principle developed from lab tests with rats. Today Michelle talks about how being a parent is more about relationship management, and changing our own behavior and self-regulation is the key to influencing our kid's behavior...