This was originally started by Another Monkey, the virtual village refers to the phrase that 'It takes a village to raise a child'.
You are welcome to vent, to ask for advice or to give us the benefit of your experience. The only thing we all seem to have in common is that we are all either ‘in there’ or have ‘been there’.
Perfection is not the goal, we are more about, as monkey brilliantly put it “choosing one thing to be less crap at at a time”.
Books recommended so far:
How To Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk
When Your Kids Push Your Buttons
The Happiness Project
Calmer Easier Happier Parenting
The Explosive Child
The Highly Sensitive Child
How to be a Better Parent: No Matter How Badly Your Children Behave or How Busy You Are
Potentially useful websites (useful in quite different ways…..)
//www.theorangerhino.com
//www.ahaparenting.com
//www.renegademothering.com
A wide range of potential sources of advice are listed because all our children are different and no book / technique / tactic will suit every family.
A link to the original thread is shown below, and I think Monkeys OP is worth a read as she sums it all up very well…….
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/behaviour_development/a2002053-Does-anyone-else-want-to-come-and-be-a-better-parent-with-me
wecome 
Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.
Behaviour/development
Come and be a Better Parent with us in the Virtual Village
Letsgoforawalk · 13/02/2015 10:34
Here! Thanks letsgo 
It's diary week this week, on the theme of choosing one thing to be less crap at. I've been meaning to do this for a long time but have felt overwhelmed by it. I'm becoming a bit clearer about the main behaviour I'm worried about from DS so now have a code for it, so can just date, time, and add 1A or whatever.
Letsgo is the issue that your DCs are on their phones when they're doing a chore, or that they are doing a crap job of it because they're not paying attention, or because you just feel that they've got the head in their screens too much generally?
Whining, ugh. Empathy, humour, then apparent indifference. That's all I have!
Ooh we should have waited five days for it to be exactly a year 
Let's have a virtual party on Wednesday
Hi just a quick post so no one comes on and says "where has the OP gone 
?" Mumsnet style 
monkey re phones/screens - all of the above. And then some. I know I am not alone as I have seen lots of stuff on the teenager boards about similar issues. Nothing is a major issue, it just takes so much energy to keep doing the right thing and not sit with my head in the ipad modelling exactly the behaviour that gets on my nerves when other people do it
I'd just like to say too that nobody is ruining anybody. If everyone had perfect parents we would all be doing exactly what our parents did and that would all be fine..? Right? No? So we all want to change and do things differently/better, and we are all learning all the time - especially with challenging changing all the time toddlers that so many of the current threadies have.
Not perfect but 'good enough' is as much as a child needs.
Sorry, not very thought out but right now my child needs me to help teach her how to follow a recipe so I gtg.
The Buttons book is BRILLIANT. Really good. It is more about working on yourself than practical tips, though, but definitely interesting. If you have time and emotional energy to do it, it's worth doing. If you are low on time or emotional energy, pick something more immediate like How To Talk, and put this one away for later.
OK I am going to copy and paste my "weekly challenge" from the last thread. I'll try to do a new one every Sunday (today's is a day late ) so we can try and do it throughout the week. Obv just do it if you're interested, it's not compulsory but just an idea :)
Weekly Challenge 1
From How To Talk: Listening with full attention.
We all get distracted at times, whether it's with phones, facebook, mumsnet, jobs and housework, other children, just wanting five minutes to yourself, etc etc. This week's challenge is about silencing that inner sigh at the cry of "Mummy?" and stopping and giving your child your full attention. And I mean full attention. Turn off the phone screen, mute or pause the TV, put down whatever is in your hands. Turn towards them if you are sitting, or come down to their level if you're standing. Make eye contact and really hear what they have to say. (If you want to test yourself, write down the gist of the conversation afterwards.) If you're doing something really actually important that you can't stop, tell them just a minute, but then when you are ready, do the listening fully thing - not having half an eye on something else, facing them, eye level etc.
Easy mode: Do this once or twice during the week, even if they only say "Can I have a biscuit?" or talk about Minecraft. Well done. You win the challenge anyway!
Normal mode: See if you can learn something new about your child by doing this.
Hardcore mode: Make a point of doing the challenge when you really don't feel like doing it. When you're angry with them or socially overloaded or tired or whatever else triggers your least tolerant mood.
I am up to my ears in puppy-parenting videos tonight instead so that's all I have for now.
Do we want to do a rough role call again, BTW? Just a very simple, ages of children/family setup, any specific challenges/extra circumstances etc?
Here's mine.
Children: 1 DS aged six.
Challenges: Argh, mostly the usual. I am crap at remembering what I've said I will do. Too quick to jump from nicey nice to harridan. Try to follow "gentle parenting" principles where possible. Not averse to a bit of bribery or blackmail when needed. Suspected ADHD (me), DS is stubborn and can be silly but mostly normal, at the moment.
Extra circumstances: We live in Germany but have been here for 18 months now and so I think DS is totally adjusted. He can speak German fluently. He is now though starting to act out at kindergarten through, we think, utter boredom. If we had known we would have put him into school a year earlier, but 12 months ago his German was only just emerging, so it wasn't really an option.
Hello, I fell off the thread last year but lurked faithfully! You all on thread 1 and 2 were brilliant sanity savers. We were going through a patch of 'is this behaviour normal or on a spectrum of some sort' with DS (4). Apparently all is normal, we have a bright, stubborn, sensitive lad who is a little younger emotionally but should catch up.
Our gentle parenting ways got challenged as we need to add more structure and limit setting. Not that we didn't have those things but more balance needed! Reading Bertie's other thread got me nodding in agreement
We had a truckload of stressors early on that didn't help and on top of that I found they brought up some old emotional issues so while I was gentle parenting I was not calm if you know what I mean! I'd often react with tears or anger when DS pushed boundaries hard and that was NOT helpful. I haven't read Buttons yet but I totally agree that sorting your own stuff out is key, at least it has been for me.
So all in all things have improved for us on many fronts but I still think this parenting lark is the hardest job ever! Incredible, rich and full of learning and growth and all that good stuff but HARD! It can be easy to feel alone in it when people in RL seem to coast through with no problems 
Threads like this are gems for mental health and practical help! I might just keep lurking most of this thread too but wanted to say hello at the start (((waves)))
bertie I love the challenge. I'll be doing that with you. Do you have a puppy?!
dishes hello! It's great to hear how you're getting on. If I ever get time, I may PM you about the process you've been through with your DS, if you don't mind.
dreaming your DT1 sounds a lot like my DD!
We had a tough day yesterday, I wrote a huge post and deleted because it was so pathetic 
DD is at nursery today and me and DS have had a brilliant, chilled time together. But he has written a little note to DD telling her how much he misses her. Very cute.
Hi melisma and hazy, hazy I can also relate very much to the Jekyll and Hyde parenting.
So my situation is ... DS (5). We are beginning an assessment process with him at the moment and I don't know quite what I expect the outcome to be. DD (heading for 3). Strong willed, incredibly funny, inadvertently makes life far more difficult for DS to handle, although he loves her too.
We're getting the puppy in August but as you may guess from this thread I like reading and learning theory. At least dogs are a lot simpler than children :)
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Hi all. So dreaming you went for the school in the next village ? I remember the dilemma, well done on reaching your decision.
Drspouse I love that you found descriptive praise so useful. I think a couple of techniques (descriptive praise and reflective listening particularly ) are just amazing in the difference they can make in a relatively short space of time. Not without effort though.
Bexster, may not seem bad written down but that sort of environmental irritation added to not settling at night sounds just Really wearing. Well done for staying positive.
My three are all daughters. Eldest mid twenties, middle 14 years, youngest 13. All have brought (still bring ...) challenges. And when the little ones were little I had young teenager and two toddlers. So feel like I've "earned my stripes" to be on this thread.
Current challenges. Schoolwork, aggro between youngest two (hormones anyone? Available here by the bucketload.....)
Really sh*t attitude by youngest and general screen addiction by all of them (including DH . Clash of clans I'm looking at you. ) middle and eldest both prone to low self esteem.
We are also getting a dog. Later this year and like Bertie I am studiously doing my research and getting very excited about the whole thing now I have got DH onside and it looks like it will happen
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