You love your kids with all your heart. However, for you, like for so many parents, life with the kids at home all day every day might seem like a nightmare for which you feel unprepared. Short of binding and gagging them, what can you do to survive and even enjoy the next few months.

• I love you and I will always love you, no matter what.
• It is always safe to talk to me.
• Everything I do (and don’t let you do) is out of love and is my best effort to keep you safe.
• I will always try to be a good role model in your life.

Parenting is hard. There are no easy answers. No-one can tell you how to raise your child.

For example, no-one knows for sure how many hours are best for them to spend playing games online. For every expert with advice, there is another expert with the opposite advice.

But one thing is clear. You are the parent, and as such, your job is not to always be popular. You have a clear responsibility to keep your child safe and healthy.

Beware of the weapon your child (like most children and adults!) will use against you when they don’t get their own way.

That weapon is shaming. You child thinks that if they:

• Just act badly enough – argue, yell, swear, threaten – you will eventually back down.
• Can make you feel ashamed you are out of touch with the ‘’real world’’ as your child perceives it, you will back down.
• Make you feel ashamed that you are a failure as a parent in some sense, you will back down … and hope you win their approval.

When they want to do something you are uncomfortable with or do not want to follow instruction, follow these steps, knowing you are doing your best as a parent.

1. Assure them of the main certainties in their life. You:

• Are coming from a position of love and care towards them
• Take your responsibility to keep them safe and healthy very seriously
• Are doing the best you can to keep them safe and healthy

2. Tell them what you have decided.

3. Tell them why … again assuring them you take your responsibility as their parent to keep them safe and healthy very seriously.

4. Listen to them, and empathise, using terms of endearment.

5. Then say, NEVERTHELESS and stick to your decision.

6. Listen to their next power play (usually trying to make you feel shame – eg. you don’t understand; you’re a hopeless parent; I wish I had a different mother etc), and empathise, using terms of endearment (eg. I understand darling, you are feeling angry and frustrated).

7. Then say, NEVERTHELESS and stick to your decision. (Nevertheless, I’ve decided that…)

8. Expect them to try every trick in the book to get you to defend your decision. DON’T fall into this trap. The minute you start arguing, the more likely they are to find a chink in your armour and start leading you off the topic. Let them learn they need a different approach.

The only test you need to pass is the no-regrets test.

In the end, you only have to live with yourself – knowing you did the best you could at the time with the resources you could bring to that moment.

For example, assume you think your child should only have two hours of screen time per night. How many hours should they have? The answer is the number of hours you are comfortable with. After all, it’s your decision and you have to be able to live with your decisions.

Be kind to yourself. As a parent, it is so important to lighten up on yourself. Know that you are good and worthwhile.

Nurture yourself so you are less open to being manipulated by those who would try to shame you to get their own way.

Note that this advice also applies to protect you against the shaming that other adults in your life might try.

In the end, although your child will not be happy with all the decisions you make, they will always know that you love them and are doing your best. As they approach you with greater respect as they grow older, rather than casting shame, they will discover you are far more open to negotiating with them and gradually providing them with more and more freedom.

As a more extreme example, let me tell you of the father trying to manage his 14-year old daughter who keeps running off and spending the weekend over at her friend’s house. In sheer frustration, after going around to collect her so many times, he expressed that he should probably not bother collecting her next time.

I asked him if he could live comfortably with that decision if she ended up raped or got into drugs at that friend’s house. He said he would not be comfortable, and so the answer becomes clear to him. In order to live with himself, he would have to continue chasing her until she reached an age when he was willing to let her be independent.

For now, not going to retrieve her would not pass the no-regrets parenting test.

• You are the parent.
• There are no simple answers as to what is best.
• Just parent to the best of your ability.
• Make decisions that you can live with as best you can.
• We are all smarter in hindsight.
• In the end, you only have to live with yourself – knowing you did the best you could
• at the time with the resources, you could bring to that moment.

The following advice provides some suggestions you might want to share with your children to help your family get through the next difficult months if you are all required to lockdown at home.

Our wellbeing depends on what we choose to focus on. We could choose to be consumed by fear and anxiety about the current health crisis, or we could direct our thinking towards the upsides of this in the long term.

Think about how the world will change and what good might come out of this crisis.

Do you think people will become kinder?

Do you appreciate more now than you ever have how connected we are to each other, and how we have a responsibility to care for others as well as for ourselves?

Are you learning more about your family and friends now that you have more time to connect?

What things are you grateful for that you used to take for granted?

Are you seeing your teachers in a different light?