People need to feel safe to talk without their ideas being criticized, judged, demeaned, or mocked.

I consider parenting skills, those skills that help children: (1) develop clear and important goals; and (2) figure out flexible and persistent ways of achieving their goals.

Prioritizing listening to their child or adolescent is extremely important. It can be very hard to listen to someone who is upset or troubled without offering advice or suggestions or otherwise telling him or her what to do.

The best way for parents to go about acquiring a mind-set of self-reflective parenting will be different for different individuals. Some people will find that they are already very close to being the parent they are striving to be. Other people will find reading books or blog articles to be very helpful and some other people might benefit most by engaging in discussions on the internet.

Parents typically don't talk to each other about their goals and attitudes to parenting but this type of conversation could be very useful for helping parents become clearer about the things that are important to them.

Parents should be able to develop goals about the type of parents they want to be.

Once parents have a clear idea of their important parenting goals, beliefs, and values, they can then think about specific situations and identify the outcomes they would like to achieve in these situations. How can you be the parent you want to be whether or not your children are behaving as you would prefer?