{"id":500093,"date":"2026-06-15T02:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T02:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/500093\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T02:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T02:29:18","slug":"im-a-psychologist-my-three-rules-for-tougher-parenting-to-create-resilient-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/500093\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m a psychologist – my three rules for tougher parenting to create resilient kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a food psychologist, I have spent my career working out how to get children<\/a> to eat vegetables when they say they don\u2019t want to and have boiled it down to three rules \u2013 be a good role model, control their environment and say the right things.<\/p>\n

Parents now seem to have much more on their plates than just leftover vegetables. Last week, we heard about the \u201clost generation\u201d of young adults (NEETS) who are neither in work nor education and how \u201csocial media is as bad as smoking\u201d for young people, creating an addiction to scrolling<\/a> and constant comparisons to unrealistic ideals.<\/p>\n

In our rapidly changing world and challenging economy, parents now have to manage school absenteeism, endless screen time, mental health problems, poor self-esteem, children who never leave home, struggle to work and an inability to \u201cjust do it\u201d.<\/p>\n

In part, this is clearly due to so many factors beyond their control \u2013 from the pandemic to smartphones and now AI<\/a>, and the rise in neurodiversity. But parents themselves have played a role in it, too. In the new culture of \u201cgentle parenting\u201d, they have become increasingly conflict-avoidant, fearful of causing trauma and taking the path of least resistance. Plus, parents want to be liked and even their child\u2019s friend.<\/p>\n

I remember being at a barbecue as a group of mothers listened supportively while our friend complained about a letter from the council about her son, who kept missing school. \u201cWhat am I supposed to do?\u201d she asked, \u201csend him in when he says his tummy hurts.\u201d We all made sympathetic noises, but silently said \u201cyes\u201d.<\/p>\n

I also watched on for years as a friend\u2019s son missed 70 per cent of secondary school due to a variety of random health conditions that left him without qualifications and out of the workforce<\/a>. And I know of several young adults who have very little on their CV and will now struggle to compete with those who are younger and have done a lot more, but whose parents still pay for a car, holidays, their beer and sometimes even weed.<\/p>\n

Parenting is hard, but as with vegetables<\/a>, perhaps my three rules can also help with the bigger problems facing parents of today.<\/p>\n

Be a good role model<\/p>\n

If you are on your phone, they will be on theirs. If you double screen and are never properly present, this will become their norm too and if you give them screens in public just to get a bit of peace then it will become much harder to take them off them later on. So, be seen putting your phone away, be seen doing (and enjoying) your job, be seen being useful in the world and be seen getting up and getting out into the world. Children will always copy us and that way they will copy us doing what we want them to do.<\/p>\n

Control their environment<\/p>\n

It might not feel like it sometimes, but you are still the boss who pays the bills, has the car and does the shopping. So, control the home environment with clear rules from as early as you possibly can \u2013 no phones at the table, no computers in bedrooms, limit screen time and give them a safe space from which to study or apply for jobs.<\/p>\n

Say the right things<\/p>\n

We all have scripts in our heads about who we are and how we see the world and most of these come from our parents. So, if we say \u201cschool is boring\u201d, \u201cteachers are overpaid and useless\u201d and \u201chow dare they tell you off\u201d, our children will think school is pointless and stop going in. If we moan about work and say \u201cI hate my job\u201d, \u201cbring on the holidays\u201d and \u201cI can\u2019t wait to retire\u201d, they will think work is dull and never aspire to get any more from a job. And if we collude with them and say \u201clet\u2019s bunk off and go to the seaside\u201d or \u201cit\u2019s so lovely having you at home with me, I get bored on my own\u201d, don\u2019t be surprised when they are still there in years to come.<\/p>\n

We need to fill our children\u2019s heads with positive scripts. Saying \u201cDid you have fun at school?\u201d, \u201cWas it nice seeing your friends?\u201d or \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve really achieved something today\u201d can all emphasise the softer benefits of both education and work, making it much more likely that they will get up and go in even when they don\u2019t feel like it. And don\u2019t overplay the narrative that it is all so much harder now due to Covid, mental health and so on. These things might be true, but there\u2019s a strong chance that this narrative becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and, as a result, it does indeed all become a lot harder than it ever needed to be, just because we expect it to be.<\/p>\n

Mostly, I find these three rules work \u2013 head-to-head confrontations are rarely needed if parents set the scene for a child who wants to go to school, wants to work and simply wants to engage in the world.<\/p>\n

But sometimes tough parenting<\/a> is needed. Sometimes there will be crunch points that need to be tackled. And that\u2019s when we need to throw the need to be liked out the window and face the conflict now rather than later, when it will be even harder to manage. I will never be proud of shouting \u201cMy life is f**ing s**t\u201d after struggling to get my kids into the car for the school run. But it\u2019s far better to have a battle over getting a younger child to school before they are so behind with their schoolwork that the very idea of school makes them feel ashamed and their friends have got used to them not being there. It\u2019s far easier to have a screen time argument when they still want to please you than when their teenage friends are so much more important than you. And it\u2019s far better to push them into getting a job and paying at least some rent, when you pay for their phone, their clothes and hobbies and still have some bargaining power.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re parenting adult children<\/a>, and worry it\u2019s too late for those battles, you should still have them \u2013 as now is always better than the future. Expect to be out of favour for a while until they can see the benefits of what you have been trying to do. And remember, most battles are not childhood trauma, just normal, healthy obstacles that need to be managed to make us and them more resilient in the future.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t always be liked by our children, home can\u2019t always be peaceful and conflict can\u2019t always be avoided. But using these three rules can help set the scene for a child who aspires to do well and move away into their adult life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a food psychologist, I have spent my career working out how to get children to eat vegetables…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,778,61,60,1786,2237,1962],"class_list":["post-500093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-features","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-parenting","tag-unemployment","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}