Positive Parenting With Olu

“I’m 18 now – You Can’t Tell Me What to Do!”

Hello beautiful people 🥰❤️❤️

I’m sure if you’ve been following me, you know that I always like to share my parenting experiences with you guys.

So today, I would like to share a little bit about where I am at as a mother of an 18 year old son. 

 If you’re raising children in Nigeria today’s post may not make too much sense to you!

As you know I live in London and raising kids abroad is a little different from raising kids in Nigeria. 

Children are the center of everything here in the UK.  (basically you can’t hit them or verbally abuse them, if you do and they tell on you, all I can say to you is good luck 😄) 

Don’t get me wrong I do not support hitting a child and as a matter of fact, I have never hit my son before. There was no need to! (there are other ways to discipline kids without beating them) 

So let’s get back to today’s post 👇

HOW TO RESPOND TO “YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! 

When your child challenges you with “I’m 18 now, you can’t tell me what to do,” the most effective response is:

“You’re right. I can’t tell you what to do outside of this house. But while you’re here, you do need to comply with my rules. You don’t have to like them, but you do have to find a way to follow them.”

Don’t engage in a power struggle over who’s right or wrong, and don’t argue with their faulty thinking patterns and entitlement. If they break the rules, follow through with the consequence for breaking those rules.

My final thoughts:

Remember, whether your child is 5 years old or over 18, your home is your home, and your rules are your rules. Once they’re 18, you can’t control all their choices, but you can create a safe and somewhat peaceful home environment. 

Best of luck 😄🥰❤️❤️

I would like to hear from you in the comments below… How do you react when your tweens or  teens say no to you? 

OLU 🥰❤️❤️

Hello beautiful parents 🥰❤️❤️❤️

Today’s post may not make sense to parents in Africa, however if you’re raising kids abroad, then today’s post may make sense to you.

As your teenager made the above statement before? . Well mine has!

I know some teenagers may not be bold enough to say those words to their parents, but I’m sure they would have said it with their behaviour. 

What do you do when they say this? Do you slap them or what do you do? 

At 18 most of them are even taller and bigger than you! 😄 . To avoid power struggles what should you do? 

When a child reaches the age of 18, he is now classified as an adult and you can’t really do anything much to them at this point. 

Dear parents, your relationship with your 18 year olds will be tested when they reach this age. 

I always tell parents that you won’t have to worry about your teenagers behaviour if you’ve put in the work when they were young, trust me.

Your Children will still listen to you even when they are older, it all depends on what you’ve sown early.

So if you’re a parent of young children please be intentional.

For more parenting tips click here 👇

#positiveparentingwitholu

#youngshallgrow

#teenagers 

#beintentionally

#parentingtips

#parentingtipstuesday

Sometimes after a lesson, while they’re waiting to be picked up by their parents I usually ask my students to choose what activities they love to do.

Sometimes they choose to draw, or write a story or sometimes play card games.

And sometimes we talk about schools and personal stuff. 

They love to share if you care to listen. 

So one day I asked a student to write down one “harmless” comment she had heard about her appearance that has affected her body image today. 

Here is what she said 👇

“My mom was taking a picture of me and told me to ‘suck it in.’ I was 8 or 9. Seems harmless, but I’ve never forgotten it and I always struggled with my weight. I was never really big but from that point on, I just felt fat. I try to stay thin by skipping food and I developed an eating disorder. I have been struggling on and off now with bulimia for 3 years now.” 

Please dear parents, let’s stop saying negative things to our children (especially girls). 

WORDS ARE LIKE A BROKEN EGGS  – when they’re dropped you can’t take it back. 

Can you write down at least one “harmless” comment you’ve heard about your appearance growing up and how it has affected your body image today. 👇👇

Thanks for reading

OLU

The other day, my son was eating crisps and he wanted to go into my room. Crumbs came out of his mouth as he took every bite.

 I told him not to go into my room with the crisps. I kept telling him he can’t come into my room when eating. I said it one more time when he was at my door. He ignored it and entered my room with crisps in his hands and crumbs on my rug.

I was angry. I exploded and yelled, “Didn’t you hear that I asked you not to come in with crisps?”

He looked at me, turned around, and left my room.

So what is the lesson?

That yelling and only yelling works with kids who don’t listen, right?

Wrong.

He didn’t listen to me because he couldn’t listen to me. I was not in front of him, making eye contact and ensuring he was paying attention to what I said.

Instead, I just sat at my desk and shouted my command, while he was fully immersed in tasting the yummy crisps. 

He simply couldn’t pay any attention to me until he  entered the room and saw me

.However, from my perspective, I thought he heard everything I said but ignored me. I thought he was purposely disrespecting me and my request. So I was angry. My emotions took over. Instead of looking into why he acted that way, I yelled at him.

I was being disrespectful to him.

I was shouting to him  from another room not caring whether I was interrupting what he was doing or not. And when he didn’t meet my expectations, I acted rudely toward him. I showed him that I only cared about my own needs. I showed him that when you were frustrated, you could be rude and disrespectful.

That was definitely the wrong message.

I was not a good role model in having empathy, respect, and self-control.

To teach respect, first, we need to stay calm and stay in control. Identify if this is a real “disrespect” situation, a misunderstanding, or simply because the child hasn’t learned the proper response in such a situation.

STAY CALM AND DON’T OVERREACT WHEN YOU THINK YOUR CHILD IS BEING DISRESPECTFUL. 

To be continued next week 🥰❤️❤️

Please I would like to know how you show respect to your kids 👇

Have a lovely day today 🥰❤️❤️

My birthday is in 2 months and I will 54 years young then.

So, as I was reflecting on my past and thinking about my future. I wrote some thoughts down about self-love and my relationship with others. Especially men .

And I thought I should share some of my thoughts with you if that’s ok. You never know you may learn one thing or two, especially if you’re a young girl in a relationship and if you’re a parent of young children.  

————————————————————

Here we go 👇

I believe we have a comfort zone when we are in a relationship with others. This comfort zone forms when we are small. If our parents treat us with love and respect, then we associate this type of treatment with being loved.

If as it’s the case for many of us, if our parents were unable to treat us with love and respect, then we learnt to be comfortable with this lack. In an effort to get our needs met, to feel loved and cared for, we associate being treated badly for being loved. And this becomes our pattern.

And as patterns are formed in childhood and become the pattern we use unconsciously in all our relationships. 

I believe this pattern is more expressed in women than men. Because culturally women are expected to express vulnerability 

I will leave it here because it’s getting so deep, I will definitely share more in my memoirs (watch out)

——————————————-

Anyway the reason I decided to share this post with you today is to let you know part of the reasons I focus on girl children. 

I know a lot of you have been asking me to talk about boys, even though I have 3 boys of my own. 

But like you may have known, everyone has a purpose and is passionate about something. 

And I also believe you can’t give what you don’t have. I am a woman (obviously 😄) and I have being through a lot just like most of you, so I think I rather stick to what I know best – ME

In addition, I’m so passionate about girls and that WHY I talk a lot about girls and also I have 2 beautiful granddaughters.

That’s one of the reasons I do what I do, I want my grand children to grow up knowing that we tried our best as mums and grandma 😄❤️❤️  

Dear parents, please Let’s change the narratives 🙏🏾

 As a parent, if we don’t want our kids to grow up accepting any kind of toxic behavior, because they think is love as num we must treat them with love and respect now that they’re still young. 

Because when we do, they will grow up only accepting people that treat them with love and respect. 

I will share more soon 🥰❤️❤️

I have to drop the mic now 🎤 😃, until next time Peace and happy parenting ✌🏾

Today we are going to continue our conversation about some other behaviour problems in a child and how to solve it. (You can read my previous post on my timeline if you want to learn about other common behaviour in kids)

So let’s talk about Defiant Behavior in kids

Why does my child act defiantly?

By age three your child has realised that he’s separate from you, and that he has his own identity.

Whether your child ignores you when you tell them to pick up their toys or says “No!” When you tell them to stop throwing a toy, defiance is difficult behavior to address. But it’s normal for kids to test limits at one time or another.

How should I handle my child’s defiance?

✅ Set clear rules 

Give your preschooler clear boundaries so that he knows what’s expected of him. Set a few simple rules, and discuss them: “We don’t hit. If you’re angry, use your words.” Or, “Remember, you always have to hold my hand in the car park.”

✅Praise good behaviour

One of the best ways to teach your child to obey the rules is to give him lots of praise when he does.

When your child won’t obey rules, offer a single when… then warning. Say, “When you pick up your toys, then you will be able to watch TV.”

If your child doesn’t comply after the warning, follow through with a consequence. 

With consistency, your child will learn to listen the first time you speak.

Let’s model good listening to them too, remember they learn from us. If you want them to listen to you we need to do the same. 

Respect is a two way things, even in a child and parent relationship 😊

I know we all want to raise kind, polite and thoughtful children 

So, let’s try our best 🙏🏾

Remember when we know better we must do better

Thanks and have an amazing week guys 🥰🥰🤗❤️❤️

OLU 🥰🥰❤️

AWAY

My youngest son is 18 years old  and today is his last day at school. His last day at sixth form. 

After A levels, 18 year olds have many options they can choose from.

They can either go to university or enrol in a college, or apply for apprenticeships and start the ‘work’ parts earlier. 

Or they can get a job, which will not only give them a chance to earn some money but learn timekeeping, responsibility, independence etc

My son decided to take a one year gap to find himself before he decides on what he wants to do about his future. 😊

Whatever happens I am proud that he is developing independence and know at some point he will be successful in his chosen career. His happiness is more important to me than doing what others expect him to do.

Why I’m I sharing this with you? 

Here is why 👇👇

Throughout his primary education, I used to just accept everything his teachers told me about him without questioning it. And I will comply with whatever they say about my son and I always believe them over my son. 

It took me a while to realise that just because someone is an “expert” or “in charge” doesn’t mean they know what’s best for my son. 

So today, I thought I should share this to everyone who needs to hear this. 

Please don’t give your parental authority away! The Teachers and Headteachers don’t have authority over your children!

Teachers and Headteachers don’t have authority over your children!

Only YOU have the maximum authority over your children. 

So,  if someone in authority approaches you or tells you to do something to your child, please do your own research first. You don’t need to take their word for it! 

You don’t need to blindly comply with whatever any individual is telling you to do to your children!

You will never feel more at peace or more empowered than when you follow your instinct as a mother! 

 And your children will be their happiest.   ❤️❤️❤️

Parents have the ultimate say! 

Thanks and I would love to her your thoughts on today’s post 👇👇

Common Child Behavior Problems and Their Solutions (part 2) 

Today we are going to continue by talking about some other behaviour problems in a child and how to solve it. (You can read my last on my timeline if you want to learn what to do if your child tells lies)  

Name-calling, throwing things, and rolling their eyes at you are just a few of the common behavior problems that show disrespect. If disrespectful behavior is not addressed appropriately, it will likely get worse with time.

If your child’s intent is to get your attention, ignoring them can be the best course of action. Show your child that sticking their tongue out at you doesn’t result in the reaction they’re looking for.

🟢 SO HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH A DISRESPECTFUL CHILD?

Here’s what you can do: sit down and talk with him when things are calm. Tell him about a time when he did treat someone respectfully and praise him for it. Then, teach him how you want him to respond respectfully when you (and other adults) talk to him or give him an instruction.

Our children are mirrors, reflecting images of what happens around them.

They are always watching what we do. They watch how we treat other people and see how we deal with our feelings. They soak in all that information like little sponges. Even when you think the children aren’t paying attention, it’s important to be a positive role model.  

Role model the behaviour you want to see from your children. 

My final thoughts 

Our job as a parent is to help mold our children into kind, respectful, honest and caring people. And sometimes the easiest way to do that is to be a good role model. 

Please 

Thanks and have an amazing week guys 🥰🥰🤗❤️❤️

OLU 🥰🥰❤️

This month our topic is going to be on EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE

A few weeks ago, someone who follows me on social media sent me this message 👇

My daughter tells lies all the time — big ones and small ones. She does it even when it’s clear that what she’s saying isn’t true.  She’s a good kid, and I don’t understand why she’s lying so much. 

Why is your child lying? Why can’t he trust you with the truth? Why does he feel being truthful wouldn’t work for him?

Children don’t lie because they’re bad. They’re trying to meet a need. And they’ve learned from experience their parents won’t help. They’ve learn that sneaking is more likely to work. Punishing him for lying will just help him learn how to be sneakier so he isn’t caught

So today just in case there is someone that has a child that lies about stuff here is how our conversation went.

Mom: “My daughter is a liar, she lies about everything, I have tried so many things to get her to stop lying and I’m so tired of her lies”. She said

Me: I know your daughter’s behaviour may seem like there is nothing else to do and you may be thinking she is bad or a dishonest person. Let me start by saying that your daughter is not bad at all.

Children lie for 3 reasons : to get attention, to avoid getting in trouble, and to feel better about themselves.

As a parent, you need to find out the reason why your child is lying because knowing why will help you find a solution to the problem. 

When you catch your child in a lie, ask, “Is that what really happened or what you wish would have happened?” 

Help your child avoid situations where they feel the need to lie. For example, if you ask your child if they spilled the milk, your child might feel tempted to lie. To avoid this situation you could just say, ‘I see there’s been an accident with the milk. Let’s clean it up’.

Emphasize the importance of honesty by creating a household rule that says, “Tell the truth.”

Praise them when they tell the truth, especially when the truth could get them in trouble. Say something like, “I’m so proud of you for being honest about eating that cupcake after I said no. I’m still going to take away your iPad today but because you told the truth you won’t lose your game for tomorrow too.”

Model honesty at home too – Remember children see everything we do and they copy us! 

In addition, please dear parents, let’s make sure we come true when we promise our children something. And if we couldn’t, tell them why. Because kids consider this as lies 😀

As parents, when we know better we must do better.

Thanks for reading through and have an amazing day today guys 🤗

OLU ❤️❤️❤️❤️

It’s finally live on Amazon🙌🙌🙌

I’m so excited to let you know that my latest book – Growing up for girls. 

It is a reassuring guide for girls age 10+ on what they expect when they grow up, and I hope it help young people to navigate changes in their body and puberty. 

It can be a difficult time, so I have written a book that I hope will answer some of the questions that girls may not feel able to talk about, and reassure them that their journey is unique and special to them. Because we all go through this journey in different stages – there is no right or wrong way, but I hope this book helps steer them and they understand what they’re going through.

You can order your copy now via the link below

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DEAR-GIRL-ITS-ALL-ABOUT-ebook/dp/B0B2M7TNDV/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?crid=22G2UYZZ4W1P8&keywords=dear+girl&qid=1654465763&sprefix=%2Caps%2C53&sr=8-12