(Parenting Part 1)
By Dr. Andrew Smith, Psychologist, Professor, Pat Tillman Military Scholar. To develop the tools and skills to start growing in your parenting, download our free guide and checkout the REWIRE ap
Just this week, I did the thing that I hate…again. I lost my patience with my preteen daughter. She was running late, again, searching frantically for a missing school project she’d assured me was already packed, and her frustration was mounting by the second. Her attitude was sharper than I was ready to handle, and soon enough, I found myself mirroring her frustration, raising my voice in a back-and-forth that left us both upset and hurt. After I dropped her off at school, I sat in the car, feeling the weight of my words and actions. My thoughts were reeling… This is not the parent or person I want to be.
Like most parents, I want to show up with patience, empathy, and compassion, no matter what my daughter is going through. I want to be a stable force in the storm, to create and cultivate a home base made of warmth, connection, and love. I want to look back on these years with pride, knowing I did my best to guide her by example, not just words.
In truth, I deviate from this aspirational vision more often than I’d like to admit. And… from 15 years of clinical practice with humans, parents, and the children of parents—I know that you do too. In response, I developed REWIRE as a set of skills and tools to help parents get unstuck from unhealthy patterns and loops. These negative loops and patterns consist of emotions, thoughts, and reactive behaviors that lead us to veer between permissive and authoritarian parenting “ditches.”
Today, I’m kicking off the first in a four-essay series on parenting, from the philosophy of REWIRE.
I’m writing for parents-to-be, and parents of kids across the age spectrum, from infancy and early childhood (0-9) to preteens (10-13), teenagers (14-18), emerging adults (18-25), and adulthood (26 and beyond). Today’s focus is on practical actions that can start improving your parenting approach right now. Let’s jump in.
Defining a Values-Led Approach to Parenting
Parenting with purpose begins by getting clear on what truly matters to us. It’s a commitment to a way of being that prioritizes intentionality over reaction. When we identify and anchor ourselves in core values—whether that’s kindness, resilience, patience, or honesty—these principles become our guideposts, especially in those heat-of-the-moment challenges.
Here’s how we can build a values-led parenting framework to make our precious time with our kids more intentional, our actions more aligned, and our connection with our children deeper and more fulfilling for the long haul.
1. Define Your Core Parenting Values
Values act as a compass when we’re faced with the rough terrain of parenting. Reflecting on what matters most—kindness, resilience, honesty, respect—enables us to shape a parenting style that mirrors our ideal selves. Take some time to choose 3-5 values that you’d like to embody as a parent. Ask yourself:
- What are the qualities I want my child to embody?
- If I were a fly on the wall and could hear my child talking to another person about me, what would I hope for them to say?
- What kind of emotional aesthetic do I want to cultivate in my home that will become a visceral, embodied memory for my child?
This list of values becomes a foundation for how we approach difficult moments with our children, whether they’re tantrums, boundary-testing, broken trust, or times when we feel spread too thin. By defining our values, we create a touchstone that we can return to time and time again. When in doubt, act a value out.
2. Choose Actions that Reflect Your Values
Once our values are clear, the next step is to align our actions with them. Each interaction, big or small, is an opportunity to model these values for our children.
Here are a few practical examples:
- Kindness: During a disagreement, model respectful communication, showing that even in frustration, kindness prevails.
- Resilience: Allow children to experience and manage minor failures, teaching them that setbacks are part of growth.
- Honesty: When mistakes happen, acknowledge them. Let your child see that honesty includes owning up to our actions.
With every small action rooted in our values, we reinforce what matters most. This process isn’t about perfection but about consistently striving to reflect the qualities we want to see in ourselves and our children.
The philosophy of REWIRE is about building the presence of mind to view each interaction as an opportunity to honestly evaluate how close or far you are from alignment. Expect misalignment—it’s actually the natural state—and use it to recalibrate.
REWIRE is designed to break you out of unproductive patterns of self-condemnation and the ongoing surprise of failing to live up to your values. Join the club of parents everywhere who struggle with values alignment… it’s not a terminal condition, nor is it abnormal. However, it is something you can change. So, accept, expect, and be vigilant for misalignment, which is the fundamental loop that REWIRE puts you on to hone the skill of aligning your actions with your values and goals for yourself and your child. It’s hard work at first, but parents quickly get the hang of this.
3. Stay Grounded and Centered in the Emotional Roller Coaster
Our kids, across the spectrum of development from infancy to emerging adulthood, experience emotions intensely. It’s almost cliché to equate this with riding a rollercoaster of highs and lows. As parents, we’re often right there with them, feeling their excitement, fear, frustration, or disappointment. In these moments, it’s easy to get swept up, reacting from a place of impulse rather than intention. Here’s where values become invaluable.
When emotions run high, values provide a grounding force. Instead of responding impulsively to our child’s emotional ups and downs, we can center ourselves by slowing down and revisiting our core values—kindness, patience, resilience—to find our footing. This internal recalibration allows us to become a steady, centered resource for our child, helping them ride through their own emotional turbulence without letting it derail us. By choosing to remain grounded, we model stability and resilience, teaching them by example how to navigate intense emotions constructively.
For instance, when a teenager is venting frustration and seems unreachable, we can focus on a core value such as compassion. Or when your 6-year-old is stubbornly immovable and emoting strongly about some perceived injustice, you can balance a response with empathy (validation of the emotion) and honesty (re-grounding your 6-year-old in a reframe focused on the rational truth of what really transpired). This approach fundamentally requires slowing down, checking your reaction, listening first, doing the hard work to be present, and avoiding getting defensive or reactive. When we respond from this grounded place, we demonstrate that emotions can be expressed without compromising our sense of stability and connection.
4. Embrace Flexibility and Forgiveness
We all encounter moments where our actions don’t align with our values. Perhaps we lose patience or break a promise. In these moments, flexibility and forgiveness—for ourselves and our children—are essential. Parenting isn’t about being perfect; it’s about perseverance, taking accurate responsibility, hope, and resilience.
When we slip, we can take a moment to reflect on what happened and how we might recalibrate to better align with our values next time. Make it mentionable to your child—say “sorry” when you err. This approach allows us to model humility, honesty, self-compassion, and adaptability—qualities we want to embody for ourselves and that we want to teach our children for their own journeys. Rather than dwelling on mistakes, we can refocus on our values and move forward, teaching our children that it’s okay to make mistakes, take account, forgive, and keep moving.
5. Parenting with Foresight: Avoiding Regret by Anchoring in Values
One of the greatest benefits of values-led parenting is how it projects us into the future. When we parent from a place of alignment with our core beliefs, we can look back without regret, knowing our decisions were rooted in intention—not perfection—and not in pure emotional reactivity or panic over our children’s ups and downs.
A values-led approach empowers us to take responsibility readily when we make mistakes—which you will do a lot of along the way if you’re anything like me. This modeling process is critical for our child’s empathy development, as it shows them the importance of accountability and repair in relationships—a key feature that they will need to have healthy, resilient friendships, family relationships, and marriages someday. When we apologize, we’re teaching them that relationships thrive on honesty and understanding, and we’re laying a foundation for future cohesion and closeness with them that can allow them to flourish amid the inevitable friction that accompanies deep relationships.
By staying rooted in values, we cultivate a sense of stability that benefits both our children and ourselves. Years from now, we can look back confidently, knowing we parented with integrity and purpose, making choices that honored our beliefs and priorities. This long-term approach brings peace, knowing our efforts were more than reactions to the moment—they were conscious decisions to create a relationship with our children based on respect, compassion, and enduring principles.
If you got value from this, stay tuned– I’ll be writing three more essays on parenting from the REWIRE perspective, including:
- Parenting mindset that sets your kids and your relationship up for success
- Why a narrative of redemption is fundamentally critical
- How your identity security is a crucial area for continued work.
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