My adult daughter told me today that she is grateful to have acquired the ability to self-regulate and reflect on her own actions before making important choices in her life. She says that, although she found it annoying to be parented by a mom who constantly gave responses that let her to inner inquiry, looking inside and learning to be accountable for her actions and reactions has given her inner strength and a greater security to trust in herself.

My wish for all parents and children is to share the teachings that help to strengthen children's ability to self-reflect. This is not something that you can always teach overnight, so the first thing you need is patience, restraint and the ability to expand time. That means you know how to stretch time and care for things carefully over the long term. Over the "long term" is a key point and I have found with parenting that depending on the child, this may mean a cycle of six months at a time, five years at a time or a decade at a time. I find myself saying at times, "Okay, I'm going to work on this over the next five years with my son as I know it is a challenge for him. I'm going to get him through this because it's a growth spurt for him." I sometimes look ahead in my mind's eye, knowing that if I curb habits and tendencies now, it will be beneficial later on when he is in his teens.

I'd like to just take a moment to talk about the SOFTER™ behavior game that I use at home with my two 6-year-old boys. SOFTER™ stands for Stop, Observe, Feel, Think, Evaluate, Respond and is a point reward behavior game that I developed (send me an email if you would like to purchase the game for yourself) and have been using for the past few years in my own home.

I have seen them change many poor behaviors and focus on better behaviors such as learning how to talk things out, do good deeds, etc. In fact, they've been able to master many challenges and leadership behaviors and keep evolving. Just recently, we were going through their behaviors in our home game and they recognized certain consistent behaviors that are no longer challenging. They said to me, "We need a new challenge." One of the boys mentioned the fact that they were afraid to go upstairs without the lights on. When I said, "Oh, there's no need to be afraid. Just go upstairs and put on the lights; everything will be fine," they each said, "I think we need a new challenge chip for bravery."

They both agreed that this was a perfect change that we could make to the game. And so we have modified our challenge chart and bravery is now on the list. It is wonderful for them to have self-regulation at such a young age whereby they can spot within themselves an unwanted behavior and then inform me, as a parent, to change it! They want to be empowered with self-regulation and a reward incentive to be able to challenge themselves. It's wonderful as we have established a whole lifelong dialogue where we can make change happen over a long cycle of time together.

The boys look forward to every Wednesday night when we give out rewards for their positive behaviors. Because we give the points on a weekly basis for being consistent, they can't manipulate by saying, "Oh, I did this, so give me a point" or "If I do this, will you give me a point?" No, they have opportunities throughout the week to display certain behaviors, and I will remind them to stay consistent. My favorite is, "Boys, this is a Listening and Doing opportunity!" I hardly ever have to raise my voice. Actually, on those reward Wednesday nights at the dinner table, they assess themselves. They are able to say, based on reminders or acknowledgments during the week, whether or not they get a point reward because they are able to reflect upon their own actions.

Here is the secret to everything - the ability to give your child the gift for them to be self-reflective of their own behavior and actions, and then the ability to strengthen and guide them to modify them on their own - wow! This will make your job as a parent so much easier because their level of resistance has already been modified and you are working with them now from a cooperative place of firmness without any aggressive undertones. Along with gaining the ability to be patient as you hold their hands through all the ups and downs over a long cycle of time, you pass along a great gift of self-knowledge.