There is nothing kids crave more than consistency - with the obvious exception of love and affection - yet parenting requires a huge amount of trial and error.
When trying something new, it can be hard to know how many errors in a given trial is 'good enough.' For me, I tend to feel more successful when I check in with my gut.
For example, when my son, who never slept well, was about 6 months old, I had read in some book about an odd method of sleep training that involved a lot of picking up a crying kid and laying him back down again until he finally fell asleep. It seemed strange to do this back-and-forth thing, yet this author had a huge following on her forums and so I gave it a shot... for about 8 minutes.
It was so wrong for us. I even think my infant son was looking at me like I was nuts to try it. So, for this one I threw consistency out the window and went back to the drawing board.
But I do truly believe that kids need consistency. When I do find something that works, especially if I'm teaching my kids something new or trying to solve a problem, I try really hard to stick to it. It's not always easy, but the payoff has been nice.
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