Parenting Tip #70 The DAT Formula

Have you heard of the DAT Formula? This is for parents who do a good job of parenting but still want to improve.
D stands for decibels. Turn your volume down when speaking to your children. Be calm.
A is for agency. Give your children simple choices to make. This actually shows your children that you trust and respect them.
T is for tone. Do you use the same respectful tone when you speak to your children as you do when speaking to colleagues and friends?

The DAT Formula is just one of the ideas I got from a new parenting book I was asked to review. It is written by the New York Times #1 Bestselling authors, Richard and Linda Eyre. It’s called 5 Spiritual Solutions for Everyday Parenting Challenges. I wish it would have been written earlier when I was raising my seven children. It would have saved me from a lot of worry and guilt about whether I was doing this right or did I say that wrong.

The 5 solutions are to remember. Remember your children’s true identity, remember God’s parenting patterns, remember your direct channel to the Father, remember the Church’s “scaffolding” and remember the Savior’s Power.

A feature I really like about the book is at the end of each chapter. It’s a list of good things that will happen to your children when you remember the solution in the chapter and also a list of bad things that this solution will help your children avoid or overcome.

In the chapter on remembering the Savior’s Power, an incident was told about a fireside that was held with a Church leader. The leader opened it up for questions. A young father asked “How can I have more spiritual experiences? I had them all the time on my mission!”

The Church leader told him to “Use the priesthood more.”

How do you use the priesthood more? Give a young daughter a blessing before the test she is so worried about. Give a little boy having a hard time learning to read a blessing. Give a son a blessing because he is troubled about an inappropriate movie he saw at a friend’s house. Give a wife a blessing so she can handle the stress of the upcoming week. Remember the power of the Savior’s love for us.