The Five Perfect Parent Hats

The Five Perfect Parent Hats

I’m going to skip to the punch line here and provide an overview of the framework so you won’t have to wait until the end of the book to get the picture (you’re welcome.) Please don’t stop reading after this chapter because implementing the program is a little nuanced and I’ll go into much more detail on how to pull this off in later chapters. I’ll also go over some background information that will set the context for perfect parenting. For now I just want to give you a general understanding of how this all fits together.

My mom once told me that she didn’t like it when, in my books, I mentioned a topic and then covered it later. This is sometimes unavoidable, but in my attempt to also be a perfect kid I’m giving this additional detail for her, and for you!

Why We Need a Framework

The relationship we have with our kids is unlike any other relationship we will encounter. It entails a level of commitment and responsibility that is unique and very complex. The relationship we have with our spouse is also very complex, but not nearly as much as being a parent. The relationship that kids have with their parents is also not nearly as complex. Parenting is a whole different level of complexity and, because we are all part of a complex culture, it goes well beyond our natural instincts. I’m sure you are aware of this already, the big insight I hope I can provide here is that the reason parenting is so complex is because it is actually an amalgamation of a number of different roles, each with their own goals and responsibilities. I call these roles “Hats” and I’ve discovered there are five primary hats that parents wear when dealing with their kids:

  1. The Planning Hat
  2. The Coaching Hat
  3. The Friend Hat
  4. The Compliance Manager Hat
  5. The Behavior Manager Hat

There are other hats, of course, but these are the most important hats a parent wears. Knowing and understanding what you should do and say while wearing one of these hats will provide a framework for becoming a more perfect parent.

MECE

In order for a framework to work it has to be “complete.” The main problem I’ve found with parenting resources is that they either leave out important parts or they aren’t well organized. This makes them incomplete and incomplete frameworks are great…until you find the hole. When you find a hole in a framework you wind up resorting to “the old way,” which doesn’t work (otherwise you would have stuck with it in the first place) or, worse, you get frustrated and give up on the program altogether. This happened to me a lot and it’s probably happened to you, too.

In order for a framework to work the parts must be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive or “MECE”. This means that each part is distinct from the others, but together they cover everything you need to know. I believe this five-hat framework is MECE. Your ability stick to one hat and not confuse it with other hats will, in large part, determine your effectiveness as a parent. In other words, wear one hat at a time and you will be successful. This will require you to know which hat to wear in any given situation and be able to immediately change hats when the situation changes. With kids, the situation can change instantaneously. One moment you might be having a quiet afternoon, the next moment your son is punching holes in the wall. When this happens you need to wear the right hat!

The Planning Hat

Kids need structure. In fact, everybody does. Nowhere in respectable parenting literature will you find a recommendation to fly by the seat of your pants. You can’t random your way to results. Kids need to know what’s expected of them. They need to know the rules. They need to know boundaries. They need to know what it means to be a member of your family and a member of our culture. Without a complete understanding of what’s going on, they will be lost and confused which will lead them to make bad decisions which are what parents call “bad behavior”. Kids who don’t know the rules or what’s expected of them will always be pushing the envelope in an attempt to find out where they are.

The Planning Hat is what you wear when you make the rules, set the expectations and communicate them to your kids. This is the hat you wear when you define everything from what your core values are as a family to when it’s time to go to bed. You will outline your calendar of events, house rules, chores and manners for treating others. You will let kids know what life will look like for them when they behave and what life will look like when they don’t behave.

When you wear the planning hat you are all about the rules and boundaries. Without a clear understanding of these things you will have no ability to parent your kids effectively. None, nadda, zippo. The Planning Hat is what you wear when you lay the core foundation of everything else. Skip this and nothing else really matters. In parenting, rules and expectations are everything.

The Coaching Hat

Just because a kid knows what is expected of him doesn’t mean he can actually do it. You might expect your toddler to use the toilet, but she may have no idea how to do it or what the steps are or even what success looks like. You have to show them, teach them and coach them.

Kids, and even adults, are constantly learning and evolving. Wear the Coaching Hat to give them a helping hand. When you wear the Coaching Hat it’s your job to help kids live up to your expectations and to our culture’s expectations and eventually form positive expectations for themselves.

When you wear this hat you will teach them new skills and look for opportunities for your kids to behave and cheer them on when they do. The classic example is teaching them to ride a bike. You show them what to do, applaud them for trying, you dust them off when they fall and you provide feedback on their progress. After they learn how to ride a bike safely they are simply expected to do it.

The same thing applies to interactions with others. Coaches can provide feedback on positive interactions. “Hey Billy, that was a great handshake you gave to Mr. Johnson. Nice and firm, keep up the good work and next time try making more eye contact.” (Notice the “and” in that sentence, rather than a “but.” But, more on this later...) Once your kid has learned to shake hands, you can now expect them to do it every time they meet someone new.

Coaching isn’t the same thing as nagging. Coaching is positive and constructive. It’s helpful and collaborative. It’s about working together with your kids to create skills, knowledge and confidence.

The Friend Hat

It was surprising to me to find that many parenting experts tell parents that they can’t be friends with their kids. In fact, it was my struggle with this notion that helped me develop this entire model and one of the main reasons I’m writing this book. After all, spending quality time with our kids and doing things together is one of the most important joys of parenting. Without a Friend Hat the whole prospect of parenting seems incomplete and even bleak. The experts who advise against being friends are right, by the way, but there is a different way to look at this. First, you can’t be friends all the time (only when you are wearing the Friend Hat) and second, being friends with kids isn’t the same thing as being friends with other friends.

That being said, the Friend Hat is what you wear when you want to have fun with your kids or when you need to be there for them in hard times. You can laugh and cry with kids while you wear the Friend Hat and you can create memories that will last a lifetime. Sometimes kids need a friend and sometimes the friend they need is you.

If you wear the other hats well, you can spend a lot of time wearing the Friend Hat.

The Compliance Manager Hat

Parents have every right to expect their children to comply with the house rules and live up to the reasonable expectations they have outlined while wearing the Planning Hat. Sooner or later, however, those rules will get tested and when they do, you must immediately remove whatever hat you are wearing and pull the Compliance Manager Hat snuggly over your head. The Compliance Manager Hat has ear flaps and eye blinders on it. When you are wearing the Compliance Manager Hat the only words from your mouth are crisp, clear instructions and demands in a businesslike, matter-of-fact tone. The Compliance Manager is all but devoid of emotion, does not make justifications and—above all—does not engage in conflict. Your only goal is to get your kids to comply with the rules and expectations that they already know and understand (you will not introduce new rules while wearing this hat, leave that to the Planning Hat).

The Compliance Manager says things like, “turn off the TV,” and, “brush your teeth,” and, “stop swearing at me, I do not like it.” As behavior problems escalate the Compliance Manager has a number of tools at their disposal to help get their kids back on track and, hopefully, back to a place where the parent can put on the Friend Hat or the Coaching Hat. These are fun hats. Nobody likes the Compliance Manager Hat. It’s the Compliance Manager’s job to keep things under control.

The Behavior Management Hat

In some cases, when misbehavior is severe, the Compliance Manager must simply mitigate the damage caused and make a note of the behavior for future discussion and resolution. Never try to resolve an issue in the heat of “battle”. Simply make a note of what happened and address it when the kid is in a better place. Believe it or not, if you do all of this right, your child will actually come to you to discuss the behavior because, when you were wearing your Planning Hat, you planned what life would be like for them when they get to this point. Your child will talk with you because they will be eager to get things back to normal.

When kids exhibit severe misbehavior they must be held accountable. In some cases there are natural consequences that provide the necessary reinforcement, but in many cases you need to create a different set of consequences to help motivate kids to behave in a way that is compatible with your family’s rules and the culture in which they live.

Severe misbehavior is a sign that your child is lacking the communication skills or problem-solving skills necessary to resolve an uncomfortable situation. Lacking these skills, the child will lash out in physically or verbally abusive ways in an attempt to gain control. Unless the child learns to implement a better strategy, these problems will extend into adulthood where the consequences are severe and can include everything from not making friends to drug addiction to prison time.

Millions of people lack these basic skills and wind up in endless cycles of failure. Daytime talk shows and reality TV shows build their audiences in large part because you get to watch problems escalate into exciting fights right on TV. In real life, these problems are not nearly as entertaining.

You wear the Behavior Management Hat when you discuss and lay out a plan for how the child should behave in certain situations and provide a period of time during which the child must demonstrate and practice their understanding of the new behavior. Behavior managers teach alternative communication skills and problem-solving skills. I’m going to show you a specific, structured conversation that you must have with your kid whenever you wear the Behavior Management Hat. This conversation will help your child own-up to their own problems and take responsibility next time.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “yeah, right, this is never going to happen.” But, it will happen. I’ll show you how.

Wearing the Hats

Every day, from now on, whenever you are interacting with your kid or even just thinking about your kid you should be wearing one of these hats. If you don’t understand how it right now works that’s fine, it wasn’t my intent that you could stop reading right now. I’m merely trying to whet your appetite for what is to come next. In the chapters ahead we will take a step back to better understand why kids misbehave, some of the high-level objectives for parents and an in-depth look at each one of the hats and how they work.