Montana parents can involve their four-year-old in building routines throughout the day by asking questions and allow them to share their ideas. Now is the right time for parents and those in a parenting role to gain confidence using a process that creates an environment for strengthening your relationship with your child and growing your skills. Parenting is not easy, and every parent wants to be successful. ParentingMontana.org and this podcast will prepare you on your journey as a parent with a five-step process: Gain Input, Teach, Practice, Support, and Recognize. This process allows you to address specific parenting issues while building a strong relationship with your child and promoting healthy growth throughout their lives. Becoming familiar with the five-step process will grow your skills as a parent now and allow you to use the same steps to face future challenges in healthy, positive ways. In step one, parents and those in a parenting role create a purposeful opportunity to Gain Input when engaging with their child. In this initial step, you are working to truly hear, understand, and value what your child has to say. Gaining input helps to correct any assumptions about behavior, grows social and emotional skills, builds confidence, and conveys respect. Connecting while gaining input creates a sense of ownership and understanding, which sets the tone for step two, Teach. To teach is to demonstrate what you would like to see your child be able to do and equip them with knowledge and skills. Through teaching, children learn how to interact with the world and what is expected of them. Step three, Practice, is a chance for you to allow your child to try a new skill knowing it is okay to struggle and try again. It is an opportunity to improve behavior, grow habits, build social and emotional skills, support a growth mindset, and receive feedback constructively. Step four, Support, involves coaching, providing feedback, reteaching, monitoring, and following through by applying logical consequences and reflecting. Support grows cause and effect thinking and reinforces the ability to be successful while building social and emotional skills for children and parents and those in a parenting role. Step five, Recognize, creates an opportunity to intentionally acknowledge efforts and successes thereby nurturing motivation for continued growth. Recognizing your child’s efforts encourages self-confidence and self-esteem while building a positive parent-child relationship! With practice, this parenting process becomes natural and allows parents and those in a parenting role to navigate each stage of their child’s life as different needs arise. Listen to learn how to apply the five-step process to your parenting needs. Visit ParentingMontana.org for more information about the process, tools, and many other resources to help you raise your child with the skills they need to be successful now and in the future.