Kate Middleton Uses Code Words To Let Her Kids Know They’re Acting Up In Public, Apparently
Kate Middleton is a lot of things. She’s a duchess, a philanthropist, and, of course, a devoted mother.
Anyone who has ever raised (or, TBH, even babysat for any length of time) kids the ages of the Cambridge kids—Prince George, 7, Princess Charlotte, 5, and Prince Louis, 3—knows that achieving the kind of near-perfect behavior they display in public is no easy feat of parenting.
This is just a normal fact of life: Kids will be kids, and that means not acting like perfect, miniature-size adults every second of every day. Add to that the very public nature of being a member of the royal family, though, and Kate’s parenting prowess is nothing short of incredible.
So how does the Duchess of Cambridge do it? She has a secret language of sorts for communicating to George, Charlotte, and Louis that they need to check their behavior.
According to a report from The Sun, Kate’s code-word phrase for “calm down” is pretty simple: “Let’s take a break.”
When Kate announces it’s time for a break, George and Charlotte know that it’s time to take things down a notch, and if they aren’t out in public at the moment (because this code is used behind closed doors too), they take a few minutes to engage in a quiet solo activity, like reading a book or doing a puzzle, to regroup.
“It’s very hard for any parent to have to parent in public,” Rebecca Chicot, PhD, founder of Essential Parent and author of The Calm and Happy Toddler, told The Sun.
Kate also has some physical communication techniques that help her keep George and Charlotte calm in public, Chicot says.
“She seems to be good at making warm contact ‘touch to the head,’ which is a nice connection,” Chicot explained. “She gets down to their level to talk to them but lets them be children. She has a lovely balance of sensitivity and gentle boundaries. She doesn’t expect them to behave like little adults and knows that children go through perfectly natural stages like tantrums.”
“Kate is a sensitive and warm mum,” Chicot added. “This is a called an authoritative style of parenting that is now encouraged. This is compared to an autocratic parenting that was encouraged in some circles in Victorian times (e.g., children should be seen and not heard).”
These tips seem like a really helpful way to keep George, Charlotte, and Louis calm and happy!
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