David Yale: From Parenting by Negotiating to Parenting from Principles

“I was the kind of parent who was a negotiator; when rules were broken, I would give them an out.” David Yale – Hyde Alumni Parent

David’s wife died when his daughter was eleven years old. Their parenting style together had been to negotiate with their kids. “We wanted them to be happy,” he says.

With his wife’s untimely death, David had to parent not only through his own grief, but that of his kids. It was inevitable that their happiness was important to him and he says he knows he overcompensated for their loss.

“Ultimately,” he shares, “you have to get to a place as a parent where you deal with your kids’ unhappiness with the higher goal of them becoming well-rounded, high-character people. [The Priority] Taking hold and Letting go taught me that I had to give them some of the tools but at the same time it’s up to them to model the behavior or not and deal with whatever comes out of that.”

David shares not only what The Biggest Job Parenting Program taught him about his parenting, but also about the community he found within the program.