In the new book Positive Parenting: An Essential Guide (TarcherPerigree), parenting blogger Rebecca Eanes shares her wisdom on ending family conflicts and building loving relationships. Her top 10 tips:

1. Respect children’s bodies. How would you feel if someone licked her finger to get the smudge off your face? Or fixed your hair without asking? You show respect for your child if you ask first.
2. Discipline yourself first. Undisciplined parents cannot effectively discipline children.
3. If we want to raise positive thinkers, we have to learn how to be positive thinkers.
4. We can choose to be loving even if we feel we aren’t being loved.
5. While it’s best to begin in infancy, it’s never too late to foster trust and a genuine connection with your child.
6. Weekly traditions such as family movie night, attending a spiritual service, or family meetings breathe life into your family blueprint.
7. Rituals create sacred space designated for togetherness. Anything that you do together repeatedly, such as a walk after dinner or Sunday waffles, becomes a ritual.
8. Look for the positive motives behind your child’s behavior. If you believe and convey that you believe she’s a good person, she’ll believe it too.
9. It is possible, and even necessary, for unconditional love and correction to coexist.
10. We shouldn’t hold children to a higher standard than we ourselves can attain.