Simply Mother

So I’ve read all through the chore section of Sandra Dodd’s unschooling site, and lovely as it all sounds to be able to just get all the housework taken care of with happiness and bubbles, even if I am doing it all by myself while everyone around me continues on with life, uninhibited . . .

I can’t do it.

Not only that (and by “that” I mean I might start out in the right spirit but halfway through those bubbles wouldn’t be so much bubbles as daggers. . .), I don’t think I really want to do it. I don’t think that’s the way it was meant to be.

Work is a part of life, a good and necessary part of a happy and fulfilled life. It doesn’t have to be drudgery but it is different from recreation. Both have their place, but much as I tried for awhile, I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the philosophies purporting to meld them together and say that they can be one and the same.

Under this philosophy, supposedly if only I have the Right Attitude about washing the dishes and putting the umpteenth load of laundry away, I would be able to see these chores the same way I see reading a book, or talking with friends, or playing games.

I don’t think so. At least, every time I’ve tried. . .again with the daggers. Maybe it’s just me?

That said, I do think chores and work can be enjoyable. There is value in and joy that comes from doing something hard, in taking care of our family’s basic needs, in making something clean and shiny and beautiful. And I want my kids to learn that.

But of course, as with everything, they’re not going to truly internalize that through preaching. They have to actually have experiences enjoying work.

That’s the hard part.

Well, not hard, exactly, but time-consuming. And it can be mentally taxing at times.

Saturday morning, as I was gearing up to get us started on our big weekly clean, I considered my goals in asking the kids to help. (I needed to be clear on my goals, as they would determine how I dealt with the inevitable resistance, tears, and cop-outs.)

Obviously with a six and three-year-old, my goals have little to do with “efficiency.” This will be the case eventually, for sure–their help will be invaluable as they get older and our lives get busier, but there are other more prominent reasons right now. Here’s what I came up with.

Reasons to Involve Children In Family Work

• I want my kids to know that work can be enjoyable.
• I want my kids to know that they are needed–to feel that they are each important and contributing members of our family.
• I want my kids to be able to recognize and appreciate beauty and cleanliness–and have a desire to bring things back to that state.

Keeping these reasons in mind turned out to be really, really useful as I went about trying to keep them involved. They kept me away from my usual pitfalls when met with resistance, which are:

• Get annoyed and give up, telling myself it’s just a lot faster and easier to do it myself.
• Get angry and start sounding like a drill seargent. Which usually only escalates the resistance, and my controllingness, until I just get disgusted with myself and the way I sound, feel bad, and then end up doing it all by myself out of guilt.

When my goals are clearly defined as helping my kids have an enjoyable experience, feel like important, contributing people, and learn to appreciate cleanliness, all my strategies change. I stop thinking about it as a job to just get done as soon as possible, and see it more as a long-term project.

My focus at this point is more on the process than the outcome. This leads to an amazing amount of patience and lots of creative ideas for getting and keeping them involved. I’m sure a lot of you have found some great solutions for getting your kids to help clean (and be happy about it!) and I’d love to hear about them in the comments section. Here are a few things that made our recent cleaning day a [relative] success:

• Start with a fun project. (I had them reorganize my bottom cupboards in the kitchen)
• Distract, distract, distract! (They’ve become prone to dragging their feet at the mere mention of the word “clean” so I was short on the announcement of cleaning time, and long on my request for Sariah to get us started with some music, and Jane to be the one to turn on the light in the kitchen where we would be started.)
• Work together. (We at least have to be in the same room. For tough things, we have to actually be doing it together, even if it’s 100 times more efficient alone!)
• Don’t allow them to do it grumpily. (Jane started balking and falling on the floor when I asked her to take a pile of shoes into her room, so I got very serious–with still a sort of a grin–and sat her down in front of them and said, “Jane, I want you to stare at those shoes and I don’t want you to put them away until you have come up with an enjoyable way to do it.” She eventually put one on each hand and foot and bear-walked them in to the right place, taking several trips, and laughing all the way.)
• Maintain a positive, light, bubbly (if you can manage) tone. (Seriously, the moment I noticed my voice getting on edge, I stopped everything and we played ring-around-the-rosies until I could get back in the mood. They can sense in a heartbeat when we’re not enjoying ourselves, and they will reflect our negative energy–usually maximized ten times!)

Now, don’t be shy! Tell us all your positive, successful strategies and any other wise tips you have for keeping a happy energy in the home, even during cleaning time. I’m sure I’m going to need more ideas for the next go ’round!

| February 3, 2010

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So I made use of a little hyperbole in that last post, and I don’t want it to reflect badly on Jane–she isn’t really oppositional to anything and everything. Well, the “anything” part is true because it doesn’t really matter if it’s something she would normally want to do or not–if she’s in mode:resist (or more likely, if she’s feeling resistance or hesitation from me), she will probably be uncooperative. I have a feeling at these moments even if I said, “Hey, let’s go have some ice cream,” she would be oppositional.

But it’s definitely not all the time. In fact, today was really, really smooth with all kinds of things like, “Hey Mom, I’ll put my shoes in the shoe closet,” and “Don’t worry Mom, I’ll keep Mary happy while you’re making dinner.” And, “Mom, it’s your turn to brush my teeth.”

I’m not sure what the difference is–when she’s able to do that kind of stuff so easily, and when it takes a bit of finesse to get through even the most basic requests–but I think it really does have to do with this connection thing. When she’s feeling connected, and respected, she is a delight and it’s smooth sailing.

And if I notice a little bit of resistance and make some kind of a move to show her I care about her needs (like when I acted like her turning on the light switch before the prayer was Very Important Business, and gave her a minute to do it), usually her resistance melts right away and she’s back on board again, becoming more flexible and yielding to my needs and requests.

Also, I wanted to make clear that I don’t think there has to be opposition for kids to feel safe and comfortable. I guess there does have to be the possibility of them opposing, if they’re going to have a real choice, but I didn’t mean to imply that if you’re not having constant opposition from your three-year-old, that she just doesn’t feel safe enough to do it!

Actually, the opposite could be true: having constant opposition could be a sign the child feels really uncomfortable and insecure, and they’re trying to get you to be firm and confident and not so wishy-washy. I think that was the case for me for a while with Sariah a couple years ago.

I was so afraid of being controlling and undermining her autonomy that I wouldn’t take a real stand about things. I wasn’t sure in my own mind. I mean, I was sure I wanted her to, say, brush her teeth, but I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be the one to decide about out that–or more accurately, I wanted her to feel like it was her decision.

But because I was so hesitant about it, she interpreted that as my being unsure of what I wanted her to do, so she resisted–following my “energy” instead of my words, if that makes sense.

Maybe that’s going on for Jane a little bit here, but for the most part, I’m pretty confident about my role as a mother these days–I’m not constantly questioning everything–and Jane is a lot more easy going. Yes, there’s often the initial resistance, but we get passed it much more quickly and smoothly this time around, I think, because I’m not so focused on whether something’s going to get done or who is supposed to decide about it, and instead the focus is on trying to find joy in the moment–knowing that somehow we will work it out so we all get our needs met.

–

Wow, trying to explain about your parenting style is kind of tricky. I feel like I could go on forever and ever and you would all come away with different ideas of what I mean.

I think it’s because there are a lot of apparent contradictions in all the gentle/respectful parenting literature that it gets confusing, and I’m just muddling the waters trying to fit my experience into a compilation of all the different theories.

This is getting way off topic, but I remember getting so confused when I would read stuff by people like Naomi Aldort or Scott Noelle because they were telling me both:

“Let the child be free; respect her choices; let her express herself,”

and,

“Of course don’t let her be hurtful; You’re the adult, children want their parents to be in charge; Be responsible for your child’s health and safety.”

It took me a long time to work out how those two sides can both be practiced without being contradictory–what if my child’s “choice” is to be hurtful??–and, in fact, for a while there I just completely abandoned all the books and theories and decided to just figure it out however we could. But the style we’ve worked into does, amazingly, incorporate both of these–and now all the writings of the above mentioned authors make much more sense to me!

But I’m probably still confusing to everybody else, especially when I write when I should be sleeping, so I’ll stop blundering through this post now and go to bed.

| December 15, 2009

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So I twittered about how I was getting a little annoyed at Jane’s seemingly constant opposition to anything and everything I wanted her to do, and how Matt noticed my annoyance and pulled me aside to remind me: “She feels safe with you. If she didn’t feel safe, she would just do whatever you said without questioning. Or thinking. That is not what we want.”

He’s so right and I’m so grateful to have a husband who can see the wonder and beauty and awesomeness inside our children even when the outward manifestations of those things it a little, er, offsetting.

But I didn’t want to leave you with the wrong impression, that we glorify “independence” so much that we want our kids to be oppositional. We do want them to think for themselves, and we want them to feel safe questioning us, and to learn how to say no graciously, but we also seek some level of cooperation.

We just want that cooperation to be genuine, and not coerced. And for that to happen, I suppose they have to feel free to say no, right?

The thing is, Jane isn’t saying no out of any real desire not to do whatever it is I’m asking. I’m no expert and I’m not entirely sure what is going on here. Is three simply the age where they really hit the “autonomy-seeking” thing hard? Is she actively testing and trying these things outthings out, like some little scientist?

Hmm, Mom says this, but what happens if I say that? Which one happens? Who’s decides what I do? Can she make my body go? Or do I have to do it?

She acts as if every request made to her is an attempt to control her–her whole goal becomes, How can I do what she wants without looking like I’m just doing what she wants? Seriously, this is what I’m seeing. It’s actually kind of comical to watch. (As long as I’m in the right mindset!)

So I’ll say, sweetly, “Jane, it’s time for family prayer.” And she nonchalantly looks up . . . over . . . away . . . turns on her heel, stares at the ceiling . . . and I wait patiently.

When she notices my demeanor is benign, she says sweetly (and oh-so-importantly), “I have to do something first.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“I can’t tell you. I’ll tell you when I get back.”

And then she walks off, very purposefully, but when she’s out of sight (she thinks), she just kind of glances around for a minute and then notices a light switch, walks over, turns it on, and then walks back, again very importantly.

Now she is ready for family prayer.

As long as I give a couple minutes for this little charade–every time, seriously, about everything, even things she normally has no problem doing (which honestly is just about everything, as she has been such an easy-going kid thus far)–the situation progresses smoothly.

Sometimes I get to thinking I don’t have time for this–which is kind of silly, right? I mean, I’m a stay at home mom. A homeschooling stay at home mom. Taking time to stand by her side while she grows and develops and finds her way is pretty much my main agenda for the day.

Anyway, but sometimes I tell myself I really don’t have time, or it’s not necessary, or I shouldn’t have to go through this whole song and dance every time I need her to do something on my time table–and I try to side step it, or rush her, or just tell her basically, “Come on girl, let’s GO,” but I always pay for these moves later. Even though I might succeed in getting that thing done, it won’t be long before another thing comes up that she will be even more unable to do.

In fact, now that I think about it, it’s my doing stuff like that that is very likely contributing to her hesitancy about cooperating! Parenting Rule of the day (that I just made up two seconds ago): Investing five extra minutes in the beginning saves about twenty in the end.

Then there’s also the concept of connection. Lots of parenting experts write about children feeling “connected” with their parents and how that leads to good feelings and cooperation. On the other hand, when they’re disconnected they’re, well, impossible.

This theory fits very well in our family. We definitely experience times of disconnection–lots of normal, everyday things happen to create this–and virtually nothing productive will happen in the relationship until connection is restored.

What I’m wondering is if there is something peculiar to three-year-olds that makes these feelings of disconnection happen more frequently? It’s like there’s some kind of developmental shift that opens up a whole new awareness of their power–their person-ness, if you know what I mean. And they are having to sift through that new paradigm in the midst of a constant barrage of parental request and injunctions, and figure out what to do with it.

I did study child development in college but it’s been a few years and all I really have to go on now is my experience with my own children, but this is what it looks like to me. Jane is literally trying to figure something out. I ask her to do something and I watch her whole body just stop, shift, turn inward. She is thinking, in her own three-year-old way. She wants to do what I’m asking, especially if she is connected with me, because she trusts me and wants to maintain a good rapport.

But there is also something inside her–something I’m sure very good and important and useful–that is keeping her from jumping in and going right along with everything I say like she used to.

As a disclaimer: I really don’t want to squash that “something.” I’m not looking for advice on how to get her to stop resisting me. This isn’t even really an issue–not anything I’m terribly worried about anyway. I mean, it does make life take a little longer, but nobody said parenting was an efficient process, right?

I’m just writing about it to investigate what’s going on, and share with you because I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences. Sariah went through the same thing as this age, I know it works itself out. At least until thirteen or so, when we’ll probably get to go through it all over again!

Filed in: family • parenting | December 14, 2009

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I went to a little Mothering meeting the church ladies have started. It was so wonderful. I mean, the topic was parenting, so already you know I’m excited, and I love, love, love getting together with other women to chat and share about our lives–my homeschooling group of moms has a get-together too and it is similarly lovely–but I can’t tell you how incredible this meeting was for me.

Maybe it was because the group was somewhat small and everyone felt safe and therefore we were all very open, maybe it was the topic (we focused on cultivating peace), or maybe it was because the things that were brought up were so pertinent to my life at the moment, but I felt so inspired, so happy, so–what’s the word for “not alone”? It was just lovely. We are doing it once a month and I am so excited about it. I wish every mother could have something like this, so if you don’t already, go ahead, start one yourself. Women need this.

Totally unrelated:

It Snowed Here

Yes, that’s blog-worthy. Kind of.

One of the things I love about this area is the weather. It does get cold but it never seems to last more than a few days or a week before we get a day or two of warmth again. There are lots of things I miss about Utah, but the six solid months of winter bologna is not one of them. I enjoy Spring and Fall, and I love living in a place that has those seasons!

However, a bit of snow is welcome on occasion, and we had some here last week–for about an hour.

Jane and Sariah went right out that morning to soak up this rare treat before it melted away.

Filed in: family • self-reflection | December 10, 2009

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Last time I told Sariah the pumpkin she decorated was going the way of the earth, she broke into hysterics (as she is prone to do some of the time). So tonight when I noticed another decorative pumpkin was ready for the compost pile, I remembered to give her a little advanced noticed.

I told her it was time to bid farewell to this lovely little pumpkin and she cried, “Not tonight!” I said, “Oh, I know, I just wanted to give you a chance to say goodbye to him. He doesn’t have to go out until tomorrow.”

That was perfect–I am learning a lot about her–all she needs is a little warning time. She took that pumpkin and wrapped him up, talking to him the whole time about how she was going to give him a nice, soft, cozy place to sleep tonight and other sweet nothings. So precious.

I wish I had remembered this earlier today, when I had to interrupt their movie (Frosty the Snowman) to go to Sariah’s eye appointment. (Have I told you about the vision therapy thing? I should one day.) I told them it was time to turn it off, and of course they begged for “just a few more minutes” but I had waited too long and I felt like we really needed to just turn it off and go, so I just clicked it off.

Oh my.

You would have thought I had just hung her up by her toes, for all the wailing and shrieking about. (She’s reading this as I type, and laughing hysterically.) (She also pointed out to me that snowman is one word, not two, by the way. I was thinking it looked a bit funny the way I had it.)

Anyway, I was thinking it was quite ridiculous, all the freaking out over a paused movie, and whenever something like that happens I’m tempted to think she’s being manipulative–if only because it is seriously so dramatic.

But as I thought about it later, and noticed how she really, truly was not able to calm down even with subtle threats about “Maybe we shouldn’t watch movies anymore if this is what it’s going to do to you” (gag!), I realized that she really was feeling that intense about it, and remembered about how she handles transitions better if she can just have bit of notice.

I was the stubborn one this time though, telling myself the whole time we really just didn’t have time to watch another minute–even though we probably did, and even though under normal circumstances I’d be willing to be a minute late if it meant we arrived there with our relationship in tact–and probably also telling myself some nonsense about “not giving in” even though that was probably exactly what I should have done in this situation, just like the bedtime one, remember? (I don’t, apparently.)

In fact, we arrived a few minutes early (mostly because she refused to eat lunch: too hysterical), and when we got there, she had cooled off from reading in the car, and I had had time to think and recenter, and I took her in my arms and told her I understand that it was really hard for her when I turned off the movie. She talked about it for a minute, and I told her I would always try to give her a few minutes’ warning, and that was that; she went in to her appointment happy.

This little girl is awesome. There are a few things I’m learning about her that help keep the awesomeness showing and the tears and freakouts at bay. ;)

Filed in: cuteness • family • parenting | December 9, 2009

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The tree is up, and for once we didn’t wait until the very week before Christmas to do this.

It was so fun to do this with these little girls. Kids make so many things in life more fun–especially holidays.

Photography buffs, any pointers on how, exactly, one takes a picture of a lit Christmas tree at night–remembering I don’t have one of those fancy DSLR’s and don’t even have the faintest idea what any of those letters stand for?

Also, anyone know how to hang stockings without putting holes in the wall or mantle, for the benefit of my anti-holes-in-the-wall husband?

Filed in: family | December 9, 2009

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Blog posts are sparse right now because, while my mind is always working a mile a minute and I have plenty to say (when has that ever not been the case?), Time doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with me.

Actually, I’m pretty sure the problem is I don’t know how to cooperate with him. I read this article (found via the lovely Organic Sister, who tweeted about this post) and realized that I am fooling myself every night when I think, “I’ll just finish this up and then clean up ‘real quick’ before bed.”

Because Real Quick still involves Time, no matter how much I’d like to pretend it doesn’t, and before I know it I’ve pushed myself an hour or more past my bedtime.

And maybe it’s because I’m not as young as I used to be, or maybe it’s the tres hijas, one being very tiny, and also thinking I am her very own personal all-night buffet, but I am really needing my sleep these days. If I don’t get enough sleep, even by an hour, I am slow and groggy and grumpy and so much less productive throughout the day that it makes that extra hour of cleaning or blogging or whatever it was the night before so not worth it.

The article I linked is all about having a fixed schedule. Basically, it means paying proper respect to Time, not pretending it will pause for a bit while I fold some laundry.

I need to set my schedule (and I’m not talking about a crazy one wherein I fill it in in half-hour increments, becoming a tyrranical drill seargent in the proces. Just a very basic outline, with set waking and sleeping hours.) and then stick to it. “Do whatever it takes to avoid violating this schedule,” the author challenges.

It makes sense. If I’ve determined I need to be in bed by 10pm (yes, I know, crazy), in order to get up at 5:30am (even crazier) to meet my friends to go running at 6 (insanity), then I need to face reality up front when I start writing a blog post or folding a mountain of laundry at 9:57 that I am really deciding not to go running the next morning. Time doesn’t bend, and it’s a myth that I’m going to get more done by staying up late or working longer than I planned. That time is always accounted for somewhere else, and what I’m actually doing is cutting out the important things so I can satisfy the trivial.

How silly. I need to figure out what my priorities are, plan for them, organize my schedule, and cut whatever isn’t necessary.

Then I need to stick to it.

Most desperately, I need to learn how to go to bed.

Filed in: self-reflection | December 8, 2009

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Wow, sometimes I sound really grumpy, don’t I? I hope I didn’t imply that my little 3-year-old is constantly annoying me. That couldn’t be more untrue. The girl is delightful. I adore her. She is not even a “difficult” child by any stretch of the imagination.

She’s just three. And three is hard for me.

Two is not hard for me. I have never understood the “terrible twos.” We just don’t have it here. Sure, they say no a lot, that’s what two-year-old’s do. But a two-year-old “no” is so innocent and easy to deal with. They just say no first thing, almost automatically, like it just falls off their lips–it hardly even means no.

With my kids, as long as I didn’t assume they were being defiant, or bring a stubborn attitude to the situation myself, the two-year-old “no” never presented a problem.

A typical conversation would go something like this:

Mom: Hey, let’s go get ready for bed.

Two-year-old: No.

Mom: Okay. . . Let’s get ready for bed!

Two-year-old: Okay!

Three is another story. I don’t always no how to handle the three-year-old no. There is the obvious, “Why not?”

But that can easily get you into trouble.

And of course there’s validating: “Oh, I know it’s hard to go to bed when you’re having so much fun.”

But that doesn’t really get you anywhere.

I think I tend to just disregard it, and then come back a minute later with a different tact. Something that sidesteps the issue entirely. “Hey Jane, let’s be kitties on our way to the bedroom.”

This works well, but of late has required a bit of haggling first.

Jane: “No, I don’t want to be a kitty.”

Me: “Okay, let’s be frogs! Ribbit.”

Jane: “No. . . . I’m going to be a swallow!”

Whatever works for your complex little three-year-old heart, deary.

This is obviously not one of the more frustrating situations we encounter though. The harder times are when she doesn’t even put forth the effort to voice the “no”–she just ignores the request altogether, as in the example I linked to in the previous post.

Those are the times it is really hard to look at her and see innocence. I know it is there, though. I really don’t believe she is ever purposefully trying to get to me. I think it can really, really look that way sometimes. But when I really think about it, the idea is absurd. No little child would willingly ask for her parent’s anger.

No, there must be something else. Something . . . something . . . What is it? Come on, veteran parents? Experts? Help us out here. Those of us who struggle to see the “reason” behind this the frustrating behavior of three-year-olds.

I do think the reason the two-year-old stage is so easy for me is because of my perspective–I don’t see them as actually being defiant or purposefully trying to be difficult. This perspective is harder for me to achieve with three-year-olds. I get it sometimes. I come by it much easier now–the second time around–than I did when we went through it with Sariah.

When I do get it, life is smooth again, even at three, and that is why I think the parent’s perspective of her kid’s behavior is such a determining factor. Jane is just as sweet and innocent and sensitive as she was a year ago–but now she is encountering different, bigger, more complex emotions and she’s trying to figure out what they mean.

A lot of the time when she’s doing that I’m Ignoring You thing, it seems like she may be feeling embarrassment, fear, or worry and confusion over doing the thing she thinks I want her to do versus the thing she wants to do. It’s like she’s trying to sort out exactly who is in charge of what she does, and what happens if she doesn’t do what I want.

It does help if I can say something to get her to relax–give her a minute to sort thing out, let her feel my confidence in her, make sure Sariah isn’t saying anything to add to her concern. (Sariah doesn’t “tattle” in the usual sense, as a means of getting someone in trouble, but she does like to tell what happened, and I can tell Jane tenses up when Sariah talks about her like this.)

For what it’s worth, Sariah did go through this exact phase and we never did anything to “break” her of it. She did just grow out of it. That, along with working hard to keep our relationship loving and safe (emotionally). So I don’t think this Looks-Like-Defiance stage is evidence of some kind of permanent character flaw, or something I need to work hard at “stamping out.” It’s just the age. Or . . . something. Experts, feel free to chime in here at any moment.

–

Oh, and by the way, Happy Thanksgiving and all that. How was yours? I know this site is sometimes more of my weird, personal parenting diary than a “Hey, here’s what we’re doing” sort of blog. Here I am again with the old dilemma. Do I bore all you homeschooling/unschooling, and peaceful parenting-interested readers with details of family life, or do I bore my friends and family the complex details of my mind?

But also, I haven’t been posting because we’ve had company–my wonderful brother and sister-in-law and their cute babe stayed with us this week. We had a lovely Thanksgiving at Matt’s parents. We have a great family. I love my inlaws. How many people can say that? We are so blessed.

Filed in: family • parenting | November 29, 2009

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Did I ever tell you that? Seems like I may have mentioned it once. Or twice. Or a thousand times.

The thing is, it really, really, really isn’t them; it’s me. I mean, it’s not their fault they are the way they are–I don’t think they can help it. I’m the one who has the problem, and it’s all in my perspective of their motivation and reasons for their behavior, which, I know is so off.

Also, I realize that I could easily make this problem nonexistent. At least, easily with my current three-year-old, who I think would “mold” well to any sort of discipline program I decided to implement, especially if it involved the least bit of parental displeasure, rather than just, say, a “good behavior” sticker chart or something.

But that’s not at all what I really want to do. I mean, sure, it would make my problems go away. It would be a heck of a lot easier to just issue whatever compulsory warning I thought up (“Jane, do you want to go to time-out?”) than to sit there stewing on the couch, silently trying to uncover the innocence that I know is behind the stubborn refusal to acknowledge my request. (Or my person, period.)

This silent stewing though, has often led to profound insight. I keep praying for Heavenly Father to let me see my children the way He sees them. I guess learning that is all part of the growth process that is parenting.

My friend Nat wrote a post describing the sort of three-year-old “I don’t hear you” defiance I am talking about. Nat is awesome, and her new blog is proving to be very enjoyable.

I wrote a comment with my own example from last night, in case you’re curious. While writing it, I remembered what is probably my best line of defense for this kind of thing: Playfulness.

It’s so much better than letting my three-year-old determine the mood and adopting her oppositional stance, as if it were a contest to see who could be more stubborn. I hope in the future I will let my three-year-old be the only one acting like a three-year-old!

Filed in: parenting | November 28, 2009

2 Comments »

Remember this? And this? And, well, most of you won’t remember THIS, because it was posted years ago on a blog that is currently a pile of cyber-ashes, but I republished it here because it records the first time one of my kids went through an aggressive phase, and the surprising answer I found.

Well, so yes, we’ve had our share of seemingly inexplicable, persistent aggression, and Jane had just started doing little things to hurt Mary again. As usual, I forgot the solution that always ends up working for us, and started responding with the whole, “Why are you doing this? You should know better! Aagh, this is so frustrating!” attitude.

Then a friend called to tell me her new plan for dealing with the same type of behavior. She would simply stop the hurtful behavior if she could, and then–give the aggressive child a hug.

Yes! That’s it, I realized. That is exactly the one and only thing that has ever gotten us out of the hurting ruts we go through occasionally. It may not be a hug, per se (Sariah often doesn’t want to be touched when she’s angry), but it has to be a general attitude of understanding and compassion for the aggressor.

It always amazes me how well this works, and it worked this time again. Jane’s little attempts to get Mary crying whenever I looked away for a minute were escalating, and as soon as I stopped with the whole, “Don’t do that to her, honey, that hurts!” along with a “WHY are you doing this?” attitude, and started just protecting Mary and offering loves and quiet, understanding words to Jane, the hurting stopped. Whatever need she was trying to fulfill by hurting Mary was met, and she didn’t need to do it anymore.

Now, if only I can get to the point where love and understanding are my natural first response to hurtful behavior, I will really be getting somewhere.

Meanwhile, I found this article from handinhandparenting.org really, really helpful in explaining the why’s and how’s of this approach. It’s an inspiring read, I want to come back to it whenever this comes up again.

Biting, Pushing, Pulling Hair: Helping Children With Aggression

Filed in: parenting | November 17, 2009

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