Announce & Wait, part 2, or Why it does not work for all kids

Announce & Wait – a Caveat: 
                                            it takes a minute or so. . .

The feedback on the post Announce & Wait has made me realize that not all people are starting this kind of parenting thing from the earliest days of their parenting life, and many people have a history of not-this-kind-of-parenting … which makes some of the suggestions look like they don’t ‘work’.

In case you don’t feel like wandering over and reading the related piece, that post is essentially a suggestion for how to have more peaceful cooperation with things like toothbrushing, diaper changes and getting ready to leave the building when it’s -73°C outside: gather everything you need, go to where you need to do it (at the door, on the floor near the changing pad, or on the way to the washroom with the toothbrushes in it) saying --to someone whose full attention you actually have--‘I’m going to brush your teeth [or whatever] now…’ and wait. Stay still, don’t say anything, and really don’t say it again. Just wait. Meditate. Everyone needs more opportunities to focus on staying in the moment. Every parent I have ever met wishes for more uninterrupted time to be themselves in … what a wonderful free moment you are being given, until the little one processes the information, sorts out what they want to do, and comes to go along with your plans.

That is the suggestion in that post. It works.

However . . .

Think of all the other ways people are told to ‘encourage’ kids to do things the kids don’t necessarily want to do or agree are very important. Toddlers don’t understand ‘cavities in 18 months’ or ‘frozen flesh warnings.’ Parents do, which is why they get to be in charge of the hygiene and safety stuff.

When you’re just entering the ‘I don’t want to do what you want to do because you want to do it’ stage with, say, a 14- or 18-month-old child, starting with this approach before any other approach is attempted makes it ‘work’ –peacefully, and at least as effectively as anything else anyone suggests, but again: peacefully, which isn’t how most command-and-control, coercion, or orders –sorry ‘opportunities for cooperation’—usually turn out.

How Orders [ahem . . . opportunities to cooperate] Turn Out

Even if they work, there are natural responses to ordering people around, and pretty much every parent looking for ideas for how to make their days go more smoothly have ample evidence of what those responses look like:

Is my child deaf? I swear she could hear a moment ago when I unwrapped a chocolate bar… three rooms away behind a door. . .

          I am SO tired of the word ‘no,’ it is              all the kids ever say. . .

I don’t have the energy to chase the child around the house every time we need to do something. . .

Oh, great, I don’t have time for another temper tantrum right now, we need to GOooooo!

Sometimes people think I’m talking about kids’ reactions.  

Kids’ reactions are just their response to what is happening around them, to them, and within themselves. That’s all perfectly natural. It’s also inevitable and unchangeable from the outside.

The reactions that aren’t ‘working’ for the parents are the parent’s: impatience, frustration, irritation, martyrdom, hopelessness, exasperation, desperation, depletion and burnout.

Often parents see the kids’ behaviour as the driving force causing these responses, which is pretty usual in a culture that shames anyone responsible for anything, and encourages people to evade blame at all costs.

However. . .

A great friend who has renamed herself Talloolah in the tradition of Wise Women everywhere who step outside the mainstream, says ‘expectations are just planned disappointments.’ 

Another friend, who proudly calls herself a Crone, says ‘that’s not just asking for frustration, that’s ordering it.’

I segued away there to pave the way to say something rather counter-culture:

choose your action, choose your response

Am I saying that parents are asking for frustration and irritation and burnout on purpose? Absolutely not. Am I saying that they are doing it without realizing it, and often without any awareness of what is happening? You bet!

By choosing your action, you are choosing your response

If you order another human being to do your bidding, you are choosing resistance. It’s basic human nature, and while there are unicorns in the world who might comply instantly for fun or because the sun is up, the chances of you having given birth to one (or adopted one, or had one assigned to your classroom or sign up for your daycare services) are kind of remote. They aren’t called unicorns because they are everyday horses –or because they are people.

If you nag a human being to do what you want when they clearly are doing something else, you are choosing frustration AND resistance. It’s basic human nature. Humans do not like being told what to do, and when the resistance to being ordered around becomes second-nature, humans will not do what they want to do if they think it aligns with what the authority wants them to do. This is the basis of a lot of ‘forgetting’ and procrastination. Repeating the order is just irritating to everyone.

If you interrupt a human being with what you believe is more important (to you) than what is important to them, you are choosing exasperation. It is basic human nature. People of all ages naturally resist having other people choose their priorities.

The Long Way to Say: announce and wait ‘works’

. . .when the person involved trusts your motives

It is hard to hear that the reason your child does not respond to your communication openly and eagerly . . .

. . . it is hard to hear that this is about trust and connection.

Resistance to you and your words is not built on trust, it’s built on command-and-control parenting styles. Even ‘peaceful’ command-and-control styles. The thing about human nature is that the words don’t matter. At all. Call is ‘peaceful’ if you want to, if it is coercive, command-and-control, the resistance you encounter will be the truth of the situation. Call it ‘attachment’ when you leave the baby with a total stranger for something ‘important’ and the baby will still be freaked out by the stranger. Call it ‘logical consequences’ and the child will perceive it as the punishment that it is, because it is imposed in response to ‘poor choices’ (read: adult-determined ‘bad behaviour’) and never to ‘good choices.’ That is how you can always tell it is not ‘natural’ consequences, because the universe supplies those quite without fear or favour, regardless of what anyone ‘meant.’

This is not about ‘bad’ parenting. That’s a value judgement that people take personally, naturally resist, and isn’t helpful in any context.

It is about taking bad advice –sometimes without thinking about it at all, sometimes because of where it came from (our own childhoods, often) and sometimes because of how delightfully convenient and simple it would be if it did work.

Bad advice is the kind that can’t work because it fails to accept reality as a premise. Coercive, command-and-control parenting advice is like that: it can’t work because: people.

This is about the problem with following age-old (and sometimes new-sounding) advice that disregards basic human nature because … well, I don’t really know why it disregards basic human nature.

Maybe because for a really long time, kids have not been thought of as really human.

Maybe because it sounds like it should work.

Maybe because it feels like it would be faster if you could just activate the Voice Command Software and have a smooth-running, adults-deferred-to, convenient ‘the Queen is in charge of the Universe and the time at which other people wash their faces’ house…

I don’t really know what is the impetus behind disregarding basic human nature in favour of the stories around ‘you should be able to control your kid’ and all the advice that sounds like that … but I do know it is fantasy fiction.

Sure, if people weren’t people, maybe it would work.

If kids weren’t people, maybe it would work.

It doesn’t work.

Because: people.

And the length of time the sun is visible in the sky does not change based on the number humans decide to put on their clocks, and there is no ‘daylight’ to ‘save’ by changing them. Not sure why that bit of weirdness ever took hold, either, but here we are: daylight hours in the Northern hemisphere shorten through October and November, just as they are lengthening in the Southern hemisphere and staying completely the same at the equator –let’s all change the clocks and pretend something else is happening because … then children will have Voice Command Software and they will magically stop being human and stop resisting being controlled by … um … nah.

It’ll never work.

What is the Caveat?

The caveat to Announce-and-Wait is that in a place where kids are used to being, expecting to be, and have a lot of experience being ordered around (sorry I meant so say: motivated to comply / encouraged to listen… but really: ordered around), they will absolutely not magically ‘perform’ differently in the face of one simple change of a parent’s behaviour in this instance. It will ‘work’ –just not right away, and maybe not at all today.

Because this is about trust.

Trust is messy, because people want to control what other people think and feel … and that urge alone damages trust.

Wanting other people to trust you feels controlling to them, and that damages their ability to trust you.

This Relationship Thing is COMPLICATED!

As much as we want to feel capable and in control, the simple reality of relationships is phrased the way a late friend put it:

               This is me

               That is you

All the ‘this is me’ stuff we are in control of is:

     1.       our words and,

     2.        our actions.

We don’t control our thoughts, emotions, the world around us, the weather on Europa or what other people think of us or what they think about what we do.

All the ‘that is you’ stuff we are in control of is this list here:

      1.

        . . . 

Even in our own very young children, we cannot control the impact we have on them, what they think about what we do or say, how they understand what we do or say, what they think our actions and words mean about them and their value as people, or how much they trust or respect us.

One more time for the people in the back: we do not get to decide what impact our actions and words have on other people.

We do not control what they think about us, or about themselves when we are affecting them.

When we make changes, of any kind really, we are not the people who get to decide how those changes will be perceived by others. We don’t get to decide that we have sufficient authority for others to go along with those changes instantly, or to respond to those changes immediately the way we expect them to or how we hope they will.

Announce-and-wait is not magically different.

It takes time to make changes that matter.

It takes patience, to allow the other people to see that you really mean it, and this isn’t some new trick you’ve discovered to make them compliant a new way.

It takes time to rebuild trust that you really are not trying to control them, that they really are free and that you really will wait for them to be ready to do that thing you want them to do.

As I said: change is hard. It works, but not instantly like a Polaroid picture (which also takes a minute…)

Chores and Underlings: What Works

 

Surrender works so well in so many areas of parenting (and life) –it is when we stop struggling with reality that we find ease and peace.

One note for clarification: surrender is not sacrifice. Sacrifice is for martyrs, not people who seek happiness, effectiveness, joy, peace, connection or love. Martyrs may get admiration . . . maybe. But what they will get is resentment, avoidance, criticism (which is ironic, because they seek to avoid it) and derision.

Regarding chores, there are several aspects of surrender necessary to create a peaceful and healthy home:

Surrender to the reality of time constraints

You can do it all, just not all at once. Priorities need to be evaluated so you’re not wasting your life –or trying to waste anyone else’s—on things you don’t genuinely value

Surrender to the necessity of the task

Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water
After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water

There will be no time in your life when feeding and cleaning does not need to be done, however much modern conveniences ease the work. Accept that it must be done, without end.

Surrender to the real equality

All people need feeding and cleaning: of all the base, common and menial drudgery, none can be less exalted than ‘voiding bladder and bowel.’ We all get to do that with part of our days – 5 cent/hour garbage pickers in Brazil and $30,000/minute superstar athletes, and everyone in between. You can value this real aspect of life or revile it, but no one else is far enough beneath you to have to do it for you.

It is deeply disrespectful of humans to hold the opinion that the work is beneath you but not them.

Surrender to the power of mindless repetition –and hard work

All the effort spent (and technology invented) just to avoid the peace and ease of simple, repetitive work…

The dedication modern folk give to avoiding some of the easiest and most instantly-gratifying work available is amazing. A cleaned plate is clean: visibly, obviously and it is ‘finished.’ So much work is never done, has no clear product or is so complex and involves so many people that our part in it is (or feels) both invisible and impersonal. A clean plate is clean. A planted garden is planted. A cooked meal is completed.

Surrender to the fleeting nature of life

Yes, the meal will be eaten and the plate will once again need cleaning, but such is the nature of life. What is it that, once done, need never be redone or will never be undone? A singer walks off the stage and the song has ended. It can be re-sung, of course, but that performance is over. Even a recording of the thing is not the thing –it was live with a live audience and now it is a recording of both. Why is that less distressing than the laundry that needs re-washing?

Find the joys in doing, not in only having done. Life is a process, not a product.

Surrender to the chaos

Unless you seek to live alone forever, chaos will always be your roommate. Other people are ‘other’ –they see things differently, they react because they have a different perspective. The desire to live in peaceful harmony forever precludes living with other humans at any age.

Even if you did not understand the deal you were signing up for, the decision to have children comes with the built-in guarantee of a life filled with chaos. Will you fight it like it’s an unwanted intruder, or accept it as the inevitability it is, like static or dust?

Surrender, finally, to your own personal preferences

Do what you will, as you will.

It is only within this freedom and self-respect that you can find worth in your work –and free others to see the worth in the work you do, and perhaps even find value in doing it themselves.

The secret of children happily cooperating in their own homes is an atmosphere of joy, worthiness and respect which cannot be found in an atmosphere of dictatorial superiority.

A parent who finds himself sneering at the idea of washing a floor cannot be surprised by a child’s distaste for the task. Equally, a man happily engaged in nurturing his family through meal preparations may well find cooperative bodies eager to share the room and help.

Joy, enthusiasm and a sense of an important job well done are all attractive, and contagious. When you feel resistance from your kids, check to see how you really feel about the work. . . and if you believe it is necessary to do at all.

Dads & Life

Hmm... sounds like a fine thing to ramble about.

Parenting v., childrearing, see also mothering; fathering.

Funny, isn't it, how fathering means the same thing as breeding, pretty much, whereas mothering means the same as rearing. We’ve left dads out for too long, particularly in the West. Dads are important parents.

I have a soft spot in my heart for dads, here in our society. It’s akin to the soft spot I have for men, growing up where (for some reason) the way you stand declares your sexuality, and being ‘sissy’ is the worst possible insult a boy can receive. There’s a lot wrong with that... but it’s about dads, today.

I like my dad, as a person and as his ‘role’ in my life. I admire much of his character, and he is one of the most generous people I have ever known. There was that weird period when he was going from Exalted Human to A Person in my head, when he became a whole person, from infancy to old age, within and outside the realm of our small family. My head expanded that day, and I saw a wholeness in him. What had been stereotype became whole, complex human.

I like dads, and I think they have a hard row to hoe these days. There is a lot expected of them, and they expect a lot of themselves. They hide from some of these expectations (usually behind other expectations as powerful!) I understand their avoidance. 

It isn’t fun to feel incompetent at something important. It is hard to acknowledge our ignorance.

There are a lot of professionals and people who will excuse dads from adapting to the reality of the role particularly when the child is damaged or ill, because men take it personally, a strike against their manliness. I don’t excuse dads from their role, however easy it might be for them to escape under the ‘the mom knows better than me’ or ‘I am busy supporting the family, I can’t do both’ clauses. 

I don’t excuse dads from their role because of how much it damages them to be excused.

The damage is caused by excusing themselves, and me excusing them too just makes it worse. It is almost peer pressure for them to keep excusing themselves when they know better, and wish to be stronger.

When there is trouble or strife in childrearing, too often dad feels incompetent and impotent and the pressure to escape feels tremendous. 

Escaping into work is virtuous, important, probably vital, in fact. 

Escaping into childhood (go play with the boys at the bar, out fishing, paintball... whatever) is popular.

Both are difficult for sane adults to justify, even to themselves... which pushes them to escape their lives even further... and on and on the cycle goes, feeling unbreakable.

Sadly, what these escapes does to men is destroy their sense of themselves as competent and courageous, both at once. For many men, feeling competent is 9/10s of who they think they are, and I haven’t met a man yet who doesn’t want to be courageous, even if he’s never managed it. Being ‘yellow’ is up there with being ‘sissy.’ And escaping from dealing with reality is both.

Funny, now in this situation, it’s the mom who gets to be courageous and strong by default (with a few exceptions), when being called feminine is the worst insult to a man.

I don’t know what the magic words or thoughts or beliefs are, for dads who find the courage and strength to hang in, be there, and deal with the reality of the situation. I’d sure like to know what those men think they are. I suspect they might be something like ‘I just had to’ or ‘I had no choice.’ I’d like to know how to install it in the rest of them, so they can feel better about their fathering... and themselves.

Principle-Centred Parenting

Principle-Centred Parenting

Conversations lately have centred around effectively dealing with stressful people and situations. I can’t explain the frequency of this, because just last month, I seemed to have twenty opportunities a week to talk about taking personal responsibility and growing up as a parenting tool. These things seem to have seasons.

Over the past week, I’ve spoken to 2 clients, 2 friends and a new online contact about a wide variety of parenting and personal problems that centre around the ‘toolbox’ method of living life. I’ve said these words, or something very similar, at least 4 times:

Think of it like this: when you have a hammer as your ‘tool’ you tend to
function as if the world were full of nails. Handy when you’re assembling a
shed, not so helpful when you’re trying to wash dishes.

I like tips, tools and techniques. They’re frequently useful to know and to have handy. There is a serious flaw in trying to stockpile them, though. There are zillions of possible problems any parent might encounter in the course of raising a child from newborn to fledgling adult, and, obviously, a wide variety of approaches (tools) that can effectively handle any one of them. So, the average parent, over the 20 years or so, will need, what... 200,000 different tools?

That’s not practical.

What if you spend an enormous amount of time and energy searching out tools and tips and techniques while your children are busy growing up without your noticing? (p.s. I have noticed that it is not possible to spend the same amount of energy twice – once it’s gone, it’s gone. Plan your time accordingly.)

What if you don’t find the right tool for the job until 3 years after you need it? What if you lug around 100 that you never, ever find a use for?

‘Ack! No! Don’t leave me with nothing!!’ parents are inclined to implore me, when I suggest that the toolbox approach might not, um... work... very... often.... if ever.

Principles to Use

I’d never leave someone with nothing... although ‘nothing’ is a suggestion I often make when people don’t know what to do. Here’s the suggestion I make instead:

• decide what your parenting goals are


• decide what your personal values are


• work from there

As Anna Christensen, of Wilderness Alert, says, ‘set your goals in stone, your steps in sand.’ You need to know where you’re going, or you’ll never get there. You can’t change your goal every 15 steps, or you’ll be going around in circles – or just going nuts. You can’t pre-determine all your steps to get there, because up-close obstacles are often invisible from far away. You need a guiding principle (or several) to know, in the moment, what you will and will not do in any given situation. 

For example, if your primary goal is to have, say, self-disciplined and responsible adults in about 20 years, you can’t wash all your kid’s clothes, cut the crusts off his sandwiches and help him brush his teeth when he’s 16, even if he begs, bribes, or cajoles you. Actually, you can, but you’ll be moving farther and farther away from your goal with every step.

If your goal is to have a highly-dependent 20 year old man-boy, that’s a good bunch of steps to take. Kind of like trying to get to New York from Winnipeg by going north... you can go north with true diligence, energy and serious determination, but you’ll never get anywhere near New York. Whatever your goal, it will predetermine a large number of your steps –or at least the general direction– right from the beginning.

Once you know what your main goal is (there are too many to choose from for me to list them in this post, I’ll let you use your imagination... or wait a while– I may make a list sometime later) you have to decide what kinds of steps you will take, and what kind of steps you will not take. This is defining your personal values... your guiding principles, your ethics.... essentially, this is the framework you make all your decisions within.

Will you swear a blue streak at the child who just broke the lamp? That depends on whether or not ‘treat children with dignity’ is one of your values. Will you have a long roster of babysitters and adult-only activities? Maybe... but probably not if one of your values is ‘children need and deserve their parents’ presence.’ Will you train your child to sleep, use the toilet, to sit up and beg on command? Well, that would require you to believe children are sub-humans who need training... and the absence of the belief that children will naturally and automatically grow into self-disciplined and responsible adults as long as they are supported and loved by people who are mostly self-disciplined and responsible.

Your values have everything to do with the choices you make as you move toward (or away from) your goal. For a comprehensive guide to determining your own values, and a fairly broad introduction to choosing or identifying a primary purpose, the book The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz is invaluable. A quick overview is:

• Your core values make you feel energized, eager and alive. Other people’s core values that you’ve adopted because you should or have to make you feel soggy, tired and annoyed. Move toward what energizes you – it’s just a good formula for success.

Possible core values are the ‘character’ characteristics people are talking about when they’re talking about ‘building character.’ Empathy. Respect. Self-discipline. Honesty. Trust. Wisdom. Creativity. Ambition. Kindness. Courage. Et cetera.

They aren’t ‘shoulds’ like: Nice. Fair. Looks-like. Blame.

Core values and a primary purpose anchor you in the seas of variable currents– mother-in-law thinks this, that neighbour thinks that, a co-worker contradicts both in a very convincing way, the parenting expert says, the doctors declares–there really is no end to the myriad voices, convictions and advisers.

As the Loehr and Schwartz say, knowing your core values and purpose is literally like having a rudder and anchor. Without them, you can’t steer and you can’t stop from being blown, well, wherever.

Knowing your core values and main goals is also inspirational. It will inspire you to live up to your own highest standards. Nothing else ever will. I don’t know that anything else ever can.