Parenting is Hard, resisting makes it harder

The child is standing screaming hateful words, throwing things, biting, scratching, kicking, hitting… totally gone ‘feral,’ as a friend calls it.

Everyone who has ever seen one will recognize this as an extreme temper tantrum, and just what they look like in a child older than about 3 (and adults.)

There are a lot of theories about how to handle a child whose brain has gone offline, and who is now fully out of control of all higher level brain functions. My personal favourite means is ‘don’t get there in the first place,’ but sometimes shit happens.

When it happens, it is popular to try to ‘stop it’ by doing common things.

Like the withdrawal of support and affection (sending to rooms, etc.) until the emotional expressions are all happy. Yay drugs! Choose uppers.

Like yelling. Yes, because yelling is going to calm anyone’s brain down.

Spanking has its advocates, because that won’t further overload anyone’s sensory input channels. It may push their brain into a traumatized fugue state, which probably looks like ‘it worked’ to some people who don’t know what that brain state means…

Counter-intuitively, what actually works is describing what is going on, in words.

You are really frustrated because that didn’t go your way.

How infuriating! You just want it to not have broken.

It is really important to you to get the red cup!

It feels like this method will ‘give permission’ for horrible behaviour. Kids don’t think that way, so that can be dismissed without really being addressed.

It also feels like this will amplify the feelings instead of eradicate them (the goal of the three options most often recommended by ‘experts,’ as listed above) It won’t, and I can tell you why:

When you have room in your world for the expression and understanding of emotions, they don’t hang around. Emotions are like hunger: feel and understand the message of the emotion and it dissipates, just as hunger dissipates with feeding.

So, instead of leaning away from emotions hoping they’ll just go away (or trying to shout them away, ‘cause really: how can that work?) stop resisting.

The emotion is the whole reality for this child right now, with absolutely no room for the child’s tiny body to hold anything else: learning, ‘getting it,’ the message behind punishment, ‘thinking about it,’ or ‘their attention’ to be on anything but this huge emotional reality.

Yes, even if it is something ‘silly’ like the colour of the cup.

It’s not about the colour of the cup, it’s about the feelings provoked by not getting the colour right, by not being able to decide which colour is right or not being allowed or able to pick the right colour, by frustration, disappointment, rage, grief, sadness, fury, and even by simply being totally overwhelmed by having to make a decision that doesn’t matter –again—about an issue that doesn’t matter but that stops the flow of everything until it’s decided.

It’s not about the cup, it’s about the feelings.

What I “Allow” My Child to Say to an Adult

 

Fuck off, Fuck you, Fuck me, Fuck it.

A recently circulating blog post 'Six things my kids are not allowed to say to adults,' lists all the reasons why some intensely prim mother will not allow her children to say atrocious things like 'no' and 'yeah' and 'just a minute' and 'I don't want to.'

There is even a great rebuttal, called 'Six things my kids are allowed to say to adults', which explains why every single one of those words and phrases is completely fine.

And here is my initial response to both: no mention of 'fuck' at all?

Seriously?

So, I suggest to the author of the original: not allowed to say 'no' but 'fuck off' is totally fine? Or beyond your ability to imagine any child actually saying? Or perhaps you are completely deaf in that sound range?

Because dad's a sailor, and mom's a pragmatist, both our children explored the wacky and wonderful world of obscenities off and on throughout their childhoods. I'm not sure they had any nuns to shock, but I can tell you absolutely: kids whose parents have potty mouths don't swear as teens. At least not to their parents...

Whenever parents are suggesting they are in total control of their children's mouths, and have every right and responsibility to control what their children think and say, I think of two words:

humour and mercy

Humour, because really: get a grip, it's not that big a deal.

Some words (which mean the same things as other completely acceptable-for-company words) raise eyebrows because ... why? Because, frankly, when the court languages were Latin and French, the Anglo-Saxon words for excrement and fornication were 'coarse and common.' Ooh, our poor delicate ears can only hear Latin and French words for excrement, female body parts or sexual intercourse without causing fainting.

Right.

That is totally related to modern English in the Western world. Of course. That makes... absolutely no sense at all.

Fine. Let's go with that then.

And why not?

In an unrelated note, I can't tell you how disappointed and disgusted I was with modern English when I discovered that there has not been a new swear coined since the 1600s. Appalling lack of creativity here, people!

And, mercy, because: oh for crying out loud, they're children.

Children are (this is not allowed to be a surprise to anyone) immature. Their communication style is, concomitant to their immaturity, also (this is not allowed to be a surprise, either) immature.

Yes, really.

Surely, some mature and reasonably intelligent adult has it within their ability to understand the limitations of childhood and crank back the expectations for perfect, enlightened and mature communication skills at least until the child has most of the adult parts of their brain grown in... say, 16 or 18 years of age.

Maybe instead of attempting to control a child's mouth and all that comes out of it, the prissy mommy-blogger could try being the bigger person, grasping the immaturity of her children's verbal expressions, and understand them from a more forgiving mindset, like 'I know you're tired and hungry sweetie, and I know you don't want to clean up the toys you were playing with at Auntie Jeannie's. I wish we had a robot to do all the tidying, and a teleporter and be at our favourite buffet right now! I'm sorry, it's my fault we stayed past when we are tired and haven't had enough to eat yet.'

The child made a sound intended to communicate a message that was important to the child. If mommy 'gets it' why pretend she doesn't? Why be appalled at the immaturity of the method, when she could be instructive, supportive, helpful, kind, informative or, frankly, respond to the fucking need the child has expressed and grow up about expecting wise, mature and pristine communication from tiny, inexperienced people?

Why does mom get to be a big baby about how people say things to her, but expect the kids to be mature adults in all of their communication?

How I Feel, What They’re Saying

 

Chatting with a friend today, I mentioned some of Don C. Dinkmeyer’s work, from Systematic Training for Effective Parenting, thus:

One of the tools I've found helpful is 'parent reaction'...to discover the probable underlying need expressed through [a child’s] intense behaviour.

When you are irritated or annoyed, it's probably attention the child is seeking... When you're angry or want revenge, it's probably power. When you give up and feel despondent, it's a mirror of the child having given up on ever feeling successful.

Or, as she rephrased it:

when your child does x, and you feel __________, the child needs __________.

I like it when people sort out my thoughts more clearly than I can.

What I like about this tool is that it stops asking the child the horrible question ‘why?’ Kids don’t have a clue what they’re not successfully getting that they need, whether it be attention or power or a feeling of capability.

The other thing I like about this tool is its inherent respect for the sanity and needs of the child. A misbehaving child is not insane, bad or wrong … but struggling to meet needs and attempting creative means to accomplish their valid goals.

It is valid to need attention, power and a sense of being capable. The naturally immature methods use in their bids to get what they sense they need are information and communication –not misbehaviour.

Humiliating Children as a Teaching Tool

 

'Other people are mean, children need to learn to handle it.'

Okay, that might be true –in fact, it probably is. But how is that related to the people closest to them, who are supposed to cherish and nurture them, being mean? Intentionally being mean!

Who are supposed to protect children from unnecessary injury and harm?

It is ironic that today it is just as popular to think kids need to be kept indoors, stopped from sledding or skating on the local pond, and kept rear-facing in car seats until they're 7 or 9 'for safety reasons' as it is for parents to publicly humiliate and shame children.

Why is the only perceived protection or safety children need physical? Do they have no need at all for emotional or psychological safety?

And, seriously people! Is there no way to teach a child how to handle the viciousness of strangers other than through the viciousness of loved ones?

There is a police initiative to combat bullying is called WITS. Walk away, Ignore, Talk it out, Seek help. When the parents are the ones being mean, children are supposed to Walk away? Ignore it? Talk it out (seriously, in conflict with their parents!?) or Seek help? From whom, precisely?

When their protectors and closest family are causing the hurt, who are kids supposed to go to? When it is parents hurting children's feelings, intentionally, how will a child learn to assess 'who to trust' in seeking help?

So much of this comes to the point of 'teaching' through punishment, hurt and humiliation, when one of the basic realities of learning is that in order to develop and thrive, humans must first feel safe and secure, then they can expand and try and risk. When they're hurting, protecting themselves from further harm and pulling away from the world, they are only learning that the people of the world—even the ones who 'love' them-- seek to injure them. The only thing they wonder and want to learn is 'why me?'

Too often, the conclusion kids come to is 'because I'm worthless.'

Please don't teach your children that they are worthless.

Can’t Get It All (or any of it) Done

A favourite joke about stay-at-home moms is the one about the dad who comes home after a long day of work, finds the kids outside covered in mud, still in their pyjamas, walks into the house which is a total disaster: food, clothes, dirt, toys everywhere … with increasing dread, he searches the house and finally finds his wife in an upstairs bedroom, surrounded by more mess. ‘Honey, what on earth happened here?’

‘You know that nothing I do all day? Today I didn’t do it.’

Life is like that with little kids.

It really does feel like it’s not possible to get it all done, and on a lot of days it doesn’t feel like it’s at all possible to get any of it done.
There are many ways to ‘get it all’ done, and more prolific writers than I have spent a lot of their time describing how… see Flylady, The I Hate to Housekeep Book, Sidetracked Home Executives, Superwoman, and Who Says It’s a Woman’s Job to Clean? for more …

But these are the small children at home, totally overwhelmed can’t get anything done suggestions I have:

Hire help

From a professional organizer and a cleaning lady (I wish) to the 12-year-old down the street, paid assistance is available in the oddest corners of the world, and don’t necessarily cost the kind of major-luxury money people might think. A 12-year-old mother’s helper will tidy the toys, fold the laundry, wash the dishes, sweep and vacuum for less than it costs to hire a babysitter to take the children away for a while so mom can do all that. I loved my mother’s helper –still do, although she’s already past the stage in her life now where she hired my children for the same work…

Ask for help

Strangely, this one comes with more barriers than hiring help. Hiring only requires money. Asking requires super-human courage… apparently. Here are a couple of ways of getting help:

Be kind and helpful to your friends and family by letting them feel good about making a meaningful contribution to your life. Too many people are stingy with their friends and family, stopping them from getting the warm, fuzzy feelings of being genuinely helpful to the people they love. 

Be nice: let them help. In fact, make a list with the stuff that’s driving you nuts at the top and ask them to do anything off the list that they want to, the higher up the list the better…

Start a co-op with friends in the same position, spending three or four days a week (depends on how many friends you have) at each house in turn. The host gets to pick what’s driving her (or him) nuts this week and everyone works on that, plus dinner with enough for all to take away, so everyone can head home without more to do when they get there. 

Shared projects, from making Christmas presents to sorting all the kids’ clothes, baking or decluttering the whole house, canning, or doing everyone’s taxes, can make the work easier and keep the children content longer than at home. Even just one friend, one day a week, will help you (and your friend) with day-to-day life.

Simplify the List

Cut things off the list, and do most of it far less frequently.

Dusting is, in my view, a complete waste of time, not the least because it takes the same amount of time to do it daily as it does weekly or even monthly –so why spend thirty-one times as long doing the job than you have to? 

Let the silver go black for a few years, no one will die or need therapy. Concentrate on hygiene, not optics: if it isn’t used as a food preparation surface, it probably doesn’t need to be sterile. Pick your battles with your housework, too.

Declutter and remove duplicates. If you only have one pair of scissors and it has one place to belong you’ll never have to search for one of the twelve pairs. It will also be easier to keep them out of the hands of the little weirdos who are inclined to do home hairstyling on themselves and their siblings.

Simplicity Parenting suggests having only as many toys as can be easily cleaned up within five minutes. No one needs 13 pairs of jeans… but if you keep all of them because you have to have them, you’ll have a lot more laundry to do than I do. When kids only have three pairs of pants, you will never be faced with a pile of 31 that need washing at once. Or drying. Or folding. Or putting away… Consider how you would live on a 40’ sailboat, and re-think exactly how much of the stuff in your house you actually need to get through a week.

Make a list of what’s bugging you and do just one thing every day. If the windows are making you crazy, wash one on Monday and one on Tuesday and one on Thursday… until they’re all done. Eventually, you’ll have everything done, with much of it not needing to be re-done for months.

Pick out the valuables from the piles and put everything else into boxes or trash bags and call the local removal company to take the rest away. 

Few people whose homes have burned down ever regret not rescuing the 11th unread magazine or all of the black shoes from the blaze. There will forever be more stuff coming into your home: make some room for the people to live in ease and comfort instead of snowed under even before one more item crosses the threshold. For $60, you could live in the delight of never having to put that away ever again.

What You Look At You See

 

 

A topic arose on a facebook group, which was more or less this:

Anyway, newest bit of helpful advice from his wife! "We never had car seats and we survived, it's all just money making"..........:|, I had to walk away.

My response was:

Hands up all the kids who didn't have car seats who died....
... uh ... anyone?
It's called 'attention bias' --noticing only what you already believe is true. It's extremely popular.

In the case of the ‘we didn’t use car seats and we all survived’ the first piece of the problem is exactly as I retorted: hands up all of us who didn’t survive childhood.

A basic problem with the argument is that it only asks for people who could not have died as a result of lacking vehicle safety to confirm that they have not died of that cause. That’s a very convenient demographic to prove that point with… Convenient, but not compelling …

Attention bias causes all kinds of mistakes in thinking and decision-making.

It makes things feel like a big trend (say ‘there is more cancer now than ever before’) when the real change is more likely to be our age and our increased exposure to the demographic that has always had higher cancer rates . . . because in reality cancer rates are dropping steadily.

Attention bias can make us believe that since it hasn’t happened to us, it can’t happen to us (also known as the Gambler’s Fallacy: three coin tosses that come up heads means the next coin toss has a more than 1 in 2 chance of coming up tails, as if the former tosses have any impact on the physics of the next one.)

Not having been killed in a car accident yesterday does not decrease your chances of being killed in one tomorrow… it increases your odds. Because if you’d died yesterday, your odds of dying today would be nil.

Attention Bias is also something our minds can be primed to experience immediately, by having something specific pointed out:

Look around your room –do you see any particular colour pop out at you?

Now, look around your room for things that are blue.

Simply scanning for something in particular makes it stand out against what was, a moment ago, all background. It’s a natural attribute of our minds, which we get far better at as we age.

The first time I noticed the effect of Attention Bias was when I got my braces. I’d never taken notice of people’s teeth before, and suddenly it was the first thing I saw.

In real terms, we don’t do statistically analysis very well in our heads. We think things that have happened are very likely to happen again, and things that we have no contact with feel very unlikely to happen.

Some of this comes out in poor advice to teens (like ‘don’t go into professional music, hardly anyone becomes a rock star’ –when it’s really a thriving multi-billion dollar international industry, not just a handful of we-don’t-know-any superstars) and some of it comes out as curmudgeonly nonsense of the ‘we survived it so it’s not dangerous’ kind, as noted above.

You Don’t Have to Believe Everything You Think

Some people find it easier than others, learning to think about their own Attention Bias, and others find it tremendously difficult.

It can help to evaluate the ‘always, never’ statements first … which the first quote really is. The premise is ‘no child ever died in a car accident without a car seat’ . . .  which is a statement I’m fairly confident no one would suggest is true, which helpfully unravels the rest of the nonsense attributed to it very quickly.

Unless it’s a relative you already know is resistant to ever really thinking about anything. Then, it’s just a handy thing to know is going on in the background, so you can happily ignore all their ‘always, never’ statements in the future . . .

No Touching–a desert of affection

 

Seriously.

Have you read about this? A ban on touching (from roughhousing to holding hands, all inclusive) in an elementary school in British Columbia once again proves just how thoroughly out of touch with reality –and basic human needs—too many people working in the school system are.

In his seminal work, Touching, the Human Significance of Skin, Ashley Montague provides decades of scientific research on the benefits of touching and the strange world of what happens to human beings (and, cruelly, monkeys) in the absence of physical affection. Published in 1986, surely at least one person working in the school system, who has studied anything to do with what human offspring need to thrive, has encountered at least the foundation research?

What happens to people when they’re banned from social physical contact has been well-established . . . .

Already living without the most important people in their world, for most of their waking day, now children are not allowed to do the most human of all social activities: bond emotionally with others.

As if the behaviour problems in schools were not already bad enough, with children needing (and not getting) a strong sense of stability and security, with children needing (and not being allowed) to eat when they’re hungry or have silence when they’re overwhelmed or social contact when it’s inconvenient for the teachers, now they’re not allowed to touch a friend… at all.

What cruel world of impersonal body segregation are we working toward, here?

Hey, hang on! Isn’t school supposed to be where kids go to learn to be ‘properly socialized’?!?