Parenting Blog

My Aha! Parenting Moment this week happened when a mom on one of my teleseminar calls asked me “How do I explain this kind of parenting to other people who think I’m spoiling my child?”

I love this question because we all have some version of it lurking inside us. WHY do I have to work so hard to parent my kid, pick up his spoon over and over when he throws it off the high chair, pester her to clean up her toys and brush her teeth, jolly him along into the bath, go through a bedtime routine when I’m exhausted, hug my fourteen year old when she has a tantrum?  Why can’t I just make requests and have my kid do what he’s supposed to?  And if he doesn’t why shouldn’t I just raise my voice or threaten him with a timeout?  Or even a swat on the butt? It usually works.

So let’s consider that.  

Why do we feed our child a nutritious diet?  Because we want him to grow up healthy.
In the same way that we’re the guardians of his physical health, helping him learn good habits so he stays healthy, we are the guardians of his emotional health.  If we want our child to grow up healthy, we pay attention to his emotional development, and parent in ways that nurture that development.

We know a lot more about medicine than we used to.  For instance, even though we can’t see germs, we know about them and we teach kids to watch their hands. We don’t do things the same way we did 50 years ago, when it wasn’t routine even for hospital personnel to wash their hands.  And of course what we know about medicine in general is so much more advanced than even ten years ago.  We just wouldn’t do things the same way now, because we know so much more now.  

Well, we also know so much more about child development.  We know that the old authoritarian methods raise kids who are more anxious, less confident, more prone to depression.  We know that if w want to raise kids who DON”T rebel as teenagers, who are respectful and responsible, we can do it, simply by relating to them in certain ways when they’re little.

Now, it can be hard to answer critics, because the old methods do get immediate compliance.  When humans are threatened with force, they usually comply, right?  And even a timeout is a threat of force, because if the child won’t go into timeout, you do have to use force to get them there.  And that is one of the problems with punishment -- we have to keep escalating our use of force.  Eventually, this destroys the child’s natural desire to please us because they harden their hearts to us.

Threats of force aren't the only reason timeouts work, when they do.  The other reason is even worse -- the threat of abandonment.  Let’s think about abandonment for a minute. What happens if a little one is abandoned?  They starve.  They die.  So babies and children are programmed at the most basic level to move into panic mode if there is the threat of abandonment. Their most basic need – on the level with food – is to make us love them.  When they feel a loss of love, they panic.  It might not REALLY be a loss of love – just a tired mom or dad who yells at them or threatens them with a timeout.  But they can’t tell the difference.  They experience timeouts as a loss of love.  They may comply with our request immediately so that they can get us to love them again.  The problem is that over time, if we keep yelling or giving timeouts, they conclude that they can’t get us to keep loving them, that just by being themselves they are always in danger of losing our love.

Now, they could just straighten up and do what they’re told, right?  But they’re kids.  Think about it.  They were born less than five years ago.  They are still learning to manager their own bodies, minds, emotions.  All day long they feel the frustrations and sadness of these big feelings, and often they store these feelings up because they don’t have a safe way to let them out.  These feelings make them bounce off walls and act ornery and difficult, and not even know what they want or what will make things better.  They get pushed around and told what to do all day long. Everyone is a lot bigger than they are.  They don’t feel powerful or capable enough to take charge and turn over  a new leaf and rise to the occasion and do what they’re told.   

So do they respond to our yelling and punishment by suddenly being perfect kids to please us? No way. They have no idea how. They don’t have the maturity. It would be like expecting them to read an encyclopedia.  We could do it. We might not enjoy it. But if the stakes were high enough, we could do it.  They couldn’t.   Instead, they give up. They decide they can’t please us. They harden their hearts to us.  They decide that parts of themselves are just plain bad, and they reject those parts of themselves, and try to hide them.

But when we push parts of ourselves away, what happens?  They pop out at the worst times.  SO the kid who tries to behave ends up losing his temper and socking his little brother, and not even knowing how it happened.

But we know how it happened.  He felt disconnected from us, which threatened his very survival on a primal level.  HE was full of these tangled feelings that he didn’t know how to release or to manage. And instead of helping him, we punished him.

So even if we get compliance when they’re little with yelling and timeouts, we end up getting worse behavior on a daily basis.  And we get less and less compliance, and more and more problems, as they get older.  They may not throw their food at you, but they will start lying to you, and believe me, that is a whole lot more complicated to solve. And in the end, we raise a kid who is LESS able to manage his emotions, and has a more difficult adolescence.  Will he still come out ok?  Hopefully.  But with today’s society, why raise a kid who is more vulnerable to peers, to drugs, to anxiety and depression?

So what can you tell your well meaning inlaws who think you’re spoiling your kid?  You’re meeting your child’s developmental need for connection.  You’re raising a child who is emotionally intelligent.  You can, and should, still set limits, but you’re doing it in a way that is better for longterm development.

Does it take more patience?  I’m afraid so.  The parent can’t just be self-indulgent and throw tantrums and yell.  Believe me, I know what it's like to want to throw a tantrum.  But I guarantee you that in the long run, this kind of parenting is much easier because your child will get easier to parent.
 Not to mention turn out to be the kid you were hoping to raise.

And here’s another aha! Moment.  When you see a parent having fun in the supermarket with her child, interacting, playing games, laughing, you might think that looks like work.  But that parent is having fun. It doesn’t feel like work.  What about that parent who is gritting her teeth and just trying to get through the shopping trip without a melt down?  She might be more efficient, she might get through the market faster.  But is she having fun? No way! Is her kid having fun? Not. So not that he’ll probably have a tantrum before they’re out of the store because he feels disconnected.  And guess who's going to have a delightful, fun, peaceful evening with her kid, and who's going to go have a struggle?

 THAT kind of parenting is a ton more work.  Life is too short to live that way.  And life is too short to parent that way.