Parenting Blog

"The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to children." --  Elaine Heffner

Should you strategically ignore mouthy behavior, from a toddler or a tween? Never.  But that doesn't mean you "crack down" with discipline, either, because that erodes your relationship with your child and makes disrespectful behavior even more likely. 

What's effective is to always keep the connection with the child at the same time that you calmly and kindly re-establish the standard for respect.  Here's the three step strategy.

1. Monitor your own language and model respect and kindness in every interaction with your child.  If you find yourself criticizing or yelling, bite your tongue. If you need to set limits, wait until you can speak calmly and respectfully.

2. Strengthen your relationship with your child by looking for every opportunity to positively connect.  Kids think twice about hurting the feelings of parents they feel connected to.  Be sure you spend at least 15 minutes alone with each child every day, giving him your focused, positive attention.

3. If your child speaks hurtfully to you, calmly confront the behavior and re-set a clear expectation for respectful behavior while staying connected to your child:  "Wow, your tone of voice hurts. You must be very upset to speak to me that way. That's not like you. You know I don't speak to you in that tone.  Want to tell me what's upsetting you?"  Or, if you know already, "I'm hearing that you're very angry at me right now.  I hear how much you wish I would say yes to what you're wanting. Let's talk about this when we're both more calm."

Notice that we're teaching kids how to be in relationship with another person.  If we ignore their disrespect, we do them no favors.  If we react disrespectfully to their rudeness, we perpetuate the behavior. The secret?  They learn their behavior from us.

"I miss my baby.
I can't believe that she's a going-to-school girl,
a climb-into-my-own-chair-and-make-my-own-sandwich girl,
a brush-my-own teeth girl,
a take-off-my-coat-and-hang-it-on-the-hook girl,
a go-to-the-toilet-and-wipe-my-own-bum girl.
Where's that baby who didn't want to do anything but snuggle up with me? The cuddly, chubby one who was constantly on my hip as I made dinner, vacuumed the living room, talked on the phone?  My back is very grateful that she's a do-it-myself girl. The rest of me gets a bit sad from time to time."
    --www.flickr.com/photos/notcatherinezeta/

Everyone who loves also grieves. 

Parents have a unique relationship with grief, though, because parents face constant loss -- even parents with healthy children who thrive and grow to become happy, productive adults.  As our children age, we lose them over and over.  And even if we remain close to them as they establish their own families, if we have done a good job as parents we ultimately lose our children to their own lives.

Of course, we receive the solace of the next, often wonderful, stage, but that doesn’t erase the profound loss of the infant’s earliest milky smiles, the toddler’s adoring gaze, the preschooler’s unmatched exuberance, the six year old still climbing onto our lap for a bedtime story. Even now, with a 14 year old and a 19 year old, I see in their faces both the toddlers they were and the adults they are becoming. "Stop growing up!" I want to plead.  "You're old enough!"

But children can't learn to fly if we are, even unconsciously, clutching at their ankles. We all know parents who undermine their children’s development out of their own needs.  How can we avoid that?

I think the secret is to recognize the loss that comes with each new stage of our child's life.  If we can honor that grief, we can more fully revel in the joy each age brings. 

There's an old idea that our tears at a funeral are what free our loved one, floating him or her into the next world.  I think there's a parallel here.

I think our willingness to honor our mixed feelings about our children growing up is part of what frees them to try their wings...and to fly.

"Sending children away to get control of their anger perpetuates the feeling of 'badness" inside them...Chances are they were already feeling not very good about themselves before the outburst and the isolation just serves to confirm in their own minds that they were right." -- Otto Weininger,Ph.D. Time-In Parenting

When our kids have a melt-down, it pushes buttons for most of us.  We want to be loving parents.  Why is our child being so unreasonable? We certainly weren't indulged this way when we were little.

Many parents are tempted to send an angry child to her room to "calm down."  Eventually, she will indeed calm down, but she'll also have gotten a clear message that her anger is unacceptable, and that she's on her own when it comes to managing her big scary feelings. No wonder so many of us develop anger-management issues, whether that means we yell at our kids, or overeat to avoid acknowledging angry feelings.

So what can we do instead? We can help our kids learn to manage their anger constructively.

One of the most critical tasks of childhood is learning to tolerate the wounds of everyday life without moving into reactive anger.  Kids don't learn this through banishment, but by us teaching them to honor all their feelings, while being responsible for their actions.

When your child gets angry:

1. Take a deep breath. Remind yourself that there is no emergency.  Keep yourself from moving into fight or flight. (Your child is not threatening your well-being by getting angry!)

2. Remind yourself that tantrums are nature's way of helping small people let off steam.  Their brains are still developing and they don't yet have the neural pathways to control themselves as we do. (The best way to help them develop those neural pathways is to offer empathy, during the tantrum and at other times.) It's ok, even good, for them to tantrum, as long as they feel safe and accepted. Usually after we support kids through a tantrum, they feel closer to us and more trusting.  They feel better inside, and they go on to have a much better day,

3. Remember that anger is always a defense against deeper unhappiness like hurt, fear or sadness. All of us get angry, and little ones get angry more often.  That's because the happiness of all small children, to some degree, depends on them getting what they want. Losses and disappointments can feel like the end of the world to a child, and kids will do anything to fend off these intolerable feelings, so they cry and rage and lash out.  If they feel safe expressing their anger, they will move into the more threatening feelings underneath.  That's when they collapse into our arms and cry.

4. Set whatever limits are necessary to keep everyone safe, while acknowledging the anger.  "I see you are really angry. You wish you could get what you want right now. I'm so sorry, but you can't have that. You can be as mad as you want, but hitting is not ok, no matter how upset you are. It's ok to show me how mad you are. You can scream and stomp and push on me if you want."

5. Keep yourself safe.  Kids often benefit from pushing against us, so if you can tolerate it, that's fine to allow, even good. But if your kid is hitting you, hold his wrist and say "I don't think I want that fist so close to me.  I see how angry you are.  You can hit the pillow, or push on me, but I won't let you hurt me."  Kids don't want to hurt us -- it makes them feel terrible afterwords.

6. Stay as close as you can.  Your child needs an accepting witness who loves him even when he's angry.  If you need to move away to stay safe, tell him "I won't let you hurt me, so I'm moving back a bit, but I am right here.  I'll stay with you while you have these big feelings. Whenever you're ready for a hug, I'm here." If he yells at you to "Go away!" say "You're telling me to go away, so I am moving back a step, ok?  I won't leave you alone with these upsetting feelings, but I will move back."

6. Don't try to reason or explain.  When she's awash in adrenaline and other fight or flight reactions is not the time to explain why sugar is bad for her or get her to admit that she actually loves her little sister.  Acknowledge her upset and reassure her that you will stay with her until she calms down.

7. Don't try to evaluate whether he's over-reacting.  Of course he's over-reacting -- he's so little!  But remember also that small children experience daily hurts and fears that they can't verbalize and that we don't even notice.  They store them up and then look for an opportunity to "discharge" them. So if your kid has a meltdown over the blue cup and you really can't go right now to get the red cup out of the car, it's ok to just lovingly welcome his meltdown. You can usually tell when your child just needs to cry.  

8. Acknowledging his anger will help him calm down a bit. Then help him get under his anger. Make eye contact. "I hear you are so angry you want to hit. I wonder if you are also sad. You really wanted that. You feel so sad and disappointed that you can't have that." Once you recognize the feelings under the anger, he will probably pause in his anger and you will see some vulnerability or even tears. "I wonder if you are so sad it makes you want to cry. That's ok. Everyone feels that way sometimes. We all need to be held so we can cry sometimes. You feel so sad...."

Gradually, your child will internalize the ability to weather disappointment, and learn that while he cannot always get what he wants, he can always get something better -- someone who loves and accepts all of him, including the yucky parts like rage and disappointment.

"In our busy lives, it is often the simple gesture that is overlooked, the simple need that is never satisfied. Consider: We figure out a way to chauffeur the kids to nine lessons a week, to organize the vacation trip to Disney World, to throw a birthday party for a dozen five year olds. So why does a quiet story told by candlelight seem impossible to manage? In truth, the story -- told from the heart and shared in flickering darkness -- is more nourishing for our child's soul, and for our own as well...."-- Katrina Kenison

All of us have needs that are never satisfied, as do our children.  Some of them we can name:  An hour alone to chill out.  A bit more money to make ends meet. More help around the house.

Our deeper needs -- which feed our souls -- may be more elusive: More meaning. More aliveness. More connection.

Kids can't name their deepest needs:

• To have all of who they are be truly seen and appreciated -- even the "bad" parts.
• To know their parents adore them and love to care for them.
• More relaxed, playful, unstructured, affirming time with each parent.

They can’t name these things, but when they're hungry for them, they don't thrive. They seem unhappy, uncooperative, whiny, insatiable.  Nothing feels like enough to them. So they demand more, more, and more. More time before bedtime.  More treats than their sibling.  More material possessions.  But more of what we didn't really need to begin with can never fill our deepest desires.

Not meeting our family’s deepest needs is like starving our children – and ourselves.

Do you suspect your child has unsatisfied needs?  What could they be?  How could you attend to them?

What need do you have that is crying out for deeper fulfillment?

How could you change things in your family life to better nourish your own and your children's souls this weekend -- and every day?