Viewpoint

As a parent I want my children to grow up to be happy and confident adults, don't we all?  Is that an easy goal to achieve?  How we talk to and react to what our children do is the basis of our relationship, most often we choose the path that we know, the one given to us by our own parents.  We are most likely to be using parenting patterns that we have not given any thought as to whether they make sense or how we learnt them, following a script that we have not written.

The way many kids are treated suggests a lack of respect for their needs and preferences - in fact, a lack of respect for children, period.  A lot of parents act as though they believe that kids don't deserve respect in the way adults do.*

Our attitude as a society towards children is poor, how many times have you been seen that look, you know the one I mean, given to the parent of a child who is in the throes of shouting or screaming in a public place.  If as a society we do not hold children in great esteem it is easier for parents to treat their children disrespectfully.  If we treat our children with respect, speak to them respectfully and they feel respected they will in turn respect others.  When I speak to my children I try to remember to use the same language as I would wish to have spoken to me.  In the heat of the moment I sometimes forget, if we screw up it is good to admit it and apologise, for me this demonstrates to my children how apologising works, that I can and do make mistakes and that I have taken ownership of them without losing face or feeling inadequate.

The look that I refered to earlier comes from a desire for children to behave in a certain way, good children are the ones that are sitting quietly and behaving as adults expect them to.  When the child has no awareness of these rules of engagement, is it acceptable to punish their behaviour if it does not meet these standards.  Are these rules justified and more importantly are they in our children's best interests.  Of course I am not for one moment suggesting that running around in a busy cafe is a be encouraged, however if we as parents do not demand obedience all the time we are likely to listened to, when we do ask, if a situation demands that of us.  It is important that we allow our children to make their own decision about what is appropriate in a given situation, we learn to become good decision makers not by following the directions of others but by being allowed to make our own decisions.  We should allow our children to make those decisions that might make us gulp and not to simply say no even when it make no sense or because we are unwilling to give control.

We might say it's our job to be "in control" in the sense of creating a healthy and safe environment, offering guidance, and setting limits - but it's not our job to be controlling.*

If we are controlling our children's behaviour are we doing so with the best intentions.  If a child behaves inappropriately do you think it calls for consequences or, more appropriately, an opportunity for teaching, a working with response as opposed to doing to.  A punishment approach is one of power over your children, of making them suffer, how is that going to help a child to know what is appropriate.  If we find so much of what our children do and/or say unacceptable and we tell them so, often, then surely this will lead them to feel that they at unacceptable as a person, people do not get better at dealing with unhappiness because they were deliberately made unhappy when they were younger.  Too much criticism and disapproval is soul destroying and is likely to stop any attempts to try anything.

When we make children obey by force, threats or punishments, we make them feel helpless. They can't stand feeling helpless, so they provoke another confrontation to prove they still have power.  And where do they learn to use that power?  From us.*

To treat and speak to our children as we would wish to be treated and spoken to requires us to step outside our own viewpoint and to consider how the world looks to them.  If you tend to dismiss people with whom you disagree are you not leaping to make incorrect assumptions.  When we learn  more this can help us to build a picture below the surface rather than just looking at the behaviour as a snapshot, but our mind has to be open to the information and receive it without judgement.

* Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn

Reflections

I recently celebrated my eldest's birthday since then I have been reflecting on my journey over the last eight years as a parent.  It has been a time of joy, of sadness, of frustration, of bewilderment and of immense pleasure.  I never thought being a parent was going to be easy, it is hard, damned hard and it is all the time there is no walking away.

If you want it there is masses of advice available to parents.  A quick search on amazon in books, parenting gave me over 64 000 results some of those may be duplicates of the same book, even so that is a lot of books.  Why is it that there are so many available these days.  Could it be because we live so differently now to fifty or hundred years ago.  We live in very different communities.  We have smaller families so the older siblings do not learn any parenting skills which are acquired by the younger members of the family observing older siblings as parents themselves.  I had no older siblings to learn from, I remember my cousins as babies but did not spend long enough with them to remember what looking after a baby was like.  I read no parenting books before my eldest was born and even if I had I cannot believe that they would have prepared me for the whirlwind that is the early days of becoming a parent.  A baby is dependent on us to meet its every need, even when we have no idea as to what the need is that we are trying to meet, fitting our own needs into the day becomes hard.  Life, as some would have you believe, does not return to normal, whatever normal is.  I was working full time before my first child was born, I was under no illusion that I would ever return to that possibly part time, but never full time.  Those parents who try to return to normal must feel like they are pushing a full cart up a hill, permanently.

As my baby grew older and started to explore the world away from me through crawling, toddling then walking I had to learn to trust, and I did right from the beginning. As a parent I believe that it is important to ensure that your child does not come to harm, but is allowed to explore.  If a child is not trusted they are exploring the world through someone else's boundaries not their own.  They cannot make sense of new situations as they do not know where the boundaries are so parents have to intervene.  If more trust is given as the child gets older they may come to harm as they have not been able to make their own boundaries.  I realised that I was able to trust my child as my mother had trusted me.  If we are not trusted ourselves how can we place trust in our own children, we have not been able to learn these skills properly at the time in our lives that we needed to gain this vital skill.

As a parent I believe it is important to respect children, I have been shocked at how little respect children are given in our society.  I am not taking about legislation to protect their rights or safeguarding them from harm, I am talking about treating them as individuals in the same way as you would adults.  If my children are hurt or upset I don't deny them these feelings by saying oh you'll be alright or it's not that bad.  How could I possibly know how they are feeling, to say this is to deny the child any feeling or lead them to question the feeling they are having and wonder if they are wrong to feel that way.  If my children tell me they are hungry I believe them and give them something to eat, unless I am about to serve a meal.  I don't say you can't be you've just eaten etc.  I speak to my children as I would expect to be spoken to myself, or as I would speak to anyone else and how most parents speak just to other adults.  I find this immensely disrespectful and it jars with me every time I hear a parent speak that way to a child.  We seem to still expect our children to be seen and not heard, much like the Victorians.  If you try to take a child out for a meal after 5pm in so many places it is not possible, if my children are quiet and sit still I am told they good,  if my children are being noisy and boisterous I get withering or pitying looks.  I want my children to be themselves, to work out for themselves when is the time for being quiet and still or noisy or boisterous not when the rest of society deems it appropriate.

Children have an immense capacity to learn.  When I think back to what they learn in the first two years of their life alone it is remarkable.  As a parent I am learning too, each and every day.  It is a journey that never stops, it is exciting and exhausting.  I am preparing my children to venture out into the world by themselves.  We spend more of our lives away from the family home than we do in it, but they are some of the most important.  They are the time when we are learning values which will shape us into who we are as adults, those foundation blocks give us a stable platform to go out and continue to learn.  If there are gaps or cracks in the foundations we will struggle.  One the biggest lessons I have learnt from my children is to relax.  If I take my time and go at their pace I am a more relaxed mama.  I don't try to do too much in one day as it leaves me frazzled especially if I have to be places at a specific time, for me life is too short for rushing.

This is not my advice, this what I do and what I believe in now, tomorrow that may change, in a year that may change.  My parenting is fluid.  I am not perfect, I have lots to learn and I look forward to the future because of this.  I don't beat myself up when I have a bad day I try to work out why and change things if I can.  I am enjoying it as I only get one chance.

Dependency

At the start of our life we are totally dependent on adults to look after us. We need milk, preferably from mama, to nourish and sustain us and we need contact and warmth to keep us safe and secure. We continue this dependency for many years although the level diminishes the older we get. As adults we continue to need and want people around us our friends and families to maintain those feelings of safety and security though contact. The dependency of our children is an intense relationship, one which in some cultures around the world is still shared. In our now fractured society it is, usually, the mother who bears this responsibility for most, if not all, of the time. She no longer has a network of extended family, her own parents or in laws, aunties, uncles or cousins or other unrelated members of her community to help with the child care and looking after the home. This intensity requires the care giver to be an emotionally strong person, to be able to carry on with little sleep or rest, to put her needs last at all times. If we have not received this level of care and attention ourselves we also, therefore, have not had the opportunity to learn these skills.

In most families, when a child is around the age of two, conflict can set in. At this age the child is starting to find their place in the world, they are exploring and testing all the time. We can be conditioned by our own upbringing and therefore experience to try to restrain this, to fight it, to bring the child in line with your own beliefs. What we should really be doing is providing them with a safe and secure haven from which to go out and learn and come back to. Sadly, in most families this is the start of a journey of conflict which continues until the child leaves the family home many years later and the cycle is then repeated.

A child who is not given the level of care and contact they need does not feel safe and secure. They learn to be independent for the wrong reasons, as they cannot depend on the adults around them to meet their needs. They become unable to trust, they become compliant or aggressive to gain attention for the care and contact that they long for and are not recieving.

Bringing up a child is an intense relationship, which changes over time. If you are trying to do this as a small family unit, mother, father and child(ren) the insensity is even greater. We no longer live in extended families in my society and in most across the world, so we need to find a replacement. Many find this in friendships forged over a common bond of parenthood. This in itself is a maze to be navigated, finding parents with the same views on parenting as yourself. As we no longer live within a community for life with several generations together, each generation becoming parents has lost this vital support network and goes it alone.

Being alone in an intense dependent relationship with your child(ren) is not a good place to be but is where most of us find ourselves. According to this interesting article we have evolved as co-operative breeders. So if you are having a bad day with your child(ren), be gentle with yourself.

Tantrums

I loathe this word for all the connotations attached to it such as terrible twos, tantrum threes, feisty, or even badly behaved. These are labels that are often give to children. If you were to walk down most town or city centres on a weekend evening you are likely to find several adults full of alcohol either having or picking a fight. Whilst the fuel for this is often alcohol, the underlying reasons are the same as a young child's. We don't however call this a tantrum.

A tantrum is a sign that a child is helpless, feeling controlled and aggravated, lost his sense of autonomy or is unable to change that which cannot be changed. It can also be a healing process, a way of releasing emotions. It goes without saying that the way you as a parent deal with it, it really important.

If a child has any of these feelings when you are out and about and others see you, it is so common to get looks of pity, or tut tutting, or other unhelpful comments. It is easy as a parent to think that we should be trying to stop this, without thinking about the needs of your child. The only need that is being met by stopping or changing the behaviour is your own, with complete disregard for that of your child. You are the one who thinks that your image as a parent in the eyes of others is being harmed.

We need to tune into our children, let them grow, flourish and learn at their own pace, keep them safe by giving them boundaries. We need to think about what may have caused our child to feel helpless etc and be there for them. There may also be an underlying reason, they want to feel secure and valued. We can help them move beyond the helplessness without distraction, to learn to face disappointment and hurt with strength.

Compliance

A parent commented to me the other day ....this is just a phase, eventually they are good and compliant and do as you ask. At the time I was so taken aback by this statement that I was lost for words, I wish I had a least said we each find our own path, but that is not mine.

Why do parents want their child to be compliant, do they fear a loss of control or of being taken advantage of. Do they think that their child will have no boundaries and therefore have no awareness of others.

A compliant child may seem to a parent as a good child, perhaps even a happy one, but they are not likely to respect you and may even be fearful of you. They are hoping to gain your approval and avoid you being angry with them, do as I tell you and I will think that you are being good.  Using gentle coercion to achieve compliance can leave a child feeling hurt and confused, they don't understand why they feel so bad when you are being so nice. If we impose our limits on our children without justification or explanation they will try to oppose them and resent you, if they feel helpless and powerless this can manifest itself as anger and aggression towards you.

When a child feels safe and secure they are able to be themselves. They will do things competently, not to please you but in order to succeed, achieve and learn. If you respect your child and follow their lead they will respect you. Their actions will be through love not fear, they will be wholly theirs. They will learn co-operation if you co-operate with them.

They will not be in control, you will be working together towards the same goals.  You will be happier and so will your children.  It is hard work, especially if you were raised as a compliant child yourself.  You will have to think hard before speaking.  How would you feel if you were spoken to as you speak to your child?