Posts Tagged ‘emotionally responsive parenting’

• Does Your Discipline Ever Move From Consistent to Rigid?

  Date: 2011.07.05 | Category: Parenting | Response: 15

  There’s no question about it:  consistency is crucial when it comes to raising and disciplining our children.  Many parents I see in my office realize that they need to work on being more consistent – with bedtimes, limiting junk food, or just in general – when they interact with their kids.  But there are others who have placed such a high priority on consistency that it’s moved into a rigidity that’s not good for their kids, themselves, or their relationship.

  Let’s begin by getting clear on the difference between the two terms.  Consistency means working from a reliable and coherent philosophy so that our kids know what we expect of them, and what they should expect from us.  Rigidity, on the other hand, means maintaining an unswerving devotion to rules we’ve set up, sometimes without having even thought them through.  As parents, we want to be consistent, but not rigid.

  Kids definitely need consistency from their parents.  They need to know what the rules are, and how we will respond if they break (or even bend) those rules.  Your reliability teaches them about cause and effect, and about what to expect in their world.  More than that, it helps them feel safe; they know they can count on you to be constant and steady, even when their internal or external worlds are chaotic.  In this way, we provide them with safe containment when they’re exploding because they want an extra scoop of ice cream.

  So how do we maintain consistency without crossing over to rigidity?  Well, let’s start by acknowledging that there are some non-negotiables.  For instance, under no circumstances can you Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Give Your Toddler or Preschooler a Little Power (revised)

  Date: 2011.06.29 | Category: Parenting | Response: 15

  Toddlers and preschoolers see their grown-ups and older siblings doing everything so easily.  It can be frustrating and discouraging for these little ones to try and try, and not be able to do what they see everyone else doing.

  Knowing that self-esteem can come from being competent at something, there are several ways we can empower our toddlers and preschoolers and give them opportunities to feel capable and competent:

   

  Let them do things for themselves.

  Sometimes it’s hard for a parent not to step in and quickly do something a child is trying to do.  Especially if the child is taking a long time to, say, figure out how all of the chalk pieces will go back into the box.  (Sometimes I want to pull my hair out when I’m watching my own four-year-old meticulously try to fix the Velcro fastener on the back of his Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Magic Wand? Yeah, right. (Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do when your child is upset.)

  Date: 2011.06.10 | Category: Parenting | Response: 11

  One day my seven-year-old became furious with me because I told him he couldn’t invite a friend over to play.  He stormed off to his room and slammed the door.  About a minute later, I heard the door open, then slam again.  I went up to check on him, and taped to the outside of his door, I saw the picture you see here.  (You can see from the drawing below that he regularly uses his artistic talents to communicate his feelings about his parents.)

  I went into his room and saw what I knew I’d see:  a big child-sized lump under the covers on his bed. I sat next to the lump and put my hand on what I assumed was a shoulder, and suddenly the lump moved away from me, towards the wall.  From beneath the covers, he cried out, “Get away from me!”

  Often at times like this I can become childish and drop down to my child’s level.  I’ve even been known to say things like, “Fine!  If you won’t let me cut that toenail that’s hurting, you can stay in pain all week!”  (Sometimes I’ll throw in a “See if I care!” for good measure.)

  But this particular day, I maintained control and handled myself pretty well.  I first tried to acknowledge his feelings: “I know that makes you mad that Ryan can’t come over today.”

  His response?  “Yes, and I hate you!”

  I stayed calm and said, “Sweetie, I know this is frustrating, but there’s just not time to have Ryan over.  We’re meeting your grandparents for dinner in just a little while.”

  After that, he returned to the familiar refrain as he curled tighter and moved as far away from me as possible:  “I said get away from me!”

  I reminded him of our rule about talking with each other respectfully, then I went through a series of responses, the ones I regularly talk to parents about.  I comforted; I tried to use nonverbal connection like touch and tone of voice before I tried to problem-solve; I empathized; I tried again to explain.  I even offered an incentive to talk:  a playdate the next day.  But at that moment, he refused to calm down or let me help him in any way.

  The point of this story is a reality that people rarely talk about:  Sometimes Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Is There a Good Way to Respond to a Tantrum?

  Date: 2011.02.07 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 14

  As a mom with three boys, who are three, six, and nine years old, my experience has been that ages three and four are the hardest ages (so far.)  The parts of the brain that help control impulses and calm emotions are just still very undeveloped, but their emotional range and desires are in full force!  At these ages, when they are losing it and having a full blown tantrum, they are not really in a teachable frame of mind.  So what do you do?

  1.  Identify with the feeling:  “You’re really angry/annoyed/frustrated.”

  2.  Give the directive to stop the behavior “Hitting is not OK” or “No more throwing, please.”

  3.  Change the situation (either remove her, distract her, or get her onto something else).

  4.  Talk about the behavior when she’s in a calm state of mind.

  I want to focus now on this last step.  Conventional wisdom says you have to address misbehavior immediately, or the child won’t remember.  But the fact is that a child Read the rest of this entry »

  

• When Your Sweet Child Suddenly Becomes Difficult

  Date: 2011.01.27 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 14

  Renowned pediatrician Berry Brazelton explains that when a child has a new developmental spurt, they often lose some of their current abilities while they learn to incorporate the new skill or development.  This is why when your little one learned, say, to walk, aspects of their speech might have regressed a bit during that time.

  It’s the same now that your child is older.  You can probably think of “phases” they go through—often lasting one-to-four weeks—where they’re just not themselves.  You repeatedly wonder, “Is she sick?  Tired?  Hungry?  What’s going on with this kid?”  And especially if this is your first child, you worry that this isn’t just a phase, and that they might be like this forever.

  When this happens, there’s a good chance that some big changes are Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Cutting Our Kids (and Ourselves) Some Slack

  Date: 2011.01.20 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 11

  Try to remember that your child’s brain is still under construction.  They can’t be perfect all the time, yet without realizing it, we often expect perfection.  During times you feel increasingly frustrated with your child, remember that most of the time they are doing the best they can at that particular moment.  And be gracious with yourself, because you’re usually doing your best as well.  This doesn’t mean we don’t have high expectations for our kids, or that we don’t require them to be responsible and do what they’re supposed to do.  It also doesn’t mean we don’t take time to understand ourselves more deeply in order to parent more intentionally.  It just means that we need to be patient, understanding, and forgiving—with our children, and with ourselves.

  

• From Black and White to Technicolor: Helping Your Child Express A Wide Range of Feelings

  Date: 2011.01.05 | Category: Parenting, The Brain | Response: 12

  “How was your day, sweetheart?”   We all know the answer we’re going to get when we ask our child this question:  “Fine” (or, if we’re lucky, “Good”).

  Likewise, if we are trying to teach our child empathy, and we ask, “How do you think that made your sister feel?” we will most likely get an obligatory, half-hearted reply:  “Bad.”

  One reason we get these monosyllabic responses is probably that our kids aren’t emotionally invested in this particular conversation.  Even if they were, though there’s another factor that often keeps them from going into the complexity of a particular emotion:  they haven’t yet learned to think about their feelings in a sophisticated way that recognizes the varied and rich emotional life within them.

  As a result, they don’t use a full spectrum of emotions, and instead paint their emotional pictures primarily in black and white.  So we typically don’t hear, “I felt really proud of myself when I hit the winning shot during PE, but I was disappointed with how I did in Science, and I’m irate about what Sarah did at lunch.”  And we don’t hear, “I think that made my sister feel belittled, and that I don’t care about her.”  Instead, we hear “Fine” and “Bad.”

  Ideally, we want our kids to recognize that there’s a colorful rainbow of rich emotions within them, and to pay attention to these different possibilities.  Without this awareness of what’s going on in their right brains, they’ll be trapped in black and white, like the old TV reruns.  When they have a full emotional palette, they are able to experience the vivid Technicolor that a deep and vibrant emotional life allows.

  Making a child aware of the emotional rainbow that exists within them is one of the best ways to help connect the left and right hemispheres of their brain.  When they come to understand their own mind and the minds of others, they can then move beyond a black/white assumption that feelings are good or bad, happy or sad.  Instead, they can begin to understand the broad spectrum of emotions they experience, and learn to name and express them.  Once developed, these skills will last them a lifetime.

  When we promote this type of horizontal integration in our kids, Read the rest of this entry »

  

• Sick of Time-Outs?

  Date: 2010.11.11 | Category: Parenting | Response: 19

  [Update:  I've spelled out some of my main reasons for not being a fan of time-outs here.]

   

  There are far worse discipline tactics than time-outs, but I think that there are some alternatives that can be better in certain situations.  Few children actually use their time-out time to reflect or calm down; in fact, it can even cause them to get more upset, depending on the child.  I prefer some other approaches that require my kids to get more practice using the problem-solving, empathetic, choice-making part of their brains:

  • A “re-do.”  One way I do this is by saying “Stop, please.  Now go out of the room and Read the rest of this entry »
  

• Ask Tina: Friend vs. Authority Figure

  Date: 2010.07.19 | Category: Ask Tina, Parenting | Response: 16

  Q:  Is it really true that I should be an authority figure and not a friend to my daughter?

  A:  I hear this idea sometimes, too.  Something along the lines of “Your child already has lots of friends; she needs you to be the parent.”  I think this notion was probably cleverly expressed by someone, and it started getting passed around as gospel without any critical examination.

  I can see why parents have been advised that they should be authority figures.  After all, children need structure and boundaries and to be held accountable for their behavior, and an authority figure provides these types of important limits.  All of this is backed up by scientific research.

  But does that mean that we have to be only an authority figure?  Why this forced dichotomy?  Why can’t we be both? Read the rest of this entry »