Parenting Secret of the Week:
"Now that school is back in session and I need to get both kids out the door and myself to work, I’m always running late. No matter how early I get up and get everything prepared the night before, my 4 yr. old is sooo slow and it is a nightmare...No matter how I phrase the request, “Let’s get our clothes on so we can get something to eat, who can do this faster let’s race, or who wants to be a cheetah or a turtle, do you want to do it or me, pick between these two shirts, etc….he will take the opposite position or just start whining or collapse to the floor... refusing to move, making it virtually impossible for me to help him get dressed which I have to do or else it would take another half hour…..He is also very stubborn and will remove all his clothes because he didn’t do it himself ……He will say, “I don’t want to get up or pee” even though I know he needs to do these things and he is so slow that I find myself losing it... All the time, I’ve got my 17 mo. old on my hip crying to get downstairs to eat....I want all of us to have as full of a bucket as we can; not a depleted one as is the case by the time we get to school and work." -- Kristina
Sound familiar?
The bad news is, even doing so many things "right" as Kristina is -- offering choices, making it into a game, preparing the night before -- is no guarantee that things will go smoothly. Those things help enormously, but sometimes the needs of kids and adults simply clash.
What does a four year old need in the morning? Well, everyone is different, but most of us need some time to make the transition from sleep into busy activity; most kids balk at feeling pushed. Most four year olds need to "do it myself." Most four year olds want to make their own decision about when their body needs to pee. And I've never met a four year old who understands why that meeting Mom has to get to is more important than whether he can find his toy car.
So what's the answer? In my view, the best answer is flextime (or part-time) work for both parents, so there's more time in the morning for small humans to have a more humane start to their day. But that's not possible for many families.
The next best thing is to re-frame your idea of the morning routine. What if your main job was to connect emotionally? That way, your child would have a genuinely "full cup." Not only would he be more ready to cooperate with you, he'd be more able to rise to the developmental challenges of his day. How?
1. Get everyone to bed as early as possible. If you have to wake your kids in the morning, they aren't getting enough sleep. Every hour of sleep less than they need sets them back a year in access to brain function, meaning they act a year younger.
2. Get yourself to bed earlier. If you have to use an alarm, you aren't getting enough sleep. (Sorry.) The morning routine requires infinite creativity and energy from parents. Your kids depend on you to start your own day with a "full cup." There's no way to stay patient when you're exhausted.
3. Build in extra time. Get up earlier than your kids so you're dressed and emotionally centered before you interact with them. Plan on routinely getting to work fifteen minutes earlier than you're due. Half the time, you won't make it but you also won't lose your temper at your kids because you won't actually be late. The other half of the time, you'll have a more relaxed start to your work day so you'll be more effective at work.
4. Prepare the night before. Backpacks, brief cases, lunches made, clothes laid out, coffee pot prepared, breakfast planned. Involve kids the night before too, so they choose their clothing and find that toy car.
5. Make sure you get five minutes of relaxed snuggle time with each child as they wake up. I know, it sounds impossible. But if everything else is already done, you can relax for five minutes. That time connecting with your child will transform your morning. You fill your child's cup before the day starts, and you re-connect after the separation of the night, which gives your child the motivation to cooperate instead of fight with you.
6. Use routines to make transitions easier. Kids find transitions hard and the morning is full of transitions. So if getting her out of bed is a challenge,...........(Continue reading)
Parenting Question of the Week
Dr. Laura....My daughter is 4 and strong-willed. We seem to have a good rhythm at home.....She just started in preschool. The complaint at school is that she is a "free spirit" and doesn't seem to hear her teachers sometimes. I know she can have a tendency to not do things on the first request, but I also know she is a good kid, and a good person.....
Congratulations on having “a good rhythm at home” with your strong-willed daughter. That’s a testament to your parenting!
Regarding preschool, and your daughter not “hearing” her teachers sometimes: You are so right that clamping down with negative reinforcement will upset your daughter and make her less likely to cooperate. It sounds like you’ve already established with your daughter the expectation that she needs to respond quickly to a request from a teacher, so she knows what she needs to do. Let’s look at what could be going on for her that’s keeping her from doing it.
First, your daughter has just begun preschool. Most likely, it’s a bit overwhelming. The separation from home and parents, new expectations for behavior, rambunctious kids, high noise level, the cornucopia of books, toys, and stimulation...Kids respond to all this new experience in different ways. Some are quiet and withdrawn, some are hyper. Some protest the separation from parents. Some behave perfectly at school but fall apart once they get home. Some wet their pants, or the bed at night. Some push, hit, or bite their peers. And some “don’t listen.”
It’s probable that your daughter is trying to manage her stress level by limiting the demands on her and resisting transitions. As she feels more comfortable in the classroom, she will be more responsive to expectations there, particularly if the teacher can avoid making this into a power struggle. That gives us three important ideas about how to help her to make this transition quickly and positively.
1. Help your daughter establish a good relationship with the teacher, which is always the fastest way to get a child cooperating at school. Talk with the teacher about this. An experienced teacher will understand that the child needs to emotionally attach to her, and will find a way to give her a little extra attention.
You can also be helpful in the process. Much of any relationship is in the minds of the participants, so help your daughter develop a feeling of familiarity and affection for her teacher, regardless of what kind of teacher she is. Make the teacher a part of your daughter’s life by talking about her. “I’m pretty sure that Ms. Williams will read your favorite book sometime if we bring it to school....Ms. Williams told me today how hard you worked on that project....Ms. Williams would love this drawing... Do you want to bring this shiny red apple to Ms. Williams?”
Take a photo of your child and her teacher together. Put it on your refrigerator and speak to it fondly. “Ms. Williams, you will be so impressed with what a great cleaner-upper my daughter is...Ms. Williams, do you love spaghetti as much as my daughter? Ms. Williams, we are so lucky to have you as a teacher, we love that classroom with all those toys and books!” As your daughter lives with her teacher’s photo, she will begin to see her teacher as an important person in her life, which will help her to listen to the teacher’s requests.
Note that it doesn’t really matter what kind of teacher Ms. Williams is. Your daughter will begin to feel more connected to her, which will make her feel more comfortable in the classroom. Your daughter’s developing fondness for the teacher will also help the teacher to respond more patiently towards your daughter.
2. Work with your daughter and the teacher on navigating transitions. Imagine your daughter at school, engaged in a task. The teacher interrupts her with a request. Naturally, it’s hard for her to shift gears. Most kids, especially those we call “strong-willed,” find transitions tough.
Notice what helps your daughter with transitions at home. A two minute warning? Having you touch her or look her in the eye while you make the request? Being able to take charge of the “clean-up” process herself?
Then work with the teacher to formulate an approach that works for your daughter, one the teacher won’t find burdensome. Maybe if the teacher put her hand on your daughter's arm and looked her in the eye, your daughter would "hear" her. Maybe your daughter needs a two minute warning, or the reassurance that she can return to her current activity at another time. Maybe she needs to know at the start of an activity how long it will last before the next one. Maybe the teacher needs to show her the chart of the day’s activities, so she begins to know what to expect.
3. Help your daughter to regulate her stress level, both in and out of the classroom. Here’s a challenging environment, and your daughter is regulating herself by focusing on a task. She doesn’t respond immediately to the teacher because taking in that new demand jeopardizes her self-regulation in the face of the stressful environment. A better relationship with the teacher will motivate her to want to please the teacher, but we still need to help her with her stress level and self-regulation.....(continue reading)
Ages & Stages: Preteens
Dr. Laura-
"What kind of discipline works for preteens? What I was doing before (consequences) certainly doesn't work any more. It seems to make him more defiant and rude, and we all end up yelling. He doesn't do his homework. All he wants to do is skateboard with his friends or play computer." -- Sarah
The preteen transition is a tough one for most parents. Kids start to be heavily influenced by their desire to be respected by their peer group and that often conflicts with the standards we set at home.
Meanwhile, we lose their automatic respect and we have to start earning it. Parents who rely on punishment to control their kids (including timeouts and consequences) realize in the preteen years that it no longer works. In fact, we learn that it is impossible to control them. Our only hope to retain some influence is to earn it.
Unfortunately, if we've relied on punishment, we've neglected to lay the groundwork that will insure that a preteen "acts right." That groundwork includes a strong parent-child relationship so the child really does not want to disappoint the parent and WANTS to cooperate. It also includes empathizing with feelings so the child gains the ability to regulate his emotions, which lets him regulate his behavior. Finally, kids who aren't punished, but are instead lovingly guided to make reparations and solve problems, are earlier to develop internal discipline and a strong moral sense. So if you've been punishing, it isn't too late, but there's a lot of catching up to do.
It works a lot better to just begin with respectful, positive guidance right from the beginning. That raises preteens who are respectful, considerate, responsible, self-disciplined and delightful, right through the teen years.
But if you've been using punishment (such as consequences) and your son is now ten and acting disrespectful, what can you do?
1. Start by committing to a respectful tone, so that rule is enforced for everyone in the household. If you're yelling, stop. That's why your child yells and is disrespectful. (Really. It's not a necessary to yell to get your child's attention if you have a good relationship.)
2. Focus on strengthening the relationship so that when you set a limit (Homework before screen time!) or express an expectation ("We speak civilly in this house") your child wants to please you. Make sure you have one-on-one time with each child every day, in which you mostly listen. If your child is "too busy" to connect, give foot massages. You can't hope to have any influence if your kid doesn't enjoy being with you.
3. Stop punishing. Instead, be sure your child knows the non-negotiable family rules. There shouldn't be many of them, stick to the important stuff. Then, sit down with your family to negotiate anything else. One of the keys in getting preteens to cooperate is letting them have some say in their lives.
Worried that your child isn't being "held accountable"? Introduce the concept of reparations. This isn't a consequence (punishment) that you impose. This is when you ask your child if there's something he can do to make the situation better now. For instance, if he says something mean to his sister, he'll need to do some repair work on that relationship. If he breaks something, he'll need to help pay for a replacement. But remember that if you think up the reparation and force it down his throat, it only makes sense that he'll reject it. Instead, let this be an empowering opportunity for him to learn that we all make mistakes -- and we can always take action to make things better.
Finally, assume your child will test you to see if you're serious. Stay cheerful while you keep enforcing the limits. For instance, be there
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Blog Post of the Week
"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 get angry, it pushes buttons for most of us. We want to be loving parents. Why is our child lashing out like this?
Many parents are tempted to send an angry child to her room to "calm down." After all, what else can we do? We certainly can't reason with her when she's furious. It's no time to teach lessons or ask for an apology. She needs to calm down.
If we send her to her room, she will indeed calm down, eventually. Unfortunately, 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, throw tantrums with our spouse, or overeat to avoid acknowledging angry feelings.
So what can we do instead? We can help our kids learn to manage their anger responsibly. That begins with accepting anger -- without acting on it.
One of the most critical tasks of childhood is learning to tolerate the wounds of everyday life without moving into reactive anger. That gives us the opportunity to address those challenges and resolve them more constructively. Kids don't learn this through banishment, but by us teaching them to honor all their feelings, while being responsible for their actions. How?
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. This will help calm your child, and model emotional regulation.
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. (And please note that we don't always regulate our anger very well, even as adults!)
The best way to help children develop those neural pathways is to offer empathy, while they're angry and at other times. It's ok--good, actually--for your child to express those tangled, angry, hurt feelings. After we support kids through a tantrum, they feel closer to us and more trusting. They feel less wound-up inside, so they can be more emotionally generous. They aren't as rigid and demanding.
3. Remember that anger comes from our "fight, flight or freeze" response. That means it's a defense against threat. Occasionally that threat is outside us. But usually it isn't. We see threats outside us because we're carrying around old stuffed emotions like hurt, fear or sadness. Whatever's happening in the moment triggers those old feelings, and we go into fight mode to try to stuff them down again.
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, and we meet that anger with compassion, their anger will begin to melt. That's when they can access the more upsetting feelings underneath. So while we honor our child's anger, it's the expression of the tears and fears beneath the anger that's healing (for all humans).
4. Set whatever limits are necessary to keep everyone safe, while acknowledging the anger and staying compassionate. "You're so mad! 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. You can stomp to show me how mad you are, but I won't let you hit me."
5. Set limits on actions only, not on feelings. The more compassionate you can be, the more likely your child will find her way to the tears and fears under the anger: "Oh, Sweetie, I'm sorry this is so hard...You're saying I never understand you...that must feel so terrible and lonely." You don't have to agree, just acknowledge her truth in the moment. Once she feels heard, her truth will shift.
6. Keep yourself safe. Kids often benefit from pushing against us, so if you can tolerate it and stay compassionate, that's fine to allow, even good. But if your child is hitting you, hold his wrist and say "I don't think I want that angry fist so close to me. I see how angry you are. You can hit the pillow, or push against my hands, but I won't let you hurt me." Kids don't really want to hurt us -- it scares them and makes them feel guilty.
7. 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.....(continue reading)
