Day 160: Mirror, Mirror

I always see Jackson's behavior as a mirror, but sometimes I misinterpret the reflection.

When he chooses to do the opposite of what I've asked, resists cooperation, and has a "bad" attitude, I've been allowing that negative, inaccurate script to trick me into thinking it's a reflection of my weakness, a lack of power and authority. So is it any wonder I've been reacting by trying to assert myself through changing his behavior?

In reality, the reflection I'm seeing is of my own behavior and attitude.

He has always freely offered respect and cooperation when he's treated with the same. He's always open and emotionally healthy when he experiences connection and acceptance.

Of course this doesn't translate into being permanently cheerful, but it does dictate how often, to what degree, and for how long he feels sad, frustrated and the like. When those feelings do arise, he communicates so openly and honestly when he feels safe and respected that, as he's heard, understood and valued, they generally float out as quickly as they came in.

When, on the other hand, he feels rejected, judged, disrespected or controlled, we find ourselves standing in a stagnant pool of those feelings - the ones that are there to guide us away from where we are and back to where we're meant to be.

When I feel disrespected, the question I should be asking myself isn't: How do I make him respect me?

It should be: How have I been disrespecting him? And how do I change that right now by showing him respect in this situation?

Even Bob the Robot gets love and respect

Kids truly do need love most when they deserve it least, and that means respect, acceptance, and connection in the face of real or perceived (as is often the case) disrespect.

As I challenge the authoritarian script, I'm going to start taking a more honest look in the mirror of his behavior so I can see myself for what I am in that moment and choose a different path - one that leads to listening and connecting.

Day 76: Don't Require, Inspire

So many parents see respect and obedience as synonymous, and I couldn't disagree more. In fact, I'd say they have little to do with one another, at least in the way the terms are commonly used.

Respect doesn't require obedience.
Obedience can be carried out devoid of respect.

So why is it parents, myself included sometimes thanks to conditioning, tend to equate disobedience with disrespect? And why do some think they're teaching their children to respect them when they're simply requiring them to go through empty obedient motions?

I think it boils down to a distorted view of respect. Does respect lie with the the person offering it, or is it contingent upon the feelings of the person receiving it?

If I'm only able to accept behavior as respectful when my reaction to it is positive or when the behavior is in line with my desires, then I'm teaching my kids the same perverted view of respect that is so widely accepted it's rarely questioned. (After all, questioning would be disrespectful, right?...!)

I'd like our home to be a place where my boys are able to develop a healthier kind of respect - what I would call authentic respect. And in order to do that, I have to put my money where my mouth is.

As impossible as it seems sometimes, I'm working hard to accept that they can respectfully disagree, respectfully decline to do what I'm asking of them, and respectfully ask me to change my mind, my request, or the way I'm communicating with them.

If respect is about a sense of worth and honor (not status or authority), it requires all of us (since respect is deserved by all) to express our genuine feelings and come to an end that we all feel positive about. Sometimes that looks the same as obedience on the surface; but instead of a person's will being forced to bend to someone else's, he willingly bends himself out of a desire to honor the feelings and needs of another over his own.

When they see me bending to meet their needs, the message they get isn't that I'm weak or easily manipulated, it's that they're respected and that giving of yourself is a privilege rather than an obligation. And in turn, I want mutual respect to inspire them to cooperate, rather than my authority requiring them to obey.

By forcing obedience and rendering children powerless, we strip them of their natural desire for cooperation and their ability to feel secure and confident enough to give of themselves freely. By not allowing them to experience a mutually respectful, and thus mutually satisfying relationship, we leave them with the impression that you only feel good when you're on top looking down.

Experience has taught me that, operating under this misguided idea of respect, we mold them into power-seeking, rigid adults who have lost the value of sacrifice and continue the cycle. And I believe this is the reason I still struggle to embrace a healthy, respectful relationship with my kids.

But I want better for them than learning to toe the line until they get their chance to be on top. I want to let them keep their power and help them use it along with mine to establish an environment that we all feel good in, a home where we all feel respected even when we don't get our way.

That's something that obedience will never create.

Day 32: I'm on to You

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

Simply put, I've been stooping to manipulation lately. Like anything else, it crept in slowly under the guise of something positive and went unnoticed until finally I reflected on some of our interactions and thought, "Did I just say that? How'd we get here?" 

My goal is always to avoid arbitrary punishment that uses fear and emotional pain to control behavior in favor of allowing natural consequences that teach self-regulation. Following this, most of our discipline-related communication is structured in an "if, then" way: "If you choose to take CDs out of the cases, then I have to put them away to keep them from breaking." Or "If you choose to get up out of your chair at dinner, then you have to sit at the big table instead of your little table to help you keep your body still."

But "if, then" began to morph into manipulation, eventually verging on arbitrary punishment: "If you don't get your jacket on now, we can't bring our library books home." Okay, not so bad. It's kind of true that we might run out of time to check out books, but I was definitely grasping at a way to make him do what I wanted. "If you don't eat your supper, then we'll go straight to bedtime." Yes, it's the next thing in the sequence of our day, but does not spending that time eating mean he forfeits all pre-bed time? After all, he doesn't have to go straight to bed the nights that he finishes his supper early. "If you're too full to eat supper, you're too full to nurse at bedtime." This one pains me. I never wanted to taint our nursing relationship by making it a bargaining chip, but somehow I let it happen. And the fact that I made nursing about the milk, the very least important aspect of it, is very disappointing. Hopefully he won't take that message to heart. "If you rest your body for 10 more minutes, then you can watch Lady and the Tramp when you wake up." Alright, I've outed myself. There's officially no connection between nap and DVD. I was dangling a carrot out in front of the mule with this one to buy myself a few more minutes to get some work done. The best part is that it backfired on me because he chose not to rest his body, which meant no DVD and less time for me to work!

It wasn't long before he caught on to me; partly because he's such a bright kid and partly because the way I was presenting it, especially the resistant energy I was projecting (choose this or else!), gave me away. He called me out by refusing to be manipulated, choosing to forgo the thing he wanted just to make a point.

Making a child into a puppet seems appealing in the short term. Whose life wouldn't be easier with a child that does as told when told. But parents only get to be behind those strings for so long; eventually someone else, someone you don't get to choose, becomes the puppeteer, and the results are almost always disastrous. I love that he has a strong will and resists my attempts at control. This is an important guiding post for me, and it's going to be such a valuable trait in his future, one that I don't want to take away from him to make my life more convenient in the present.

 The amount of time required to parent in a positive way is overwhelming. The energy required to stay present with all  our interactions is exhausting. And gratification is almost always delayed, sometimes for years. This means that losing focus, sidestepping, and even heading off course are going to happen. But the road to a healthy relationship and an emotionally healthy child is always right where I left it. There's always an opportunity to learn from these experiences and get back on course.

Day 26: Nobody Likes Consequences

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

 Natural or not, consequences suck. Because of my desire to save my children from anything that sucks, I think I may have been unintentionally shielding Jackson from natural consequences, and in doing so depriving him of important learning opportunities. Since I started this project, this has been one of the major shifts. Today we got some practice.

We went to "school" (parent-child classes through the school district's ECFE program) today, and as usual Jackson was very excited to see friends, teachers and toys. We got out of the house without a hitch and were only reasonably late, a great feat for us considering class starts at 9am. 

When playtime turned into circle time with songs, Jackson struggled with the transition and leaving toys behind. He struggled with waiting to use a bucket of tools his teacher was saving for a special song. He struggled with leaving the tools to wash up for snack time. Through these transitions, I tried to give him as much freedom as was appropriate within the structure of the classroom, trying to model and enforce respect for the teachers and other families. And we made it.

The final transition before heading home is moving from the classroom to the gross motor room full of tricycles, climbers, slides and swings. In the winter, it's one of very few places he can really expend some energy. Needless to say, I wanted to go to the motor room. And he wanted to go to the motor room, but the transition came too quickly for him. He wasn't ready to give up his "front end loader" complete with policeman driver and farmer in the bucket "because that's his favorite place to sleep." 

I explained that in order to go to the motor room, we had to help everyone clean up, then go potty. This is not new as we've had the same routine for almost a year at school. His response was, "I just want to stay here and play with my bulldozer." So I explained further, "By not putting the truck away you're showing me that you're choosing not to go to the motor room today, and we will go home instead." Which was met with what I hear all too often: negotiation. Slowly moving away he declared, "I do want to go to the motor room. I'm just going to finish playing with my bulldozer, then go to the motor room." I clarified at least three more times, emphasizing that by not following the classroom requirement of cleaning before we climb, he was showing me his choice to skip the motor room and go home. 

Finally I had to close negotiations. When I got down and put my hands on his waist to talk to him, he started to resist me and complain. I told him it wasn't my job to hold his body up and gently let him fall to the floor. This was the moment of truth. We were either going to have a massive meltdown or he would recover. Hopefully he didn't see the fear in my eyes. 

In the brief seconds he was on the floor, I could actually see him processing his options. He chose self-regulation. He stood up and I helped him put the truck away. Of course in his world truck on shelf meant boy in motor room. So I took his hand, talked through the choice he had made, and nonchalantly added, "Okay. Let's go home." Then I braced myself while I bundled him up and got Max in his car seat, just waiting for the backlash. It never came.

He reiterated that he wanted to go to the motor room and I asked why he couldn't. He talked about his choice and added, "I can try again next time." He got it! It clicked that there was a window of opportunity that he had chosen to pass up. And I got the chance to tell him he was experiencing a consequence - something that happens because of a choice we make.

It was tempting to let him off the hook, especially since he's been having such a tough time through the candida detox process (as evidenced by the previous transition difficulties of the day). But I would have let a significant teaching moment pass us by if I had. And this one lesson is going to bring us so much peace in the near future, that risking a few moments of disappointment and sadness was well worth it.

Day 22: Flippety Flop

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

I think if I hear one more contradiction from Jackson I'm going to lose it. He pushes his plate away saying, "I don't want my food." As soon as I comply and take the plate he yells, "I DO want my food!" I let him decide what we were going to do today and he chose the mall. Then as I'm trying to get his coat on: "I don't want to go to the mall!" So I tell him we won't go and start taking the coat off only to be met with: "I DOOOOO want to go the the mall." Aaaaahhhh! 

Sometimes it's a delay tactic, sometimes he's just trying to avoid a step he doesn't want on the way to what he does want (i.e. jacket on to get to the mall), sometimes I think he doesn't know what he wants, and other times I'm pretty sure it's an ingenious plan to drive me out of my mind. And it's working.

I try to give him as many choices as I can through the day so he feels like an active participant in our day - like he is in control of his life instead of life happening to him. Sometimes this makes this easier, sometimes much more difficult. I'm so glad he feels confident to ask for what he wants and make decisions for himself, I just want him to ask for what he actually wants!

I struggle with finding a balance between allowing natural consequence and allowing him to change his mind. I want to honor a genuine change of heart, because we all change our minds sometimes. But I can't allow the back and forth for fun to continue because it's a serious disruption to our day and a serious annoyance that I can't cope with indefinitely. 

I'll look at this as a good opportunity for him to experience natural consequences at low cost. I will give him the same opportunity to make choices, confirm that choice, then follow through with it regardless of the instant cry for the opposite. This won't be easy, because anything that makes him less than happy is hard for me, but it's important to learn these lessons now on a small scale so that I can save him from the big lessons with greater cost later in life. Investing in the future is never simple because it usually makes the present more challenging, but it's always worth the effort. Hopefully he's make the connection quickly and relatively painlessly!