More thoughts from class

I'm loving my Infant and Toddler class at Parkland. I take away lots of new things every class to use not only with my focal child (our lab is to spend time with a child under 24 months each week and record specific observations) but with my own child. 

It teaches me to take a step back and not be so emotionally involved or strung out every day. A few months ago, a number of local bloggers, who are mothers, talked about how they feel as their kids move into the toddler realm that they're yelling becomes the primary source of communication. "Don't touch that! Don't hit your brother! Don't pull the dog's tail! Don't eat food off the floor! Don't pick your nose and eat it!" I have the same issue. 

These kinds of things get repeated over and over and over again. Along with "Good girl! Bad Boy!" It's frustrating to realize we're only speaking in the negative or that we're issuing time outs every 20 minutes, or we're giving unclear compliments, where if you're hearing good than at some times you must be "bad." Instead we should be telling our kids what we like about their behavior or what we don't like.

For example, yesterday morning, X-man was stalling when getting into the car. I asked him if I could help him. He refused. Two minutes later he's still dawdling in front of the car. I had given him a warning that if he wasn't in his car seat by the time I counted to 20, I was putting him in it. He tested that. I picked him up and placed him in the seat. He screamed, hauled off and smacked my glasses off. Mommy's red alarm went off. Steam came out of my ears. Before Infant and Toddler I would have issued a time out or I may have even shouted at him that he was a "Bad boy" before I shouted about how hitting hurts. 

Instead, I tried to follow what I'd learned in class and be specific. "Hands are NOT for hitting!" I said it loudly, but not screaming. "You hurt Mommy! I do not like being hit!" 

X-man immediately started crying and reached for my face, kissed my cheek, handed me my glasses and tried to help me put them on all while saying, "Sorry Mommy!" When he calmed down, I took a minute to talk to him about how we use our words when we're frustrated, and how Mommy is trying to keep him safe and on schedule. She's not trying to be mean by making him get to school on time.

Do I think this will prevent hits in the future? I have no idea. But I did see a big difference between this and both of us sitting in the garage crying after we both had a dose of regretful behavior. So, um, I'm calling it a good choice for X-man.

In addition, the time we spend with our kids where we do have quality time with them is often directed by adults. "Is that a blue block? What shape is it? Is it a square?" As adults we get in kids' faces and ask them all these questions. Then we tell them what to do in loud, demanding, critical voices. We hope to teach them right from wrong. We hope to teach them colors, shapes, numbers and letters. We hope to teach them to share with their friends, to be cautious, to be independent, to be kind. 

It's a huge, huge job. And one that no one I've ever talked to feels like they've done a good enough job no matter how much effort, blood, sweat and tears goes into it.

In class, I'm starting to learn to do things differently. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But the ways that Nancy's teaching me to interact with children makes  lot of sense. A lot of it, I've always done naturally. But I'm working on changing from a parent who commands all of the interaction to a parent who just sits on the floor and lets their child lead. Make it all about the child and his/her choices rather than make it about me and what I think the child should be doing. 

And that's the stickler between generations. It's a complete cultural change from the way people used to think about child rearing. It used to be that kids were supposed to follow their parents commands. It was a sign of respect. But behind that "respect" was a healthy dose of fear of getting in trouble. And "trouble" could mean a wide variety of things depending on what discipline was like in your family. So not only was there actually no respectful behavior going on toward the parent when a child followed directions out of fear, but the lack of respect was reciprocal. Parents who think they should be able to drag their kids wherever the adults want to go when they want to go is disrespectful to a child. There are excursions that are NOT developmentally appropriate for children. 

For example visiting someone's home can be a large problem for both a parent and a child. If a home is not childproofed and has a lot of nicknacks or fragile pieces near the floor, a parent spends the whole visit following a toddler around moving things or saying "No." It takes a lot of work on behalf of the parent and is discouraging for a child. He or she simply won't want to go back there if the place is like a museum. Infants and toddlers like to explore and try new things. They get messy. They're amazed by how things work. They need environments that support that, which may require others to travel to them rather than expecting a family to always be on the move.

A long time ago, before X-man was born, MacTroll and I agreed that we were going to put X-man's safety and our own sanity first. This means we've had to think about things in a different way. People who haven't had hands-on experience with toddlers in a while might not understand why we do things. They may think critically of us and think we're spoiling our child. But apparently, our gut instinct when X-man was in utero reflects a lot of the theories behind modern infant/toddler educational theory. Not that we ever feel guilty about the choices we make, but it does help to know that we've got research on our side when we worry about people taking offense to the fact that we decide not to attend things or go places because it's not in the best interest of our child at that particular day or time or age.

Parenting is a hard job, and my readings all support that every adult that works with small children 8 (or if you're a stay-at-home parent -- 24) hours a day need substantial breaks to step away and regroup so they can continue positive interactions with their kids. And most of the stay-at-home parents with small kids that I know don't get one -- ever.

So it's not surprising that we all go bat shit from time to time.