Since dealing with my first toddler as mother I have always been a no nonsense mom. Disobedience meant discipline which meant a measurable punishment that in my best moments were well calculated and controlled, but in my worst moments were a release of anger that was not scaled to the crime.
I have seen countless advertisements for “no yelling parenting” conferences, books or blogs designed to tell you all about how you can fix your parenting style.
I avoided them.
Because I thought I was fine. I wasn’t fine. It took about a week worth of moments to really convict me into seeing I was not parenting in my best self. I wasn’t being the parent I wanted to be and while my style was effective at mandating obedience, it wasn’t teaching my children to do the right thing out of moral or ethical obligation but rather out of fear. So what happens when I am not around? When the fear of authority is gone, does my “punishment” foster their decision making ability to create lasting healthy patterns of behavior? It took seeing my husband react in ways I had or would for me to cringe and uncomfortably admit that I was doing it all wrong. We were doing it wrong.
So, with the help of a book called “No Drama Discipline” and “The Whole Brain Child” I’ve slowly started changing my ways.
The biggest change is getting off my tired, worn out, sore, sometimes annoyed bum and being a proactive parent. It’s removing my little clan from situations when I know I just can’t will my kids to not be hungry or tired. More on that here in a minute. It’s following through when I make a threat, so only making threats I actually mean. It’s sometimes taking the time to just hold my kid when I really want to smack them into next week for being so absolutely ridiculous. It’s giving a little grace instead of taking something away from them. Honestly? It’s WEIRD! Sometimes after these “moments” of “discipline” I wonder if I even disciplined them.
My perspective has changed entirely. I no longer turn to discipline as a means to punish my children but rather as a teaching opportunity to grow them into better humans. Cue the eye roll right? I was that parent, the one that heard people say stuff like "this is a teaching opportunity" and in my mind I was thinking, your child needs a quick hard reminder of who you are after talking to you like that. I would find myself puffing my chest out at my four year old. Like I was some big bad mom ready to throw down. When in reality, I was tired, so tired of throwing down with a four year old, or two year old, or really just any kid.
This new parenting style I am trying on, it takes connecting with them, meeting them where they are. It takes a heck of a lot more of effort then just sitting on the couch and yelling, or smacking their butt and putting them in time out. It sometimes makes me look a little like the crazy crunchy mom that doesn't seem to actually be disciplining at all. Like the time I lay down on the nasty grocery store floor to get lower than my number 3 that was losing her ever loving mind over yogurt. (There is some neuroscience indicating if you get lower then your kids eyesight, it disengages their "fight or flight" and lets them know you aren't a threat). She calmed down, I hugged her and we talked about how she was feeling. She got emotional again when my answer was still "no" to the fancy yogurt she wanted, BUT she knew that I was on her side. I picked her up and put her in the cart then walked off blissfully as she cried loud enough for any stranger to hear. She calmed down on her own once she realized crying wasn't getting her the attention or yogurt she wanted. The old me would've spanked her for crying which would have resulted in more crying and an upset child that was now also mad at me and mad about the yogurt. The new approach let her know I understood her pain and frustration but we still couldn't get the yogurt. It was still providing a limit but it allowed her to feel her emotion and process it. As she grows and her ability to reason logically develops, grocery store outbursts will hopefully be a thing of the past.
BUT lets be real here. While trying to do some shopping for Christmas cookie supplies during COVID this last year, I had my own version of an adult temper tantrum over sweetened shredded coconut and vanilla. Actually, lets be absolutely honest, I had one just the other day over ground sausage. The Food Lion nearest to me has undergone some staff changes and the current management seems to not understand how to order resupply and stock shelves. They are constantly out of things. It drives me nuts, they NEVER have brown sugar! And lugging four kids into a store when its 100 degrees outside and so muggy its weather you can wear, PLUS masks, its just a lot. Ideally, the store would have what you need. Like if I can see the spot on the shelf where the thing should be, it should be there right?!? I digress. My point is, if I, as a grown adult, get frustrated and say things like "oh this blessed store that never restocks. This is ridiculous I am never coming here again" just loud enough with enough aggression I am sure the poor teenager stocking the shelf heard me, then surely my children are also going to have a fit now and then too.
Which brings me to the point, I had to stop expecting my children to do things that I myself can not always do.
This teaching style takes meeting them in their moment of absolute dysregulated emotions and being the steady rock they need. Like when number 2 was just so mad she was ready to hit me, so I hugged her. I hugged her so long we started to sweat before she burst into tears saying sorry.
I’ve noticed, more often then not, when I give my kids a chance to be human, make mistakes, and have feelings then process them, they already feel guilt for whatever they did wrong. I don’t even have to say the words to explain it because they already know. Last week 1 and 2 got into a fight. When I asked 1 about it she said “Em was being so annoying and I told her to stop but she didn’t so I kicked her!!” I calmly asked 1 how she felt when 2 kicked her back “it made me mad, and I wanted to hit her again”. So after I got done laughing and agreeing I would probably feel the same way, she was able to reason that hitting her sister would never calm either one of them down and wouldn’t make her be any less “annoying”. When I asked 2 about the situation she broke down in tears and said “Carolynn was right, she told the truth, I was being annoying” and then apologized to her sister for both being “annoying” and hitting her. Don’t worry I made them both apologize. We dove a little deeper to find this all stemmed from each of them feeling left out when friends come over and make odd numbers. For some reason girls really struggle with odd numbers in friend groups.
Enter the best advice I have come across lately for parenting.
H - hungry
A - angry
L - lonely
T - tired
HALT. If your kid is any one of those four things, they will be defiant. Kids don’t usually act out just for fun, they have a reason. Even if in our adult brain we can’t make sense of it. But can’t we? Haven’t you ever been so tired you snap at someone? So hungry you get sort of crappy with the server because “what did you have to plant and grow the lettuce to make the daggum salad?!?!?” Kids are human.
Say that out loud and let it sink in.
Kids. Are. Human.
So a month ago when we were at the pool with friends, I knew we hit our point. No returns were being had. We had been go go go all week, skipped naps and had late bedtimes. Everyone’s kids were in rare form. We were throwing snacks at them, some of us were playing appeasement games, some of us were ignoring it in hopes they’d just stop, and I watched my sweet number 2 lose her mind over having to wear a floatie. I tried connecting with her, holding her, she would calm down briefly then get all upset again as she pulled away. Finally I reasoned, she’s tired. And I cannot discipline the exhaustion out of her. I can’t make her less tired by taking away toys or treats, I can’t make her less tired by spanking her, or putting her in time out. In that moment, she just needed to sleep. So, we left, after only being there for an hour or so.
I find myself considering the “why” behind my kids behavior more than I ever used to. Sometimes I feel like my discipline lacks the “umpf” it used to. I‘m usually tired of talking things through by 2 in the afternoon and there are times I lose my cool entirely.
Friends once told us their go to question for their kids is “are we having a big reaction for a little reaction? And is this a big problem or a little problem?”. I’ve started having to ask myself these questions.
And if while reading this you've gotten the impression that I am somehow now super mom that never loses her mind and over reacts, let me take a moment to quash that misunderstanding.
Earlier this week I had a moment in parenting that had me in tears, sobbing holding my child and then calling my mom because I knew she wouldn't judge me but say the things I knew I needed to hear. We were closing in on week two of fighting RSV, I was on the verge of mastitis, I was tired, the kids were tired. I am so over the battle of potty training my number 3, wait let me use the correct verbage there -- REpotty training. Yes that is where we are at. Anyway, it is a fight every time I say "Mads go potty really quick" I mean crumbling to the floor sobbing or yelling "no" because, I don't even know why to be honest. It drives me nuts, usually if I ignore it she ends up going. Sometimes if I walk her there she does it. A lot of times she loses her mind and I want to lose mine. Anyway, we walked in the door from running an afternoon errand and I said "alright go upstairs its time for nap, Mads get your pull up on". This may seem like a high expectation for my children but my sweet number 3 (Mads) is totally capable of meeting that expectation and does so regularly. HOWEVER on this particular day, she walked into her room scream sobbing, sat on her mattress (that doesn't have a great waterproof cover because she only ever sleeps in pull ups, I haven't gotten around to getting a good one just yet) and proceeded to pee. But she was sitting on the edge of the mattress so the pee went down the side of it, onto the floor, soaking into the carpet around the bedframe (the heavy bunk bed frame). This was just 16 days after I had cleaned their bedroom carpets (which happens approximately once a decade). When I came upstairs holding number 4, toys to put away, and balancing a pile of laundry I saw her went pants and asked "where did you pee". She replied still crying "my bed".
I saw red. In my adult mind I imagined her walking up there and peeing on that mattress out of defiance, to spite me for mandating a nap. I yanked her wet clothes off, spanked her butt, soaked up the pee with towels, yelling the entire time, redressed her and dumped her on the bed. She was crying, terrified. Numbers 1 and 2 were completely silent and had scattered to the bonus room not saying a word. They were terrified. I fell to the ground and cried with number 3. All of this over pee? All of this because my TWO YEAR OLD, had an accident? I took a moment to step into her shoes, which Lord I wish I would've had the grace to do, before I reacted. She was so mad about having to take a nap, that she lost control of her bladder. Totally a normal thing for a two year old. But I was trying to apply my adult logic to her two year old brain.
I tell you this to be vulnerable, to be raw and authentic so that in reading about that episode, you can see that you are not alone. Everyone has moments they wish they handled differently. My newest rule and approach to this parenting style is, step back and step in before reacting.
Step back out of my own mindset, and step into theirs. So when my number 1 is having a big emotional reaction to her handwriting assignment, I step back from my adult logic of just do it and get it done, and into her Childs logic, it feels like forever. It feels like forever and everyone else is playing, having fun. So we take breaks, play games and then go back to her assignment.
I wrote early on that I was going to try and change my parenting style because we were yelling more than I would like to admit. Here is my update on that. We are still yelling. Why? Because we are human and change takes time. I will say though, we are yelling significantly less, it is possible to change. It just takes a heck of a lot more effort, It takes being proactive instead of reactive and anticipating problems before they become problems.
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