Empathic Parenting Blog

We got home late last night from a three-day music festival that we attend every year with my mom, a 60-something tie-dye making hippie that comes each year and camps with us, all the way to staying up until 2am in the rain to get the best spots the next day.

For the second year in a row, my son brought along a friend and they stayed in their own tent, which they pitched with reminders to me that I was NOT to help, they wanted to do it on their own (though as it began to rain they did let us help make it go a bit faster).  At the end of the festival, they took it down as well, albeit a bit sleep deprived, spacey, and with some grumbling and sighing.

Unfortunately, it was one of the rainiest festivals on record, so we were all cold and damp despite amazingly effective modern tent technology.  The boys did decide to go back with Dad to sleep in a real bed one night and get dry clothes as they had already blown through their extra sets.  (I think Dad was the one that wanted to go home the most).  Heck, most of the festival goers were doing the same thing.  But they came back the next day, grinning and ready to jump in the river.

As usual, my mom and I got into…well, not quite heated, but let’s just say animated, parenting conversations.  We concluded that we have different beliefs about the reasons behind behavior and the way children learn.  I don’t want to speak for her opinions, but I see much of behavior being need-based and development-based, with habit playing a much smaller part; I believe it is far less important to drill in proper behavior as I believe it will come with time, modeling, and relationship-building. We discussed the example of a small child whining for what they want, and I maintained that although I would talk about whining not being the best way to induce me to want to help, I wouldn’t have a strict policy of not giving things to a child that is whining, because I believe the whining is not nearly as much a product of habit as a product of not feeling heard.  As discussions with family go, this one was a fairly calm and relaxed one, and we went on to have a lovely weekend despite the rain.

Driving home, my mom commented on how “good” the boys had been.  “They were running around in wet clothes and not even complaining about the cold, and they hardly needed you or bugged you for things all weekend.”  (Of course she didn’t see the too-much-sugar, lack-of-sleep induced meltdown at the end where my son was demanding that I take him home instead of his father).

Well, let’s see…they were more self-sufficient than the previous year - my son’s anxiety is much improved and he is now happy to take lots of money and order his own food from the food booths.  They were more responsible than ever; they carefully followed the “stick together” rule and we only misplaced his friend once briefly due to parental error in not defining what “together” meant.  (They were browsing shops and got separated by the crowd).   My son was less-anxious and less rigid about his expectations.

But they are eleven!  They are growing up…they do that.  I didn’t drill in responsibility and self-sufficiency.  That is something they developed all on their own.  All I had to do was “hold the rope” and let out a little at a time as they were ready to handle more.  And as for the cold, my son was tolerating it not because I had carefully trained him not to complain, but because he doesn’t mind cold.  He never has.  If he had, he would have put on more layers.

Luckily for my sanity, this visit my mom was only seeing the positives, and I probably should have just taken the desperately desired credit toward my good parenting.  But most often, we look at the negatives.  Does the fact that the children didn’t pack well enough reflect on my lack of proper teaching, or more likely, on lack of making him do his own packing most of the time (since I often help or do much of it for him)?  Does the meltdown at the end of the weekend mean he is too attached to me and I should have set firmer boundaries?  My son accurately pointed out that I hadn’t spent any time with him all weekend…perhaps  (to someone that is not paying attention since usually it is the former I’m accused of, but just for the sake of argument) I’m too hands-off and selfish, and making dad do all the work.   And what horrible habits am I creating by letting him “give up” and go home, and then come back for the fun part?

Or maybe, he is just 11.  Self-sufficient some of the time, responsible some of the time, and also tired, sugar-sensitive, and demanding some of the time.  Heck, I’m 40, and I have to admit, I’m the exact same way.  And I don’t think it’s because my mother indulges me when I whine.

My son and I have a bet going right now as to who will be able to go the longest without eating sweets. I went into this knowing he would win, but I’m alright with that.

It was his idea; he had just come back from a birthday party during which he had eaten 3 huge cookies, 2 slices of pizza, 3 small glasses of soda, and a slice of cake. I had just confiscated his 4th cookie, which I knew was the right choice by how quickly the objections - always loud and angry - tapered off. (I just had to get him separated from that “next-bite” craving for a few minutes while it subsided and then he realized how yucky he actually felt. I know this well, because I myself go through it frequently).

Of course, I then started in on the lectures….how he would crash tomorrow and to expect it (yes, despite my best intentions I had an “Look what you’ve done/I told you so” tone). How he would be craving sugar all day. I admitted that I shouldn’t have had the proffered piece of cake either, and certainly not the large cookie I grabbed off the tray after that (let’s not mention the Starbucks bar in the morning), and that I too would be craving sugar all day the next day. (Check.) Continuing the lecture, I told him how it was OK to indulge once in a while, which was why I hadn’t tried to get him to restrict his sweets before the party. (Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. I figured if I told him to restrict his sweets, he probably would have eaten more in response. I knew it was pointless in any case). However, I continued, it’s important to then eat healthily for a while, and because I had indulged so much, I would be trying not to eat sweets for a while.

And so started our bet - $1 from whoever ate sweets first (or in his case, 20 minutes of extra work, as I pay him $3/hour for helping with whatever I want done - though I do tip a bit for cleaning bathrooms!).

This time, I know he’ll win. When he was little, we always let him win because we figured he gets plenty of losing just through life itself and we didn’t need to add any. But, he has grown out of the need to win all the time. No, the reason I know he’ll win is that when he makes up his mind to do something, he does it, and I am horrible at resisting sweets. (I don’t know why I have this expectation that he should be able to do it naturally). Hopefully, I’ll be able to do so long enough that we will at least both be through the cravings and then he will have at least one example of *choosing* to avoid sweets for a while, rather than having it imposed on him.

So far, it is going well. He came up this morning with ribbon tied on each index finger. “No sugar!” he announced. He has been verifying that nothing I offer has sugar in it. And yesterday, he said, to my joy as a mother and dismay as a chocolate lover, “We should do this every week. Then allow ourselves a treat once a week, but not eat sugar the rest of the time.” I’m not sure I can last that long but it’s a wonderful flip of positions from a parenting standpoint!

We hear a lot about having expectations for our children - not long term aspirations or dreams, but expectations that they will be kind and responsible; that they will pick up their toys and sit quietly at the dinner table. I’ve heard Alfie Kohn mention the importance of having expectations several times, and I strongly agree with the sentiment as he has described it.

Yet, somehow I always get stuck on the word “expectations”. Someone asked me what my problem with the word “expectations” is, and I wasn’t quite sure myself. I just had a niggling disconnect that I couldn’t identify whenever I heard it used, kind of like when you are searching for a word and everyone gives you one that is close, but just not quite what you are looking for; almost as if the energy around the word felt wrong to me. So, I looked it up.

(http://thesaurus.reference.com/)

Several of these definitions have connotations which don’t feel right to me in the context of parenting, and they are the ones that make the word bother me - apprehension, assumption, presumption, and fear. Yet these are exactly where I often see myself and other parents go when we hold expectations of children.

When the child doesn’t meet our expectations - doesn’t cooperate with toy cleanup efforts or doesn’t sit quietly at dinner (or worse, plays with food or runs around yelling like a banshee), we sometimes assume there is something wrong with them or with us as parents. Then the fear sets in, and often our expectations turn into doubts and resentments rather than something that empowers our children to reach for their best. To be effective, expectations have to be in the present, not in the past or future.

Furthermore, expectations tend to be interpreted as static, whereas I see them as fluid and situational. Which expectations a child will be able to meet depend on the child’s age, state of mind and health, etc.

Lastly, often expectations have a societal meaning that carries an assumption of “right and wrong” rather than what is effective for a given family. There are even expectations placed on the parent’s expectations.

However, the positives are in this definition too - belief, confidence, hope, intention, and trust. How can we combine these with a strong view of what we want from children? Aspirations comes close for me, but seem too far in the future.

I also found quite a few quotes about expectation:

“Anger always comes from frustrated expectations” - Elliott Larson

“Keep high aspirations, moderate expectations, and small needs”- William Howard Stein

“We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.” - Samuel Johnson

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” - Charles F. Kettering

“It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any effect other than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation” - Samuel Johnson

“The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.” - Seneca (Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD)

“Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation” - Charlotte Bronte

“Hope is a desire with an expectation of accomplishment.” - Unknown

And then of course, my long-time and oft-quoted favorite:

“Expectations are resentments under construction.”

In short, expectations can generate fear, doubt, and guilt if they are incorrectly used (like any other parenting concept, I suppose). Personally, I would rather choose something that empowers both myself and my child.

What I am looking for is a word that conveys a concept that Wayne Dyer talks about a lot (perhaps he uses a word that I’ve not ‘caught’ yet?), where one can simultaneously hold a view and expectation of what is wanted while also trusting and believing that it is on it’s way and that the current moment is exactly as it is supposed to be. If anyone comes up with such a word, please let me know!

Until then, I’ll continue to have expectations, but I’m going to make sure they are helpful ones. There are enough “should’s” in life without having to heap on some more.

I’ve realized there is a subtle but ubiquitous set of best practices that tends to circulate around most positive discipline communities that many of us take for granted and become judgmental about despite our best intentions. Recently I’ve been breaking something I’ve always taken as one of these truisms of positive parenting.

In my work, two primary goals are non judgment and respect, for both parents and children. This means that my basic assumption is that I don’t know the “right” answer for anyone else. (I often am not sure I know it even for myself, but that’s another post!) I find this to be very effective in coaching, because so frequently the presenting issue (potty training, sleep issues, tantrums) is not the core concern (pressure to grow up too fast, lack of quality time between mom & dad, sensory issues). When I jump directly to brainstorming the answer to the problem that is presented, I will miss the core concern.

However, some practices I take for granted as more…well, effective (that’s a good thing), respectful (no problems with that) and sometimes, I must admit, more enlightened (a judgment - breaking primary principle #1). We all have these opinions, to some extent or another, and most do have very sound reasoning behind them.

Here are a few you might recognize:

• Give young children limited choices; with no choice they will not be able to feel influential nor practice good judgment; but with too many or too large of choices, they will be overwhelmed.
• Praise and rewards, particularly the ever present, “Good job!” don’t lead to intrinsic motivation, and should be be replaced with acknowledgment and appreciation.
• Don’t threaten, especially things you can never follow up on, such as “we are never going out to eat again.”

Recently I’ve noticed that as much as I try to be open-minded towards other people’s differing solutions to parenting dilemmas, I often hold myself in judgment against this unquestioned moral standard. So what is the golden rule that I’m now breaking, you might ask? It’s this - “Children should have basic responsibilities around the house, but should not be paid for basic chores (allowance should be either separate and unconditional or paid for “extra” chores), because otherwise they will not learn that they are expected to contribute to the household regardless. ” Even worse, I’ve crossed the line on the “don’t bribe your child for ordinary good behavior” rule a fair number of times recently as well.

Ok, I admit, until recently, whenever this topic has come up on emails lists, I’ve respectfully and non judgmentally thrown out these ‘PD truisms’, and yet at the same time held a small reserve of judgment toward parents that threaten their kids with loss of allowance for not doing the mundane and boring tasks that have been unilaterally assigned, much in the same way many of us look down on someone screaming at a child in the grocery store (as if to subtly imply that that has never, ever been us in that situation. Yeah, right.)

So imagine my inner conflict when I find myself pragmatically paying my child, albeit 20 cents here, 40 cents there, to cooperate with expected outings, or to do small tasks.

The reason and the details of my breaking of this rule would get us sidetracked, and would sound like an excuse and thereby dilute my point. Which is this. We simply cannot know the right answer for another family. (Although, I will admit we can know some very wrong answers - but I’m not talking about those - I’m talking about the more subtle stuff).

This isn’t a change in philosophy. I still believe that in many cases it doesn’t make sense to pay children for things we want them to do habitually and routinely. Rather, this is a yet another spiral on the attitude that I’m trying to reach, and can only come closer and closer to - non judgment.

So the next time you are faced with listening to a parent describe a solution that you don’t agree with, stay open minded. Truly accept that they are the best equipped to make their own best decisions, and then get curious about why this works for them. They will appreciate the nonjudgmental listening, and you may even surprise yourself by agreeing with them in the end. And if not, you will most likely have more conviction about the rightness of your own solution for your family, and the reasons why you chose it.

I had to let some angels go today.  It was hard to see them go.

About 3 months ago,my son made a beautiful safety-pin beaded angel for our tree, and decided he wanted to make many of them - 18 more, once he counted, recounted, and adjusted all the people he would give them to for Christmas.

Of course, the store didn’t have 18 angel kits, and cost would have been too high anyway.  On the other hand, they would need to be exactly the same or it wouldn’t be “proper” in his eyes.  I carefully went around to different hobby stores and found almost all of the parts - proud of myself for using coupons and only spending $30-40 when it could have been much more (and not noticing the almost-manic way I was wasting time on them).  In typical fashion, by the time I had all the materials ready, and had modified the pattern to account for the missing pieces, he had lost interest in something he was starting to believe was no longer his project, anyway.

For the last couple weeks, as I have increasingly reminded (well, bugged) him to make the angels and he has been similarly increasing in his unwillingness to work on them, thoughts of following through with one’s plans, using the materials one has bought, etc have danced in my head, taunting me.   It seems this is a skill I must teach my son.  Not, of course, that I have learned it - just look at my crafting stash!

Today I realized the silliness of holding on to this idea.  If I look at the $35 in the scheme of things, it really isn’t a big deal (let’s not compare to all the supplements we are currently throwing money at, shall we?) Maybe we will make angels another year.  Maybe not.  But, I have to stop blaming him for the time I spent running around, gathering materials; it was my choice.   And more importantly, I need to have empathy for a trait that I myself have in spades.

My undone projects give me the magic of possibility waiting at my fingertips.  I love my yarn stash, my stamps and glitters, my bits and pieces of fabric.  Anyway, they will make a lovely home for the angels to play in, now that I have set them free.

I see you clapping
the fireworks so bright
Your hands are awkward
Normally so light

Then I realize
I’ve never seen you clap
At least not often
Never in a crowd

You used to scream
When I would applaud
Your hands over your ears
Shutting out the sound

The absent reaction
Catches me by surprise
Empathy is so much easier
When looking backwards

You say you liked the bang
that moved the earth
During the finale
When fireworks lit the sky

You have come so far
Yet there is far to go
I know you’ll get there
I have to simply trust

Copyright 2006, Lisa Stroyan