Parenting Blog

I had an Aha! Moment recently when I received this letter from a reader:  "Dr. Laura, I appreciate all the emails about how to stay calm and inspired. I find they really help.  But what about those times when my kid does something really awful -- and deserves what's coming to him?! Won't he misinterpret it if I stay calm then? How do I teach him a lesson?" – Claudine

Now, because we do a better job when we’re calm, rather than frazzled, I do talk a lot in my daily inspiration emails about how to manage our own moods and emotions. I tell parents that we need to take care of ourselves so we have something inside to give our kids.

But this letter made me realize a basic fact about human emotion.  When we’re right, and the other person is wrong – and let’s assume for a moment that in this case, this is a fact, not just our opinion --- we WANT to let the other person know that. If they blew it, did something awful, don’t they deserve what’s coming?  And if it’s our kid, it’s our job to teach them. Shouldn’t we be showing them how upset we are? How else will they learn their lesson? 

Well, let’s double click on this.  Maybe we should start by thinking about how people learn lessons. What happens when you really blow it?  Let’s say you get a parking ticket. Or somehow lose your credit card as I did this week.  Or forget something really important at work, that endangers your job.  Does it help when your spouse or boss yells at you?

If you're intent on punishing your child, you'll be interested to know that research shows kids don't behave better when they're yelled at or punished.  Like the rest of us, kids who feel threatened go into "fight" or "flight" mode. Learning shuts off.    Eventually, if it becomes a regular occurrence, they develop new negative behaviors -- lying, sneakiness, tuning us out, disrespect. So when we yell at or punish kids, we don't prevent a recurrence of the behavior.  In fact, we lose influence with our kid.

I'm not suggesting you just let your kid continue doing whatever is driving you crazy.  I'm suggesting you adopt a strategy that will actually change his behavior.  I know it isn't as satisfying as yelling when you're angry.  But long term, it's a lot more gratifying in every way.

So, (you guessed it!) start by calming yourself down.  Then:

1. Meet your child's deeper needs. All behavior comes from the attempt to meet basic needs. What's causing this problem behavior? Is it a need for more connection from us?  More control over his life?  More recognition?  A more orderly, peaceful home? Clear limits? More sleep?

2. Help your child develop a competing impulse. For instance, If she wants to clobber her little brother, strengthen their relationship so she feels more protective of him.  (And in the meantime, be aware that pediatricians say never to leave a child under the age of five alone with a little one.) If she lies to you, explain that every lie cuts a cord in her relationship to you.  (See how much more effective these strategies are than yelling?)

3. Help your child develop a new habit. If you want her to remember something, whether it's her jacket at a friend's house or brushing her teeth, adopt routines to insure she develops the habit.

 4. Work with your child to find a win/win solution.  This is where you get your own need met, by making things different. Tell your child his action upset you and you want to work together to make sure it doesn't happen again. It's the recurring problems that most often push us to the breaking point, so it's worth solving them. And the only kind of solution that reliably lasts between humans is one that meets the needs of both people.  No, you're not giving in. You're not backing off your own need, remember?  You’re getting your own need met, AND teaching your child how to have a good relationship with another person – by finding win/win solutions.

5. Wait.  Most problem behavior, from dumping his milk on the floor to missing curfew, is age-appropriate.  You'll be pleased to know that by next year he'll have outgrown whatever problem behavior is driving you crazy -- and will have found several new ones!

The Aha! For me in this is that ALL of us want to be right.  That’s the way the human brain works.  But when we insist on being right, it means the other person has to be wrong.  And when someone feels wrong, they’re on the defensive.  That’s fight or flight.  It means learning shuts off.  So if we insist on being right, our kid CAN’T learn a lesson, and we're sabotaging both ourselves and our child.

t's fine to show our kids we’re upset, as long as we don't attack them.  But instead of modeling temper tantrums, we can model healthy emotional self-management.  Rather than railing against our kid, we take responsibility as the grown up.  We work with our kid to solve the problem. Yes, our kid learns lessons -- the most important ones!  That’s the kind of parenting all kids deserve.

"Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it."-- Harold Hulbert

You know how important it is to manage your kid's life so his basic needs get met and he behaves better.  Predictable routines, plenty of sleep, downtime, cuddles and quality connection time all help kids be at their best.  But every child has times when life just seems too much for them, and they can't behave the way they'd like. That's when they act most childish (just like adults!).

We all know that when we respond to those difficult times by losing our cool, tempers escalate and a small storm can turn into a full-scale tornado that sweeps all our good intentions away. What can you do to keep your cool and settle your child down? Here's your five-step plan.

1. Make sure you aren't running on empty.You can't act much nicer than you feel.  If your own cup is empty, how can you give to your child?  Find sustainable ways to keep your nature sunny, so you can give your child the best of yourself – and rise to the occasion when he signals he needs you by misbehaving. Can't find a way to let the sun in?  You owe your child, and yourself, a change.  You're the grown-up, so get whatever help you need to show up with unconditional love for your child.

2. Stop, Drop and Breathe.Train yourself: As soon as you feel temperatures rising, just stop.  Drop whatever you’re doing, whether that means turning off the stove, pulling the car to the side of the road, or telling your friend you’ll call her back. Then take a few deep breaths. This calms you physically, so your mind has a chance to keep your body from moving into fight mode.

3. Remind yourself:  This is an opportunity, not an emergency.  An opportunity for what?  Getting closer to your child by helping her work through whatever’s bothering her – and teaching her to manage her emotions by role-modeling emotional intelligence. Kids learn more by watching our behavior than by what we say. However you act with your child when she's four is how she'll act with you when she's fourteen. Wouldn’t you rather have a teenager who helps you calm down rather than one who screams at you?

4. Watch your tone and bite your tongue, if necessary. Research shows that the more calmly we speak, the more calm we feel, and the more calmly others respond to us. When we use swear words or other highly charged words, it makes both us and our listener even more upset and the situation escalates. Think your child needs to learn a lesson?  It's more likely to stick if you wait until you calm down to teach it.

5. It’s never too late. If you suddenly realize you’ve been hijacked by your own emotions, just stop.  Breathe.  Shake out your hands to let some of that anger drain out.  Say “Mommy needs to calm down” and walk away if necessary.  The more often you can stop in mid-scream, the more often you’ll find you can cool down before you even open your mouth.

When things heat up, these five steps can seem impossible.  But if you just keep practicing, they become second nature, and the whole tone in your home gets sunnier. Start now with Step 1, to be sure your own cup is full. Next time your child "provokes you,"  you'll be able to rise to the occasion and avert the stormy weather.

May your weekend be filled with sunshine -- and miracles, large and small.

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."
-- Maria Robinson

You're making history, right now.  When your kid looks back, this will be the childhood he remembers.  The foundation of everything she accomplishes in the world.

Our kids will remember little of what we say to them.  The memories that color their lives will be about how we made them feel.  They'll be living those, every day.

How we feel about ourselves and the world comes from our experience of life when we're quite young.  Are we good enough?  Lovable enough so that other people come through for us?  Are we competent?  Can we find help and comfort when we need it?  Is it a friendly world, or a lonely one?

By the time kids are six, we can see their beliefs about themselves and about us in the way they act.  Age-appropriate developmental challenges are fine; recurring unhappiness is a call for help. That gives us only about five more years to help our child rewire those feelings.  While it's never too late, it's much harder to influence them once they hit puberty and begin looking elsewhere for love.

Can you look ahead in your child's story and see the happy ending?  Feel that gratitude.
If you can't, now's the time to transform yourself into a fairy godmother.

"Here, in this over-privileged country, are children so over-scheduled that they hardly know what it is to daydream, so institutionalized that they rarely know the contentment of surrendering to the arms of someone they can depend upon absolutely -- for whom nothing is more important than giving them the love they need." -- Anne R. Pierce

Do you feel sometimes like you have to be a super-parent? So often we feel pressure to prove we’re good parents by bringing perfectly decorated cupcakes to the class party, having a perfectly organized house, or rushing to get an impressive dinner on the table every night. These may be rewarding tasks, but they have nothing to do with parenting, since your kids would rather have scrambled eggs and raw carrots for dinner if that kept you in a better mood. But even if we rise above that pressure, there isn’t a parent alive who hasn’t felt the urge to enroll her kid in one more activity "to help him develop his potential."

But kids actually suffer when they're overloaded with organized activities. What they need most is time to explore their imaginations and their environments -- and time with you. Does that sound like work?  I think it's the opposite of work because it's all internal -- more of an attitude you commit to.

The patience to listen, the big-heartedness to see it from their side, the self-discipline to not take your bad mood out on your child, the willingness to embrace your child's full emotional life while helping her make wise choices about her actions, the motivation to keep doing this every day when no one else really understands what it takes out of you.

Great parents actually don't "work" hard; they just show up. They give up on perfection and nurture themselves so they have something to give their kids. They courageously let go of doing what looks good and start doing what feels right. They shut out the interrupting world and create sanctuary.  They sit on the couch whenever possible, and focus on the invisible tasks of parenting:

Creating engrossing dinner table conversation...Reflecting their kids’ feelings...Tummy time with the baby...Floor time with the toddler...Bedtime snuggles with the elementary schooler...Couch time with the tween...Walks with the teen...Family game night...Helping kids think about the world and explore their emerging passions... Supporting kids in solving their own problems...Tickle battles...Star-gazing...Listening.... Laughing...Lighting candles...Connecting....Making miracles.

"I am a recovering perfectionist.  Before, I experienced that I and everyone else was always falling short, that who we were and what we did was never quite good enough.  I sat in judgment on life itself.  Perfectionism is the belief that life is broken...Wholeness lies beyond perfection. The life within us is diminished by judgment...." -- Dr. Naomi Remen

I first went to therapy as a young woman because I hoped it would make me perfect. Even once I learned that wasn't possible, I still aimed for perfection, figuring that falling short would at least get me closer to perfection.  Secretly, I thought that only by being perfect would I be good enough to be lovable.

It wasn't until I became a mother that I realized perfectionism is always the enemy of love. By definition, perfectionism is judging ourselves, our loved ones, and life as not good enough.  We reject the present moment --  peanut butter hands, tear-stained face and all -- in favor of some idealized image which can never be real, always holding ourselves back from really loving. (Because how can you love while you're judging?)  We think once we lose weight, our child gets through this phase, and our spouse gets a raise, our real life will start.  But as John Lennon once said, Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

So if you're trying to be a perfect parent and raise perfect kids, imagine going through childhood with a mother who thinks you aren't good enough.

Ready to renounce perfection?  Remind yourself, like a mantra: "I are more than enough, just the way I am."

When your child (shockingly!) turns out not to be perfect, say "That's ok, honey. You don't have to be perfect. Nobody's perfect, not even grownups. You are more than enough, just the way you are. You are such a gift to me, and to the world, just the way you are, and I love you so much, no matter what."

You might find that in the midst of imperfection, life feels a whole lot more perfect.