Parenting Blog

Most human beings function best with structure.  True, many of us love to break rules, and sometimes that is the basis of creativity.  But that works when WE decide what rules to break.  If we feel besieged on all sides by the unexpected or if our basic needs for security aren’t met, we contract with anxiety, making creativity impossible.

Toddlers and preschoolers, especially, feel small in the world.  Most things happen TO them.  They crave predictability, knowing what will happen, because it gives them some sense of control.  A predictable routine allows children to feel safe, and to develop a sense of mastery in handling their lives. Kids who understand the routine, rather than feeling pushed around by what seems like arbitrary circumstance, are more likely to cooperate.  Kids also need plenty of opportunity to make their own decisions and choices within certain windows of that schedule.

A mom from San Antonio, Kelly Robinson, wrote to me that she has developed an "Activity clock" that shows the events of the day for young children. 

I don't generally endorse products, but Kelly's clock looks like a terrific way to give toddlers the security of knowing "what happens next" in their day.  I think having a plan for the day can also be important for moms.

I wish Kelly much success with her fantastic product, but you don't have to buy it to implement this idea.  Just set up a "clock" with the daily routine (wake up, potty, dress, breakfast, errands, snack, play, lunch, nap etc).  Leave some of your pieces movable by using tape instead of glue, in case you need to exchange "errands" for "Visit Grandma."  You can even buy a magnetized bulletin board and glue photos of your child doing these activities to magnets. 

The convenience of Kelly's clock, of course, is that it comes with all these activities already set up on magnets.  She'll even personalize it for you with your child's name and photos. 

Kelly also has a great article on the Value of Routines for kids,  which echoes many of the points I make in my article Why Kids Need Routines and Structure.  Well worth checking out if you have young kids.

Guest Blog by Anne R. Pierce
Author of Ships without a Shore: America's Undernurtured Children

Listen to Anne R. Pierce live on Dr. Laura Markham's radio show!

Wednesday March 25
MyExpertSolution.com
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The Demise of Childhood

Childhood in America is nearly lost. In fast-paced, competitively charged modern-America, there is unyielding pressure upon children of a younger and younger age.

Today, young children expend their energy on long days in group situations, on preschool activities and after-school programs, on team sports and music and athletic lessons. Steeped in an intellectual permissiveness, which allows us to believe something is true because our modern outlook tells us that it should be, we have convinced ourselves of these suppositions: that parental substitutes are as good as parents themselves at “caring for” children, that more lessons and sports are better than less and that the earlier children embark upon them the better, and that childhood innocence is less important than the development of worldly attitudes and competitive skills.

There is a definite sense that, if everyone else is increasing their step, we had better increase our step too, never mind the why.  We have become unsympathetic to exhaustion, vexation, and demoralization, seeing them as necessary corollaries to achievement -whether it’s the parent’s achievement or the child’s.

“They’ll get over it” we are told when babies in full-time institutional day care show signs of stress, fatigue and detachment. ”Come on you can do it” parents shout as children “try again” to achieve the perfect pitch of the ball, the perfect ballet pose, the perfect runner’s mile, the perfect musical performance.

Thus, we are taken by surprise when success strategies backfire; when, instead of gaining momentum, children lose energy, motivation and enthusiasm. But, this end result simply makes sense. For, when we emphasize outward displays of accomplishment over children’s actual moral and intellectual advancement, children inevitably feel a void.

Moreover, when we fill their lives with every opportunity except relaxed parent-child interaction, it is less likely that they will thrive.

It is sad to think of young children with little time at home and little time to play. They are missing the multifarious opportunities that homelife and play provides: for relaxing, imagining, exploring, creating, interacting, relating, role-playing, learning and just having fun. Our busy lives allow too little time to question whether all this busyness is necessary or whether the content that fills our children’s lives is good.

The possibility that children might find their activities less rather than more desirable when they are older because these activities were forced upon them at an inappropriately young age is not addressed.  The possibility that they will never find their own passionate interests because they spent so much time in structured situations does not enter in. The possibility that having a competitive edge might not be as important as leading a virtuous, intelligently thought out life is not addressed nor is the fact that one needs a certain amount of time to be a thinker; a certain amount of freedom to be creative.

Teaching children to be tough and prepared for the world, achieving doers instead of capable thinkers, has its consequences.  Children’s innate curiosity is intense. When that curiosity has no room to fulfill itself, it burns out like a smothered flame.

"The key to communication is not what we say, but rather the attitude that lies behind what we say... all of us are telepathically communicating all the time.  Every moment, we are choosing to join or to separate, and the person to whom we're speaking feels what we have chosen regardless of our words." -- Marianne Williamson

Your child may not know what words are going through your mind, but he or she feels your intention. Are you on his side? Are you so enraged that anything she says will make it worse?  Are you willing to see things from another perspective? Are you looking for a win-win solution or do you need to be right (which by definition means someone else has to be wrong)?

Once your child feels you're on his side, rather than out to attack him, everything can shift. If you get clear on your positive intention before you open your mouth, you can make miracles happen.

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

“You cannot simultaneously feel bad about what you have done and focus on what you must do differently.”

— Becky Bailey

"Our wounds can become our source of power." -- Gail Larsen

Yesterday when you thought about forgiveness, did you notice who's the hardest person to forgive?

Yes, ourselves.  Parents, being human, are never perfect.  And children have an unerring ability to trigger us, expose our wounded places, draw out our unreasonable fears and angers.

The good news is that it's never too late to improve things with our kids.  Even better, we can use these triggering interactions to heal ourselves and our relationship with our child.  Like our own live-in zen master or therapist, our children give us the perfect opportunity to grow. 

Next time your child pushes your buttons, consider this:  Maybe this upset has little to do with your child, and lots to do with you.  Proceed accordingly. 

Almost magically, as we bless our wounds with compassion, we find that these hurt places inform us, motivate us, make us better parents.  So forgive yourself for your past mistakes. Thank your child for pushing your buttons.  And move on together into a better future.

“Not forgiving someone is like drinking rat poison and expecting the rats to die.” -- Annie Lamont

It’s easy to stay angry.  They deserve it, after all.  We’re right.

And even if we want to forgive, most of us find it so difficult.  The minute we begin, that wounded child inside us screams in pain.  To fend off the pain, we stay angry.

But hanging onto that anger is bad for us.  Really bad, as in, it can kill us.  And bad for our children, too.  That anger changes the way you relate to your child, even when you don’t know it.  It keeps you from being the parent your child deserves.

So how can you forgive and move on?  It isn’t about whoever wronged you.  It’s about being willing to feel the pain of what you suffered.  To cry through it and comfort yourself.  Once you offer yourself that healing, you won’t need to hang onto the anger.  Or the rat poison.

“Healing comes when we meet our wounded places with compassion."  -- Stephen Levine