My favourite advice columnist was asked about how to raise kids so they don’t end up being the type of parent that gets written about in an advice column. Even though she doesn’t have kids of her own and doesn’t plan to, I think her advice was spot on. It made me want to offer my two cents, especially since this is something I was just talking to my daughter about.
Although the Captain alluded to this in her advice, 99% of parenting is dealing with your own shit. When your kid cries (and there will be a lot of crying), it will trigger your shit. When your kid gets angry, or doesn’t listen, or does something bad, pretty much when your kid does anything, it will trigger your shit. You won’t be able to gently shepherd your kid through whatever it is they’re going through if you can’t process your own shit. You will let your fear turn into anger, and your anger will cause you to focus on making your kid do whatever it is you want them to do, and as the good captain said, kids are people. You can’t make anyone do anything.
Case in point, toddlers throw tantrums all the time. They are as natural as pooping, and it helps to think of them that way, because too much and too little are bad. If a tantrum triggers you, you will do whatever you can to avoid them. Either on the authoritarian end, punishing them for their tantrums, or on the permissive end, giving in, coddling them, making sure nothing ever upsets them. Both of these things are damaging for the same reason: they teach their kids that negative emotions are to be feared.
The reason negative emotions are scary is because we worry that we will get carried away by them. It’s that much scarier for our children who don’t have the experience to know that losing it doesn’t mean losing themselves. This article popped up in my Facebook memories this week and I’m grateful to my past self for sharing it so that it could be remembered. The tl;dr that I got out of it is that we are a tether for our children. I imagine an astronaut tethered to the space station so they can go safely explore, and if things get dangerous they can be pulled back to safety.
How does one be a tether for their child? What I have found helpful when my kids are having big feelings is to first sit beside them and regulate myself. I take a deep breath and I imagine a big open field with a big blue sky. There is so much space for these feelings. And that’s all we have to do in this moment: make space for the feelings. I look over at my child, in a turbulent sea with a storm swirling around them, almost drowning, and I imagine myself throwing them a life preserver. Sometimes they won’t be ready to be saved but the life preserver is there when they’re ready. I don’t need to be afraid because all storms pass eventually. They may not know it because they haven’t weathered as many storms as I have, but I can believe it for the both of us. I don’t have to do anything but wait for the storm to pass. This has worked since my kids were newborns, and as I enter the teenage years, it’s still useful.
As I moved from the “baby who’s cool as long as their basic needs are being met” phase and moved into the “I just learned that I am a separate person and I can say no” phase I knew I needed help. As someone who was raised by Dr. Dobson’s methods, I wanted to seek a new way to parent my kids. Thankfully there are lots of other experts out there. Janet Lansbury is one of my faves; I recommend her books. I love her because she believes in boundaries for both parents and kids, and that gentle parenting means parenting with gentle strength. I have always aspired to her ideal of the “unruffled” parent, one who aptly handles (as the Captain astutely describes) “instances where you zip an irate being who is screaming, suddenly unbendable, and somehow increasing exponentially in mass into a little snowsuit and strap them into a car seat against their will because you gotta be somewhere.”
Find your parenting gurus, ones who encourage and inspire, not ones who make you feel judged. And remember that they are giving you stars to guide yourself by. I don’t know who said it, but “shoot for the moon, for even if you miss you will land among the stars.” You won’t always be a perfect parent, but you don’t have a perfect kid either. And since we don’t have perfect kids, it’s better that we aren’t perfect parents, so we can be a good example about how to live in this world as imperfect beings. As the Captain said, apologies go a long way.
The Captain’s advice about curiosity is also spot on. I will add one other thing to be curious about. What if there are no bad kids? What if you approached every problem with the certainty that your kid is doing their best? What if your child is not giving you a hard time, but having a hard time? How would you approach the problem differently? I have seen it repeated many times that children who most need our love ask for it in the most unloving ways. It’s easy to throw a life preserver to someone who is drowning. It’s a lot harder to do when someone is being an asshole. The better you are connected to your child, the easier it will be to see the drowning child behind the asshole mask.
Connect before you correct. Sometimes if you do that the problem will solve itself. Sometimes it requires a conversation later to talk about how it’s ok to have big emotions, but the way you’re going about expressing them is a problem. Getting curious will help you find that balance between dictator and doormat. But always, always wait until the storm has passed. Although I have heard that the “lizard brain” concept is not accurate, I think it’s a helpful analogy. When we are mired in emotion it is much harder to access our logical side. That means that even if someone knows better, they may not be able to act better. This is as helpful to remember for ourselves as well as for our kids. It’s why we yell when we know it isn’t helpful and why our kids hit when they know they’re not supposed to. If we have trouble regulating ourselves from time to time, how can we expect better from our kids?
The rest, as they say, is just details. When you find yourself asking “how to I get my child to…” (eat, sleep, and poop are the biggest concerns in the early years), rephrase the question to “how do I get my spouse to…” The answer is you can’t. All you can do is forge a relationship with that person and hope that they see your influence as beneficial. The difficulty is that you won’t be able to see that influence for a number of years, all the while worrying whether or not you’re doing a good job. And they’ll be a lot of points where you might be inclined to believe that you are not. But having made it to the other side of the tantrum/difficult behaviour years, I’m feeling pretty good about how everything has turned out. As my children have grown and matured, so has their ability to regulate themselves. I have great kids! And having successfully made it through, I feel more confident for the next turbulent age - the teenage years.
I’m really sorry the letter writer had such a crappy childhood. He didn’t deserve that and I get that feeling of wanting to do things differently but not knowing if you are capable of it. While it can be tremendously difficult I can say that it is possible. It’s a wild ride with lots of ups and downs but it’s one that I’m happy to be on. Bon courage!
