Relationship

I keep thinking about how your relationship with your child is fundamental to your parenting. I keep thinking I'd like to stop parenting with power, and instead from a relationship perspective. And then I keep thinking that in general, people suck at relationships.

There's this expectation out there that being in a relationship means that someone will not only know your every need but be able to meet them. It fuels our romantic fantasies, spurs us to think that our parents were bad at their job because they were not able to do this, and sets the bar really high for us as parents as we struggle to know our child's needs and to meet them even when we really would rather not. Anyone who's ever held a crying baby and freaked out because you didn't know what it was they needed after trying a plethora of things knows what I'm talking about.

Being in a relationship (and this includes being in a relationship with one's self) doesn't always mean knowing what someone needs. We're not mind readers. Even with lots of experience being around someone, needs change, people change, what was needed 10 years ago is not what is needed now.

And further, even if we could know exactly what someone needs, it's not always possible to meet that need. Sometimes it's too expensive or not safe. Sometimes we're too busy, or too tired or we just don't feel up to it. And that's OK too. Saying no to meeting someone's need for whatever reason is just good boundaries. It helps us know that we are a separate person from them, that we don't exist just to meet their needs.

Being in a relationship is about responsiveness. It's about, instead of invalidating a person's need when you can't meet it, acknowledging that they have a need. It's about when they zig and you zag, you acknowledge that there was something out of sync. It's about apologizing for when you hurt the other person, even if it was inadvertent. It's a back and forth thing.

I think there's a lot to be learned about how relationship theory as it applies to couples can be applied to parenting. But I also think that if we are to look at our relationships we need to acknowledge the ways in which our thinking about that is deficient as well.

Connection-based Parenting

Much of what I read in the Positive Parenting world is about connecting with our kids. Rather than give advice about how to "get" our kids to do things, advocates of this parenting style are trying to ask a better question: how can I do a better job of connecting with my kids? They realize, of course, that while short-term they can punish and/or reward their kids to manipulate them into doing what they want, but they also know that in the long term the cost to the relationship is too high (not to mention that nobody wants to raise a child to be an adult who is obedient and easily manipulated).

I just started reading Brené Brown's book "Braving the Wilderness." The entire premise of the book is that we are a connection-driven species. According to her research, loneliness increases our odds of dying by 45 percent. One passage stuck out at me as I was reading:

"When we feel isolated, disconnected and lonely, we try to protect ourselves. In that mode, we want to connect, but our brain is attempting to override connection with self-protection. That means less empathy and more defensiveness..."

Oftentimes, in my hurry to get things done (because it's getting late and we have to get to school or get to bed or get somewhere) I try to control and manipulate my kids to get what I want. I'm often surprised when it all blows up in my face, although I shouldn't be. If my children become disconnected from me, they have no choice but to go into self-protection mode. The only thing that matters in self-protection mode is them, not getting somewhere on time. Clearly, if I started with connection first, I would have a much greater chance of gaining their cooperation.

Source

Connecting with my kids to gain their cooperation requires a whole new mindset. As Nathan McTague points out on his blog:

"We’ve got to quit our addiction to Behaviorism.

It should be pointed out, for those of you who’ve never heard the story, that Behaviorism — a pseudoscience based on the notion that human behavior is a malleable commodity to be controlled and harvested for economic advantage — was designed to make subjects do whatever they were told. Not simply to do what was preferable, or intelligent, or kind, but anything that was commanded and associated with reward and/or punishment."

It would be all too easy to tout connection as the latest parenting trick to "get" your child to do what you want. The bigger picture, however, is that as a connection-driven species, we need to work harder to make sure that the most vulnerable among us does not lack connection. I think Nathan McTague says it best:

"When it comes to raising our children — we want them to know, and understand, and feel it in their bones, that we love, and value, and cherish them for no other reason than that they are."

For Further Thought:

1) Have you noticed your own feelings of connection/disconnection?

2) Have you noticed patterns of connection/disconnection in your family?

3) What gets in the way of establishing connection in your family?


For Further Reading:

1) Alfie Kohn at NYT:  When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do as I Say’

2) Visible Child: Finding the Right Question

3) Creative Child: Connection-Based Discipline

Board Games for (Very Little) Kids

If you grew up playing Monopoly and loved (or hated) it, if you're tired of playing the same game over and over again, or if you're looking for a fun family activity, this is the post for you. The difficulty with having a family game night is finding games for everyone, especially if you have kids younger than 5. Since we are avid board gamers, my husband was anxious to introduce our daughter to the world of board games early on. Luckily, there were a number of games made for very young children that we all enjoy playing together. 

Many great games come from Germany, but have distribution all around the world and instructions written in a few languages. If you can't find it in a store near you that carries them, there are a lot of online retailers (including Amazon) that do. My husband's favourite places to order from are Board Game Bliss and Great Boardgames. Haba is one German company that makes a lot of great games for children, especially very young children. 

Orchard

Orchard was one of the first games our daughter learned to play, and we recently introduced it to our two year old son. Our 5 year old daughter was happy to play with us. If your child knows their colours and can follow basic instructions, they are old enough to play this game. It's also a good beginning came because it's cooperative: everyone wins (or loses) together. The game includes a board, a die, fruit pieces in four colours and shapes (red cherries, blue plums, green apples and yellow pears), 4 baskets and a puzzle board with 9 puzzle pieces.

In Orchard, the objective is to get all the fruit off the board before the crow puzzle is finished. The die has six sides: one for each colour of fruit, as well as a basket and a crow. If you roll one of the colours, you take a fruit of the same colour and put it in a basket. If you roll a basket, you get to take two pieces of fruit. If you roll a crow, you take a crow piece and put it in the puzzle board. Everyone takes a turn rolling the die and removing the fruit or building the crow puzzle depending on what they roll. Once all the fruit pieces are gone, you win! If the crow puzzle is completed before the fruit is gone, you lose. 

Animal Upon Animal

My Very First Animal Upon Animal (there are a few versions of the game, this is the one for toddlers) was one of our daughter's favourites at this age, but our son enjoys knocking the animals over more than trying not to knock it over so it was not a success for him. The nice thing about it is that there are a variety of ways to play, so you can play cooperatively or against one another. The game comes with a die, some animal blocks, some tokens and some boards. The object of the cooperative game is to build your towers before the rabbit gets to the end of his path. You place the two boards (clover and flower) beside each other, and make a path using the tokens. The die has suns, clovers and flowers on the sides. Every time you roll a sun, the rabbit moves to the next token. Every time you roll a flower or a clover, you put an animal of your choice on that board. If there's already an animal there, you have to stack it. Be careful! Don't knock the animals over or you will have to start again. If you can get all the animals stacked up before the rabbit gets to the end of the tokens, you win. 

Monza

Our son adores this game, even though he's not really old enough to play it. Our daughter has been able to play it since she was about 4, with help. The object of the game is to be the first one to go around the board. The game comes with 6 different coloured cars, 6 dice with different colours on them, and a board.

Monza Board

The board has a few different tracks, each segmented into different blocks of colour. When it's your turn, you roll all the dice, and move your car along using the colours of the dice to determine which blocks you can go on (they must be adjacent). From the start, if you rolled blue, yellow, green, red, white, purple, you would be able to move all the way to the purple block on the first curve. However, if you didn't roll a white or a blue, you wouldn't be able to advance at all. The first one to make it all the way around the board wins! The nice thing about this game is that although there is some strategy involved, it is mostly luck as to which colours you will roll so it evens the playing field. Even though our son isn't old enough to play it, he likes to play with the cars and will most certainly enjoy playing the game later on. Our daughter still loves it at age 5.

Linus the Little Magician

Another great game company is Drei Magier. One of the games our son really likes right now is Linus the Little Magician.Our daughter still likes this one as well. The object of the game is to get the most tokens. The game comes with 6 different types of circular tokens (some are magnetic and some not) and matching square cardboard cards, as well as a little (magnetic) magician block. On your turn, you turn over a card and use the magician to try to pick up the matching token. If he can pick it up, you keep it. If he can't pick it up, the card goes into the box. Once all the cards are gone, you count how many tokens you have and whomever has the most is the winner. This game is a little like memory, because you have to remember which tokens someone has tried that are not magnetic. You can adjust the difficulty of the game by arranging all the similar tokens together or by giving more than one try to the youngest. If I play with just our son, we both clap when all the cards are gone (he doesn't understand the concept of winning just yet).

If you're interested in board games, my husband highly recommends The Dice Tower. Tom Vasel talks about the games in a lot of detail and since he also has children, he reviews children's games fairly frequently. I will follow this post up with at least two more posts detailing games for (little) kids (age 3-4) and games for kids (age 5+).

For Further Thought:

1) What family activities do you enjoy with your kids?
2) What memories of playing games as a kid do you have?
3) What obstacles might be in your way to starting a family game night? How might you solve them?