Saying YES To Feelings and NO To Actions
As a mother and a teacher, I have always questioned myself about how to get the balance right between freedom and setting boundaries with children. I would like to share several occasions that made me ask myself when and how to say YES and NO to children. I stress that this is still a learning process, especially for mothers, since our roles don’t end when we clock off work from the kindergarten. Last year I encountered an eye-opening book which has given me solid tips about how to build good connections with children while guiding them toward becoming (hopefully) happy and healthy grownups.
The first time I questioned myself was whether to pick up my crying baby. I was aware of the old theory that you can spoil your baby by picking him/her up every time she/he cries. My opinion was shaped by the fact that I chose to have my first child in a birth-house, run by midwives. Their mindset was strongly “baby first”. Not picking up my baby was out of the question because my first job as a mother was to train myself to distinguish the various crying sounds. The trick to having a successful rhythm of demand-and-supply when breastfeeding was based on gauging how much a baby wanted.
Looking back, those first three weeks of motherhood was one of the hardest times in my life. I chose to have my next two children in a clinic that promotes natural birth and child-rearing. Here, the midwives again did all the work and doctors were there only as a backup – when you needed medical attention. The midwives offered support when giving birth naturally and with breastfeeding, and they were equally concerned about the wellbeing of the mother, as they were about the baby.
The lesson I took from all three births was that of course you should pick up a crying a baby because it always has a reason to cry; a baby cries because it has no other means to communicate and by answering to its demands you are helping its physical and mental development. At the same time, by always putting the baby first, the mother can get worn out physically and mentally and this can affect her ability to care for the baby. Like many things, I guess we have to find the right balance.
https://babyology.com.au/baby/development/cant-spoil-baby-new-research-says-comfort-crying-babies/
The second time I questioned myself was whether to feed and put my baby to sleep on my schedule, to encourage him to sleep separately from his parents, as recommended by Gina Ford. A friend of mine was successfully trying this method and it crossed my mind to have a go. I was at a disadvantage because I was breastfeeding and I was used to sleeping with my baby – a custom that is often criticized in Western culture. My Irish husband and I decided that for one week, we would try shutting the door behind our six-month old baby after his night-time feed in the hope that he would learn to put himself to sleep. Well, we tormented ourselves listening to his desperate cries for three nights but on our fourth night, we couldn’t take it any more and we took him back into our bed.
What if we religiously read and followed Gina’s words; what if I chose to bottle feed my children and what if we were adamant about having separate bedrooms from our babies? Today, we do have separate bedrooms from our children; our oldest son is turning nine in the Summer and can put himself to sleep on the top bunk bed independently. I still put my four-year-old daughter and two-year-old son to sleep on the bottom bunk bed because this might get me a bit of peace in ‘mommy and daddy’s bed’ if I manage to sneak out of their bedroom in the middle of the night. On most days we wake up to find our youngest son sleeping in between us after sneaking into our bed during the night. We’ll have to wait another few years before we can say that our sleeping arrangement has been successful. The reality is that after over eight years of parenthood we are still figuring it out!
The third time I questioned myself and the most important occasion of all, was when my oldest son was going through his terrible twos. We had to really think hard about how to set boundaries for him. Instinctively, of course, I knew to say NO to any action that might harm him or others. However, since parenthood for me started off being about listening to my child’s voice, the older he got, the more complicated it became to set boundaries. Please don’t get me wrong: I strongly believe that it is necessary and in fact healthy for children to have boundaries especially since sometimes there are dangers around them. I am also lucky in a way to have three children and be a teacher at the same time because it gives me plenty of chance for trial and error! Still, something was bugging me all these years. And then, I came across Dr. Daniel J. Siegel, an interpersonal neurobiologist - thanks to Shelley and the amazing Ohana team who introduced me to his books. All his books are, at least for me, revolutionary and as my title for the article goes, one line from his books No-Drama Discipline had a clear and simple answer to my question: Saying No to the Behavior but Yes to the Child. In other words, as a parent or teacher your job is say to a three-year-old child, “it is okay to feel angry, but it is not okay to pinch your friend.” Now, that sounds simple enough but as we all know, especially with more than one child, the scenario can be a little bit more complicated. In my last part, I wanted to share my own experience with my children when I felt that this method really worked or was working.
One day, like many days, the three children were playing in their room. For the first five minutes, I could hear them playing happily. Then, the youngest, Noah, came shooting out the door in tears asking for comfort while the oldest, Luka was yelling over everyone, claiming that our middle child, Una had pushed Noah on to the floor. After taking Noah on my knees and giving him a big hug and making sure that he didn’t have any serious injuries, I walked in the room where I find Una in the corner, furiously kicking her legs in the air, crying in a complete meltdown. I shut the door behind me, making sure that the other kids would not come in to disturb us. The first thing I did was to put Una on the bed with myself kneeling on the floor, so that I was looking up at her, rather than looking down on her as I started the conversation. This is just one of so many constructive step-by-step strategies explained in his book. Then I simply said, “You seem to be very angry. What’s wrong?”
Usually, Una would kick her legs and express her anger with her whole body. I might hold her legs so that she wouldn’t hurt me and perhaps even practice taking deep breaths with her to help calm her down. Eventually, she opened her mouth and explained that she was angry because she had been excluded from play with Luka and Noah and admitted that out of frustration, she had pushed Noah. After hearing her side of the story, I repeated what she had explained to me, making sure that I understood her. Then I showed empathy by saying, “I can totally understand how you might feel angry and even sad, if you felt left out like that. Anybody would feel that way.” This part does the magic because you are showing that you hear her and that you understand her feelings. Without this process, she could stay defensive and incapable of listening to a rational explanation.
Once she is ready to hear you…
Me: What can you do now to make things better?
Una: I can give Noah a hug.
Me: Next time, you feel the same way, what do you think you can do?
Una: I could use my words.
Me: Yes, you can tell Luka that you don’t like it and if he doesn’t listen to you, you can come to me or daddy for help.
Of course, you have to take into account that each situation is different, and the same tricks will not always work. In Una’s case, being in the middle, she can feel like she is not getting enough attention - hence she often comes up with very unique attention-seeking behavior. Aside from making sure that I have one-on-one time to talk with her at times of misbehavior and sibling conflict, I also try and carve out a few minutes of Una and mommy time.
By the way, I am still constantly thinking about boundaries for my children, and just like I can have good days, there are so many bad days that I have too. It is on these occasions that I find myself lying in my bed feeling terrible and thinking about how I was yelling at my kids all day. I berate myself about being far from a good role model.
The lesson I would like you to take from here is not to feel pressured or stressed out about always trying to be the perfect parent. Rather, accept that even when we do have moments, when we feel like we are being crap parents, we can still find ways to admit that we were wrong and look for better ways to stay connected, while redirecting the children’s behavior in a positive direction.
As Shelley had said to me once before:
As much as the children are learning from us, we too are learning and growing up as parents and teachers.
Recommended books:
The Whole Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
No-Drama Disciple by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson
Brainstorm by Daniel J. Siegel
Photo taken from:
https://www.netclipart.com/isee/iiRbxm_child-talking-to-parent-clipart-kid-psychology/
