Think of interactions you have been in with people. How often do you put your own needs after meeting the needs of another person? How often do you try to do this with your child, but are told that it spoils them?
Our babies are born with the expectation that their needs will be met and when we meet them, we start to teach them trust. Once they learn to trust us they will learn to communicate their needs effectively. As a newborn, this will be hand sucking, rooting etc.. If we meet those needs, prior to them becoming upset, they learn HUGE lessons. Empathy. Trust. Communication.
One really powerful point in Attached at the Heart, was an awesome quote that includes:
"I want to understand how you feel....
We're in this together...
I see myself in you...
I am not afraid of your feelings...
I accept you in all of your expressions...
I do not reject you when you are not reflecting back what I wish or need."
(Parker and Hanessian)
(Parker and Hanessian)
That is what did it for me:
 |
| From Attached at The Heart |
Once you think about it being personal for them you remove your judgment. How many times was something a big deal for you? It made you legitimately sad/mad/frustrated and you needed someone else to work you through it...or you needed time to think about it and come to a certain conclusion? Why wouldn't life be the same for a child? We realize that dropping a toy, having something break or not being able to turn a toy on is not life altering, but by being empathetic, we can see why it might be for our children...that's the point!! Seeing it from their side and treating them as such...not saying "get over it", "relax it's not a big deal" etc..think of someone saying that to you over your big deal...it makes you more upset! Giving your child the words that he or she may need to get through it helps tremendously. "I am mad", "I am upset", "I am frustrated with this toy!" "Why won't it go on!" helps your child learn how to express their feelings, but most importantly, that you accept them in their emotion...that's what they truly need!
Our children need us the most when they are experiencing something confusing or different. This isn't to say that we give in to their needs, it's that we see it from their perspective and respond accordingly. Remember, it's the perception that drives our interactions from "don't be silly" to "I see why this is making you upset...let me help you with these feelings." Totally different reaction~
This is why nighttime needs are equally important as daytime needs. Think of a world that is dark, lonely and confusing. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and found that you couldn't go back to sleep? You were able to grab a book, turn on the TV or find another way to fall back asleep. Our children need us! We will get into sleep and behaviors when we examine the AP principle for safe sleep. For now, we will only briefly talk about it as a means of being responsive to your child's needs. Imagine a relationship that wouldn't be there for you between the hours of 9pm and 6am, but you really needed that person because you weren't able to take care of yourself. Scary right! New research has found that crying it out is damaging to an infant's brain.
It's not just about responding to their needs, it's also about being available, being warm, being calm and interactive. This is not as easy as it used to be when you have Facebook, emails, text messaging, etc.. readily accessible and it's something we are all guilty of doing. The important thing is to find that balance. Put it down. Try to wait until the baby is napping. Make sure you are providing ample opportunities for interaction and play, especially as your little one makes eye contact with you. As you do this, he or she will learn to chat back and value you as someone that will take care of them, make time for them and respond to their invitation to interact. (This post took me a week to write simply because my girl wasn't napping and she wanted to play...and so did I!)
Research has shown that the facial expressions and voice of a nurturing mother has a direct impact on the developing brain of an infant and directly impacts the first 3 years of life!
Teaching empathy in your children is crucial for them to learn how to make decisions that will not hurt themselves or others AND will keep them away from making decisions based on peer pressure. Gordon Neufield has an amazing book, Hold on To Your Kids, that examines this very phenomena.
Attachment theory is driven by the notion that a baby will learn by the way he or she is treated. When they need you, you respond. Your response to that need will start to create an understanding and your child will start to learn from you and your response to them. That is, if your response is anger when they feel frustrated they will learn to cope with anger...if your response is understanding, then they will learn how to cope with understanding.
Let's look at this example:
A thunderstorm rolls in and is loud. Lightening is striking, wind is picking up and you are starting to worry about the lights going out. You look over and your toddler is looking out of the window, pointing and looking at you. What is she doing? She is trying to learn and figure out if she is ok and how she should handle this situation. Lightening strikes and you scream, your toddler will be following suite. If you try to calm down and talk to her about what she is seeing, she will be calm, she may want to be picked up and held...this closeness will help her feel safe, your words and tone of voice will teach her.
Another one?
You are tired and worked all day long. You pick your child up from daycare and rush to the food store to get food for dinner. Your child is grabbing food items off of the shelves and you put him in the cart swiftly while you continue shopping...maybe answering a few texts while you wait in line. Your child pitches a "fit". Crying, yelling, throwing something in his hand. Your reaction? You can meet him with your immediate emotional response of frustration, often saying something like "stop it right now or we are leaving", yet you can think about his perspective. Empathy. He missed you all day. When you picked him up he was hoping to go home and play a game with you, but you were in a hurry. He wanted to interact with you but you were busy in the store, distracted and distant. He is hungry and bored. Your understanding of how he feels can drive your reaction. So you can meet him there. "I know you are tired and want to go home. You feel frustrated....". You aren't giving him candy to keep him quiet, your showing him that you are almost done, maybe coming up with a game to help keep him involved -> "You want to go home? Ok, let's get all of these things on the belt so we can get going!".
Check out 20 ways to cope with toddler tantrums for some helpful ideas with tantrums.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2) The other notion that needs to be erased from memory is this notion of "spoiling". You cannot spoil a child with love and attention. You can spoil a child with material things, with inappropriate responses with trying to appease a tantrum.
There is a cultural fear of a child being too spoiled, meaning that he will be clingy or will need you too much. Clingy is a behavior that a child uses in order to express a need for closeness to you. If a child is provided with ample opportunities for closeness, they will not have the need to cling to you. However, there are developmentally appropriate times that a child should look to you for physical comfort. Perhaps your child is sick. Maybe you are in an unfamiliar place, it's loud or very crowded and your child feels overwhelmed. The fact that your child needs you too much is true! Your child does need you! Their emotional regulating systems are not mature until they are older and some sources say this only begins to develop around 2 years and continues developing until the 6th year.
Bottom line, hold your children. Hold them when they are happy, sad, mad, frustrated, hurt...hold them when they come to you...whenever they come to you. Recognize that they are coming to YOU!
3) While on the topic of "spoiling" and "self soothing"...my last pet peeve word is the word "fussy". This word rubs me the wrong way! It implies something negative or something is wrong. It immediately makes you view the baby as being a "high needs" baby. There are "high needs" babies, they are all high needs in their own way, but a baby that needs more attention should get just that...more attention. More love, more snuggling. Colic, reflux, these are very stressful and very trying for parents, imagine how the baby feels? They came from a perfectly regulated and consistent environment as far as sound, light, temperature, touch, with constant nutrition. They entered a very different world and our babies need time to figure it out.
Think of the message you send when you do not respond to your child's needs, especially when they need you the most! If you have a child that has exceptionally high needs and you are feeling overwhelmed, please seek help from your family or friends. Those are real emotions you are feeling and you must pay close attention to them!
4) In the meantime, while you are continuing to be empathetic, check out Dr. Markham's post about helping your child WANT to cooperate by setting limits.
Punishment, shaming, spanking, time-outs are all methods of disciplining a child negatively with the hope that you can make the child act or behave during adult-preferred activities. This usually doesn't last long and often requires frequent punishments, threats and consequences. Relationships do not thrive in this manner. They can't. The decisions that a child should make should be for that of himself and should be driven by himself. Check out this article on parenting for peace using nonviolent communication for more ideas!
One great idea was the concept of the time-in. You recognize that your child is struggling and you gently guide them towards a more positive goal. Your child continues to struggle and you call a time-in or a meeting on the couch. "I can see you are having a hard time. Let's go meet on the couch and talk". Sitting on the couch together or calling a time-in ensures physical contact and sends the message that you are going to help your child sort through some tough and confusing emotions. Here is API's improved timeout as a positive strategy. You can start to see the difference in your language and approach and how it impacts your child's ability to handle their emotions.
5) The parenting practice of pressuring your child bothers me to my core. Parents, in their best efforts, resort to pressuring their child to comply. Just a word of caution with this style of parenting that uses bribes, incentives and pressure...think about what you are teaching your child. Think about the ways your child is learning to set aside their independent feelings and feeling compelled to fulfill your needs for some sort of incentive. Now think about that skill in high school, with a peer using peer pressure...doesn't make for a very good start. Respect what your child is telling you. Mayim Bialik talks about this at length in her book, Beyond the Sling, and discusses thinking "Why not?" before responding "no". Think about it, most of the time, unless it is a safety issue or a complete no-brainer, we are apt to respond "no" for the inconvenience of it. Why not play with that toy, why not take that out...most of the time it's because we as parents do not want to deal with it, but we need to think about helping our children through it...Maybe setting a limit to a noisy toy or having your child play with it shortly before helping set the table for dinner.
6) Don't just think that skin to skin contact is something that was only necessary for your infant! This will be discussed at length in the next blog post about using a nurturing touch. Kind physical contact during a tantrum or when your child is upset is what they need. Don't leave them alone when these feelings are strong, they need you to learn how to cope.
7) Teach emotions. Use language that covers a variety of feelings and don't stick with the "mad, sad, happy". The more you teach a feeling word in the moment, the more those feelings will make sense. Encourage your child to tell you "I am frustrated because he won't share!", "I am disappointed that this is broken!" etc...
8) PLAY. Let your kids have unstructured PLAY. Allow them the opportunity to figure things out for themselves. Play with them. This doesn't mean tell them what to do. Let them explore and learn as they play. Allow them to make mistakes. This is HUGE! If you give them the opportunity to make mistakes, obviously not ones that put them in any danger, they will learn how to problem solve, fix it and cope with their emotions. The best way to do it is through play! We live in a very scary world where kids do not have the time or chance to play. Make the time to connect and play together!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Make the time to connect......together...
Research has shown that the facial expressions and voice of a nurturing mother has a direct impact on the developing brain of an infant and directly impacts the first 3 years of life!
Teaching empathy in your children is crucial for them to learn how to make decisions that will not hurt themselves or others AND will keep them away from making decisions based on peer pressure. Gordon Neufield has an amazing book, Hold on To Your Kids, that examines this very phenomena.
So, what do I do?
1) Let's first do away with the idea of "self soothing", as a skill that our child is to learn on their own by being left alone. Strike that from the memory banks and ignore that when you are told by well meaning family members. Infants and babies do not know how to self soothe. They are born totally and completely dependent on you. Dr. David Sack writes, "Studies show that children have a greater capacity for empathy when their own emotional needs are met at home" and provides a few examples on teaching and raising your kids to be empathetic, including using words to label feelings, modeling empathyAttachment theory is driven by the notion that a baby will learn by the way he or she is treated. When they need you, you respond. Your response to that need will start to create an understanding and your child will start to learn from you and your response to them. That is, if your response is anger when they feel frustrated they will learn to cope with anger...if your response is understanding, then they will learn how to cope with understanding.
Let's look at this example:
A thunderstorm rolls in and is loud. Lightening is striking, wind is picking up and you are starting to worry about the lights going out. You look over and your toddler is looking out of the window, pointing and looking at you. What is she doing? She is trying to learn and figure out if she is ok and how she should handle this situation. Lightening strikes and you scream, your toddler will be following suite. If you try to calm down and talk to her about what she is seeing, she will be calm, she may want to be picked up and held...this closeness will help her feel safe, your words and tone of voice will teach her.
Another one?
You are tired and worked all day long. You pick your child up from daycare and rush to the food store to get food for dinner. Your child is grabbing food items off of the shelves and you put him in the cart swiftly while you continue shopping...maybe answering a few texts while you wait in line. Your child pitches a "fit". Crying, yelling, throwing something in his hand. Your reaction? You can meet him with your immediate emotional response of frustration, often saying something like "stop it right now or we are leaving", yet you can think about his perspective. Empathy. He missed you all day. When you picked him up he was hoping to go home and play a game with you, but you were in a hurry. He wanted to interact with you but you were busy in the store, distracted and distant. He is hungry and bored. Your understanding of how he feels can drive your reaction. So you can meet him there. "I know you are tired and want to go home. You feel frustrated....". You aren't giving him candy to keep him quiet, your showing him that you are almost done, maybe coming up with a game to help keep him involved -> "You want to go home? Ok, let's get all of these things on the belt so we can get going!".
Check out 20 ways to cope with toddler tantrums for some helpful ideas with tantrums.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2) The other notion that needs to be erased from memory is this notion of "spoiling". You cannot spoil a child with love and attention. You can spoil a child with material things, with inappropriate responses with trying to appease a tantrum.
There is a cultural fear of a child being too spoiled, meaning that he will be clingy or will need you too much. Clingy is a behavior that a child uses in order to express a need for closeness to you. If a child is provided with ample opportunities for closeness, they will not have the need to cling to you. However, there are developmentally appropriate times that a child should look to you for physical comfort. Perhaps your child is sick. Maybe you are in an unfamiliar place, it's loud or very crowded and your child feels overwhelmed. The fact that your child needs you too much is true! Your child does need you! Their emotional regulating systems are not mature until they are older and some sources say this only begins to develop around 2 years and continues developing until the 6th year.
Bottom line, hold your children. Hold them when they are happy, sad, mad, frustrated, hurt...hold them when they come to you...whenever they come to you. Recognize that they are coming to YOU!
3) While on the topic of "spoiling" and "self soothing"...my last pet peeve word is the word "fussy". This word rubs me the wrong way! It implies something negative or something is wrong. It immediately makes you view the baby as being a "high needs" baby. There are "high needs" babies, they are all high needs in their own way, but a baby that needs more attention should get just that...more attention. More love, more snuggling. Colic, reflux, these are very stressful and very trying for parents, imagine how the baby feels? They came from a perfectly regulated and consistent environment as far as sound, light, temperature, touch, with constant nutrition. They entered a very different world and our babies need time to figure it out.
Think of the message you send when you do not respond to your child's needs, especially when they need you the most! If you have a child that has exceptionally high needs and you are feeling overwhelmed, please seek help from your family or friends. Those are real emotions you are feeling and you must pay close attention to them!
4) In the meantime, while you are continuing to be empathetic, check out Dr. Markham's post about helping your child WANT to cooperate by setting limits.
Dr. Markham discusses this idea of a child feeling unconnected to their parent during an act of defiance, this should be signaled as a need for connection not discipline..meaning that when your child directly acts out against you, they are not feeling connected to you...You can choose to drive that connection further away with punishment or try to help sort through some difficult emotions.
Familiarize yourself with the 22 alternatives to punishment and the long-term effects of strict parenting can have.
Do not..spank your child. Don't do it. Violence begets violence. We need to do our part to teach our children how to solve a problem or conflict peacefully, not through any act of violence.
Punishment, shaming, spanking, time-outs are all methods of disciplining a child negatively with the hope that you can make the child act or behave during adult-preferred activities. This usually doesn't last long and often requires frequent punishments, threats and consequences. Relationships do not thrive in this manner. They can't. The decisions that a child should make should be for that of himself and should be driven by himself. Check out this article on parenting for peace using nonviolent communication for more ideas!
One great idea was the concept of the time-in. You recognize that your child is struggling and you gently guide them towards a more positive goal. Your child continues to struggle and you call a time-in or a meeting on the couch. "I can see you are having a hard time. Let's go meet on the couch and talk". Sitting on the couch together or calling a time-in ensures physical contact and sends the message that you are going to help your child sort through some tough and confusing emotions. Here is API's improved timeout as a positive strategy. You can start to see the difference in your language and approach and how it impacts your child's ability to handle their emotions.
5) The parenting practice of pressuring your child bothers me to my core. Parents, in their best efforts, resort to pressuring their child to comply. Just a word of caution with this style of parenting that uses bribes, incentives and pressure...think about what you are teaching your child. Think about the ways your child is learning to set aside their independent feelings and feeling compelled to fulfill your needs for some sort of incentive. Now think about that skill in high school, with a peer using peer pressure...doesn't make for a very good start. Respect what your child is telling you. Mayim Bialik talks about this at length in her book, Beyond the Sling, and discusses thinking "Why not?" before responding "no". Think about it, most of the time, unless it is a safety issue or a complete no-brainer, we are apt to respond "no" for the inconvenience of it. Why not play with that toy, why not take that out...most of the time it's because we as parents do not want to deal with it, but we need to think about helping our children through it...Maybe setting a limit to a noisy toy or having your child play with it shortly before helping set the table for dinner.
6) Don't just think that skin to skin contact is something that was only necessary for your infant! This will be discussed at length in the next blog post about using a nurturing touch. Kind physical contact during a tantrum or when your child is upset is what they need. Don't leave them alone when these feelings are strong, they need you to learn how to cope.
7) Teach emotions. Use language that covers a variety of feelings and don't stick with the "mad, sad, happy". The more you teach a feeling word in the moment, the more those feelings will make sense. Encourage your child to tell you "I am frustrated because he won't share!", "I am disappointed that this is broken!" etc...
8) PLAY. Let your kids have unstructured PLAY. Allow them the opportunity to figure things out for themselves. Play with them. This doesn't mean tell them what to do. Let them explore and learn as they play. Allow them to make mistakes. This is HUGE! If you give them the opportunity to make mistakes, obviously not ones that put them in any danger, they will learn how to problem solve, fix it and cope with their emotions. The best way to do it is through play! We live in a very scary world where kids do not have the time or chance to play. Make the time to connect and play together!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Make the time to connect......together...
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