No one cares more about your kids than you do, but I'm guessing most days at 11 pm, no one could treat them worse. It's just a fact that we give all day at work or school, holding it together when people step on our toes and cut us off in traffic, and at the end of the day, we're tired and we let it all hang out, knowing our families will forgive us.
I was over at a friend's once and washed a few dishes. When she went to make supper, she opened the cupboard, pulled out a pan, and said, "Okay, who didn't get this clean?" I whispered, "I wasn't sure how hard to scrub. I didn't want to scratch the no-stick coating." The friend apologized, saying she thought it was her kids who'd done it. But if we don't want to talk to our friends that way, why do we find it so easy to use that tone with our children?
I'm guilty. Let's say my child has a play date, and the friend spills chocolate milk, just like my son did that morning. Which child heard me say, "It's okay, sweetie. Accidents happen," and which one got "Not again! I just shampooed the carpet last week!"? That's right: the kid I don't even know gets understanding and the one I'd die for gets guilt-blasted. Why do we do that?
Here are are few possible explanations:
1. Nobody heard me yelling at Junior, but I know for a fact that the playmate's mommy is about to get a play-by-play of everything from the moistness of my baking to the humungousness of the bra I left drying on the towel bar.
2. Nancy Nextdoor has never spilled (or vomited or coloured or made lotion potions) on my carpet before, so this incident cannot invoke years of painful memories...
3. ...Nor will she spill there again every week for the next eleven years.
4. And, if she grows up to dump chocolate milk in the White House parlor or down Shania's dress, I'm not the pathetic mother crying on ET Canada about it, while Ben Mulroney shakes his head in national embarrassment.
If the problem is that 1. no one is holding me accountable, 2. I'm holding onto resentment from the past and fear of the future, it helps me stay calm and use my "nice mommy" voice if I remember that a) I am being watched and b) that this is the moment that matters.
So sometimes, when I'm feeling tired and overwhelming and afraid of the next poisonous thing that's going to come out of my mouth, I image these grouchy, hyperactive darlings aren't my children. I pretend I'm going to send them home to their real mommies, and all I need to do is get through the next hour and make sure I use that time to show them how much God loves them because it may be my only chance.
I tell myself that nothing I do is secret because chances are, if I lose it on a regular basis, my children will tell someone: if not their teachers tomorrow, then their therapists in college. And as the song goes, "there's a Father up above who is looking down in love."
...which reminds me - they really aren't my children after all: God's just sent them over for an extended play date. He loves them even more than I do, and amazingly, he trusts me to devote myself to them like they're my own, and treat them like they're His.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
No-I'm-not-on-crack parenting advice Part 1: What that kid needs is a good massage and more television
This is the parenting advice you won't hear from your mother, the granny in the checkout line, or the guy behind you at church.
Instinct says, "When they're bad, make them miserable so they'll think twice next time." At the first sign of noncompliance or disrespect, we take away TV, send him to his room, and pile on the chores. How's that been working for you?
If you've got a kid with the skills to self-regulate: to control impulses, manage disappointment, and express frustration in words, a little pain can lead to gain. But if you've got children anywhere on the spectrum, chances are, they couldn't meet your expectations in the first place, and now you've just made it worse by overloading them when they're down and taking away all the things that could calm them. Typical children need the consequences and rewards to motivate them; for a child missing skills, all the consistent consequences in the world will only make it worse. Way worse.
By all means, when Jakie or Judy starts throwing knives or refusing to do her homework, give 'em a time out. But not the "I hold the door shut while you scream and you can't come out till you're nice" kind, though (I wish I'd never met the psychologist who made us do that for weeks.) This is not the time to make them submit to your all-powerfulness; this is a time to model relaxation. You can't teach flexibility by being inflexible. "Your actions are telling me you need some time to calm down; would you like an exercise ball rolled on your back or should I read you some Hobbit?" might sound like rewarding the bad behaviour, but it's not about rewards or behaviour - it's about teaching your child the skills to cope.
On a recent playdate-gone-bad, my daughter was excited to see her old classmate, but almost immediately announced "It was more fun before you came" and proceeded to play computer games without her. The school psychologist reminded me that my daughter's rudeness was the only way she knew how to cope with the unmet expectations: her friend had matured and was more into gossiping about movie stars than pretending to be puppies. My husband calmed her down and helped them choose a movie they both liked. A nine-year-old on the spectrum is not ready to manage disappointment gracefully. If we'd focused on her behaviour, we'd have missed the point.
When your spouse or client drives you crazy, you take a walk or grab a coffee. You're not rewarding yourself for wanting to throw them out the window; you're doing what you need to do so you don't want to do it anymore. When life drives your kid crazy (and a lot of things will), he needs you to teach her the same thing.
As you turn the TV on for your screaming toddler, or hand your grounded teen a phone to call a friend, or offer your daughter a foot rub after she called you "idiot," don't expect your mother to stand up and applaud. But don't for a minute think you're being a pushover parent.
You're being an effective one.
Instinct says, "When they're bad, make them miserable so they'll think twice next time." At the first sign of noncompliance or disrespect, we take away TV, send him to his room, and pile on the chores. How's that been working for you?
If you've got a kid with the skills to self-regulate: to control impulses, manage disappointment, and express frustration in words, a little pain can lead to gain. But if you've got children anywhere on the spectrum, chances are, they couldn't meet your expectations in the first place, and now you've just made it worse by overloading them when they're down and taking away all the things that could calm them. Typical children need the consequences and rewards to motivate them; for a child missing skills, all the consistent consequences in the world will only make it worse. Way worse.
By all means, when Jakie or Judy starts throwing knives or refusing to do her homework, give 'em a time out. But not the "I hold the door shut while you scream and you can't come out till you're nice" kind, though (I wish I'd never met the psychologist who made us do that for weeks.) This is not the time to make them submit to your all-powerfulness; this is a time to model relaxation. You can't teach flexibility by being inflexible. "Your actions are telling me you need some time to calm down; would you like an exercise ball rolled on your back or should I read you some Hobbit?" might sound like rewarding the bad behaviour, but it's not about rewards or behaviour - it's about teaching your child the skills to cope.
On a recent playdate-gone-bad, my daughter was excited to see her old classmate, but almost immediately announced "It was more fun before you came" and proceeded to play computer games without her. The school psychologist reminded me that my daughter's rudeness was the only way she knew how to cope with the unmet expectations: her friend had matured and was more into gossiping about movie stars than pretending to be puppies. My husband calmed her down and helped them choose a movie they both liked. A nine-year-old on the spectrum is not ready to manage disappointment gracefully. If we'd focused on her behaviour, we'd have missed the point.
When your spouse or client drives you crazy, you take a walk or grab a coffee. You're not rewarding yourself for wanting to throw them out the window; you're doing what you need to do so you don't want to do it anymore. When life drives your kid crazy (and a lot of things will), he needs you to teach her the same thing.
As you turn the TV on for your screaming toddler, or hand your grounded teen a phone to call a friend, or offer your daughter a foot rub after she called you "idiot," don't expect your mother to stand up and applaud. But don't for a minute think you're being a pushover parent.
You're being an effective one.
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