Changing My Mindset - April FH Blog Carnival

Welcome to the Fabulous Hybrid Blog Carnival. Our topic this spring is Change! This post was written for inclusion in the quarterly Blog Carnival hosted by The Fabulous Mama Chronicles and Hybrid Rasta Mama. This month our participants reflect on change in all of its many forms. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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Changing My Mindset

The hardest thing for me about becoming a mother has been sifting through my own dusty childhood memories and deciding what I want to re-create in my relationship with my son and what to leave behind. It is a difficult process especially because my parents and I have different beliefs about what a healthy relationship entails, especially within the parent-child domain and I find myself venturing more and more into unknown territory. The way I was raised (and many others of my generation) is not the experience I want for my child and that means I must teach myself to parent, and think very differently about my daily interactions with him and that task is daunting. Especially because of the subtle programming I must not only explore but alter completely in order to parent according to my values.  

My biggest challenge is falling into automatic behaviour when I am emotionally strained myself, repeating hurtful phrases and behaviours from my childhood. As was typical of the time, isolation techniques like time-outs and banishments to my room, the removal of treasured objects and privileges as punishments, as well as lectures and exasperated exclamations were the norm in trying to manipulate behaviour. It was simply the way most parents chose to interact with their children in order to raise them to be good people, however misplaced. But now that I am aware of how damaging that kind of relationship is to a person’s sense of self, I do not want to re-create that with my own family but old habits die hard. I find myself treating my son exactly how my parents treated me growing up and although I know that they loved me, as I know my son knows I love him, it is not appropriate or healthy behaviour on my part because it does not respect him as a thinking/feeling person. The root of the problem, I now realise, is that I have to really change my mindset about parenting in order to reach my goals.

Although I believe on a rational level in a child’s inherent worth and wish to support their emotional development as optimally as I can by responding with compassion and guiding them to appropriate behaviour, I don’t always act in this way. I still have residual beliefs about needing to ‘control’ behaviour to an extent but is mostly due to my own lack of emotional intelligence because I was not taught how to respond appropriately to negative feelings when I was growing up. As I have mentioned before in other posts, in my family negative feelings are most often repressed, a direct example of the side-effect of the parenting approach we were all raised in, and I must now deal with the aftermath of that. Although it has gotten increasingly better after each generation, we still have much personal growth to do to be a psychologically healthy family.

So how can I teach my son about dealing with those often scary feelings in a healthy manner when I am still struggling with this myself? When those feelings come up during my daily interactions with my son, usually when he is feeling emotionally disjointed himself, I automatically become reactive, lashing out and try to immediately cease his behaviour because of the anxiety it causes me, rather than address his underlying need. It reminds me of how my parents reacted to my own emotional outbursts and I can understand why they acted the way they did, but it isn’t how I want to be with my son either. And so it is my responsibility to work on my own personal growth so that I don’t pass those behaviours on and instead model better ways to process those feelings for my son’s benefit.

Dr. Laura at Aha! Parenting has a plethora of great advice on transforming traditional parenting approaches to more supportive and developmentally appropriate parental behaviours and so I have been slowly implementing her guidelines in my family life. Adopting this new way of parenting, of BEING essentially, is challenging but it is a positive change that I know I will reap the benefits from not only in my life but will also influence the lives of my children and future generations. It is definitely worth the effort to tackle, one challenge at a time. 

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 Visit Hybrid Rasta Mama and the Fabulous Mama Chronicles to find out how you can participate in the next Fabulous Hybrid Carnival!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants. It will be updated by 3:00pm PST on Monday. April 30th:

• Unschooling My Heart - Patti at Canadian Unschooler discovered that Unschooling her kids was EASY compared to the bigger change required to Unschool her heart.
• Change (Variety) - Rachel at Lautaret Bohemiet writes about how variety is the spice of life.
• No More Threats - Amy at Presence Parenting flips the idea of parental control through threats on its head, for good.
• Why Are You Mad??? Turn Off the T.V and Meditate - Destany of They Are All of Me discusses limiting stress by focusing more on your Inside self.
• Co-ed Sleepovers?  Changing My Mindset – Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama takes a hard look at her previous beliefs about sleepovers.
• Change Can Mean Puddles - Jorje of Momma Jorje has had to clean up some puddles after major changes.
• On Acceptance - Laura at Authentic Parenting writes about how she ditched the constant longing for change and came to accept herself as she is.
• Blissed Out on Birth, Drunk on Baby Skin - Melissa from Mothers of Change passionately explores the changes she would like to see come to the maternity care system, and our universal love of the smell of a newborn baby.
• Changing My Mindset, One Challenge at a Time - Wolfmother at Fabulous Mama Chronicles speaks candidly about her challenges in changing how she parents.
• Because Mommy Said No - Dawn of Raising Natural Kids discusses the use of a common phrase that makes Mommy out to be the bad guy when, in reality, she is making decisions out of love.
• Through Adversity We Grow - Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children chooses to take a positive view on change and growth.
• Life is Change - Rae of Ital Livin' writes about the large changes her family has made within the last year.constant in life.
• A Changing Voice - Jennifer at Our Muddy Boots discusses how in order to grow change is unavoidable.  That does not mean the process is easy though.
• Being. Changing. Believing. - Amy at Me, Mothering, and Making It All Work reminisces on the changes that have shaped her adult life thus far, and molded her into an adaptable, but still type-A, believer in change.
• Motivating Change In The Face Of Apathy - Brenna at Almost All The Truth is asking the question many of us who actively work to change the world ask ourselves: how do we get people to care?
• She Changes Everything She Touches - Change is the only thing we can count on in life, and Jen in Canada examines some of the biggest things she'd like to tackle before the birth of her second child.

We are all Imperfect Mothers

I've often reflected on my inability to comprehend some of the choices some parents make in regards to their children. Sometimes it baffles me as to why some mothers defend some practices that I find obviously harmful to children and I wonder how stable they are mentally. In my mind there are different ways to parent but few that respect children’s needs and anything that deviates from my idea of how a child should be honoured angers me.  

The problem does not always lie with other parents, but with my own beliefs that conflict with the family values they have chosen to follow.

I have to tell myself that everyone’s experiences are different as well as their needs and I cannot allow myself to judge them based on the same rules I judge myself. I realize that disliking others for not wanting the same things as me is silly and pointless. Besides, even if they knew what I know, it wouldn’t guarantee that they would make the same choices within their families as I have anyways. And that is ok.

My panic when it comes to some parenting behaviours comes from the perspective of my inner child who would abhor being treated a certain way. I find that some practices neglect the fact that children are people that deserve to be treated with respect, patience, and honesty. Children are not ‘other’ and need to be micro-managed so much as to simply be honoured at whatever developmental stage they are at. Many parents have inappropriate expectations and those children struggle to meet them, reacting in ways that typically gets them punished rather than being acknowledged and re-directed. They depend on us to make the right choices for them.

I have seen so many messed up children/adults because of the choices their parent’s made for them based on THEIR needs and I find that selfish. Not because the parent’s needs are not valid in themselves, but because in my mind the needs of a child who depends completely on them are far more urgent since they cannot help themselves. We can delay gratification to an extent but children cannot and should not have to. It scares me to think that I could abuse the power I have over my son and damage him emotionally/physically if I so chose. I refuse to do so willingly so I try to make conscious choices as much as possible, but like everyone, I am prone to making mistakes too.

The thing is, I don’t always act in accordance with the highest view of my own self either, especially if I am sleep-deprived or frustrated. This must be true for other mums too who are only doing what they can with what they’ve got, as I am. Already I have done some things that I will change for the next child because everything is a learning process in the end. I am so judgemental with myself that it bleeds into others and I dislike this aspect of myself. I think that children do well despite some of the things we do to them since they are far more resilient than we give them credit. However this does not give us license to not take responsibility for our actions, far from it. We are given a sacred calling to honor our children the best way we can. I have to learn to forgive myself for my own parenting mistakes and to allow other mothers around me to do the same. Their parenting choices are also valid even if I don’t agree with them, because they’re on their own journeys too.

Do you also struggle with being judgmental? What do you consider the line to be between child advocacy and accepting different parenting choices?

No More Yelling I Say! And This is How

I am a yeller, and this developed recently and I hate it, especially since I am most often yelling at my 22 month old son who’s only being a typical toddler. My yelling is more of an exasperated whine but my volume does increase and it’s not good for anyone either way. So I want to stop this and pronto. Luckily for me Dr. Laura at Aha! Parenting has been pumping out posts on the very subject recently that has been helping me create an action plan to change my behaviour and address the underlying causes of it.

The steps, like she claims, are quite simple but very challenging because it requires constant vigilance and the strong desire to alter my behaviour and the beliefs behind it. Like any kind of personal growth, it will take time and conscious effort but it’s worth it. The first step is to commit to the challenge and I am doing so by voicing it publicly here in order to hold myself accountable to it. For weeks I’ve been saying that I want to work on this issue and have not been doing it because it is far easier to ignore a problem than to deal with it but now I’m ready to push myself into making this necessary change in my life.

So now what?

Well, according to her 6 Simple Steps to Stop Yelling, I must first curb my initial reactive behaviour which means stopping myself from yelling before it starts by recognizing the signs of my frustration/anger building and walking away if need be. This part is difficult during situations that I feel are emergencies like when Leo is about to press the power down button to my computer or trying to jam a DVD into the xbox, but dealing with it swiftly without yelling is still very possible, I just need to develop the tools. In these situations she suggests removing everyone from the situation then going through the calming down process from there. That, I can do. So I then calm myself down by taking full breaths (or any other kind of ritual I prefer) until I feel myself relaxing enough to parent consciously instead of reactively. I find that closing my eyes and meditating for a few breaths helps me but sometimes I do need to isolate myself in another room in order to do so. Once I can direct my thoughts and stress response away from seeing Leo as the enemy, I am then ready to interact with him and set appropriate boundaries while addressing whatever need he is trying to express.

Bringing humor into the relationship is a powerful tool in this. Jennifer who blogs at Hybrid Rasta Mama recently shared a very appealing way to release pent up feelings by growling like a bear. Doing this makes me feel like some primitive earth Goddess, empowered rather than out of control like yelling. She uses this technique with her daughter who not only imitates her but takes great joy in it, which is how life should be. We should not be afraid of our feelings, no matter how dark they may seem because they are part of the tapestry of life and by processing them in a healthy manner, they don’t seem so bad after all. You might even say that they are normal and acceptable.

Figuring out what is causing the issue to begin with is also vitally important. Discerning whether it is he that has crossed a boundary that I feel is important or whether I am just reacting to something completely unrelated will dictate my course of action from there. Dr. Laura outlines this thought process in her article It Only Takes 3 Minutes To Stop Yelling At Your Child by first figuring out what exactly it is that is upsetting me and whether it is a rule I wish to enforce or a belief that is detrimental to our relationship that must be let go. The concept of ‘pick your battles’ applies here, especially once you reflect whether it is important enough to get upset over and address, or to just let it go. Most of the time, it is rarely the present situation that makes me irritable but rather my beliefs about it and how I have dealt with those emotions in the past that makes me anxious. Taking the time to calm down before acting on those feelings and exploring them instead has been therapeutic for me. Addressing the underlying issues that are behind my reactions are important, which I have been working on also like gently weaning my son which has been contributing to my general irritability, and mucking through my childhood memories has been illuminating some darker aspects of my psyche as well.

Another important step is to mentally visualize myself reacting to frustrating situations differently as an exercise. Taking examples of past situations that I have yelled and create an alternate ending where I was calm and empathic will help re-wire my brain into thinking differently when the time comes. Sometimes I am wracked with guilt and regret when I think about those less than stellar moments but it also motivates me to try better because I am aware that it isn’t the person I want to be. The really important bit though is repairing the relationships after a blow-out by asking for a do-over (which works wonders in my marriage too btw). I’ve done this before with Leo, where I have apologised to him for my actions and asked for his forgiveness while explaining the feelings I was having that were hard for me to process. His response was to hug me. He was only 14 months old at the time. Believe me, they can sense authenticity.

It is important to me that Leo gets a healthy start at emotional intelligence, something I struggle with in my life that takes much effort to change. It affects every aspect of life because everything is interconnected and how both positive and negative emotions are processed and acted upon affect all relationships between the self and others. That is why reactive emotional outburst like yelling are destructive to everyone involved and needs to be addressed. By taking care of me, my emotional issues, I will also be improving my relationship with my son, my husband and everyone else too. By regulating myself my son will also learn the tools to regulate his own emotions eventually but for now I am supposed to be the one able to be his safe buffer while he learns, not the other way around. The responsibility is alarming but that is the reality of it because I am the parent. It is my job to set boundaries compassionately so that Leo can process his own feelings in a healthy manner. By staying calm when he is emotionally reactive or just being a curious child exploring his world, I am showing him how to behave appropriately. There is no better teacher than direct observation.

Do you or your partner have an issue with yelling? Or have you grown up in a home where there was yelling? How do/did you deal with this?

More Reading:

You CAN stop yelling at your kids

10 Ways to Support Yourself To Stop Yelling

How To Handle Your Anger At Your Child

Moving Away from Punitive Discipline

If like me you have come across the widely emerging research on emotional intelligence and its effect on every aspect of a person’s psychological health, you may be leaning toward changing your parenting style in order to support your child’s developing skills and needs more effectively. Like many others of my generation who have grown up within a household that functioned on the traditional punishment/reward disciplinary system, I have chosen to move away from that parenting approach to a more effective and healthy one often called ‘gentle discipline’ but that requires adopting a very different set of skills and behaviors as a parent/person.

The stark differences in approaching behavioral issues with our children under this philosophy compared to how our parents have dealt with us makes it challenging because we lack the essential tools that make it effective in the long term. The use of the techniques like time-outs, spanking, removing privileges, and groundings have been proven to not only be ineffective (which is why they all need to escalate in severity over time to work at all), but also detrimental to a healthy parent-child relationship because they rely on controlling children’s behaviors rather than addressing the underlying needs behind them and modeling appropriate responses.

Children directly emulate the behavioral patterns in their environment. How children react emotionally is a direct mirror to how we, their parents, react under similar emotional strain. They take their cues from us, how we behave when we are angry, frustrated, or sad, and use that as a template for their own behaviors. Children are not emotionally different than adults. They are more emotionally immature only because they have yet to develop the skills necessary to regulate them effectively. All unwanted behaviors have an underlying need that is not being met, whether it is physiological or psychological is up to the parent to discern. It really is a trial-and-error process.

First ask yourself why it is they may be reacting this way. If you were in their shoes, how would you feel in their situation? What would you need right then? The ability to not only empathize with them but to honor and respect what you discover about the reasons for their outbursts is necessary. Theirs needs have to be acknowledged, even if you may personally find them trivial. To them, how they feel is important and in order for you to react in a loving, compassionate manner, you have to connect with them on their level first.

Also ask yourself why you are reacting strongly to their behaviour. Is it related to the current situation or are you just having a bad day and are overly sensitive? Are your own needs being met? Do you need to refuel emotionally yourself? If you try and parent from frustration and anger, you will not be able to be fair and compassionate in handling the situation appropriately since you are not in control of your own emotional state either. Practicing taking a step back emotionally or even physically in order to gain perspective and creating a time to reflect in the moment will help you evaluate the situation accurately and formulate a positive approach to dealing with it that aligns with your parenting goals.

Change does not happen overnight, not with you, nor your children. If they are used to being punished for their reactive behaviors (and with you being used to meting them out), any radical change will be met with confusion and a period of boundary testing to re-configure what is now expected of them. Patience and compassion during this time is essential in making the shift and supporting them during this transition. Working through the problem solving process with them will allow them to see that you are willing to help them rather than control them and that how they feel matters to you too. You will find that over time they will be more likely to cooperate with you when you need something since you do so for them as well. Like every other relationship, it is a process and it will strengthen over time as you employ consistent behaviors yourself in interacting with them authentically.

More great reads on the subject:

Effective Child Discipline – Dr. Laura Marham

Asking for Respect, Giving Respect – Natural Parents Network

Guest Post - Understanding violence on the playground

Jemima Lopez is a freelance blogger and writer who writes for Zen College Life, the directory of higher education, distance learning, and best online schools. She welcomes your comments at her email: lopezjemima562 @ gmail.com. 

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Some kids are just mean. At least that’s the conclusion that many parents draw after watching children play together in any setting, whether it’s on the field during recess, in a park, or at a friend’s house. Virtually any child will experience bullying or violent play at some point in their life. So is it just part of growing up? Or is there a traceable cause for why some children exert more violent behaviors than others, and is there something that parents can do about it?

I’d like to spend a little time unpacking some of the more popular beliefs and points perpetuated by those who talk about violence among kids. In my opinion, the issue of violence and aggression among kids is highly complex; it deserves lengthy attention from parents because it involves their child’s safety and development.

The video games defense

Many parents are quick to claim a significant linkage between child violence and violent video games. They believe that if kids are exposed to the violent imagery, language, and motifs that occur in some popular video games then they’ll be more likely to act out in an aggressive manner. While occasional exposure to violent video games hasn’t proved to have any lasting effect on behavior, many studies have suggested that prolonged exposure to violence in these games can alter a person’s perception of violence. Kids might become desensitized to violence or they might feel less hesitant about being violent towards their friends. But the issue is complicated by the fact that the imagery in these violent games doesn’t affect kids in the same way. For example, it’s rare that a person waving a sword around in a video game will want to replicate that behavior in real life.

It’s an issue that has united many politicians and parents. Certain members of the House of Representatives have introduced a bill that seeks to force video game companies to label violent video games clearly so parents can be wary of their presence at stores. Will the regulation of violent video games work towards making the playground a safer environment? It’s hard to say.

Mimicking violent behaviors at home

As a culture, we generally believe that a child learns most of their behaviors and social cues from their family. The family (usually) serves as the primer for how they should interact with people in social settings. So when a teacher or a parent notices that a particular child exhibits violent tendencies, they’ll like want to talk to that child’s family to get an idea of the situation at home. A hostile environment at home can make for a hostile child on the playground, but of course the issue is more complex than it seems.

Children don’t have to live in a home of abusive parents to mimic violent behavior elsewhere. If a parent acts aggressive towards their kids in any way, they run the risk of ingraining that behavior onto them. This goes for excessive punishments like spanking (or some other form of corporal punishment), over-the-top shouting, or isolation tactics like “time-outs.” While most parents feel that they are entitled to parent their children in whatever manner they choose, punitive discipline runs the risk of becoming an abuse of authority since it is based on the idea that “might makes right.” There’s little chance that a child could become well assimilated in a society if they’re raised in a household where only shouting, humiliation, and physical punishments hold order.

Aggression as human nature

Of course there are also those who would believe that violence between children is a perfectly natural occurrence. And there are some points to consider on that score. Regardless of where you stand on the video game debate, it’s undeniable that kids were mean to other kids long before the existence of Grand Theft Auto. If “kids will be kids,” does that mean that parents are ultimately limited about what they can and can’t do to stop violence among children? It’s tempting to say that aggressive behavior, particularly during the rough patches of growing up as a kid, is part and parcel of the human experience.

But acknowledging aggression among children is one thing; being proactive about ways to curb violent incidents among kids is quite another matter. It’s certainly not enough to simply ressign oneself to the inevitability of violence on the playground. While it might occur with or without the influence of video games or trouble at home, it should be prevented at all costs. What’s important is that children understand that violence isn’t as fun and exciting as it’s depicted in popular culture. They need to understand firsthand that violence, whether physical or verbal, can really do damage to another child.

How parents can set a positive example

Of course the best way to stop your kids from exhibiting violent behavior is by setting an example through your own actions. It’s a well documented fact that children brought up in a seriously violent or dysfunctional home will be far more likely to mimic those violent actions in their own lives. It was recently revealed that the troubled youth who carried out the school shooting in Chardon, Ohio came from a home where violence was the norm. Such behavior is unacceptable for parents who want to raise a mentally healthy and happy child. If you want to see less violence on your child’s playground, you might want to assess how those violent children are treated at home.

What are your thoughts on violence among kids, on the playground and elsewhere?