Hi readers!

It has been a long (LONG) time since my last post, and I apologize. But I’m back and ready to discuss more parenting aha moments since we last spoke. There has been a lot.

Today I want to talk about fear based parenting, an idea we discussed recently in my RIE class. We were talking about observing other parenting styles at the park, and how parents are so quick to react when their children get upset.

Ironically, an exact example of this happened today while on my daily morning park excursions with my son.

My son picked up a toy that belonged to another child. The toy was not being used by the other child, just laying on the floor. The child noticed my son taking the toy, rushed over, and began saying “Franky no Franky no” while trying to take the toy back. My son held his ground and did not let the other child take the toy. He held on tight and kept walking away. After this continued for some time, the child trying to grab the toy and my son walking away, the child began hysterically crying and looking at her mom.

The mom picked up a similar toy and tried to give it to her child, but the child only wanted the one my son was holding (understandably). The child continued crying and getting incredibly emotional. So the mom went to my son, took the object in his hand and gave him the similar toy to take instead. The mom then gave the desired object to her child and said “here just stop crying.”

Just stop crying.

This is a fear based response. This mother was so fearful of her daughter’s outrage, of her daughter’s emotions, that she would do anything to stop it from continuing. And I guess it worked? But what does anyone learn from this?

What does my son learn from this exchange?

Well being the easy going guy he is, he just sort of let it all happen. However I think he was mostly confused. He also has a lot of respect toward adults, and I think that is why when the adult took the object from him and gave him another one, he took it without a fuss. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t want that other object. He wanted the one he picked up from the ground.

But the mother didn’t care. She was too fearful to care.

Thankfully my son knows I would never act this way. And I look forward to talking to him about this exchange later today to see if he has any feelings to release about it. He might not and either way we will both move on.

But what does the other child learn from this exchange?

The other child learned when you really want something just cry and look at your mom, and she will fix it for you.

This child also learned that you can manipulate your parents using your emotions, because the mom would do anything to get her to “just stop crying”. This also means she learned that crying is bad and should be stopped immediately.

Oh and this child learned it is in fact ok to take toys from other kids when you want them because that is after all what she saw her mom modeling with my son.

And the reason I wanted to write about this example is because there is a huge idea underlying the differences between fear based parenting and respect based parenting.

It’s all in how we view our children.

Most parents view children as mini representations of themselves, but not necessarily as beings who are capable of intellectual thoughts and feelings. So when a child does something bad like hit another child, or has a meltdown, the parent reacts out of fear. What will the other parents think of me? How do I make this stop?

Respect based parenting is about viewing children as whole beings, beings who have ZERO impulse control and who have strong emotions sometimes. Our job is teach children how to feel those big emotions, safely of course, and know that they will get through it. It’s called holding the space. 

In the example above, the mom’s job was not to fix it. The mom’s job was to hold the space for her child to feel what she was feeling. To let her child know she hears her and is there for her. To let her child know that she sees how much she wants that object, and that Franky is holding it. And then leaving it there.

This is not the case of my son taking the object from this girl. Even though I have similarly strong feelings about that type of scenario which you can read here.

Anyway I don’t know. The whole thing really bothered me. I wish more parents can begin seeing their children as amazing and complex human beings who are just as worthy of their emotions as anything else. And sometimes those emotions are anger or sadness and that is ok too.

And not to get too political or anything, but maybe if more parents (especially parents of boys) held the space for their children to feel, we would not have so many men in our society who clearly cannot handle strong emotions and therefore do things like sexually assault women or shoot up schools… just saying…

Clearly I am emotional about this… I can feel it as I am writing. Maybe it’s because I am pregnant. Or maybe I just use this blog as a way to release my own feelings about it. Either way, thank you readers, for holding the space for me to do so.