Tag: respect based parenting

thankful for relationships

Desere

I follow RIE.

This is a respectful parenting philosophy that focuses on building a relationship with your child based on trust and respect. It’s about modeling instead of teaching. This means to raise someone who is respectful and authentic, I must model those characteristics myself. This philosophy is about treating kids like you would any adult you love and respect. And my husband and I love this philosophy because it really resonated with us, and we can see the effects of parenting this way is having on our 2 year old son.

But in practicing RIE we are not normal. This style of parenting is a minority.

I won’t force my kid to say please or thank you or sorry. If I make him say it, it’s not authentic. Instead these phrases get modeled when I say them naturally myself.

I won’t force my kid to hug you or kiss you. I am teaching my son to respect physical boundaries. To raise someone who respects another person’s “no’s” means as a child I must respect his own “no’s”. His body his choice.

I won’t distract my kid when he is crying. Feeling sad is ok, just like feeling happy and angry and scared is ok. Crying is the process of being unhurt. Tears release toxins from the body and oxytocin. When tears are not welcomed or stopped, this releases the stress hormone cortisol, and often leads to aggression because the suppressed emotion has to come out somewhere. (Aletha Soleter of Aware Parenting)

http://www.michellemorganart.com/

I won’t force my kid to eat. I provide the meal, with a few options that include veggies and meat and carbs. I set the rules about eating at the table and staying seated. The rest is up to my son. He eats what he he wants, as much as he wants from the options I laid out. I will not force feed him or use tricks like airplane-ing food into his mouth. His body his choice.

I won’t hold my kid’s hands when he climbs up the playground. If you want your child to learn spatial awareness, don’t help them do things they can’t do on their own. No one wants to get hurt. No child wants to fling themselves down the side of a play structure. But if they were always given a false sense of security when they learned to walk and climb, then they won’t realize the physical dangers of doing certain things.

I won’t show my kid how to play with something. I give my son open ended objects to play with, and let his creativity take it from there. This builds problem solving and independent play.

I wont try to fix how my kid plays with something. Even if it looks “wrong” to me, I won’t intervene. Is there even such thing as playing the wrong way?

I won’t intervene if my kid takes your kid’s toy. I won’t intervene if your kid takes my kid’s toy. Sharing is so overrated in this age of helicopter parenting. I’m sick of people saying they need to teach their kids how to share. Sharing is intrinsic. It will emerge when the child cares to share. At a young age, toy taking is simply exactly how kids play together. It’s the transference of toys. And when left on their own, kids rarely have a problem with this. When they do have a problem, they often can resolve it with little to no adult intervention.

I won’t ask my kid questions I already know the answer to. It’s demeaning to ask someone “Where are your eyes?” Or “Where is the blue triangle?” My son isn’t in school, and he didn’t learn English and Hebrew by me asking him to point to stuff or use flash cards to drill words into him. He learns words through life. He learns because we talk to him in our normal authentic voice.

But alas, these things make me odd in the parenting world. And that’s ok. I’ve made peace with being a minority because I love the person my son is becoming, and I love the type of serenity this parenting style has given me.

What makes RIE hard is that once you start it, you can’t unsee it.

This means once you see young children as fully capable people, worthy of respect, it’s very very hard to see how the rest of the world interacts with them.

But I can’t shelter my son. That’s simply unrealistic and doesn’t prepare him to forge his own life with his own relationships.

RIE is based on trust.

I need to trust in myself and the job I’m doing as a mother. I am raising my son with respect. A few disrespectful interactions with other people won’t “ruin” my son. Janet Lansbury likes to say parenting is about the steady diet not the occasional snack. What I do on the day to day basis is what will shape his character.

I need to trust my son. I need to trust that not only does he know the difference between the way different people treat him, but that he also is fully capable of self advocating. That a consequence of the way I treat him is that he WILL stand up for himself when he feels the need to.

That’s the key… it’s when HE feels the need to.

So many times I’m watching someone interact with my son, and I’m thinking why is my son just taking it? Why is he allowing this person to talk to him like that or force a hug on him when I know he doesn’t always want a hug? Why is he allowing this person to show him how to play a certain way when he normally likes to lead his own play time?

I want to step in so badly. But I don’t because my son doesn’t need rescuing. He isn’t in danger, he is with people he loves and who love him. If I did step in, I’m now making it about me, not my son.

I need to let him build his own relationships with people around him, in his own way. I need to trust him to do so.

I am thankful for RIE. This philosophy taught me to sit back and enjoy the person my child is becoming, to really see the beautiful relationships he has made and how much certain people mean to him. I am thankful he has such strong relationships with people around him. I am thankful for how much he enjoys people who behave differently than I do.

Happy Thanksgiving!

meltdown city

Desere

Last week I talked about fear based parenting. Parents are struggling to allow feelings to exist and therefore react out of fear instead of holding the space for these feelings to be.

Let’s talk about when these feelings are super intense, and what you should do. Let’s talk about the ‘meltdown’.

I wanted to write about this specifically because my son has been having a lot of meltdowns lately, and I know how draining and exhausting it can be for a parent. So here is my advice to get you through those meltdowns, while following a respect-based parenting approach.

  1. acknowledge
  2. wait
  3. acknowledge and set the limit
  4. wait, wait, wait

Acknowledge

Acknowledging your child’s point of view NEEDS to be the first thing out of your mouth, always.

If your child starts with something like “I want that toy,” avoid the tempting desire to rebuttal. Don’t respond with “no” or “you can’t have that” or “I can’t get that for you” or whatever. I guarantee this will escalate the situation. From my recent developments with my son, the situation will escalate no matter what so don’t add fuel to the fire.

This is not the time to reason with your child. Toddlers cannot reason when they are feeling something strongly. They are not calm and they are not themselves. They don’t have the capability to stop their strong emotions yet. To assume they can sets everyone up for failure.

Make eye contact. Stop what you are doing and get down on their level. Then repeat what they say, word for word.

“I want that toy.” > “You want that toy.“

“I want a cookie” > “You want a cookie.“

“I want to go there.” > “You want to go there.“

Don’t imitate them. Whether they whine or yell, just repeat them but in your own natural, calm voice.

Wait

You acknowledged what they wanted, word for word. Now wait. Sometimes this is enough for your child to move on. Sometimes they just want to be heard. Don’t we all?

But sometimes this is not enough. And often, their response is either the same thing, “I want that toy!” or the more emphatic “I REALLY want that toy!”

Acknowledge and Set The Limit

Again, repeat what they say and now add your reasoning. Now is the time to set the limit, to put up a boundary.

“I REALLY want that toy!”

“You REALLY want that toy! I hear you. You cannot have that toy because it is not ours and we are leaving.“

“I REALLY want a cookie!”

“You REALLY want a cookie! I hear that. You cannot have a cookie because it is time to eat dinner and here are the meal options I have for you.“

Whatever your limit is, keep it simple and honest. Talk slow but don’t go on and on about why you are saying no.

Of course there should be a valid reason for your limit. Don’t push back just because. As parents we often find ourselves feeling like we need to say no so our child won’t become spoiled, or needy, or whiny. But what if my son wants something and there is no real reason to say no? Then what lesson am I teaching by saying no to just say no? Or what lesson am I teaching by saying no and lying about why?

Anyway assuming you have a valid reason and have set the limit. Now just wait out the storm…

Wait, Wait, Wait

Wait is a magic word in RIE parenting. We wait for our kids to hear us. We wait for our kids to feel what they feel and come out the other side. We give indirect commands by describing a situation and waiting for our kids to move. We wait for kids to work things out themselves. We RIE parents wait, a lot.

This is the hardest part for me personally. My son is crying hysterically and I am sitting on the floor waiting. I am seeing all of his rage and it is so hard not to take that onto my shoulders as well. It is hard for my heart not to hurt to see him so lost within himself that he cannot breath because he is crying so hard. But I wait. I wait it out. And that is what you need to do too.

This could take a few minutes (lucky you!) or an hour. And if you are like me that means you are sitting in the garage on the floor for an hour waiting for your son to calm down. It sucks, but nothing good comes out of getting angry or mad or sad about it. My little human is figuring out what to do with the HUGE emotion he is feeling. The last thing he needs seeing me lose it and then try to figure out how to deal with that too.

You are the parent, you are their calm. You are the adult, you are the model. 

You don’t need to keep repeating your limit either. Remember, your child can hear you. Your child heard the limit you set when you said they cannot have whatever they want. It is only demeaning to continue repeating that limit. Hold the limit by just sitting and waiting.

Your proximity is physically letting them know you are there for them emotionally. You are using your body language to let your child know that you are not backing down or ignoring them, but that you are holding true to what you said earlier and are there for them to release how they feel about it.

I like to open my arms to see if my son wants to be held. He usually only backs up further into the nearest corner. I know my son is done with his ‘meltdown’ when he finally does comes to me and lets me hug him. But every child is different, of course. The point is, be there for your child while they feel the wave of their emotion, in whatever way they need.

The last thought I will leave you with is the idea that because we too are human, we have emotional triggers. As Rachel, a fellow respectful parenting blogger describes, “Triggers are those things that when your child does/says/feels them, you have an involuntary negative response.” She continues “The most important part of parenting with triggers is remembering that you’re NOT having a reaction because your child is behaving a certain way. You’re having a reaction because of what that behavior means to you and that is triggered from your own past experiences!”

So when you find yourself in meltdown city, try to distance yourself from your own triggers and let the storm pass.

You can read about what Rachel recommends to do about triggers here, I highly recommend it.

fear based parenting

Desere1 Comment

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.