Conquering an Emotional Mountain

Because I’m a REAL mom, I sometimes lose my cool. I get frustrated, I yell, I threaten time outs and sometimes I cry.

If you follow me on Facebook, then you know, THAT mom, is not the mom I want to be. I believe in parenting that encourages love and support, where we don’t inflict punitive punishment but rather help and encourage our children to feel their emotions and work through them rather than suppress them. Gordon Neufeld’s book ‘Hold on to Your Kids’ was the first parenting book to truly resonate with me and the way I felt like I should be raising my children.

According to the book, here’s the problem with timeouts:

• Almost all misbehavior stems from feeling disconnected from YOU.
• When you punish your child with a time out, you are physically increasing that disconnect.
• This enforces their disconnect with YOU and introduces a level of separation anxiety.
• Your child becomes stuck in a circular, disconnected, anxious state, which results in more misbehavior.

 The solution therefore to the misbehavior is essentially a time-in, which looks like:

• One on one attention from you.
• Permission to feel their emotions, cry and feel supported.
• Validation that their emotions are normal and ok.
• Love, lots and lots of love.

Which sounds all pretty on paper, but in reality this is tough stuff.

How on earth am I supposed to reward my 5 year old with dedicated one on one attention for getting on top of his three year old brother and pounding him in the back, or kicking him in the face, or pushing him on the ground, or overturning furniture? Particularly if there’s only one parent at home? It’s almost impossible, even when the hubs is home.

But it is possible and sometimes it works.

The more often I step into my boys’ world and try to feel their feelings, the more often time-ins are successful at diffusing the big emotions. Sometimes its simply a matter of perseverance and patience.

The point of all this, is that this week, I had a success and it felt so good. I came home to boys that were borderline raging and within moments the tears, screaming, flailing and hitting were all in full force. After about 30 minutes, I managed to get Bolt up to his room and I quite simply, let him be mad. 

I told him I wouldn’t let him hurt me and physically stopped him from hitting me or breaking his toys, I acknowledged that he was having big feelings and not only was that ok, but I was right here with him if he wanted me. I asked him what was bothering him and over the course of the episode he told me he was mad about his dinner, mad he didn’t have a new Skylander, mad his brother touched him and all sorts of random things that irritated him, but I knew weren’t actually the real issue. Then without warning, in the midst of his screaming, he verbalized what was actually bothering him.

I miss my old house.

I don’t like it here.
I want to go back to my old house.

He opened that door and I jumped in with two feet.

When prompted he told me he missed his old bedroom and he missed the train table in his room, which can easily be remedied, but I suspected that still wasn’t actually the issue. So I told him that what I really missed was our family and our friends, and he readily agreed that he missed them too. 

We talked about how hard it is to be away from the people that we love and that we will go and visit everyone soon. We talked about calling our special people on the phone and talking to them on the computer and I reminded him that soon they would come visit us again at our new house. That turned into a discussion about the spare room we had just painted and how much we thought that our family would like having their own room to sleep in.

Before I knew it, we were talking about the Skylander decals on his wall, laughing and giggling.

And when his brother finally came traipsing in, he said Simba, you can come and play with us, I feel better now.  Me and Mom were making up swap names for the Skylanders and that made me feel happy.

I know it was sharing our feelings that made him feel better, not the Skylanders, but I don’t care.

Bolt and I conquered those emotions together and I’m so proud of us, because now I know we CAN do it.

It’s a long road and we’ve been working on this for over a year and though we have had many small successes (and failures) this is the first time I truly felt like we connected and climbed the mountain together and it gives me SO MUCH HOPE.

If you're looking for resources, in addition to Gordon Neufeld, Aha Parenting has great articles and newsletters that I highly recommend.

Some Days I Feel Like a Bad Mom

We all have moments where we feel like we are inadequate, moments where we feel like we are failing our children in some way.  These moments are often far and few between and my rational mind knows that it's simply not true, but my emotional self can't help but give in every now and then.

Last Sunday night, after Bolt and Simba were asleep in their beds I realized that we had a bag full of our boys' art on our living room floor that we hadn't touched all weekend.

Suddenly my mind was filled with thoughts of 2 year old Simba drawing pictures over the weekend and telling me he wanted to put them on his cubby to show Daddy.

Was he excitedly putting his art in his daycare cubby to show his parents who never looked or acknowledged it?

And there you have it, in a matter of moments I felt like the worst Mom ever. What parent doesn't nurture their children's inner artist,  encouraging them to be all they can be?

I resisted the desire to self-loathe and instead decided to look for a solution; a skill I'm trying to teach 4 year old Bolt.

With the help of some painters tape,  I had my boys' art on the wall for everyone to enjoy and as the hubs pointed out once the art gets ripped down and torn up, we can simply throw it in the recycling bin without any guilt. My boys' art will have been displayed, enjoyed and appreciated.

And just like that I had myself back on track; I'm not a bad Mom, I'm a real Mom who gets tired,  overwhelmed and sometimes forgets the little things, but aren't we all?

Four Ways We're Surviving the Sleepytime Battle | My Sleepytime Routine

Although I hate to admit it,  for a long time  when it came to discussing bedtime, I was a teeny bit of a smug mom, but can you blame me, for a while, I had two kids that went to sleep on their own.  But, karma has kicked in, these days I have a negotiating,  manipulative four year old who is not against screaming and flailing to get his way.

Have you read the book 'Go the F**k to Sleep'?  In a nutshell, that's Bolt, except you can sprinkle in a bit of the ADHD power struggle to make things a little more fun.

We are doing all sorts of things to help my 4 year old manage his emotions and bedtime is no exception.

Since my boy loves the '4 because I'm FOUR' rule, here's four ways we're Surviving the Sleepytime Battle

1. Manage Expectations:
We started by identifying a consistent bedtime routine and developing a checklist to help our boy manage his expectations and prepare for bed. It also ensures that he moisturizes, takes his medications and brushes his teeth. This goes hand in hand with his calendar, which we review nightly; we use clip art magnets to illustrate what he's doing each day of the week.

Download a PDF copy of 'My Sleepytime Routine' here.

2. Help your child "calm his/her body":
Relaxation scripts are bountiful on the Internet, search for child friendly ones and try to find one that resonates with your child.  Bolt seems to like this Treehouse Relaxation Script and I hope it will eventually become a calming visualization for him.

3. Implement rhythmic white noise:
I ordered a noise machine and with the help of ocean waves, when he's tired and relaxed, Bolt seems to be settling into sleep in 10-15 minutes if I lay with him. Interesting fact, our psychologist tells us that rhythmic sounds change the way neurons fire in the brain and helps calm the body.

4. Go with the flow:
In the few weeks we've been following this routine, Bolt has been willing to do the relaxation script about 2/3 of the time. Some days he's eager to do his deep breaths on his own, others he isn't interested at all. It's his routine, he can skip steps if he wants, but he can't replace them with steps we've already done such as playing or reading. After 'calm my body' the only step left is sleepytime and that I'm firm about.

How do you survive the sleepytime battle?
Do you have a sleepytime routine?
Do you use white noise?

Help Your Preschooler Manage His Emotions

Back in September I shared a particularly difficult post about my son's aggressive tendencies but I haven't said much more. I've consciously chosen not to write much about the topic, first and foremost because I have to keep my son safe, but also because its a lot of trial and error and I want to make sure I'm sharing the efforts that have been most successful for us.

I think its essential for parents who are walking a similar path, to know they are not alone and I think its equally, important for other parents to get a glimpse inside the struggles of a family whose child doesn't act quite like everyone else.

The Hubs and I have put considerable effort into finding techniques and resources that help us, help our boy. We have had a doctor identify that what we are seeing is likely tied to ADD and anxiety, both of which are prevalent in our families. We are taking this journey one step at a time and we have seen great strides in Bolt's ability to manage his emotions and frustrations over the past few months.

It's a long road and there is no quick fix but here are two simple changes that are helping us, help Bolt.

Don't Acknowledge Negative Behaviour, Correct It - Instead of simply saying 'Stop Hitting Your Brother' and expecting my preschooler to express his needs in a non-physical way, I am learning to lead him by example and show him how to behave both physically and verbally.

I start with the physical: I take his hand and gently stroke his brothers arm while I state in a calm, even voice, 'THIS is how we touch other people, gentle hands'.

Then I give him the verbal language he needs to communicate his needs and feelings; 'Next time you can just tell Simba, I don't want a hug right now'.

End of lesson, I try and leave the positive behaviour I want him to emulate in the forefront of his mind and I'm always cautious not to overwhelm him.

Find Books that Speak to Your Child's Needs - Bolt has always loved books and they allow us to talk about feelings and behaviours in an indirect way that doesn't offend, aggravate or alarm him.

My absolute favourite, MUST-have book right now is The Way I Feel by Janan Cain. Each two page spread addresses a different feeling with an expressive illustration and a simple, concise poem to describe the emotion. If your child has trouble expressing emotions, this book is amazing.

I'm also a huge fan of The Kissing Hand and A Pocket Full of Kisses by Audrey Penn for separation anxiety and sibling jealousy respectively. These books are about Chester the Raccoon who is even one step further removed from my boy's reality, a fact I think Bolt really loves.

The classic Little Critter books have also really been resonating with our boy as of late; I Was So Mad was one of the very first books we found about anger that Bolt really seemed to relate to. I love that there are so many old and new Little Critter stories, so you can get one relevant to almost any situation.

As Bolt get's comfortable with the books he starts to ask why the characters feel a particular emotion and before I know it we are having brief conversations about feelings, which occasionally lead to more personal, incredibly candid discussions.

These books have worked wonders for us, if they don't fit your families needs, find ones that do. I promise you, its worth the effort.

We have made a number of other changes in order to help our family find its groove and I promise to share more of them later. But for now, I'm curious, how do you help your children manage their emotions?

boys will be boys

There are a lot of gender stereotypes in our society and before I was a parent I never realized that the need to play with cars or dolls is as intrinsic to a child as their need to colour or play with bubbles.  I used to think it was all about exposure, the toys available to a child would be the ones they learned to enjoy.

The boy went 'vroom vroom' with a toy car before I ever showed him and every single time I have given him a stuffed animal, hes thrown it on the ground and stomped on it.  The boy has a defiant streak and as he gets older, I find myself saying more and more often, 'he's a boy' with a shrug of my shoulders; when he wants to throw every toy in the house, knock down toy towers rather than build his own or when he feels the need to touch every item he can reach in the grocery store.  Based entirely on my limited experience as a parent, I've come to believe that our children's behaviours are at least partially related to gender; that there is some truth to the age old saying, 'boys will be boys'.

Case and point, I ran into another mom at the grocery store and she had her daughter, who is approximately one month older than the boy, with her.  She patiently stood next to her mom, eyeballing all of the items on the shelves around us, but not once did she grab or throw something, nor did she bolt causing her mom to run off and catch her.  On top of all of this picture perfect behaviour, her mom mentioned that she was 'jacked up on sugar' from a birthday party.  Seriously?

My jaw must have hit the floor, I don't take the boy to the grocery store unless I strap him in the shopping cart and have enough snacks to occupy him for the duration, this also requires that I never stop the cart close enough to the shelves that he can reach the groceries when I'm not looking.  If the boy behaved like this little girl in the grocery store, I swear he'd have to be practically comatose.

I know that personality and environment all effect who our children become, but for some reason this particular grocery store encounter has really left me thinking about the differences between little boys and girls. I don't know much about little girls, but with a house full of boys I'm certainly going to get the chance to learn first-hand about male behaviour.

Do your children fit into gender stereotypes?  Do you believe that 'boys will be boys'?  I guess there's always the option of raising baby genderless, but personally, I just don't see it as a viable option.

welcoming baby | an a-ha moment

Despite the plethora of parenting books, advice and information available on how exactly we should parent our children, there truly is no manual that can provide a concrete answer for every situation.  As parents we have to live and learn, make tough desicions and keep the interests of our children at the forefront of our minds at all times.

Sometimes the right choice for the situation is clear and other times its a long and bumpy road to find our way to our a-ha moment, when we finally realize how best to proceed.  My mom has told me more than once about her 'spilled milk' a-ha moment, when she realized that her frustration over my clumsiness was coming at a cost of my insecurities and anxiety; so she made a change.  Similarly, I recently shared an a-ha moment; my experience learning to trust my instincts as a nurturing mama.

I think we all understand the concept of an a-ha moment, so when I stumbled upon the Aha Parenting Website and Newsletter, I was intrigued.  After a quick browse around the site, I signed up for the newsletter and I've been recieving useful tidbits of information ever since. 

One of the first newsletters I read was in response to a reader inquiry from a family of four where the potty-trained toddler began peeing in the vents, then eventually peed on his little brother.  Now the boy isn't potty trained, but I could immediately see the relevance for our family and began filing away the information in the recesses of my mind.  The newsletter touched on why spanking and timeouts wouldn't work, then why sticker charts won't work and finally explained that in order to effectively diffuse the situation the parent needs to acknowledge and honour the child's emotions with love, words and actions.

So when the baby boy had been home a mere two days and the boy started having a pre-nap meltdown, I decided to take the aha parenting advice to heart.  I gave the boy a huge hug despite his tears and flailing arms and I simply talked to him.  I told him that both Daddy and I loved him very much and that I knew he was upset and angry that the baby was taking up Mommy and Daddy's time.  I explained that no one was going anywhere, that we were all a family and that Mommy and Daddy were always there for him.  I'm not sure exactly how much of our talk he understood, but he quickly calmed down, gave me a hug and crawled into his bed.  As he was laying in bed he said 'baby' a few times and even tried to say his brothers name (the first and only time so far).

A week later, and the boy is still barely acknowleding his baby brother, but after our chat, there really hasn't been any more emotional and unexpected meltdowns.  Pretty amazing, the power of words.

Parenting vs Babysitting

The hubs and I play on Softball team, In fact we met on the team 9 years ago, I was playing third and he was playing shortstop.

This year we decided to take turns and play one game a week and stay home with the boy one night a week.  It's a great balance, we get to enjoy something we did before the boy arrived, but we also get one night of one-on-one time with the boy. 

Last week when it was my turn to play, one of the guys asked if the hubs was babysitting.  Another girl on the team retorted back, "No...he's parenting".  She went on to explain that when her children were young, it had been one of her pet peeves.  The double standard in society where a mother parents, but a father babysits...well it really irked her to say the least.

I'd never paid any notice to the distinction, but the truth is she's right.  Parenting is about the responsibility of raising a child whereas babysitting implies a temporary instance of watching over a child.  So why is it that when we talk about someone other than ourselves watching our children we call it babysitting?  I'm not judging you.  I do it too.  A lot.

I often say "it's the hubs turn to babysit"; does that somehow imply that his care is inferior to my own?  That its parenting for me but not for the hubs?  I don't think so, its certainly not my intent.

I think its simply that babysit is a more commonplace term, it easily fits into conversation and everyone knows what it means.  I suspect people might find me a little off if I said, "its the hub's turn to parent tonight."  It almost seems more derogatory to me, as if I'm implying that he doesn't parent the rest of the time.  That's not my intent either.

Perhaps we need to stick less to labels and more to descriptions.  I'm a fan of "watching the kids", despite the fact that it is more of a statement than a term.  I don't think there's any denying however, "it's the hubs turn to watch the boy" is an honest statement without negative connotations.  And its not awkward, its a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

So what do you think the correct terminology is when it comes to your spouse watching the kids while you have some Momma time?