Blog

Stop it! Give me that now! I hate you! Leave me alone!

It’s easy to imagine/remember a time when you witnessed a child berating their parent in such a way. In many cases, it has happened to us personally. I have watched children spit at their parents, push them, yell at them and act as though they don’t exist. Luckily, my child is too young to do any of these things just yet. Children are bound to push limits, but being disrespectful to their folks on the regular can become a big problem.

Seeing children act as though their parent isn’t a person really gets me down- especially when that parent is my friend. If their significant other or a friend of theirs was behaving toward them in such a fashion, I would not hesitate to speak up. And they would most likely not hesitate to point out the disrespectful attitude if it were coming from another adult. But when a child is being disrespectful to their parent, somehow standing up for the parent is incorrect, overstepping and inappropriate. I would never let an adult spit at one of my friends without stepping in. Ever. So why can’t I help out when it’s a kid doing the spitting?

The problem arises when parents forget that a) they are people and b) that being hungry/tired/upset doesn’t excuse all of their child’s behaviors. When parents start down the road of responding rationally to demands from their kids or overlooking the fact that their kids are eating off of their plate without asking, they open the door to many different kinds of disrespectful behavior. They are normalizing those demanding behaviors and tacitly agreeing that they don’t have stuff or feelings of their own.

Making your own ‘demands’ about how you want to be treated is an integral part of any relationship- especially the one between a parent and a child. Don’t respond to the whining if you don’t want it to become an everyday occurrence. Don’t ignore them getting up from the table in the middle of dinner unless you want it to happen again tomorrow. Don’t let your kids literally walk on you unless you would like to continue to be treated as a doormat. 

If you wouldn’t allow a stranger to yell at you, don’t let your kid do so either. How will they know not to yell, hit, spit, push or demand unless we teach them that those disrespectful behaviors are not the things to do? If we allow them to treat us like shit, they’ll try to treat other people like shit too. 

So since it’s taboo for me to stand up for you, I ask parents everywhere to stand up for themselves.

PARENT POWER!

I confess my mistakes not to flagellate myself, but to reflect and think on ways to make new mistakes tomorrow. Cheers! To new mistakes!

The two mistakes I made are similar in nature. They both were made with good intentions.

#1 My daughter was enjoying something…so I thought she’d enjoy something else

Oh look, a happy baby. She’s lying on her back looking at the shower curtain. I put her on the bathmat while I was showering and she was having a grand time looking at the monkey motif on our curtain. I smiled at her. I chatted with her. I lapped up her grins. And then I made the mistake of thinking, “But wouldn’t she be sooo much happier in her jungle (read: activity mat thingy)?” Let’s put her there! La la la. Good intentions, good intentions. Move her & bam!- not so happy anymore. Why would I mess with something that wasn’t broken? Because a shower curtain isn’t as cool or “stimulating” as a stuffed toucan hanging down in front of your face? Oh, Katie. Leave well enough alone. That’s why it’s called “well enough,” because it is, in fact, enough.

#2 I knew my daughter was sleepy, but since she was alert and chatty, I decided to show off her charm to other people

Wha? She wasn’t acting sleepy, so I went against that little voice in my head that was warning me of her impending implosion and decided to demonstrate her effervescence and wonderfulness to some other grown-ups. Of course you should sit on my lap and look out at the world! Of course I should move you around a lot to show off your best sides! Of course I should be surprised when it backfires! What do you mean I should hide your face away and cuddle and rock you? How will everyone know how cute you are?! Oh right, no one thinks you’re cute when you’re yelling and turning so red. Remember that, Katie. Besides, look how sweet she is when she’s sleeping too!

So I meddled in both instances to try and either “improve” a situation or gloat over the wonders of my kid. I guess I should remember to sit on my hands sometimes and meddle for good at other times.

I’ll work on doing something new and goofier tomorrow.

What responsibilities does my daughter have? She’s a baby, so many people would say none. But without my imposing any on her, I think she may have a few already. She is the one inside of her body and only she has the power to tell me if something is wrong or look at something that interests her or even get herself to sleep.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got plenty of things to do in order to help her with these jobs that she’s got, but inevitably, I can’t do them for her. I can’t magically make things better or reason her out of crying. And I can’t make her eat, sleep or poop. I can only take care of my end of things.

Monday morning: nap time. She awoke too early and I, being the steward of sleep (that is, the caretaker of it), knew this. But I decided to ignore the sensible voice in my head and get her up anyway to see if she was hungry. I don’t want to say that the rest of the day was lousy because of my mistake, but it certainly didn’t help it. Of course it is her job to sleep when she’s tired, but if I don’t allow her the opportunity to sleep, then what kind of steward am I being? I wasn’t taking the best care of her sleep. 

It’s difficult to remember that I can’t control everything regarding her habits. She still seems so malleable. But the quicker I come to realize that I am only the guardian of her and not the owner, the more satisfied and capable both of us will be.

I can’t force, only shape. I can steer a little, but I can’t make her do things. Remember remember remember… I’m just a steward- here to oversee, but not here to own her.

According to CNN, there are approximately 2,850 athletes competing in the Olympic Winter Games. There are 98 events, meaning that there are 294 medals available to win. Many athletes compete for more than one medal, in different distances or team and individual events. But even if more than one medal is available, the chance of winning one is relatively low for so many athletes.

Ok, great. What does this have to do with parenting, Katie? Not everyone is obsessed with the Olympics like you are.

Fair enough. (Because I am pretty obsessed)

I think it can be said that Olympic athletes are some of the best prepared people in their respective sports. They train exhaustively, sacrifice a lot and often have intense focus on their sport and their goals. Even with all of this work, they still aren’t guaranteed gold and accolades or even the opportunity to attend the Olympics if they fail to qualify. They work incredibly hard for, sometimes, no tangible return.

There’s a lot of competition in our world. Soccer games, having the highest GPA, getting into the best school or college, winning the Curling championship. Unless your kids are very lucky and hard-working and motivated (and even if they are these things all the time), they are going to lose at things. You try beating your older brother in a race you didn’t know was on until he yelled, “Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Bah!

I guess the thing that makes Olympic athletes able to succeed is their ability to get up and try again even after they lose. Again and again and again. Losing is something we have to learn to deal with much more so than winning. Winning doesn’t teach you any lessons; it just gets you a celebratory pizza.

And while resilience and gumption are both stellar lessons to learn from all the losing our kids will do, there might be an even bigger lesson to learn…how to be happy without winning. Learning to being contended when you don’t have the best of something or can’t get everything you want or are disappointed when you fall short of your goals is a super, duper tricky thing to do. But since this is where 99% of the world population lives, there’s something to be said for starting early. So, can you be satisfied with coming in 4th? Or losing altogether? Or not getting into the college that you had your heart set on? Or making an adjustment to your goals based on…reality?

Like so many Olympic athletes, we learn to say, “I’m just so honored to be here.”