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Monroeville Mall: The home of my first foray into taxed, paid employment. Also the place where I perfected the art of people watching. During my breaks, I would often sit and watch the people go by. My own imaginary stories about these folks were kept to a minimum. I really just liked to sit quietly and watch.

I realized just yesterday that being a parent is the ultimate people watching experience.

Some things that I have observed so far:

The “I’m pooping” face

Learning to build a block tower

Unrequited(!) love of our cat

Independent ‘reading’

Chewing and spitting out food

Boogers

Learning to put on socks

Finding out where one’s head is (and properly identifying it when asked)

No teeth…in a 1 year old

Chewing on toys meant for the cat (catnip isn’t super bad for kids, right?)

Waving

Shrieks of delight

Screams of annoyance

Wearing one’s first scarf (I admit to helping with the second loop)

Tracing the origins of my observational behavior back into my ass-sitting past, helps me realize why I like watching and not always intervening. When I intervene, I invariably change the trajectory of my kid’s behavior. Sometimes, as when she is repeatedly flushing the toilet, this is a necessity, but plenty of other times, she can fail and learn and try again without me telling her to.

It’s fun to see what she comes up with and how pleased she is with herself when she figures something out. At this point in her life, she’s built to solve problems on her own. Her capacity for patience and perseverance rival mine on my best days.

I didn’t know that becoming a parent would turn me into a professional observer of people…or more rightly, one particular person. But I’m willing to take up this mantle and become the best person watcher I can be.

Having a newly minted 1-year old means that my daughter understands so much more of what I’m saying these days. She follows along when I’m singing her favorite songs or reading her a story. She can point out where the cat is now if I ask her. It’s pretty cool to watch. But this also means that she understands the concept of “no.”

I wrote about The Trouble with Saying ‘No’ a few years ago and there are plenty of resources to help you say no without actually saying it (Here’s one from Parents magazine). It still is wise to let kids know what they can do rather than just telling them what they can’t. But there are times when ‘No’ can stand on its own. (Just because I said so!)

My daughter is in the throes of her first brush with no. There are a few things around our house that are off limits and we have been setting up those invisible fences to keep her from hurting herself and/or eating cat food. In many cases, I want to teach her what she is allowed to touch and play with, but in some cases, I want that ‘No’ to be enough. I don’t want it to be based on me finding a toy to distract her. I don’t want it to have to be accompanied by her removal from the situation. I want her to be able to sit near the cat’s food bowl and NOT TOUCH IT. The cat deserves that at least after the havoc that has entered her life in the form of our kiddo.

So, how do I ensure that ‘no’ (or my more preferred “no-no noise” found below) is actually heeded?

Starting the “no” lesson means that I’ll have to be totally focused on her and totally committed to keeping her from, for instance, touching the cat food bowl. If I haven’t got 5-10 minutes to sit on the floor next to her, then now is not the time to teach her! Luckily, today I do, so let us begin!

Step 1:

She reaches for the cat bowl. I try my best not to let her touch it at all, pull her hand away and make my no-no noise. If she does touch it, that’s ok, but it will make the lesson longer, because she’s tasted a little bit of success.

Step 2:

Repeat step 1 like 49 times. Don’t get mad. Don’t talk too much. Don’t move her away. Don’t give her something else to play with. Just keep doing it.

Step 3:

If she gets frustrated and yells or swats a bit, don’t sweat it. That means you’re getting close! Don’t let her distract you with a little outburst because you’re only trying to teach her not to touch the cat bowl, not how to control her feelings of frustration. Save that lesson for every other day of her life.

Step 4:

Let her leave once she’s tired of being thwarted. Phew. You don’t have to hover around the cat food anymore…at least for now.

Step 5:

When you see her approaching the cat bowl again, get close enough so that you can move her hand back if you need to, but don’t right away. Just try using your voice at first. (Eh eh eh!)

Step 6:

Decrease your presence near the cat bowl as much as you can without letting her touch it. If you have to go back to steps 1 & 2 a few days in a row, do it! Putting in this work now will make future boundaries easier to put in place.

Step 7:

Sit back and watch as your kiddo no longer touches the cat bowl! Congratulate yourself with a pat on the back, a cookie or a beer!

Step 8:

Start the same lesson with the toilet!

Sometimes a simple lesson in “uh uh” can be the most effective way to teach a kid that “no means no”- and you mean no too! ‘No’ doesn’t have to be accompanied by a ‘yes!’ Sometimes the answer is just ‘no!’

I love butter. So while I was happy to ignore any of the warnings against it during my formative years, I’m even happier knowing that scientists (and Mark Bittman) don’t think it’s so bad for me anymore. I love when a piece is published that supports the ways that I already think. Makes me feel smart, tamps down feelings of guilt (for eating that butter) and helps me prosthelytize my opinions. Ha.

So I was glad to hear of a study (reported by the New York Times today), that discusses the importance of the quality of the words that our young kids hear, not just the quantity. These findings offer a different view from a well-known study that found that by age 3, kids from low-income families have heard 30 million fewer words than kids from more affluent families. The initial takeaway was: TALK MORE! More words should = more language ready kids. (My favorite quote comes from Dr. Patricia Kuhl: “I worry about these messages acting as though what parents ought to focus on is a word count, as though they need a Fitbit for words.”)

While talking to our little ones is important, it turns out that we needn’t be filling the background of their days with our voices.

Phew. I can’t tell you how glad I was to hear this. I don’t really worry about the amount of quiet that pervades our house on a daily basis, but it has crossed my mind that I might not be talking “enough” to my daughter. I remember having a conversation with a thoughtful mom who owns a yoga studio here in Oakland. She was pondering how much she wanted to fill up her daughter’s days with talking since so many people in her yoga classes were looking for a way to quiet their inner chatter. And, sensibly, she wanted to proceed with caution before creating an environment of constant narration and question-asking for her little one.

I am one of those people who has worked at and will forever be working on allowing my mind to be quiet. I don’t think that the chatter in my head is due to the fact that my parents spoke to me “too much” as a kid, but I am still sensitive to this possibility for my own kiddo. Narrating many of her actions and giving her near-constant verbal feedback is going to allow her to hear words, yes, but it’s also going to foster an expectation for words in her. Then, if I’m not providing the monologue, she might feel the need to, which can easily become the voice in her head.

I don’t think I’m going to change much of what I do (after all, I was always eating butter), but I am going to keep the word QUALITY in mind when talking with my daughter. Now let me just count how many words are in this post…

 

How young is too young?

How will I know if I should have already started “disciplining” my child?

My kid is little but she already seems to ignore me when I tell her not to do something.

I’d like my children to live discipline-free for as long as possible.

Invoking the word Discipline! can make parents (and people) excited, angry, scared and confused. Some picture a paddle. Others picture stern faces and yelling. While others think of self-discipline first (like training for a marathon). Since we’re often divided on the meaning of “discipline” and it’s role in the lives of our kids, it’s even more confusing to figure out when (and how) it should be introduced.

GOOD NEWS!

If you are a parent, you are already practicing discipline. Having any kind of a schedule or routine is discipline! And I guarantee you already have a few non-negotiable rules in your child’s life. For instance, they must be strapped into their car seat while in the car, even if they cry and yell! If they’re still in diapers, then they must wear them! They must eat some kind of food! They must go to bed sometime (if not always at the same time each day)! They may not eat the cat food! They may not chew on your shoe! They may not stick forks into wall sockets! They may not leave the house without you!

See! There are already so many ‘rules’ in place that setting boundaries and enacting “disciplinary procedures” is already going on at your house! Woo-hoo!

That means that you’re already classifying  your kid’s behaviors as “ok” and “not ok”.

The question then becomes, when should we start expecting a little more from them?

When might a fit of tears become something to ignore rather than something to fix?

My kiddo is going to turn 1 in a couple of weeks and I am finding that her new “maturity” and understanding is pushing this question to the front of my mind. She certainly still gets tired and cranky, but she also occasionally turns on the tears just because her current world isn’t to her liking. I can now also tell what her sounds of frustration are. Sometimes those are the sounds that I’m trying to elicit.

So as of right now, I am looking to set up some very simple boundaries for my little one. I’m not going to put her in a time-out for hitting me in the face or explain to her why she can’t dive head first off of the sofa. But I am going to actively discourage from her doing both of those things. I will simply keep her hand from hitting me and move her back from the edge of the couch over and over and over…and over again. After the humor of the situation wears off, I sometimes hear those frustrated tones. A small victory for me!

It’s never too early to think about “discipline.” Our kids are taking small steps towards growing up and we should take steps of our own to set up some boundaries for them on their journey.

For whatever happy reasons (many of which have to do with privilege of course), I rarely get to the end of a day and feel the need to collapse. I’m not exhausted. I’m not pulled in too many directions. I don’t find the monotony mind-numbing. I don’t feel as though I’m going crazy. And I don’t feel like my talent (i.e. brain) is being wasted. I know that my ability (and want) to stay home is nothing to take for granted. And I also know that with only one young child, I’m surely counting my chickens before they hatch. But is it bad to say that my parenting experience hasn’t been very hard? Mostly it’s been quietly enjoyable.

I will admit that I try to keep my good fortune hidden from others. Very few sleep-deprived people appreciate knowing that I regularly sleep 8 hours a night. Very few anxious people find it comforting that I am not worried about my child’s exposure to germs, allergens or friendly dog licks. So while this post already probably seems insufferable to those dealing with these daily issues, it is not meant to be so. I simply wanted to offer another look at this “very daunting” task of parenting. We’ve been told over and over again that it’s the hardest job in the world! It’s “All Joy and No Fun!” I don’t disagree that for many many Americans, parenting is very difficult. And there are certain social and economic issues that will continue to make it so. But maybe, just maybe, if we didn’t frame parenting as either suuuuper hard or transcendingly amazing, we could make it a little less hard for ourselves.

Truth be told, one of the reasons that I think my parenting experience has been a little easier is because that’s been one of my goals since the day my kiddo was born. I want this job to be as easy as it can be. I can’t take away all of the chores and upkeep and tedium and planning that goes with parenting, but I can try to make every step easier. That in itself is some of the “work” that I’m doing.

I don’t know that our grandparents had an “easy” time of parenting, but as we’ve heard many times, they expected their kids to entertain themselves and only come home when it got dark outside. I don’t know if they had collectively read the latest studies indicating that what children needed most for “proper” development was fresh air, exercise and the ability to work out problems on their own. But that’s what they delivered, allowing themselves some time to do things besides “parent.” Were they trying to make things easier for themselves? I’ve written about the idea that making our own lives harder doesn’t make our kids lives’ better. Helping our kids to be (in small ways) self-sufficient is a great start on the path to making our lives easier. The less that I have to do for you, the more I can do elsewhere (even if that more is “less”- like sitting and thinking for a few minutes).

One of the easiest ways for parents to bond is to commiserate about the difficulties they’re experiencing. We need these supports and ways to identify, but maybe we could also talk about how we’re working to make parenting easier for ourselves too.

I wish it weren’t so taboo when I casually mention that things are going well and that I’m not ready to pull my hair out just yet.