Category Archives: Peaceful Discipline

Posts about guiding our children effectively without the need for using punitive methods to effect change in behaviours

Coping With a Limit Tester

“Knowing when to give infants freedom and when to introduce limits is most important and is the backbone of RIE” ~Magda Gerber

My two and a half year old is the ultimate limit tester. Her desire to be in control is so strong that it is quite rare to have her willingly cooperate for even the most simple of requests. ‘Lucy, in two minutes we are going to get dressed.’ ‘No, don’t want to!’ comes the reply. ‘It’s time to hop in the car, Lucy.’ Lucy responds by jumping on her trike and riding away down the footpath. ‘I won’t let you play with your food, Lucy’. Another forkful gets transferred into her drink cup.

Coping With a Limit Tester Continue reading →

The Secret’s to Successfully Sportscasting my Children’s Squabbles

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If someone told you that they had a magic cure that would end all sibling rivalry for good, I’m sure you would pay good money to be let in on that secret. Living with siblings who squabble, bicker, fight, torment and harass each other regularly throughout the day can be incredibly draining.

Unfortunately, this magic cure does not exist but there is a sure fire way to reduce the mental fatigue associated with fighting children. This strategy not only empowers children to learn from their arguments but also provides them with the opportunity to develop the skills that will enable them to negotiate through squabbles, themselves.

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Respectful Parenting is Not Always Easiest

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For some time now I have been going against my own instincts and the advice of many friends, families and experts and instead following the path of RIE parenting. I firmly believe that the studies Magda Gerber conducted late last century were insightful, accurate and most importantly helpful to parents wanting to treat their children respectfully. By choosing this method of child rearing, I am confident that my husband and I are empowering our children whilst building a long-lasting, trusting and loving relationship with them.

In saying this, it has not been an easy road. This form of parenting is deliberate. It’s thoughtful. It requires constant self-reflection, patience and trust. It takes a lot of energy and mental effort to challenge your own instincts and go against the only real experience you can draw on when parenting, your own parent’s methods. This coupled with the fact that many of the techniques and philosophies proposed by Magda are completely opposite to the mainstream advice given or demonstrated on a daily basis through friends, family, acquaintances, mother’s groups and experts, ensures that it is quite easy to be discouraged.

As I watch children being helped to play, made to share, stuck in time out, assisted to develop milestones and picked up suddenly without warning I often wonder why is it me that attracts strange looks and even judgements when I do things differently. Every now and then, however, I get this little niggle of doubt creep over me. I sometimes look at my children and think, if I am doing things so respectfully; if I’m communicating with my children and acknowledging their feelings and trusting them to learn in their own way and in their own time, then why are they still screaming, using rough behaviour and throwing tantrums? In all the social circles I mix, I have only one or two friends who have joined me in parts on this RIE journey and it seems as though among all my other friends very few of them have trouble with their children testing limits, expressing extreme emotion or following instructions. This has had me seriously questioning the parenting path I have chosen and made me wonder if RIE was really the right choice for our highly spirited toddler in particular.

Then something occurred to me, I have read countless articles as well as comments from parents and experts in RIE circles who speak about their children taking longer to crawl, walk, talk, say please, thank you, hi and goodbye etc because they have been allowed to work through these developments at their own pace through supportive rather than expectant parenting. Part of the RIE philosophy is trusting that our children are capable beings and will develop the skills they need in their own pace and at their own time. By not showing them how to do things, sure, they may take a little longer but along the way they will develop vital other skills such as independence, perseverance and problem solving and once they have achieved their goal, they have done so much more completely and authentically than had they been pushed to do so through assistive techniques. So it got me wondering whether it is the same for behaviours as it is for developmental milestones?

My 2.5 year old was introduced to RIE parenting quite late in the piece and well after her younger sibling bounded into her world taking with her her former peaceful life where sharing wasn’t necessary, parents were at her beck and call and her life was content. She struggled significantly in those early days with extreme emotion, disruptive sleep and limit testing. This is what encouraged me to seek help and led to my discovery of RIE. Upon absorbing everything we possibly could about parenting respectfully, we noticed a distinct lack of punitive discipline. So for the past twelve months, the girls have had limits set through the use of natural consequences balanced with a respect for their autonomy. They have been trusted to sort through their sibling struggles in their own way and time through neutral sportscasting and again trust and they have been encouraged to express unpleasant emotions as and when they need to. When my husband and I made the conscious decision to adopt this style of discipline, it never occurred to us that we might still be dealing with some of these problems a year later.

When I look at other children and consider their politeness, their obedience and their lack of regularly expressed emotion I can’t help but wonder is it genetics? Were we always destined to parent strong-willed children or has it got something to do with the parenting style we have chosen. Now I know this doesn’t sound like a great plug for the parenting method I have been passionately blogging about for 7 months but when I stop to consider the alternative we had at the time, I have to trust that we have made the right choice. I know I could make my daughter stop taking toys from her sister by sending her to time out. I am sure she would no longer be rough towards her if I smacked her as a consequence a couple of times. Using fear as a way to change a child’s unwanted behaviour can certainly be effective in providing that outcome. I could send my daughter to her room every time she tantrumed or needed to express emotion and I’m sure after a time she would learn to kerb those emotions and keep them to herself. I could insist she says please before I hand her her food and take it away again if she refuses to say thank you. She would no doubt learn quickly to say these words that mean nothing to her but everything to society. I could certainly make our lives much more serene here by parenting in a more mainstream way and maybe my children would seem more respectful and obedient and probably happy on the surface but that’s not what we signed up for.

I have realised that trusting a child to learn right from wrong through limit setting and modelling, without the use of punishment, means accepting that they may need more time to internalise appropriate and acceptable behaviour. The mantra I repeat regularly when I need reassurance of this is that the difficult behaviours being displayed now are not going to exist when my children are 21 years old. In fact I often say this when I am questioned about not enforcing manners or greetings. I am confident of the fact that my 21 year old daughters will use appropriate manners and greet people as necessary. I know they will not scream and yell and throw themselves to the ground when they don’t get their own way and I am sure they will ‘play’ nicely with their friends too. I certainly hope they will achieve these things well before they are 21 but that is the age that I picture them setting sail from my parenting and casting off into their own lives. By then I should have done all I can to prepare them for all life will throw at them.

So I am going to ride out this difficult time. I am not going to resort to using punishments that whilst more effective and quicker in the short term, could threaten to undermine my child’s confidence or demolish our trusting relationship. I’m not going to insist my children stop crying or screaming just to keep the peace. I value emotional welfare and I have seen first hand the effects of stifling children’s emotions and not supporting them when they are at their most vulnerable. I am not going to enforce social niceties just so my children don’t seem rude to others. Both of my children often now say please, thank you and sorry of their own accord and it is so much more joyful to hear then had I insisted it be said because I know they mean it and are beginning to be guided through our modelling. As for the limit testing, well I am learning that my eldest toddler seeks to push the boundaries whenever she can see a crack. It is my job to close that crack before she is able to push her way through. As I close one crack, she inevitably finds another one but I will be there to ensure that she is kept safely from making it through each one.

For more reading on respectful parenting head to these wonderful sites:

Janet Lansbury – Elevating Childcare ~ http://www.janetlansbury.com/

Lisa Sunbury – Regarding Baby ~ http://www.regardingbaby.org/blog/

Dr Laura Markham – Aha Parenting ~ http://www.ahaparenting.com/_blog/parenting_blog

Repairing the Relationship With a Child After a Parental Meltdown

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Repairing the Relationship After a Parental Meltdown

Most of us, at some point or another, have a parental meltdown; a moment where our emotions, in response to our child’s behaviour, gets the better of us and we react with frustration and/or anger. There are many factors that can contribute to these meltdowns. For me, It could be that I am tired, stressed, disconnected from the kids or my husband or that I have lost sight of perspective in the way I am viewing their behaviours .

Either way, I know it shouldn’t happen. I know I have to be more mindful and to keep my emotions in check. I know that each time I lose it with my children, it affects them and it affects our relationship. It is important, therefore, that I make an effort to repair the rupture that has happened, before moving on. Continue reading →

The Day I Scared My Child

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Ever since I first learned about RIE, I knew that that was the type of parent I wanted to be. I loved how I could empower my children simply by respecting them as the whole people they are and trusting that they are completely capable of developing and learning at their own pace and in their own time. My biggest problem, however, has been letting go of the parent I was and ignoring many of the reflexive instincts that seem to pop up all the time. This is particularly true when my children have periods of testing behaviour.

Before RIE I was a parent with very high expectations for my children. I wanted them to be exemplary in everything; from their development, to how they played, to the manners they used. I would often chastise them when they would do something that I deemed was not acceptable behaviour thinking that it was important that they associated negative feelings with this sort of behaviour from an early age so that they would avoid repeating it in the future. Funnily enough, my hard line approach to dealing with these issues did absolutely nothing to change their behaviour and served only to make it exciting enough for them to repeat and at the same time, drove a bigger wedge between us all. As emotions and feelings got to boiling point in this household we were extremely lucky to discover a much more peaceful way of parenting and in doing so, reconnect with our children and be rewarded with that lovely feeling that our children truly trust us to cope with the developmental turmoil that they face on a daily basis.

I still find, though, that on occasion my patience is so tested that I snap. This happened to me recently and the events that followed were so profound that I feel like I may be somewhat on the road to being cured of my former parenting tendencies.
Lucy (2.4 years) and I were playing in the rumpus room whilst her younger sister was having a nap. Over the previous few days I had begun to implement a little routine with the girls to encourage them to take responsibility for their toys by helping me tidy up after them. So if Lucy was playing with an activity such as cutting up little pieces of paper, when she was finished and made a move to find something else to do I would remind her that she had dropped some of the paper on the floor and she needed to help me pick it up before moving on. Often times she was happy to do this and we would enjoy working together to pick it all up and place it in the bin or a little jar etc.

So on this particular day, Lucy had been sorting through a jar of buttons and had ultimately tipped the whole jar onto the floor. She enjoyed running her hands through the buttons and picking up handfuls and watching them spill out of her hands back down on the pile.

Now, for whatever reason, 90% of the time when Lucy finishes exploring an activity, any activity-painting, rice play, eating, block building etc, she uses what I call ‘frantic hands’ to disperse her activity as far over the floor or table or room as she can before promptly getting up and walking away. This has always been a huge patience tester for me as you can imagine the mess for what seems, at the time, to be a pointless destructive act whereby she is not even interested in the task afterwards (although I know it is not and is just how she plays).

Usually I am able to remain calm and accept that this is part of Lucy’s play and somehow satisfies a need she has. Implementing the routine of tidying up afterwards has also really helped me accept this behaviour as I know that she has to be responsible for the mess she makes and not just leave it for me to clean. So after Lucy had clearly finished with her buttons and had, as usual, dispersed them over a significant area of the room, I reminded her that we now needed to pick them up and pop them back in the jar. Her response was ‘you pick them up, Mummy’ to which I replied ‘I would like you to help me pick them up’.

For the next 6-7 minutes I tried all manner of peaceful coercion to attempt to have her pick them up with me. I suggested a particular colour she might like to pick up, I made a small area for her to focus on wondering if the task seemed too big (which I think it did in hindsight) and I let her know that I would not let her play with her other toys until the buttons were picked up.

All the while, as her defiance built, I could feel my patience waning. I felt I should probably just let it go and spend 2 minutes doing it myself but it was like I was too far into it and didn’t want to back down from my stance. Finally, I managed to get her to come back to the buttons and she dropped a handful in the jar which she promptly tipped out again. I kept calmly reminding her that all the buttons needed to go back in the jar etc etc and then, as I watched her use her frantic hands once more to further fling the buttons across the room, all the while giving me a very cheeky smirk, I snapped!

I was sitting about 30cm from her and shouted ‘I will NOT let you throw the buttons across the room! Now pick them up and put them in the jar!. Now this was a voice that I had not used in a long time. It was loud, it was angry. I had reached my boiling point and I had gone from zero to a hundred on the calm meter in a matter of milliseconds.

Lucy immediately stopped what she was doing and in her crouched position in the middle of the buttons, head firmly pointed down to the floor she picked up one button and dropped it in the jar. She reached for another and did the same, followed by another. Then a little shattered voice came out whilst her eyes remained fixed down to the floor ‘That was too loud, Mummy!’. It’s making me teary even as I write this. The cry that came out after she uttered those words were as distressed as if I had hit her. In one moment of weakness I had shattered the trust that my little girl has in me to be her rock. I held her then for what seemed like an eternity, letting her cry and trying to stifle my own sobs. When she began to settle, I tried to explain why I had shouted, that I had been frustrated and a bit angry. I am not sure what she thought about this or if it was even the right thing to do but we both settled down.

I did think then that maybe after that she would pick the buttons up with me because she had been frightened by my reaction, but no. She wanted nothing to do with the buttons and so I ended up picking most of them up by myself. When there were only a few stray ones left, she wandered back over and exclaimed, here’s one Mummy and popped it in the jar. She did this until all the buttons were back in the jar and then pushed the lid on top. We put them away and Lucy then played by herself, still unsure about me and our relationship.

It’s astonishing to me that it took my two year old child to tell me in no uncertain terms that she doesn’t like it when I get ‘too loud’. I have been preaching this to myself for quite a while but hadn’t quite let go of the thought that maybe a tiny bit of hard discipline couldn’t hurt. I now know that it is better for my children for me to rise above my own moods and
I am learning to recognise the catalysts that lead to such a melt down. Usually it’s a mixture of the following:

1. One or more days of particularly testing behaviour

2. Two or three bad sleeps or broken sleeps

3. A dash of hormonal moodiness

When all these things align I realise that my fuse shortens. I am now trying to ensure that in these situations, I look after myself a little. I reduce the ‘messy play’ activities Lucy has access to and spend more time with the girls out of the house in parks and forests etc. It is important to me that I keep my daughters’ trust. I want them to be able to come to me when times are tough, not just now but in the future. By recognising my triggers, I hope to ensure that in my daughters’ eyes I can cope with everything they throw at me.

Punitive vs Nurturing Discipline

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Isn’t parenthood an amazing thing? One minute we’re on cloud nine because our little one has just learned to walk or we’ve made progress with the sharing issue we’ve been having or both children have slept through the night without a single wake up, and the next minute we have hit rock bottom because we’re tired and moody and our children seem to know just the right buttons to press to get a quick and immediate rise out of us. Before I discovered respectful parenting through RIE, my buttons were bold and bright and within easy reach of my children. I would react instantly and without careful thought of what the future consequences might be to my children or my relationship with them. Usually this involved yelling and scolding, sometimes with a light smack just to reinforce my point (or really because I was at a loss for a better way to react). This always ended in tears and slowly, my relationship with my eldest girl (then 18months) deteriorated to the point where she never wanted to cuddle me, even if I had been away for an amount of time. I was so pleased, therefore, to learn of a much more peaceful and respectful way to parent under the guidance of Janet Lansbury’s blog and Facebook page which demonstrates how Magda Gerber’s parenting philosophies should be put in action.

I was impressed by the useful strategies provided by Janet and those contributing to her page and I found I was able to make significant changes to my parenting in a way I never thought possible. The mood in our household was almost instantly changed and even my husband, seeing how amazingly different the children were using these strategies, got on board and started reading and parenting peacefully with me. Recently, however, things took a turn in our household and although I know that what I am going to write about next may receive some criticism, I wanted to share my experience as further proof for the effectiveness and loveliness of RIE parenting.

We have worked hard in our household to create an environment where the children feel loved and supported and where they can play safely with play objects that foster creativity, imagination and problem solving. My two girls have very different personalities and although close in age (13 months) have such different ways of approaching play, that they sometimes find it difficult to play peacefully side by side. Lucy (2.3 years) is an adventurous, high-spirited, fun-loving girl who loves rough and tumble play and anything that is active and uses a lot of energy. She doesn’t tend to sit for long periods of time with one activity but rather will flit from one thing to the next very quickly, enjoying the cause effect relationships of knocking over, tipping out or watching things fly about when she flings her hand back and forwards between them. Penny (1.2 years), however, is a much quieter child. She is happy to fully explore one play object, tipping it upside down, putting things in it, taking them out, dropping it from a height, putting it on her head or putting it up to her mouth and making sounds into it. She too is fun loving but much less adventurous, carefully considering her options before heading into something full steam as Lucy would do. Penny’s patience in her play seems to frustrate Lucy who prefers the excitement of action and drama.

The differences in their personalities, possibly combined with

The developmental stage of Lucy
The fact I have recently started work and the children have had to start daycare
Pent up jealousy issues between the girls (particularly Lucy of Penny)

have led to some pretty intense conflict in our household over the past few weeks.

At first it began with subtle behaviours. Lucy would see Penny standing at the bench playing with something and she would walk over and assume a position beside Penny, slowly using her body to push Penny out of the way so she would fall and leave her activity behind. In these early days, I remained calm in my discipline informing Lucy that I would not let her push Penny and then blocking any future attempts she made to do so. I also made sure to talk to Lucy about her feelings “Are you feeling rough towards Penny right now?” “I know its hard being a big sister sometimes, I understand and love you but I won’t let you hurt Penny.” This did not seem to deter Lucy, however, and the intensity of her actions against Penny grew over several weeks to the point where Lucy would hit, kick, push or even bite Penny at every opportunity throughout the day. Whether Penny just happened to stroll into Lucy’s play space or was happily playing on the other side of the room, Lucy would make a beeline for her and inflict pain.

Of course, it didn’t take long for Penny to become extremely distressed by these occurrences. She would cry hysterically on each occasion and even if Lucy was just approaching her, she would quickly drop whatever she was doing and try to make a hasty escape. As parents watching this happen, we were distraught. We were trying all we could to stick to the RIE way and discipline calmly with understanding. We changed nap times to limit the time the girls were awake together, we read books with kindness themes and we spoke regularly to both of them about the experiences and feelings they were having. We kept this up for as long as possible until one day, after a particularly hard day with the girls, we made the decision that the discipline we used needed to be amped up. Although I had been reassured otherwise, I had taken on board warnings from a follower that this type of behaviour in children is akin to abuse and can lead to long term feelings of oppression and fear in the victim. For the emotional and physical safety of Penny, we decided we needed to try a punitive style of discipline with Lucy in the hope that this would make a quick change in her behaviour and Penny would not suffer any longer. Moreover, we were getting so wound up ourselves each time Lucy lashed out that it seemed we could not contain our anger any longer. We justified it to ourselves by the fact that everything else we do with her is respectful and thought we could do a debrief with her once we had reduced the behaviour to a point where we were no longer worried for Penny’s well-being.

So, every time Lucy used an aggressive behaviour towards Penny we would state angrily “I will not let you push/hit/bite Penny. Go to your room.” Each time this would happen Lucy would immediately run off to her room, letting out a very emotional cry as she disappeared down the hallway. We then tended to Penny before heading to Lucy’s room where we would find her sobbing with her ‘bunny’ on her bed. We would speak to Lucy about why she was sent to her room and ask her to come back and say sorry to Penny when she was ready (another break from the RIE recommendation to refrain from forcing an apology from young toddlers).

This went on for a day and a half and our household became an extremely stressful, emotional and unpleasant place to reside. Lucy quickly figured out that all she had to do to get out of her room was to say sorry to Penny and often she had run back to us before we had even made it to her room and blurted out a sorry to Penny on her way past. It was clear, however, that she did not really understand the meaning behind the word as within three minutes of the apology she was once again being aggressive towards Penny. Another day passed and I started feeling like the worst Mum in the world. Lucy’s behaviours were not easing and in fact her emotions and reactions to simple requests were getting more and more extreme. This only lasted one more morning and as I sat communicating to my friend the trials and tribulations of our previous three days with the girls, still trying to justify my actions as being for the sake of Penny’s well being, I started to realise that there had to be a better way. This couldn’t continue because no amount of debriefing was going to provide Lucy with the understanding of why we were treating her like this. She was crying out for help and as parents it was our job to figure out what was going on for her and try to help her.

That afternoon, I took leave from housework. Cooking, cleaning, washing, everything would have to wait. It had dawned on me that we were trying to address the issue of aggression after it had already occurred and Penny had already suffered. This in turn was sparking a huge rise in my husband and myself that manifested in anger towards Lucy. It resulted in a reactive response that went against my own teachings that I wanted to be a ‘rock’ for my daughters, showing them that no matter how bad things got, I could remain calm and my love and support of them would be unwavering. So I got into the girl’s play space. I positioned myself so that I was always within arms reach of Penny. Yes, this meant a lot of moving, following and climbing into things with her. It was not good enough to be sitting on a chair watching them play. I needed to be right there so that when Lucy felt the need to be aggressive towards Penny (and she did) I could be there to block it.

So Lucy would approach and I would be vigilant, using lightening fast reflexes (thank goodness I’m a PE teacher :-)) to physically block Lucy’s hands as they lashed out towards Penny. As I would do this, I would look at Lucy and state calmly ‘I will not let you hit Penny. It can hurt her.” At first she would whinge a little and try a little harder but only for the first couple of times I blocked her. After that, she became much more resigned to my resolve to protect Penny. Meanwhile, Penny continued in her play blissfully unaware that she had very nearly been hit or pushed. The tension in Lucy would often visibly dissolve. It was almost like she was saying “Oh, thank you, Mum. I didn’t want to hurt Penny but I didn’t know what else to do.” I remained vigilant like this for about three or four days. At first I would have to block altercations up to a dozen times in a day but over those days, they became much less regular and finally got to the point where I could leave the girls for short amounts of time to get a tissue or grab a water bottle etc. We are now at the stage where I can leave the girls to play but still monitor vigilantly from a little further away. I have come to recognise little cues in Lucy’s behaviour that make me suspect there is some tension building. For example, her actions become a little more frantic and she starts moving without real purpose. It is then that I move in to block any contact she might try to make with Penny. I still talk regularly to the girls about feelings they may have and how I understand it can be hard for them. I usually finds that this evokes a tender response such as a cuddle which I am always happy to give :).

Throughout this whole period we have come a full circle back to using the RIE approach that we should have adopted right from the beginning. I have learnt without a shadow of a doubt that we are all human after all but I am pleased to report that things have calmed right back down in our household for now. I am absolutely confident that using this strategy, both girls will come out the other side of this phase feeling protected, loved and supported. The difference between punitive and nurturing discipline is the difference between fostering a tense, suspicious relationship with a child and creating a bonding relationship that will allow a child to remain confident always in the love and care they have from their parents. It takes a little more invested time but the rewards are aplenty and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Could NOT forcing a toddler to share help with sharing conflicts? (Part One)

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When I fell pregnant only five months after my first daughter, L, was born, I was reassured by EVERYONE not to worry because my children would be the best of mates and that whilst the age gap would be initially difficult it would be worth it to see them happily play together when they got past the newborn stages.

It came as quite a disappointment, therefore, when having reached a stage of mobility (about eight months of age) coupled with an inherently curious nature, my youngest daughter, P, came up against enemy number one – her big sister (about 20 months)!

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Changing Discipline Methods Brought me Closer to My Daughter

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One of the most significant changes I have made in the way I parent is how I discipline my children. I thought ‘trusting my instincts’ was the way to go but I never stopped to consider how my instincts had been formed in the first place and so I went down a path of strict, ‘do-as-you’re-told’, authoritarian-type parenting only to crash head on into my 1 and a bit year old daughter.

Changing Discipline Methods Has Brought me Closer to my Daughter ~ Peaceful Parents, Confident Kids Continue reading →