I have a daughter with extreme emotions…
She is strong but she is sensitive. Her emotions are bold and bright and always simmer close to the surface, ready to boil over at the slightest indiscretion. I have written about my daughter’s emotions in the past, but as i sit here once again penning my thoughts on this phenomenon which seems to occupy much of our day, I wonder if I do enough for my daughter.
Shyness is something that has followed me around since my early childhood. I remember vividly hiding behind my mother’s legs during greetings and had a really hard time of it during Kindy, Pre-school and most of Year 1 at school where I would freeze up at every occasion I was confronted by a teacher or classmate. In my latter school years, public speaking requirements held me back from taking on leadership opportunities.
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
“Being Labeled is like being judged for life. It is like your future is laid out for you already”.
~ Author Unknown
We have always tried not to put labels on our children. The personalities are completely different from each other we love that about them. We never want them to think that one is better or more endearing than another or that one is weak vs strong or shy vs outgoing etc.
I remember as a child I was always called the shy, quiet and sensible one whilst my brother was the adventurous yet naughty one and my sister the fun-loving tom boy. I hated being put into my role and found it so difficult to break out of as an adult.
Faber and Mazlish, authors of Siblings Without Rivalry (Affiliate link) state that:
“We need to prepare our children for life outside the family. And life demands that we assume many roles. We need to know how to care for and be cared for; how to be leaders and followers; how to be serious and a little ‘wild’; how to live with disorder and how to create order. Why limit our children? Why not encourage all of them to take chances, explore their potential, discover strengths they never dreamed lay within them.”
We had a little incident here the other day which really brought home how important it is not to confuse the behaviour of a toddler in the highly volatile 1-3 year age bracket with their actual personality and demeanour. Even more important is to ensure we do not label or even perceive them as such things as shy, helpless, dominant, aggressive, victim, bully etc.
It is a short story but one which stopped us in our tracks and has given us a little more insight into the morphing minds of our children. Our oldest child, Lucy (2.5 years) has always been a very active, fun loving little girl who craves attention and approval. She was put into the role of ‘big sister’ when she was only 13 months old and has had some difficulty accepting this role and all it entails.
Her younger sister, Penny (1.5 years) has borne the brunt of some unmet needs in Lucy and has had to deal with some physical and verbal altercations with her older sister from a young age.
Of course, we have always been well aware of the emotions charging through these situations and have used all manner of methods to ensure a) Penny is kept safe and b) Lucy is helped through her feelings of anger and rage with acknowledgements and understanding. We haven’t always got it right but we are slowly refining our methods and we see improvements on a daily basis.
Penny is an independent and goal-oriented child. She shows remarkable perseverance and determination for a child her age and will try many different ways of achieving the outcome she desires before giving up or demanding help. This determination has seen her become quite frustrated when her play is interrupted by her rambunctious older sister who seems to have a desire to control all of Penny’s movements including her play and care giving moments. It has therefore been easy to fall into the trap of seeing Penny as the helpless victim and Lucy as the dominating perpetrator however, as we are slowly realising, not all is as it seems.
This afternoon, Penny had climbed into my husband’s ute in the driveway, soon after he arrived home from work. Penny absolutely loves playing in the cars, standing up in the drivers seat pretending to drive and climbing in and out of the car seats in the back. Today, she chose to sit in Lucy’s car seat and was happily doing so for about 10 minutes when Lucy, noticing Penny playing in there, started heading towards the open door of the ute (the front passenger door). As she climbed in, my husband and I signalled to each other that we had better get over there as Lucy was not going to be happy that Penny was in her seat. We quickly moved over, ready to sportscast the ensuing battle and protect Penny from any potential lashings but were taken aback by the five occurrences which followed.
1. Lucy made her way between the two front seats, passed by Penny sitting in her seat and happily sat down in Penny’s car seat. No battle!
2. Penny immediately began crying hysterically because Lucy was sitting in her seat. In the small breath pauses between each ear piercing cry, I managed to sportscast the situation as it occurred. “Penny, you don’t want Lucy to sit in your seat.” Pause for more crying “You are very upset that Lucy is sitting in your seat.” Pause and wait
3. Lucy climbs out of Penny’s seat and says: “Here you go, Penny”.
4. Penny shuffled out of Lucy’s seat and across to hers whilst Lucy took her position in her own car seat.
5. Both girls played and giggled in there until it was time for us to come and get them to take them to their baths.
This situation showed a side of our two children that reinforces how important it is not to pigeon hole them into roles. Whilst of course they each have their own innate and unique personalities, what they are learning each time they face each other in an altercation or come up against a hardship on a day to day basis is helping to shape the natures that they will ultimately display.
Our roles as parents here are to support them through each crisis calmly and respectfully without treating one as the victim and the other as the perpetrator. At their age, there is always an underlying, untapped reason as to why they are displaying undesirable behaviour so by shaming them or making them feel like the bad guy, we are closing a little opportunity to understand them better and connect with them more deeply.
Furthermore, by treating the other as the victim, removing them from the situation or saying, “Poor you” etc it reinforces to them that they can’t cope with these high stress situations without you and makes them feel even more like a victim.
“Children are born with different personality traits. But as parents we have the power to influence those traits, to give nature a helping hand. Let’s use our power wisely. Let’s not place our children into roles that will defeat them.”
~Faber and Mazlish, Siblings Without Rivalry
We have clearly seen today that Penny is no victim. She is strong in her own right and willing to stand up for herself. Similarly, Lucy is not a selfish aggressor who thinks only of herself. They are both learning from each other and from us as their parents and we are confident they will both grow up to be empathetic, strong and confident young women, completely capable of fulfilling any dream, desire or role they choose.
My parenting is inspired by Magda Gerber’s RIE approach. If you are interested in learning more you can find some good information here or I highly recommend these books (affiliate links)
Dear Parent: Caring for Infants With Respect (2nd Edition)
Your Self-Confident Baby: How to Encourage Your Child’s Natural Abilities — From the Very Start
~ Magda Gerber
Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting
No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame
I have previously written about the toll that extreme emotion can take on a child and how it seems an insurmountable challenge to bring back a bright, happy toddler once they have been gripped by such emotion. In that post I described sitting patiently with my daughter whilst she screamed seemingly endlessly before finally ridding herself of the emotion that was enveloping her.
Using RIE guiding principles such as acknowledging emotions and sportscasting we have supported her through countless emotional outbursts. But what I am now realising is that there is a difference between acknowledging emotions in order to make them stop and truly accepting them in order to find true connection; letting a child know they really are being heard and understood.
One of my most favourite and rewarding RIE practises centres around the notion that, in play, children are entirely capable of achieving their own goals at their own pace often without the need for demonstration or guidance. My understanding and appreciation of this has developed over time and as I have withdrawn my desire to show the girls what to do with an activity, toy or task, I have witnessed a lovely spike in confidence and countless beaming smiles as they have engaged in play in the way they wish to, without the expectation to do it right!
Although I could probably write a novel of short stories describing examples of how letting my girls discover their own play style has produced inspiring results, I have chosen just a couple of recent examples to share with you.
A few weekends back, my husband and I took our girls (Lucy, 2.4 years and Penny, 1.3 years) to visit their Granny in Brisbane (our nearest capital city). Being from a smaller town, we love taking the girls to see the amazing sights a big city has to offer so it wasn’t long before we had packed our bags and headed off for an excursion to the City’s cultural playground which houses an art gallery, museum, Science Centre and the State Library amongst other things. There is far too much to take in on one day so we settled for just the museum and the State Library on this particular day. Of course the children LOVED the museum with all it’s beautiful animal exhibits and lovely interactive displays but it wasn’t until we got to the Library that I was truly able to see the benefits of letting the children discover their own play.
It just so happened that the Library at the time had a fantastic sound display for children consisting of musical instruments fashioned from ordinary household goods as well as a mini dance floor surrounded by curtains. Among the amazing contraptions the children were invited to interact with was a vacuum cleaner trumpet, a xylophone style instrument made from hanging spoons and forks, a thong-a-phone and a washboard table with drumsticks. The girls were overwhelmed with the choices and possibilities initially. The first thing they discovered was the dance floor. With its flashing lights and cubby like set up, it was always going to be a big attraction. Lucy headed straight onto it, grabbing the head phones from the rack and donning them before ditching them in favour of ‘chasing the lights’ on the floor.
Penny walked tentatively across the floor, ignoring the headphones and the flashing lights and walked straight into the curtains where she played peek-a-boo, hiding in them and running through them for a long period of time. I sat nearby and watched them go. Whilst I did so I watched several other excited children enter the space with their parents in toe. They directed their toddlers to the headphones and popped them on their heads before standing with them and imitating their children’s bopping motion as many of them do.
I have absolutely no problem with this and in fact, pre RIE I was exactly the same, always wanting to show my kids what they are supposed to be doing. As it went on though, I sat there watching as Penny played happily in the curtains, exploring and discovering whilst several family groups came and went. I detected a pattern of behaviour whereby, those children that had been directed to do as the display intended, lasted in the area for less than a minute whilst those who were left to discover for themselves, played for a much longer time.
One particular incident had me feeling quite sorry not just for the child but for the parent too. This little boy, slightly older than Penny but less than two (I’m guessing) entered the dance floor with his parents and saw Penny hiding in the folds of the curtain. Ignoring the lights and headphones (much like Penny) this boy headed straight to another set of hanging curtains that encircled the floor but just before he got his little hand on one, his Dad grabbed his arm and redirected him back to the headphones, fitting them on his head and then bopping in front of him, showing him how to dance. The toddler, understandably was less than impressed and wriggled out of the headphones, throwing himself to the floor in objection when he was prevented from going into the curtains once again. The child was then helped from the floor by his Mum who then directed him out of the play area and out of the library.
Now, admittedly, I do not know any of the circumstances of this family which could have led to the decisions they made that day but I couldn’t help but wonder whether their need to provide their son with as many of life’s experiences as possible had made them overlook their child’s basic desire to explore and investigate in his own way, developing his own chosen experiences along the way.
Once Penny had left the dance area to delve deeper into the other delights on offer, I watched in fascination as she carefully considered her options. I repositioned myself so I was central to both her and Lucy and enjoyed several moments watching both girls move from object to object, gathering in information from each before they would eventually settle on the one that would resonate with them the most.
From my position I had a great vantage point for viewing the washboard table drum designed so children would run a drumstick along the board and tap the hanging metal plates like cymbals. The effect was lovely but as I sat I was amazed that not just some but all children who chose to climb onto the stool and partake in a little noise making were shown what to do by their parents. I’m not talking just little toddlers either; there were children there that would have had to be 5 or 6 who were not trusted to explore and play independently. Parents all over could not resist showing the children how to run the drumstick over the corrugated surface to make a sound. I pondered whether they might have discovered how to use it for themselves if given a little time. Interesting to note here was that the average lasting time at this particular display was less than 30 seconds.
After a little bit, Penny approached the this table and put her hands on the stool trying once to pull herself up before realising it was a little too high for her. So instead, she reached up and grabbed the drumstick. She then started hitting it on the stool, making little tapping noises. She then noticed that there was a little decorative hole cut out of the middle of the seat of the stool. She put her fingers of her free hand into it before peering in to have a look where it led. She then poked the drumstick into the hole carefully until it was almost all the way in and then removed it. She repeated this experiment about a dozen times before accidently (it seemed) dropping the drumstick into the hole. She peeked anxiously in after it and spotted it down on the floor. This started a whole new period of discovery for her whereby she would drop the stick in the hole then bend down and retrieve it before repeating over and over.
Her intense concentration was only broken by another child who came over to join in the game, peering into the hole after Penny had dropped the stick through. The girl’s mother was close behind and was careful not to let her daughter take the stick from Penny. Penny was finished though and happily offered up the stick to the girl who tried to poke the stick in the hole like Penny was doing but was promptly picked up and sat on the stool by her Mum and shown how to run the drumstick up and down the wash board.
If I could have sent a subliminal message to all those parents that day it would have been to do some research into RIE. Whilst I know that there are many many lovely parents and styles of parenting which are far removed from RIE and which still produce beautiful children, I know that the joy and satisfaction I experience in allowing my children to play at their own level and to have ownership over their play has got to be greater than having to constantly redirect children to play ‘properly’.
Another experience happened here at home, just the other day. It was a cold and rainy day, one not really conducive to letting the kids run around outside. I decided to set up some sticky collage play for Lucy whilst Penny slept. Whilst she was ‘cooking’ in her ‘kitchen’ I discretely stuck some contact paper upside down on her art table. I added some containers of collage material including cut up paper, material, buttons, confetti stars and puff balls and left it all there for her to discover. I had seen this activity set up on an internet site and thought it would be a great one for Lucy who has a short fuse and can get quite frustrated when trying to use glue with loose parts for normal collage work. I had certain expectations (based on the site) and thought this might be an activity that would keep her engaged for a significant amount of time. (Just as a side note, Lucy is not really renowned for her attention skills, I believe, as a result of being ‘entertained’ a lot through her first 18 months of life, prior to my discovery of RIE.) So this is how things unfolded.
Lucy discovered the invitation to play.
She slowly investigated the confetti stars discovering that they stuck nicely to the contact.
She then upended each of the containers one at a time onto the contact making a big pile in one spot.
She then discovered that this pile was not all stuck to the contact so she grabbed handfuls of the loose parts from the pile and dropped them over the edge of the table, watching them as they floated to the floor.
It took all my strength not to leap in and stop her doing this; to redirect her back to the task I had so carefully prepared for her. But to her, at her age and stage, this was play, this was experimentation, discovery and fun all in one. It didn’t look how I expected it to but she didn’t know that, I hadn’t told her and she was very happy and proud of her achievement.
I believe the RIE road is such a rewarding one and I love to reflect on experiences such as this and feel that overwhelming sense of gratefulness that I am able to now enjoy such moments in parenting rather than stress that my children are not on the right track or experiencing the right things. I would love to hear some other stories like this from parents who have experienced the same thing. Feel free to post in the comments below.
I used to think that my baby made it hard for me to change her nappy but then I realised it was me who was getting it wrong.
