Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 7

(This is part 7 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

7. Raise the child(ren) you have. Every child is unique, so parent to that child, and trust your instincts. Some children are petite and perpetually "too small"; some are too tall and heavy before they can take full advantage of playthings designed for kids in their age group. Some develop social skills faster; others focus on expanding physical development first. Some children follow growth charts precisely, and others continually yo-yo above and below the expected growth curve projections.

Some children are rambunctious and excited about life. Others are more sedate and prefer calmer activities. Some have great propensities for focusing attention while their peers are incapable of focusing seemingly at all. Some children have developmental abnormalities that prevent them from following the normal growth schemes they might otherwise have managed.

There are very few things that we can unequivocally state apply to all children other than that they are young. Even siblings, even so-called "identical" siblings, can be radically different from one another in temperament, personal preferences, physical talents, and viewpoints on the world. One child may be mild-mannered and inclined to follow the directions provided by a parent or other caregiver; another child may be wild and rebellious, prefer to lead rather than follow, and prone to violence when a parent or caregiver does not bend accordingly to the child's mandates. These two disparate children may be reared in the same home, by the same parents, and yet demonstrate wildly different characters.

Often, however, what you will find is that each child has a blending of personalities within him, sparring at any given moment for which shall be expressed. Is today the day he will be complacent? Or is today the day to tantrum like a wild beast when mommy leaves him at daycare? Will he cheerfully agree to consume what is offered for lunch? Or will he demand something other than what was prepared for him and refuse to eat unless his "request" is satisfied.

So, when I say that you need to parent to the child you have, I don't mean even just the child you prefer to have when she is well-behaved--I mean the child you have in the moment. We've already covered that children are in constant flux, ever-changing. Once you can accept that she is a developing individual, you can then focus on the individual she is being and your role in parenting her.

Tune into your child. Is he standing on the table wanting you to yell at him to get down? (Yes, this is a game my son occasionally initiates.) Consider what he would be feeling in order to ask you to "get him in trouble." Typically, children want our attention. They want to know that we recognize things that are important to them. They want our validation, our love, and our play. When we (for example) do not take enough time to focus on him, the child will often try to enforce his need for attention by getting it any way he can. Cue the toddler standing on the table shouting happily, "Get down!" He knows he will get into trouble for it (thus parroting our usual admonishment for the action) and may even understand that it's because Mommy and Daddy fear he will fall and become injured. What he wants may be to demonstrate his prowess in table-standing; but what it also shows, when I have the presence of mind to recognize it with Jackson, is that he is feeling neglected. Sure, I can be feeding him, providing toys for him, but if I'm not engaged, if he does not feel that he has my full attention and eye contact, we get games like "Get down!"

Being in the same room is not enough. Children need to feel special. They need to know that when they need some emotional fuel, they can fill up at the parental station. Dr. Harvey Karp refers to this as Feeding the Meter. Dr. Lawrence Cohen calls it Filling the Cup. Either way, it amounts to the same thing: your child needs a piece of you to feel whole. When interpersonal connections are continually denied to her, eventually she will turn elsewhere to try to refuel her emotional lows--and it may be a path you'd prefer she doesn't follow.

One thing you need to recognize is that your child is effectively the same as a child born 200 or 2,000 or perhaps even 10,000 years ago. So just because you, as an adult, understand certain realities of the world, you cannot expect your child to instantaneously grasp all the developments of technology and societal interaction that have come into play throughout the entire history of humanity. You need to recognize that you are raising a savage.

Dr. Harvey Karp talks in his book, The Happiest Toddler on the Block (which I highly recommend), about how toddlers are effectively primitive people. When you watch your child with the idea in mind that you are raising a caveman or cavewoman, suddenly many things that were puzzling or aggravating before can become easier to comprehend. Why does your young child act so feral? Well, because...she is! It takes a long time to civilize a human being. I believe it is for this reason that we do not grant people rights as adults, who are theoretically capable of making informed and rational decisions, until a certain age is achieved. We have a lot of mistake-making and learning to do before we can comprehend the rules in place in the world around us.

So, when you feel like your child is pushing you, testing your limits, that's exactly what he's doing. And it's his job to do it. It's your job as a parent to let him know what those limits are.

It's also your job to recognize that your child is an individual, not a statistical normal distribution of data points. Maybe you see your daughter speaking a little later than her friends. Maybe your son takes seemingly forever to potty train. Maybe your older child struggles to learn spelling and how to sit still in school. These are developmental milestones that cannot be forced and that every child (excepting those with specific developmental disorders) will learn in time.

The phrase, "Why can't you be more like _____?" comes to your lips. And there it should be swallowed, choked back, and maybe a glass of water drunk to dilute it in your stomach. Do not allow yourself or your partner to constantly compare your child to other children. Growing up is not a competition, though sometimes (particularly in the first 3 years) it can seem like it in our culture that obsesses over intellect and ability. After all, your child needs to grow and develop as an individual before intellect and ability have any usefulness in life--so treat her as the individual she is and cherish her for it.

Therefore, if your child needs nap time at noon and his friends nap at 2, then give him his nap at noon. If he wants to eat his banana in the specially designated Banana Zone, then let him, and enjoy his assertiveness and willingness to engage you in a game of his own making--as well as a chance for him to still feel powerful despite eating healthy food. Do not concern yourself with the opinions of others when you know best how to treat your child. If he's too young to hold still for an hour while you go out to eat, then let him have some time to roam so that when the meal is there, he can use his calmness reserves to eat before dashing off on some new adventure. Do not allow the (perceived or imagined) negative judgments by others to stop you from doing right by your child.

I'm giving you permission to be the parent your child needs you to be. I grant you permission to let loose with laughter. I absolve you of any indignity that rolling around on the floor with your child may provide you. If your hair is not perfectly coiffed, if your clothes are often covered in baby spit up or fresh smears of snot or cheese stains, if you wear comfy house clothes to the grocery store, you are not a lesser person. You're a parent with your priorities in order. And being a parent, you are making what we all hope to be a valuable contribution to the future, so any efforts you make on behalf of your children, we all appreciate.

Raise the children that you have. Take care of yourself, but remember what's most important: family. Your child's happiness is more important than the smirk the bagger boy gets on his face because he saw you yesterday in the same outfit. Whose smile deserves more attention? Your daughter who wears her princess costume to the grocery store with you; that's who.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 6

(This is part 6 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

6. Cooperation is essential between parents; there must be agreement. If I haven't drilled it enough yet, it's time to do so. You as a parent are responsible for helping your child develop a certain and defined sense of the world. However, if Daddy says one thing, Mommy says another, (and any other caregiver says yet another), then the system falls apart.

As an example, most parents have cell phones these days. And most babies and toddlers are fascinated by anything with buttons, lights, colors, motion, sounds, etc. As such, there will often be times in which a baby or toddler will come into contact with a parent's cell phone. There are many parents who are dead-set against their children biting on, drooling on, or otherwise manipulating their phones. Many other parents are more lackadaisical with regard to how their children treat their phones. Conflicting messages occur when these two distinct types are parents of the same children.

That's not to say that things don't change. This is where communication becomes very important. When the kid goes to bed, it's time for parents to talk. (Adjust for plurals accordingly for parents of multiple children.) Discussions need to occur about behaviors the child is exhibiting. What new developments are in progress? Is the child showing signs of illness? Teething pain? Growth spurts? Emotional or mental spurts? Is the child practicing a new skill that may soon radically alter his regular behavior?

Important at this time, too, is that both parents get time to vent. Frustrations they have at work or around the house need to be expressed and resolved, preferably on a daily basis, so that maximum peace and happiness can be maintained. If one parent feels that the other just "doesn't understand" what she's going through, odds are good that there's a communication breakdown somewhere. Ideally speaking the venting of frustrations should be enacted out of hearing of the child. Babies, toddlers, and even older children often cannot distinguish between someone speaking heatedly about an argument or difficulty from earlier in the day and a presently occurring disagreement.

This can be challenging to ensure but valuable to pursue. One thing I have noticed is that men, on average, are very poor at multi-tasking. Much as I love my husband, I need to acknowledge this aspect of his character and remember that while I may often act like the queen of ADD, his ability to focus is dramatically greater than my own. The challenging aspect of this is when he comes home from work after a particularly nerve-rending day. He often immediately wants to divest himself of the weight of the thoughts he's been carrying throughout the day by sharing his aggravations with me. Typically this will happen while I am washing dishes or making dinner in the kitchen, which is sectioned apart by a baby gate from the foyer/living/dining space. Meanwhile, Jackson sees "Daddy!" and lovingly runs to him, glomping onto his leg and begging for attention. Andrew will be so focused on relating his tales and making eye contact with me that he will be oblivious to the wailing, sobbing, shouting, or otherwise attention-seeking behavior Jackson attempts to shift Daddy's gaze downward. With my own self being rather easily distracted (and deeply entrenched in my role as primary caregiver of our son), I often feel torn between being an active listener and participant in conversation with my husband--whose feelings and thoughts I value highly--and my darling little boy who just wants some love from his father whom he hasn't seen in 9 hours or more.

Because of situations like this, I often find myself in a position to tell Andrew what to do. Luckily he is willing and able to observe Jackson's needs when I remind him in cases like the one described above. Often one of the main pieces of information I have to convey to my husband is how our son's day developed. Kids change so quickly, and the events of a single day have significant impact. Andrew relies on me to keep him up to date on Jackson's latest abilities. For example, when he learned to drink from a cup or suddenly demonstrated greater skill at using a fork. These are important things to share so that Andrew knows what to expect when he's doing his part as a parent, since he's not as lucky as me in getting to spend all day with Jackson. I'm also the little man's interpreter so that he can be better understood. Any new vocabulary or signs that Jackson develops I relate to Andrew because when our toddler stands at the window shouting "Ah eh! Ah eh!" it's not really all that obvious that he is hoping to see an airplane.

Raising children is a long and complicated process. While young children are generally fairly good at making their needs known, the ability to express confusion or distress when parents disagree is not always there. A child's egocentric world cannot fathom that Mommy doesn't know Daddy taught him a new word or that Daddy doesn't know Mommy showed her little girl how to throw away trash. Communication between parents (and other caregivers) facilitates the knowledge of a particular child, helping that child to be better understood, which in turn can help the child to feel more secure and joyful as she goes about her job of being young.

Parenting Philosophy Toolbox, Part 5

(This is part 5 of a series. To see the the first part, click here.)

5. Children, even very young babies, LOVE a predictable schedule. Be consistent 95% of the time with the schedule, with only minor deviations, and you'll be golden. Andrew and I fought this at first. Oh, no, it won't work with our son yet, we thought. He's too young for it to matter, so we'll go out late anyway. Well, I can't vouch for the first 5 or 6 months, since we resisted a schedule, but I can say this: as soon as we started being consistent with our habits, Jackson became a much more consistent child--and a much better sleeper!

People in general do better when they follow a daily pattern that coincides with the cycle of the sun. Babies and young children instinctively rise around the same time each morning regardless of the time they go to bed. My niece (who is 7 and a half years old) awakens at 7:30AM all throughout the summer months despite lacking the regulation that the weekdaily school schedule provides, no matter the amount of rest received. In order for her (and all other children) to get sufficient sleep, a bedtime must be set that allows for the child to catch enough Zs before her natural morning alertness.

Just about every parenting book these days discusses the importance of a bedtime routine. I've often heard it simplified to the alliterative phrase: Bath, Book, Bed. The general idea is that you provide a quiet, calming atmosphere for at least half an hour before sending your child to bed. No television, no roughhousing, no energetic or wild antics. As part of this, your darling dear would likely follow the 3B method of bathing, reading a book on your lap, then going to bed with a "transitional object" (which you might recognize as a favorite blanket, doll, stuffed animal, or other lovey). And as I said above, I resisted the truth of this for a long time. Like many other parents I know, I was convinced that I could reregulate my child's inner clock so that he'd sleep from, say, 9PM to 9AM, rather than 7PM to 7AM. To some extent, this is possible, but only if you make use of a significant amount of artificial light and curtains. It takes years of fighting our natural alertness cycles for adults to lose their innate sleep/wake programming, but for children the Circadian rhythm is still the ruler.

However sleep isn't the only aspect affected by the regularity of a routine. Your child's behavior is highly influenced by the level of predictability in his day. Babies, toddlers, young children, and older children all like to be included in knowing what is going to happen to them. Having a sense of order and chronology helps the younger portion of the population feel more secure and confident. Something that I continually hear parents say is that they never realized just how aware babies are and just how much they really apprehend of what is said and done around them. Even if a baby or toddler is too young to verbally express her knowledge, she may still have far more mental capacity than her parent credits her.

An example of my own naivete in this was discovered while we were moving to a new apartment when Jackson was just 9 months old. I had noted at our old place that Jackson very often got upset at the traffic light for our street whenever we were coming home from an outing. I used to work very hard to soothe him and assure him that we would be home soon, knowing that he highly disliked being in his car safety seat. What I hadn't recognized, however, was that that particular irritable reaction to the traffic light was because he did not want to be home. Even though the drive time was the same to the new apartment, he never complained when we were bringing belongings to the new place. However each time we neared the old apartment, he was upset that we were going there, ostensibly afraid that we would be going back to staying there again. I knew he loved our new home, but it had completely failed to catch my notice that he was aware of our driving patterns at such a young age that at just 9 months (and probably for a month or two beforehand at least) my baby was able to derive that we were heading to the old apartment. At 12 months old, Jackson led Andrew and I on a walk, which turned out to be a very well-directed journey the quarter of a mile to the playground here at our complex, which cannot be seen from our apartment. We soon learned that he clearly knew several different routes to take to the same location without needing to spy the playground itself to guide him there--as though he had a map in his head of all the local landmarks and could identify them from any angle.

As it happens, children are very prone to noticing patterns (such as common paths parents take when walking and driving). This is because their brains are working in overdrive to learn, and the easiest way to learn what is important and what is not seems to be by paying attention to things that occur with frequency. For this reason, it is of the utmost importance to be consistent in parenting so that your child infers the correct rules from your authoritative personage.

Another way in which a daily routine helps your child is by having a planned schedule so that everyone gets happy. If you are a work-at-home parent, you may recognize the essential nature of a predictable day fairly early. For example, if your little one requires a nap around mid-day, you know that you need to accomplish breakfast, morning activities, and lunch and be home in time for a nap. Then afternoon activities and snack and dinner, followed by the bedtime routine will fairly well absorb the rest of the day. Considering that play is the single most important thing for a young child (through about age 7) to do outside of basic biological functions, a large amount of time must be delegated every day to allowing children to play. If you plan your day in advance this is easily accomplished. Playdates can be planned with other children; fun activities to do around town are typically abundant, even in smaller cities; and fall-back activities to do at home are all part of the play regime. A good mix of playdates, parks, indoor activity places, and home time will help keep things diversified enough to be interesting to your child--and allow him to burn sufficient energy to take a solid nap. He will also need a certain amount of "face time" with both parents each day, which involves nothing but Mommy/Daddy and the little dear snuggling, roughhousing, stacking blocks together, or some activity that necessitates participation by both parties--done without distractions such as television or phone conversations, and with the focus put solely on the child.

If your rugrat gets plenty of time to be queen of the castle, she will be far more willing to be toted along with you to the grocery store once in a while. But the important part here is that you understand that this isn't just a matter of appeasing the angry god your child becomes when she doesn't get her way: it's an issue of treating your progeny as a person worthy of respect.

Consider the following hypothetical scenario, if you will: You have had a stroke that has affected your ability to speak properly and which has perhaps impaired some of your faculties for interpreting the speech of others. In addition, your motor skills are simply not as functional as they once were. However you still have emotions. You still have desires and preferences. Yet your ability to express them is inhibited by the effects of your stroke. More than anything you just want some control in your life, some say in what to do.

This is how your child feels. People tend to ignore babies, believing a large part of their behavior to be irrelevant. And yet there are moms and dads out there who do pay very close attention to their children and are able to communicate so much earlier that even children too young to support their own heads can signal an impending bowel movement with the intention of letting their parents know.

So, what am I saying, you should hold your kid over a sink every half an hour and make pissing noises? No. What I am saying, however, is that babies aren't just little roly polies with googly eyes. They aren't dolls, puppets, stuffed animals, or pets. Their methods of communication are significantly limited, but what they do understand, what they respond very well to, is being treated with respect. This can be as simple as maintaining a regular schedule so that your child can predict what happens next. It can be as minimally challenging as informing your child of your destination each time you go to leave the house or each time you bring him to the diaper changing table.

The point is that by keeping a predictable atmosphere, you can provide your child with a host of benefits. From sleep regulation to educational inferences to self-confidence, routines help children (and parents) to form an alliance that works in everyone's favor.