My friend started a conversation on her blog that I find exceptionally interesting. She asked for her readers’ opinion on the “right” way to teach lessons to toddlers. As could have been predicted, the comments left vary greatly.
Her question, specifically, was about her leaving the room containing a tantruming child for a couple of minutes, after her daughter was interrupting and being bossy, returning to discuss the situation and start the whole action/consequence spiel. Some people also had a problem with her use of the phrase “you hurt Mommy.”
I decided to do an extension post on this because I didn’t want to do one of those annoying ten mile long comments on hers.
I’ll start with what I would have done. The interrupting and being bossy is a daily routine in our house. Some days it’s only once or twice and, to be fair, she doesn’t always mean to or realize she’s doing it. She is only two afterall (as is Carly’s daughter). These days a simple reminder of “just a minute, sweety” or “that’s not nice, Eirinn” is sufficient and she’ll often even apologize for doing it.
However, if it’s one of her…we’ll call them “off days”…the politeness breeds politeness tactic doesn’t even come close to working. It can even make things worse. I think it was one of these types of days that Carly was looking for advice about.
We’ll tell Eirinn, more firmly than her “good days”, that she’ll have to wait her turn or to not interrupt, it’s rude. And if when that doesn’t work and it results in a fit, we try to ignore her or walk away. Same as Carly did.
She has to understand that a tantrum will not get her what she wants, which is usually attention, and she’ll take good or bad. Walking away is the only way that she will get neither. And sometimes walking away doesn’t necessarily mean out of the room. Sometimes walking away just means turning our attention elsewhere. We are only starting to establish our parenting styles, which has involved toying and playing with different strategies, but this seems to work better than others.
Certainly Eirinn is aware enough to know that if I walk out of a room, I don’t disappear into thin air. And I come back, so I haven’t left her to fend for herself forever. She knows this, but she also knows (or at least will know when this becomes a strict rule-of-thumb in our house) when we mean business. Not that she always cares that we mean business, I mean this is still Eirinn we’re talking about here, but she knows. And I’m sure Carly’s daughter is the same. The walking away isn’t creating any sort of long term damage. It is a simple way of enforcing rules.
Want my attention? You’re not going to get it by doing that.
The other part of the equation was that she used the phrase “you hurt Mommy”. Once again, Eirinn knows the difference between hurting someone physically and hurting their feelings. I know she knows because she has done both to me and I’ve let her know it. By telling her daughter that she was hurt and that Lucy had caused that hurt wasn’t confusing. Did she ask to see Mommy’s boo boo? Probably not. If she was hurt physically, there most definitely would have been a boo boo.
And it does hurt a mother emotionally to have their child misbehave. Especially when they behave differently with other people. This one I know for certain. Eirinn behaves herself better for almost everyone else. And I’m no softy! I don’t put up with any crap, I’m firm and steadfast, I have rules and boundaries.
In a lot of ways I’m more strict than Anonymous Husband, but she is quicker to obey him than she is me. It’s baffling, but I think it comes with the territory. While I may be more strict, she spends more time with me and may be slightly more familiar with me, more comfortable with me, and therefore might be less afraid of me (not that she’s afraid of AH, but you know what I mean - she can predict with a fair amount of accuracy the consequences of her actions with me; with AH, the consequences are more of a mystery and she’s less willing to test him).
I’ve used “you hurt Mommy” a few times, and it works. She immediately feels regret for what she has done. She apologizes and asks me if I’m ok. I tell her that because she was sorry, I’m ok, but tell her not to do it again because it makes Mommy sad. I fail to see anything wrong with this. She clearly understands the point I’m trying to make and her reaction is exactly what I am trying to provoke. I’m not lying to her, I’m not confusing her, I’m not imposing any sort of damage, let alone long-term. It’s effective, as with walking away.
Parenting babies is an enormous job. It takes great care and learned skill and patience most of us don’t have until we’re forced by nature to. It comes with boundless rewards and it’s an achievement to be celebrated.
Parenting toddlers is a whole new ball game. We don’t have to worry about rules and consequences and lessons with babies. We don’t have to worry much about moulding their behaviour for the future. And while a primary goal of ensuring their survival is a huge task, toddler-dom comes with many, many more objectives.
My theory is Whatever Works for You and Your Child. There is very rarely a clear right and wrong answer when it comes to formulating a parenting style. There are extremes, sure, that are probably best avoided all together, but rational thinking parents need to experiment and decide what is best for their family.
And this is not something you can plan ahead for before your children are born. All children are different. All children react to situations differently. They all need different strategies. What works for one child may not work for another. And what one parent is comfortable with, another parent may not be. It’s a big game. Often not a fun one but an enormously important one.
