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When Your Kids Push Your Buttons:
The Newsletter
by Bonnie Harris, M.S.Ed.
Issue 45 - Question Your Assumptions
Greetings!
"Finish each day and be done with it . . . you have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
So many parents are filled with anxiety over what they have said or done to their children. We all make mistakes. Isn't it better to learn from them and move on rather than to put our energy into beating ourselves up?
Discussion of Key Points — Question Your Assumptions
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We are our own worst enemies, critics, and judges. Nothing escapes us, and no one criticizes us more often-except perhaps our button-pushing children than we do. Imagine if those inner voices were the voices of someone in your life (often they were). You would feel tyrannized and trapped. So why do we do that to ourselves? Because I think it allows us to believe we really are good people when we denigrate ourselves for doing what we regret.
Instead of saying What's wrong with my child for doing a, b, or c? try asking instead, What is my child trying to tell me by doing a, b, or c. Her behavior is happening because she sees no other way at the present time. She is trying to get her needs met the best way she knows how. If that way is through inappropriate behavior, then your job is to find out why she feels she has to do what she is doing to get what she wants? When you put on your detective hat and decide to examine why her behavior is what it is, immediately your perception will switch from she's being a problem to she's having a problem. That will bring you to more compassion than anger, and with that you will find a better way. Your child needs your compassion as much as you do.
Questions and Answers
I want your questions. Here's how it works: You email me a question to bh@bonnieharris.com, and I answer you directly. Your question goes in the newsletter at a later date. Please try to keep questions brief but include critical details.
Q. I am having trouble figuring out what my 3.5 year olds agenda is when he is done playing with toys but refuses to pick them up. He tells me that he does not like me at least on a biweekly basis, and we constantly fight. I feel like a raving bitch when I am around him and I hate myself, but he refuses to listen to me unless I am yelling at him. I have tried to think of what his agenda could be, but sometimes I just cannot come up with anything that makes sense.
A. No young child wants to put his toys away. His agenda is that he wants to play and not clean up-as simple as that. Do not expect him to WANT to put them away. His agenda will NEVER include putting them away. Your agenda is for them to be put away. So therefore you are asking him to do you a favor. This does not mean he shouldn't put his toys away. But when you expect him to do it because you tell him to, you are setting him up to resist. If you can change your perception to accept that he doesn't want to, nor should he at age 3.5, you will be able to approach him with more respect and compassion. When it is not his agenda but yours, you need to motivate him to help you accomplish your agenda rather than to use force-yelling at him. Some more people-pleasing kids will do what you say most of the time. But your son sounds like a strong-minded, persistent child who doesn't like to be told "No". There is nothing wrong with that. This is his temperament. The only problem is how much harder it is for you to have a not-so compliant child. He is your teacher. He will bring out all your buttons!! Try something like, "We need to get these toys put away before other ones come out. I know you wish you could just keep playing/leave them out. I don't want them to get broken, so I need your help. Which color toys would you like to put away and then I'll pick a color?" Do you see how there is more possibility for cooperation when he feels respected and understood and then given a choice? Whatever you want to happen is your agenda. His agenda is what he wants to do. The agendas are often in conflict. The point of understanding and acknowledging agendas is merely awareness which allows for more respectful parenting. What you can expect is A child's job is to get what he wants when he wants it. That doesn't mean he should get it - just that that is his agenda. To expect otherwise will push buttons every time. Try not to take personally his declaration that he doesn't like you but do interpret his words as meaning, I'm mad at you when you yell at me.
Q. My six-year-old son has a hard time in the mornings. Although he is getting plenty of sleep (12 hrs/night), we often have to wake him (not too early, around 7) to get ready for school. Then he is angry, obstinate, weepy, and will not do the things he needs to do to be ready for school. Sometimes he says he hates school or does not want to go, but I don't think that school is the problem. He sees me staying home with his 2 year old brother and wants to stay with us. I try to stay calm and loving, giving him hugs and snuggles, but lately he and his dad have been leaving for school late way too often. I can't figure out how to motivate him in a positive way to get dressed, eat breakfast, put on coat and shoes, all the things that MUST be done to get out the door. I find myself backsliding into threatening, punishments, etc., which of course don't hurry him in the least and just make me more frustrated. He doesn't care whether he's late, so just letting him be late is not a realistic option. Help!
A. I'm going to guess that your son has a hard time with transitions-the switch from home to school is what is the hard part for him, if you don't think it's something at school. It's no fun to wake up cozy and warm after a good night's sleep and have to get up, dressed, and eat breakfast when you're maybe not hungry; get coat, hat, boots on, go out in the cold and separate. Try validating that for him. When he gets obstinate or weepy, sit down on the floor or a couch and pull him onto your lap. Say something like, "You really wish you didn't have to get up, take your cozy pajamas off and go off to school. Sometimes it's such a bummer to have to get going when you don't feel like it. And I bet if I were you, I'd be mad that my little brother got to stay home when I had to leave. What might we come up with that would make the getting to school part a little bit easier?" It may not be enough to motivate him to go, but if you stay on that track with him, acknowledging how hard it is to get going, he will feel respected and understood and his attitude will change—if yours does. When he is yelled at and blamed, he gets mad because he is being told he's bad for wanting to stay with you. If he says, "So can I stay home?" just stay with how much he wishes he could (he knows he has to go) and suggest looking at the calendar with him to find a day when it would work for both of you for him to stay home. Make a special name for it-one mother called it a hooky day-and he will feel thrilled even if it's a month away. I think it's a good idea to plan hooky days at least twice a year. Be very clear about when the car is leaving. Give him a choice. "You don't have a choice about when you go, but you do have a choice about whether you get dressed at home or in the car (for instance). You can decide." Remember to give him lots of choices about the morning routine. "Do you want breakfast before or after you get dressed?" Choices will help him feel like he has some say in the matter of doing what he least wants to do.
Q. I have 5 children between the ages of 9 and 1. My fourth child is a 3 1/2 year old boy who seems to be highly sensitive and loud. He can't be rushed (I try hard but it's hard not to with lots of kids) and if he eats good food his behaviour is better, but it's hard to get him to eat food that fills him up. My main struggle is that he screams a lot and not just at home. He cries most days walking to school and back and has made talking to mums at the school gates an impossibility. It is embarrassing for both me and my other children. I don't know how to discipline him in public because as soon as I threaten consequences or punishment he screams even louder. Can you make any suggestions about what I can do?
A. Having 5 children under nine means your agenda is pretty loaded each day! Your loud and sensitive 3 1/2 year old is telling you something with his screaming-part temperament, part developmental. Whatever it is does not require discipline but detective work. The reason he reacts with more screaming to threats of punishment is because you are not understanding what he is trying to tell you. He doesn't really understand it either-only that he is unhappy or out of balance-and he certainly is not capable of explaining what he needs. So that becomes your job, and it's not easy. But the first step is to think that he is having a problem, not being a problem. Trying to make him stop only tells him that you are moving further and further away from solving his problem. Try empathizing with him by telling him, "You feel really upset about something. I would like to understand why. Would you like a hug?" Giving him the message that you are attempting to understand may help. Then later in the day, when you have a quiet moment with him (ha, ha!), recall his crying on the way to school and ask him if he can help you figure out what was upsetting him. Ask him if he could give his crying some words, what would they be. This may be hard for him but again, you are attempting to help rather than sending him the message that he is "bad." Also think about clues. He is on his way to school. What does he not like about that, why, is there something that is scaring him, is there someway you can make that easier for him, or is it just the switch from home to school? Perhaps he doesn't want you to divide your attention between him and other mothers when he is about to separate. For awhile, put aside your agenda of talking to other moms and concentrate on him. Once you do, he may provide other clues.
Stories from Readers
I started to put some of these strategies into place. I guess you were right when you said the new way is harder work, because it requires effort and stopping to think, instead of just reacting, which has to be a good thing! Our morning routine is easier now. We get dressed first and with the acknowledgement that our son wants to play and what great fun it is to play, he actually seems to calm down (I guess because we are not fighting him!). He gets on with getting dressed and then we go and have breakfast. I had a huge breakthrough with him in the bath when he poured a little watering can of water all over the bathroom floor. Instead of yelling at him, dragging him out of the bath and making him clean it up, I tried the strategy of explaining how he would wish he hadn't done that because it meant taking the big jugs/bowls out of the bath (his favourite toys) and he doesn't get to play with them. He was really upset and apologised and I empathized. I said that I appreciated his apology, and I thought tomorrow, he would remember what had happened when he was tempted to tip water all over the floor, he'd stop himself - and the next night, he didn't do it!!! I think the main thing that I understand now is my own parenting ethos and how I had become like my own mother! It has given me a new mindset and an understanding that my expectations for him as a 3-year-old were just too great. I wasn't allowing him to be a spirited 3-year-old boy, but trying to make him something he's not and fighting against him instead of working with him - big breakthrough.
News
I just finished the final draft of Confident Parents, Remarkable Kids: 8 Principles for Raising Kids You'll Love to Live With, which will be released this September. If any of you know someone influential in the parenting/self-help/medical/educational field who you think would read a galley of the book for a possible endorsement, please let me know.
I now offer paypal payments for phone coaching and "When Your Kids Push Your Buttons" CD set so credit card payments are possible. Use the highlighted link or go to my website on the books and CDs page or the phone counseling page under services for parents to find the Paypal button.
Locally, I will be leading an 8 week class, "When Your Kids Push Your Buttons" at The Family Center in Peterborough beginning Thursday morning March 6th. Contact The Family Center at 603 924-6306 or email Tamara at thuston@thefamilycenter.us.
This newsletter focuses on some of the key points in my book with new thoughts and practical applications. Hopefully it will help the "swimming upstream" struggle we face in changing our parenting from what many of our friends, relatives, teachers and a good deal society expect from us.
What I ask in return is your help in spreading this message. Please forward this to any friends or family you think might benefit, encourage them to subscribe to the newsletter and to buy the book, When Your Kids Push Your Buttons And What You Can Do About It (Warner Books, 2003).
In order for this newsletter to be rich and interesting, I need your questions and stories. You can ask a question from your daily parenting life or you can ask me to elaborate on certain ideas from the book or any previous newsletter. Depending on the number of questions, I may or may not be able to get to all of them in the following newsletter. Your question might be the basis of the discussion of key points or might be in the question and answer section. Please make it as short and succinct as possible and give your children's ages. Many readers assume I have more questions than I can answer, so they don't ask — this is not true unless I tell you otherwise. Ask away!
Fondly,
Bonnie
Bonnie Harris Core Parenting
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Email Bonnie with questions or comments at bh@bonnieharris.com.
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© 2008 Bonnie Harris, LLC | P : 603.924.6639 | E : bh@bonnieharris.com
