Parenting Priorities

One of my clients, when asked what was more important to her, her child’s happiness or health food, said this. “Health food is not more important to me than my children’s happiness. It’s not either/or.  The health of my children is very important to me, but so is their happiness. I would like to find a way to promote their health without sacrificing their happiness and vice versa.”

I responded by explaining that when we are trying to achieve two goals there will be times when a decision makes one of the goals a priority. When conventional parents are faced with deciding between happiness and another goal more often than not the goal of children’s happiness becomes secondary ‘for their own good’.  We are, in fact, actually encouraged that we are doing a good parenting job if our kids occasionally express that they hate us and we upset them at times.  I remember a time not so long ago that I got angry because my son spilled juice on the carpet and he said, “It seems like you care more about the rug than you do me.” Of course in the overall scheme of things he was wrong, but in that moment he was right.  The fact he was upset was less important to me than my need to not have a dirty rug.  Oops.
With conventional parenting that happens all the time. It’s pretty much taken for granted that what kids want is  secondary to what parents are trying to achieve, either for themselves or for the ‘sake of their children’. Of course, when you are in the middle of conventional parenting it doesn’t feel that way. As I know only too well, it feels like you are spending your life giving to your kids – cooking meals, cleaning clothes, correcting behaviour and so on. But as a kid, conventional parenting feels very, very selfish.  Lots of  ‘don’t do that, stop that, no you can’t, not now, when I say so, not today, maybe later….’
They feel that the things we’re running around doing or buying are more important than they are because the things they ask of us get put low on our list of priorities. So often what they want and what we want for them or for us becomes a conflict – like counting the amount of cookies they can have, or leaving the park to run an errand, or saying no to a toy (when we have just purchased wine and make-up for ourselves!). So, in the case of promoting healthy eating, to our child the message is going to seem more important than the delight they get from eating the cookies. Promoting healthy eating can be achieved peacefully without that conflict as there’s so much time throughout the day to model what *we* believe to be healthy eating that we don’t need to steal a moment of their happiness to give them “an important service announcement”.

Sure you can share with your kids what you believe about anything; violence, diets, green issues, technology, money, sport, McDonalds –whatever!  But our children aren’t us.  We can advise, influence, persuade, but if we limit, control, manipulate and restrict them then they are far less likely to listen to us, and it will destroy our relationship fast. Everyone has a lifestyle, and beliefs, and opinions, but putting those first, ahead of your relationship with your children, will damage your connection. If your real child starts to become more important than your vision of your child, life becomes easier and waaaay more peaceful. – Chaley.

Attachment Parenting: An Inconvenient Truth?

To steal a phrase, it is indeed an inconvenient truth to the economy and society that children need our attachment, our closeness and our gentle guidance as mothers. History has seen many inconvenient truths come to light over the centuries, such as the need to abolish black slavery, child labour and female oppression, to name but a mere few. The inconvenience of their abolishment didn’t make them any the less necessary for the sake of humanity. Of course, those at the time who argued for change were ridiculed, disrespected and ignored until people started to listen. No-one likes to rock the boat and people commonly hate to question the status quo – life’s hard enough, right? But imagine for a moment
a world where Martin Luther King, Eleanor Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela, Emily Pankhurst or Rosa Parks chose not to ruffle feathers? What if they believed people who said that was just the way it has to be? What would the world look like now? Every one of us has the ability to help change the world, in our own small way, by the way we mother our children. Society has no more urgent task.
When you know the mother you want to be, then it’s time to take small steps towards that goal. Change each moment and go slowly and gently. Start with a kind word, a touch, a thought. Don’t try and change your entire self overnight because it will overwhelm you. Start by really looking and listening to your child. Hold their image in your mind and smile. If that helps then do it again and watch and wait. Your child is unique and so are you. Start to listen to yourself. If you have ever questioned your ability to be a mother and the choices you are making, know this – you were meant to be their mother, you were chosen and you know instinctively what to do – you just have to trust yourself. Claim back your right to mother the way nature intended, know you are helping the world change for the better and follow your heart and your child – they won’t let you down. – Chaley.

Motherhood: The Most Important Job in the World

Newly married, I worked very hard to forge a successful career for myself. I wanted children, but it was important to me that I ‘had it all’. I couldn’t be ‘just a mum’, as I would have seen that as a failure. No, I had to be successful in my career and successful as a mother. How did I define success in motherhood at that time? Like most of my peers, I defined it as having well-behaved, high achieving children. After all, they would be a reflection of me and would show the world how good a job I was doing.
Over a decade and four children later I see things very differently now, and strongly believe our society needs to rethink the role of mothers. Mothering is often perceived as a ‘job-on-the-side’ of something more important, more glamorous and more worthwhile. It doesn’t help, of course, that today’s society makes it financially difficult for women to stay at home, but what could be more important than nurturing our children?
I think, given the choice and the education, many of us would prefer to be instinctive, nurturing mothers sometimes even without realising it. I wish all mothers had the opportunity to experience fully how rewarding it is to have children that we aren’t trying to train or mould, but are raising them with respect, love, and connection. Natural motherhood has grown on me, and it has been a journey. I have learnt and continue to learn so much about myself from being a mother. I have learnt so much about myself as a woman, a person and a citizen, and I am unrecognisable as the person I once
was and that’s okay. I feel truly honoured to be a mother – their mother – and I believe it is the most important job I will ever have. Nothing else even comes close. It never did and never will. When I come across people who have the very opinions I did all those years ago, I want to tell them how vital we mums are, what an important job we do, and how special and rewarding it is when we are free to do it our way by following our instincts and letting our children guide us. I also want to tell them how being ‘just a mum’ is in no way a failure but an amazing gift and more than enough in itself.  It’s not a sacrifice but an amazing blessing.
I am often asked why I wrote my book, The Shepherdess, and I answer by saying that I did it to celebrate motherhood and as a manifesto for change. I hope it will empower women to fully embrace being a mother and begin to trust themselves and their children. I hope that fathers and partners will learn something too about the importance of progressive parenting and being a supportive partner. With these insights, I hope people will  see positive changes in their family lives as they move further away from control and closer to the connection that all humans thrive on and deserve. – Chaley.

Can anyone explain what it is to “unschool”?

It’s like “just say no.”

Just say no to school years and school schedules and school expectations, school habits and fears and terminology. Just say no to separating the world into important and unimportant things, into separating knowledge into math, science, history and language arts, with music, art and “PE” set in their less important little places.

Most of unschooling has to happen inside the parents. They need to spend some time sorting out what is real from what is construct, and what occurs in nature from what only occurs in school (and then in the minds of those who were told school was real life, school was a kid’s fulltime job, school was more important than anything, school would keep them from being ignorant, school would make them happy and rich and right).

It’s what happens after all that school stuff is banished from your life. – Sandra Dodd,  http://www.sandradodd.com

Deschooling Society!

A fanastic article about the importance of deschooling for the future of mankind.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/01/07/those-who-refuse-to-unlearn-deschool-and-deprogram-will-be-this-generations-illiterate/

When Humour Is Dangerous

When humour undermines a person’s worth and their chances of being seen, heard and respected as the full and important humans they are, then it shouldn’t be funny or acceptable. It is dangerous. Hateful racist humour is no longer accepted. Sexist humour is going out of style. Humour about minorities is becoming a no-go. Are children the last frontier?

Many ‘politically correct’ people who look aghast if someone tells a homephobic joke or a joke about overweight/short/blonde people in their company, will still use child-belittling humour with little or no thought– often right in front of their own kids! It’s extremely common for so-called ‘funny’ quotes and cartoons (like the ones shown in this post)  about how annoying, awful, exhausting, difficult, and unpleasant children and teens are to be circulated and enjoyed by adults. Harmless, light-hearted stuff? I don’t think so.

If we are involved or around that type of humour we should all consider the importance of objecting to humour that harms ANY class of people. Yes we all need to have a sense of humour, and jokes can be funny, but standing up for our own beliefs and for the future of mankind is more important. Our integrity is more important. Sure, standing up against racist jokes, jokes about women or men, gays, disabled people, jokes about how awful children are, is never easy, but I believe they are vitally important stands to make. The very real negative and abusive attitudes behind the jokes too often slides by, uncalled. For the sake of our humanity, anyone who doesn’t let it slide should have their efforts applauded.  Maybe just consider your response the next time you hear a joke like this:

Prop them up now so they can stand on their own later

 Guest Post by Christina Robert, Single Mom on the Run

“Prop them up now so they can stand on their own later…”

—Christina Robert

The other day on a mothering blog someone was wondering how to get her three year old to stop screaming in her crib at night when the lights were turned out. She said she didn’t want her child to get “attached to co-sleeping” because she was three (which I am assuming means she wants to prioritize independence and self-reliance).

I replied that her child might be screaming when she is put in her crib because she is frightened. She might need the emotional support of her primary caregiver right now. I think so many people believe that it is important to “toughen up” our young children; to prepare them for the harsh realities that the world has to offer; to make them independent and strong as soon as possible.

I think that one of the greatest misunderstandings about attachment theory and the parenting practices that arise out of these theories is that the parenting adults do not want to help in the creation of strong and independent children. In actuality, they do. Just not at the age of three and not in this manner.

Between birth and five there is so much is going on neurologically in a child’s brain that it is almost unfathomable. These critical years set the stage for a child’s patterns of behavior. Their brains are developing at a quick pace and they are learning important physcial, social and emotional skills–all this and so much more. These are the vulnerable and the impressionable years. These are the years that children need to learn they can trust adults to meet their needs. This will serve as the foundation for their interactions with other children and other adults in the future..

The commonly-held misconception that children who sleep in their parent’s bed, or whose emotional needs are met consistently year after year, will somehow end up dependent and needy, is far from the truth. What many people don’t understand is that by consistently meeting the emotional needs of you child in the early years, you are paving the groundwork for future success and independence.

Children whose needs are met consistently and sensitively are more likely to be strong, securely-attached, and confident young adults and adults.
Responding consistently and sensitively to a child’s cries and needs during infancy and beyond teaches the child that they can rely on someone to help them meet their needs at a time when they are very dependent on their caregivers for survival. In contrast, NOT responding consistently and sensitively can lead to anxious and insecure young adults. When their needs are not being met, they learn to not trust those who are most important to them in their lives.

On the blog, I summed up my response with the following advice and metaphor: “Prop them up now so they can stand on their own later.”
I think this quote and idea captures the essence of what attachment theory teaches us about child development and about parenting practices that best meet the needs of your child.

So keep on responding to your child. A child screaming in the dark is afraid. He or she may be experiencing anxiety from the caregiver separation. Being left alone in a mostly dark room is not comforting and could even be traumatizing depending on the length of separation. Find out what your child needs and help them to get the input or reassurance that they need.

Again, Prop them up now so they can stand on their own later. You’ll be happy you did. Your child will be happier, more confident and better able to form happy, healthy relationships as an adult. All the things you wanted for you child and more.

 

Christina Robert has worked with families and children for the past ten years in many capacities. She has a PhD in Family Social Science and Marriage and Family Therapy from the University of Minnesota, but feels being a parent has been her greatest teacher.