compassionate parenting – Page 2

My First API Meeting: Finding My People

Welcome Sign Mosaic in Warm Tones — flickr/Nutmeg Designs

My daughter was weeks old when I realized I needed to get out of the house and find a community. The moment my daughter was born all the systems and strategies I’d read about flew out the window. I realized that I knew what felt right and what my baby needed: closeness, love, attention, and safety. I also realized that I could not sleep unless I could feel her breathing next to me.

I walked into my first API meeting with my baby in arms. Around the room were seated moms chatting, playing with their children, nursing, and laughing. Is this some kind of parenting paradise, I thought. I had never been in a room with mothers nursing toddlers, babies happily asleep in slings amidst the din of happy conversation and so much care for little people. “Welcome to our Attachment Parenting group, we are glad you are here.” said the leader. And so began my first API meeting. I had no idea what Attachment Parenting was when my first child was born. But I knew what felt right and made sense. I had no idea that there was a whole organization filled with people who felt the same and had such riches of experience and knowledge.

The meeting topic was Positive Discipline and I learned about the concept of Time In with a child vs. a Time Out. It made so much sense and yet was so counter to what I had heard my whole life. The idea that a child needs more time, attention, love and special concern when they are out of control made me immediately begin to rethink my preconceptions. Parents shared experiences and difficult situations and I heard over and over the idea that they were looking for what their children needed not how to control them.

And then there were the kids themselves. Babies and toddlers were playing on the floor in the middle of our discussion circle. Sometimes toys were snatched or thrown but I watched closely how mothers spoke to their children at these moments. Short, gentle sentences. Help for those in tears. Emphasis on empathy. But no forced sharing or robotic apologies. The older children orbited our group. Running, talking, laughing and then settling in to play in a fort they had invented under a table. Who is watching them, I kept thinking at first. But as the meeting progressed I noticed this little group of five to nine year olds was incredibly independent and very very kind to one another. I saw a moment when a little girl was trying to get into the fort and couldn’t fit. “Come on, let’s get another chair and put it here.” said another child. Hmm, I thought, this compassion idea isn’t just theory here.

What struck me most about my first API meeting was that I felt at home. I felt that I had a place where I could be open about my parenting questions without fearing that I would be berated with harsh advice. And just to see other parents in action, caring and being present for their children was priceless. I learned that I was not alone that day. I knew walking out that I now had a community: I had found my people!

Mommy’s here

preparation for blood draw — flickr/SharonaGott

Just after my daughter’s second birthday, she had a prescription to get blood drawn. I told myself it would be okay and I decided that it would be easier for her if she watched me do it first.

We went to the local hospital. I had gone there many, many times during the past year for blood counts as I had been receiving treatment for cancer. A treatment that left me so weak, I was unable to pick her up for most of that past year.

The technicians greeted us.

“This is my daughter Kaylee.” I turn to the side so they could see her, perched on my back in the Mei Tai. It was only a few months since treatment ended, and it was the first time I had worn her in over a year.

“I had no idea you had a daughter! She is so beautiful. Its so nice to meet her.” With each sentence the tech’s voice became more melancholy. As if she were connecting the memories of seeing me ill to the new knowledge that I had a young child.

“She needs to get blood taken. Is my perscription still on file? I think it will be easier for her if she sees me do it first.”

“Its not going to work. Every toddler needs to be held down.”

“I still want to try.” I told them and asked them again to check for the prescription. The nurse found it and I sat down in the chair with Kaylee in my lap.

“I’m pulling up my sleeve so they can take blood.” I said as I rolled up my sleeve and placed my arm on the table.

“Now she’s tying a band around my arm. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels kind of funny. Its not very comfortable and sometimes it pinches my skin.” The tech was not amused. I could only assume she thought that by validating any fear, I would be instilling greater resistance. And nobody wants to hold down a toddler to take blood.

“Next she is going to put a needle in my arm. I am a little nervous because it sometimes hurts.”

“Don’t be nervous.” Kids aren’t the only ones who are told “no” to their emotions.

“Its okay to be nervous.” I tell both the tech and Kaylee.

“How could I not be?” I thought to myself, remembering all the times my veins were difficult to find. Remembering how my blood counts would dictate if I could continue treatment on schedule. The fear I had experienced when they were too low to begin a new cycle of chemo, my fate seemed to be resting in the hands of a single missed week of treatment.

“But you are always so calm when you get blood taken.” I was glad to be pulled out of those memories and back into the room.

Back to that moment. To my daughter.

“I am nervous, you just can’t see it.”

The needle went into my arm with ease.

“Now we can watch the blood.” I said, relieved.

The nurse untied the band and removed the needle.

“Now they are going to wrap up my arm, so I don’t get a bruise.”

“And that’s it. Are you ready?”

She shook her head no.

“You need a minute?”

She nodded.

“You can do this.” I told her with certainty.

She rolled up her sleeve. One of the nurses held her hand to keep her arm still and the other began the process.

I talked her through the steps just as I had done moments before.

I held her tight.

So very tight.

“I am here. Mommy’s here.” I repeated in her ear, over and over.

Just saying those words were empowering. I had been away for much of that past year.

A part of me was fearful in these words, scared cancer could return and take me away again. And I was grateful Kaylee wasn’t wondering the same thing.

I could see her bottom lip puffed out in a frown. Her mouth was quivering. There was no fighting or screams, though she was clearly upset.

“She is so sad. She’s going to make me cry.” Tears filled the tech’s eyes.

When it was completed, we were all amazed.

Amazed at the courage and strength of my little girl.

And so very thankful.

To have been able to tell her “mommy’s here.”

To have had the strength to wear her that day.

To have had the tools to help her through this challenge.

That she had felt safe and confident in her emotions. That she expressed herself.

That despite being weaned overnight and separated from me for almost a year, we still had an incredible connection. That all the principles we had practiced since birth had given us the ability to work through the challenges we experienced. That she had every reason to be a bratty toddler and she was anything but.

After that experience, it was so clear that attachment parenting worked. It worked wonders.

Pushing through the resistance and challenges that came along with AP had become a wonderful gift for our family.

And it was a wonderful gift to see the results in action, too.

A few months after this experience, she came with me to a doctor’s visit. She sat on my lap as I had blood drawn.

When it was over, she pulled up her sleeve and wanted a band-aid.

Baby: from Other to Teacher

If you survey mainstream Western baby-care advice from the past two centuries, you’ll see a common theme: the perception that babies are wild beings who need to be tamed in order to be incorporated into family life.

The concept of “otherness” is familiar in the history of humankind – it’s a driving force behind the identification of the great family of people into distinct races, nationalities, religions, etc. While what makes us different is cause for learning and celebration, fear often prevails, and what’s different can be seen as a threat.

What happens when we see the baby as the “other”? Practices like seeking to tame the baby’s needs by delaying physical contact, feedings, and sleep. An effort to distance oneself from the child so as not to identify with him and be manipulated by him. Sadly, these practices, which begin at a time when the need for bonding (not just the baby’s, but equally important – the caretaker’s) is so crucial, can set up a family for a lifetime of “otherness” whether in subtle or more obvious ways.

On the flip side, what happens when we begin to view our babies as our teachers? After all, our babies are most in touch with their individual needs and temperaments, and know how best to meet their physical and emotional needs.

When we view our babies as our teachers, we allow ourselves to experience the world as students, whether having our first baby or our tenth. We can be fully in the moment, not judging our babies but flowing with them. We open our eyes and hearts to subtle cues we might otherwise miss. We lay a solid foundation for our relationship with our children, which allows for deeper levels of connection and intuition.

For me, attachment parenting was the path that allowed me to see my baby as my teacher, and not the other way around. Every day I gain greater insight about my own limitations, and use my reverence for my daughter to stretch myself, so that I can be the mother she deserves.

What’s the Word? Child Communication and Frustration

As adults, we’ve all experienced a language barrier at some point or another. You try and try to understand each other, but for some reason, your wires keep crossing. Depending on what the goal was, you may have just given up, politely disappointed, or angrily thrown your hands up in frustration.

Now, consider preverbal babies and toddlers. Imagine having a language barrier when you can’t do much for yourself.

It takes a while for babies to learn how to express that they’re tired, hungry, dirty, wanting a hug, or upset because big brother took away a toy. Until they can do that, we have to expect the occasional emotional outburst.

I embedded a video that I think shows exactly what’s happening when children are having a hard time communicating. I was recording my daughter, hoping to catch her new word and baby sign for “more.” I also happened to catch her doing something pretty remarkable. Watch the change from frustration from being unable to get her idea across, to complete calm and control.

She starts getting frustrated, she screams and is about to cry, until I remind her how to ask for more grapes. The moment she realizes she can effectively communicate what she wants, the panic goes away and she calmly asks for “more.”

I didn’t catch the part where I gave her the grapes she asked for – she giggled at her success!

It’s easy for us to get frustrated and short when our children throw tantrums. It takes effort to quiet those negative feelings, and instead try to figure out what the child needs. But it’s our job as parents to try as best as we can to understand them, especially when they don’t yet have much language to work with.

In my experience, Attachment Parenting has helped us in the communication department. Our kids’ father and I use the earliest weeks to really get to know the baby, so that we can start to understand cries and cues that will help our baby tell us what she needs. Throughout the early years we use plenty of interaction and play to keep those nonverbal lines of communication wide open. (We’re still in the early years, so I can’t comment much beyond right now!)

We may miss the mark from time to time, but nobody’s perfect. We’re all doing our best.

Helping Older Kids Adjust to a New Baby

My older son was 2 years and 8 months old when his little brother was born. I’d agonized for a long time about child spacing, and was worried about how Sol (my first born) would handle the addition to the family. We’re 3 months into being a family of 4 and I’ve learned a lot that has made the transition much smoother than I expected. So I’d like to share a little list of things I wish I’d known before baby Ezra was born. (With some pictures of the new brothers thrown in for good measure.) A lot of these might be obvious, but they weren’t to me, and have helped maintain peace in our house!

1. Talk about the new baby a lot before they are born! Around the time I really started showing and going to midwife appointments more often (probably around 28 weeks) we started reading a book that lined up with what our little guy was going to experience. We planned to deliver in the hospital and to breastfeed. There are lots of great books out there for families planning to homebirth, too! We also made sure to choose an age appropriate book. We changed the name of the baby in the book to Ezra and read that thing Every. Single. Day. We talked about family members and friends who had recently had babies, pointed out little babies in the grocery store, and watched videos online of babies cooing and nursing and sleeping. When the day came for Ezra to be born I had labored most of the night and knew we’d be going to the hospital sometime that day. We told Sol it was time for Ezra to be born and he got to pack his bag for his Aunt’s house. He remembered that we were going to the hospital and that we would call him when Ezra was born. He knew he would get to play with his cousins and eat cookies and have a sleepover. And he knew that we’d ‘Be right back. Sol hold baby Ezra.’

2. Let the older sibling help with the baby. At first I didn’t really want Sol to help hold Ezra, or help change his diaper, or help give him a bath. I was worried he would hurt him on accident. I also wanted him to just enjoy his brother, not do the ‘work’ part of having a baby in the house. Then I realized that ‘helping’ with the baby was very meaningful for Sol. It made him feel proud of himself and more connected to Ezra. It also helped him do something WITH mommy, instead of mommy doing even more without him. So I made it work. It took a little extra effort and patience, but it was worth it. I taught Sol where our cloth diaper stash is and let him bring me one every time he wanted to. I moved from a rocking chair to the couch for nursing the baby, so that Sol could sit right there with us. We practiced bouncing Ezra together in his bouncy seat and talked about how babies only like to be bounced gently and not too fast. I let Sol get in the tub with me and the baby and wash him gently with a cloth. And now he is such a great big brother. He tells people who come up to see the new baby to ‘Only touch him gently!” And as soon as Ezra so much as makes a fussy sounding peep Sol runs to find my nursing pillow. I don’t require him to do anything, but his natural expression of love and interest in the new baby is to help.

3. Put your older child higher on your ‘to do’ list. My first thoughts when Ezra would go down for a nap went a little something like this: “Okay, I need to get the laundry switched or we are going to run out of diaper inserts in the middle of the night. I’ve got to get online for a few minutes and pay that bill. And then I need to make a grocery list so hubby can go to the store for me tonight. And then I need to sit down and drink a big glass of water. Oh! I should probably call my mom, too, she needs an update on the baby.” Sol would have been occupying himself so beautifully and using his words all day instead of melting down and I would totally skip over him when I had a baby-free minute! He was being so great, that it was easy to just let him keep doing his thing. But I found that this ended in disaster for Sol in the end. He would run out of patience, get angry at Ezra for monopolizing mom, and act out to get the attention he really needed. So now whenever Ezra goes down for a nap the first thing I do is something with Sol. We sit and read some books. We wrestle for awhile. We get out the paint and get messy. We make banana bread together to surprise Dad when he gets home from work. Sometimes we just sit together on the porch and watch the cars go by. I am never going to look back on these years with two young children and say “Man, I wish I had kept up with the laundry better.”

4. Get out of the house! When Ezra was born I had pretty much everything I needed. I had kept Sol’s baby clothes and diapers, my sister in law had handed down her bassinet, etc. So instead of buying me more baby stuff I didn’t really need, my mom bought us a big sandbox and sand toys. She set it up when she came to visit after Ezra was born. That thing has been such a life saver! After Sol’s nap we go out there and he plays with his trucks and buckets in the sand and I put Ezra in the bouncy seat in the shade right by us. Sometimes I pretend to make a sand pizza and gobble it up with Solomon, sometimes I sit quietly and guzzle an ice water, and sometimes I even (gasp!) make a phone call. Some days we walk over to a little park by our house. I put Ezra in the sling and let Sol go wild with the other kids. We have a snack and look at bugs and Ezra sleeps through the whole thing. Getting out of the house makes the day go faster, preserving my patience and sanity, and it also gets us fresh air and a little exercise.

5. Date your older kid. Solomon and I have started doing swim lessons twice a week. It’s just a little half-hour parent-toddler class at our local rec center, nothing expensive or intense. Basically just play time in the pool while teaching basic swimming skills like blowing bubbles. I leave Dad and Ezra at home, and sometimes Sol and I even grab an ice cream cone after. I nurse Ezra right before we go and he usually sleeps for a couple hours. So Sol and I get some giggly one-on-one time, Dad gets some much needed time alone to check football recruiting news, and Ezra doesn’t even notice. My husband, Levi has been taking Sol out to his favorite park for an hour or two on Sunday mornings. They dig in the sand and get nice a tuckered out for a good long nap. Sol loves the time with just Dad and no baby. I love the leisure of reading a book 30 minutes IN A ROW! And everyone is much happier for it.

6. Find time for yourself. This is linked to #5 somewhat. You are filling up the love-cups of two little people now. You need time to recharge. You need time to stare at Pinterest mindlessly. You need to meet up with a friend sans kids for a smoothie. I was totally amazed at what a half an hour trip to the coffee shop with a good book did for my energy and outlook on life. Even if your partner or a friend can just take the kids to play in the back yard for half an hour. It is necessary for your sanity!

I know all you parents out there of more than one kiddo have some stellar advice and ideas, too! Enlighten me! How did you make the transition from 1 to 2 or from 2 to 3 easier? How do you make time for a special one-on-one with your older kids? Will it get easier or harder as “baby Ezra” turns into “walker Ezra” turns into “3 year old Ezra”?

Crying as Sport?

Everyone loves babies. We’re programmed to. It’s biological: A 2008 research study at Baylor showed that the happiness centers in our brains light up when we see a baby smiling at us.

Conversely, a 2012 study at Aarhus University showed that a baby’s cry elicits a unique, lightning-fast response in his parents to soothe the baby. We want that crying to stop. We’re wired that way.

So, it’s puzzling why there seems to be a surge of entertainment centered on crying children, particularly infants. The quiver of the lip, the shaking of the chin, the miniature pout, the glistening tears. Apparently, it’s quite adorable. And as the child grows and those crying sessions become tantrums, these big reactions can seem downright hilarious to a lot of people. “You’re having a fit about what?!”

Making sport of crying babies – from Parenting.com’s “They’re mad, they’re sad, they’re so darn cute!” crying baby pictures to YouTube’s swarms of “cute baby crying” videos to talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s challenge to parents to feign eating all their child’s Halloween candy to Japan’s crying babies festival (what!?) – seems to be taking this fixation with baby cuteness one step too far.

What ever happened to adoring a baby’s tiny toes or fingernails or curls? Or, celebrating a baby’s first steps or raucous laughter at a mom blowing her nose? And why are we oohing and ahhing and laughing at a baby crying rather than grimacing and imagining how we can soothe her? Why don’t these videos and photos make us more uncomfortable than they do, ringing our psychological bells to come to her rescue?

I’ve never found my baby’s crying anything different than distressing. I can definitely identify with that lightning-fast response time. Where’s the milk? Need a diaper change? Kiss the boo-boo. No, you can’t play with the scissors but here’s a ball to look at. And of course, my lap and arms are always open to comfort.

But I admit it, there have been a couple times when my six-year-old daughter’s meltdowns bordered on funny or when my four-year-old makes a comment that almost makes me smile. Almost – because in the middle of a little person’s over-the-top outburst, when he’s feeling so misunderstood, so denied, so frustrated, angry, sad, out of control of his world, is when the parent needs to strive to empathize with his child and to stay attuned. Attunement is impossible if we’re not allowing ourselves to get down to her level to understand her emotionality because we’re too busy seeing the situation through adult eyes, which invariably looks silly or completely unreasonable from our level.

And that’s the point: children are not on an adult level, so what we find silly or alternately adorable, they find devastating. And what we adults get upset over – getting our bills paid, taking an afternoon nap, eating broccoli – our children don’t see what the big deal is. Does that mean what adults care about isn’t important? Of course not. But don’t try flipping that around and saying that just because we adults don’t think a toy car is anything to be flailing around on the supermarket floor for, doesn’t mean that it’s not important to a child. And while some of us might find the scene of a complete meltdown somewhat, or totally, hilarious, it certainly isn’t to that child.

Children can’t fathom that their anger and sadness – their emotional pain – is funny or adorable. And expressing this, even privately within our minds, is disrespectful to our children. It comes back to talking the talk and walking the walk. We want to be respected for our needs and wants, so we need to live in a way that is respectful and that teaches our children to be respectful.

The Talk

So today, was ‘the talk’ with my dearest Larissa, age 7. Not the sex talk – the Santa talk. Never in my life have I experienced something quite like that. This morning we were running around, barely on time for school and Larissa asked me, “Mom, I wondered who hired Santa? Who was the first one?”

The moment struck me, and I sat down to begin the conversation. I had known it was coming but my mind was whirling as responding with sensitivity took on a whole new meaning. I wanted to be honest and truthful but could I do that without crushing her, without being totally honest? Could I lie? No… but it was a passing thought. I stopped beating around the bush and jumped in full throttle into what felt right. The conversation unfolded something like this…

“Well I believe in all kinds magic: the magic of Santa, of your dreams, of fairytales, of God, of Christmas, feeling good when you do the right thing. Santa is just a representation of all that magic. But not in the way that kids usually think about magic. The magic of fairytales coming true is real to me because I married your dad and we live the fairytale every single day. However, in a real-life, fairytales you have to clean toilets, you make mistakes, you are sometimes late for school (like today).

There are 2 groups of people in the world. Both believe in magic but in different ways. The younger group believes in the kid-friendly kind of magic because of the older group. Once you are mature enough and you have this once-in-a-lifetime conversation, YOU become the one responsible for carrying the magic of life, onto the first group, onto your sisters and someday your kids.”

“You mean I get to BE the magic?” she asked.

“YES! “

Larissa lit up, her face turned red, and I thought she was going to cry from disappointment. But after a moment, she looked at me about to bust with happiness. She hugged me and said, “Mom, you are my magic!” I cried of course and said that magic is a giant wheel of belief.

I was scared that Larissa was going to be totally devastated or angry but her reaction shocked and touched me. I have never seen her so full of joy and happiness in all my life. She did say that she was a little disappointed but she was so excited to be given the responsibility of passing the magic around. She was just busting with actual pure euphoria.

You know, when you become a mom, ALL the work you put in gets eventually rewarded. In toddlerhood, the reward comes when your child finally shares a toy that ONE time as a sign of compassion to another crying child. Oh, man that sense of pride is nothing compared to when they get older. The moment when you know you must be doing at least an alright job of mothering because they show such compassion and maturity. This was that moment for me as I have never known.

When I sat down that day I would have I honestly would have preferred the sex talk, at least that I had thought about and prepared for those conversations. I thought I was being a murderer of magic for her, but really I just made it grow.

This is a moment I will treasure forever.

Toddlers at War: Sibling Rivalry

“My eldest daughter stalks the younger one, trips her up, hits her, bites her, takes her toys, scratches and pushes her. Yesterday she put a pillow on her sister’s face and every time I jump to intervene, she tries to be nasty on a daily basis. Only my intervention or having them separately will prevent actual injuries,” my friend complained to me recently. Her daughters are two and one years old.

I, myself, have two boys under three, and scratching, biting, hitting and spitting are part of our daily routine at the moment. At times it gets so bad that I can’t even turn away my head; leaving the room was simply life-threatening for the baby.

Whose Fault Is It?

I wondered if we as parents could do something to stop the rivalry or even if it is our fault that our kids don’t feel loved enough. May be it is our behavior that sets the jealousy off and promotes rivalry among our children?

“No, absolutely not! Parents take too much on,” assured me Dr. Jane Nelsen, the founder of the Positive Discipline program, when I phoned her up. “You can’t control a child’s perceptions or what a child decides or what a child believes because two children can see the same event and make different decisions. So, that’s why we can’t take all the credit or blame.”

Parents can’t stop the rivalry from happening but they can do a lot to minimize its impact. “First of all when parents agree on how to parent, that creates an atmosphere of cooperation and energy. And when parents have opposite opinions, which they most of the time have, that increases the rivalry.”

Jane came up with a great example on how to handle rivalry in toddlers. At first I found it somewhat counterintuitive. “Let’s say a toddler takes a toy away from his younger sibling – what do most mothers do?”

“Well, they punish the older one, the aggressor,” I mumble, puzzled about what would be wrong with that approach.

“Exactly. So what you are doing when you swoop in and protect the younger and punish the older child? You are increasing sibling rivalry because you are doing bully-victim training. You are teaching the older one to be a bully by punishing him. So then he learns – oh I can punish someone who’s smaller than me and they are training the younger one to be a victim. That smart little guy or girl is going to learn so quickly: Oh the way to feel special around here, all I need to do is to annoy the older one so that mummy and daddy won’t see it and so they will always think it’s the others fault.”

Dr. Nelsen continued, “what helps a lot in improving behavior is when the older sees that they are both treated the same. It’s hard to do, I’m not saying it’s easy to do but it’s so important to do if we possibly can.”

The Importance of Siblings Rivalry

“I think that sibling rivalry is important,” Dr. Nelsen continues. “I don’t think we should try to eliminate all of it. But I think it is detrimental if parents are always jumping in and taking sides. Then it has long lasting negative effect on children’s’ relationship. If a parent intervenes to take the side of one and not the other, then that’s not a good socialization. But if they say, ‘I’ll take this toy until you guys can figure out a way to share or you can go to separate areas until you are ready to try it again,’ that’s great socialization.”

To finish our conversation, Jane gave me a great rule of thumb for the toddler years and beyond.

“Treat your kids the same. It is like you talk to both of them even if the youngest one can’t understand. They understand the energy. They understand the actions, even if they don’t understand the words”.