The D'uh Moment

I read a post by a wonderful lady and blogger, Jen a week ago (it was the Don't sweat the small stuff post here: www.jennifermcgrail.com) I thought about it a bit and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it.
To summarise, (but really, go read for yourself, I recommend it!) - she wrote about an incident where her daughter threw her son's trainers in the pond, she fished them out and that was it. She didn't angry or loose it or shout and that impressed her son's friend no end.

My first thought was how wonderful, I would love to be like that. Since having children I am extremely short tempered, with the children but with life in general, far less laid back and tolerant than I used to be, and, frankly, I don't like it.

Then I thought some more, and I thought, but how will her daughter ever grow up knowing right from wrong, will she grow all her life thinking it's OK to throw trainers in ponds, would I want my kids acting like that. Part of this is putting my own story on stuff (for example, Bear loves his trainers, is very particular over them and would hate them to get covered in pond gunk; he hates going barefoot too, so unlike me and Butterfly) so would hate to have to wear wet shoes or go without - so I thought about how that kind of action would probably really spoil our day and be very upsetting for Bear. So I started to think, I could never be like that, I wouldn't want my kids to be like that.

Anyway, cut forward a bit and a lot of email exchanges with lovely Jen later, I suddenly had my D'uh moment. She explained, that, although it wasn't relevant to her post, it wasn't that she'd patted her daughter on the back, and said well done for such good throwing darling, here's the keys and my phone, why don't you throw them in the pond too ! She'd calmly spoken to her daughter about not taking such actions, she'd embarked on a process of teaching this little girl (who is after all only 3) appropriate and not so appropriate behaviours. But she didn't loose it.

And I realised, it's not a question of one or the other. I don't have to shout to make myself heard. Lecturing and loosing it and getting angry does nothing. Except maybe teach the kids how not to behave towards each other when the other upsets them. They don't learn when I am standing over them yelling. They don't learn from sarcasm. They don't learn from punishments.

That doesn't mean behaviour is always accepted. That there is never any learning. It's just that the issue is dealt with calmly. Or later. Or not at all if it's not that important. Deal with the problem (retrieve the trainers); do the learning part later when everyone is calm and ready to listen. And if you can laugh about it in the meantime, well then, doesn't that make life better for everyone ?

I think sometimes, especially to those on the outside like me who are trying to move from control to connected parenting, we don't see the whole picture. Like Jen said, her post was focussed on one thing, but it may have left the impression that actually she did nothing about the incident, and I think many connected parenting articles end up like that. They focus on the not loosing it part, on the remaining connected and centered part, and for those who don't know any better (or perhaps it's just me?), there's a feeling that that is all there is.

I can be the parent I want to be without my children growing up delinquents. I can deal with issues without snapping/yelling/shouting etc etc. They will probably, no, definitely, learn more from a couple of well chosen softly spoken words later, or at an appropriate time than a tirade of invective in the heat of the moment.

Obvious ? Well, yes. But it took Jen's post to make me sit up and smell the coffee. So thanks to Jen and here's to putting this into action. One baby step at a time, but hopefully we are on the right road.