Great post Mayaness, gotta spread the love a little...
I came back with a bit more time to expand but Maya's done it all for me! I was just going to say that consequences either follow or they don't, you can only really "invent" them in very specific circumstances (like if DD is kicking my seat despite a massive amount of legroom in the car i tilt my seat back so she can't do it (the seat is then so close she cannot kick it)) and i basically assume the only thing i can teach DD with consequence creation is how *I* will react to something. It's behavioural - that's NOT what happens if you kick a seat in front of you, it only happens if you do it to Mama in the car. But she once did it on the bus and the woman in the seat in front turned round and asked her not to do it and she cried because she was so shocked to be corrected by a stranger and now she doesn't do it on the bus anymore either. But it relied on me telling her not to do it, and then when the lady turned to correct her, letting that happen. I comforted her when she cried, but i also thanked the lady who made her cry! It takes a village, but you have to LET the village do it!
For my journey as a parent i find putting myself in DD's place ALWAYS helps me find what to do next. Imagine you made a big mistake at work and lost your job, and when you came home and told your DH he said that as a punishment he was going to take your house keys away and only let you in and out when he decided. The lost job would make you re-evaluate your career and how careful you are at work. The arbitrary grounding by DH would make you very angry and bitter indeed! As hard as it can be, i feel the right path for us is that i neither inflict nor protect from consequences, so long as safety isn't too much of a concern.
Having said that, some kids don't learn the hard way OR the easy way - DD lifted a RED HOT COAL from our fire 2 weeks ago with her bare hand and dropped it onto the rug. The coal was bonded to the rug-backing, the pile was burned right to the back and DD had not a single mark on her. She is lucky. I am luckier. We now have a fire guard double bolted to the walls so there is no way for her to get to it. That was MY lesson and i am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to learn it the easy way.
Today, DS walked into the village with me. He did really well, he held my hand so I didn't run off or get lost (yes, it is a bit James James Morrison Morrison but it works well for us). When we left the pharmacist after picking up DS's medicine then DS decided to explore. That's OK, we can explore. But not on the road with the cars.
No, not on the road.
No, not in the car park, there are cars.
If you go near the road without holding hands then you're in the pushchair and we go straight home.
OK, pushchair.
For the next few minutes I spoke to DS at his level to explain that when he runs and hits a wall it hurts. When he runs and hits a car it hurts EVEN MORE because the car is moving too. This makes everything very fast and very hurty. Liebling is allowed to run into walls to learn that it hurts, but not running into cars to learn that lesson. Because Mammy doesn't want Liebling in hospital or dead.
DS got over it. He has learnt about punishment more than consequences, I suppose, but sometimes you have to do it that way. (On reins he would have strained to get into the road and ended up falling on his bum, crying and being carried home so it's still the same.)
Around the house... I don't childproof. DS can touch my things. They're boring things and don't light up, make a sound or have wheels. He doesn't go for them now. The only disaster we've had was the three of us were watching Wolverine and the X-Men (very suitable for all ages) and a photo frame fell from the top of the display cabinet. It's a huge frame for a huge photo and nowhere else to put this. The glass smashed everywhere. All over DS's toys. We cleared up the glass from the floor, the Noah's Ark and the blocks, and have learnt to find better homes for our photos! DS has also learnt that if something smashes he tells us. And when he dropped his plastic cup on the floor, he told me. No telling off, just me mopping up the milk and cleaning the cup as well as thanking DS for telling me about the accident. So, in fact, it helped my teaching by letting DS know it's OK to have accidents!
DS has broken my jewellery before. I just tell him I'm upset (without shouting!) and he comes to give me a hug to apologise. He knows not to pull my necklace but he still does sometimes; I show him how to touch gently each time. Because that is quite hard to learn! (I also wear fairly cheap necklaces these days too LOL.)
This is a great thread Doudou and I hope you don't mind but would love to discuss this further.
For instance it makes sense to me that I want to parent with natural consequences in mind, I want to avoid the whole punishment thing, I want to try and teach and give my children the tools/skills to be able to make decisions to do things in a positive way, not motivated by fear but I find it hard to know how to put this into practice.
If we take RH example of explaining that walls hurt and cars will hurt more so don't run onto the road and so you are going into the pushchair (I'm assuming this is a pram) then isn't this natural consequences ?? or as someone else said should I be explaining about roads and cars and pram threat as part of the prewarning (and please RH don't take offense as I suspect you did this I just was after some clarification and this was a good example, also Hoobly I know that you carry DD alot so this may not be an issue for you but with my DS currently only 10 months and already over 11.6 kgs (about 24 pounds) it isn't always practical to carry him)
I really get confused as to where to draw the line so to speak for example what Hoobly was saying about being upset but cause her DD is persceptive you don't see this as guilting the child, I want my child to know the consequence of how it makes me feel but at the same time I don't want to guilt him. For example DS is currently learning about being gentle and he is scratching at my face (I believe this is normal thing but he needs to learn - see I don't want him to necessarily learn that because it hurts that he shouldn't do it cause on that theory when he get's older he will think he can do things to other people cause it doesn't hurt him but he may not realise that it hurst other people (his dad is very good at this - I say something hurts and to stop it and he says it doesn't hurt him so it is o.k ect...) but to learn that he shouldn't do it cause it isn't the right thing to do IYKWIM?) so I sometimes pretend to cry to let him know that it hurts, aren't I guilting him into stopping?? I am so confused as to how I should be teaching him, for example do I just say no in a firm voice and tell him to be gentle by showing him and if he continues say no again and put him on the floor when he usualy only acts this way when he is tired?? or do I cry to let him know that it is hurting (see it doesn't hurt much but it isn't something that I want him doing) or should I just ignore it caues he will learn not to do this eventually but if I don't teach him how will he learn ? (see my confusion it could really do my head in if I let it)
Sorry Doudou if I have taken over your thread, please let me know and I will start another one cause I have a few other questions/scenarios I would love to discuss further.
njd definatley take over!!
i think that is where i get cofused about natural concequenses to....if im faking an emotion to get him to realise it not right well then im making him feel guilty.....
I personally think that if you make sure they know it's the behaviour you don't like and not them personally then it's ok to tell them how your feeling and to show emotion. I think it's also important to promote empathy in children once they are able to understand the language. I know lots of adults that aren't very empathetic and they usually aren't that great to be around. The whole consequence thing is tricky and it depends on how you parent as to how effective or how well they understand them. Eg I think the attitude not to have any breakables in the house is great but there comes a time when children need to learn to respect other peoples belongings and this is a good thing to teach. In saying that children are egotistic and need help to achieve these skills. Asking lots of open ended questions when they are old enough (say 2-3+) like "how do you think that makes me feel when you do that(whatever it is)?" or "how would you feel if something you loved got broken" is a good thing I think. Anyway I suppose what i'm trying to say is that IMO we shouldn't be afraid to talk about our feelings with our children because hopefully when they are able they will openly talk about their feelings and emotions rather then bottling it up.
I agree with Olivesmummy, emotions are important for kids to learn to read. After all, they already know when you're happy and that's how they want to keep you. Sometimes I'll play up a hurt more than I'm really feeling it, just so that DS sees that emotion. 'Guilt' or empathy isn't bad to feel - it's what motivates us to be good to people! I can see how artificially generating guilt in a child can be problematic - you need to show them how others are going to act if he'd done the same thing to them. They're going to see it anyway when they're socialising more, so it's not a bad idea to practice reactions to it at home.
What I focus on more is when DS hurts someone else, then I'll 'tend to the injured' and SHOW him how to be in this situation. He's really picked it up - more the conventions than real contrition, contrition is a vague concept at this stage of the game and they WILL get it in a few years. Meanwhile, there are basic social conventions like acknowledging when you've impacted on someone negatively we have to do, as social animals. So, now, when I say 'ouchies' when DS clamps a little hard whilst BFing, he looks up at me and says 'Oh, sorry, Mummy'. It doesn't take long
Also, without focusing on people's belongings much at all, and just reacting positively, with love, compassion and reason in our home, he's mindful of other people's things now. Not always, and that's normal, but a lot of the time.
Kids don't do things to people to hurt their feelings at this age. In fact, they're usually mortified to find that a consequence of their actions has been to take the fun out of it for someone. Natural consequence = someone unhappy = desire to get back to status quo of contentedness.
That's just the way I see it
But when we "fake" emotions do we fake our emotions or the usually shown emotions? DS hurts me then I don't play with him until he apologises because I don't play with people who hurt me. And others, I assume, don't like people who hurt them (I do ask him to stop and show him how to be gentle first!).
I do withdraw a lot from him when he shouts at me. I am not as bad as I was: before, shouting in the house (my mum and my sister had really bad slanging matches) had me withdrawing to my room or even a friend's house for the week. So frequent were my withdrawals that I was scarcely missed! I had been at Uni 2 months before Mum stopped calling me down for dinner! If DS is screaming at me and I can't understand why I have to eventually walk away before my stress levels get up. This isn't a "normal person" response, but it is normal for me. What should I be modelling?
so for me that I am clearer about showing emotions and empathy, I think if I have this correct that what Maya, Hoobley and olive'smummy are trying to say is that you aren't showing an emotion that you aren't already feeling just maybe exagerating it so that they understand the full impact of thier actions - similar to when you are teaching them to say some sounds, you exagerate those sounds etc...
I agree with Maya that I don't think being a mother and friend is mutually exclusive, in saying that I don't think it is fair for me as a mother to put my issues onto DS so I wouldn't put his dad down in front of him or say my financial worries etc... but hope that I build a relationship with DS so that he can feel secure that he can come and discuss almost anything with me so that would be my friend hat and my mum hat would be teaching him to be a good human, being respectful and setting boundaries etc... RH I think your mum was wrong to dump her stuff on her and it is hard cause this is such a fine line.
Now I am going (with Doudou's permission) to go onto discipline with smacking. Before I go on I want to say I don't want to start a debate about whether it is o.k or not, I also understand there are different levels of smacking (from a smack on the hand for something dangerous to a belting etc...) and everyone can choose what is acceptable to them. For me I don't want to smack and believe in a more gentler way of parenting (this is my choice) and I am struggling with how things are done in my family becuase often it is so ingrained that I have to conciously stop what I am doing and struggle with alternative ways of dealing with it so your advice/discussion is appreciated.
In our family it is the "stop what you are doing cause of xyz and if you don't I will count to 3 and you will get a smack/go to your room"
Now I have a few problems with this, first of all the reason is often cause it is naughty or you've been told a hundred times you can't do that etc... and I really don't feel comfortable with that. Sometimes I feel that we as parents can be lazy and instead of removing the child from the problem we expect them to stop doing it cause we say so and if they don't we smack them or give them time out.
So is a better way of handling this to give them a 3 chances warning but the consequence being I am going to remove you? and then distract them? cause this is what I have been trying to do but have come across a few problems. EG at PIL's they have a flat screen telly which is right at DS height and he is so quick now that I don't have time to do my 3 warning chance and he is there already (& yes I know he is a little young so should I be doing something differently) so I have just been telling him stop stay away from the telly and then when he gets there removing him and distracting him.
So another problem I have with that is how do you decide on the consequence, I get that we should explain how it impacts on us and makes us feel but is there anything else that should be done cause I really don't like the naughty corner cause I think that concentrates too much on the bad behavour. Is it a case of recogniseing all behavious so there is praise for the good behavious as well.
Hope this rambling makes sense and thanks for reading....
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