It's been a good week! The general feeling is one of being on the up and up. I hit a breaking point last week with Jack spending his days miserable and angry and taking it out on us. I ordered the book "1-2-3 Magic" with overnight shipping (it's a "discipline" system that was popular in the 90s--basically you count to 3 with no emotion and no extra talking, and if your kiddo doesn't stop the undesired behavior by "3" then you send them away or withhold a privilege). When it arrived I devoured it and began implementing the next day. NOPE. Big fail. Not the system to implement if you have a Jack personality type on your hands. The first problem was that it really felt like a "winning the battle, losing the war" approach in our situation. The point is to get your kids to do what you want, or stop doing what you don't want, in the moment . . . but then it sent the whole rest of the day on a negative trajectory we could never quite recover from. The second problem was that at the end of the day I just felt gross instead of hopeful. Jack looked at us with such betrayal in his eyes and it honestly was just making the meltdowns worse. Homeboy has a strong personality. (Not something I say with criticism, as "strong willed" is a personality trait I wish I had more of myself and will serve him well as an adult.) But he's stronger than this "system," honestly. So after he went to bed I went back to the drawing board and realized that one of the underlying problems for me was that the approach leans authoritarian (focusing on discipline and control) instead of authoritative (focusing on limit setting with connection). This experience reminded me that with Jack, the latter is much more effective. So even though the 1-2-3 system works great for lots of parents/kids, we're putting it back on the shelf for now.
I loved AP psychology in high school and I love researching child psychology now as a parent. It feels like job training. It helps me be more effective and strategic. It started out as panic researching in the bathtub at night when Jared would leave for month-long away rotations when we lived in Wyoming and I would get zero breaks from the rigors of parenting my creative, smart, strong-willed toddler. The tools I learned have been infinitely helpful, so even though I don't spend as much time actively researching human psychology as I used to, I feel like I have a good toolbox to pull from when a new parenting difficulty crops up. Anyway, I've learned that authoritative leadership is shown to be the most effective in producing desired behavior long term (as opposed to just short term) and results in better relationships. So I immediately abandoned the 1-2-3 Magic approach since it wasn't working and played with doing pretty much the opposite the next day. Still holding to limits, but responding to the resulting meltdown with connection instead of punishment. That seems to have been the ticket. It's been a much better week.
I've learned that behavior is a reflection of what's going on inside. In other words, if I'm snapping at my kids or my spouse all day, it's not because I'm a bad person at my core and I want them to be miserable. It's most likely because I'm having a hard time, whether that's because I didn't get enough sleep, or I'm extra stressed or anxious about something, or I'm hungry, you know the drill. My spouse responding to my snapping with "Get away from me until you've cooled off in your room " absolutely would not be as effective in cooling me down as if he gave me a big hug and said, "Hey, I can see you're having a hard time. Tell me about it."
The same is true for kids. The phrase "My kids aren't giving me a hard time, they're having a hard time," is one I think about often, and it absolutely applies when I think about the rough time we were all having last week. Jack really misses having social connection with kids his age and physical activity every day. He was having a hard time. So I really thought about why he was having a hard time and what I could do to help. My first idea was to start our day running around a track. Check that "physical activity" box first thing in the morning for my boy who thrives on physical activity and really hasn't been getting enough of it this summer. He has loved going to the "racetrack" every morning since. My next idea was to respond to meltdowns with a hug and a snuggle instead of a break. Even though I could almost always use more break time, what Jack was needing in those hard moments was more of me, not less of me. So when he'd break down and start losing control, I tried giving him a big hug and carrying him to the nearest couch/bed for a snuggle. Each time he would snap out of the meltdown SO fast and give me a shy smile and ask if we could snuggle all day and we'd have the sweetest conversations. Then he'd be this helpful little gentleman the rest of the day. Between the running and the snuggle sessions, this week has gone leaps and bounds better than last week. Let's hope that continues for these last few weeks of summer. You know I'll keep you posted.
Woof, THAT was an unexpected direction this post went in haha. I guess "fewer meltdowns" is just our biggest family update as of late. Here are some pictures from our week!
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