My Parenting Library

Usually I tell friends to throw away the baby books. They seem aimed at making new parents neurotic. The one I really liked (Happiest Baby on the Block), I liked because it just validated my instincts. I'm a big believer in the "Go With Your Gut" style of parenting.

And then came Angelina....and now I have a whole library of parenting books. A year ago, I wrote about our Spirited Child. The book, Raising Your Spirited Child, gave us some valuable insight into understanding her character. And let's face it, a child of Frédéric and me is not going to be calm and easy going, not with two intense, passionate parents. It's what I love about Frédéric and about Angelina, but it can be a challenge!

So here we are a year later. Our Happy Hurricane is adjusting (or rather, not adjusting) to leaving her old daycare where she'd been 2.5 years, being a big sister with a new baby in the house demanding ALL Mommy's time, and starting a new pre-school. For awhile there, it was bad. BAD. And then it started to get better, or so it seemed. Then, Papa went away. Sure, Nanny came and that helped distract her a bit the first week, but having returned for two days and leave again for another 4, was more than even Nanny could distract...All her "worst" behaviours came out in full force. Now he's back, and she's coming around again, but we've accepted that "going with your gut" isn't working.

So we've succumbed to the books. See, our "guts" too often lead us to be intimidators rather than emotion coaches. Ten points to whomever knows where that reference comes from ;). My latest book is another by the same author, and reading it is like bells going off. "Of course! That's what I need to do!" as she describes some child doing the same thing Angelina does.

AH, but one actually has to remember all the techniques and actually DO them, which is not so easy in the heat of the moment when your gut is telling you to strike out.

We're learning. Most importantly, we're learning more about ourselves. Frédéric said the other day "she's making us better people." That's because we're learning patience, we're learning to think about what we do, how we react, how we deal with stress. Not that the lessons are easy. I'd say we're earning about a C+ at the moment. But we're trying. Maybe by the time Lenaïc enters this phase, we'll have mastered the lessons and earned an A+.


The book: Kids, Parents, and Power Struggles

Another just finished Siblings Without Rivalry, which, though one sibling is not even 8 weeks old, is already relevant. I highly recommend both.

Chocolate!

You can take the child out of Switzerland, but can you take a Swiss's love of Chocolate out of them? Apparently not.

This afternoon Angelina wasn't agreeing to her nap (so what is new). After some debate (a few times to bed), I put her in the bed and said she couldn't come out until I came to get her.

I went outside to work.

30 minutes or so later I decided to check on her. I quietly open the door to hear a very sweet, somewhat sad and scared "Mommy?" I walk over to her. "Mommy, I made a mess."

Mess indeed. (which, by the way, is her favourite phrase) She had a chocolate ball (she'd had it earlier, wrapped in a cool globe-like paper, she didn't know it was chocolate, she thought it was just a ball). In her hot little hands it melted....

all over her face, her clothes, her hands, the bed......

Adaptability

This one was difficult for me. So far, it seems not only did Angelina fit the description of "spirited", but so did I. Then I came to adaptability. Or rather, difficulty adapting.

Surely this didn't describe me? And I hoped it didn't describe Angelina. I always prided myself on my adaptability: my ability to go anywhere new, make a new home, make new friends, make a new life. I'd hoped that was something Angelina would share, especially as we're not likely to stay in one place forever. I didn't want to think she'd be one of those kids who refused to try new things, or who never wanted to go someplace new.

Then I read more. It's not just new places, it's the transitions.

When we were in CA recently, my mom had a whole day of errands and activities for us to do, followed by 2 Halloween events that night. At first I said ok. Then I said NO WAY. I just knew it would not work. I'd already nixed the two Halloween events, over her protests. She had said Angelina wouldn't know the difference. WRONG. I didn't think about it thoroughly, I just knew multiple stops would not work for either of us. We still ended up with far too much to do that day, but it was nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

After reading more, I realized this made sense. *I* have trouble with too many transitions. I can not double and triple book my day. There was a time when Frédéric and I would plan a day of errands and by the 3rd of 4th one I was losing it. I just couldn't take it anymore and needed to stop. Now I understand. I need time to transition. I need fewer transitions. I can't run run run. I need downtime. I need to stop. I'm good with surprises, I can decide things spur of the moment, but I need some time to regroup. I don't like the idea of a whirlwind 15 city tour in 2 weeks. I DO like visiting 15 countries over 15 YEARS - i.e. spending time IN the country, getting to know the new place, making friends there.

For Angelina, this is very true as well. Note that I'm conscientious not to put my own experiences or personality traits onto her. But this is something I *have* seen. She can handle lots of "stops" if we're walking, because there's no real transition. She doesn't like getting in the car, out of the car, in the car.... she gets all cranky and fussy. Maybe that's because *I* get cranky and fussy, I'm not sure. But I do know she doesn't transition well. She can't switch gears midstream.

SO what does that mean?

We need to provide smooth transitions. She can't go from playing horsey to going to bed in a matter of minutes. She needs wind down time. She can't just STOP watching Dora/playing her game because I said so. Well, she can if I force her, but do we really need a meltdown because I couldn't take the time to warn her? The aim is to prepare her for the transition "Angelina, when the timer goes off/I finish this task/the show is over we turn it off." Doesn't always work. I tried using the egg timer to indicate when she had to stop playing with the coffee. She kept turning the egg timer over...Ok, so it's not fool proof, but the concept makes sense: Prepare her for what's to come, create a relaxing wind down routine.

Don't shock her into something new. Now, this IS the kid who likes to be scared. She loves the "Monster". She loves when Papa jumps around the door and scares her out of her shoes. But those are exciting, fun things, and they're not real transitions.

We're figuring it out. Day by day.

And for those in my family who laugh, who say we're creating a Monster, laugh away. I hope we're creating a kid who learns to deal with her intense emotions, who understands how to manage her sensitivity, how to address her adaptability, how to harness her persistence into something positive.

Today's Lesson: Humility

There's a quote I used to have on my email signature "Life is a long lesson in humility."

Still true, but now I'll specify: "Parenthood is a long lesson in humility."

In trying to understand the little monster, er, Angel, I'm learning a lot about myself, including my own intensity, persistance, sensitivity (I hate dry skin + scratchy clothes and socks with the edge in the wrong place!), adaptability, and perceptiveness. More on that later.

More importantly right now, I've learned about my own capacity for judging. I never thought I was particularly judgmental of other parents, though I know I've been less than positive on a few occasions. One in particular sticks in my mind. One day, outside the Yale Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine, a little girl about Angelina's age was throwing a temper tantrum in the parking lot. The mom, a professional woman, probably a scientist or MD at Yale, was kneeling next to her saying in the calmest voice imaginable "Honey, we don't yell like that. That's not good behaviour."

My first thought? I laughed.

To myself, but I laughed.

In my mind I said, "Just pick up the kid and show her who's boss. Stick her in the car and let her scream. You can't reason with a 2 yr old."

Now I know she probably just got done reading the book I'm reading about Spirited Children.

Yes, there's a time when you have to insist, when you can't wait for the tantrum-throwing 2 yr old to make the 'right decision,' but should parenthood really be a dictatorship? It's not a democracy either, but how about something in between? Is it so bad if a 2 yr old gets to make some decisions?


The bible, er, my new book, describes such a child, and explains how by modeling the behaviour you expect, eventually the child learns that behaviour. So, if the parent's response is to yell and demand and be forceful, well, guess how the kid behaves? That doesn't mean the parent doesn't set boundaries, quite the contrary, boundaries and rules are extremely important for a "spirited" child. The key is to allow choices within those boundaries. The choices may be "You walk to the car on your own without a fuss, or I carry you kicking and screaming." A 2 yr old may not get it immediately, but over time, will.

It's too early to claim success just yet, but I have already seen a difference. By not getting upset when she doesn't cooperate, by talking through what's wrong or making it a game, and letting it seem like "her choice", by staying calm, she calms down. Three nights in a row now she's gone to sleep without a fuss, and so far two of those nights she's slept straight through to morning and woke up happy. A world of difference from a few days ago.
As much as I hated people saying to me "when you have kids..." or claiming I didn't know what I was talking about because I didn't have kids, even those I'd cared for - sometimes for a week at a time - tons of kids of all ages, they were kind of right. It IS different with your own (which would explain how Nana and Nanny have no problems with her). So, I eat my humble pie. To the mother whom I inwardly laughed at for calmly telling her tantruming two year old "That's not good behaviour," I apologize. You were on the right track. I only had to have my own SPIRITED child to figure that out.



Tomorrow's lesson: Adaptability