I've been reading and listening to a bunch of different books and podcasts about parenting. I'm being very selective in my choices so I don't get too, too overwhelmed. There are so many things I wish I'd learned for the first year of Aaron's life before situations came up, so I want to be a little bit more prepared as we move into toddler-dom. I know that this will in no way prepare me for every single situation out there, but it's been so good for Sammy and I to have discussions about our opinions on how we want to approach things. It's been such a relief to see that we're on the same page on a lot of things!
Some things I want to remember that I've learned are from the book Nurture Shock- not to give out praise for every little thing so that they don't become praise driven. Kids who are only seeking praise often won't take risks because they're scared of failure.
When I do give praise, give it over something they can control. Don't tell your kid that they're smart. Instead, praise them for continuing to keep trying, etc. If they only hear that they're smart, when something is hard for them, they'll question that they're not smart and then stop trying.
There's a certain window for teaching about lying. If we put kids in a position where they know they're going to get in trouble for telling the truth, then they're going to learn to lie. When asking them about breaking a vase for example, you want to ask it in a way where they know you aren't going to get mad at them for telling the truth. Kids lie to make you happy. You also want to show them the impact of lies.
From a podcast called Mint Arrow Messages interviewing Ralph Jacobs from Simply on Purpose, I learned about positive parenting. This is something I want to implement as much as possible. Hearing about this approach just felt good to me and I like it. She broke down her approach into four steps. The first step is to be in control of yourself. To learn how to be calm yourself and not let your child's behavior make you misbehave as well. She says it's a lot of work and probably the hardest to do. But that's step one.
The second is to teach your child and remember that you are their teacher, and that they don't have an adult brain.
The third is to look for the good in your child instead of only focusing on the bad stuff. You only have so much energy every day and you have to choose what you focus on. Use that time to teach them a skill instead of just telling them what you don't want them to do.
The fourth is to ignore inconsequential behavior. I really like this step. I'm a primary teacher right now and there are times where the kids will be picking their legs or not sitting straight forward and I watch other teachers correct that behavior, but I feel bad for the kids! They just sat still for an hour before that, and now we're expecting them to keep sitting still. I don't even want to keep sitting by that point, why am I expecting that of a four year old?
She also talked about the difference between a bribe and a reward. A bribe is when your kid won't get in their car seat and you just offer them something to do that specific action. A reward is telling your kids before you go into the grocery store that if they sit in the cart the whole time, they can put all the food on the conveyor belt. They have to think about that in advance and work towards it.
From 3 in 30 Takeaways for Moms I listened to two podcasts on discipline. I know that he's not always going to behave and only pointing out good things isn't always going to work. I learned that I need to help Aaron learn to self regulate and there are a few ways to do that. First off, they discussed how life today doesn't let kids self regulate because we're so busy going all the time. The first thing suggested was to quit all the extra activities and make sure that kids have lots of time for unstructured play outside. That's how they learn, through play. I can't take away all the risks for him, or go solve every single little disagreement between him and his friends, otherwise he'll never learn how to do that for himself.
The second suggestion was to lesson screen time. I'm already bad at this. Aaron loves my phone so much so we'll see how that goes ha!
Third was to not be so focused on school achievement. She talked about how some kids don't do any chores or help at all because they're so busy doing a million activities and studying to get the best grades and such to get into the best colleges. She said her kids have a strict bed time and if they didn't finish their homework by then, along with all their household responsibilities, that's on them.
The next thing to think about is that bad behavior is a sign that you can teach your kid a new skill. It's not a failure, it's a learning opportunity.
Discipline means to teach.
There are three things you can do in discipline. First, connection. You need to have a good connection between you and your child. It's natural when they're having a tantrum to start to feel panicked as well, but if we do, they'll get more heightened and it'll keep going. They did studies with parents and kids just sitting in the same room together quietly and their heart rates and breathing synced up. So, to help in the middle of a tantrum, we have to stay calm.
You can't discipline effectively without a connection with your kids. They gave an example of when they're losing it, to try and give a hug or touch of some kind to connect. There was an example where the mom tried to do that and they wouldn't let her so she said hey, I know you're having a hard time right now and I'm right here for you when you're ready, and she went and laid on her son's bed. He came in after a few moments and calmed down while snuggling.
They try to do special one on one time with your kids doing an activity just with them with no screens. That time connecting is important so that the next time you have to discipline, you already have that connection to weather the conflict.
When putting a kid in a space to calm down by themselves, it's important to tell them that you're there for them when they're ready to talk so that they don't feel like they're being punished alone for having big feelings.
Another is to connect before you correct. The example was a kid who was on an iPad when they weren't supposed to be and to first say something to connect like oh, that's a fun game, but it's time for school. She said you still have the consequences and everything for doing that, but you connected before you corrected. Be kind and firm.
The second thing is communication based at building social and emotional skills. It's asking questions to let them think and come up with ideas to solve things. So if they forget something, instead of asking why did you do that? Instead asking hey, what do you think you could have done differently so that didn't happen again?
It's not just bad things, you can ask questions about why they chose to use certain colors in a picture that they drew so that they can think about intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic validation.
The third is capability building. Teaching little life skills around the house and emotional skills. It's seeing them as works in progress that can always be learning. They have a sense that they are contributing to the house and the neighborhood and community. Let kids help as much as possible around the house.
There was another episode about rewiring bad behavior where they talked about first identifying one behavior that you want to work on like waiting, or not whining. Then having a family meeting where you discuss it, make sure the kid understands what it is. Make it visual on a piece of paper because kids aren't the best at remembering things. That's an adult skill, not a kid skill.
Write their goal on a piece of paper and let them decorate it etc. You can role-play etc.
Then you're going to point out as often as possible when they are doing their goal. Positive reinforcement changes brain loops, so pointing out as often as possible that they're doing it can help. Be a cheerleader.
Then, you can come up with a hand signal to communicate to them the behavior, for example when they're whining, holding a hand up to your ear and saying I can't understand you when you talk like that. When they're not behaving, they can't process too much information, so having a hand signal and using the least amount of words possible helps them understand better.
If you want to add rewards or such to reinforce things, look for natural rewards. For example if they're taking too long to eat breakfast and they also want to look at the comics, tell them they can look at the comics if there's enough time after they finish breakfast.
Also, 1 in 8 kids have a processing disorder of some sort and these kids need reinforcers a lot more than others because there are dopamine things going on. You want the kids to be involved in deciding how good they did that day so they can learn self awareness. Also ask them what they want to earn because it might surprise you. Maybe picking out their favorite dinner, staying up ten minutes later than sibling, etc. You also can't take away something they've earned, otherwise they won't trust you. Only focus on positive when using a system.
I've also been following child nutritionist accounts. I'm learning from there to offer Aaron lots of foods, but to always make sure there's one he likes otherwise that isn't fair. I as the parent get to decide when we eat and what I serve, and he gets to decide what to eat and how much to eat. Mealtimes need to be fun and stress free, and I don't have to focus on what he's eating the entire time. I want to expose him to new foods multiple times in different fun ways. I also want to serve dessert with dinner so that those foods are given the same weight, and he won't not eat dinner so that he makes sure he can get some dessert.
We'll see how life actually goes, but I've been learning a lot and just wanted to take down some notes to reference later :)
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