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Mindful Parenting: How to Win-Win the Parent-Child Battle

By Meghan McChesney Gilroy

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

A friend of mine recently relayed a story about her battle with her 5 year old around having him cut his hair. For those of you who have forgotten, most little ones detest having their head sheared. In this story (which I’ve heard with minor variations from many moms and dads), the demand to cut the hair and the refusal to do so created a pissed off mom, dad, and child, not to mention a sulky Sunday. As my heart when out to her, I began contemplating the dynamic of the power struggles that often erupt between children and their parents.

When practicing Mindful Parenting (or in my own awareness practice), I love to look at situations from all points of views. It often reveals hidden insights into how to creatively resolve the challenges we face. So I began tackling this one, by stepping back from the situation at hand and looking at the world from a child’s perspective. For those of you familiar with our teachings, we also look through the lens of “everything is energy” to gain awareness on how we are using and attracting what appears in our lives whether it’s emotional energy or a challenging situation with our children. Let’s see what we can discover…

Let’s imagine what the world is like from the standpoint of a small child. In my imagination, tempered with direct observation, I see a being that is mostly absorbed in the moment and hasn’t fully developed their ability to control their impulses or think through the consequences of their actions. For those of us living with young children, it’s rather like handling a cute, but rather wild, animal.

These little creatures co-exist within the adult world of rules and timelines. For practical reasons, we control nearly every aspect of their lives: when they can come out of their rooms or when they have to go to sleep, when they must stop playing and come eat, whether they can go outside or have to stay in, when they need the dreaded haircut. We have the physical power to pick them up against their will and carry them up the stairs to bed. We have the mental power to reward and punish them through our words and actions in order to enfold them into our expectations of appropriate behavior. And we have the emotional power to shower them with love and kisses or withdraw our attention, to praise and encourage them or to criticize them sternly.

When our loveable wild critter is in the normal, necessary process of becoming conditioned on how to participate safely and successfully in the human dream, there is bound to be friction between what they desire to do (dump water on your carpet, smear food on the wall, tell a tall tale, throw a tantrum in the store, not get that haircut) and what you ask of them. In these moments, a battle of wills can quickly develop. Who is in control? The parent or the child? As a parent, we can easily become frustrated at a child’s defiance, however slight. How many times have you felt irritated at having to repeat yourself ten times? Or from having a toddler – or 5 year old – invoke the power of “no!”? As the child, without much physical power and with a limited number of mental tricks in your arsenal, you resort to your greatest tool: using emotional energy to your advantage.

For those of us with children, we know how well they can push our buttons. Children adeptly master their most effective line of defense against the onslaught of adult conditioning – gaining our attention by reading us emotionally. They quickly learn how to scan us and use it to their benefit: if they get more emotional juice from whining or stomping their feet than they do by complying, then they go for what brings them the most energy. When we engage in a power struggle with them, we usually lose. The more we try to force what we want, getting a jacket on, having the haircut, the more they push back against us. Yet when we reverse our course and withdraw sending our energy into the struggle, they realize that they are not going to get what they are hunting for – our attention and our energetic and emotional reaction. Here’s an example of how this works:

When Bodhi was about a year and half, we were eating dinner with friends and having an engaging conversation, not paying much attention to Bo. Apparently not being included was not to his liking, so he picked up his laminated dinosaur placemat and put it on his head with a big grin. Of course all the adults at the table started laughing – it was silly and charming. Bodhi responded to this positive emotion and attention and continued to put the placemat on his head. The “cuteness” wore off as he began knocking over his bowl, making a mess, and transferring the goo to his hair. Now, we were sternly telling him NOT to put the mat on his head. Of course, he had received more energy out of our laughter so he continued the hat trick.

When I saw how Bodhi was responding to our energy, I asked my husband and our friends to join me in laughing and praising Bodhi loudly every time he placed the mat back on the table. After several minutes of no reaction when the mat was on his head and lots of energy when the mat was on the table, Bodhi modified to keeping the mat where it belonged. He went for the reward where he got the most attention and energy.   

This led me to the MORE Energy system of child raising. I assigned myself the job of being more creative and more aware of how I was directing my energy (both within myself emotionally and towards Bodhi) and how Bodhi was using his energy to gain some control in his world. When I became the one who was guiding and directing our energy, I re-gained control in many situations and in the process created a supportive, nurturing environment for Bodhi, a more balanced and calm mama, and a peaceful home for all of us. Here’s some suggestions on how to get started.

1. Invite yourself to stretch beyond your point of view. What is your child trying to communicate to you? Is it really important for your child to be doing what you want? Is there a creative compromise that will satisfy both of you? Sometimes we mindlessly insist on a rule or timeline based on how we were conditioned, on our belief about how we or our child “should” be, or on our perception of what others might think of us or our child. When we take the time to be conscious about our beliefs, we may realize that with a little more consideration what we are battling over may not be so important in the overall scheme of life.
2. Acknowledge and allow all the emotion to flow. Take a deep breath for yourself. Find a safe way for your child to release their energy: punching a pillow, turning a shriek into an animal sound, jumping up and down, banging a drum. When you let the frustration that you or your child may be feeling to pass, it creates the space to create anew.
3. Look for where the energy is going. Take a step back from the situation. Assess how you are directing your energy and how your child is directing their energy. Are you sending out more attention and bigger energy to want you do want your child to do or what you don’t want them to do? If you can, take it out of the realm of “positive” or “negative” energy and look for where you are sending MORE or BIGGER energy. The amount of energy the child receives is usually more important to the child than if it comes from praise or yelling – so why not go for the more pleasant of the two?
4. Finally, send MORE BIGGER attention and energy toward the behavior you want to encourage. I find more success in gently conditioning Bodhi by being in command of the overall emotional quality I want in our lives (peace!) When I direct my energy and attention toward motivating what I do want instead of sending my energy and attention toward what he does that “annoys me” or disrupts the peace, the more I create a peaceful life for both of us.

Modifying how both you and your child direct your energy and how you correlate it to encouraging the overall emotional quality you want in your home, along with the appropriate behavior may take time. If you can’t make the shift in the moment (especially when everyone is riled up), then try again the next time you encounter a similar behavior or situation. It can also help to review what happened later on in a spare moment, or to talk it over with a friend or co-parent who’s up for finding that new, creative point of view.

Sometimes it’s also helpful to hear examples of other situations where you can apply the MORE Energy System. These examples are not meant as advice or even the “right” way to do it, but rather as inventive sparks to help you think of alternatives that will work for you and your child. And since we can all use all the help we can get, if you have an example that’s worked for you, or are stuck on finding a creative response to a challenge with your child, feel free to comment on this blog and we’ll post the responses. (And here’s the disclaimer – make sure you use your awareness about what is appropriate for your child’s age and temperament).

Here are three ways we’ve re-directed our energy with Bodhi that come to mind:

TONE OF VOICE:

Does your child ever drive you crazy with whining? Before I caught onto Bodhi’s wily ways, he would often ask for a snack or help in a demanding voice. He knew that if he asked long enough or loud enough, it would make me stop what I was doing to attend to him. Once I saw this, I began asking him to use a different (i.e. pleasant and normal) tone of voice and use his sweet words (please and thank you). I make sure I make a big deal out of his pleasant tone and very calmly and quietly discourage the grating one. Now he is beginning to self-modify and when I don’t respond to the first hysterical demand, he lowers his voice and asks sweetly and pleasantly.

KICKING OR HITTING:

Like most toddlers, Bodhi doesn’t like stopping his play to have his diaper changed. When we would lay him down on his changing table, he would often kick his feet at the person who was attempting to wrestle him into a new diaper. Now, after firmly telling him “No kicking Mama,” I warmly say, “Get all the energy out. Kick! Kick!” as his feet flail against the padded table. After 30 seconds or so, I ask him to have “calm legs” and he usually stops kicking so I can change his diaper in peace. Or, if he says he’s not ready, I allow him to kick for a few second more. After a suggestion from a friend, we’ve also started to diaper him standing up near his potty so he feels more engaged in the process.

REFUSING TO COOPERATE:

There are times when Bodhi doesn’t want to stop what he’s doing in order to get dressed to come downstairs or go out the door. If he struggles against getting ready, I stop dressing him. I remind him of our goal in terms that appeal to him – we’re going outside, we’re getting into the MiniCooper, we’re going to eat his favorite breakfast and then see a friend. Then I tell him that if he needs help getting dressed to let me know when he’s ready.

By the way, after a little time apart and some help from her husband, my friend’s child relented and now sports a very cute haircut. Parents of the world unite… with our creativity and awareness we can create loving relationships with less struggles with our little ones.

Posted in Emotional Awareness, Mindful Parenting |