Time to break some rules

There has been an incredible transformation in our house since my last blog entry.

The TV has hardly been on after school - although our son is still wedded to his computer games- and my daughter and I have found other things to keep us busy. We've been to the park after tea, we've been swimming, cycling, entertaining friends for play dates, playing "Sorry", and one evening last week the kids went to the driving range with their Dad whilst I was working away.

The net result is that the kids are far more engaged, with us and with each other, and, especially in the case of my daughter, far more articulate and mature.

She's only five, but actually my daughter's at the age where as a mother I have to encourage her not to behave babyishly any more.

Prior to our conscious efforts to spend more time with her rather than relying on electronic media to entertain her, she was routinely behaving as if she was still 2, frequently reminding me that "I'm your baby, Mummy".

Kids frequently get a bum rap for "attention-seeking behaviour", as if they do this on purpose, with no other reason but just to make life hell for the adults around them. We can always choose how to respond to this. Either we can react impatiently, and perpetuate the mistaken thinking that kids are indeed out to get us, or we can get curious about why they are behaving in this way. Kids seek attention because they are missing something from us - either a feeling of comfort, or because they are ready to learn something new.

My daughter's babyishness I now recognise was both of these things. It's the only way she knows to demonstrate that she needs me. She wants me to respond to her in a particular way, to give her reassurance, and also to show her the way to grow up.

Little did she know that this behaviour was actually "turning me off", and causing me to back off from her and react impatiently, giving me cause to retreat ever deeper into my own world of distractions. I guess this is the viscious cycle that it is easy to fall into, such that parents develop a misconception about their children's behaviour and what it means. What I needed to do was wake up and get curious.

By paying attention to what our children's behaviour is really about we are instead able to respond in a way that is far more appropriate for both of us. In my daughter's case we both needed to learn something new about each other - I needed to learn that her babyish tendencies were actually a cry for attention, while she needed to learn that it's time to grow up, and I can show her the way.

Showing her the way has involved taking on new habits, and breaking a few rules.

For example, the rule that floats generally around young children, that they need to be in bed early, eight o'clock at the absolute latest, really needed to be broken in our house. This is because my daughter was neither tired enough nor secure enough to say goodnight to us so early, particularly in the light nights of June, and especially if all she'd done since she came home from school is watch TV, pick at her tea, get shouted at, watch more TV, then get impatiently packed off to bed.

It is truly shameful having to admit to all this, but really in my daughter's world this is what was happening. No wonder she didn't want to eat her meal at tea-time, nor go to sleep at bed-time.

Breaking the early bedtime rule has meant that we're more open to doing more activities after school and into the evening. School finishes at 3pm, there's still a good six hours left of the day, which are desperately difficult to fill if we've got an unbreakable set of rules in our mind about getting our kids to bed early.

Likewise, the rule that I'd made up about feeding my kids fresh home-cooked food every day has also had to be relaxed in the face of spending time having fun after school. Don't get me wrong, feeding our children properly is still high on my agenda, but not at the cost of leaving them in front of the telly while I concoct in the kitchen.

My daughter has been much happier on a diet of fish fingers, hot dogs, omelettes and "time with Mum" than she ever is sitting at the table in front of lentil bolognese or roast dinner. Sometimes we need to recognise that our kids need a different type of nourishment than just food.

Of course the other spin off benefit of all this is that when the kids do eventually go to bed they sleep much better, with fewer requests for yet more drinks of water, night lights, trips to the loo, or making sure that the dream -catcher is hanging straight, or that the house spider (which has become a pet) is safely in its corner.

Kids are past masters at making up all kinds of excuses to bring us closer to them, to help them feel secure and comfortable. The trick is to recognise what lies behind these tactics, and respond to what our children are really needing, in a way that works for everyone.

The postscript to this has got to be "be flexible". Because my husband and I both work from home this can be both easy and hard. Easy because we're our own boss and needn't work to strict "office" hours; hard because it's much more fun to be with the kids, so sometimes work doesn't get done when it should. As with everything there has to be balance, and an open mind about breaking rules, especially ones that we may have created for ourselves.

Bit of a soap-box moment....

I have recently been introduced to an excellent web-site called www.ted.com. It comprises a selection of talks by speakers of all disciplines, on all topics, and its strap line is "ideas worth spreading". I am a new visitor to TED - my attention was drawn to it through the newsletter of a fellow coach named Mary Rosendale, and then just the other day my friends Jane and Gary Spinks told me about a talk given by Sir Ken Robinson. (Thanks guys!xx)

If you are interested in children, in education, in creativity, or if you've simply got 20 minutes to spare to listen to something entertaining, then do take the time to check out the video! I tried to include a link to it in my blog but technology got in the way. Blogger wouldn't let me do it, so I have to trust that you will go and find it for yourself then come back here and read what other things I've got to say on my soapbox, and hopefully leave some comments, which I might even publish. So go to the TED web-site, search on Sir Ken Robinson, then sit back and relax for 20 minutes, and come back later!

Meanwhile, by way of an interval, here's a nice photo of some barbies on the beach:




WELCOME BACK! What did you think?

Sir Ken talks a little bit about learning disorders and ADHD. What he says strikes some as rather controversial, however I do agree with him that prescribing medication to children who are simply different, who have different needs, and who do not conform to the narrow strictures of a modern classroom, is tragically misguided, insensitive and unimaginative. These young people are far more likely to be the creative, innovative geniuses of the future than many of the "conformers", and yet we typically do not know how to deal with them.

I once saw a TV programme about ADHD and in it the mother of a young lad who was awaiting diagnosis actually said that she found her son's behaviour so difficult that she didn't know how to love him.

For me, this is precisely where the problem lies: it is our (innocent) ignorance and (innocent) lack of imagination, compassion and wisdom which causes us to get impatient with the behaviour of others. We withdraw from what we don't understand or feel comfortable with. When the object from which we are withdrawing is another human being, in fact a lonely, confused and highly sensitive CHILD, we cannot begin to know the impact of our action on that individual. When the person doing the withdrawing is the child's own mother, then the impact is magnified a thousand fold.

Actually the woman being interviewed was extremely brave to admit her feelings about her son. She didn't WANT to withdraw from him - she just didn't know what else to do. She was doing the best she could do, and she was becoming exhausted and desperate.

It IS exhausting always to be looking for something different from what we're faced with. It is exhausting always to be thinking, "I didn't want things to be this way, I wish they could be another way."

Why not just stop, take another look at what we do have, what's in front of us RIGHT NOW, what the beautiful best of it is, and work with that? It does require us to be extremely tuned in to what's going on with those around us, we need to be connected, we need to be open, we need to drop our expectations and our judgements about how things ought to be, and we need to listen and respond.

Four years ago I had a great teacher named Dr Roger Mills. I learned many things from him, and one of those things was that bad behaviour comes from insecurity. If you want a child to behave badly, withdraw from them. Show them no interest, no love. This sounds very harsh, and of course it is something that every single one of us as parents would say that we couldn't possibly do. In our own way we all believe wholeheartedly that we love our children and that we show them we love them. The trouble is, it is love by our own definition.

Instead of loving our children to the standards by which we were loved, by the confines of our own conditioning, we need to pay special and careful attention to how our children want us to love them. For my son, he wants me to speak to him honestly, without sarcasm, and to trust him. My daughter needs more interaction, she likes to play imaginative games, and she likes me to join in.

How we love our children, how they like to feel our love, is not dissimilar from how we educate our children. As they have different sensitivities so they have different intelligences.

What faces us now is how to use more of our own wisdom and creativity in designing education that will prepare our children best for the uncertainties of the future.

One thing I'm sure of is that this will be much easier if we stop trying to control and becalm everything and everyone that threatens to rock the boat. Withdrawal, exclusion and medication are cruel, inhumane and entirely unsustainable foundations for human civilisation, and yet these seem to characterise the experience of too many children.

Love, compassion, flexibility, openness and an ability to empathise and connect with others are the only ways to safeguard our children's future. Once we've got these things right, education, creativity and how to accommodate "non-conformers" will take care of themselves.