My child is too naughty!

With a list of misdemeanours...

Think PLAY!!!

"throws things". great! find some things which are good to throw - soft balls or cuddly toys and do lots and lots of throwing with her. No need to tell her off - when she throws something you don't want crashing around the house, just pick it up and get some throwable things and as you throw the first thing gently to her, pop the hard thing somewhere out of sight till the throwing game is over. No need to say anything - she'll soon cotton on that fun throwing games happen with certain types of objects rather than others

"draws on the walls" This is a good one. find ways for her to draw on the walls without staining. ELC ready mix paint is good as long as you wipe it off while it is still wet. Can't guarantee any other brands - I've always found crayola washable a bit staining. There are hints on the web about getting crayon off walls, though I've never had that one. Chalk is billiant because it brushes off dead easily. A paint brush and a little pot of water makes a good temporary mark which just dries off. I like those elc bath crayons too for drawing on any tiled surface or on enamel felt tip pens on the fridge and cooker is good - wipes straight off (er... test it quietly one evening before offering just in case you've got a stainy colour - I steer clear of black, blue, purple)

"wont eat" don't let food be a matter of "naughty". Of course she'll eat - all children do! You just need to offer a variety of foods, at least some of which you know she likes, on terms which she accepts - maybe a carpet picnic while you're playing together, or a sandwich while you're on the way somewhere in the buggy. I think the whole Family Meal is something children join in with when it becomes interesting - the conversation and the company.

"she throws a strop whenever she is asked to do anything " what kinds of things? Ask her things which won't make her throw a strop. It might be exactly the same thing, done differently. eg "time to go inside now" *TOTAL STROP* or "hey, you want to go inside and do some more painting on the tea caddy?" *mum chases daughter up the garden path as they go off to have fun inside!*

A teacher responded, and this was my answer...

[quote]Unfortunately, she still has to learn how to behave in other people's homes and at nursery! [/quote]

Well, of course, and a major part of the parents' job is helping their children learn exactly what is socially acceptable.

I would argue strongly that children can learn, with guidance, that there are different rules in different places.

You don't have to sit quietly on a sofa all the time at home because that is what great-granny demands when you go to her house.

[quote]"Imagine how upset she'd be if she thought it was fine to paint on the walls then did it somewhere else and got into trouble - she wouldn't even know she'd done anything wrong."?)[/quote]

Yes. So parent helps child to understand that that's something we just do at our house.

[quote]"I have taught many children who have never been told 'no' and they have a very difficult time settling at school because they never feel comfortable in case they're doing something wrong (if they've never been told it's wrong, how are they supposed to know?)?)[/quote]

My ideal would be that parents help children ease into the transition into an institutional setting, if they decide to go down that route, by being present all the time to start with (like at toddler group), gradually helping their child learn the arbitrary behavioural codes of that place. Making our children submit to arbitrary authority so they'll placidly submit to the arbitrary authority of teachers is a much worse long term strategy than helping them to dance with the society in which they find themselves.

Because these children forced to submit to the arbitrary authority of parents and then teachers are the ones who all the parents in the older children messageboards and the teachers at teachers forums are saying "they reject our authority and they are 6' tall and we can't do anything with them". Arbitrary external authority has a use-by date on it, that's the problem. End rant.

Giving it Time

Child is angry when pulled away from things...

Often if adults try to hustle a child along, they'll scream blue murder, but if the parent just waits, the child will be ready soon. Sometimes it can help to say to yourself explicitly "I'm not going to suggest moving for 15 minutes" and lo and behold, ten minutes later, the child is halfway out of the door ready to go home.

If there are toys or places a child is getting a lot out of, make as much time for that thing as possible. I know one mum who spent about an hour in the gift shop each time they went to a local attraction, and then after 6 or 7 visits, the child had pretty much sucked all the fun out of the gift shop and was never there for more than 5-10 minutes. She told me she spent a grand total of about £5 in all those visits...

[PS that's a made up hypothetical, but I first posted it on the kind of mainstream board where people give real examples all the time]

Plus, I don't agree with time warnings. I think one should allow enough time on expeditions for toddler pace, and always have snacks etc so there's no pressure to get home for a meal. I'd always leave a child on a toddler ride till they were ready to get off.

why?

because why is the parent's timetable so much more important than the child's?

tidying your room

Child was told to tidy room, child didn't. Parent removed (in a black bin bag) all of child's belonging which were not put away properly...

My ideal would be that every person - adult or child - has a space of their own: a flat, a house, a room, a sectioned off area of a room, a cupboard, even. And what happens in that space is for them to decide. It is their fortress, their castle, their cave. If our children invited us in to their place to help tidy or rationalise old forgotten toys, we would help, but otherwise we would give them freedom in that place. That's my dream.

If your child wants her room tidy, she'll ask for help. And the baby? Well, when they arrive they'll want to be in with you to start with anyway, so it would be completely reasonable to put the baby clobber in one of your bits of the house until they are old enough to share a room, surely?



I believe that when parents try to impose their will on the rest of the family, to be the authority figures, to make other people change their behaviour and their personalities, to insist on their own standards of cleanliness and all sorts of other things, the family ends up in enormous conflict. The bin-bag removing your child's belongings is an example of that. What an awful situation for both you and your daughter.

Your daughter obviously isn't ready or willing to keep her room as tidy as you want it to be. So instead of punishing her for her preference, why not work with it? Just off the top of my head:

-If she has no objections, _you_ could clear the path to the wardrobe
-You could make it much easier to tidy - lots of those plastic storage crates maybe, so it's easy to run around throwing everything in a crate rather than putting on a shelf
-You could keep her clothes in the airing cupboard instead of fighting across the floor?

I'm a big fan of disciplining your surroundings rather than your children - making it so the conflict points just don't arise because of the way you've organised your surroundings. EG instead of trying to keep a cruising baby out of the kitchen cupboards, you fill everything in baby reach with things which are fine for the baby to play with

no clothes thanks...

So parent and child have conflict every time parent wants child to get dressed.

I replied:

it's been so warm the last few weeks. Maybe she's too hot in her clothes? (in which case, just a sundress maybe - I'm sure it's too early in the year for burning to be very likely)

Or maybe she would prefer to choose her own clothes? Some children like to be offered a choice and they reject the ones they don't like.

Some children are perfecty happy to BE dressed, they just don't want to GET dressed. It's a passing thing, but you can save everyone hassle for the weeks or few months while it lasts by a) give up on pyjamas and just put tomorrow's clothes on the evening before. b) with some children, it actually works best to wait until they are asleep, and then slip on some easy-on clothes - wait until they've gone really floppy, but catch them in the first half hour of sleep when they are out for the count.

I know families who've had a few days where the child didn't want clothes and the parents just said "ok then" and played at home and in the garden until the child was happy to have clothes again.

I've met others where children refused to wear anything in the house for a while, but if you got in the car to go somewhere, they were perfectly happy to put on t-shirt and skirt/trousers at the same time as climbing in the car seat, and then shoes and socks as they climbed out of the car at the exciting destination.

More on toddlers and TV

Also, correlation and causation are being muddled. Autism is triggered by TV? Or a child later diagnosed as autistic watches a lot of TV because they get a lot out of it? So Sigman is maybe suggested rationing or removing the one thing which a particular child finds valuable.

Further, of course, ADHD and similar "disorders" likemild autism spectrum are not at all clearlyscientifically or physiologically defined. Since it isnot clear what they _are_ how can Sigman's research have identified triggers for them?

Maybe the reason some children want to watch so muchis because they are getting a great deal out of it.

He's very worried about people not learning certain skills before three in the "window of the brain's maximum plasticity". But many many very gifted people have hardly spoken at all before the age of 4 (Einstein is the most famous). So much for the blink-and-you-miss-it developmental window.

Less nursery demand in UK

I hope this trend continues... sounds like good news to me

TV is bad for toddlers?

Psychologist Aric Sigman claims that 90 minutes of television watching per day for children under three might increase their risk of attention-deficit disorder, autism and obesity. He suggests that young children who watch a lot of television may not be able to sustain attention, and may fail to acquire language and social skills within the ‘window’ of the brain’s maximum plasticity. He suggests that television watching causes irregular sleep patterns and alters metabolic rate. He believes the government should issue rationing guidelines, advising that children under three should watch no television at all, and three to seven year olds should watch 30 minutes to an hour each day (a Department for Culture, Media and Sport spokesman said the government has no plans to issue such guidelines).

But his ideas haven’t been greeted with universal admiration. As Thomas Sutcliffe writes in the Independent, it’s not so much a question of how much children watch, but what they watch, and the best of children’s television is catered to children’s interests and needs.

There are some wonderful television shows and DVDs which demand action by children and probably parents too – who could watch the Wiggles without dancing and singing along? What better way to learn the alphabet than with Elmo’s gentle guidance? How many parents have tried trickle painting or made crazy icecream sundaes with their children after watching Teletubbies?

As for Sigman’s language anxiety – there must be thousands of families who have seen their children’s language expand exponentially as they learn words and phrases from their favourite shows. Or seen them gradually learning social conventions from examples on screen and then apply them with growing confidence in every day life. It seems strange to me that Aric Sigman is worried about children not having any attention span… because they are paying too much attention to the television! Me, I say embrace the learning and entertainment possibilities that televisual entertainment – particularly DVDs – offers to children.

Child lives on the naughty step...

...and mother is reduced to tears

You could see this as a big inevitable clash of power and personality, which is leading to a lot of struggles for the upper hand (which is pretty depressing as a weather forecast). He'll spend a hell of a lot of time on the naughty step until he is old enough to tell you where to put your naughty step and go to the pub with his mates.

Or you could break it down into individual problems to be solved as a team. Not "my 4 year old is always defying me and making me cry" but "my four year old wants to do X. Can I find a way to make it possible? Or can I find a way of offering something he'll like even more?"

Potential conflict can often be avoided by play - child says "get me that toy" you can say "no ,get it yourself" and watch the argument escalate, or you can say "oh, ok then" and get the toy, or you can fall down on the ground and say "I can't because I just turned into a JELLYFISH" and see if child wants to play jellyfish games. See what I mean?

How to help a clumsy child?

A parent asked for ideas with a child who, for whatever reason, is considerably less agile than much smaller children, and is frustrated by their failure to manage physical tasks they would like to manage.

I suggested

1. Find a way to help child to be less clumsy. Not sure what that would requre, and it would depend on the interests of the child, but I am thinking of swimming, rock climbing, ball games, drawing, riding a bike or a scooter, climbing at the playground or soft play centre... So many things require physical coordination - it must be possible to find one in which the child shows interest and potential. Also in this category maybe needs to come a sight test (I'm pretty damn clumsy without my glasses, and even with them, because my peripheral vision is so compromised). Probably too expensive, but there are things to think about with relation to faulty kinaesthesia (which most people have - we don't really know where our limbs are or our spines; we think our fingers are straight but when we look down they are usually curved) which might be worth exploring with an Alexander technique teacher. Perhaps dance or gymnastics would aid physical coordination in a non-competitive environment.

2. In tandem with this, help child explore, reinforce, revel in the things they already ARE good at and value.

3. In tandem with THAT, perhaps explore how some people are good at some things rather than other things. While cooking (say) comes dead easily to the hypothetical child, running doesn't, but while Jilly can run like anything, she can't even make a cup of coffee and she's already 9. And then explore how people get good at things. There must be age-appropriate books and films out there about how people gradually get good at things (although if it's a movie, they'll put it in a montage, a la Team America, which is perhaps less useful)


I've reposted this from a discussion board, but on rereading I am now wondering: can you have three things in tandem, or is it two, by definition?...

consentual grocery shopping

A friend at the Frog Pond was asking about how parent can have preferences considered by family members, rather than ALWAYS doing what the other family members want even if it's not what they want, and I suggested non-verbal communication of preferences being useful.

Here is the third of a set of hypothetical examples I gave to illustrate:

let's stick with the groceries.

1) think of alternatives. Why are you not having groceries delivered? I haven't been serious grocery shopping since 1998. Love the internet.

2) But you still ran out of milk (for me, it's always milk). And Dh is away for 13 days, so you can't get him to pick some up on his way home.

3) so... this is how I'd do it non-verbally.

I'd get myself totally ready to go to the store plus whatever other things we wanted to do.

I'd get everything ready for child(ren) to pick up/ put on and leave.

I'd open the front door.

Child(ren) is/are very likely to want to go out of it. Anything they don't put on/pick up on way out of door, you throw on going down the street or as you get in the car or whatever.

I wouldn't offer verbal options. If walking, I'd walk where I want to go unless child wants to go another way in which case I'd rejig my plan of what happens when this morning. and go their way, eg think "oh, ok, we can go to the 9-11 down here instead". Not sure how you'd do that in a car because I don't drive one, but there must be a way. Maybe have child giving directions "turn right" "turn left" "straight on"

If you do end up at the grocery store, for heaven's sake make it fun to be there, with buying milk as a subsidiary optional extra. depends on age. Some people might like to count fruits, some might like to play in the toy aisle, some might like to ride the trolley, some might like to go on one of those rides where a car goes beep beep when you put a $ in. I don't know - depends on the child and their age. Some people might like to choose something to buy themselves with some money.

fetching and tidying consentually

A friend at the Frog Pond was asking about how parent can have preferences considered by family members, rather than ALWAYS doing what the other family members want even if it's not what they want, and I suggested non-verbal communication of preferences being useful.

Here is the second of a set of hypothetical examples I gave to illustrate:

When playing with child, make the tidying just part of the activity. Lead non verbally. Putting jigsaws away when finished (I'm thinking of counting the pieces into the box or some more age-appropriate challenge which is genuinely fun). If child doesn't want to play, fine. But make it fun for you yourself.

When child is playing and leaving a trail behind, just LEAVE IT. If you want a tidy home, it's much easier to zoom around at the end of the day putting everything back in place than to drip feed as you go, IMO. And 10 minutes of tidying just once is much easier than constantly reorganising. THere've been good threads before about making tidying a CP (maybe on the TCS Ezboard). Also, you then give child the opportunity to clear space when they need it.

And why on earth are you running hither and yon for child when they want something? "Mum where's my...?" "On the shelf I think ,you go look for it" Taking your child seriously doesn't mean becoming their butler.

You may need to change this pattern through play. I hate that "you're a big boy Charlie, you can do it" thing, but maybe you could try flopping onto the floor and "oh no, I've lost the use of my arms and legs, can you get the book for us?" which mixes things up a bit and might turn into a jellyfish game, so it's a way of expressing your initial preference not to get the book, presenting an alternative (jellyfish game together), and giving child chance to get the book themselves while you er jellyfish. Why is it that hypothetical play examples are always goofier than goofy?

And if child still would prefer you to get the book, then get it and your own and sit down together with your books - that could be a Common Preference too

Structural Discpline

A friend at the Frog Pond was asking about how parent can have preferences considered by family members, rather than ALWAYS doing what the other family members want even if it's not what they want, and I suggested non-verbal communication of preferences being useful.

Here is the first of a set of hypothetical examples I gave to illustrate:

You know what I think you might really need is structural discipline, but which I dont mean disciplining your child, I mean disciplining your surroundings.

Let me give you a hypothetical. Child likes painting very much this month (I'm not defining this hypothetical child by their preference for painting. It's just what they enjoy this month mkay?). And I mean painting everything. So

1) Parent spreads great big bed spreads on the floor EVERYWHERE to protect the landlord's carpet

2) parent buys in a huge stock of washable paint.

3) parent buys a whole ream of assorted paper and card, putting out little heaps in parentally preferred places (child much more likely to just paint there rather than move the heap)That's a pretty good first pass at structural discipline.

4) Now child starts making handprints on the wall, and painting pictures there. Parent could go crazy about this, except that the walls are just egg shell white. After painting a test area and establishing that standard paint will cover the hand prints, parent leaves child be, but looks out for an opportunity to paint the walls to re set this grand canvas.

5) but now child starts painting EVERYTHING - books, jigsaw boxes, teabag containers, TV screens, pans, plates, you name it. Some of these, parent is ok with, some not (5 minutes of painting a book and then if you don't wipe before it dries, that's the end of the book because the pages are stuck together). Parent could go crazy here. Instead, parent finds better things to paint - magazines, colouring books, those little mini-boxes of cereal. Parent enlists the help of work colleagues to pass on any small interesting cardboard packaging which arrives at the workplace. Parent puts books on a high shelf. Child doesn't mind at all, just says when they want to read stuff, and instead, the cardboard mountain is what comes to hand when painting.

6) But child sometimes still paints stuff parent wants to wipe off straight away, and walking all the way to the sink for a cloth every time is not much fun, so parent manages to turn it into a delivery game where child brings painted objects to parent ready for wiping. "delivery for you" "thank you" "you're welcome" "good bye" *cue noise of wiping with wet cloth*

I extended this hypothetical as far as I could to show that there are several points where parent could easily self-sacrifice, or flip into authoritarian fright show, but instead they find a way for child to still do what they want to do, in spirit if not in exact kind (painting cereal boxes instead of jigsaw boxes, for example). And parent manages to turn their desired outcome of not running around the house into a game. I guess the first few times the parent would have to play the delivery game on their own, and then child would want to join in, not becuase it is manipulative-pretend-fun, but because parent is finding a way to turn that activity into something genuinely fun for a child that age.

Child does not want to go to bed

...but stays up until very late, and parents are dropping with tiredness.

Here's the suggestions I sent to the TCS list

1. It might work to have a bed/mattress in the room where all the fun stuff happens and then when child is sleepy they can just go and lie down without having to leave toys/DVDs etc

2. Having a bed in the activity room also makes it possible for a parent to doze on the bed while child plays.

3. Have low-key activities for 2-year old for late evening where parent can read and book or otherwise relax. For that age, maybe some of those Brainy Baby or Baby Einstein type DVDs with images and music but not narrative (or is it just me who goes into a zoned out trance watching them...? ;-) )

4. Does child still nap during the day? If so, perhaps try parent sleeping at the same time, or else changing activities so child doesn't think of having a nap every so often, then they'll be ready to sleep earlier at night.

5. Make sure child isn't hungry or thirsty. They might also need to defecate, and having a snack will help that happen, and then they won't have a gripy tummy and it'll be easier to sleep.

6. Some children like to be carried in a sling till they fall asleep. For a 2-year old I'd recommend a mei-tei type sling rather than a ring sling. Parent can gently move around the house sorting laundry and loading dishwasher and child is rocked but seeing interesting things - some people sometimes like to fall asleep like that, with activity going on around them.

7. Definitely send one parent to bed in another room so they'll be ready to do the early shift and the other parent can have more sleep in the morning

going in the buggy

Child tantrums whenever invited to go in the buggy.
Tantrums when told to walk instead.

Why doesn't she want to go in the pushchair or walk herself? can she tell you, out of the moment? Or can you work it out from her actions?

If she wants carrying, how about a rucksack or sling? http://www.thecarryingkind.com/products/shw-detail.asp?pid=168

If she wants a snuggle, why not sit on a bench together for 20 minutes with a drink and a snack and a favourite book or a sticker book?

If she isn't ready to leave the place yet, why not keep playing till she's finished? It might take a while to overcome a past history of expecting mum to make her leave before she's ready - the first time it might take ALL DAY playing around the park entrance, but in time you'll find that if you allow plenty of time and don't pressure child to leave, she'll leave when she's had enough and wants to go and do something else. Make sure you take fun things to do yourself, like a book or magazine, and plenty of snacks, in case the park is an all day activity

If she wants to walk s-l-o-w-l-y, can you walk at her pace and enjoy every snail and pebble and leaf you pass?

take child out of nursery

child recently went to nursery for "social skills". Unsettled, constant viruses. Parent said 'should I remove her?' Lots of people said 'no no stick it out'

I said

'What are the advantages of staying in nursery? You can get all the social exposure for about £1 a time at toddler groups, crafts, sand tray, painting, singing, cool toys...

She'll learn what she needs to learn at her own pace - have confidence in her and youself. She learned some really tricky things, like sitting and crawling and using a spoon, without any professional expert instruction - she can go on learning everything she needs to following her instincts and interests with your support and help.

I think if you don't have to put your child in a nursery for work reasons, it's a waste of money, honestly, given the fantastic toddler groups there are out there.'

Mother is removing child from nursery. And this reaction makes me want to keep posting at the mainstream board I've been frequenting

inspiration

can be gleaned from interacting with the mainstream, for short periods.

more advice for the mother who's child throws food

Can you let go of the expectation that child will sit at table for a proper family meal time till they are quite a bit older? If you provide them with enough food and enough choice of food so there'll be something they like (rice is rejected again? ok, well here's some cold pasta from the fridge which you know always works...) which they can choose to eat, or throw on the floor or eat later or eat off the floor (All good for the immune system) then they won't end up malnourished.

I suppose I'm suggesting RELAX!!! Trust your child, and follow their lead and life will be much easier.

You really don't have to impose an expectation of a certain kind of meal time at this point in their lives.

Remember that children have tiny stomachs compared to ours - they often prefer to eat lots of little snacks than great big official MEALS 3 times a day.


1) when you act in a manner which is apparently irrational to the child, they will push and push and push around that area trying to make sense of it. Why is throwing some things ok and some things not? Is it just when I'm in this chair? Or is it when Daddy is here? Or... It's not so much "pushing your buttons", though lots of people interpret it that way, it's a rational creature trying to make sense of arbitrary rules made by people in positions of power over them. When that's happening, it really helps to take the child's "defiance" as a clue that you are doing something they are not ready to understand, I think. (and remember they don't speak English yet. I was with the mum of a 7 month old in a cafe recently, and she solemnly and s-l-o-w-l-y and LOUDLY explained to him that if he dropped his rice cake it would have to stay on the floor because it's dirty down there and I just thought WHAAAAAT????? spread a spare muslin over the danger zone, you idiot! You might as well be speaking mandarin chinese!)


2) If your child wants to do something you are resistant to, find a safe way of giving them as much of that as they want. They are learning learning learning. Yes, you might not manage it the first time it occurs but by the second or third time, you need to find some way of making that situation happy for everyone. Child wants to walk by busy road? Fine, buy toddler reins. Child wants to throw food out of high chair? Fine. Find even cooler stuff to throw. Or cook a whole packet of tesco value pasta - they'll have a job throwing more than £1 worth on the floor and you can scoop it up and let 'em throw again, and in 2 years time, you'll look back nostalgically rather than in sadness at the textures-and-gravity-are-fascinating phase.

THere's a wonderful book by Deborah Jackson called something like "Do not disturb" (or maybe that's the subtitle) which is all about how to support your children in living and learning according to their own goals, facilitating their dance with the universe. A similar but much more dated in style old book, which might still be in libraries is Alison Stallibrass's The Self-Respecting Child.

on bed sharing

parent is trying to get child out of her bed and into his own...


Is there a safety reason why he shouldn't sleep in your bed?

Perhaps you could put his bed across the bottom of yours and sleep head down so you are face to face together.

Or make a nest of mattresses and duvets on the floor and snuggle down in a heap.

2.5 seems very young to me for a child to want to sleep alone.

If sleeping in his own bed/ room is something he chooses when he's ready, there'll be no stress at all.

Also worth thinking: what would your child have to do to persuade you that both would be happier and better rested if you shared a bed or a room? Sometimes our children are wiser than we are :)


Parent still worried about hour long bedtimes

take those extended bed times as relaxation time - to read a book or meditate or listen to music or watch a film (with headphones on).

If child trusts you'll be there when they wake, they are more likely to fall asleep without fear, I think.

Maybe bedtime is too early? Some people give up on bedtime entirely. THey do bath and stories and snuggles and maybe energetic rumpus, and then when child is tired, they'll fall asleep without needing hours of soothing.

I also suggested books on tape with IPOd or walkman

parenting philosophy for newbies

[All done in the first person for approachable tone, but it's hypothetical really :) ]

Thinking about letting go - jumping off a cliff - will there be a soft landing?

Most of our parenting is based on parental authority. What the parent says goes. If it hurts the child, it is for their own good. We just have to be strong. To hang in there. To hurt our children in their own interests because it will be Better In The Long Run.

When child complies, life is great.

And this situation goes on until suddenly the child is too large and old to obey us Because I Said So and they are out till God knows what hour of the night doing God knows what, and all our old techniques of persuasion can only turn into Not Under My Roof and more and more emotional distance and honestly we have no idea what interests our children or motivates them, all we can do is watch from the sidelines and worry. Just look at the older children forums on the big message boards. That's what every parent is struggling with.

We all love our children so much and are desperate for them to be happy and fulfilled, and we want to help them prepare to take their place in wider society as successful, fulfilled people. We all do.

But look at the threads here, girls: Child won't sleep where I want him/her to sleep. Child doesn't want to go to nursery, how can I make him/her? Child won't go where I want him/her to. Child won't eat a meal the way I want him/her to.

All my posts are coming from having read some wonderful books on parenting and education, by authors like Deborah Jackson, Alfie Kohn, John Holt, Jan Hunt. And from having found out a lot about the philosophy of Karl Popper, which he never applied to parenting but which holds as its central concept the principle of fallibility. and then finding a (now defunct) blog called Rational Parenting and then a radical website called Taking Children Seriously.

And this is what comes out of it:

In a conflict situation, instead of asserting your authority or giving in to your child, try to find a solution which everyone genuinely prefers to their original plan (a "common preference"). Suddenly problems are not a disaster but something to get your teeth into, out of which all kinds of fun and learning and closeness can come.

In a conflict situation, remember, you might be wrong and your child might be right. (that's the fallibility bit) It's that old story where 10 month old is trying to grab your fork and you are going "no no that's not safe" and then you turn away for a second and when you turn back child is solemnly and dextrously feeding you pasta. Humbling.

It's a completely different philosophy of parenting from anything most of us have ever encountered before, and I believe it leads to gloriously happier families.


In a reply, someone said she thought compromise is good

I don't advocate compromise. I hate compromise. I want X, you want Y, and we get Z which is a mish mash of both which noone wanted. A common preference is much better than a compromise. The people involved don't meet in the middle. Instead they find ways for everyone to get what they originally wanted, or they find things which everyone genuinely prefers to their original desire. It sometimes involves some serious thinking outside the box.

A simplified version might be:

Compromise:
I want chicken for supper
You want mushrooms
we have chicken and mushroom pie, which noone really likes.

Common preference:
I want chicken for supper
you want mushrooms
One of us suggests beef instead. Wow! I'd like beef even better than chicken! you'd like beef even better than mushrooms! Everyone is happy.

communicating with the mainstream

Parent wrote:
"My daugher is 2 and a half and just lately has become really naughty and cheeky, also very good at completly ignoring me when i speaking to her..."

do you think your daughter means to ber naughty? Is she a bad person? I doubt it :)

Do you think she understands why some things are forbidden and others are allowed? Do you have rational and logical reasons for forbidding certain things? If they are indeed rational, you should be able to communicate it at 2 year old level. (not just THE STOVE WILL BURN YOU, GO TO THE NAUGHTY STEP but experimenting safely with heat, with flames and cookers and hot taps so that when you say HOT the child understands exactly why it's not a good idea to grasp with both hands rather than not touching because they are afraid of your anger)

Parent wrote:
"other times she will throw a massive tantrum over something silly."

forgive me, but who decides it's silly? When you're really angry or frustrated, you don't like it if people say "oh don't be ridiculous, this is a tiny problem" do you? If it was minor to her, she wouldn't throw a tantrum. Try to work out what she's upset about, and find some way of making it possible for the thing she wants to occur, or find something even more fun for her to do.

Parent wrote:
"its the ignoring me that gets on my nevres the most, even when im just trying to speak to her she will completly ignore me..."

maybe that's because what you are saying makes no sense to her - seems illogical or unhelpful or unkind.

We adults are all so verbal, but a 2.5 year old really isn't yet.
Replace a lecture with a sentence.
Replace a sentence with a kind word
Replace a word with a helpful action.

All the best to you - it's a roller coaster journey isn't it? If you can lose the idea of controlling your daughter, it'll free you up to be a guide and free her up to blossom and thrive. You'll be able to wave the kicking-of-granny good bye

mealtimes

Suggestions for a parent in great pain about giving child time-outs and removing food when it goes on the floor at scheduled mealtimes...

This might sound crazy, but here are some ideas aimed at removing the stress from the situation without hurting your child and yourself... maybe one or two will be useful. They are offered in deep sympathy for your pain and your child's.

Spread a big rug on the floor and have a carpet picnic
Sit on the floor next to a child sized table

Lose the idea that everyone has to eat the same food at the same time.

If being with you and husband while you eat is interesting, child will do it without having to be frightened into sitting at the table with you. If not, then it'll be interesting in a week, 6 months, a year. Relax. Spread more tablecloths on the floor :-)

Give child food as background while they do something else - nothing like having a crayon in one hand and a sausage in the other, and somehow the sausage all disappears.

Find lots of really interesting things to throw off the table. You can get 100 plastic balls from Argos for less than £10. Now THAT'S fun. Parents could attempt to throw the balls in a tricky target on the other side of the room. Child is going to prefer to throw coloured balls than pasta, let's face it.

Remember: child is almost certainly not throwing food because they hate your food, they hate you, they intend to be uncivilised, or they are not hungry. THey are throwing the food because they are exploring the universe around them and they want to find out about different textures, things which go flump and things which go splot. Encourage it in ways which don't annoy you - lots of play dough. Lots of finger food. A tablecloth under the chair so thrown food can just get recirculated. Lots of making "soup" out of flour and eggs and food colouring. Make sure child wears machine washable clothes.

You can turn this round to a joyful thing in 5 minutes flat by working WITH your child to help them learn about the world through experiment and play, and incidentally gradually moving towards formal mealtimes as they grow older. If anyone asks what on EARTH you are doing, tell them your child is going to be a genius scientist. :-)


What do you think? I'm hoping it communicates with someone who has never ocnsidered parenting playfully before.

Lots of back-up posts

The Unconditional Parenting board is closing down, so I have backed up lots of my posts from there.

Enjoy!

how can teens experiment safely with alchohol?

I think there's great value in European attitudes to alchohol, where it is something regularly offered to children if adults are drinking some with a meal. In many european families, parents or other relatives would expect to help their children train their palettes - distinguishing between grapes and learning the different scents and flavours. This would model wine drinking (and Scots similarly teach teens about whisky) as something to be savoured rather than a dangerous drug to be experimented with safely.

Also - what better place to first experience the physical effects of half a glass of wine - and to develop theories about how to behave under such circumstances - than in the home?

alchohol being "forbidden fruit" contributes to potentially dangerous attitudes to drinking it IMO

How do I protect precious ornaments from my child?

I think if there are communal expensive things a parent wants to protect, then they need to find ways of protecting them without hurting the child.

If things get thrown at TV, put TV in one of those 1970s cabinets? Then the doors can get quickly shut as the throwing begins. Having something on the outside of the cabinet worth throwing things AT would be cool. (like a target painted on or someting)

You could have a whole row of good things to throw on a mantelpiece or shelf so there's always something to hand.

eggs. Buy very very cheap ones. Play outside. Hose down afterwards. Or actually break eggs into a bowl to make scrambled egg, but have a good play with them first.

Make cornflour+water paste (fun texture in itself) and leave to dry in the sun. It goes cracked like a desert. Crumbling the chunks into tiny tiny pieces is cool.

Bottles of water to splash around outside might be a fun substitute for breaking - and for splashing in afterwards.

My child wants to play with toys in shops!

Well then, if child wants to play with toy in shop (as long as it isn't inextricably in packaging, which is another problem to be worked out, perhaps with the help of the shop assistants) then I would stay in shop for as long as child wants to be there playing with toy.

The details of ownership of the toy are then (as Julia Roberts not-quite said) just geography.

Repeat after me...

ALWAYS PACK YOUR BOOK OR ALTERNATIVE MEANS OF ENTERTAINING YOURSELF BEFORE EMBARKING ON ANY EXPEDITION


It can really help to leave the watch at home, and make it possible, as far as packaging makes it possible, for child to play with toys/other interesting objects in the store for as long as they want to. Shall we go to playgroup or shall we go to Walmart today?

Often, a child will have finished with object way before the check out counter. In fact, games of putting umpteen bags of sugar in the trolley and then reshelving them is also tremendous fun (well, maybe less thrilling for a 14 year old than a 3 year old, heh)

There is no law which says that something in the trolley has to be bought. It just shows that these are the objects which have caught your eyes so far.

(I'm not saying that if child really wants to buy the Neutron soup, you should put it in the trolley and then lie to them about having left it behind. What I mean is, the moment of putting something in the trolley or even putting it on the check out counter does not represent an irrevocable decision)

My child throws food out of the high chair all the time

If child is interested in an activity, find a way to help them get LOTS more of it safely and with parents being happy.

How about a carpet picnic on a big sheet? Then food which gets dropped can just get back on to the sheet?

How about passing child loads of objects for throwing while they are in the high chair?

Jenga blocks are fun.

Plastic balls can easily be gathered into their container with a broom later.

Buttons of different shapes, colours and sizes might be fun (if choking hazard doesn't worry you) and can be swept up with dustpan and brush.

Play dough is divinely wonderful. You can do all sorts of different colours, the cooked kind and the uncooked kind, different flours give v. different textures... also wonderful for throwing in small balls.

Paper aeroplanes are of course good for throwing.

Buy a child-sized table and chairs and decamp down there so child can sit at the table for exactly as long as they want.

How should one prepare for a long plane journey with small children?

It's very important to have something to suck and swallow during take off and (especially) landing - it can be as much as 20-30 mins of ear popping on the way down.

Talking about what you see when you take off and land - small houses, cars, fields, then up through the white clouds - talking about what clouds are made of. MAKE SURE YOU GET A WINDOW SEAT

There are some great magical Kipper episodes which happen in the clouds - have them in the DVD player? Several Richard Scarry DVD moments in airplanes too.

The tray of airplane food can itself provide literally minutes of innocent entertainment for children and adults alike

Friendly crew might offer them a tour of the cockpit to meet the pilot?

At the airport: escalators and lifts can be fun. Weighing child on an unused check-in carousel? PRetending to drive one of those little electric car things for disabled people (when not in use). Pushing a trolley around? [Although if child rides on trolley, the security staff may come and get officious] Check in, and then go for a walk outside the airport until it's time to go through security? Lots of colouring things? Sticker books?

Wait until the flight is actually called before going to the departure gate. The departure lounge often has amusement arcades for children, some entertainments in which are free; might be worth budgeting $20 for rides? Looking out of the departure lounge windows at the planes and staircases on lorries and baggage trains etc might also be fun

what if my dentist tells me that sucking a blanket will lead to my child needing a brace?

1. Get a second opinion.
2. get more info.

Having a brace later might mean all sorts of different things. It might mean one of those round-the-head traction jobs, or having 8 teeth removed to make space BUT...

if the dentist is right and it's just thumb/blanket sucking that is pushing those front teeth out, then my guess is that if it DID need a brace, it'd be a daytime only or nighttime only removable, top teeth only job. Which your child might well consider is a good trade off for several years of happy sleeping.

One of those top-and-bottom, fixed brace with elastic bands connecting to a night time jaw moving machinery... no, that might not be considered a good trade off.

If people smoke around my child will they become a smoker?

This was a post where a child started pretending to smoke a pretend cigarette after aunty Flo or someone had smoked near them.


I'd try to see it from the child's POV.

FRom whenever fire experimentation starts, with candles, matches and a trusted adult with a bucket of water, child has been learning that fire is HOT and has flames, and makes smoke.

Child has also been gradually learning about the sorts of things people put in their mouths. And putting fire in your mouth and then blowing smoke out is a new one.

Frankly, I'd be role playing it too.

I would think that parental or peer smoking is likely to be amuch bigger influence on a person taking it up than having one isolated aunt who does it.

(drifts off into happy memories of experimenting with dry cow parsley stalks as huge "cigarettes" as a child. THe smoke was wonderfully viscous and oily, but you had to suck on the stem to get it to come out of the top in a satisfying curly way and if you inhaled it by accident you'd be coughing evil poison out of your lungs for ten minutes...)

are manners important?

As far as small children are concerned, you could just as well be insisting that they say "a la la peanut butter sandwiches" before making a request as insisting on "please". It's an arbitrary convention. I prefer a spontaneous (probably occasional) heartfelt "thank you" or a beaming smile, or just a satisfied glug glug glug as the water goes down.

Make it so you don't have to respond to requests that irritate you. Bottles of water (refilled bottled water bottles) around at 4yo level? A water cooler?

I hate it when I have done something for a small child - pass them a toy they wanted, or something - and just in the middle of a beautiful communicative eye-contact moment between the two of us, with gratitude expressed and acknowledged, and sometimes even a spark of joy, the parent wades in with "say thank you". And I think "butt out, you just ruined the moment". And we've completely forgotten what we were doing.

I always say to the parent "no need for thank yous - we're doing fine"

Also, children pick up the way their parents speak. I think communicating with thank you/sorry is NBD - if the parent uses them, the child picks up when to, when they feel like it.

what should I do if my 2-year-old child ignores me?

"for every paragraph you were planning to say, substitute a sentence

for every sentence, substitute a word

for every word, substitute an action."

[copyright a wise friend of mine]


I wouldn't try to communicate verbally with a child this small about how they just spilled water and whether they should be clearing it up. I would just start tidying up (the first time a child helps their parent clear up, of their own accord, could be a really magical one - why spoil it with trying to make it happen for months before the child is ready?)

And I would find ways of tweaking the environment so that things which trigger a parent to fury don't happen often. So...

water in a sippy cup (great for spraying out of mouth, and just evaporates)?

milk in the bath or outside or in a room with tile/wooden/lino floor?

cover the carpet with old sheets or those cheap waterproof camping table cloths (good for spaghetti bolognaise nights too... )

I try to minimise the triggers by tweaking the environment in this sort of way.

If making a connection with the child is the thing bothering the parent, it might help to find time to connect through eye contact and hugs and perhaps reading a book together or having a conversation, either at the beginning of the day or just before sleeping. But in the middle of a busy day? Interrupting what they are doing to ask them to help clean up spilled water? When there's a universe to make sense of?

what kind of preparation is cool?

(rather than living seat-of-your-pants all the time)

My life changed when I got given a hand-me-down crock pot aka a slow cooker. Probably 2/3 days a week, I throw ingredients for a meal in there in that early morning mellow time. I always cook at least enough for two meals, so on some of the other days, I'm a 15 minute girl, when I look in the freezer and grabbed something I cooked a week or two ago.

I have a special grab it now rucksack, which contains all the basics that people I go on trips with might want (e.g. biscuits, entertainment and some cash). Then if it's time to go RIGHT NOW, I just grab the bag. This piece of preparation was a once off, 6 months or more ago. I just stick another bottle of water in if the old one is empty when I get home, or whatever. I just added gloves today brrrr.

what do I do if my child keeps picking my plants?

I know people with a big vegetable patch and a rabbit problem. They fenced the whole thing in with chicken wire. It probably goes almost a foot underground and sticks up about 2 feet.

this doesn't just make rabbits pause, but also small children, so that their time in the veg garden among the podding peas can be carefully supervised. I'm not advocating sitting in the enclosure with child crying outside, but it would give you warning that child wants to be among your precious plants with you, so you can concentrate on them.

You could always plant things which child is encouraged to pick around the edge of the fence?

If you can get the first sprouting of weeds out when your plants are seedlings, the vegetables stay ahead of the weeds which are really just superficially annoying then.

Some parents I know go "don't touch me!!!" in a silly high voice when a child puts a finger towards a flower. So that even touching the flower is a hilarious game - no need for picking.

Others I have come across make a big deal out of smelling the flowers with the child, sticking their noses right inside to get a lung full of the scent.

Some avid vegetable gardeners have put many of their gardening ambitions on hold for a year or two, instead making mud pies in the earth on a daily basis for a whole growing season

Hanging baskets for precious flowers?
Raised beds for vegetables?

Lots of lawn space with fun toys - a trampoline, a climbing frame, a swing and slide, a sandpit with lots of toys? You can buy cheap plastic water play tables which can be a great place to stand and do sand games/ water with bubbles/ corn starch and water/ you name it.

Child might like to stand on a step ladder and help you hang clothes.

I'd be thinking about ways of having the child involved with what you are doing, and consider saving the garden maintenance for when another adult is around to amuse the small child.

what do I do if my child won't sleep?

(post rescued from the soon-to-be-defunct Unconditional Parenting board)

A wise person once told me that on those occasions when you want to sleep and for some reason you can't (like you're on a night shift, or you're caring for a child who, for whatever reason, isn't ready to sleep, or is sleeping in a very unsettled manner) there's a curve of ghastliness, and if you can sit out the curve, about 15-20 minutes after you feel your head will explode, it actually becomes ok to stay awake. It might take a few similar experiences before you can recognise this.

Useful things: put on a DVD in a room with a mattress. You can lie and doze while child watches DVD. Don't expect child to go to sleep for 4 hours - if they happen to go to sleep earlier, then well and good, but it means you stop being impatient. Remember that while lying with your eyes shut is not as restful as sleep, it is much more restful than having eyes open and being alert. As Kipper says "One night without sleep won't matter".

In the time when you are awake, schedule yourself a nap for tomorrow, while child naps. Remind yourself that child will probably sleep in till 11am, and give yourself permission to do the same, cancelling engagements by email or text if you can.

tidying a house

Some people hate cleaning and tidying and are happy with the way their house looks. As Quentin Crisp said (and I paraphrase) "After three years the dirt doesn't get any worse. You just have to HOLD YOUR NERVE"

Lots of people hate tidying but want their home to be tidy. They need to get better theories, either about to what extent cleanliness matters, or about whether it is fun to clean or not. I don't think it really matters which route they follow, but if they have decided to be tidy then:

Get lots of stackable plastic crates. Or handwoven organic sea grass ones if that's your preferred asthetic. The plastic ones cost almost nothing, though. They are great for having toys sorted into - lego in one, soft toys in another, musical instruments in another. They are also excellent for building dens, for impromptu tables, for climbing onto large items of furniture...

People with a competitive streak can turn tidying into a competition, with their co-habitees or against themselves. e.g. throwing plastic balls into a filing cabinet drawer from the other side of the room = target practice. Child might want to join in while parents are having fun with such a game - no need for nagging. And if parents are having fun, they won't actually mind if child joins in or not.

I think of tidying as re-setting the house so that all the toys are attractive to whoever might want to play with them - making sure all the jigsaws have all their pieces with them etc. Any toy in its home is a gift to my cohabitees.

Someone said to me that if there are items you move in tidying more than once every 24 hours, then they live in the wrong place. It may be that the home of a very favourite toy is in the corner on the floor, not up on a shelf.

splash happy

From a thread at the Unconditional Parenting message board, where a poster asked about a situation in which a 3-year-old likes to splash water out of the bath all over floor/parents.

Brain storm:

Get in the bath with the two children (between them) so you protect smaller child from tsunamis and you are warm and wet instead of cold and wet.

Put washing up bowls along the edge of the bath on the floor to catch splashes.

Buy one of those really cheap carpet mat things which have a plastic base (they look pretty grim, but they soak up lots of water, it doesn't go through to the carpet, and they can easily be hung on the washing line outside to dry off)

Cut up an old towel into strips and attach the strips to the side of the bath with strong tape. Drips going down the outside of the bath get caught in a towel strip rather than going on the carpet.

Make lots of little bottles of potion (food colouring and water) for pouring.

Get a waterwheel for pouring games.

Bubbles may be more fun to pat and throw around than actual tidal wave splashing

If your kitchen has tiled/lino/wooden floor, the sink may be a good place for maxi-splash fun (and you can get just as clean in a sink as in a bath). As long as child isn't in danger of falling on the floor, parent can use it as an opportunity to mop the floor with constant water provision!

"Playful Parenting"

I read half of it.

Too many cheery anecdotes about Lawrence Cohen's own family and therapy patients, which all show what a Goofy Guy Larry is.

Important good things: play is an important means of communication for children; play can be a means of changing the energy of a situation, of backing off from an area of conflict for a time, or a tool with which to resolve it; play can be a way of reconnecting with the people we cohabit with.

Bad things: "follow the giggles" - because IMO giggling can indicate fear and nervousness
: he does not like TV and thinks that it stops children from being able to play imaginatively - because they are following someone else's script. I've seen 4 year olds tell/act out The Three Bears without tolerating hesitation, repetition or deviation and it didn't take a TV show to fix the narrative.

Attitudes to children

Overheard on a bus:

"Oh, children are manipulative little s*ds, aren't they?"

This comment would be socially impossible to make in a western country in a public place about any other group of people (blacks, hispanics, joooos, women, old people...)

It also reveals a complete lack of understanding of the aims of very small children.
"Gah I can't sleep alone in the dark here... I know, I'll really annoy my parents by screaming so loudly that they get as miserable as me... mwahahaha that'll show them not to force feed me tasteless goop three times a day"

"Gateway Books"

There is a thread on the TCS list at the moment about books people have found helpful in learning how to treat their children as small autonomous people rather than property, untamed savages, extensions of the self etc etc.

I want to put the books on here so I don't lose the list!

Lawrence Cohen 'Playful Parenting'

Jan Hunt 'The Natural Child'

anything by John Holt or Deborah Jackson

Alison Stallibrass, "The Self-Respecting Child" (for a reminder that some good ideas have been around
for a while...)

Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn

Hold On To Your Kids

"Raising Your Child Not by Force but by Love," by Sidney D. Craig

Jan Fortune -Wood's 'Winning Parent Winning Child', 'With Consent', 'Without Boundaries'

co-sleeping in the MSM

I was just sent this link

The Sunday Times is read by thousands and thousands of people. And this article takes exactly the right approach for its audience - nothing crunchy or "natural" but measured use of the science. Babies who sleep apart from their parents are much more stressed. Sleeping apart from parents correlates with women having eating disorders later in life (not that that proves a causal link of course).

And there's a neat little sting in the tail - the stress felt by babies sleeping alone is similar to the stress they experience when left at nurseries...

health visitor rant

this article reminds us that UK Health Visitors have not had a clue about baby nutrition for the past 40 years, despite that being one of the main parts of their tax-funded advisory role.

Gah.

An idea from the corner shop

The lady in our local corner shop told me today that when her children was little, she bought one of these types of things.

and filled it up with chocolate covered raisins, M&Ms, raisins, and nuts. Especially almonds, which she was waxing lyrical about how good for you they are. And then she justleft it at child height and whenever they wanted a snack they'd go and help themselves. It was particularly good for snacking in the early morning, when she didn't want to get up and make breakfast yet. The container keeps it all fresh, and the turning handle bit makes it fun, and mixing up the chocolate covered ones with plain ones makes the plain ones more delicious in combination

schools

Monastery and cathedral schools trained churchmen. The earliest monastery schools I know of are ca. 800 AD in the Carolingian empire. The main purpose was to teach Latin through memorising (singing by rote) first the Psalms and then Latin hymns. Once the novices had this basis they could take part in the liturgy. Later training was based on the seven liberal arts, all of which equipped students to be effective monks/clerics (eg arithmetic and astronomy were important for calculating the date of Easter). These schools provided a focused vocational training.

Secular schools developed in urban centres in the 15th century. European grammar schools (Lateinschule in Germany) came from the desire of urban merchants to prepare their sons for the professions (law, medicine etc) without necessarily tying them into a career in the church. To enter such professions, the boys were expected to know the sorts of things that the products of cathedral and monastic schools knew, concentrating on the acquisition of Latin. Such families were unlikely to be able to afford individual tutors. They set up charter schools to spread the cost of educating their children.

Schools were often set up by urban guilds as a perk for the sons of their members; some still survive in England (eg Merchant Taylors; Haberdashers; Christs Hospital -
still run by the Almoners' Guild...)

So even at this stage, schools had moved beyond providing a vocational training to providing an arbitrary passport (Latinity) to the desired profession. IMO, this peacock’s tail is still the primary function of schools – they rarely supply the information or offer the training that people want; instead, the qualifications are interpreted by employers or universities or whoever as indicating a certain level of staying power and determination to proceed to whatever goal it is that the person has in mind.

It is quite possible for a person to spend many years (not just finishing high school or a Bachelor’s degree, but a Masters as well) chasing the peacock’s tail which will supposedly finally allow one to start learning how to do what one actually wants to do.

The most valuable areas of training preserve their vocational aspects – music, dance, art, sports… – and mostly people pursue these areas outside schools through: private tuition with an expert; self-directed practice and study; joining a club/team/orchestra; engagement in the pursuit with others of similar ability, etc. IMO, the methods by which people find and train for their vocations are much better models for pursuing any interest at any age than the school model, which purports to provide a generic preparation for specialisation later.

circumcision and nappy rash

On the TCS list, someone likened infant circumcision to changing a diaper when child has a rash - it will hurt the child but parent knows it is the best thing to do and goes ahead regardless of inflicting the pain.

In the current case, the mother (father / caregiver / whatever) often has to make decisions for the eight-day-old boy because she can't communicate why some things are happening, he's not yet prepared to understand the range of options, and he can't communicate his opinions except in the most basic ways. Under those circumstances, making many decisions for him is necessary, not irrational. For example, he might not want her to change his diaper, perhaps because he has a rash and the wipes cause pain. Yet the mother, if she is rational, will change his diaper anyway because she knows that to do otherwise is far worse for the child. This is coercive, but rational. There's no alternative. (She will likely mitigate the pain however possible, of course, but she'll still change the diaper and the child will still hurt.)

No. Changing the diaper regardless is unneccessary coercion. Here are some possible solutions which would not hurt the tiny baby:

Get in bath with tiny baby. Instead of using baby wipes, the water will gently wash the baby clean. No pain.

Change diaper when child is asleep and won't notice.

Instead of using wipes, gently wipe the baby with a soothing anti-rash cream (yes, fingers in poop and all). After a few minutes, it may be possible to use wipes without hurting the baby. Wash hands thoroughly in between obviously ;-)

Instead of wipes, use a soft damp cloth?

Lose the diapers altogether and leave the bottom half nekkid until the rash goes. Might be a chance to experiment with elimination communication. And honestly, 8-day-old baby pee or poop on one's T-shirt is not a disaster. It can just join the half digested milk :lol:

To say "In most cases, I try not to coerce my child, but in circumstance X there is no alternative" signals a failure of creativity not a grim reminder that life is inevitably painful. Sure, we all have failures of creativity from time to time, but we mustn't pretend that they are anything other than failures, which we can learn from and do better next time.

circumcision

The infant circumcision rate in the UK is less than 1%. In this country circumcision is generally regarded as barbaric genital mutilation, undertaken only by a tiny proportion of the population, for religious reasons. I was astonished to learn today that the circumcision rate in the US is more like 60%.

There are various possible health benefits to circumcision, but the American Academy of Paediatrics said in 1999 that they are not sufficient to recommend routine infant circumcision. There are some STDs which are more difficult to catch with a circumcised penis (because there are some cells in the foreskin which easily absorb whatever is going around), but there are simple ways of avoiding STDs which do not involve genital mutilation. Several of the risk factors can easily be dealt with by basic hygiene.

On the reverse side, there are risks associated with circumcision itself, from bleeding to infection and much worse. Estimates of the percentage of baby boys affected by such things vary between less than 1% and 10%, depending on who is counting. Use of anaesthesia is by no means universal, although the procedure is certainly painful. Duh.

Circumcision is not easily reversible, and affects sex. It makes it much harder to keep penis and vagina lubricated during sex. It reduces sensation in the penis and can affect the erection. It takes longer for circumcised males to come to ejaculation (some might find this an advantage of circumcision).

There is no guarantee that one’s son will thank one for having circumcised him. The surveys of males circumcised as adults cited on Wikipedia indicate that the satisfaction rate is only about 60%. There was nothing to indicate how many men circumcised as infants were happy about it.

If your son decides as a teen/adult that he wants to be genitally mutilated, that’d be the time to do it, IMO, when he can decide for himself.

I find it hard to imagine a viable justification of infant circumcision unless there are religious factors involved, and that deserves another post, which will have to wait till I have time to write it.

hello

well, I assume noone is sitting patiently out there waiting for me to write.

I've changed my links so they reflect what I'm actually reading.

Thoughts about other things are still cooking...

random thoughts about shyness

If child is nervous around new people, try to meet them in places where there is lots of space to move away and still have fun. EG a park rather than going to someone's house for tea. That enables a child to play on the swings/slide/on the grass verge 50 yards away and begin interacting AT THEIR OWN PACE (Which might mean - not actually directly till the next play date)

Some children might like to be told ahead of time who they are going to meet - perhaps see a photo too.

Some adults are REALLY bad about invading the personal space of a child who is not comfortable with it. In that situation, defend the child - make a physical barrier between yourself and the adult so that they would have to invade your space to get at the child. I know parents who say explicitly "give him/her some space - (s)he takes a while to be comfortable with new people".

I also know parents who say "please just ignore my small child until (s)he gets used to your presence". Some children like to be around people without 5 pairs of eyes looking expectantly at them waiting for some kind of performance.

The other thing is that I think parents need to be willing to follow their child's cues about pace of almost any activity. It might take 20 visits just playing on the side of the swimming pool before another 5 where the child plays in their depth and then eventually wants to explore further - but sides of pools are wonderful places to play and so are the steps in and out. Rather than thinking "my child is timid" think "my child wants to get every ounce of learning and richness out of every aspect of this before the next bunch of sensory overload bangs in".

smart suits

The problem, of course, with smart suits is that one only buys them every 6-10 years. And one day one looks at them, and although the jacket is still in good condition, and it is just as beautiful a colour as it was 10 years ago, the trousers just won't do.

I don't think it is POSSIBLE to wear trousers where the hem tapers in to the ankle any more. Nobody does. And wearing clothes that would look completely dated rather destroys the point of wearing the smart suit. Harumph. Which is why I am delighted that a little concentrated googling turned up this site

Whether I am brave enough to do this or not is another question. Maybe I'll just take the trousers to the nice alteration shop in town...

day care woes

There was a recent question to the TCS list about a pre-verbal child who protests at the transition to day care, but then goes on to have a lovely time (according to the day care providers). I responded as my thoughts developed, in several messages. This is more structured.

1. Let’s assume that the child really does enjoy going to day care while the parent works. The parent needs to be pretty sure of this assumption before working on it.

It may be that all that is needed is a different approach to the transition. Allow an extra hour for mooching around the puddles in the day care car park, or for playing with the child at day care? 5 minutes of puddle hopping seems a long time when you are late, but nothing at all when you have an hour's leeway.

Alternatively, perhaps the child would prefer to be taken to day care by hir father, or maybe they'd rather say goodbye at home, and have another trusted adult take them to day care?

A good threshold game is playing peek-a-boo around the door one hopes the child will eventually want to go through. And making sure one goes on playing peek-a-boo with furniture props well into the room. Maybe one of the day care staff could be primed to go on with the peek-a-boo game? Then child's transition to day care could be very gradual.


2. Let’s assume that the child does not want to go to day care. Parents now need to brainstorm WILDLY.

Perhaps one parent could do their work at home or in the evenings, perhaps with a baby sitter in the house (a trusted teen? A devoted grandparent?). Perhaps a parent could take the child to work with them (either on an occasional basis, so they can see what is happening when they are at day care, or even on a regular basis). Perhaps two people could job share, each looking after their combined children in one of their houses while the other works.

Perhaps one of the parents would like to stop working for money and be at home with the child?

It would certainly be worth doing the maths of income minus day care = remainder and think of other ways which would make parent happy to earn that remainder, not involving child care.


3. If the current situation involves leaving the child crying in the day care provider's arms, the parent is teaching their child a big lesson: "when the chips are down, parent cannot be relied upon for assistance". Will that not come back and bite the parent later on? It has to damage the parent/child relationship, quite apart from not taking the child's NEED not to be left seriously.

4. I think it is also worth bearing in mind that children are designed to be pretty well glued to parents or similarly close carers until sometime in their second year, at least. The nursery scenario is a cheap way of enabling parents to work, but it is not optimum for many children ever, depending on personality.

IME, children thrive in small mixed-age groups rather than in same-age groups, which most nurseries don't offer. A 4 year old is much more interesting to a 2 year old than another 2 year old is.

Sure, we have to be creative to be parents as well as earning money; the difficulties associated with finding ways of paying the bills do not excuse following the herd and abandoning our children to something sub-optimal, however.

The product mentality

APInternational, the attachment parenting organisation, has the motto "Peaceful Parenting for a Peaceful World"

The underlying message is clearly that if you attachment parent your children - breastfeeding on demand, co-sleeping, baby wearing - your children will likely turn out to be gentle and peaceful people.

Unfortunately, the API logo writer had not read The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris. She argues - pretty compellingly, as far as I've got - that the major influence on how children turn out is not how their parents treat them, but what their peer group is like. There are genetic effects and indirect genetic effects, but the people children mdel themselves on, once they leave their mother's knee, are their peers.

If you want your child to be peaceful, live in a commune where the whole community is peaceful.

I think Attachment Parenting is a splendid way to treat very small people. But do it because it makes parents and children happier, not because you have some ultimate goal for your child's mature personality.

Thinking about tantrums

This is a recycled post from Rational Parenting, which is on hiatus.

A tantrum: when a person loses all ability to express their intentions directly through language or signs, instead using a variety of tantrum-characteristic behaviours, such as uncontrollable weeping, screaming, shaking, drumming of heels on floor (varies according to the person).

A tantrum is a horrible thing to experience. It makes one's eyes sore, gives one a headache, makes one tired, dehydrates one, and does not solve whatever the problem was in the first place.

Helping one's children avoid tantrums and minimise their effects seems to me to be the natural aim of any parent, not only because tantrums are horrible for the person having them, but also because they are horrible for the person on the receiving end - there is great temptation either to give in to all demands of the hysterical person or to remove them from sight and earshot until they have stopped. The one end of the scale is self-sacrifice, the other is neglect. I would recommend neither as a parenting strategy.

I think that having tantrums is an inevitable part of childhood. Some children have them because their parents seem to set out to ignore their intentions. Others have them because their parents - being fallible - sometimes miss the cues of their children until the children have reached a point where intelligible communication is no longer possible.


1. staving off tantrums

is eminently possible. It requires the tantrum-catcher to know the tantrum-thrower very well indeed, in order to pick up on their cues.

For example, many pre-menstrual women display tantrum characteristics - a boiling up of frustration is eventually vented, either through aggression or through weeping. It can often be side-stepped by those who love the women. Some like to be cosseted, and tucked up on the sofa with a cup of tea; others need to be told to "buck up, old girl"; yet others merely need reminding that their hormones go funny at certain times of month. Choose the wrong response at your peril.

Helping one's children requires exactly the same attention to the cues of the child. Sometimes people have gone beyond being able to express how tired or hungry or thirsty they are; this is where trusted adults can gently help them to change their mental state through a snack or a drink or a quiet activity or whatever.



2. Helping to end a tantrum when it has begun

Some of the same techniques would apply as in the tantrum-avoidance stage: trying to identify the problem and a way to solve it; or providing comfort until the child has calmed down enough to solve their problem themselves. NB it strikes me that this is a big argument in favour of extended breastfeeding, which can provide food, drink AND comfort in one benign swoop to an unhappy child.

Sending someone away to weep it out alone is a cruel act. No-one should wish weeping-oneself-into-exhaustion on another person. Sending one's own child away, denying them the love and reassurance that will help them to start problem solving again quickly, is also counterproductive in the long run. If one's role as a parent is to be a trusted advisor to the small people one lives with, then excluding them from one's presence when their problems have got too large for them to handle rationally is the act of a fool. If Betty's parents do not help her to solve problems as a child, she is highly unlikely to communicate her problems to them and ask for help as she grows more independent. Welcome to teenage hell.

Acceding to demands that are in conflict with one's own intentions is also counterproductive (= self-sacrifice). I hope that helping one's child no longer be hungry or thirsty wouldn't clash with anyone's own intentions (and remember the urgency with which such physical needs need to be met when one is not in control of the provision of food and drink - there's nothing like a blood sugar low). But buying a toy that a child just saw and won't use for more than ten minutes?? It is much better to calm down the tantrum with love and respect, and then creatively find alternative solutions with the child (do we know anyone who owns this toy? Might it be for sale on Ebay or in a charity shop? Are there any better toys it would be worth buying instead? If we spend money on this toy, will it have implications for the rest of the family finances? Can we sell it on Ebay if it's rubbish? Can we play with it in the shop?).

One should never assume that someone is throwing a tantrum 'for no good reason'. Even when it's 'just hormones', the emotions are real enough, and problem solving (however small the problem seems to anyone outside the sufferer's head) goes on hold until the emotions have been assuaged.

Are we at the beck and call of our 'manipulative' children here? No more than we are at the beck and call of anyone we love who needs help to see beyond the perceived enormity of a problem to its solution.

How common is baby-wearing in the UK?

I have no means of being scientific about this, obviously, so here is my anecdotal response.

I have seen lots of people use a baby carrier of the Baby Bjorn/Tomy variety for the first couple of months. You can buy them on the High Street - it is a pretty mainstream thing to do. Obviously, the baby quickly becomes too heavy to be comfortable to carry in this way, but more and more babies at least have the security of being carried in their earliest weeks. I think it is partly because our town centres are mostly pedestrianised, and they are often also medieval. Cobbled streets and tiny-baby-in-pram is not a happy mixture for a Saturday shopping trip.

Most people then move straight on into prams and buggies, IME, except for when they are going on long walks, and then Karrimor-type backpacks are common, at least among the middle classes.

But there is a little move towards baby/toddler wearing, again, among the middle classes. One clear indication of this is the NCT catalogue - the National Childbirth Trust is the nation's big natural childbirth charity; they organise antenatal classes and have active networks of local branches with coffee mornings, tea parties, nearly new sales etc etc. And as you can see in the NCT catalogue, there are various baby carrying devices advertised. I think there are more than there were 2 or 3 years ago, but I might be misremembering.

1. The Wilkinet. What a splendid invention this thing is. It starts like a standard baby bjorn type baby carrier, but as the baby gets larger, they can face outwards or can be carried on an adult's back, rucksack style. I have seen successful (though fairly contorted) breastfeeding going on in it with older babies. And the weight really is distributed well. I have also seen fathers very happy and comfortable with a Wilkinet - it doesn't look too earth mother-y for a man with a manly outlook.

2. The better baby sling. I've got a friend with this one (and actually, both parents use it completely interchangeably - an effect of the tartan pattern rather than being a bit floral, maybe?!). It always looked a bit stiffer to me than my faithful Huggababy, but it's a perfectly good ring sling and LOOK there it is out in the mainstream.

3. The Hippychick hipseat. There is one good thing about this. It acknowledges that a) carrying a child unaided on your hip leads to problems and b) every mother carries her child on her hip. But really, how many people are going to wander around the house with this contraption strapped to them for every time a child might want a carry? A ring sling gives you the same load spreading, but is much easier either to whip on instantaneously or leave on all day, wookie-like.

4. The Bush Baby cocoon and baby carrier - the sorts of things I mentioned above. I haven't tried this brand.

I rarely see mothers with slings - local ones I tend to get to know! - but people often say supportive things, and I wave the logo of my sling at anyone who says anything friendly.

There is a growing market on Ebay.co.uk of second-hand slings and also WAHM ring slings. Every time I go to visit, there are more slings on offer and less chance of a bargain!

In praise of reins

“Leads are for dogs not people”

Actually, I disagree. The sight of a child straining at the leash while their mother gossips 4 feet above them is an awful one. But there are times and places in which a set of toddler reins is a splendid piece of equipment.

There is a stage when a child begins to learn about traffic. They are fascinated by cars (*point*), lorries (*point*), buses (*point*), vans (*point*), motorcycles (*point*) and aeroplanes (oh no, sorry, that’s something else). They learn from their parents’ verbal and non-verbal cues that roads are things to be treated with caution, and that the pavement is the safe place to be.

There is also a stage when a child learns to walk – wobbly at first, and delighting in their growing balance and confidence.

Some people’s children encounter these stages in the convenient order. Others learn to walk before they understand roads. For these children, wearing reins by the roadside gives them the freedom to walk along and the parent the ability to stop them falling into the path of an oncoming juggernaut. Reins can be slack at all times except when disaster actually looms.

Cliff tops and river banks are similarly good rein places. A child can investigate without actually falling 150 feet.

Baby Food – An Easier Alternative

This is a partially fictionalised account for our local parenting magazine. Feedback please - I want to improve it! You'll spot the breastfeeding and autonomy subtexts...

I’ve never bought a jar of baby food. And I’m not one of those efficient mothers who (apparently effortlessly) boils up vats of vegetables, puréeing and freezing them in ice-cube trays so that there are always home-made meals ready for the baby.

Instead, I’ve just been following the guidelines of the World Health Organisation. They advocate exclusive breastfeeding up to 6 months and then a mixture of breastfeeding with suitable food until at least the age of two. Babies don’t develop the digestive enzymes to cope with anything other than milk before around 6 months, so there’s little point in hurrying the process. I think the important thing is to let your child dictate the pace.

How much food?

If you continue to breastfeed on demand after 6 months, you never need to worry about whether your child is eating enough. By 18 months, my children probably got more than 50% of their nutrition from solid food, but to be honest I wasn’t counting. The ratio of milk and food shifted very gradually. I always offered my child small helpings and plenty of them, and avoided trying to force just-one-more-mouthful in to finish the helping. Only the child can decide when they are full.

What if they don’t like it?

Do you eat food you don’t like? Does forcing it down make you like it any better? Well, why try to force a small child to eat something, then?

Some food I offered was rejected with contempt first time, and then was soon after enjoyed. One or two things were left of the side of the plate lots of times, so I made sure I offered alternatives and eased off on the unpalatable item. After a few months, these foods could often be easily reintroduced and hugely enjoyed.

Letting the child decide what to eat and how much of it means that those battles of wills over eating are much less likely to develop in the future. Relax now, and save real stress later!

What sort of food?

Remember, food is fun! If you are house proud, I recommend putting one of those waterproof tablecloths over the area where the child will be eating, and then… let them have at it! We soon gave up on bibs as completely inadequate (if you’re going to have to wash the cardigan anyway, why wash a bib too?).

If you give the child a spoon from the start, they will soon get the hang of it, especially if you are showing the way with another spoon. I found myself being solemnly (and pretty dextrously) fed yoghurt by 1-year olds as often as I fed them.

Finger foods are as good for playing with as eating: slices of apple, carrot sticks, a thin slice of cheese, a soldier of toast (With LOTS of butter on) and so on. Little things a child can pick up and pop in (like peas or those little pasta twirls and shells) are often appreciated.

Different textures, colours and flavours are much more interesting for a child than beige-coloured purée, and being introduced to them early means that children are more likely to accept all kinds of different foods later. Offer lots of variety – and offer what you eat yourself, so that joining in with the family foods is just normal.

Food doesn’t appear by magic. At 6 months, I started including my children in food preparation. They enjoyed playing with the vegetables as I prepared them, and ate lots of raw brussels sprouts, parsnips and even garlic – ah well, I expect they were following some deeply healthy Californian raw foods diet! With help, children little over a year old can start chopping vegetables; even younger ones can stir successfully.

What about choking?

A certain number of things will go down the wrong way to start with. Either the child will cough the things out again or you can quickly scoop them out of the mouth with a finger. I was careful to avoid really hard things like nuts. By waiting until past 6 months, the child will quickly get the hang of chewing (even with no teeth) and swallowing, and the chance of choking just gets smaller and smaller.


So introducing your child to food needn’t be traumatic, hard work or expensive. By keeping the breastfeeding going, you can relax about letting your child play with food and gradually eat more of it when they are ready.

Jabbermommy's promotion at work post

from here

Your Big Day, v1.0

You just got a big promotion at work. Your job now allows you much more autonomy, as well as providing you with many more outlets for expression. Your head is swimming with new thoughts, ideas and feelings. You're not one to plan for the future very much, but you do love to reminisce about your day, and you feel elated. The celebration dinner was okay, the chicken and pasta was delicious, but the broccoli has left you feeling a little gassy.

You take a relaxing bath, slip on some soft pajamas, and read a short story that you love to read every night. You feel a little drowsy, and your eyes droop, even though you still feel excited about your big promotion.

Your loved one, someone you love in ways you don't even understand yet you can feel the love for them so deeply, tucks the covers around you, kisses you goodnight, and then leaves the room.

You are now supposed to sleep for nine to ten hours. Solid. Without waking. Alone. In your excitement about your big day, you'd forgotten all about that requirement of the household. In fact, you forget that requirement the moment you wake up in the morning, because you love being awake so much, you love experiencing everything life has to offer. Nonetheless, you try to settle down, even though thoughts of your big promotion are still racing through your head. You drift in and out of a light sleep, dreaming of all the big things that have happened today.

You startle awake each time your stomach aches. That broccoli is still bothering you, and you call to your partner to bring some medicine, but they ignore you. You wake occasionally, jumping up onto your knees, ready to crawl, because your legs are restless, twitching and itchy. You twist and turn trying to get comfortable. The covers are too light, so you call to your loved one for another blanket, and they ignore you. You're thirsty and your throat feels a bit sore from all the calling to your loved one, but again they ignore you. You begin to feel scared, wondering why your loved one, the one you feel so much love for, the one you are completely dependent upon, is not coming in to help you. You start crying, calling out to your loved one, "Please, come to me! I need help! Please, just come here and give me a hug, I need some reassurance that things are okay!"

Silence. The clock ticks. You cry out one more time, desperately. Silence. You sink back down onto the mattress, pulling your blanket around you, trying to soothe yourself. You realize you're hungry, that your stomach has already emptied its contents, and that you need a small snack. You again call for your loved one, shrilly this time, stridently. Your head aches, your eyes ache, your throat aches. They continue to ignore you.

You give up calling for your loved one, and drift into an uneasy, exhausted sleep, your stomach aching, your eyes itchy and swollen, your mind confused and troubled.

Who are you?

You are a baby that stood up on your own for the first time today.

Your loved one is your mother. Unbeknownst to you, she's read in a few articles online that you're supposed to sleep through the night, uninterrupted. Her friends, her mother and her spouse keep telling her that it's good for you. Her heart aches every time you cry, her arms literally hurt wanting to reach for you, but she checks herself. She halts on the way to your door, and turns around, to settle back into her own bed and her own uneasy sleep. Even though she no longer hears your crying on the baby monitor, she doesn't understand why she doesn't feel right.

When you wake up in the morning, you are overjoyed to see the love of your life again! So overjoyed, in fact, that last night is already forgotten, by your conscious mind. She is so relieved that you're not angry with her, she smiles happily, knowing she did the right thing.


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Infants have different sleep cycles than adults, for sound reasons that should be studied* by every parent. The growth of their body and their brain depend on their unique sleep cycles being respected. To expect an infant to conform to adult sleep patterns, or worse, to expect an infant sleep more hours and more soundly than an adult, is not only unrealistic, but is damaging in the long-term on both physiological and psychological levels.



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Your Big Day, v2.0

You just got a big promotion at work. Your job now allows you much more autonomy, as well as providing you with many more outlets for expression. Your head is swimming with new thoughts, ideas and feelings. You're not one to plan for the future very much, but you do love to reminisce about your day, and you feel elated. The celebration dinner was okay, the chicken and pasta was delicious, but the broccoli has left you feeling a little gassy.

You take a relaxing bath, slip on some soft pajamas, and read a short story that you love to read every night. You feel a little drowsy, and your eyes droop, even though you still feel excited about your big promotion.

Your loved one, someone you love in ways you don't even understand yet you can feel the love for them so deeply, tucks the covers around you, kisses you goodnight, and then settles in beside you to watch over you as you fall asleep.

You feel their breathing and their heartbeat against your body. Your own heartbeat and breathing slows to match theirs. Their warmth radiates through you, suffusing you with a sense of rightness and comfort. You slip into a light sleep, eyes twitching in REM. Your loved one knows you are only in a light sleep, and waits for the signs of deep sleep. When your body is completely limp and your eyelids have stopped twitching, your loved one quietly eases away from you, to return to you in a little bit, for their own sleep. You wake slightly to feel the warm body slide away from you, but you've felt it many times before and you know it'll return shortly, so you slide back into a deep sleep.

You startle awake each time your stomach aches. That broccoli is still bothering you, and your covers are too light. Your loved one is sleeping beside you, they wake lightly and tuck the covers around you again. You snuggle up to their warmth, but you whimper because your gassy stomach is still bothering you. Your loved one rubs your lower tummy gently in a clockwise motion, encouraging the gas to make its way through your body. They pat your back rhythmically, encouraging a little burp, as well. You're not as bothered by the gas now. Your needs were met. You feel secure, safe and comfortable, and you settle back to sleep.

You wake occasionally, jumping up onto your knees, ready to crawl, because your legs are restless, twitching and itchy. Your loved one's hands settle you back into your place, where you snuggle again, mind whirling with thoughts of your big promotion, legs twitching. You hear a quiet chuckle, and feel gentle hands massaging your tense legs until they're loose again. You clutch their fingers as you fall asleep.

You wake slightly and realize you're hungry, that your stomach has already emptied its contents, and that you need a small snack. You cry out for milk, your loved one provides it, and you suckle until your thirst and hunger is slaked.

You drift into an an easy, deep sleep, your tummy filled, your needs met, and your mind untroubled.

Who are you?

You are a baby that stood up on your own for the first time today.

Your loved one is your mother. She's been sleeping beside you since the day you were born, and she knows every twitch of your body, every one of your breathing patterns, and how often you're hungry and thirsty during the night. She knows you had a big day, and she is prepared for a night of disrupted sleep. She knows that you'll need to process your big development in your own way, and that she can just be there to guide you through the night without forcing anything. She trusts her own instincts. After she's had some time to herself, to refresh her mind and spirit, she settles into bed next to you, taking note of your furrowed brow, your twitching legs, and the sound of little gas bubbles in your tummy, and knows you'll need soothing during the night.

When you wake up in the morning, you are overjoyed to see the love of your life again! You reach up to pat her face as you get your fill of milk, your tummy comfortable and full. You jump up into a crawl immediately after eating, and find her body makes an excellent playground. She smiles happily, knowing she did the right thing.

Namaste,
Jabbermommy