Oh Crap! Potty Training

supposedly do and don’t do that I dislike—but I agree fully with cadre.
What I see, both in my life and in my work, is that a lot of us
parents struggle with providing freedom within boundaries. In our
quest to raise free-thinking, independent children we are not
providing enough of a framework for them to feel safe.
I’ve mentioned Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne a couple of
times. Mr. Payne was a Waldorf teacher and is so brilliant and
eloquent on this topic, I can’t recommend this book highly enough.
He says that raising children is like building a pyramid. The widest
part at the bottom is the foundation. That is made up of “governing,”
and takes place roughly from birth to age six. Next is the middle of
the pyramid, made up of a “gardening” phase that takes place from
roughly six to twelve years. And last, at the top, is the “guiding”
phase, which is the way he recommends parenting children ages
twelve to eighteen. He suggests that most parents have flipped the
pyramid and are trying to guide our children when they need
governing. By govern, he means providing boundaries and limits, not
cruel or harsh punishment. When a parent tries to guide a child
whose frontal lobes—the area of the brain responsible for logic and
reason—isn’t fully formed, it backfires. Then that parent is left to
govern when the child is older and should only need guiding. Now,
from own personal experience, I see this in my own community. I see
children raised with no limits or boundaries who, by the time they
are five or six, are wild and very hard to control. By this, I mean that
they exhibit out-of-control behavior, not that they should be
“controllable” like a puppet.
Payne also uses the analogy of you, the parent, driving a car.
Imagine the anxiety your child would feel if you were driving, they