The Times Magazine 45in childminder, a new job, meaning my
husband is working longer hours, layered on
top of frequent Covid curve balls. I tell her
about fraught mornings alone with the kids,
struggling to get them into their coats without
tantrums, impossible afternoons and sibling
cuddles that turn into headbutts.
I explain that I have actually been dabbling
in “respectful parenting” for a while, since
a friend pressed Janet Lansbury’s 2014 book
No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame
into my hands. From that point I learnt to say,
“You want to hit; I won’t let you hit,” rather
than screeching, “Leave him alone! What’s
wrong with you? Stop!” and giving my little
one a timeout. At least, that was the idea.
I explain that in practice I often struggle
actually to remember these sometimes
counter-intuitive scripts and apply them,
and instead feel as though – in the face of
tumultuous behaviour – I am dithering, being
inconsistent or doing nothing.
I continue to list the many reasons I should
put myself on the naughty step. Becky listens
kindly. And then she reassures me that I am
not a bad parent. “We all have bad days when
it explodes out of us and we feel awful, and
that does not ruin our kids for ever,” she
says. She reframes my struggle to adopt
new parenting techniques as eminently
understandable, because my parents did not
raise me this way and that means, “You’re a
cycle breaker, which is an epic role because
you’re taking on the weight not just of
the generation before you but of all the
generations before you.”
Soothing and galvanising the parent, as
much as the child, is an important part of
Dr Becky’s ethos; she frequently says parents
need to feel “sturdier”. We also, she argues,
need to “reparent” our own inner children
because “parenting triggers so many
unresolved issues”. By addressing this, she
says her method “hits you on a much deeper,
almost a healing level”. Then she sets me her
online “reparenting” workshop as homework.
(Anyone who does not like therapy speak
should probably look away now, but when
I do it on my laptop that evening, I feel a
tiny tear spring to my eye as I put my hand
on my heart and thank my inner child for
her years of service.)
But let’s not forget the kids. First, given
the year our family has had, she recommends
sitting down together and writing a list of
everything that has changed and everything
that has stayed the same. One thing to tell
them within this is, “Your mum is still your
mum and always will be – I will always be
there. Even if I go out I will always be here for
you afterwards.” Otherwise, “Kids can become
hypervigilant for any other changes,” she says.
“They need to be told explicitly the things that
are going to stay the same.”
She advises me to think about the “pain
points” of the day and try to come up with
preventive tactics. She advises me to reframe
my thoughts about my kids’ wild behaviour,always using the most generous interpretation
of it, in order to help them get through
tough moments. For example, if the kids are
frequently throwing food at dinner, I could
chat to them – long before dinner is served- and say, “You might get the urge to throw;
I won’t let you throw. What else could we do
to get the throwing urge out?” By “inviting in
the expression of that urge, it is less likely to
act itself out later”, she says, and suggests a
pillow fight as one option to let off steam.
“That’s a great 4pm strategy.”
So if getting dressed to leave the house is
painful, my interpretation of this should be
that the kids need my help mastering the skills
of getting dressed. We could try a dry run of
getting dressed at the weekend, when I could
ask the boys for their input (where’s the best
place to keep shoes? Can we do it in time to
a song?) and give them a chance to learn then,
because, “No one builds skills or thrives under
stressful conditions.”
If a child does hit or scream or throw, she
still does not advocate timeouts, which she
says are “really problematic. Feelings don’t
scare kids; being alone in those feelings scares
them.” By sending off a child alone when they
have just lashed out, she believes they take
in the message “that the part of me that felt
so angry, so overwhelmed, and by the way
doesn’t yet have the skills to manage that
feeling, is bad, because it’s met with distance”.
Long term, “When that feeling comes up, it’s
less able to be regulated.”
Instead, she recommends defusing things
calmly and empathetically – physically picking
up a child if need be – and sitting with your
child in a room to demonstrate that you are
not scared of their emotions. She recommends
empathy even at the most fraught times:
“Nothing’s feeling the way you want it today - so many things feel hard at the moment,”
or, “Something must feel really bad for you
to have said that.”
Finally, she says, if ever I do snap and
shout, it is important to “repair” effectively.
I must “own” my apology without blaming
the children (“I’m sorry, but you guys were out
of control” doesn’t count). I should try saying,
“I was having a hard time and I love you. Just
like we talk about you managing your big
feelings, I’m working on mine. That was a
moment when I wasn’t able to do that. It’s
never your fault when I yell.”
Well, when she puts it like that in her
sensible, upbeat, proactive way, it sounds
eminently doable. I practically float out of
our meeting on a cloud of good intentions.
That week, I try the exercises. Often,
in the moment, the kids seem unbothered.
I do the change-list exercise with them and
they keep wandering off and doing other
things, but I still finish it with them and
tell them several times that I will always
Validate children’s feelings. For example, say,
“Oh, it’s hard to watch your brother get a lot
of presents,” rather than, “Why can’t you just
be happy for him? You have so many toys,”
if a child is jealous at their sibling’s birthday
party. Say, “Oh, that’s so disappointing – you
did not want that to happen,” rather than,
“Cheer up. It’s not that bad,” when a child is
upset. Even if the issue that has upset them
(“No, I want my rainbow gloves!”) seems like
small fry to an adult, clearly it matters to them.
Pre-empt undesirable behaviour. Come up with
strategies in advance to defuse frequent “pain
points” in the day – encourage children to get
“urges”, whether that is screaming, throwing
food, shoving, hitting or splashing in the bath,
out of the way safely. Brainstorm ideas with
them in advance, such as hitting pillows or
drumming hard on the table. Talk about
feelings frequently when things are calm;
tell them about times you too have grappled
with the issues they are grappling with.
Reframe children’s undesirable behaviour by applying
the most generous interpretation to the situation.
So, a child is not being a pain if, say, they
screech at full volume at the dinner table, or
defiant if they don’t stop when you tell them
to. Rather they are having trouble managing
overwhelming urges and need help to learn.
Rather than punishing a child, perhaps say,
“You have a screaming urge. I won’t let you
scream at the dinner table. If you have a
screaming urge, you can scream in the garden.”
Instead of timeouts or sending a child to their room
when they have “acted up”, defuse things as
calmly and quickly as possible, often by
physically removing a child from the situation.
Empathise with them, knowing they are feeling
out of control. Rather than telling them off, say,
“Nothing’s feeling the way you want it today,”
or, “Something must feel really bad for you
to have said that.” Then stay in the room with
them, positioning yourself between them and
the door if need be, to show them that you
can handle even their most difficult feelings.
goodinside.comDR BECKY’S RULES (PARENTS ONLY)