be their mum, no matter what. They seem
unconcerned. I invite them to punch a pillow
as soon as they get home and, weirdly, they
don’t, but they cackle at the very idea and
they don’t throw their food that day either.
Isaac tells me he doesn’t want to do a dry
run of getting dressed at the weekend, but
I cajole him and things do seem slightly easier
(or am I imagining it?) the following week.
There is no quick fix – the tantrums still
happen – but I sense a subtle shift, perhaps
because I am now more aware of my options
and feel closer to curious, empathetic, feeling-
accepting, creative-solution mode than I do
to overwhelmed, why-won’t-they-just-put-on-
their-socks mode, which makes a difference.
It’s going swimmingly until one day Eli
throws a metal water bottle, hard, at Isaac’s
head, before either my husband or I can
intercept it. Isaac wails. I comfort him, feeling
a large bump form as I stroke his hair.
“Right, time out, Eli,” says my husband.
“We don’t do timeouts,” I say, then think,
“But what do we do?” as everyone looks at me
for guidance.
“Erm, I won’t let you hurt your brother,”
I say. I mean, it’s a bit late for that. “Erm,”
I say again. Later, I phone Dr Becky.
This doesn’t feel right, I say. Surely there
should be consequences for bad behaviour?And she tells me patiently that applying
a consequence in such a scenario would be
“trying to apply logic to a system run by
emotion. What we’re saying is that next time,
when a child is overwhelmed with feeling,
they will be able to pause and think, ‘Wait a
second: if I do this, I’ll be punished.’ But logic
just can’t overpower emotion – that is just
neuroscience.” The immediate gratification
of a punishment “may make a parent feel
better”, she points out, “but it won’t lead to
any change – plus it makes the kid feel more
like a bad kid”.
And I buy this, I think, even though I also
wonder how we can ever know what actually
works when every child is different and we
won’t really know if we’ve messed them up
until they are adults. And even then we can’t
be sure they wouldn’t just have been messed
up anyway.
“ ‘Work’ is a tricky word,” says Dr Becky.
“What are we measuring? But parents have
a pulse – those moments with kids wherethere’s a shift or an opening, when every
parent knows, ‘Oh, that felt so good’ – even
if the inconvenient truth of parenting is that
those moments of change take longer to arrive
than we’d like.”
Humph, I think, this is going to be a
long slog, isn’t it, with no guarantees and I’ll
have to do a lot of homework to try to be the
parent I want to be, and actually remember
these new techniques in the heat of the
moment, which is obviously great business
for anyone in the parenting industry.
It feels exhausting but also, to be honest,
it often feels right. Like when I discovered
my favourite Dr Becky Instagram video during
a frazzled weekend, which is about forging a
connection with a child by telling them you
have a secret to tell them, then whispering in
their ear, “I love you.” My boys’ reaction was
magic: Eli laughed as though I had just told
him the world’s best joke. And Isaac said,
“Mum, that’s not a secret at all. Literally
everyone knows that.” nIt’s going swimmingly until one day Eli throws a
metal water bottle, hard, at Isaac’s head. ‘Time out,’
says my husband. ‘We don’t do timeouts,’ I reply
HAIR AND MAKE-UP: ALEXANDRA BARANOFF FOR SALLY HARLOR