When you hear yourself saying “No!” “Don’t” “Stop” “Please Stop!” “Stop!!” ……
January 18, 2013 by Linda
Filed under Parenting From Balance©
When you hear yourself saying “No!” “Don’t” “Stop” “Please Stop!” “Stop!!” “No!” “No!!” No!!!”…… your child probably just needs YOU. So listen to yourself, and stop. Get the other 16 children engaged in something,and give that one troublesome child your attention for a full 20 or 5 minutes. (it is actually like magic, how little they end up really needing once you just do it.)
And by the way, the payoff is enormous: engaging with your child is a mood elevator: exchanging loving connection with our “people” produces ocytocin (which should be bottled and sold in my opinion.)
So when you start to spin, just stop and love. (and the trick is, to be able to see ourselves spinning, isn’t it?)
Lots of Love,
Linda
oh my gosh linda… this is the PURE TRUTH. literally, i think this is the key to the whole thing… the essence of this whole parenting thing. not to be overly dramatic, but, i am constantly using these kind of statements… these are the go to words when you need to stop the undesirable behavior and you don’t have the time (or don’t feel you have)… when you just need the behavior to stop… now. and when you are already down this path, the behavior does not stop and does not improve and in fact most of the time just intensifies and worsens.
the times when i am able to do what you suggest. it is MAGIC. it is the panacea. this just happened yesterday with ava… oh my goodness she was spinning out of control as was i… and when i stopped and loved her it ended it so quickly.
i forget this one often in the stress of everyday life. but when i do remember, it is the best. it is unbelievably challenging when the behavior is terrible… and you are furious, your feelings are hurt (now that ava is getting very sassy and is often really not kind!), and many times embarrassed. it also makes me question myself as… “am i failing as a parent? what am i doing wrong?”
a couple of questions. what are some of the words? examples of what you might say? also, any suggestions for situations where there truly is not time.
thank you for the post; sorry for the novel!
When my older daughter was two years old, we went to the SEA Lab in Redondo Beach. We were in the outdoor area, which has a giant gate that opens to the street and was open that day. My daughter, for some unknown reason, ran for the door and I was so pregnant with number two that I could not catch her before she ran right into the street. She did not stop when I called her. And so there I was, in my mind, preparing to throw my body and my preborn baby in front of a car to save her.
What I learned from that incident was that my kids need to stop when I say stop. It doesn’t mean I am going to give you a long psychobabble explanation of why to stop, we are not going to negotiate whether you should stop. You are going to stop because I am a parent whose job is to protect my children from themselves. It is not a power trip, it is not a violation of who they are. IT IS ABOUT SAFETY.
That is called parenting. Anything short of that is a gross misuse of the term.
Yes, you are correct. It is about safety! And overusing “No” will cause any person to stop heeding it! I am going to go back and look at that post to make sure I am being clear about my message there.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. 😉
Absolutely right. Overuse of anything will produce a “tolerance” to it. What I see in “parents” these days, however, in their absurd quest to not say no, is a complete abrogation of their parental duties. Constantly negotiating with their kids…and losing. It is a pathetic sight and their kids are not better off for it. Those kids are almost always the worst behaved and the most manipulative because they have learned that, no matter what they do, they can psychobabble their way out of a consequence.