I am very lucky to be a part of a large community of peaceful parents. Any time I am struggling with a particular parenting problem, I can turn in almost any direction and receive thoughtful advice from people I trust. We even have a monthly "gentle parenting" brunch, which serves as a forum for discussion, a safe place to vent and a relaxing morning out with friends to recharge. You should definitely come. Because of the community I am a part of, my social media feeds, as well as my daily life, is often filled with anecdotes of all the ways peaceful parenting results in peaceful children. It is honestly lovely. Even I feel the urge to brag on my children when they model empathetic listening, emotional intelligence, self-regulation or another skill we have been working hard on together. It is exciting to feel like it is working. I want to point at them and jump up and down and shout, "See? SEE? It is working!! IT. IS. WORKING!" I do believe it is "working," in a way.
I do not always see the results though. In fact, most days, I do not see them at all. Liam was an easy toddler. I was able to convince myself that his communication skills, cooperativeness and sweet disposition were all a direct result of my amazing parenting. If you return to around 2011 on my Facebook timeline, you will discover a lot of gentle parenting endorsements: "Today, Liam took a break without me even suggesting it because he felt out of control. Yay for gentle parenting!" "Whenever another child is upset, Liam runs over to comfort them. He is so loving. I am glad we have always responded compassionately to his tears. Model, model, model, friends!" "Liam told me today that he was so angry that he wanted to destroy the house, then asked for a hug. Even when he is angry, he knows I am his safe place, and I am so grateful we have taught him violence is never the answer." "This morning, Liam told me I am the best mommy in the world and thanked me for following attachment parenting principles because he is aware that the way we are raising him is superior to any other form of parenting ever. He also said he feels sorry for all the sleep-trained, spanked kids who are forced to eat McDonald's for dinner and asked us to adopt them all. #soblessed" I may be exaggerating, but only slightly. The first three years of Liam's life could have been used in a book on positive discipline as a complete success story. Your child can be this fabulous too, it would say, just follow these easy steps! Then Liam turned four. I am fairly certain he woke up on his fourth birthday and decided it was time to rage against the machine. He was suddenly pissed off about pretty much everything and he has remained vaguely in this state ever since. He is still funny and smart and wonderful, but he is also just surly enough to completely topple my delusions of grandeur. In addition to Liam's new disposition, Dexter joined the family. Unlike Liam, Dexter was born angry. In the beginning, he was angry that sleep was a required bodily function and that he was stuck in a useless infant body. As he got older, his anger evolved to include all of life's injustices: outlet covers, bed time, car seats, brothers, vegetables. He started biting as soon as he discovered his teeth and started hitting and kicking the moment he gained control of his extremities. He throws things. He draws on the walls. He runs into traffic. He laughs when people cry. Just as I could have held Liam up as an example of the success of gentle parenting all those years ago, I could now point to Dexter as a testament to its complete failure. "Dexter had a meltdown at the park because he wanted fruit snacks. I did not have any but I tried to help him label his feelings and take deep breaths. He spit at me and slapped me across the face." "Dexter bit his friend today. When I picked him up and told him I would not let him bite, he laughed and said, "That's funny!" "Dexter was having a hard time with the boundaries I set so I offered him a hug. He called me, 'Bad mommy!' and ran away to punch his brother in the head. #soblessed" These are not the sort of anecdotes you will often see positive parenting gurus share with the world. These are not even the sort of things I want to be sharing with the world. It does not sound like a good example. It sounds like madness. It sounds like failure. I do not believe it is failure. This is what I believe: the way I treat my children is not about controlling my children's behavior effectively, or even about teaching them how to behave, it is about me being the sort of person that I want to be while I am on this planet. As a mother it is my job to guide and protect three other entire human beings during one of the most vulnerable stages of their lives. It is an important job but it is one that has been done in an infinite number of ways, all with varying degrees of success. Because of many contributing factors, my children will more than likely grow up to be relatively functional adults with both positive and negative attributes, regardless of my parenting method. Of course I hope that our values will be passed on to our children, but I did not choose to parent this way so that I could pat myself on the back any time my child makes a choice that resembles a value I have modeled for him. I have chosen to parent my children gently because I want to be the sort of person that treats other people gently. We all want to believe that our chosen parenting method is working and, of course, we all feel proud when we see our child model a value or use a skill that we have taught them, but, sometimes, I worry that by pointing to our children's positive behavior as "proof" that gentle parenting "works" we are sending the message out into the world that treating the people we love with kindness and respect has value only because it yields quantifiable behavioral results. I believe that the value in peaceful parenting is that you are parenting peacefully. I do not treat other people with respect because I hope that they will one day follow my example. I treat other people with respect because it is the right thing to do. My boys are not often a beautiful representation of the "results" of gentle parenting. I am okay with this, but I do think that the gentle parenting community needs to be willing to talk about it more candidly. It feels better to talk about the children that we can point to and say, "See? It is working!" or to wrap up the story in a tidy bow of eventual cooperation, mutual respect or demonstrated understanding. But some children do not follow these rules- my children do not follow these rules. I worry that for parents with children like mine, a lack of the expected results can lead to feeling like they are doing something horribly wrong, but you simply cannot go wrong in choosing to treat other people with dignity and love. There are no guarantees in life and there are no guarantees in parenting. Some kids will absorb the fundamentals of positive parenting like a sponge; some kids will absorb them more like rocks. My children are rocks. They have rough edges and challenging dispositions. They still matter and how I choose to treat them still matters. I truly believe that even my snarling, exasperating little darlings will one day grow into good-hearted men. I believe that they will do this because they have decent genes and fortunate conditions and healthy support systems and parents who desperately love them. In the meantime, I will continue to show my children compassion, empathy and gentle guidance, not because of who I believe it will help them to become one day, but because of who I want to be right now.
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WHO AM I?
I am Michelle: a wannabe hippie in love with a bonafide geek. We also spawned. I spend my days with our four wild, beautiful boy children and I overshare about our life online because I am a Millennial and that is what we do.
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