Setting Limits with Love

Parenting is full of challenges we may never have guessed at. Today some of the limit setting I faced included my children swearing at one another, throwing a shoe on the roof, and refusing to eat the dinner I had cooked. Despite feeling like crawling under the couch and letting someone else deal with all this craziness, I know that what my kids need when they are having an off track day like this one is connection. On a good day, I approach these signals they are sending me with a wish to connect and with a wish to help them with whatever is driving their behaviour. On a harder day, and at times today was that, I lecture them and appeal to their sense of reason until I literally scream!

In my many and varied conversations with parents, a common thread is how frustrating it is that we spend much of our day appealing to logic and reason in order to change behaviours. We say, 'No, please don't do that!' over and over again. We give good solid thinking around why not to behave that way. The fact that we spend so much time repeating ourselves is a huge red light to show that this (very reasonable) approach simply doesn't work. Why not?

Firstly, we are approaching the situation as though our child is choosing to behave in difficult ways. What we know about brain science makes it clear that our child is not able to manipulate us or the situation; it simply isn't possible, as the part of the brain that deals with this kind of logical, organised thinking is not online at these moments. Your child has been thrust back into her reptilian brain, into a sense of fight or flight, and has literally 'flipped her lid'. She cannot respond to reason at this time, so your talking is likely to lead only to frustration for you both.

Secondly, we are approaching the situation with the intention to get the behaviour to stop. Why is this such a bad thing? With this mindset of rejection we often end up rejecting our child as much as the behaviour. We do need to get difficult behaviours to stop, but without shaming, lecturing or harming our kids. What they need when off track is connection. So what is the intention that could help at these hard moments? How could we approach the situation differently?

The suggestion of Parenting by Connection is that we approach hard moments with a wish to connect, and with a wish to help our child with the big feelings driving their behaviour. We also understand that  children are deep down good, and don't want to behave in ways that make those around them unhappy. In this way, off track behaviour becomes a clear signal for help, and every time we 'discipline' we have the chance to build our relationship.

With an understanding that our child's nervous system has been storing tension that needs to be released, the tantrum or tears that come after we set a limit is something we can welcome. It can be seen as the storm before the calm. Once our child expels these difficult feelings, they are free to think clearly and cooperatively again. In my experience it is a fast track to a child who becomes more and more cooperative, and who develops reliable good judgement over time.

This approach was a real blessing for me in that it gave me the confidence to say no to my child. I learned that saying no was a gift sometimes; I learned how to say no with 100% warm and loving attention (although I certainly don't get this right 100% of the time!). Letting our child have their feelings while limiting the behaviour is often hard for us - it is something we have rarely seen before and we are charting new territory. Limits with love is such a gift for our children!