title: You know your child and your child knows you

Parenting is such an individual process. The experience of motherhood and fatherhood is different for everyone, and different again for each child. For that reason, i’m not going to tell you in this article that my way is the right way or how to do this or that to raise a healthy, happy family. What I am going to tell you, is what I learned from my mother and what i’ve learned through my experience as a mother.

What’s your story?

I have 2 children, my youngest (a boy) is 2. My eldest (a girl) is 4.5 years, we are in the process of having her evaluated for PDD (Pervasive Development Disorder), so far we’ve been told she more than likely does have a form of PDD. We’ve had 1 of 3 appointments after which we’ll be given the final diagnosis and go from there. I’ve chosen to keep the details of this private for the most part simply because it’s such a delicate and intricate issue, it’s very personal and honestly there is so much judgment passed on mothers, I don’t want to deal with that and i’m more confident when I’m not trying to explain it all to every next person. The natural self doubt of a mother is enough for me.

How did you know this was the right thing to do?

As a mother, I saw a need in my child and things that concerned me, I discussed these things with others whose opinions I value (some who are qualified early childhood teachers), I prayed, I went back and forth, I doubted myself, I discussed it with the Dr and a General Psychologist who told me that I needed to be more firm in my parenting, more self doubt, more discussing with others, waiting and seeing, more concern and one day after a particularly frightening incident I decided for the safety of my child and her long term well being, I was going to go forward with an evaluation, against the recommendations of the Dr.

If I got nothing else out of an evaluation, I would at least get some peace of mind. If they told me there’s nothing at all wrong with her, I would have a slight breakdown, then I would know to push on with our own coping methods and ways of helping her cope, be more creative with these approaches and wait for it to be outgrown (and/or get a second opinion). If they told me that there was something to my concern, I would have new found trust in my motherly instincts and I would have the first step in finding ways to help my beautiful, perfect little girl, deal better with the world around her.

I’ve been praised for my parenting by several people (including the evaluating Dr, that was extremely validating) but, i’ve also been criticized (who hasn’t?). I attribute all the good of course first to Allah, and then to my mother who taught me everything I know about being a mother and most certainly to my children, who are just perfectly themselves.

To me, healthy parenting is conscious parenting, regardless of what approach you take to raising kids. It requires you to be: Positive, Emotive, Honest and Aware. These four things are keys to what has helped me in parenting my delightfully normal and easy child and my beautifully different and difficult child (both of whom are outstanding little people and adored by many, no bias at all *wink*)

Positive.

If children are given too much negative feedback, they switch off. Tell a child ‘No’ enough and they will start to ignore it.  If someone were to constantly give you negative feedback, you would start to react negatively to that, whether internally or externally or both, children are no different.

Focus on the positive. If your child has shredded a piece of paper all over the lounge floor, and then picked them up as soon as you asked, start with the positive ‘Thank you for listening and picking up the paper when I asked’ and if you feel a punishment is in order, continue with that after acknowledging the positive. One thing I often say to my children is “You’ve been so lovely all day today, let’s not stop that now.”

Try to find ways around using negative words. For example instead of “Don’t hit the cat!” you could say “Be gentle with the cat!” In our house we don’t have a ‘Naughty Corner’ we have ‘Quiet time in your room’ it won’t work for all kids, but it has worked out well for us, they understand that they are going for quiet time (door closed) because they are misbehaving and not listening, and they don’t like it, but it works more often than not. Once they come out of the room, I get down to their level, discuss with them why they were there (first ask if they can tell me, then explain why) and then there are cuddles and encouragement to do better and they are sent off on their merry way.

Positive reinforcement, Positive reinforcement, Positive reinforcement. Give plenty of praise and always have it outweigh the negative. Things like ‘You’re doing a great job cleaning up your room, not much to go, well done!’ and ‘You’ve been a very good girl/boy today, I really appreciate that, thank you!’ and ‘No sticker on the chart today because you had an accident, let’s try again tomorrow.’

Remember that our job is to teach them and not to enforce rules upon them, thinking about rules, boundaries and punishments this way will put it all in a whole new light.

Emotive.

Feelings are a complicated thing, it’s up to us as parents to help our children understand what their feelings mean and what they can do with them. The old saying ‘Lead by example’ is never truer than when you are a parent.

You get angry, and it is perfectly healthy, perfectly normal and beneficial for your children to see your anger. I, of course, mean this in a healthy way, it is not healthy for your children to see you behaving aggressively or inappropriately when you are angry but the feeling of anger in and of itself is not an unhealthy thing.

When your children do something dangerous, it is beneficial for them that they see your fear. Seeing/hearing the fear when they do something like run out on the road or touch something dangerous, will often scare them enough alone that they will remember it and understand the danger without anything else.

Our daughter has some trouble expressing her emotions appropriately and so we have the ‘Your Emotions‘ childrens books series written by Brian Moses (I feel Frightened, I feel Angry, I feel Sad and I feel Jealous) it has been a huge help to her in understanding her emotions and (sometimes) finding appropriate ways to deal with them. I highly recommend this series.

The bottom line is, it’s not healthy or beneficial for your children for you to conceal your feelings or emotions from them entirely and explain things in an unnaturally calm tone to them all of the time just as it’s not healthy or beneficial for them to show your feelings in excess (Sad, Angry, Afraid are healthy, Depressed, Aggressive, Anxious are not). They need to see and hear the emotion and feeling in you in order to better understand you and themselves.

Honest.

This is true of the above ‘Emotive’ and it is true in general. If your child asks you a question, and you don’t know the answer, instead of telling them something that may not be accurate or that may even be completely made up, you could tell them ‘I don’t know! Let’s find out together’. Google is a household word for us, Mama is not a walking encyclopedia and so we will often Google if we want to learn about something.

Be honest with them about your feelings. It’s Ok to say things like ‘I’m sorry i’m in such a bad mood today! I’m not upset at you.’ or ‘I am sorry that I yelled at you for that, I didn’t mean to react that way, it’s ok if you shred paper sometimes, but please make sure you show me the paper first and clean up afterward’

It’s Ok to say ‘I’m sorry’ because you make mistakes too and they need to know that and it’s Ok to say ‘Thank you’ because they need to know they are appreciated and that what they do matters. Our children have feelings too, and it’s important for us to acknowledge that, come down to their level and give them some respect.

Of course, what you say to a child should be age appropriate, short and sweet is best for smaller ones. At any age it’s important to be completely honest and adjust the detail according to age and awareness. One important thing to remember is, children know and understand a lot more than we think. This is also important for the above ‘Emotive’ tip. I’ve always spoken to my children in big words, if necessary I will explain the big words i’ve used but often, they will pick up the meaning from the rest of what i’m saying.

Remember, our children learn from our actions and words not only about who we are but about themselves. Do not underestimate them and what they understand of both spoken and unspoken.

Aware.

Awareness is my key word for everything in life, not least for parenting.

Remaining aware (My mother calls it conscious) of our actions and how they affect our children will help to keep us from reacting in an unhealthy way for them and for us. Being aware that no-one is perfect and that includes you, will help us to give ourselves a break when we do overreact and will help us to say ‘I’m sorry’ when we need to.

Being aware of how our children are behaving and reacting to what we say and do, and being aware of what they themselves are saying and doing (and yes, it’s your job to eavesdrop on them sometimes, especially when they are little) will help ensure that you are in tune with them and will notice any changes or anything that might be affecting them in a negative way.

You as a mother have a special inbuilt instinct given to you by Allah (God) it’s called intuition and you need to trust it, it doesn’t work the same in everyone, and in some people it doesn’t work at all, but if you are conscious and aware in your parenting, be sure that you know your child better than anyone else, and be sure that they too, know you.

Of course, there is a lot more to being a parent than what i’ve talked about here and no two situations are the same, but these things are what I consider some of the most important parts of the healthy parent and child relationship.