If you’re not here for the Christian stuff, please bypass this. As a reminder, I’m a clergy wife and seminarian in my own right. I talk about all things Christian every day of my life.
Last month, I came across a post on Facebook that deeply impacted me. It came from humanist chaplain, Jim Palmer. At one time in his life, he was a pastor at the largest church in North America, but he gave it up because his conscience grated against the contradictions he found in his evangelical church. I would say many of us Christians, especially those of us with ties to the clergy, have similar points of crisis. There’s that famous quote (that’s falsely attributed to Mahatma Ghandi), “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” As an aside, it is probably a play on a quote from Bara Dada that says, “Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians, you are not like him.” I’m sure you get my point. Churches, which are supposed to be where people come to draw closer to God and find healing, end up perpetuating the same harm that drives people to them in the first place.
I fully admit that I have had many, MANY points of crisis and moments where I turned my back on churches altogether. It’s been a long and difficult journey to find balance between what I know in my heart to be true of God and how much perversity I can accept from Christians. Here is what Jim Palmer had to say about it:
If you think I have responses to these points, you’re absolutely right! His post fired me right up. And, this read goes out to those who delivered cruel messages to me as a child.
Children are not born evil. They are born precious and beloved of God with a predilection to go their own way and use their free will to choose their own path outside of the will of God. But God is gracious and impossibly patient.
Jesus didn’t come here to be brutalized and murdered. The method of his execution was purely the work of free will. Boiled down, the Bible is the story of how death entered the world and was conquered in the resurrection of Christ. Death is the legacy of Adam and Eve. Not sin. Sin is a corruption of the system that was broken when death became a reality.
This is disgusting. We are made in the image of God. God is in each of us. So unless there is nothing good in God, this cannot be true. It’s an unfortunate inheritance of Augustine’s self-loathing. I do agree that we must be wise about our thoughts and feelings. Suicidal ideation is obviously not of God. We grow in wisdom through spiritual disciplines.
The enemy is the author of chaos, fear, and shame yelling half-truths to blot out the light of God in each of us. God is the God of love. God brings us to understanding through inborn conviction that lets us know something is wrong. God is not an accuser. That’s someone else altogether, the Σατανᾶς (Satanâs).
Hell as a place created for punishment is an innovation. It would have been foreign to early Christians. Hell is a state of being. It’s the experience of God at different points on the journey to salvation. Those who spend this life ignoring spiritual disciplines and/or hating God would necessarily end up rather uncomfortable in God’s presence.
Every person who has walked the earth is beloved of God. It’s utterly disrespectful to section off entire groups of people as untouchables.
God gave us minds to explore our faith. The reason we have a Bible is because of theologians who got together in lengthy council meetings to observe, test, and debate. If we aren’t asking questions, something is wrong. The opposite of faith isn’t doubt. It’s a brittle certainty.
Now, the reason this topic bubbled back up to the surface was because I was horrified to read a post online where a child was terrorized by other children and their warnings of hell as a place for people who are bad. So, let’s talk about hell as a place. Jesus talked about Gehenna in several spots in the New Testament. Gehenna is an actual place on earth where children were sacrificed. Jesus was brought up in a culture that believed that place to be cursed. The area became a garbage-burning dump and sewer. It smelled horrible between the burning garbage (i.e. lake of fire), hot sulfur (i.e. brimstone) from the rich mineral deposits in the area, and sewage, making it the perfect metaphor for a horrible way to spend eternity. We know from Revelation 21-22 that the garbage dump version of Gehenna doesn’t exist in the restored world. It couldn’t because it will be refreshed along with everything else. Which means… we’re all going to be in the same place together. I use this quote from Bishop Irenei Steenberg: “hell is heaven experienced differently.” What we do in this life shapes our eternal experience in ways we don’t yet understand. In other words, stop telling children they’re going to be tortured for eternity if they steal a roll of Lifesavers.
I’ve long been intrigued by the concept of homeschooling. My parents are both educators who have embraced homeschooling, though they never chose this path for themselves. In the past few weeks, when our local school system gave parents the option of in-person or virtual learning, like many of you, I went through a major ordeal trying to weigh my options. At first, I considered an in-person return. Then, I got their COVID readiness plan, and the safety precautions were awfully light. That worried me.
Nearly a year ago, our family had a health scare and, even though I logically understand that the evidence supports a perspective that children’s risks with COVID are minimal, it simply wasn’t a chance I was willing to take. So, I filled out an application for virtual learning. As the difficult days wore on, I came to realize that the virtual option would be pointless when my children thrive on hands-on, customized learning. I was edging ever closer to jumping into homeschooling, but uncertainty held me back. I had so many questions. How could I be as effective as a certified teacher? What if there’s something I don’t know enough to teach? What if… I fail my kids?
I had to take it back to my Peaceful Parenting philosophy. I believe that children are curious, intelligent people who will learn even if they aren’t being actively taught. So, I started reading in earnest about homeschooling and how it’s done. I got a lot of advice about what worked for other people, but advice about how to make a decision for myself was sparse. So, I’m going to share with you a little of what I discovered.
First, a reminder.
In-person, virtual, or homeschooling, the decision a family makes about their children’s education during this pandemic is the right decision. Period. All the options have pros and cons, and only we can possibly reason through the impacts of the different options as they apply to our own families. If homeschooling is something that interests you, whether you plan to homeschool or not, I hope this information I’m about to lay out will be intriguing to you!
Our Process
COVID was really just the catalyst for something that was a long time coming. There had been situations along the way in our son’s public school education that had prompted lengthy discussions between Peaceful Dad and me. One of our more recent concerns was the school’s decision to host a Dr. Seuss Week during the NEA’s Read Across America initiative, even though the NEA has moved away from Dr. Seuss in favor of diversity in the past several years. We weren’t at all comfortable with our son involved in the celebration of someone as problematic as Theodor Seuss Geisel. That one issue didn’t push us away. We aren’t strangers to declining to participate in school activities that do not represent our values (e.g. not allowing our children to wear headdresses purportedly “honoring” indigenous people around Thanksgiving), even when it’s awkward. But, the convergence of so many valid reasons to withdraw made the chance to homeschool that much harder to resist.
Once Peaceful Dad and I made our decision, a switch flipped in my mind. I had to know all the things. I joined a bunch of groups and started absorbing information. I credit one group, in particular, for giving me a base from which to work: Secular, Eclectic, Academic (SEA) Homeschoolers. Wait, pause. Are you wondering why a clergy wife joined a secular group?? Well, because I’m super pro-science, pro-liberation for marginalized people, and so on. These are things one would expect to find in a secular, eclectic, and academic group and, trust, they didn’t disappoint.
In the SEA group, I found this amazing Homeschooling 101 document that served as my very first guide into the world of homeschooling. In short, the document goes over how to formulate a mission statement, information about state requirements for homeschoolers, an explanation of methodologies, scheduling year-round versus school calendar-based, and naming your homeschool. I highly recommend this group and, especially, that document.
Mission Statement
Since I will be the primary educator for our homeschool, I went ahead and put together an overall proposal for homeschooling to discuss with Peaceful Dad. I thought about what I wanted my mission to be. Since we’d decided to homeschool indefinitely, and not just during the pandemic, I knew I was setting the tone for the foreseeable future, so I wrote a statement that would point to the Peaceful Parents we are and that would serve us for many years to come: To invigorate our children’s curiosity and open doors to knowledge. Our mission statement doesn’t box us in, but it does remind us what it is we’re doing.
State Requirements
Our state is low regulation, but regulations still do exist. For instance, my kids have to take standardized tests starting in third grade. But, for the most part, the state doesn’t ask for the results. They don’t ask for much but a declaration of intent to homeschool. I get the sense that the requirements are a way to check in if necessary, but also a way to make the transition to a traditional school easier should the need or want arise.
If you’re curious about your own state, check out this information from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.
Methodology
When you call to mind a vision of homeschooling, do you imagine children doing worksheets out of Christian workbooks at their kitchen table while their mother reads from the Bible? I completely admit that was basically where my mind went when I first started my journey. It’s true that Christians rather led the homeschool movement in the U.S. early on. And, it’s true that envisioning a traditional experience makes a lot of sense, because homeschooling supports were limited and the market really wasn’t replete with resources for a long time. However, these days, the homeschooling world has exploded. There are so many options from literature-based to classical to experiential to traditional to completely out of the box. Check out this video that explores the most common approaches in relatable terms.
And, then, if you’re curious, why not try a quiz to dig into what approach you’d enjoy using the most?
This piece was easy for me. When I started looking into the different methodologies, I thought about the way we live out our lives and values, and the way I like to teach. My choice was Charlotte Mason (CM). The CM method is strongly literature-based, using what Miss Mason called “living books.” These are books that use narrative to describe the subject rather than the distanced, technical writing you find in textbooks. Her method is based in real life. She expected children to learn by doing everyday things, by going out into nature, and by discussing ideas with those around them. And, best of all for me, Miss Mason was utterly countercultural. She believed children were born into their personhood and deserved respect from the very start. She believed children were capable of great things and that inspiring children was far more effective than forcing or coercing them into action. She put her efforts into guiding children toward a love of God and a love of learning by gently fostering their self-motivation and moral compass. I especially love how well the CM method promises to support my Autistic child in exactly the way he learns best.
I am calling my preferred approach “eclectic Charlotte Mason” because there are such strengths in the other approaches. I like to keep an open mind, so I can act quickly to help my children if they are struggling to understand something they’re learning.
Schedule
In all areas of primary and secondary schooling, the debate rages over the right way to schedule the school year. It’s happening in the homeschooling community too. If you’re curious what the big deal is, check out this piece by ASL Rochelle. While I lean toward a year-round schedule, we’ve decided to follow our local public school system’s schedule for this first year. We didn’t want to introduce too many variables when we were just starting out and we wanted to be on the same schedule of breaks as our son’s peers.
School Name
Since I’ve already shared my school’s name in homeschooling groups, and because this blog is intended to be anonymous for the time being, I won’t be sharing the name here. But, I will say that I ultimately decided to select a name and create a logo for any future need that might arise, such as the use of letterhead. I also like the way it gives me closure to have a name and a logo. This is the new way and we’re leaving the old way behind. Please note that most states (including my own) do not appear to require a school to be named.
Curriculum
Even though I’m very new, I’m noticing that many folks brand new to homeschooling seem to jump immediately to “which curriculum should I use?” There’s a lot more decision-making to do before then! I’ve placed this Curriculum section last for that reason. We chose a CM-inspired curriculum called Blossom and Root. Peaceful Dad and I have decided to supplement with Kate Snow’s classical-inspired math series until our son has a good grasp of number sense before moving onto anything more rigorous. We need to understand how he learns math the best. In addition to our base curriculum and the math, we will also be adding a reading support supplement called Discover Reading, music and movement at home, and Spanish through the PBS show, Salsa.
It may not seem like we’re doing a lot, but you’d be surprised. The entire curriculum is gentle and largely play-based, but it’s broad and challenging at the same time. More than that, I realized something. My vision of what a homeschool day looks like was way off. Homeschool does not mean replicating traditional school at home. In traditional school, there are lots of disruptions, lots of moving from place to place, lots of waiting, etc. But, in homeschool, it’s easier to focus on work and get it finished. Check out this surprising outline explaining how long children should be focused on lessons.
Wild, right? Our decision to choose a CM-inspired approach works especially well as lessons are very brief but highly focused.
Our plan is to spend no more than 40 minutes per weekday morning on school and to finish up by 11 AM. My kids will be getting a lot more outside time and free play than he did while he was in public school. We’ll also have leisurely lunches, more variety in terms of locations for the lessons, and a truly customized educational experience.
Once I got over my initial fears, everything started to fall into place. And, now, I’m really looking forward to starting school in a few short days! It really doesn’t matter what methodology you choose as long as it’s one that works for both you and your children. There is no perfect methodology. Homeschool graduates from every approach across the board end up in college and in successful careers. Homeschool provides an opportunity to shift gears to a different curriculum or an altogether different approach if a child needs something new to learn their best.
Whether you’re just curious or you’re trying to decide on COVID homeschooling or, like me, you’re transitioning to homeschooling for the duration, know this. Your child will thrive in homeschool, because your child has YOU.
Did y’all see the study from November 2019 that found screen use greater than the amount recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics was associated with decreased microstructural organization and myelination of brain white matter tracts that support language and emergent literacy skills? Big yikes! Does that mean screens cause brain damage? That’s certainly a question I’ve seen floating around the internet. Parents are rightfully concerned about screen time when study after study shows these terrible outcomes.
There’s that 2013 literature review on screen time use in children under the age of three. Bad news.
And, that 2015 literature review on the effects of screen time on children’s sleep found. Terrible stuff.
And, that 2018 literature review on the physiological and psychological effects of screentime. You might as well just give up at this point.
And, that whole Research Roundup that seems to exist to fill parents with dread. Oh, the horror!
But, check this out.
The 2013 review found that there is very little research on infants and toddlers and that more research is needed to better understand the environmental, socio-cultural, and behavioral correlates for young children.
The 2015 review found that none of the studies they looked at from 1999-2014 could establish a causal connection, measurement errors of screen time exposure and sleep limited the outcomes of the studies, and factors like characteristics and content of screens was not well understood.
And, the 2018 review found that psychophysiological resilience in children requires the ability to focus, good social coping and attachment, and good physical health all of which could be impacted by “excessive” digital media use. They further recommend more research on duration, content, after-dark use, media type, and number of devices.
In fact, there’s a 2015 literature review on the association of parental influences with physical activity and screen time among young children found that there is a causal connection between the parents’ physical activity and screen use and that of the children. It should come as no surprise that the behavior of parents directly influences the behavior of their children.
And, that first study I mentioned? The one from 2019 about how screens change the brains of little kids? If you look a little deeper, you’ll see that the sample size is both small and homogenous and that the survey and testing scores used in the study did not meet the threshold for statistical significance when income was included in the model. Those details change the story a bit.
Minding the Nuance
The reality is that there is valuable research happening, but we simply don’t understand what’s really going on. That’s why the pediatric organizations that exist to protect our kids are sounding the alarm. They’re saying look at all this data we’re seeing! Something is happening. Pay attention. So, if your family’s lifestyle flows better without any screens, by all means, do what works for you. This post is for those of you who want to incorporate screens without fear.
There are some things we can discern intuitively about screen use.
It can be distracting. Background sounds from a TV at low volume add static to the environment where infants and toddlers play. A measurable impact has been found on the ability of very small children to develop play skills naturally when TVs are used as noise fillers.
It can signal trouble. While we don’t know that screens cause depression, we do know that children who watch a lot of TV often have clinical depression that necessitates medication. So, it’s worth paying attention to what your kids are doing, so that you can intervene if necessary.
It can replace other healthful behaviors. A child who is watching TV or playing video games is not outside running around. And, a child who is watching TV or playing video games is not telling you about the troubles they’re having.
Now, something that doesn’t get enough air time in these discussions is the economics of restriction. Essentially, by restricting a thing, we increase its value. As explained by Pam Sorooshian, unschooler extraordinaire,
When you only allow a limited amount of TV, then the marginal utility of a little more tv is high and every other option looks like a poor one, comparatively. Watching more TV becomes the focus of the person’s thinking, since the marginal utility is so high. Relax the constraints and, after a period of adjustment and experimentation to determine accurate marginal utilities, the focus on TV will disappear and it will become just another option.
The more you restrict, the more they’ll crave screens. It can feel uncomfortable to loosen the reins and it’s pretty likely your child will consume seemingly impossible amounts of flickering deliciousness at first. But, over time, and in the presence of intentional investment in your child’s needs and wants, screens will lose their luster and become just another activity.
If you’ve been restricting your child’s screen time, because you wanted to do the best possible thing for them or because you felt their screen use was getting out of control, it’s ok. You’re not alone. Not by any means. Just know there is an approach to screen use that is responsible and respectful, whenever you’re ready.
Anti-Childist Screen Use Monitoring
One of the things about the furor over screens that particularly bothers me is the emphasis on cognition and school performance. We’re encouraged to limit our children to a screen schedule of our making, so they can possibly do better in school at some point in the future. But why? Why is academic success the measure of a good life? Why are we not prioritizing our children’s ability to regulate their own behaviors and activities by giving them ownership over the way they choose to spend their time?
We can trust our children to make good decisions when we set them up for success. In our house, I try to limit my compulsion to set rules for everyone. Whenever my kids want to watch TV, I’m ok with it. They have free access to their tablets to use as they wish. But, I also create an environment where they don’t have any desire to obsessively consume that visual stimulation. We spend lots of time outside. We read. We do chores. We play, craft, and bake together. When I see one of my kids struggling to transition from screens to another activity, I intervene. When that happens, it means there’s something deeper going on that needs to be addressed. It doesn’t mean I need to arbitrarily limit screen time. I have some guidelines for my family in the back of my mind to help ensure that I’m providing the most effective mix of activities and the best possible education around the use of screens.
Be Intentional. Consider using screens on purpose. That means avoiding the use of TVs as background noise and trying not to hand your kids screens to keep them occupied. Instead, let your children decide when they want to use screens and for how long. And, have them choose one screen at a time. In general, our TV doesn’t get turned on until 3 PM, if at all. There’s too much other fun stuff to do.
Be Interactive. Studies show that children can learn a great deal from interactive touchscreens when their parents help them and reinforce what they’re learning.
Be Wise. Particularly when it comes to older kids, parents need to prepare children for the risks of predators and dangerous malware. Talk to your kids about these dangers and make a plan together for how to stay safe.
Choose Educational Content. Programs like Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger provide important information and skills to little kids, especially when families reinforce in daily life what the kids are learning online.
Eat Without Distraction. One rule we do have is that our dining table is a toy-free, screen-free space when we’re having a meal. It’s a matter of mutual respect and consideration. Family meals are sacred in my house. They’re one of the few opportunities we have to get together and chat over one of the most fundamental human activities.
Get Plenty of Fresh Air and Exercise. Getting outside is so important for every member of the family, but especially children. They need lots and lots of movement throughout the day to improve focus, digestion, motor skills, and sleep. Rather than restricting screens, think about encouraging more movement for balance.
Practice Good Sleep Hygiene. The so-called warnings about blue light got a little kick in the pants this year. A study challenged the idea that blue light impacts circadian rhythms. We don’t actually know if blue light is a problem. What we do know is that stimulation of any kind interrupts our sleep cycle. In our house, all screens and radios go off at 6:30 pm. That’s our family time and we cherish the ability to interact with each other without distraction. For a great night’s sleep, keep your kids’ room very dark, relatively cool (65 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit), and comfortably quiet.
Like many parents, when I first became a mom, I was hypervigilant about everything. I stressed myself out trying to do everything by the book, until life taught me that wisdom beats out perfection every time. If you want your children to enjoy screens, let them. Formulate some guidelines for yourself and conduct self-checks to make sure your guidelines are working. Talk with your kids about your concerns. Let them know your values and also that you trust them to know what their minds and bodies need. As new evidence emerges, we’ll be in a great position to shift some of our guidelines to better support our children’s development. Screens are ok, y’all. Promise!
Do we? As upstanding citizens and caring humans, most of us feel compelled by empathy to help others who don’t have what they need. We offer our money to organizations that provide supplies and services. We offer our time volunteering to feed people. We value the act of giving freely of ourselves, so… we turn around and teach our kids to share through force? Wait a minute. What is the message we’re sending versus the message we’re intending to send?
If you look up the word “sharing,” you’ll see definitions that involve portioning and joint use of an item. When we tell our children to share a toy, unless both children are playing with a toy at the same time, they are cannot share the toy. We share food when we split it among our family members. We share a couch when we sit together to watch a movie. Sharing is an essential exercise we all must do to survive. We teach our children to share of themselves when we model intentional generosity. It takes very little effort to teach children how to share if we are willing to orient ourselves toward inclusion and restoration. They witness sharing when we leave tips for people who provide us a service. They see it when we move to make room for someone on a bus. They recognize it when a community comes together to set aside land to build homes for people who have none. Sharing is an invitation and a kindness. And, for many of us, sharing is a fundamental component of social justice. When we don’t share, people suffer. In some cases, we have to enact laws to mitigate the harm caused by people who refuse to share, particularly when that refusal is based on unjust discrimination.
Many of us say we want our children to learn to share when what we really mean is that we want them to learn to take turns with other children. Turn-taking is tough! It’s not something that comes naturally to a small child. Yet, we can find ourselves pushing a child too hard to do something that they are not developmentally able to accomplish within the strict confines of our directives. And, there is a significant cost to coercing a child into an action. In 2014, the multidisciplinary journal of Development and Psychopathology published an article that looked at the links between early coercion and later behavioral problems. The researchers followed an ethnically diverse sample of 731 children from ages 2-5 to discover the effect of their parents’ methods in enforcing discipline. What they found was that coercive interactions between caregivers and children amplified the children’s noncompliance and escalated both oppositional and aggressive behavior even into later childhood. Meaning, when we coerce our children, we effectively encourage them to resist rather than to cooperate. So, what do we do instead?
In my house, one of our cherished guidelines is receiving consent. My children understand, through modeling, that we don’t snatch items away from each other. Adults and children alike enjoy the security of knowing that their claim to an item will be honored to the extent possible. Here’s how Peaceful Dad and I make it happen.
Ownership
When one child receives a gift, we encourage that child to store the gift away from main areas if they don’t want their sibling or other children playing with it. When they’re ready to enter it into circulation, since new toys do lose their luster over time, turn-taking guidelines will apply.
Turns
Whomever has possession of a toy retains possession of it for as long as they wish, with one major caveat. Turns do not last overnight. So, the next day, the other sibling will have “first dibs” on that toy should they want to play with it. A “turn” lasts as long as the child is actively playing with a toy. We don’t do toy hoarding here. One toy at a time. Once the child moves onto another toy, the toy left behind is up for grabs.
Waiting
When one sibling takes an interest in a toy that the other sibling is playing with, we sportscast. “Brother, looks like Sister wants a turn when you’ve finished playing.” We also engage with the child who is waiting by empathizing, “You really want to play with that toy! After Brother’s turn, it will be your turn” and encourage the child to choose another activity. And, then we move on. The goal is to empower the children to establish boundaries and use words to indicate their intention.
Intervention
There are rare times in our house that fights break out over toys. It’s always unrelated to the toy though. Our children generally choose to play together and cooperate unless something is wrong, so when we intervene, we follow our trusty Three Rs. Once the household is calm again, we sportscast, “It was Brother’s turn before. Brother, would you still like to play with the toy?” And, then everything starts again.
Sharing
We’ve had a lot of wonderful experiences with turn-taking. Sharing is a little more difficult here. There’s a particular riding toy that my children try to ride together. At first, it’s adorable, but after a while, they often start pushing and shoving. When that happens, we intervene with the Three Rs and do our best to let them work it out.
Fighting
Every now and then, a fight will break out that gets reactivated even after we’ve worked through the Three Rs. When this happens, we do intervene, usually by leading both children to another activity. I’ve noticed with my young kids that the cure for fights is playtime outside. I can understand how frustrating it is to be on top of each other in a small space for too long. They need a chance to stretch their legs and fill their lungs with air. We go outside at least once a day anyway, but on the more difficult days, we’ll spend extra time in nature. I admit that my patience grows short on those days and my own attitude exacerbates an already volatile situation. So, fair warning, if your kids are fighting, check yourself too.
Outside the Home
When we’re away from home, playing with other children, we respect the rules of the space. I let my kids know that we are not at home and these toys do not belong to us. I employ more redirection in these instances. For example, I might say, “Looks like your friend would like a turn.” I might escalate to something like “five more minutes and let’s go find something else to play with” if my child isn’t showing signs of readiness. The younger the child, the harder this is, I’ve found. But, talking your child through the hardship helps, no matter how old they are.
I can understand that all of this may seem preposterous given what you may have witnessed in your own home, but hear me out. Encouraging consent and self-advocacy gives children tools that will last a lifetime. Helping them wait lets them know they aren’t alone and that you understand them. Giving children authority to take temporary ownership of a toy empowers the child in a world that is incredibly disempowering to children. And, you might discover what I have. When I take a step back, my kids work a lot of things out on their own. For instance, my kids will negotiate for toys! They tend toward willingly giving up their toys to their sibling, because they know the choice is completely theirs. Have faith in your kids. They may surprise you!
So, you’re on-board with Peaceful Parenting. You try to co-regulate with your kids, empathize, and collaborate with them toward solutions that are mutually beneficial. You’ve been cognizant of your attitude and you’ve been working toward remaining calm most of the time. But, then something happens and you snap. You yell or you spank or you threaten or otherwise forcibly control your child, even though this isn’t who you want to be.
I hope you’re not looking at me thinking that I’ve got it together. That I must never yell or act out in a non-peaceful way. Nope. I’m working toward being a Peaceful Parent just like you are and stumbling all over myself along the way. Here are some of the things I’ve committed to that have helped me push forward.
Punishment Rejection Action Steps
1. Start With a Choice. You have to decide before you ever get angry what your limits are. Yelling is my vice. It’s deeply ingrained from my childhood and it is the language of my hot temper. But, yelling is a punitive act. We use our adult voices to suppress and control our children, leaving them with unseen scars. It may not be as clearly punitive as time out or spanking, but it is undesirable as a tool in our Peaceful Parenting kit. What’s your go to? What punishment do you turn to when you feel you can’t bear anymore? Make a commitment right now to stop. Draw the line in your mind and say, “I will not fall back on this action.” Even if you do it again, reinforce your belief that your actions are unacceptable and then try again the next time.
2. Engage in Prevention. As you may know if you’ve been following my posts, I am a big advocate of the Three Rs: Regulate, Relate, Reason. When my children begin to dysregulate, I intervene then. I try not to wait for the situation to escalate. Most of the time, prevention also helps me avoid dysregulating myself. It gives me a chance to get a grip on my emotions and fully invest in the moment when my kids need me most.
3. Have a Game Plan. Decide, in advance, what it is you’re going to do when you’ve gotten to a point where you’re about to blow your top. The Learning Parent SG put together a fantastic series on what she does as she nears her breaking point. She calls her approach, “Reactive Distancing.”
During a calm moment, take some time to put your game plan together. Decide what it is you can commit to doing when your thinking mind begins to struggle.
4. Think Like a Child. Ever notice how small children go from huge emotions to giggling in no time flat? They aren’t weighed down by the self-judgment and mental turmoil that adults experience. A dear friend of mine told me she takes a cue from Daniel Tiger. When she starts to feel dysregulated, she says, “If you feel so mad that you have to roar take a deep breath and count to 4.” As she counts, her jaw and fists start to relax, and she finds she’s more able to breathe. Then, she makes an effort to speak to her children in a neutral way in an effort to de-escalate the situation. Sometimes neutral is the best she can do and sometimes she’s able to nurture. Either way, she and her children both benefit from her efforts. She shared that she’s learned how valuable things like hugs, cuddles, and tickles can be as she works toward co-regulating with her kids. Play is always called for when tensions are high.
5. Do the Hard Work on Yourself. Our reactions are not the fault of our children. They are the result of a lifetime of experiences and the neurotransmitter conditioning our brains have undergone. Many of us could improve our situation by shifting to a more positive outlook to build emotional resilience. “Thinking positively” is absolutely NOT the only answer to resolving our lifelong triggers, but it is one action we can take. We can also find a therapist, exercise regularly, reframe negative situations, and relinquish some control.
6. Never Stop Trying. Every time you choose to be gentle with your children, you are reinforcing to your own psyche that what you’re doing is good and it’s achievable. Even when you mess up, and oh will you mess up, brush yourself off and make a better choice at the next opportunity. Parenting is about relationship. When we push our kids away with our attitudes, we have to focus on reconciling and confirming to them that the issue is us not them. In the backs of our minds, we have to give ourselves grace enough to say, “I will do better next time” and really mean it.
I yell less than I did a year ago and still less than I did a year before that. Things are improving over time and, before too long, I will consistently react neutrally when members of my family touch a raw nerve. That’s my commitment to them and to myself. What are you willing to commit to today?
Trivia: Where does the phrase, “Spare the rod, spoil the child” come from? If you said the Bible, you’d be dead wrong. In fact, when you learn where it’s actually from, you’ll probably not want to use that phrase anymore.
“Spare the rod” is a line from a 17th century poem called Hudibras by Samuel Butler that mocks Christian values. (Check out Part 2, Canto 1, line 844.) In this erotic poem, a man is trying to woo a woman who encourages him to submit to aphrodisiac flagellation. The “rod” serves a double purpose, both referring to the whipping and to his penis.
Jokes aside, I figure that’s not what most people intend when they use this humorous phrase. They’re probably referring to Proverbs 13:24 which reads, “Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.” (NRSV) There has been much pushback from scholars who have conducted word studies on this passage. In short, reading this verse in its original language clearly indicates that the “rod” is a source of guidance and protection rather than punishment. Dr. Stacey Patton provided a fantastic overview via Facebook in 2016 and others have done similar work.
I won’t belabor this perspective, as it has been well covered elsewhere. The purpose of my piece is to talk about why Proverbs exists in the first place, with all of its apparent contradictions. For instance, in one place, we see what looks like an admonition to beat children with the rod of correction, while another verse declares that “a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1 NRSV). So, which is it? I’m glad you asked!
The book of Proverbs is the second book written by King Solomon, which is chock full of practical advice. Each piece of wisdom is intended to be thoughtfully considered and wrestled with. It is not enough to accept the surface meaning. Insightfully, Torah.org explains of Proverbs, “Much can be learned about the human mind by thinking about why two particular ideas were placed next to each other; why this verse would have been just like the last one… except for that small, almost insignificant difference and what the words actually mean. One can learn how to decide logically between two choices, how to make use of experience to avoid repeating mistakes and from what to stay away while chasing after a goal.”
The underlying mission of Proverbs is to communicate the wisdom of King Solomon, who is referred to as the wisest man to ever live and who still inexplicably fell victim to foolishness. Proverbs illustrates how futile it is to try to put God into a box or to claim wisdom unparalleled for ourselves as though we are not prone to the same faults that plagued King Solomon. Verses in Proverbs are juxtaposed in order to draw out the essence of truth, not just the literal meaning of the words. And, King Solomon utilized the same exaggeration and figurative language in Proverbs that we see throughout the Bible. These rhetorical devices serve the purpose of highlighting degree of importance, and it takes careful consideration to discern just how literal of a read we should be applying to any given verse.
It’s especially important to understand that truth and accuracy were not synonymous at the time Proverbs was written the way they are today. Take the example of the two competing creation stories in Genesis, both of which were intentionally placed together and both of which serve humanity’s understanding of the “why” behind our creation. Critics of Abrahamic faiths point to seeming contradictions throughout the Bible as evidence that the Bible is unreliable, not understanding the spiritual value imbued in these differences. Modern Christians must become comfortable with biblical truth not necessarily coinciding with a literal reading. If we fail to do this, we miss important contextual cues that the Hebrews would have instinctively understood through cultural conditioning.
If we’re going to take Proverbs seriously, we have to do so on the terms of its originating culture, which means we must consider what the Rabbis said. And, we know what the Rabbis said because we have a book of oral tradition: The Talmud. The Talmud is a compilation of rabbinic discussion on the Torah, and it is composed of two parts. First, there is the Mishnah, which is a compendium of oral law. Second, there is the Gemara, which comes in the two versions (Babylonian and Jerusalem), and is a record of rabbinic discussions around topics in the Mishnah. The Mishnah was standardized over the course of many centuries.
…are people taking this verse too literally? How do the classical commentators explain it? Disappointingly, though perhaps not surprisingly, most of the commentators understand that it isn’t a metaphor, it literally refers to disciplining one’s child. But that still doesn’t mean that one should strike one’s child with a stick. In fact, it very much doesn’t.
You see, the Torah was written to be understood by the audience that received it. It speaks about loading donkeys, oxen treading grain, and women delivering babies on birthing stools – things to which most of us cannot relate. It doesn’t talk about DNA or black holes or flatscreen TVs because these are concepts that would have been incomprehensible to the original recipients. Similarly, if King Solomon (the author of Proverbs) wanted to discuss disciplining children, he was going to use corporal punishment as his illustration because time-outs didn’t exist, and I suspected that neither did grounding or docking allowances.
This is not just wishful thinking on my part; let’s examine the sources.
First of all, striking another person is seriously frowned upon in Judaism. Deuteronomy 25:3 tells us that someone sentenced to the penalty of lashes may not be struck more than the designated amount (a maximum of forty lashes). First the Torah tells us that “the wicked one deserves lashes” (25:2), but then we are told that we may not exceed the court-imposed amount because if we do, “your brother will be degraded.” The Sifre, quoted by Rashi on 25:3, demonstrates that before the punishment is administered, the offender is considered “wicked.” After he has paid his penalty, he is once again called “your brother” and it is forbidden to strike him. If we’re not allowed to strike a convicted criminal more than absolutely necessary, it should go without saying that we may not strike someone who was not so sentenced by the courts – not even if their behavior bothers us!
Striking someone outside of the context of court-ordered whiplashes is actually considered evil. In Exodus 2:13, Moshe asks “the wicked one,” “Why will you strike your friend?’” The Talmud in Sanhedrin (58b) points out that the person is called wicked just for raising his hand, even though he has not yet delivered a blow.
The Talmud in Moed Katan (17a) prohibits a parent spanking an older child, based on the principle that we may not do something that will cause others to sin (lifnei iver). The child might respond by cursing the parent or striking back – both serious sins – and the parent would be responsible for provoking that reaction. The Ritva (13th century) says that “older child” isn’t exhaustive. For sure one may not strike a child above the age of bar or bas mitzvah but, additionally, one may not even strike a younger child who is likely to retaliate in words or deeds. Rav Shlomo Wolbe (20th century) suggested that the cut-off for spanking would be age three.
Rav Wolbe’s position is not a mere concession to modern parenting. Peleh Yoetz (1824) says that even in the case of a young child, if the parents know that his nature is not to accept authority, they should discipline him using calm, soft tones.
True, the Rambam writes that a teacher may strike a student (Hilchos Talmud Torah 2:2) but that very same halacha specifies that he may not use a whip or a rod, but only a “small strap.” (So much for “rod” literalists!) And how big is a “small strap?” The Talmud in Baba Basra (21a) says no larger than a shoelace.
He goes on to explain that the Talmud dictates the strict use of the “gentlest form of effective discipline” and points out that there is no Torah obligation to use corporal punishment on children. None at all. The Torah simply does not condone spanking as punishment for children. King Solomon knew that.
A weak argument can certainly be made that Bible allows for the corporal punishment of children (largely by omission of the topic in the Law), but it is a gross misinterpretation to claim that the Bible prescribes it. What Proverbs demands is that parents coach and correct their kids, so that the children are brought up with values that orient them toward God. Now that we have substantial evidence that spanking is extremely harmful, Christians should honor the book of Proverbs and exercise the wisdom that King Solomon called us to. If you are still unconvinced, consider carefully Christ’s warning about leading a child to harm.
If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!(Matthew 18:6-7 NRSV)
Woe to the adult whose treatment of a child leads that child to hate their parents, their life, or their God!
But, there’s good news. We can bypass the pitfalls inherent in controlling children through violence by rejecting our modern culture’s fixation on punishment and working instead toward fostering the “pleasant words” that are “like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Proverbs 16:24 NRSV). After all, Proverbs 22:6 reminds us that what we teach our children about godliness is what guides them for life… not how effectively we hit them.
Try my favorite solution for kids who are in the house bored!
(Shout-out to TikTok for the title.)
Got a basket? A bowl? A delivery box you can decorate? Grab it and let’s make an Activity Chooser.
Start by decorating it if you like. This step isn’t necessary, but it’s fun! Then fill your container with slips of paper that describe an activity your child can do, some of which can be mostly independent and some that should include interaction with you. Stuff your container with these activity slips and give yourself a go-to when your kids start to get active inside.
Have them pick a slip without looking and then do the activity. Once they know what the activity will be, the slip can go right back into the container for the next time.
As they cycle through the ideas you’ve included, they will find some favorites which they can look forward toward in the future. Keep your Activity Chooser fresh with new ideas as you think of them.
I’ve scoured the internet for inspiration and also jotted down some of the things my own kids do. This list will give you a good start at filling your Activity Chooser to the brim. Have something to add? Please let me know in the comments and I’ll post it!
Linen Parachute: Find a flat bed sheet to use as a makeshift parachute to flutter into the air and jump underneath. (Requires at least two people.)
Balloon Garden: Blow up as many balloons as you can and play!
Crab Race: From a sitting position, lift up on your hands and feet with your chest toward the ceiling and go!
Bunny Race: Hop like a bunny all the way across a makeshift finish line.
Dance Party: Turn on your favorite song and get moving.
Old School Game: Pick a game like tag, tug ‘o war, or hide and seek.
Balance Beam: Put a long piece of tape on the ground and can practice balancing and creating a dance routine along the tape.
Long Jump: Place strips of tape on the ground at measured intervals and see how far you can jump from a designated starting place.
Wiggle Race: Hold a plastic cup in your teeth and use it to carry cotton balls from a designated starting point to a bucket at the finish line while wiggling across the floor like a worm.
Spinning: Spin around as fast as you can until you get dizzy.
Paint with Water: Using a paint brush, paint construction paper or even the side of your house/building or the sidewalk with plain tap water.
Make a Fort or Lean-To: Indoors or out, find materials to build a fort or a lean to and do all the construction on your own.
Hula Hoop: Try to keep a hula hoop going for as long as possible.
Use Your Imagination: Create a brand new game all your own and teach your family how to play.
Kids Rule: For this mirroring game, the adults are the ones taking the lead from the kids. Whatever movement or motion you do, the adults around you have to copy.
Spider’s Nest: Navigate a web of tape and string down a hallway without getting stuck or pulling anything down.
Animal Charades: Act like an animal of your choice without saying what it is and let everyone guess which animal you chose.
Follow the Leader: Follow the motions and movements of an adult.
Word Party: Use your bodies to spell out the alphabet or to spell words and have others guess what you’re saying.
Obstacle Course: Complete an obstacle course created by an adult using existing items inside or outside.
Leader Says: With an adult serving as “Leader,” follow instructions only if the adult first says the words “Leader says.”
Scavenger Hunt: Find all the items on a scavenger hunt given to you by an adult.
Carnival: Choose which activity stations you’d like to complete after an adult sets up your very own carnival games.
Bobbing for Popcorn: Eat a bowl of popcorn as fast as you can without using your hands.
Fitness Circuit: Complete each activity on a fitness circuit created by an adult.
Go Fish: Using tools like kitchen tongs or spoons, fish toys out of the water.
The Big Stretch: Follow an adult through a kid-friendly stretching routine.
Limbo: How low can you go when you have to slide under a broom without letting anything but your feet touch the ground?
Big Kid Helper: Help an adult with an activity of your choice that adults usually do on their own.
In the Kitchen: Make a baked good as a family, kids’ choice.
Bonus: If you are looking for equipment to purchase, consider getting indoor items like a tunnel, a rebounder/indoor trampoline, a punching bag/stand, a slide, a pikler triangle, or some of those foam climbing shapes, all of which are great for gross motor engagement.
I hope these ideas give both you and your kids a little break when it’s most needed.
By now, the COVID-19 crisis has touched us all in some way. In the U.S., we’ve inched into the top spot globally for confirmed infections and, I don’t know about you, but I find myself watching the trackers and praying that those “serious” cases resolve into the “recovered” column instead of the “deceased” column. People keep asking when this will be over, but that’s an impossible question to answer. Everything is different now and will never be the same again.
This is a scary time for all of us, adults and children alike. I’m not doomsdaying y’all. Not at all. There is hope and joy both now and on the other side of COVID-19. It just looks different than anything we’ve known in our lifetimes. We’ve never experienced anything like this before and we’ve got to give ourselves grace. You’re not alone. You are seen.
May I ask you about your COVID-19 experience?
Have you yelled at, spanked, or otherwise dealt harshly with your kids?
Have you cried because you’re completely overwhelmed and you can’t see the end?
Have you felt your mental health slipping and/or are you on a medication that no longer feels like it’s working?
Have you backed off limits that you never meant to release and now feel your kids are overrunning your boundaries?
Have you snapped at other people because the situation with your kids is sending you over the edge?
Have you had thoughts about your kids or being a parent that secretly embarrassed you or made you feel ashamed?
Have you voiced any of those thoughts in front of your kids?
Have you become super strict or super lax or some confusing combination of the two?
Have you, at any point during the COVID-19 crisis, felt like a bad or failing parent?
If you answered yes to any of those questions and you’re feeling bad about yourself, I’m here to tell you that you are loved and worthy regardless.
I’ve got some ideas I hope will help and support you, but I truly do want you to give yourself grace. If something doesn’t resonate, please move on and release it. I’m hoping to refresh you, not bog you down more. And, I’ll be very honest. I’m feeling completely inadequate right now in terms of helping y’all when I’m right in the midst of this mess myself. We’re in this together, friends.
This post is separated into two big sections which you can jump to or read straight through. I know we’re all a bit short on time, given the circumstances, so take what you need.
It’s ok not to be ok. It’s ok not to have it together. It’s ok not to feel like your normal self. It’s ok to need more support than usual.
If you’re feeling more tired and unmotivated than usual even though the outside world seems to be slowing down, know that you are under an incredible level of constant stress. There will be moments of happiness, of course, but that overwhelming feeling of just not being able to manage runs like a dark current underneath everything you’re trying to do. It’s all real. Nobody was prepared for how much time and effort it would take to get through the pandemic. We have no experience on which to base our thoughts going into this.
In this incredibly vulnerable experience, you may feel your life resetting. Let it. Some good may be taking place in the background. Even as you worry for your kids, they are experiencing a desperately needed course correction. You are gaining insight into the things in the background that have been draining you. And, you are experiencing what people have experienced throughout time and catastrophe: a readjustment of values. It’s a necessary part of the human condition. As a result, you are bound to be exhausted and jittery and done. None of this is easy and you can’t just relax the days away. No, there’s still much to do but, please, take care of yourselves as you go.
To the essential workers out there, you are profoundly appreciated. We see you on the front lines. We know you can’t slow down and we pray that you remain strong. Bless you all!
You ARE Being Crushed Right Now
Don’t let anyone tell you how you feel or how your family has been affected. What you’re experiencing is absolutely real. I want to acknowledge that at the top and validate your suffering. We’re all struggling, some so much more than others. Some were struggling intensely before this crisis hit and, now… it’s utterly disastrous. There may be plenty of love to go around, but not quite enough resources or energy, so no one (including you) is getting everything they need.
In particular, if you’re a career parent, please understand, you may be feeling like some sort of combined Stay-at-Home/Work-at-Home/Teacher parent. But, you’re not. You are something way beyond. Something that defies definition. You aren’t meant to handle everything all at once like this plus all the emotional turmoil of a global crisis. I admire y’all so much.
I’ve seen some shaming messages floating around social media about how domestically productive we should be right now. Ignore all of it. Who could have anticipated this intense psychological burden, the loss of familiarity, or the feelings of walls closing in on us? Now’s the time to celebrate what we can do and brush off what we can’t.
A special note to my Asian American friends. Your experience in this crisis is different from that of others. Your heightened stress and fear are real and valid. Check out this piece from therapists who have been supporting Asian clients for some ideas on how to manage. If you need to take someone along with you when you go out, DO IT. Please, be careful out there.
Get Your Basics Covered
Prioritize filling your belly, bathing your body, and getting rest. It’s so easy to put our needs to the side when we’re so focused on our children. But, we can’t maintain this workload without making sure our basic needs are met.
If you’ve lost income and are concerned about making sure your family is protected and fed, do what you must and make no excuses for it. Here’s where to go get help:
This situation is directly challenging the American values of consumerism and capitalism. It’s revealing bleak disparities between the haves and have nots. And, it’s making us seriously consider our needs versus our wants. These are extraordinary times. We are face to face with a pivotal moment in history, and it’s painful.
Just the Facts
Take care to avoid overinflating the dangers surrounding COVID-19. For instance, there is no reason to believe the U.S. will run out of food. Farmers are still farming. Truckers are still trucking. Supermarkets are essential services now, so they are considered special community resources.
There’s so much worry in the world as it is. Try not to get caught up in the fervor and hypotheses around COVID-19 if they negatively impact your mental health in any way. I encourage you to cut out the areas of social media that cause you distress, at least temporarily. Focus, instead, on what you can do and make that your goal.
Take Inventory of Your Stressors
And, put them in their proper place for the time being. A friend recently posted about no longer being able to hide from fears and stressors, because of the conditions under which we’re currently living. From her own experience, she writes,
Maybe being alone is uncomfortable for you and you’ve always avoided that feeling by socializing with others.
Maybe there are inequities in your domestic partnership that you normally brush under the rug but that aren’t sustainable now.
Maybe there have always been boundary issues with a person in your life (like a parent) that you can normally tolerate but that’s becoming increasingly untenable.
Maybe the ways you normally cope with an [eating disorder] aren’t available to you right now and you need to find new, more evolved methods.
Maybe slowing down is really difficult for you because momentum and adrenaline are how you’re able to get through the day and feel like you did enough.
As you encounter unavoidable, mental health-killing circumstances, take a few minutes here and there to write out what’s happening so that you can deal with these issues when you’re not in the middle a crisis situation. If there is any silver lining to this terrible cloud, it’s that we’re being brought face to face with all the things we’ve been running from. So, fortify your boundaries as you need and prioritize yourself. There will be time to tackle all of these things in the future. Now is the time to pare down and deal with what’s right in front of you.
If you know someone who is in danger due to the spike in domestic violence, the national hotline number is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). And, the child abuse hotline is 1-800-4ACHILD (422-4453).
Lower Your Expectations
No matter how prepared any of us might have thought we were for a major disaster like COVID-19, no one was actually prepared and nothing that’s happening is normal. If you’ve been beating yourself up because you haven’t been able to keep your house clean or because your children are spending too much time indoors on screens, stop. Stop right now. Do whatever must be done and let the rest go. If it would improve your mental health, consider planning out how you can accomplish the things you want to do, keeping in mind that your plan can include getting things done after the crisis is over. You don’t need to be everything and do everything right now just because the country is at an apparent standstill. If your mental health is off, and you can’t handle any more than you’re already doing, it’s ok. Ask for help where you can and let the rest go.
By the same token, do what you need to do in order to feel more in control. You may need more structure and routine or you may need less. Don’t feel guilty for scrolling right past all the advice for how to better organize your time or pandemic school… er “homeschool” your kids (Sidebar: No one is really homeschooling right now. Homeschool is an academic and social venture. What we’re doing is something much more strained.) Do whatever it is you have to do in order to get by.
Find An Escape
“Silly” self-care ideas like bubble baths and long walks may actually be exactly what you need. And, for the record, they aren’t silly. You may be craving a long, hot shower. Take one after your kids go to sleep. Do it and don’t worry about anything else for a few moments. Just focus on yourself. The shower is a great place for a good cry if you need that emotional release. After all, tears can be healing. The same goes for taking a walk, meditating in nature, reading a book, taking a short drive, baking some cookies, and so on. Whatever small things you can do each day to stop hyperfocusing on what’s bothering you even if just for a few minutes can be the refresh that you need.
YouTube is rich with hundreds of thousands of hours of practices that can help improve your ability to manage your stress and anxiety levels. Here are just a handful of those videos:
This escape could also come in the form of therapy. So many therapists are doing telesessions right now. It’s entirely worth the effort to get real help from a real person. And, realistically, your therapist can do a whole lot more for you than I can in this little blog post.
Our children all know something’s up by now. Some seem mostly oblivious. Some seem curious. And, some seem concerned. These are all natural responses to such big changes. As parents, we can help our kids navigate this challenging time with some kid-friendly psychology in mind.
If you have about an hour to listen to a talk, I strongly recommend checking this one out. Otherwise, read on!
Turn Your Attention to Healing
You’re going to mess up with your kids right now. I can’t imagine a way we wouldn’t while our brains are swimming in a sea of stress. So, apologize. Often. Let your children know you will make mistakes and they will make mistakes and you can love each other through it anyway. Voice it. Tell them how important they are to you and how glad you are that they’re in your life. Tell them how much their presence lifts your spirits and that you’re grateful to have an amazing family like yours. Try to find moments to build them up because, in doing so, you will build your relationship and provide them with the connection they’re craving right now. And, perhaps, you’ll even soothe some of those big emotions that are responsible for the blow-ups you and your children are experiencing. There’s no downside to telling a child how much they’re loved. And, please remember, children are resilient and traumatic stress is not a given. So, if you’ve been worried that you’re “ruining” your kids during this difficult time, let those concerns go and look for ways to connect and restore. Heal together.
Hear What Kids Are Saying
Don’t be afraid to talk with your child. Listen to what they’re saying. Sometimes we can project our own fears onto our kids and misinterpret what they mean. Right now, we need to be listening carefully to what our kids are actually saying and asking us. When they ask questions, answer only the question that’s been asked. Listen and get at what fears underlie the things they say.
A friend recently told me about how her children were talking about their own illnesses from a few months ago. This is called generalizing which is when humans take a new piece of information and apply it more broadly to enhance understanding. If children don’t have a great deal of experience with sickness, they may try to recall the last time they or a loved one fell ill. Don’t be alarmed if your child does this. They’re likely trying to fully grasp what’s happening and you can use it to help them by letting them know that, yes, they were sick so they know what it’s like not to feel well.
Hear What They’re Not Saying
Children’s anxiety tends to manifest in ways that do not involve them saying frankly, “I am anxious.” Here are some of the things to watch for that could signal anxiety if they seem new or especially enhanced right now:
Appearing afraid in everyday situations where they didn’t before
Refusing to communicate
Refusing to eat or becoming neurotic about food
Stomachaches, headaches, and/or elevated pulse
Unusual irritability or lashing out
Increased question asking
Sleep disturbances
Resistance/uncooperativeness
Avoidance/reclusiveness
Rigidity/overplanning
Increased nightmares
If you aren’t a mental health professional, don’t worry. You can help counter some of your child’s anxiety at home. And, if it gets to be too much and you’re concerned for your child, many therapists are doing televisits, so you don’t have to leave your home to get help.
Provide Normalcy
If you’re not already in a new routine, try getting your family on a schedule. For some families, an hour by hour schedule helps keep a good rhythm going. For others, the thought of a strict schedule shuts you down. Don’t panic! General guidelines for when the family will wake, eat, and do everything else in between would be perfectly ok. The goal is to develop a cadence to this new life we’re living temporarily. It’s important to maintain boundaries and expectations, and it’s also important to be flexible and understanding.
As for school, I absolutely encourage you to make sure your kids are keeping up with expectations especially out of respect for the work your children’s teachers are doing in the background, but I can’t stress enough that other things are also important. While the world is on pause, you may have a greater opportunity to connect with your kids (and other members of your family) in a way that you’ve literally never had before.
Get Them Connected and Proactive
I’ve seen some wonderful memes recently that remind us that we’re not socially isolated but rather physically isolated. Try to find ways to get your kids connected to trusted adults and their peers. Phone calls and video chats are great. Gaming that involves interacting with other players is another option. Your kids may have some ideas you haven’t even thought of, so ask!
And, remind them that they can help defeat this viral foe. We’ve likely all seen those memes about handwashing to various songs. They’re funny AND TRUE. Teaching kids about hygiene (handwashing, sneezing into the elbow, sanitizing doorknobs, and the like) is a great way to give them something concrete to do in response to feelings of helplessness.
Choose Family-Based Solutions
If your kids are at each other’s throats and angry with you at the same time, call upon the strength of your family to make a way. I was speaking with a friend who has really been struggling to meet her children’s needs. They all seem to need her at once and they’re taking out their pent up anxiety on each other in the form of aggression. She feels outnumbered.
We talked about this situation offering a chance to teach the kids about graciousness and empathy, not just for her as their mother, but also for each other. I suggested working with the kids to come up with a code phrase, like “Activate Empathy!” which would be a signal for everyone to either look around for someone to help or to stop where they are and ask their mother how they can help. Whatever works for the family.
Be Honest and Age Appropriate (But Don’t Reveal More Than Needed)
Make sure you know where your kids are getting their information about COVID-19. If they are becoming consumed with the news, try to find ways to reduce their information intake. For some kids, it may decrease anxiety to keep an eye on things. In such a case, you can work out how that’s going to look and what they should do if something scares them.
If you’re struggling to find the words to respond to your children’s concerns about COVID-19, start by trying to ascertain what your child already knows. From there, encourage your child to ask questions. Check out this video from the Child Mind Institute:
Work Toward Empathetic Reframing
If you’ve been practicing Peaceful Parenting techniques, you’ve likely had some exposure to offering empathetic reassurance without making promises you can’t guarantee. If not, click here to read a brief overview of how to provide reassurance in a healthy way. It may feel easiest to tell our kids they have nothing to worry about, but the reality is that they do. We all do. And we can do something about it! When your child gives you their version of a doomsday scenario or asks a difficult questions, reframe and de-escalate. For a fantastic explanation of this concept, check out this message from Dr. Tina Payne Bryson.
With her message in mind, let’s try fielding a few questions. Remember, there are no perfect responses. Just answers couched in our best effort to give our kids feelings of safety rather than fear.
What’s happening?
For Younger Children: First ask, “What do you think is happening?” and see where your child stands. If you can use the information they are able to articulate, you’re well on your way to helping them understand. If you need a quick script, try this. “There’s a teeny, tiny little germ that’s making people sick with a cough, so everyone is staying at home to be safe and not get sick.”
For Older Children: If your child is ready for more information, I recommend choosing an existing child-friendly video to explain what COVID-19 is. Brain Pop has a section on their website that presents information about COVID-19 in the form of a school lesson, complete with vocabulary and a quiz plus other cool features. Allowing an older child to view this information in a simulated school assignment may provide some distance so it’s not as scary.
When will this be over?
For Younger Children: It won’t last forever! We’re going to do our part to be safe, so we can get back to normal very soon.
For Older Children: By keeping ourselves clean and giving people six feet of space from us whenever we go out, we’ll be able to conquer the sickness and this will be over very soon.
Is school closed forever? Are all the teachers sick?
For Younger Children: School isn’t closed forever and your teachers aren’t all sick. We’re staying home so we can keep ourselves safe and help doctors and nurses do their jobs.
For Older Children: The people who run the school have closed the building to make sure students stay safe right now. Some teachers might be sick, but not all. For now, we’re going to keep doing schoolwork assigned by your teacher to make sure you know everything you’re supposed to know.
Can I go to the park?
For Younger Children: Response: (Depending on your area’s social distancing requirements…) Sure, we can go to the park and walk around! The playground is closed, though, so let’s go see if we can find some ladybugs.
For Older Children: (Depending on your area’s social distancing requirements…) Yes, walking around outside is ok. You’ll see some areas sectioned off, since the city wanted to keep everyone safe from sharing germs on the equipment.
Why can’t I see my friends?
For Younger Children: I know you miss your friends a lot and you want to play with them. Just like us, your friends are safe at home for a while. How about we find a friend to video chat with?
For Older Children: I know it’s hard to be apart from the people who make you feel your best. In order to keep everyone as safe and healthy as possible, it’s important for us all to stay home for a while. How about reaching out to them?
If I hug you, will you get sick?
For Younger Children: Come get a hug! One of the reasons we’re sticking to ourselves right now is so that we can talk and cuddle as much as we want to.
For Older Children: You can have a hug any time you need! One of the benefits of staying home and practicing social distancing is that we protect ourselves from the virus, so we can stick together.
Is everyone going to die?
For Younger Children: Absolutely not. Everyone is not going to die. We’re helping everyone keep safe by staying home. Can you think of someone you love very much to call and talk to?
For Older Children: Absolutely not. Our entire country is taking steps to protect as many people as possible. Would you like to make some calls with me? I’m going to check in on family.
The goal here is not to lie or overflate any promise of safety, but to reduce fear by focusing on what we can do to be safer.
Some awesome folks have done a lot of the necessary footwork to help kids understand sickness and COVID-19. Check out these episodes for a positive spin on how to tackle this coronavirus, one kid at a time.
Last week, when I wrote about children’s rights, I was expecting some pushback. Members of a childist culture will obviously struggle to cut through their conditioning… and that includes me. However, I was not prepared for one subset of responses that popped up in several places where my post was shared: accusations that advocating for children rights equates to condoning pedophilia. I was floored. Why would sexual abuse be the first thing that pops into someone’s mind when they consider the rights of children? And, why would anyone put the responsibility on the child and not the adult predator? Clearly, I do not have the answers to these questions, particularly because nothing about what I wrote indicated that children should be left entirely without the guidance and protection of trusted adults.
I do, however, have a response to this incredibly disturbing line of reasoning. Child sexual abuse is happening already in the U.S. where children do not have anywhere near the number of rights that adults have. And, you’ll never guess one of the crucial things we should be teaching our kids to help protect them from predators: children can say no to adults. Many children have never had that opportunity without being punished, so they don’t realize they can use that word when speaking with an adult. Check out this post from the Child Mind Institute for more information on ways we can empower our children to escape from and report attempts at sexual abuse.
Why Childism Matters
Early in my Peaceful Parenting journey, I was debating spanking in a Facebook group. I said, “I don’t hit people” to which a commenter responded, “We’re talking about children, not people.”
Childism isn’t as simple as whether or not you like children. Some people don’t like kids and that’s ok. You don’t have to like kids to believe they should be assured human dignity. [EDIT: I was wrong. It is NOT ok to dislike kids anymore than it is ok to dislike any other entire group of people. That was a bit of residual childism on my part, and I’m accountable for it.] Unfortunately, in the U.S. alone, more than 3 million cases of child abuse are investigated each year and an average of 5 children are murdered every day of the year by caregivers. A sobering report from the U.S. Department of Justice states that, in the previous year, “60 percent [of children in the U.S.] were exposed to violence, crime, or abuse in their homes, schools, and communities. Almost 40 percent of American children were direct victims of 2 or more violent acts, and 1 in 10 were victims of violence 5 or more times. Children are more likely to be exposed to violence and crime than adults. Almost 1 in 10 American children saw one family member assault another family member, and more than 25 percent had been exposed to family violence during their life.” To be clear, THIS IS A HUMAN RIGHTS CRISIS.
Childism is the basis for the abuses children suffer, because childism says that children are not people. Our entire culture is complicit in the abuse of children.
Defining Rights and Freedoms
In my efforts to speak clearly and accessibly about childism, I neglected to anticipate a common concern many readers would have about the Anti-Childism Scale from last week’s blog post.
I received questions about how to balance equal rights for children with parental responsibility. So, I’ll begin with a very basic distinction between rights and freedoms.
A right is a privilege enjoyed by all members of a society.
A freedom is an absence of constraints.
The study of rights is so massive and so arguable that it’s difficult to pin down exactly what categories of rights exist. I will attempt to be brief and clear with the understanding that others may not agree with how I’ve broken these down.
Natural Rights: These are the rights we’re born with that need no special dispensation, such as the rights to life, liberty, and so on.
Moral Rights: These are the rights that hold societies together. They may or may not be enforceable by law. Moral rights may include things like the right to be treated fairly, whatever that may mean in the given culture.
Legal Rights: These are rights that are enforceable by law. They are typically moral rights that become codified. Legal rights include things like the right to move through life without being discriminated against, the right to own property, and the right to vote.
(Duties: Where a right is an entitlement, a duty is an obligation. I include this here as an aside to note that children’s rights advocates do not seek equality in duties, such as requiring young children to be subject to military conscription.)
There is tremendous interplay among these categories and rights vary from country to country. It is also important to note that rights can be limited by a society, as in the case of the famous prohibition against using the U.S. Constitutional right to free speech to justify the act of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. And, of course, there is the matter of incarceration where many rights are suspended (but many remain).
Children’s Rights
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a legally-binding collection of 54 articles detailing children’s rights. It was ratified over 30 years ago, so it is not new by any means. To date, it has been signed by 196 countries, including the U.S. (1995). Regrettably, the U.S. regularly violates the agreement, as a country, and does not hold parents to its tenets. For instance, the UNCRC declares that children must be free from violence, yet the U.S. government has not taken a stance against spanking. At the very least, children’s rights advocates would see every child in the U.S. guaranteed the rights dictated by the UNCRC, but there’s so much more we could do.
For example, we could embrace the youth suffrage movement and eliminate the voting age, especially given the fact that “the quality of these citizens’ choices is similar to that of older voters, so they do cast votes in ways that enable their interests to be represented equally well” (Source). And, perhaps surprising, a study out of Scotland that controlled for socio-demographic diversity found that “the newly enfranchised young people in Scotland indeed show substantially higher levels of engagement with representative democracy (through voting) as well as other forms of political participation (such as signing petitions and taking part in demonstrations); and they engage with a greater range of information sources about politics and reflect greater levels of political efficacy.” Kids are brilliant and observant if we give them half a chance to be.
There are certain rights that are extremely sensitive and uncomfortable to debate, like marriage age. In some states in the U.S., there is no statutory minimum age at all with parental consent. In our current, childist culture, allowing parents to marry off their children can be disastrous. However, in a hypothetical anti-childist culture where children are treated with respect, taught appropriate boundaries, and included in all facets of society from childhood, the option to marry at a younger age to a peer would make a lot more sense than it does now. And, when I say “younger age,” I mean teenage. I do not believe young children should have the freedom to marry whenever they please as the risk of harm is far too high. So, their right to marry would need to be limited in this hypothetical culture.
Parental Responsibility
Here’s the really touchy part. Where is the line between a right and a freedom drawn? Freedom is the absence of constraints. Even adults do not enjoy unlimited freedom and children much less so. While a child may not be free to get a tattoo, they have the absolute right to consent to being circumcised or having their ears pierced. And, a tween might be permitted to go on a group date with peers, but should not be permitted to date an adult.
I think that, perhaps, the simplest way to respect a child’s rights while fulfilling our duty as parents to protect and guide our kids is to put ourselves in their shoes. Would we allow someone to rip our clothes off and force us into a bathtub? No? Then, we shouldn’t do that to a child. Would we allow someone to hit us when we make mistakes? No? Then, we shouldn’t do that to a child. Would we allow someone to force us to eat food we don’t want to eat? No? Then, we shouldn’t do that to a child.
Yes, it’s a worldview shift which is what makes all of this so difficult. Most of what I do here in this space is to provide parents with alternatives to doing these things we do to kids but wouldn’t do to an adult. There are other, gentler options for children, including children who are resistant (which I’ve written about). And, until we get to the point where our relationship with our kids leads to mutual cooperation, there will very likely be times when we apply force. It’s far from ideal and it is certainly not respectful of children’s rights, but as a culture, we’re just not there yet. Individually, we may have more success or less success.
What Does Anti-Childist Parenting Look Like?
The reality is that we all come to parenting with a perspective that has been informed by our upbringing, our culture, our stressors, and our wounds. People have legitimate reasons for doing the things they do, including all the things I encourage parents not to do. What I try (and probably often fail) to do in my writing is to acknowledge the thought process and validate the parents’ needs while simultaneously advocating for children. I’m looking to help families heal whatever needs attention between parents and their kids so that, together, they can move forward in an enduringly positive bearing.
I can see a situation and grasp why a parent might react in an aggressive way toward a child. I want to offer the space to deconstruct what is happening in that parent’s life that led to the moment in time where they were at odds with their child. Is the parent struggling financially? Is the parent a member of a people group that experiences constant discrimination? Does the parent have a combative relationship with the children’s other parent(s)? Is the parent completely overwhelmed with no help? Are there other factors at play that make responding peacefully seem completely impossible? Does the parent honestly have no idea what else to do? Yes, often, and I’m empathetic to the struggle. It’s tough out here.
I’d like to share a little of my own experience here to illustrate why I am so deeply committed to the Peaceful Parenting philosophy. It’s a daily effort to choose a de-escalated response even when I’m barely holding it together. That part is so hard for me but the payoff is extraordinary. These are some common issues that frustrate many parents but aren’t a battle in my house (and I’ll explain why!):
Car Seat Safety
Toothbrushing
Bathing
Trying new foods
Choosing clothes/getting dressed
Diapering
They are not issues in my household, because we’ve never made them an issue. My kids have always had the right of refusal 99% of the time. It’s just not a big deal, so they don’t make it one. They do these things willingly and without much effort on my part. That said, we do have other struggles and, as a Peaceful Parent, limits are a necessary aspect of my approach. So, please, understand that I am not saying children should, or even could, be given unlimited free rein.
Because I believe deeply in equal rights for kids, I work toward becoming a Subverter in every interaction I have with children. Here are some of the ways I acknowledge my children’s individual personhood and preferences:
I’m patient with my kids and I give them lots of time both to respond to me and to switch gears when we need to do something else.
I don’t tell my children how they feel (“Oh, you’re ok”).
I don’t mandate manners.
I assume competence and I don’t jump in to save the day while they’re problem-solving.
I invite my children to handle delicate things, work on a hot stove, and use adult tools (all with supervision of course) because involving kids helps them build skills and understand safety.
I include my kids in my daily life and expect them to share family responsibilities.
I don’t require my children to clean alone. This may seem an odd point, but I struggled so much as a child when my parents told me to clean my room because I didn’t have the executive functioning skills to figure it out. So, with my kids, I’m present to help them when they need guidance well before they become frustrated.
I acknowledge that the things they believe are important are as critical as the things that are important to me. If my child accidentally breaks a toy, I know their strong feelings about it are equivalent to how I’d feel wrecking my car. It’s a big deal.
I don’t manipulate (“I’ll cry if you don’t give me a hug!”), threaten (“If you don’t stop right now, it’s time out for you!”), or coerce (“Be a good girl and pick up your toys.”)
I encourage my children to say no to me and to negotiate.
I don’t want obedient children. I want wise and cooperative children who are self-motivated.
I don’t bribe or use rewards of any kind.
I respect my kids’ property, space, and privacy.
I don’t prank or laugh at my children unless they are clearly in on it.
I don’t force my children to eat anything. No “You have to try one bite.” No “You won’t get dessert if you don’t eat!”
I expect my children to have their own interests, have emotions, need time to rest without my interference, and resist my agenda/schedule for their lives.
I don’t relish time away from them because they annoy me. I don’t blame my children for my emotions. I do appreciate self-care and time to myself because it’s good for my health.
I don’t make excuses for my behavior if I treat my kids poorly (“You made me angry, so I yelled.”). Instead, I readily apologize and make amends.
Now, read back through that list but imagine I’m talking about my husband. Wouldn’t it be pretty much a given that I shouldn’t treat another adult any other way? Of course! Once I understood that, seeing my kids as equals in my humanity became easy. Kids are people, y’all.
Last week, many readers saw the line under the “Subverter” description on the Anti-Childism Scale that says, “children deserve equal rights as adults,” and missed, or didn’t understand, the part that says, “children have varying capacities to manage freedoms.” I hope everything I’ve explained here helps to clear up any misconceptions about the Anti-Childism Scale and my position on children’s rights and freedoms.
If you’re not familiar with childism, you aren’t alone. Most of the people I talk with aren’t familiar with it. Some even scoff at the idea as though the concept of prejudice against children is so preposterous, it could not possibly exist. If you’re struggling to see how we systemically discriminate against children, consider the following ways, as described by Happiness is Here, in which we treat children differently from adults:
It’s every time a parent is asked ‘is she hungry?’ or ‘does she like strawberries?’ instead of the question being directed at the child who is very capable of answering.
It’s every time a child’s emotions elicit laughter instead of empathy.
It’s withholding food/water/affection until a child says ‘please’ to satisfy an adult ego.
It’s adults believing they have the ‘right’ to physically punish people because of their age.
It’s countries where hitting children is legal and there are guidelines as to where and how you can smack them. Guidelines for hitting your wife would be abhorrent, but age somehow changes perspectives.
It’s a general intolerance for childish behaviour interfering with an adults desires, and the view that children should be ‘seen and not heard’.
It’s adults making decisions about cosmetic alterations to their child’s body such as circumcision, ear-piercing, haircuts, without consent.
It’s forced affection or ‘give me a cuddle or I’ll be sad and cry’, sending the message that a child does not get to make decisions about their own body.
It’s whenever a child’s photo is posted online in an effort to shame them as a way of getting them to submit to an adult’s will.
It’s adults who believe they deserve automatic respect (most often defined as ‘obedience’) for nothing more than their greater age.
It’s children’s emotions being dismissed or stifled for adult comfort.
It’s every time children are talked about in a conversation as though they are not even in the room.
It’s rejoicing in their absence when it’s back-to-school time.
It’s finding it acceptable to use punishment and rewards to manipulate a person’s behaviour to meet your needs, if that person is a child.
It’s a world where there are books, tv shows, and blogs devoted to teaching parents how you can ‘train’ your child, often by means of ignoring their needs.
It’s needing research to prove that abandoning a child so that they will learn to ‘self-settle’ is detrimental, instead of just treating babies like humans.
It’s reading this list and dismissing it as ‘over the top’, ‘ridiculous’, or ‘not a big deal’.
The term childism was coined in the early 1970s after which it remained a relevant concept within the realm of children’s rights. However, the term didn’t really enter mainstream discourse until the late psychotherapist and children’s rights activist, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, wrote her groundbreaking work, Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children, which was published posthumously in 2012. Her mission in proposing that our culture adopt the word childism was not to “launch an inquiry into prejudice against children” but rather to establish a term that would “have political resonance, something that [could] operate as sexism did to raise our political consciousness” (page 8). According to Darcia F. Narvaez Ph.D., Young-Bruehl’s solution to childismcan be summarized in four actions:
Understand the ideas and institutions that perpetuate childism. See how it is manifest in individuals, families, institutions and the wider culture.
Educate society about the causes and meanings of these prejudices, and the harms they have done and continue to do.
Create program [sic] to repair the damage of childism, secure the progress that has been made and continue to work to eradicate the prejudice.
Demand full and equal civil and political rights for children.
Here, I need to pause and explain a disagreement among children’s rights advocates. Some people take issue with the way Young-Bruehl defined childism. They prefer the term adultism to mean “prejudice against children,” and they view childism as akin to feminism in that it is a term of empowerment for children. While I understand the arguments for using childism in this way, my fundamental disagreement rests in the systemic nature of childism which I use as akin to sexism. Children can both reinforce and internalize prejudice against themselves in addition to that prejudice being levied by older people. I believe that the term adultism risks suggesting that the issue is adults disliking children. That is not the case. Childism requires a cultural breach of humanity and is bolstered by harmful influences like White Supremacy Culture. You may disagree with me and that’s ok, but I do want to make clear why I use childism in the way I do.
Origin of the Scale
I’ve been thinking about developing an anti-childism scale for years. It’s been a long time coming. I initially got the idea from the work of Dr. Barnor Hesse, Associate Professor of African American Studies, Political Science, and Sociology at Northwestern University, who produced a scale of white identities that increasingly cultivate genuine anti-racism. For a text version of this list of The 8 White Identities, check out this post.
Based on Dr. Hesse’s work, I set out to form a similar scale toward the neutralization of childism that borrows from the Transtheoretical Model to foster growth and behavior change.
My scale is meant for personal reflection and self-improvement purposes only. I would be disappointed to see it used as a weapon against people who do not agree with my belief system. My hope is that it will get people thinking and give them an idea of where they stand with respect to embracing or rejecting childism.
The Anti-Childism Scale
The following six identities increasingly represent an anti-childist worldview and indicate the level of action a person is willing to take in opposition to childism.
The Dominator: Believes children must be controlled by adults and must be respectful of adult authority. Grants only minimal rights to children.
The Dominator aligns with traditional cultural values in which children effectively live their lives at the pleasure of the adults around them. This person has no insight into their own childism. Moving from this stage may prove the hardest as such movement requires a significant worldview shift.
The Inquirer: Questions the power dynamic between children and adults and is open to discussion. Continues to behave as Dominator-lite.
The Inquirer has realized something isn’t right and works to determine if childism is worth investigating or if it is nonsense. Moving through this stage may be frustrating as it sits on the cusp of full understanding.
The Convert: Accepts that children face discrimination at the hands of adults. But may be uncomfortable taking action beyond discussion.
The Convert is the first stage of intentional anti-childism work. This person is convinced that childism is unacceptable but is either uncertain or uncomfortable taking action. This person likely discusses actions and attitudes toward kids and validates the reality of children’s lived experiences.
The Critic: Regards children as deserving of protection from discrimination. Expresses beliefs when safe, but may not speak out when the cost is too high.
The Critic wants to help and is willing to speak up if doing so will not result in blowback. For instance, Critics may debate childism online but may not speak up in real life even when they know something is wrong. Moving from belief to action can be scary, but this person is making progress.
The Embracer: Recognizes children as equals in humanity and chooses inclusion whenever possible, even in the face of open criticism. Retains unexamined childism.
The Embracer actively advocates for kids and speaks up no matter who is listening. This is a transitional stage where we learn how to do what needs to be done and gain the courage to do it.
The Subverter: Elevates children in word and deed, believes children deserve equal rights as adults, understands that children have varying capacities to manage freedoms, meets children where they are, and encourages others to do the same. Seeks out and actively resolves internalized childism.
The Subverter is a powerhouse for kids, working alongside children rather than in place of them. This person understands that children are not helpless or unaware. As such, the Subverter seeks out the needs and wants of children and works toward true allyship. This is the person who speaks up when others don’t and boldly treats children with respect even in the face of chastisement from other adults. This person works to change societal views toward children and undermine institutional childism. This person is capable of starting a chain reaction up The Anti-Childism Scale and effects change through discussion, action, and activism to help others achieve elucidation.
Working Through the Scale
The Anti-Childism Scale is not strictly linear nor is it neat. There is transmutational space between each of the identities where we work through the discomfort of growth and struggle against our fears. Even as we take big steps, we will have moments when we slip back into a more comfortable state. It’s crucial to remember that this is not an all-or-nothing metamorphosis. Our choices matter, moment-by-moment, for life. Each new stage we enter brings us self-awareness and self-improvement, and it elevates children at the same time.
Some of the things we can do as caring adults to ensure the rights of children are:
Read and understand the 54 “Rights of the Child” as adopted by the United Nations. These are children’s most basic rights. We can do even better with a little effort.
Share the 54 “Rights of the Child” with our children so that they understand the standards to which they should hold all adults.
Consider how our choices affect our children and ask them for their input.
Respect our children’s names and avoid using them as a threat. (Most of us know what it means to be called your full name by a parent.)
Accept our children’s unique identity and genuinely see who our children really are.
Listen to our children’s opinions and be open to negotiation.
Recognize that children are intelligent. Assume competence and protect our children’s freedom of expression.
Give our children adequate privacy and access to information. Where issues of safety arise, work it out with the child, not for the child.
Find ways to teach and coach our children that do not involve punishments.
Provide our children with ample opportunities to play and rest.
I hope I’ve given you something to think about. You can expect more posts from me on childism and how to root it out. For now, I’d love to find out where you see yourself on the scale. And, of course, please feel free to share it to give others the same opportunity for self-exploration.
Last week, I was dutifully scrolling through my Facebook feed to check in on my friends and see if I’d missed important updates while I had been adulting in real life. I stopped when I saw a post from my close friend, and fellow Peaceful Parent, that started out raw and never let up. She had laid her soul bare right there on the screen.
As I read her palpable words, thoughts welled up in my mind. I recalled being spanked as a child and questioning whether my parents truly loved me. How could they hurt me like that and say “I’m doing this because I love you” moments later? I couldn’t comprehend it. As a parent myself now, I understand how hard it was for them to manage their own emotions and parent two small children at the same time. But, the sadness still lingers even to this day.
Reading my friend’s words helped me to see clearly how much effort it truly takes to choose the peaceful path. So, I asked her if I could share her words here, anonymously, and she graciously consented. I hope her words touch your heart as they have mine.
She shut down as we were walking to the bus and my rage flared.
How dare she. Doesn’t she see that I’m trying my best? I have been nothing but transparent. Does she not know how hard I’m trying?!
She stomped toward the back of the bus and I fumed silently behind her. She sat in an empty single seat and I raged past her to a seat where I could still see her. My inner world raged and I glared at her. She angrily stared straight ahead and looked miserable.
I looked down at my phone for a distraction.
When I looked up, she’d fallen asleep.
The angry swirl of voices coagulated to a single whisper: “it’s not about you.”
_____________________________________________
The most important and trickiest part of peaceful parenting for me is regulation.
Before I knew of this way of parenting, I knew that I could never beat or spank my child. Aside from my personal trauma of having that experience, it simply never made sense to me. I knew that if I was hitting my child, I would be in a state of anger. That never sounded right to me. And then, if I’m no longer angry, would I be emotionlessly hitting my child? Somehow that sounded even more terrifying.
You can’t peacefully parent if you are dysregulated. You can peacefully parent a child when they’re dysregulated – only if you’re committed to peacefully helping them regulate. And let me tell you, this shit suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
Feelings have so many meanings attached to them. Analyzing those feelings to achieve regulation requires constant self-awareness. My dysregulation as a parent is laden with generational trauma. How DARE she disrespect! How dare she disobey! Does she know what would’ve happened to ME if I EVER did that?!
The middle layer is usually a feeling of the present – annoyance, exhaustion, hunger, etc. The top layer is the saltiness of recognizing my annoyance, my desire to lash out, containing that desire, and – you guessed it – another layer of intergenerational awareness. Jealousy. Sadness that sometimes I was not granted this self-restraint. The burden of why I need to be peaceful. The wheel to my shoulder as I push it in a new direction.
Also, tears. Tears I feel she doesn’t need to be crying. Or her tears dropping on my shoulder, arms, or clothing.
Sigh.
I looked at her sleeping. Poor thing. I knew she was tired. I knew she had a rough day – some of her favorite foods from the lunch I packed fell on the playground. The teacher thought she was rude. She cried a whole river and stream. She told me herself.
And so my anger subsided. I know that behavior is communication. I just had to sift through my messages to get to hers. Her shutting down is not a snub of my attempts to reason and parent fairly. Later on, she told me that she knew that I was getting mad.
It’s not about me.
It is, but it’s not. My feelings are important too. Of course I want to be appreciated, but it’s not really a 7 year old’s job to say, “thanks for peacefully parenting me, mom.” So what do I need?
What do you need to regulate and regain peace so that you can reach out to your child with peace in your eyes?
It’s what’s known as an anecdotal fallacy. This fallacy, in simple terms, states that “I’m not negatively affected (as far as I can tell), so it must be O.K. for everyone.” As an example: “I wasn’t vaccinated, and I turned out fine. Therefore, vaccination is unnecessary.” We are relying on a sample size of one. Ourselves, or someone we know. And we are applying that result to everyone.
It relies on a decision-making shortcut known as the availability heuristic. Related to the anecdotal fallacy, it’s where we draw on information that is immediately available to us when we make a judgment call. In this case, autobiographical information is easily accessible — it’s already in your head. We were smacked as kids and turned out fine, so smacking doesn’t hurt anyone. But studies show that the availability heuristic is a cognitive bias that can cloud us from making accurate decisions utilizing all the information available. It blinds us to our own prejudices.
It dismisses well-substantiated, scientific evidence. To say “I turned out fine” is an arrogant dismissal of an alternative evidence-based view. It requires no perspective and no engagement with an alternative perspective. The statement closes off discourse and promotes a single perspective that is oblivious to alternatives that may be more enlightened. Anecdotal evidence often undermines scientific results, to our detriment.
It leads to entrenched attitudes. When views inconsistent with our own are shared we make an assumption that whoever holds those views is not fine, refusing to engage, explore or grow. Perhaps an inability to engage with views that run counter to our own suggests that we did not turn out quite so “fine.”
Where is the threshold for what constitutes having turned out fine? If it means we avoided prison, we may be setting the bar too low. Gainfully employed and have a family of our own? Still a pretty basic standard. It is as reasonable to say “I turned out fine because of this” as it is to say “I turned out fine in spite of this.”
Recently, I participated in a large 1,000+ comment discussion about spanking. Nearly every commenter supported spanking and many made the “I turned out fine” claim. Anywhere you see adults treating children in a violent manner, you are bound to also find people making complimentary comments to the effect that they received the same treatment themselves as children and it taught them to respect their elders. Respect? I’d be curious to know what that means to them, since so many people cannot believe that giving respect to children engenders respectfulness from children.
I was discussing that heartbreaking thread with a friend who remarked:
I was ruminating on statements of erasure like that. And I wondered if it exists because it’s too painful to consider that they themselves were also mistreated.
Because to acknowledge someone’s pain means realizing you were maimed too.
Statements of erasure. She took my breath away. That’s exactly what people do when they suggest that the often unbearable pain one person experiences can’t be that bad if others survive it without obvious scars. What about the deep scars? The ones they deny. The ones they can’t accept. The ones that offer points of empathy and connection to others who shared the same experience?
Adults who defend spanking, and were spanked as children, openly admit that they tried to avoid being spanked. They know it hurt. Yet, they inflict the same uncomfortable experience on their kids. Not only that, they also vehemently defend their parents’ decision to spank them. Consider the following description:
[Children who will become adults who condone spanking] are placed in a situation where they feel intense fear of physical harm and believe all control is in the hands of their tormentor. The psychological response follows after a period of time and is a survival strategy for the victims. It includes sympathy and support for their [parents’] plight and may even manifest in negative feelings toward [advocates] who are trying to help [spanked children].
I admit I tweaked the wording with my own edits. This is actually a description of Stockholm Syndrome, a survival mechanism that manifests when people cannot escape their tormentors and find themselves becoming psychologically attached as a means of protection from harm. It is a form of trauma bonding and it is frighteningly similar to what happens to spanked children who become spankers as adults. These adults demand their “right” to hit their children in order to make them behave despite the fact that spanking not only doesn’t make children behave, it also increases the risk of negative behavioral, cognitive, psychosocial, and emotional outcomes for children. Spankers will say that can’t be true, because their children are wonderfully behaved. If spanking works, though, why do you have to spank a child more than once? Moreover, is the child really well behaved, or are they experiencing an instinctive survival response that makes them passive?
The evidence is clear that harsh treatment does maim kids. For instance, a 2009 study found reduced prefrontal cortical gray matter volume in young adults who had been exposed, as children, to occasional spanking with a paddle on the buttocks that neither resulted in injury nor was conducted in anger. To be clear, the area of their brains that was affected manages the abilities to 1) distinguish oneself from others, 2) see oneself in others, 3) empathize with others, 4) predict behavior in others, and 5) use logical judgment in interpreting behavior in others. You can imagine how incredibly detrimental such brain changes would be. And, there are millions upon millions of people who have been affected and may not even realize it. And, the scariest part for me is that there is no way to predict the effects spanking will have on a child. Why take the risk?
When a commenter in that spanking discussion I mentioned earlier was asked what spanking offered that other forms of punishment didn’t, she responded “immediacy.” People are willing to permanently damage their children’s brains to achieve immediate compliance even when they know what the evidence says. And, if you’re thinking that perhaps spanking without the use of an object is a better option, think again. The evidence is staggering that physical (e.g. spanking, calisthenics, etc.) and emotional (e.g. public shaming, belittling, etc.) violence harms kids.
The harsh treatment we felt was unfair as children was unfair. We didn’t deserve it and our parents were wrong for it. The fact that we (me included) have ever felt any different is the result of the gaslighting our culture does to kids. We’re all left believing a lie. Consider times your bad experiences have been minimized. Think back to those frustrating moments when you’ve been made to believe you were overreacting when you weren’t. That’s what our culture does to children every day. Our entire culture is childist, so it’s no surprise that so many of us are convinced that it’s normal to yell at and hit kids. After all, they can be irrational and we adults have to assert our authority over them… just like men did to women not that long ago and just like white people have long done to people of color. We’ve seen this kind of discrimination carried out before. It’s not new, but kids simply don’t have enough social capital to effect change on their own.
Who would we be if our parents had been gentle and respectful with us? What would society be as a whole? Here’s the saddest part. No one can possibly know who they might have been had their parents been gentle and respectful with them. What we do know is that respectful, responsive parenting approaches are evidence-based. They succeed with all children, because they account for eventualities. They succeed across neurotypes and other differences. Even kids with Oppositional Defiant Disorder [ODD is an questionable diagnosis. What I should have said here was “Even kids who experience significant behavioral struggles”…] find relief with peaceful techniques.
I have great empathy for parents. I know how stressful it is to be a mom with a unique set of challenges and others have so many more challenges. What some may see as judging parents, I see as protecting kids since kids are the ones affected by childism. I’m always speaking for the child’s perspective. The unfortunate truth is that no one who experiences violence in any form, be it yelling or spanking or whatever, comes out ok on the other side. We survive and can flourish, but we still carry those scars with us and they come out in unexpected ways, like losing patience with our own children. We fall back into the patterns we knew as children and those often become our parenting vices.
If you were treated harshly like me, you did not turn out fine. You survived… with scars. But, humans are extraordinary and resilient. We can turn challenge into promise through force of will and support by people who want to see us succeed. Now that you know, here’s the inevitable choice: continue the generational trauma, or choose a completely different path. The path I chose was Peaceful Parenting. You have to find your own path, though I do hope you find your way back to this blog! I would love to support you in your efforts to improve the lives of your kids.
I recently ran across this fantastic article in Psychology Today about nature versus nurture in child rearing. Robert Plomin Ph.D., dives into the research he presents in his book, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are.
What he has found is that our DNA is the driving force behind our psychology from personality to behavior. Your wonderfully sassy kid is probably genetically designed to be sassy. So strap in and hold on for this ride, because that kid isn’t going to change. (Keep that in mind when you’re feeling some type of way about your child’s “attitude.”)
He notes, for instance, that parents who read a lot to their children likely have children who enjoy being read to at a basic psychological level. So, when your mom friend starts bragging about reading 400 books to her daughter over the summer and asking you how many books you read to yours, don’t feel bad that your own daughter was too busy drawing to be bothered to sit for many stories. Your child’s personality is going to be very close to what it already was at conception, save for a major brain event.
On one hand, it’s freeing to know that all the experiences children encounter and process through the lens of their DNA help form their understanding of how the world works. Experiences are important and the field of epigenetics is informing us more every day about just how important they are. What we know for certain is that it’s crucial to develop a relationship with your child to find out their strengths and aptitudes and build on those. That sassy child I mentioned likely has heaps of natural confidence. Consider all the wonderful things they’ll be able to do, perhaps, in the public sphere. They may become an influencer or a politician. When you take note and support their interests, so many wonderful things will happen.
Peaceful Parenting offers the ideal framework and guidance to work with children’s different personalities and needs. It respects the essence of the child and is flexible enough to move with a child’s genetic tendencies without any of the rigidity that can stifle a child’s inborn potentiality.
As you prepare to burst through the gate of a brand new year, your thoughts may center on firm resolutions or even just some loose plans for changes you’d like to see in your life. If being a kinder parent is on your list, I have some comforting news for you. One single change can make all the difference in your efforts to embrace peace and gentleness.
It’s so simple, yet so difficult. It takes intention. It may result in a worldview shift and will likely foster in a positive outlook that can carry you through the toughest parenting challenges. If you have limited time and energy; if you’re overwhelmed at the rigors of peaceful parenting; if you’d hoped you’d have more of a handle on becoming a gentler you but trials and tribulations made your path rockier than you’d ever imagined… if you need help but you don’t know what to help to ask for, I encourage you to do this one, precious, small thing: Reframe.
Reframing is a psychological technique wherein you mentally stand up and move to a different location to see your situation from another, more positive (or at least neutral) perspective. I urge you to watch this incredible 10-minute TED Talk before moving on:
When I talk about reframing in the context of parenthood, I mean choosing to see difficult situations in a new light. As peaceful parents, we know that children do well when they can and, when they can’t, they need our help. Not our wrath. It’s so incredibly hard to honor our own emotions around frustrating incidents while affirming our children’s emotions at the same time. But, that’s what they need from us. In those moments when it becomes too much to bear, taking a breather is always a good decision. It is not a failure. It is self-consideration. When you’re ready to gain new perspective in those tough moments, prioritize empathy.
A friend of mine recently shared with me a difficult interaction she had with her young teenage daughter. The pair were engaged in a mother-daughter clothing battle over cleanliness with the teen wanting to wear her favorite hoodies over the course of several days and her mother wanting to get those hoodies washed and in good order. As we talked, my friend recognized that her daughter was likely associating comfort and safety with her favorite hoodies, which helped reduce her anxiety. So, there was likely a genuine need for her to keep those items close at hand. My friend mentioned that she was planning to get some more hoodies to give to her daughter for Christmas, and I suggested getting two of each, which would make four as gifts and six hoodies in total including the existing pieces. Six hoodies would easily get her daughter through a school week with plenty of time for washing. Once she stepped beyond the conflict, the solution became clear.
When you’re under stress, reframing can feel impossible. It just takes practice and a little ingenuity. Your goal is to view your child in a positive rather than a negative light. With an open mind, you can peer into your child’s heart and see just what’s needed.
I asked friends to share with me some of the most stressful behaviors their children exhibit. You know, the ones that trigger something deep inside that could explode into rage at any moment? Whew! I know that feeling. Let me pause here to say that no one – not me, not you, not anyone – is a machine. Some triggers simply touch too deep, and we do end up exploding. That’s not a fail. We’re human. No way to get around that. We apologize and keep trying. And, that’s what makes us peaceful parents. With that said, I’ll note some of the behaviors that seem to really set folks off.
Aggression
Children, especially very young ones, seem to be prone to using their bodies to communicate displeasure. They may hit, bite, kick, spit, and scratch, all of which can be extremely upsetting to the adults receiving this inappropriate treatment. It’s especially infuriating when our children hurt each other, especially when it’s an older, larger sibling beating up on a smaller one. Those interactions feel an awful lot like bullying, and that’s something many of us cannot tolerate.
Children use aggression when they don’t have adequate words to express their emotions and when they’ve reached a breaking point. There are certainly cases where some children are violent due to physiological or psychological differences, but most children will lash out at one time or another. This form of communication typically peaks around age 2, but can be present throughout childhood as a child’s (including teens) brain is working primarily off emotion and not logic.
Destruction
It’s rough when “I won’t let you hit the dog” triggers a toypocalypse as your child slams all her toys onto the floor in a rage. As adults, we know the financial costs involved with destruction. Just walking through the doors of an emergency room costs several hundred dollars to start. That nice dollhouse Aunt Beverly gave your kids last Christmas? $150 down the drain as it becomes the object of a Godzilla-scale attack by a very angry little boy.
There are reasons not to get too caught up in the value of things when your child’s emotional health is on the line, but all the reasoning in the world won’t relieve the fire that burns in your gut when you see your child tearing up their belongings.
Defiance
As peaceful parents, we want to be countercultural… to view strong responses from our children as natural and healthy. But, there is just something unsettling about a child blatantly doing something we’ve said not to, refusing to eat, throwing food on the floor, and the like. It hits deep and activates our conditioning to view children as subservient and ourselves as singularly worth of respect. Even the calmest among us have a breaking point where we get so fed up, we lash out.
The Reframe
Here’s how it works. When your child does something that sends you right over the proverbial cliff, stop for a moment and recognize that there is an answer. You CAN find a solution! Breathe. Slow down. Look at your child. What’s really happening? If your child is acting in a way that disconnects them from their social group – which is totally contrary to who we are as humans – recognize that there’s a barrier your child can’t overcome no matter how disciplined they might or might not be. Your task is to figure out what that barrier is and guide your child to the solution.
Give reframing a go! Make this your New Year’s Resolution. Once you start to see through the behavior to the need, gentleness will naturally follow. And, if you need guidance to figure out how to support your child through particularly challenging behaviors, I’ll be here all year to help.
That friend I mentioned earlier graciously previewed this post for me. Coincidentally, at the same time, her young son was experiencing a crisis. He had been playing a video game, when he began crying and saying he hated everything. Initially, his father considered taking video games away altogether, but my friend read this post to him and encouraged him to wait. While their son took a breather, they brainstormed why he was acting that way.
Once they put it all together, they realized he had gotten upset when he couldn’t progress past a certain point in the game. My friend’s husband checked the settings and realized they were at a level that was far too difficult for a little boy. After adjusting the difficulty to a more age-appropriate level, he invited his son back in to enjoy a fun father-son game together. The solution was there all along! There is always an answer. You’ve just got to find it.
Several weeks ago, a friend told me this story about an interaction between her tween son and her mother. Since many of us are gearing up for big family events tomorrow, this topic is something worth thinking about. My friend, a 30-something-year-old Black mother of two in Texas, had this to say:
So today she apparently asked my 12 yr old if he could help her get 2 gallons of water from her car and he said no. She came to snitch and I’m sure was trying to embarrass him and I just said “I’ll help you.” He seemed annoyed she interrupted our conversation to tell me that. My family has no respect for children. I honestly assumed he didn’t feel like it. He had just gotten home and rode his bike from school today and he was getting his snack together. I wouldn’t want to stop preparing food to get water either when it can wait. It wasn’t perishable food she was asking for help with but it honestly didn’t matter to me. I teach them ‘you can always ask but sometimes the answer is no.’
She explained further that there is some background between her son and her mother. It seems she oversteps her bounds and tries to impose her ideology on the children. My friend’s son receives her actions as judgmental. When she asked “Do you want to help me with something?” he answered literally “No” because he was busy.
I can almost see the pearl-clutching! I come from a very Southern, very authoritarian background where adults owned all rights to the labor of children and children had no right to refuse. It was considered the height of rudeness and deserving of quite a spanking. I’ll grant that a young boy who had the strength to ride his bike all the way home from school surely has the strength to go outside to grab a couple gallons of water. Plus, it’s perceived as rude not to be considerate of an elderly relative’s wishes.
Before we had our children, Peaceful Dad and I created family guidelines, and one of those guidelines is “We always choose to help.” We teach our children that we are the heart and hands of Christ to our world. We help out of love. Not obligation. And never because someone wants to assert a flawed belief that my children should be subordinate. I don’t entertain discussing my kids negatively like this grandmother did, no matter who the adult is. I will always ask the adult to speak directly to my child if there’s been a problem. I can be there for moral support, but my child needs to be part of the conversation.
Had this scenario happened in my house, I probably would have broached the topic with my son to understand his perspective while affirming that no one is obligated to help anyone. I would want my son to know that there are relationship consequences for refusing a request for help, particularly since there exists a social expectation that children are to serve adults. This is something children need to be aware of, and it’s something worth discussing as we guide our children through the trials of childism.
Her entitlement was completely inappropriate. No one has a right to anyone else’s labor. I imagine my friend’s son would have graciously agreed had his grandmother asked, “When you finish eating your snack, would mind helping me get some gallons of water out of my car?” So, let’s flip this around. Is it not also rude of an adult, knowing this child was tired and hungry, to demand assistance with a non-urgent matter while the child is in the middle of making himself something to help him recover from his long day and his long ride? Could the request not have been made in a more understanding and compassionate way wherein both of their needs could have been met?
The trouble here is that, for many adults, the outcome isn’t as important as the interaction. They say they like seeing kind, cooperative, and respectful children, but what they really expect is deference and obedience.
That’s childism!
Rudeness is a matter of perception. In this case, the requester ultimately got the help she was requesting, so the problem was solved. I don’t want to suggest that kids be encouraged to break social “rules” for the sake of being controversial. I think it’s important for children to be aware of expectations and cultural consequences. But, at the same time, we also need to be holding adults accountable for how they interact with kids, and we need to instill self-confidence and self-worth in our kids so that they know how to navigate social expectations with grace and wisdom.
If a child is uncomfortable with a request being made of them, we can be there to help guide the conversation. Otherwise, we can give kids room to work out their own relationships and support them in upholding boundaries… even with elderly relatives. And, even at big family events.
I asked my friend what had changed since her own childhood that caused her to support her son in his interaction with her mother. She said:
In the past I would have felt pressured into forcing him to do something he didn’t want to do. When my daughter came along I realized that I was raising my kids differently than I was raised and than the kids in my family were being raised. One day my grandma asked my 1 year old for a hug at easter and my nephew who was about 4 said she “don’t do hugs.” My granny said “I don’t care, come give me a hug girl!” It was right then that I was like “oh hell no!” She is not about to force herself onto my child and traumatize her and then leave me with the job of cleaning up. So I stopped her in that moment and said “we don’t force physical contact on people,” and I looked at my daughter and said “can you wave bye bye to granny?” And she didn’t do that either and I said “maybe next time” and shrugged it off. That’s when I started looking into ways to fend off my pushy relatives because I knew there would be more situations like these in the future.
I went from spanking my son to not believing it was necessary I hardly ever took my kids out during nap time or would leave when they got tired because they just slept better at home and to prevent putting them in situations where they were over tired and would act out. Long ago, I decided that just because something is the way we’ve always done it, that doesn’t mean it’s not wrong.
Just because something is the way we’ve always done it, that doesn’t mean it’s not wrong. That is an entire lesson right there on its own! We can teach our children how to say, “I’m busy right now, but I’ll be with you as soon as I finish.” We can foster relationships in our children’s lives that meet their needs and those of the adults they care about. When the challenge in a child’s life is a social expectation, let’s allow genuineness and honesty to win out. It’s ok for children to say “not now” or even “no” to adults. Unclutch those pearls!
So, how do you instill a sense of selflessness in your kids? How do you foster the development of a human who enjoys being helpful whenever possible? I’m sure there are many ways families are doing this every day (and I’d love to hear from you in the comments!) I’ll mention one of the ways that has been invaluable for my family. We include our children in our everyday lives. Sounds pretty simple, but it takes planning and patience. It can be difficult to allow kids to help in their own developmentally appropriate ways. It’s messy and time consuming, but it is wonderfully affirming for your child! If you’d like to try it out, the key is to resist the urge to do things for your children. Don’t take over. If you want to insert yourself into the activity, help out! Demonstrate by modeling what’s expected. Openly speak with your child about the expected outcome, step by step. Children don’t know the process to get to an end result until they learn it. For example, including children in putting laundry away might look something like this:
Parent invites the child to help
Child accepts
Parent quickly explains what’s about to happen – “We’re going to take the clothes out of this laundry basket, fold them neatly, put them back into the basket, and then put them into their drawers. I’ll help you!”
Parent demonstrates how to fold an item of clothing and hands some clothes to the child
Parent and child go through the steps together
Many children will likely not be able to fold to an adult’s expectation, be able to open drawers and sort, and the like. Some direction is helpful, but allowing the child to try and accepting their effort as is goes a long way to instilling a love of helping in a child. And, start young. Thank your infant for helping you pick up toys even if it becomes a game. There are so many ways to include and appreciate kids. You and your child will figure it out together.
PEACE I GIVE 