My Goal is Not "Well Behaved"

It has taken 6 years as a parent for it to finally sink in my brain that my goal in parenting is not about turning out well behaved people.  It has probably taken this long for me to fully realize because our culture often pressures us for our children to be well behaved. It is not just outward pressures we feel but our own inward pressures also. What parent doesn’t want well behaved children? We all want that. Well behaved has its importance, but it is not my ultimate goal.

Dr Tim Kimmel states in his book Grace Based Parenting that “The real test of a parenting model is how well equipped the children are to move into adulthood as vital members of the human race.”

In other words, my objective in this parenting journey is about raising mature children, not just well behaved children. Right now my young ones are not always able to manage, regulate, or govern their own actions. Therefore my job as a parent is to step in along side them and help them (through teaching/disciplining them and guiding them) until they come to the place where they have acquired the ability to manage their actions on their own. If someone is mature, most likely they will be well behaved, or at least able to make restitution for the times they do mess up. But a well behaved person on the outside unfortunately does not always equal a mature person on the inside.  

Realizing the difference between these 2 goals and establishing which one really is my aim makes a big difference in HOW I will parent my children.

When my goal is “well behaved” my patience runs thin and l become more easily upset about all the small, age-expectant behaviors they do. I might at times set standards for my children that are too high and which only sets them up for failure. I will find myself reacting to their behavior instead of responding.  I become focused on the present and I fear the future because I might believe it when people tell me they may ALWAYS or NEVER do X,Y, or Z. If I think too long on these "always/never" statements I might start believing them and become afraid of what my children might be like when they get older. If they are not well behaved at age 4 how will they ever be well behaved at age 14? With this mindset I might start implimenting more punitive approaches to assure myself this will not happen to MY child.

On the other hand, when my goal is maturity I find myself with the patience and understanding that they will not “always” behave like they are in a certain given moment. I will set age appropriate standards that set them up for success.  I am able to respond to their needs instead of reacting to their behavior. I am able to walk through situations with them, no matter how long it takes or how much repetition they need. When my goal is maturity I get to see the inner discipline that takes place as the fruit of all my labor and teaching. I watch them go from not being able to manage something on their own to a place where they are able to handle it all by themselves. I do not fear their future with every little mishap but instead I look forward to the person they are to become as they grow out of one certain pattern/behavior and into the next stage of life. I can smile because I know I will be proud of what my Children will be when they grow up.

What is your goal in parenting? Are you aiming for well behaved? Or are you aiming to mature your children? How does this effect the way you parent them? Think about it....and feel free to discuss in the comments below.

 

 

“Family Gets the Best”

          Yesterday morning started out rough. My son did not want to get ready for school. At times he spoke disrespectfully to me as I was telling him what he needed to do to get ready. We have a rule in our house that “Family gets the best or no one gets the rest.”  I decided that the way our morning was going it was time to implement that rule which meant that when he got home from school that afternoon he would not be allowed to play with his neighborhood friends. Family was not getting the best, so no one was getting the rest.

            Let me be honest and say that it would have been very easy to take that rule and use it as some sort of back-end parenting to attempt to whip him into behaving the way I wanted him to. I would be lying if I said that was never a temptation. Even though as Grace-Based Parents we have stepped out of the whole Punishments/Rewards paradigm, I cannot say that there is still not something within me that wants to use consequences at times as a way to “give him what he deserves” or as a way to assert some sort of controlling behavior modification to get him to do what I want. However, that is just my surface, human, knee-jerk reaction to his behavior. If I stop and search deeper in my heart I know that is NOT how I want to be raising my children. So as he spent his day in school (quickly forgetting already what happened that morning, as kids do) I spent much of my morning thinking and praying about how to take our miserable morning and turn it into something for good.

            The first thing I decided was that some changes needed to be made to our morning routine. Since I am the parent I also realized that those changes really needed to start with ME. So I started by making a commitment to myself, as well as my children, that I would make some adjustments to the way I started out MY morning. I also told my husband that although our son would be staying home after school and not playing with his friends, I didn’t want it to be a punishment but I
really wanted ALL of us to make an effort to focus on family. So that is what we did. My husband and I chose to set aside our own personal “to do” lists and give extra special focus and attention to our children. We let them run around the backyard and get some big energy out. We made sure they were properly feed at a decent hour for dinner. We made sure homework was done way before the final moments of the day so that we could also have some time playing a family game together. While the girls had their bath I sat side by side with my son and he helped me plan our new morning routine chart. I told him about the changes I was going to make and then I let him help make decisions about the changes he needed to make. We then got ready for bed and snuggled down on the couch together for some Dr. Seuss books since it was Dr. Seuss' birthday. When the time came for me to tuck my son in bed it suddenly dawned on me that not once that whole afternoon/evening had I heard him and his sister fighting (something that is usually a common occurrence in our house) Wow, amazing!

This then led me to reflect even more on the wonderful evening we had had together. What would have happened if I had given in to the temptation to use his consequence as a punishment? What would the evening have looked like if we would have made him stew over the fact that he could not go play with his friends while the rest of us went about our own personal business for the evening. How very different our evening would have been if we would have decided to  add
that little bit of “extra” that we as humans seem to think will somehow makes us feel like better parents but in reality does nothing in the long run to really teach our children, or make us truly feel any better.

 Was my son happy about the fact that he could not play with his friends after school? Of course not. He had a few big feelings over the fact we were sticking to our word and not changing our minds. Did he ask us several times if he could still “please, please, please” go play with them? Yes. Was it easy for him? No. But I did NOT have to add something extra, I did not have to make sure he was suffering in order for him to learn. In fact I did the opposite. I made sure our family had one of the BEST evenings we had had together in a long time. I made sure we loved on each other and enjoyed one another. I made sure that Family really honestly “Got the Best.”  And what did we get in return? A valuable evening filled with fun, laughter, forgiveness, grace, relationship, FAMILY. This is something a punishment would never have given any of us. This was more than valuable, it was priceless.

Yesterday morning started out rough, but today, today we started a new day.

I'm Back, I Think....

I know it's been several months since I've posted a blog. I think if there is one thing I have learned for sure in parenting is that when you get into a routine and think you've got everything set in stone another child grows into a new stage of life and everything changes. This is what happened to me this fall/winter. My son went to school, everything was all set as I had more time then I had had in 5 years, and then the baby started crawling and my life became full of redirecting a very mobile baby who loved to put everything she found off the floor into her mouth. She still keeps me busy but I am really hoping to get into blogging again. I have spent some time trying to give the blog a new look and things still might continue to change as far as that goes. I can't promise anything as far as being a regular blogger. I just never know with 3 young ones. Life is like a whirlwind this stage of life. What I do think I can promise you is at least one more blog post I am working on today. And from there I'll just take it step by step. Hope you don't mind taking it step by step with me.

Getting to the Heart of Things

I have had a blog post stirring in my head for several days now, but it seemed that every time I was inspired I was away from the computer, and every time I sat down to write, the inspiration would leave me. Today, as I sit in my warm house, clutching my hot cup of coffee and listen to the cold, wet rain outside, it seems as good a time as any to try again.

When I first began using Grace-Based Discipline (GBD) as a means to raising my children I was met with a lot of resistance from most people around me. I know many of them had good intentions. I know they probably thought that since I was so new to motherhood perhaps I didn’t really understand the choices I was making. Since it is believed by some that not spanking your children is what is wrong with this world, that not spanking equals permissiveness, and that not spanking means you will raise a hooligan, they most likely thought I wasn’t looking far enough ahead at the effects it could have, or not have, on my children. Whatever their intentions were it was hard, and sometimes very hurtful, to have to listen to some of their advice. I was told many various things by different people, from “You are not controlling your son, he is controlling you.” to “You will not be able to take him out in public if you do not use a switch on him.” I was even given Bible verses trying to insinuate to me that I do not really love him if I do not spank him (via Proverbs 13:24)

Since at that time I was new to GBD I admit that I was far from a perfect parent. There are definitely some things that, knowing what I know now, I would go back and do differently.  I was just beginning to gather new parenting tools and still had many questions about how to parent my high needs, super persistent, ever energetic child.  Not an easy thing to do when you are also feeling pressured to have to prove to people that you really do discipline even though your idea of discipline looks nothing like their idea of discipline. It was hard knowing that often times I was being judged by my son's behavior. I feared that a meltdown in public meant to people around me not that my child was hungry and needed food, or tired and needed a nap, but that it meant to them that I wasn’t a good parent.  So I have to admit that my reaction to my son's public display of big feelings and my way of parenting him sometimes in those situations would be out of that fear of what other people are thinking and out of the need to prove to the glaring eyes around me that “Yes, I promise! I really AM a good parent!” But that sort of parenting is not disciplining, not at all.

As time and years have gone by I have gained more confidence in my parenting ability. It has become a little easier to ignore the outside pressures when my children display their emotions in public. However, I can’t say I am always at the place of not caring what other people think. There are times I still want to prove I am a good parent even though it may look like I am not.  But Crystal Lutton, author of Biblical Parenting and Grace-Based Living, said something recently on a message board we are on that has had me thinking a lot about the importance of fully getting over these issues so that I can get back to the heart of GBD and be able to effectively discipline my children in public.

I have Crystal’s permission to share what she wrote:

“So discipline means to teach; and parenting is about guiding your child into adulthood.

Permissive is about the absence of either goal.

If you have goals like "looking good to others", "having X's approval", "being perfect", "requiring X, Y or Z because it will be done my way", etc. you will be punitive.

If you have goals like "never upset child", or "be my child's bff", or "keep the peace" you will be permissive.

If we set the wrong goal in a situation we will slide into punitive or permissive. The child is melting down for a reason--that reason is the issue, the melting down is the symptom. It is what alerts us to the problem so that we can try to treat it. If we treat only the symptom we will become punitive/permissive based on our personal tendency--or based on the situation.”

Because my personal tendency at times can be to “save face” (my own, not my child’s) when in a public situation it could be easier at times to slip into a more punitive mindset and try to treat my child’s symptom,the meltdown,  instead of going deeper to the root issue or the actual reason he/she is melting down. Without going deeper to that root issue, I am actually leaving the Discipline out, which is quite ironic for a situation where I think I am trying to prove that I really do discipline.  Ouch.

Crystal went on to state that:

When I remember that my responsibility is to teach to the real need in the situation--to treat the problem and not the symptom, I can ignore the tantrum once it has accomplished it's purpose (alerted me to a problem) and begin to discover and address the problem.

I thought Crystal's explanation of what she does when her children meltdown in public was worth adding in here as well. First she talks about creating a safe place for them which means:

removing them and myself from the public eye, both because other people do not deserve to have to endure the meltdown AND because my child needs their dignity preserved and when they are through the meltdown they are often embarrassed.

I take a melting down child out of the watchful eye of others if I can--or, if the group is safe, I apologize for my child's meltdown and then focus my attention on my child.

Then I speak to the emotional level of the child--validate the feelings that are very real, seek to understand the why behind the meltdown, try to help them regain balance. When the child is through the meltdown they will become their own advocate and be able to give me information, or often fix the problem themselves.

We talk about how to say it next time, or how to do what was frustrating them, and often how to get our big feelings out in a more socially acceptable and productive way.

If the child needs help learning WHAT to do about the situation that frustrated them, then we problem solve together and I either tell them or walk them through figuring it out depending on the child and the abilities and the personality, etc. Then the next time I can remind them what they wanted to do when this happened again.

If they need information, I give it.

If they need strategies, we work them out.

And THEN if they need to make amends to anyone for how they responded this time, we move to that place of healing relationship. Once they are through it all and to the other side we wrap things up with this. I believe this is VITAL and seek to NEVER leave it off.

When I read this post by Crystal it made so much sense to me and was another *a-ha!* moment of being reminded again about what GBD really is. I have felt a personal conviction that my fear of what others are thinking and my "saving face" is something I HAVE to get over, otherwise I do a disservice to my children by not truely discipling them when we are in public. I cannot seek to just silence the symptom so that I look like a good parent to other people. I have to go deeper than that. Grasping this paradigm shift once again is why I love GBD so much and why I see so much fruit from it.  True Grace-Based Discipline always bypasses what is on the surface and goes to the very heart of the issue to teach a child. It is why I also so firmly believe that a child does not need pain in order to learn something. 

Pain and Discipline, that is another post I have been thinking on. But the rain is slowing down and I am on my second cup of coffee which is already getting cold. I will save that deeper issue perhaps for another rainy day.

Monday Morning

Monday mornings can hold a variety of emotions as we recover from the various experiences that the weekend brought our way. This monday morning, after the frenzy of getting my son ready and off to school, I sit down with a sigh of relief and prepare to clean the house from this weekends whirlwind of constant noise and motion. As I reflect why my life held such constant noise and motion, I let loose the tears and grieve.

I mentioned in my first post that I am the mom of a special needs child. My son has so far only been officially diagnosed with SPD and is also being treated for anxiety issues that stem from OCD. I have been on a tiresome and frustrating journey for a couple years now seeking to have him fully evaluated to get him the help he needs. I have been told by one of his doctors that I just have a "difficult child." I have been told he is just "jealous of his baby sister." I have been told "We won't evaluate for that until he is 7." I have been brushed off and ignored even though I am the mom that, until he started school, has been with him 24-7 and I know the things I see sometimes are just not normal.

If he was just a "difficult child" then why do I relate so much when I see shows like Parenthood and I see the little boy Max and think "OMG, he is just like my son!" Why is it that I can relate so much to what Max's parents go through with him? Why when I read stories of what other families with children with Autism go through can I nod my head and go "Yep, that's us, I can completely understand!"

Someone recently made a good point to me that "if he was just a 'difficult child' why is he not like that all the time? A difficult child would *always* behave like that, and he is not always like that."

No, he is not. Most of the time he is an amazing, terrific, fun-loving, gentle, curious, sensitive, artistic, humorous little boy. But he has what I call "triggers." It could be something he eats, it could be he is hungry, it could be something I have yet to figure out, but when he is triggered there is a transformation that occurs. It is heartwrenching and grueling to watch sometimes and frankly I am at the point of being beyond mad at whatever this is that keeps stealing my son away from me. For those that have parented a child like this, you understand.

This weekend was one of those weekends where he seemed to be constantly triggered. So instead of communicating with words, he speaks to me through noises. Instead of using his imagination to play, he roars and growls out the aggression and anxiety built up inside. I was lucky though that this weekend we did not have to deal with the rage.

Recently we had his blood tested to see if he has low blood sugar or lead. This morning the doctor's office called back to say that everything came back normal. So I march on. As his mother I am determined to get to the bottom of this and get him, and us, the help we need. I am not the only one to recognize something is going on. His teacher has seen it now too and has been gracious enough to offer writing a journal for us to give to the Doctor. Maybe now he will listen to me. Either way, I know that the journey ahead of us is still a long one.

So today, after taking sometime to reflect on this weekend and mourn what we are going through, I will pick up my house and pick up the broken pieces of my heart. I will march on and I will call the Doctor and, not ask, but tell him we need an evaluation. And when my son gets off the bus this afternoon I will give him a big long hug. Because he is one amazing little guy and I love him so dearly.

What Grace Means To Me

This is an edited version of a note I once wrote on facebook. I thought it was worth reposting here.

It is no secret to most of you that in our home we do not promote or practice the typical Christian means of disciplining. We are of a minority of Christian believers who spare the literal rod (though not the figurative one) and instead use what’s been coined as Grace-Based Discipline also known as GBD.

When one becomes a parent, they quickly learn that there are many parenting styles and choices out there. However most parenting philosophies typically fall somewhere on a line between one of two extremes: punitive or permissive. Having a punitive parenting style is having one that “aims to inflict punishment.” It is a form of behavior modification, attempting to make the child feel bad so that they won’t perform the behavior again. Permissive parenting on the other hand is accepting and allowing a behavior to happen over and over and over again. This can be seen in the common parenting style called “Taking Children Seriously” or TCS.

I think a common misconception of GBD is that it falls on the permissive side of parenting. There is somehow this misunderstanding that “Grace” = “Permissive” and that if you are applying Grace-Based Discipline to your child you must be a permissive parent. But if Grace is permissive, than this would mean God is permissive. Is God permissive? If not, than what *is* grace?

The most common definition of grace that we hear is “unmerited favor.” This is a very true definition of grace as we all know that none of us deserve, nor could we ever earn, the love, favor, mercy, grace and acceptance that we have from our Heavenly Father. However, I want to take the concept of grace a step farther and explain some of what I have learned in my parenting journey.

GBD has many handy tools to use as parents. One of them being The 5 Steps. If you read the link you will see that Step 3 and Step 4 are “Offer Help” and “Help.” It is within this parenting tool that I gained a revelation and began to understand a new meaning to Grace. See Grace is not just letting someone do something over and over and over again and forgiving it. Grace is setting a standard, and when that person cannot reach that standard, it is stepping in and helping them to reach that standard. This is exactly how I see God’s grace. God had a standard of Righteousness that not one of us could reach. In order for us to attain this standard He had to send us help by becoming flesh and dying and shedding his blood for us. His grace gave us the ability to achieve Righteousness before God when we had no ability to do that.

God extends this same kind of grace to me everyday. When He sets a standard in my life, usually it is something too high for me to attain on my own. It is only because “His grace is sufficient for me,” and it is only because “His power is made perfect in my weakness” that I can ever live up to the godly standards that He sets. I could never do these things on my own. I remember one time when God had prompted me to approach someone and ask them to forgive me for a wrong I had done them– a very humbling and scary thing to do. My first reaction was to resist this urge and ignore it. If God’s Grace was permissive, He would have allowed me to keep ignoring what He really wanted me to do. But God’s Grace is NOT permissive. Instead God 5- stepped me. I heard a still small voice say “Can you do this or do you need some help?” My reply to Him “I need help!” Suddenly the grace of God filled me and gave me the strength to do what I did not have the strength to do before. That my friends, to me, is the true meaning of God’s Grace! It is not wimpy and permissive. It is strong and bold and freeing! God’s grace enables the alcoholic and drug addict to be free from their addictions! God’s grace enables the person so bound by their anger to reach out and offer mercy instead of wrath. God’s grace frees us from our sins and sets us to a higher standard. God’s grace is “unmerited favor” to mold and shape us to be more like Christ when we have nothing within us that would be Christ-like. And this is how I choose to parent my children: to offer grace, to offer help, when they cannot reach standards that we have set for them. It is NOT allowing them to continue their destructive behavior, but true Grace-Based discipline is teaching, modeling, and offering help when a child cannot do it on their own for whatever reason. It is extending to these little people what God extends to me.

Embracing Motherhood

Most everyone who enters the realm of parenthood experiences the raw reality and hard transition of going from an independent, self-sufficient adult to suddenly having a small human who relies on you 24/7. Being able to do what I want, when I want to suddenly now being hindered at my ability to go certain places, or even the time it might take for me to get to those places, meant that though motherhood came quite naturally to me in some ways, in other ways it took some getting use to.

A friend once asked me "When were you able to fully accept your role as a mother?"
I could actually tell you the exact time and date that it happened. It was a moment of realization I will never forget. My firstborn son was 18mo old at that time. Having taken a course on Childhood Developement before we were married, my husband and I had decided that we would not spank our children. However, when my little guy became mobile we fell into the societal norm of the common "hand slap" to try to "teach" him not to touch things. Only my son is so persisitant that this did not "work" for him. So what do you do? keep slapping him? slap harder? My heart broke that we were even doing this to him and I felt a strong conviction to stop. But then we were left with "Well, but then what DO we do?" How do we teach him not to touch things?" We had no other tools in our parenting belt and we were feeling rather flustered in our skills.

Then one evening I found GentleChristianMothers. I clicked on the Articles and Resources and began reading and reading and reading. I could not get enough of it. I read so many articles that night and into the next several days that I couldn't tell you anymore which one it was exactly that made the most impact. But as I was reading one of the articles a mom was sharing how "discipline" can mean "to teach, to train, or to instruct" and how we can do this all the time! She shared how telling her kids that "cars are dangerous and can smash you just like that leaf in the road" was a form of discipline. Suddenly I had the most amazing "Ah ha!" moment. THIS is what motherhood is all about. THIS is what I am home with my kids for. To discipline them, to take *every one* of life's moments and use it to teach them about something. This was the moment of embrace for me. It was the moment I was suddenly able not to care what all my single friends were off doing. I had vision. I had a purpose for this season of life and I was excited about it!

4 years and two more kids later I can tell you that this vision has not changed. In fact it has grown. I have been delighted over and over to watch the fruit of my labor. My kids are not prefect. My kids are like any other young children in that they get tired or hungry and melt down and have fits and all the other wonderful things that come with having immature little people in your life. But I have stepped outside the mindset of viewing discipline as "punishment." Instead, Discipline is what I do 24/7  365.

I wouldn't have it any other way.