As seems to often be the case, I seem to either have lots to write about, and little time to actually write, or lots of time to write but not much to say! This time, I have tons to write about, including several excursions, a couple attempts at homemade mayo, good friends/family visiting, Fiona being mostly out of diapers, and lots more. I’ll try to get some posts and pictures up in the next little bit!

Related posts:

1. Change
2. A video & an addendum
3. Cushy Bottoms

They were really nice girls. Friendly to me, sweet to Meredith, smiling at Fiona. As we talked and I listened to them talk though, it became obvious that they were supposed to be in class. Eventually, one of the girls mentioned they should get going, and they started discussing what they were going to tell the teacher about why they were late. It didn’t sound like this was a rare occurrence. I said, only half-jokingly, “You should tell him it’s way too nice a day to be stuck inside a classroom.” They sort of laughed, and one of them asked “Would you buy that if you were a teacher?” I told them that if I was a teacher, my class would be outside on a day like today. They laughed again (must have thought I was joking ), and then we said good bye and went our separate ways.

I felt a bit sad as I watched them walk away. Not just because they would be stuck inside for the rest of the day when they’d obviously much rather be outside. But because of the fear and nervousness they obviously felt about the consequences of being late. It made me wonder if they were the “bad kids”. The ones the teachers shake their heads about and whose parents are at their wit’s ends. It reminded me of this fantastic post by Single Dad Laughing. I wonder if their parents know how friendly and happy their daughters really are, or if they’re labeled as sullen, disrespectful, and inconsiderate.

I might be reading too much into this one particular situation, but I know it happens, and probably a lot, that teenagers aren’t given a fair chance by their teachers and parents. One of my best friends for a while in junior high was a girl (I’ll call her T) who was part of the popular crowd. She did drugs, skipped school, and every other stereotypical thing you can think of that “bad” kids do. I was a bit of a loner, got good grades, didn’t have a lot of friends. But one day she started talking to me, and we somehow became friends. I’m sure my parents wondered how I’d ended up friends with someone like her, but she was a great friend to me (better by far than some of my other “friends” at the time). I learned that her dad had left long ago and her mom pretty much ignored her for a string of abusive boyfriends. Teachers automatically assumed she was bad and she saw no reason to try and change their minds. She asked me once if I was even curious about drugs, and we had a bit of a conversation about it, but other than that one time it never came up and she was very respectful of my choice not to smoke or drink or do drugs.

She would often leave her “cooler” friends to come and sit and chat with me. I’m sure she got bugged for it by her other friends but she didn’t seem to care. We paired up for more than a few projects, and though at first I was cautious as I never liked to do group projects (I was a perfectionist and tended to end up doing most of the work), I was surprised at how smart she really was and how much of the work she was willing to take on. We had an English teacher who was pretty amazing, and who found a note T passed with a poem written on it and rather than getting mad she told my friend how much she enjoyed her poetry and asked her if she would write more. T flourished in that class, was getting great grades, and seemed to actually be enjoying school. Then our teacher got a job offer to become principal in another school and T’s new-found interest lasted all of two weeks before the new teacher quashed it. We ended up losing touch after going to different high schools, but I often wonder what became of her.

I’ve found similar things with my toddlers too. People often expect that children have bad intentions or are trying to be manipulative, when in reality they are being normal two year olds or three year olds exploring their influence on the world around them. If you always assume the worst of them regardless, why should they bother trying to be anything but. I hope that in assuming good intentions of my children and enjoying them as they are rather than wishing they were someone else, that I will be able to enjoy them as teenagers the same way I enjoyed Meredith through the “terrible twos and threes.” I wish that more parents were able to step back and see their children and teens for the wonderful people they probably are.

Related posts:

1. Homeschool Math
2. Unschool vs School
3. Learning Through Living

Big laundry sinks are useful for more than just laundry!

No related posts.

I think I should explain what it means to me when I use the term. I like this definition from consensual-living.com:

Consensual living is a process, a philosophy, a mindset by which we seek to live in harmony with our families and community. It involves finding mutually agreed upon solutions, where the needs of both parties are not only considered but addressed. Everyone’s wants and needs are equally valid, regardless of age. Conflicting wants or needs are discussed and mutually agreeable solutions are created or negotiated which meet the underlying needs of all parties.

Consensual Living is broad and far reaching. It influences the way we interact with everyone, from our immediate families to our community and the world at large. It is about assigning positive intent and looking for solutions. This can apply in so many arenas. It can change interactions, even if they are historically adversarial.

I especially like the line about assigning positive intent. Instead of going into a situation with an adversarial attitude, which can set you up for power struggles and arguments, you go in with the assumption that all parties want to find a solution that makes everyone happy.

Consensual living means honouring each person as an individual with their own needs and wants, and not implying that any one person is more important because they are older, bigger, or make more money. It means being creative and looking at a situation from another point of view. Conversely, it means the parent’s needs are taken into account too. It is not a child-centered way of living, it is family centered.

This is very important and I think part of the reason consensual living often gets mixed up with passive parenting or child-led living is because it is sometimes easy to forget that my needs are just as important as hers! If I’m always giving in to my needs for her, than it is not consensual and is a good way to start feeling like a martyr mom and create resentment. And of course, I do have more life experience than her and it’s unrealistic to expect that she can or should make all her own decisions at the tender age of two.

From Counselling Resource:

It is a big leap of faith, or rather trust, that a mutually agreeable solution is always possible. In theory we might even agree, but when developmental stages come into play and we have a toddler being extremely forthright about their needs at the expense of everyone else’s, it is a lot harder. We need to take a deep breath, jump, and be creative. Trust that other people have input which is just as useful as yours, experience that is just as relevant to the situation, which is after all being created by everyone together. Letting go of the attitude of having to be in control, and of having to be right (while not losing the responsibility for the physical safety of the younger ones) frees a tremendous amount of energy for joy, connection and finding solutions.

It also means recognizing age-appropriate behaviour and behaviours that occur because a child is hungry, tired, frustrated, etc.

Age-appropriate behaviour is behaviour that is caused because a child is not old enough to control his or her impulses or doesn’t know another way to react to a situation. One example that comes up a lot is children in restaurants. I know people who are fond of bragging about how they used to make all their children sit still through all meals at home (even if it meant tying them into high chairs against their will) so when they went out to restaurants the children would sit still there and the parents would get lots of praise about how good their children are. Kris and I don’t always eat at the dinner table, and if I’m bored or was in the middle of something before dinner, I will often get up before he’s done to go finish up. More often, we will get to talking and we will sit chatting long after dinner is done. Is it realistic to expect children to happily sit at the table every single meal even if they’re not part of the conversation? How often do these parents who force their children to sit at the table while eating with guests or friends attempt to include the children in the conversation?

Now don’t get me wrong. I used to work as a server. I know how annoying it can be for children to be running around screaming, and how dangerous it is since it’s very hard to see someone three feet tall under your feet when you’re carrying a pot of hot coffee or a tray full of hot plates. And it was surprising how many parents seemed to expect that I should be baby-sitting their children while they sat and enjoyed coffee with their friends. Plus, to me, consensual living is about respecting and living consensually with everyone around you, strangers or no.  But is there a happy medium between forcing children to sit still long before they find it easy or letting them run around disturbing other customers?

There are a lot of different options in this situation. I’ll list a few, but ten different people might come up with ten different scenarios that would work. One of the best things about consensual living, in my opinion, is that you can come up with all sorts of creative solutions that fit you and your family. It is not a one-size-fits-all method of parenting; what might work great for one family may not be an option for another family.

In the example above, one of the most obvious solutions is to not bring your kids to nice restaurants. There are cafes and restaurants that are geared towards kids and where it is expected that children may be running around. The servers are aware of this, and people don’t go to eat at these places unless they’re okay with the kids.

If you really want to go to a nice restaurant, understand that your child may not enjoy it and even though you may try and pass it off as a special treat that they should be earning, often they would be happier at home being allowed to run around. Depending on their age and your comfort level, you could hire a baby-sitter.  You could order your meals ahead of time so there is food for the children as soon as you get there. Feed the kids ahead of time so they’re not hungry. Bring toys and colouring sheets or find a restaurant that provides these. Recognize when the child has had enough and it is time to go. Realize that leaving a restaurant sooner than expected because a child is tired of sitting still is not a punishment, but a reality. Don’t try and make it out to be a punishment or that the child has let the whole family down. Trust that just because your child can’t sit still for an hour in a restaurant at age two, doesn’t mean she won’t be able to sit still at age four or ten or eighteen unless you make her now.

Sometimes we will ask for a table in a quiet area where there’s no one else around and if Meredith wants down, we will let her walk around a bit. But she isn’t the type of kid to race around screaming. She stays right near our table and we stay very aware of servers coming with food. This solution only really works if you’re in a corner where people aren’t trying to walk by very often. If she really wanted to run around, we might switch off taking her outside to let out some steam.

If you know your child is normally capable in a particular situation, but today they are whiny, mean, hyper, bored, etc., it’s very likely there is a reason for it.  Consensual living means attempting to discover the reason and solve the problem together, rather than bribing the child to be good or threatening a time out.  Maybe you had an early lunch and she is hungry, or she missed her nap.  Even if you have no immediate way of solving the problem, you can recognize that the child is not just trying to “act out” or get attention.  Children don’t often have much choice in the situations they find themselves in.

Helping a child learn problem solving skills and empathy will serve them well later in life too when peer pressure starts up. I don’t know of many parents who would want their children always doing what peers say no matter what, and yet many children are taught from a young age that it is expected that you follow direction without questioning it. Only in later life, the “power” transfers from the parent, to peers.

I love that when I look at Meredith, I see a child wtih good intentions who is not afraid to be herself.  I don’t want her to grow up in a dictatorship.  I want her to learn problem-solving skills that take everyone’s needs into account.  I want her to be able to question ideas she doesn’t agree with, to learn that her opinions do matter, and to know that all people are deserving of respect, no matter their size.

Related posts:

1. A video & an addendum
2. Guest post on NPN
3. Learning Through Living

Aware parents accept the entire range of emotions and listen non-judgmentally to children’s expressions of feelings. They realize that they cannot prevent all sadness, anger, or frustration, and they do not attempt to stop children from releasing painful feelings through crying or raging.

– Aletha Solter

I’ve never really liked using distractions when Meredith is upset. For a long time, I wasn’t sure why I didn’t like them, I just knew they didn’t feel right. But they “worked”, so we used them from time to time when Meredith was really upset. As she got a little older though, they stopped working a lot of the time. I realized that just like I wouldn’t want someone to try and distract me if I was trying to air my upset about something, neither would she. (If I came home and told Kris I was upset about something that happened that day, and Kris tried to immediately change the subject and talk about something else or show me something cool he did without listening to what I had to say, I would feel like I wasn’t listened to. In a child’s case, they may also feel like it’s not okay to feel that way.)  There are times when I do find it useful though. Like getting her into her carseat. 90% of the time she’s fine now, but those times she’s not, often using a bit of distraction will get her in happily and once the straps are on she’s happy to stay in too.

It’s still something I struggle with at times. It’s hard to come up with alternatives sometimes. And sometimes there seems to be little difference between a distraction, or trying to engage a child’s attention somewhere else, or a compromise. For example, this morning while I was nursing her, she wanted to hold the pencil I was using. I was fine with that, and gave it to her and she happily drew in a magazine I was holding while she nursed. Then she decided she wanted to wave the pencil around in my face, which I wasn’t okay with. After a couple of times of trying to redirect her to draw on the paper or wave the pencil somewhere else, it became obvious that she was very adamant about wanting to wave it around near my face. I asked her for the pencil, and she gave it to me but immediately wanted it back and began to cry when I didn’t give it to her. Instead, I handed her something much smaller that I was okay with her waving around. She immediately cheered up and proceeded to wave that around for a few minutes before getting bored and moving on to the next game. Was the second item a distraction to distract her from the pencil, or was it a compromise, that she could continue doing what she was doing with a different item? I think it was a compromise, and one that we both could live with, but it seems like there is such a fine line at times.

I think it often comes down to respect for our children and their feelings. In the case above, Meredith wanted to wave something around in the air while she nursed. I understood that and was okay with that, and gave her something that she could safely do so with. If the second object hadn’t worked, I would have validated her feelings rather than try to get her to move on to another activity and waited until she was ready to move on.

I did find this article a while ago that explains some of the problems with distractions much better than I could: Solutions are not the solution. He talks about how children need to experience the whole range of emotions and that quick fixes to try and have a happy child 100% of the time should not be our goal as parents. We have only had one real “tantrum” so far, and it only lasted a minute or two before we bundled her up and took her outside for a walk (was that a distraction?), but it was a long minute or two. She ended up falling asleep almost immediately and slept more than 13 hours that night, so obviously the “tantrum” was more about her being tired than about the small thing it seemed she was upset about.

Solter helped me to question my need for “a constantly happy child” and my use of quick fixes. If I was honest, my rapid solutions and distractions were about trying to return to the veneer of peace and smiles as quickly as possible. I was behaviorally focused; deeper more significant content did not come into it.

It was really hard to listen to her scream and cry and see that she was so obviously out of control. I wanted to stop it, and I will admit that we actually did try and distract her (unsuccessfully) a couple of times before we decided that being in the house around what was causing the upset was too difficult for her and we left for our walk. I think if she had been okay with one of us holding her and comforting her, it would have been easier, but as it was she would only let me occasionally rub her back. Otherwise, I sat next to her, mostly quietly but using validation as well. But not even being able to hold her and listening to her being so upset felt too much like crying it out to me, even though I know validating feelings and being next to them for when they are ready to be held is much different than leaving a child alone to cry. One way you are showing that the feelings are okay to express, and the other the message is that the feelings should be stopped or bottled up.

While the implementation of my new tool kit is often crude and slow, the transformation has begun. I am facing the fear of pain in my loved ones. I am letting go of needing to “rescue them” or “fix things,” and I know that it is enough to be there for them and to love them unconditionally.

This is something I personally want to work on in myself, especially as Meredith gets older and starts to be able to verbalize her feelings. I hope it will get easier as we’re able to reason with her and she can help come up with compromises or her own solutions

Related posts:

1. Father Anxiety…
2. Give a child a fish…
3. Life in a nutshell

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
-Chinese Proverb

I read somewhere once that children are redirected or told no on average every nine seconds. Now, I have no idea how this stat came to be, because how would you study that? But anyway, it’s an interesting thought nonetheless. Imagine being at work and having your boss tell you you’re doing it wrong or trying to show you how to do it better every nine seconds. I think most of us would go insane and/or quit pretty quickly.

We wanted to avoid having to be constantly saying no to Meredith, but more and more babyproofing seemed like the wrong direction to go too. We don’t have baby gates even though we have stairs, only a few of our outlets have the little safety things in them (and Meredith can pull them out easier than I can anyway, since I don’t have nails), our stereo equipment is at ground level, and we don’t have locks on our cupboard doors. I kept meaning to babyproof, I felt that not doing so was a recipe for disaster. But as time went on, it started to seem so unnecessary.

So how to avoid saying no while still keeping Meredith and our belongings safe and not excessively baby proofing? It’s actually really simple. We let her learn what to do while remaining nearby in case we’re needed. We make sure we’re very aware of where she is and what she’s doing, as well as anything around her that could be dangerous (or that she could be too rough with without meaning to).

The stairs are a perfect example. She started crawling at 6 months and was interested in the stairs right away. We let her experiment on them as much as she wanted and were right nearby in case of a fall, especially at first. And she did fall a few times, though she never hurt herself as we would catch her and comfort her if needed and then she would normally want to try again. We didn’t push her to learn it, or try and set her on the stairs every day, or move her arms and legs through the motions to try and teach her how, we just let her go at her own pace and figure it out on her own. She learned pretty quickly how to get up the stairs and rarely fell. (The video is of her around 6 1/2 months, but it’s not a great video because I’m spotting her while I film.) Around 8 months she figured out how to get down the stairs (again, on her own).

I think for me, the biggest problem with baby proofing is that it doesn’t teach a child how to handle a situation should the baby proofing fail. What if you forgot to put the baby gate up but assumed it was there? Or your child can pull outlet covers out? Or you left your glasses on the table where your child can reach them? I’m of the opinion that it is much safer to rely on your child and yourself to keep your child safe than to rely on devices that could be forgotten, break, or fail in some other way.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean I would give Meredith a knife and point her at an outlet and let her see what happens. And there are times when “no” or redirection are definitely appropriate. But telling her she can’t touch our DVD player when she sees us using it frequently just makes it seem even more desirable to her. Instead, letting her play with the buttons while being supervised, explaining that food and drinks shouldn’t be near it, and helping her discover how it works keep it safe while honoring her desire to participate in something she sees us doing. Now we can ask her to turn it on or off for us if she’s nearby, and she has figured out the volume controls as well. My parents tell stories about sandwiches ending up in their VCR. We have shown Meredith how to put DVD’s in the player and she doesn’t seem to have any desire to put anything else in there. My belief is that kids do things like putting sandwiches in VCR’s because they see us putting things in and want to do what we do, not because they’re trying to cause trouble or make us mad.

This can be applied to all sorts of situations. I feel it’s far better to let children explore and learn at their own pace, giving them information or guidance only as needed. In doing so, I’ve discovered that she’s surprisingly gentle with books, careful with dishes, and she will even clean up after herself after playing with water on the floor. There are things, like my expensive camera, that I don’t want her playing with. But if I leave my camera in her reach and she finds it, even then I don’t immediately wrench it out of her grasp. I’ll ask her for it, and often she will hand it to me and go on with something else. The times when she really wants to play with it, I will sit her on my lap and let her put the lens cap on and off or press some buttons while I watch, and then when she’s bored I put it up out of the way and make a mental note to myself not to leave it in her reach again.

When my instinct is to say no or stop something Meredith is doing, I try and ask myself why and then look for ways to allow her to continue while relieving my own worries (or, in some cases, just realizing that my concerns are a gut reaction that may not even be true). Is it because I don’t want her to make a mess? If I’m really adverse to cleaning up a mess at that time, maybe I could relocate what she’s doing to the bathtub or into the sink. (Though honestly, mostly I don’t mind the messes at all.) Am I worried she will hurt herself? Is there some way I can make it safer? etc.

Helping children discover how to handle themselves in various situations is better in the long run than just trying to avoid those situations until some abitrary age in the future when the children are “old enough”. And when they’re allowed to explore and shown how to safely use these things, it means they’re less likely to damage something or hurt themselves later on when faced with a similar situation.

Related posts:

1. La Teta: to give the breast is to give life
2. Thoughts on Chores
3. A video & an addendum

Which I think is a great point, btw. Too often the good is taken for granted while the bad is nitpicked and nagged about. I called in to a “How’s my driving?” line once because the trucker I was calling about was great. The lady I talked to was pretty rude at first, and seemed annoyed. When she realized I was calling in to praise the driver, not criticize him, her entire demeanor changed. I have to wonder how often she actually got positive calls?

Anyway, the problem with praise, bribes, etc, is that even though they seem like positive things, they can still be conceived as manipulative. Alfie Kohn has a good article which explains some of the reasoning behind it. I recently finished reading his book Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason for the second time. I highly recommend this book to any parent. He backs up all his points with lots of data and research, and has such an interesting perspective. I don’t agree with everything he says, but there were other parts that really struck me. I was going to quote from it, but I could really quote most of the book, so I don’t think I will. It really is a great read though.

I’m on the fence about praise. I think genuine, honest praise and feedback is a good thing. While I want Meredith’s motivations to be intrinsic, I do want her to know that I appreciate her help or enjoy her art or whatever it is she’s interested in. Of course, I want her to know I love her and am proud of her no matter what.

But I do find some praise silly, and even degrading. And I notice so many parents saying “good job!” over and over again about every little thing their kids do. I like to try to find other ways of saying it. “Good job” implies that something else was a “bad job”. Like if a baby takes her first steps, and the parents exclaim “good job!”, does that when the child couldn’t walk it was bad? Of course it doesn’t, but how does it come across to the children to be praised like this? My mom said “Good poo!” to my daughter when she was four months old. Someone explain to me, what exactly makes a poo good or bad? I like to thank Meredith for helping or for, say, waiting for me when we’re out on a walk and there’s a busy road nearby, but I try to avoid falling into the trap of constant “good jobs.”

We do celebrate with her, especially when she is excited about something. We will sometimes cheer when she poops in the potty or figures something out she’d been struggling with. We take her cue a lot. If she doesn’t seem to think it’s a big deal, it probably isn’t. But if she seems really proud of herself we want to acknowledge that too.

We also like to talk about things with her. Rather than saying “good job!” if she puts her toys away, we might thank her and say “it’s really helpful to me when you put your toys away” or something along those lines. Along the same lines, if she hits I might tell her that it hurts when she hits and give her an alternative (either stroking me, or hitting the couch). That way we’re not asking her to just take our word for it that that’s the way things are, or that she has to do things because we said so, but actually giving her a reason. I think doing this also has the benefit that if similar situations come up in the future she will be better equipped to process it and decide on a course of action.

On the other side is punishments. I found this great article by Jan Hunt: The Parenting Golden Rule. She brings up some good points about how there seems to be a double standard. What applies to an adult doesn’t necessarily (or even usually) seem to apply to children. The other day my mom told me that it was okay if Meredith cried, and it wouldn’t kill her. Well of course it won’t, and I am not under the impression that I can always prevent her from crying, but if an adult was crying somewhere, he or she would certainly expect anyone coming across them to try and find out what’s wrong and help them out. And yet, it’s okay to ignore a crying child just because he or she is smaller than us or can’t communicate what she needs?

For me, discipline isn’t a punishment and reward type of system. Discipline is such a loaded word in some circles, but really, it’s root comes from the word to teach, or to guide. I don’t think discipline needs to be conditional, coercive, or manipulative, it just normally is.

Related posts:

1. Been a while…

I have to say, after watching it, that while I do follow what he says for Meredith, as far as being respectful, assuming her intentions are good, and realizing that she doesn’t always understand what I want and isn’t just trying to push my buttons, I certainly don’t always follow it with my dog.

Now don’t get me wrong. Dogs and kids are two very different creatures. Dogs do have a hierarchy and I think that while Dr Dunbar discusses all the similarities in raising each, there are a lot of differences too. And I’m not sure how to apply his methods to aggression or chasing the cat. I mean, I can’t ask her to sit and then reward her by letting her chase the cat. But it certainly has me thinking a bit more on what is working with her, and what isn’t. And I know yelling when she chases the cat doesn’t work. Locking her in the kennel when she’s aggressive may work in the short term (in that she doesn’t try to eat my friends when they visit), but it certainly doesn’t change anything.

Really I’d like to have her on a leash at all times, and be able to give her feedback constantly about what she’s doing and help her see what she should be doing, rather than telling her what she shouldn’t be doing without giving her any alternatives. It’s hard when I also have a 14 month old though. I’ve been trying to keep her with me more. The problem is that when she’s off leash again, it seems like she forgets anything I did with her while she was on the leash. It’s something I’m going to have to think about and keep trying new things and try to find something that works. I need to recognize when something really isn’t working and stop doing it over and over again, especially since that’s a parenting style that I really don’t like either. Plus, just like in parenting, all it does to punish a behaviour without giving options is stop a behaviour while you’re around, but the behaviour probably continues when we’re away.

Lastly, I want Meredith to grow up knowing to treat everyone with respect, regardless of size, age, race, species, etc. I want that to extend to pets, and while I think I treat my animals with a lot more love and respect than many people, it’s definitely an area where I could improve.

In other news, I am planning on probably creating a private section of the blog for discussing certain things that are a little more personal. For those who use RSS readers, I don’t think private posts would show up there, but I probably won’t have many anyway. You would need an account to see them. Unfortunately, the way our server is set up, you can’t create your own account for the blog. But if you’d like an account, let me know what you want your user name to be and what your e-mail address is and I can set one up with a generic password that you could then change to whatever you wanted it to be. Let me know who you are too if it’s not obvious already.

Related posts:

1. Introducing our new dog
2. Sleep Training Guide for the Infant
3. A video & an addendum

This is the dog’s water dish outside.  It’s not normally this dirty but before she got into it she had been scooping dirt into it.

The inside water dish doesn’t work quite as well.

Related posts:

1. Snapshot Sunday
2. More Gardening
3. Not-Back-To-School Picnic