To hate all 'Parenting Strategies'

[christmasmum]

I probably ABU but I absolutely loathe parenting strategy books. Friends recommend them, I foolishly think 'maybe this one will be different' and give it a go.

They all seem to make you want to talk to your child like you're a robot. Does any parent actually say things like this example quote...

You (cheery): It's bath time!
Child: I don’t want a bath. I hate baths. Go away!
You (breathe): It sounds like you’re really mad. You look really frustrated. What’s bothering you most? Can you help me understand?
Child: It’s not fair. You’re always bossing me.
You: So if I’m hearing you right, you’d like to make more decisions for yourself. You feel like you’re ready for more responsibility. Is that right?
Child: Yes!
You: Well, I’m so glad you told me. I had no idea you were feeling babied. Let’s put our heads together and come up with a solution.

If I spoke to my DD/DS like this they'd look at me like I had two heads and STILL wouldn't get in the bath.

I get the techniques, fine. Listen, reflect, don't lose your temper and thrown them in the bath headfirst. But is it realistic? Does anyone actually manage to sound like this with their kids after a long day when you just need them to get in the bloody bath and go to bed so mummy can drink gin?

I agree that it has a lot to do with confidence. Children read so much into body language and what you don't say. If you are worried , treading on egg shells and think it won't work, you can be sure it won't work.

how up your own arse do you you think you need to be, to write a parenting strategy book???

WHO on Earth would do that?

delph i think using the books is due to a lack of confidence..

but I am very confident; its still quite likely that dd2 will ignore what i say and fall down in the street having a hissy fit

aaaaaaa Dr tanya byron is a consultant clinical psychologist specialising in child and adolescent mental health. Charlie Taylor is head of a school for children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. I've found their tips quite useful at various times. I don't really understand why people get so annoyed about them writing books with their ideas for dealing with problem behaviours. They aren't forcing anyone to read them.

Haven't read the whole post but am going to have a good chuckle when I do! My best strategy fail was using reward charts (not quite sure I can see the difference between bribery and reward even now....).
Wonderful reward charts for jobs and behaviours required from 3 young DCs. Idea was great-earn stars and then at the end of the week stars mean treat/trip out etc. Works well for the first few days. Then

Me-pick your coat up please
DCs-how many stars do I get for that?
Me-none, please pick it up
DCs-if it's not on my chart I don't have to do it
Me-yes you do....pick up your coat
DCs-how many stars.....

Etc etc for any tiny task asked to do-close cupboard, pick up things, fetch things. Same response for everything-no action without a reward!

Result-charts in bin. Back to normal parenting.

Just got as far as the "dumping kids in clothes in the bath is cruel" comments. WTF? My kids would have found it fantastic! In the bath fully clothed! And then the laughs they would get out of remembering it growing up!

Lots of smuggery in this thread. dh and I were assertive and confident parents, but that didn't stop ds having tantrums, they weren't to do with getting his way, they were to do with not getting his way and not being able to cope with that. I suspect the only way to have avoided them would have been to let him do whatever it was he wanted/not making him do whatever he didn't want to do, and even then they might have occurred regardless. He had tantrums at nursery and school too. Oh and he was always very sorry afterward! They were pretty horrible for him I imagine, I don't think that anyone really enjoys being out of control.

As with many aspects of parenting, there are many factors, and it's really not just to do with the skills or attributes of the parents but the personality of the children too. Approaches that work for one child may backfire terribly for another (like ds falling apart at not getting stars, but still not being motivated to follow the rule, despite agreeing that he would and that a star would be nice).

Surely the relationship should be two personalities responding and bouncing off each other.

I think this is always going to be true whatever parenting strategy you use - nobody is ever going to follow it all the time. However, when you are in a stressful situation I think it is helpful to have thought out your response before hand, not have to come up with something on the spur of the moment. As an adult there are many instances where you have to remain calm and have perspective, even though your knee jerk response may be a little more volcanic.

Something that Charlie Taylor (among others) points out is that it is easy to go through your day criticising your children and keep quiet when they are doing something positive, therefore it is a good idea to keep an eye on your ratio of positive to negative comments. This doesn't mean always keeping a tally (unless things are really difficult), but it's good to have this in your mind before you make some random comment about spilling milk - am I being helpful or is this part of a string of wingeing and nagging on my part?

I think that many effective techniques in parenting books are also those that work on people of all ages - they are the same stuff that e.g. supermarkets use to persuade people to buy things - setting up the environment to make a particular kind of behaviour easier than another.

I think a lot of it is about playing the long game.

I am naturally authoritative (have been a supply teacher in some rather rough schools and done well). Dd still had massive meltdowns. I stayed (mostly) calm and stuck to my guns year after year. End result: dd is now a polite and well behaved teenager who understands the importance of considering other people and has a good deal of respect for me.

It was just that you couldn't have taken a snapshot of dd aged say 4, or 8 or even 9, and seen that this was eventually going to happen. I had to believe that it was going to happen and keep acting as if it was going to happen.

Of course life would have been easier if she had been one of those children of whom you said "I didn't give into her/took her home straight away/administered x sanction and she never did it again". Dd had to be taken home every time and she would still do it again.

She just needed an awful lot of reinforcement before she would allow herself beaten. I have been told I was the same as a child. The positive side, I suppose, is that I didn't easily give in and allow myself beaten by parenting either.

Reward charts didn't work with dd and wouldn't have worked with me, because we both cared more about getting our own way than about any reward that could be devised. And in dd's case because her anxiety levels were just too high.

I'm not at all sure that nature isn't the more important. Since mine are now adults I see plenty of 'the end game' and some that were difficult children, with parents that I have felt handled it badly, have turned out to be perfectly reasonable as adults.

Quite.

Ds's niece was a nightmare. Nightmare . From day one there were tantrums, backtalk, a million different parenting strategies all down the drain. She is now a lovely young woman at a ("the" even) top university.

I was Mrs Smug (well, in truth I hope I wasn't) about ds. Just one word from me and bingo! he complied. Obviously I have excellent authority and quite a marvellous way with children. Yeah, right. Along came dd. I am defeated.

cory can I just say that I always like to read your posts. You consistently come across as sensible and balanced! Also, it sounds like my ds is very similar to how your dd was. Like you, I have been a wall for him to push against all these years and now he mostly sticks to boundaries. I have another child who is the complete opposite - taking her home once from a restaurant would have stopped the tantrums, not that she really had any. If I had had her first, I would have been very smug about my capabilities as a parent. Ha!

My first dd was always very biddable too. Second dd - oh dear! If they had been different sexes I would probably been have telling everyone that first child's sex is so much easier than second child's, based on my sample of two children.

Also, don't we all have those occasional days when out of nowhere our children perform magically well (perhaps quietly having a discussion about something educational, or sitting drawing on their napkins with that biro they found on the floor, charmingly engaging old ladies in polite conversation) and you leave the restaurant/cafe half expecting your fellow diners to give you a round of applause and then invite you back for an encore, and then other days where you expect them to call social services?

Tantrums aren't a behaviour issue though, they are just a normal developmental stage. I don't think any kind of parenting, other than extreme punitive parenting can prevent tantrums, if your child doesn't tantrum naturally you're just lucky. (I do find it odd when people say their child never ever had a single one but I suppose some children must just be really laid back)

Being confident isn't going to prevent a tantrum but it can help you deal with it better than someone who panics or worries that people are judging them when their child has a tantrum. Which doesn't really seem fair because fear of being judged isn't really something you can help. But there it is - I have only very rarely been embarrassed by tantrums and hence I never felt out of control (except for those rare times) when DS was having one so it passed without incident.

I think that's very true Bertie, I ended up being very laid back with my two, lots of letting the petty stuff slide, and we stood by and waited for a fair few tantrums to pass in public places over the years. I'm sure that there was some judging going on at times, although I hope that some people wanted to assume me that 'this too will pass' which is what I want to say to some of the harassed parents I see from time to time. I also have two (mostly) lovely teenagers, one of whom still has pretty much zero interest in how the world wants him to behave (we had a big debate about marketing lats night and he just could not see why dd and I felt the sexism of adverts was dangerous as he couldn't understand how marketers could possibly influence people).

DD1 had about 3 tantrums pre-5 (and a few more since).

DD2 has had 100's and she's not 3 yet!! Boy was I at the difference between them.

The best advice on tantrums was something a MN'er shared on a behaviour thread - to treat each tantrum as a panic attack. It may well have come from a 'parenting guru' I don't know and I don't care - it just made sense to me and it works.

If I can remember this in time, (not always) that is what I do now - and it really really works. Once the child has calmed herself down and is soothed, we go back to where we were pre-tantrum - so if it is getting DD2 to pick up a plate/food she has thrown on the floor then we go back there. And usually she will do what she needs to do. Calmly and even with a smile.

Sometimes I will ignore a tantrum esp the minor "I want" tantrums, but even DD2 doesn't have many of those (yet). She is more of an "I don't want .... to get dressed/brush teeth/eat crumpets/eat dinner/wear shoes etc" kind of girl.

Going head to head/engaging with a tantrum leads to DISASTER all round - sometimes I sadly still get sucked into this before I am aware properly of what is happening.

nooka DD2 had a full on floor writhing wailing tantrum on the floor of the London Eye! I just had to watch as intervening would have made her louder/worse. When she calmed down we had a big cuddle.

The other passengers were very sympathetic and luckily amused rather than annoyed.

Yes BeCool that makes a lot of sense :) About taking the tantrum as a separate thing and then going back to the issue when they are calm.

I actually do talk to DD like that and always have and I can count on 1 hand with fingers to spare how many times I've ended up raising my voice to her or using time out. It really does work & is far easier than the usual tantrums & battles of wills & very easy once you get the hang of it.

..think I must be very cruel to my kids....

At teatime (faced with a plate of food that they like)
Child; "I don't like this"
Me; "you have 2 choices-you eat it or you don't.But if you don't,you have nothing else to eat till breakfast tomorrow"
Plate is cleared.

Whinging and moaning about homework
Child "I don't want to do my homework"
Me; "Ok.Tell that to your teacher tomorrow then"
Homework gets done.

When I happen to mention that they need a shower..
Child;"But I don't want a shower!"
Me; "Ok.But if the kids at school say you smell, then I don't want to know"

It may sound harsh but it's not.I could reason with my kids till I'm blue in the face,but I really can't be bothered with all the ....."I understand that you don't want to blah blah blah" and I still wouldn't get anywhere.The responses I give get the problem out of the way very quickly and we both get the desired result-food gets eaten,homework gets done etc etc

There are other scenarios though.

At teatime (faced with a plate of food that they like)
Child; "I don't like this"
Parent; "you have 2 choices-you eat it or you don't.But if you don't,you have nothing else to eat till breakfast tomorrow"
No food eaten. Child cries, and then doesn't sleep.

Whinging and moaning about homework
Child "I don't want to do my homework"
Parent "Ok.Tell that to your teacher tomorrow then"
Child does not do homework. Parent gets told off by teacher.

When I happen to mention that they need a shower..
Child: "But I don't want a shower!"
Parent: "Ok. But if the kids at school say you smell, then I don't want to know"
Child claims that none of his friends would care, and that if they did complain, that would be their problem not his. Shower doesn't happen.

All have happened at one time or another in my household, although only the last scenario is still a regular one (ds really doesn't care about other people's opinions very much). Having escaped homework for a few years my two are pretty good at getting their work done with very little intervention, and have grown out of being fussy too (thank goodness as that one really got me down).

In the scenario mentioned I do this (for little ones at least!):

Child: I don't like this dinner.
Me: Well you liked it yesterday and anyway it is healthy for you! See these green vegetables? Do you know what makes them green? Sunshine! The sun shines on the veg while it grows and the veg takes that sunshine deep into its leaves and turns it into green! So when you eat the green you are actually eating sunshine and then it shines out through your skin & hair and in your eyes and makes you so beautiful/handsome! Don't you want to be beautiful/handsome? And this pasta? It has eggs in it, and eggs have brain food in them. So when you eat it you're feeding your brain and it makes you even cleverer than you already are so you can read and write and play games and clever tricks. And this meat? It goes right into your muscles and makes them really strong so you can run faster and win all the races! And who loves you? Mummy does! And Mummy wants you to be as strong, beautiful and clever as possible so why don't we trust Mummy to feed you good food so you can be the best you can be and eat it all up and if you do, you'll get another sticker for your chart, only 3 more till you get a trip to the swimming pool!

Usually works. I prefer to get them to understand why they are having that dinner and want to eat it rather than me nagging or threatening or forcing them. It changes as they get older. I only really cook food DD likes now anyway at nearly 8 and only occasionally introduce something she's not had before, in which case if she doesn't like it then fair enough, she doesn't have to like everything, but she does have to try everything. Of course if she were a grotty bratty miserable teenager then it would be a case of eat it or starve.

I'm sorry, Random but if I talked like that my dcs would look at me like I had lost the plot.

Reminds me of that Far Side cartoon with the "what people say to dogs" vs "what dogs hear".

I swear my ds thinks all I say is blah blah blah blah blah.....

Looselegs, that is reasoning - you're explaining the reason why they should make the choice you want and then leaving the decision up to them. Reasoning only becomes endless when you're depending on it for a result and they're not playing along!