Toddler and Marriage

[beanseedling]

Hello
My first time posting
I have no friends who are parents and would love someone to talk to.

My husband and I both have a pretty good relationship with our daughter, and our relationship through her is fine. We don't argue about much of anything parenting wise, only one recurring spat that will probably never go away and we both know it and that's the age old balancing act of protection vs exploration for our child that we hold so dear.
We both want to protect her and keep her safe of course, and also both want her to learn and discover, but his alarm for protection usually goes off quite a bit more than mine. Also to stop her from damaging things.
He sometimes gets himself so worried about her that it becomes absurd and I go from being frusterated to laughing. For example being in the garden all three of us, and he said "don't" so many times I was going mad!! "Don't walk near that rock "don't walk too far away" "don't touch the mud" "don't go near that millipede it's poisionous" "don't touch the pots" "dont don't etc etc .... eventually while I had left for five or ten minutes, I came back and he had her standing on a flat rock , two feet in diameter , telling her not to move off the rock.....
I have been out there with just us two more lately
Wondering if anyone has any advice on how to try to help your spouse not worry so much, and help your child be able to explore . How to slow the "don't" train down a bit and let him know when he's being overprotective , without causing a fight or stepping on his toes as a father.

Thank you so much for any replies. Sorry for the length of this post...

That does seem extreme as it is usually men who encourage children to explore.

I was once told that developing brains can't understand "don't" so tend to follow the instruction afterwards so you get the opposite of what you want to achieve.

"Dont touch that" translates to "touch that"

If lockdown was over you might be able to socialise with other parents and seeing others Dads could help to moderate his attitude.

This could be my husband! The 'don'ts' are a dime a dozen and it really makes me upset!

We have been trying to use positive parenting, which is all about encouraging the behaviour you want to see, rather than putting the focus on the negatives. It has applied well to outside exploration, eg things like steps 'ooh these are really tricky, we've got to concentrate!' As opposed to 'don't go down the steps!'

My DHs instincts is to protect, and he had it from his parents but that concern came across very much as criticism - eg 'don't do that because you might get hurt' but it comes across as 'we don't think you can do that'. So he is keen to not do that to our son. But his instinct is very much 'don't don't dont'. It's a work in progress!!

Perhaps if you say to your DH that if he says what she can do, rather than what she can't do, he might find the results are better? Like 'let's look at the millipede with our eyes only'
'Ooh that's high, how can we get down safely?' That type of thing. Perhaps if it is suggested as a slight change of perspective, rather than tossing out his parenting manual, he might come around to it more easily?

I tell my husband he's channelling his mother again. That normally gets him to relax a bit.

You need to use positives, tech is right, they don't hear the don't. It is neuro linguistic programming. So if I was talking about crisp flavours and said cheese and, your brain should say onion. That is an example of NLP.

If you don't want a child to run you ask them to walk. So with don't touch that, try let's touch this, give her words to add to her vocabulary, soft, rough, silky, smooth, gently, pat it etc. And let's play over here with this. Re direction and distraction, did you see that bird? Can you hear it singing?

Yes children are precious but they also need to explore, get dirty, touch things. It is healthy.

Look at the research on the positives of risky play in early years development and ask your husband to have a look with you.

@HoneyWheeler thanks so much . Even your message of relatability has really helped me .
I am all for this method of encouraging her safety instead of discouraging the action, giving alternative options instead of just telling her she can't. I do this , and always think of the exact same thing that I don't want her to always feel like we think she is incapable!
... he has never been enthused with my difference in wording and perspective , he sees all these things as very serious and chooses to speak the way he does because he wants her to know exactly what is dangerous and know her limitations. I understand this outlook if it's something extremely dangerous, like a car driving by, but he sees extreme danger around every corner. After talking about this type of thing in private he just simply cannot see it the way I do, he can't help but worry about every possible danger and doesn't seem to understand how it restricts her personality and creativity

I see this as somewhat controlling to be honest, by trying to control the child’s actions to limit damage to possessions as much as the child (as you stated it is often not to damage things) and make mess. If you see this in another way, that he doesn’t like how unpredictable she is and it isn’t triggering a protection as much as it is triggering a desire to control the situation and the child. The ‘don’t’ often comes from people’s own childhood where they were discouraged from making mess, breaking things and falling over. He will now he transferring that to your child and that is what she will learn. Everything is dangerous and dirty.

Set him a project. You need to be very clear to him that in X part of the garden, the garden needs to be within reason, not as rocky and a child friendly area where she can play without any negative interaction only fun and positive interaction. She can be taught to wash her hands, look without touching etc as others have suggested but he needs to work on why he is so triggered by these things. I honestly think you will now tell us that he is very fastidious about touching things, mess and dirt. Am I incorrect?

@mudpiemaker

Haha yes children need to get dirty , my mother always said this! Funny your name is quite relevant :)

I do use positive things always in these situations and show her things etc . Because I want her to have good experiences, and not be too afraid. But I don't really believe in the distraction method, to just change the subject to get her to not be upset or to forget about what she wanted to do . I think this is unhealthy. I believe it is very important for her to understand the truth about the world and its dangers and to actually learn common sense and understanding, not just to always be pulled away from the situation . she will remember what she wanted to do and just keep trying to do it and never understand why we don't want her to. And if it's something I think she should be allowed to do, and my husband doesn't, that is a thing that needs to be worked out between us .

@techway
As far as the child hearing the "touch that " and wanting to do so and not registering (or rebelling against) the "don't" of course this is probably true of all of us haha but a child, and all of us, should still learn that they can't do whatever we want . If i get a craving for a gallon of ice cream and I don't really register the "don't" when I think to myself "don't eat it" that doesn't mean I shouldn't LEARN to register it. You can't learn if you never hear it.

I will have to learn to try to be less wordy. I have no experience with forums sorry

The ice cream analogy isn’t quite right - you don’t say to yourself don’t eat it, you say ‘I shouldn’t eat all of that as I will feel sick if I do’.

Your DH is not giving any rational sensible reasons for not touching a flower pot except ‘don’t’ so there is no lesson to be learnt.

I don’t know your DH and I don’t want to come over like I am accusing him of this and that but this post rang many bells with me as this was how my childhood was.

I had a long list of ‘don’ts’ but very little understanding as to why they couldn’t be done or touched. They were rarely backed up with an explanation that made sense and I further irritated my father a lot by questioning him on all of the don’ts by asking why, or doing them anyway and it caused conflict.
He thought it was enough to just say ‘I am the parent so what I say goes when I say no it means no or don’t do it’ and then breaking the rule or questioning it led to him being upset I was defying him. Some of it was being protective but it was his inner anxiety driving it and nothing very rational. Therefore it had a significant negative impact on me and I became a very anxious child

ie parent transfers anxiety to child easily
In a nutshell
This is how it happens

@menora

No it is definitely to protect her. He cares about protecting her more than our stuff but he also wanted to protect our stuff because that is important too. We don't want our radio broken, and she shouldn't treat it roughly, if she does she should be told as she is, that "don't you like listening to the radio?" "If you are rough with it you might break it and hen you can't listen" . It is good for her to learn to be gentle with things and respect them. In the old days a child would be lucky to get a new toy every once in a while, even a few times a year, someone had to make them by hand, and kids might even watch the carpenter make it and know to value the gift. now adays it is much different .
SIDETRACKED
She also has plenty of positive interaction with him, he teaches her all manner of things, shows her nature, a tool he's working with, an every day household occurrence, explaining it to her with more patience than I, much of the time.
this is just a small difference of opinion

@catsandlavender thanks ! :)

Ok well then give a reason she can’t touch a flower pot? Or mud?

Because it sounds like he is anxious about a lot of things and is transferring that anxiety to her by making her stand stock still on a stone in the garden when you aren’t there to inject the fun and positivity back into it.

@Menora he always gives reasons . His reason was that the flower pot was dirty . He always explains to her why he doesn't want her to do it,
. But actually with that one, it ended up falling by the way side and she ended up stacking the pots the next day and playing with them a bunch. In that moment when he said don't touch them he was kind of in a worried state. Realized that particular thing wasn't a big deal. But the dirt thing is a reoccurring one. He worries about her getting sick, which is not irrational.

I'm not here to knock my husband, he is a great father,
It's just a small difference of opinion as to what constitutes dangerous, just looking for tips on how to help him not worry so much.
He is a very loving person

The flower pot being dirty is exactly my point earlier. It is irrational and isn’t connected to being protective. In the moment it isn’t occurring to him to be rational and think she can wash her hands later - he reacts to dirt immediately with an irrational reaction. Rationally, getting sick from touching garden mud is very unlikely.

He has irrational anxiety and he won’t listen to you in any way because he doesn’t like you questioning his anxiety, and won’t listen to you trying to release some of the pressure in these situations so your child can run around freely in the garden

You can help him by being honest that his reactions are irrational and that he maybe could consider whether he has anxiety. As all he is doing is projecting it onto your toddler

@menora
I am sorry you had this experience.
I understand why you reacted this way to my post now.
It is very difficult as parents to balance freedom and protection.
I myself was damaged by my parents being much to lenient with me and letting me do too much of whatever I wanted. I barely ever heard the word "no" explanation or otherwise. This made me very undisciplined as a teenager and reckless.
So either extreme is bad for a child! It is hard to know sometimes where the centre is. Hard for you father I'm sure, and hard for all of us

@menora

I'm sorry to say it was hard for your father, it probably isn't my place !
I hope you get what I'm saying

@Menora

Thank you for your advice on the anxiety. I will consider it

I think you are in a little denial. He’s not talking about ‘danger’ at all in any rational sense - he’s talking about things that make him feel uncomfortable and anxious like dirt.
Dirt = uncomfortable anxious feelings.

Avoiding dirt is the option he is choosing to take (even if this means restricting your child) and not examining why he feels that way about it. And you need to be there to pacify this reaction and you are looking for other ways to pacify him.

And then he will explain it to you as if dirt = the same level of danger as a car. His danger levels are on high alert (anxiety, irrational) and yours are more reasonable and realistic.

I have anxiety. It makes you feel uncomfortable and you will avoid doing things that provoke that feeling. That is what he is doing when he says DONT so much

I think either way of parenting is damaging - teaching a child to be afraid of touching every day objects or moving around due to perceived dangers can trigger OCD and anxiety even in a small child.

I have 2 DC and one of mine went though a phase of crying if her hands were dirty, she would get very upset. Now if I had also reacted to this by getting anxious and upset about her dirty hands, she may not have grown out of it.

It’s ok and normal to warn a child to be careful, be gentle and not to put things into their mouths but we also need to get the balance of not projecting our silly irrational concepts onto the child as well and putting them into a bubble that makes us feel better, at the detriment of the child

@menora

It is not irrational to be wary of dirt. Some dirt is very dangerous and harbours all kinds of nasty bacterias, viruses, etc Dirt in the garden is usually not so, and he even calls it "clean dirt" vs "town dirt" and doesn't usually care if she gets dirty in the garden . But she frequently will touch her face or even her mouth and even garden dirt can make you sick , especially with fertilizers. So he sometimes just tells her to stay away from particularity dirty things.
You speak so sensitively about children but seem to be very harsh against the male figure. I don't think it's nice to call someone's concerns 'silly' or 'irrational' .
I know you're trying to help. But honestly I think eVeryone has anxiety to a more or less extent, and I probably have more anxiety than him in many ways.
Our daughter doesn't seem to worried about dirt or anything

@Menora

People worry about different things. Some people are very insecure. Then the therapists say they "have" anxiety, I don't think anyone "has" these things, you just feel that was sometimes, or for some period in your life.