I think every parent wants to reinforce their children's good behavior instead of accidentally reinforcing the bad behavior. Shawn and I each have this intention but neither of us anticipated how often we would need to talk through that resolve or how many different scenarios we would need to problem solve on the fly. Nicole's dramatic tears stem from the difficulty of not getting her own way. I completely understand why she's crying but my empathy does very little to keep her behavior in check. We've chosen to respond to her frustrated tears by saying, "you made a good choice by listening" and then letting her tears run their course. She generally moves on pretty quickly (although it almost never feels that way) and once the whine is out of her voice, and she's ready to use her manners, we're ready to fully engage her once again. Our end goal is to teach her how to handle her frustrations and disappointments with grace and autonomy.
So far, Nicole's tears over her frustrations and disappointments have been mostly minimal but her everyday frustrations over trying to do something on her own have been present for a long time. When she was a little younger I loved to run to her aid and fix whatever was causing her temporary frustration. A short while after that I was reading some information from Nicole's health care provider that said that frustration is a heathy and normal process for toddlers and I shouldn't intervene. I was immediately convicted and could recall at least 5 separate times when I had intervened just in that day! Even though it is difficult to watch Nicole be frustrated and upset, I took the lesson to heart and I knew I needed to be better about letting her figure things out on her own. I knew I couldn't just sit there and watch her get increasingly more upset over a task I could easily fix, so I made up a song to help her persist and to keep me out of it.
You can do it!
You can do it!
You can do it!
You can do it!
It's been a couple of months since that song first filled the air of our home but it didn't take long before Nicole started singing it to herself. Whether she's trying to put her shoes on herself or climb into a chair unassisted, I hear her soft voice singing "you do do, you do do" as she fixes her attention on the task at hand. When Nicole doesn't remember to sing herself through a task and I can see her frustration mounting, it's easy for me to cheer her along with our simple "you can do it" song. The song typically halts her cries of frustration and allows me to support her without taking the task over. I have learned that by not physically intervening during challenging tasks, Nicole gets the opportunity to feel both proud and accomplished.
Certainly I have days when I fail miserably at supporting Nicole's autonomy but there seem to be endless opportunities for me to try again. In the short term, it's a lot easier (and faster!) to help then it is to foster Nicole's growing independence. But, in the longer term we are striving to create a safe enough environment where she can try and fail and then eventually succeed. I believe that parenthood is a ministry of sacrifice and intentionality. We are raising Nicole, but in the process God is raising us because parenthood involve deep faith and dependence on God.
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| Enjoying her new slippers from Grandpa Dennis & Bobbie |
Love,
Erica
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