Mindful Disconnection - Practical Ideas Pt Two

Mindful Disconnection is the term I give to a group of skills parents need to develop if they want their children to grow-up being able to successfully self-manage, and to cope when things don’t go their way. I wrote about what it is here: Connection and Disconnection: Optimal Parenting Part One. (From crawling to around age three is covered here: Mindful Disconnection: Practical Ideas Pt One)

From around the age of three years (until around six) things start to get interesting. Many parents have expressed that they find three year-olds far harder to deal with than toddlers. Although I don’t base any of my information on what Rudolf Steiner said, it is interesting that he points out that around the age of three children start using the word  ”I”. Their sense that they are their own person, rather than being part of their mother, is in place. They are at the beginning of self-awareness. (To be very clear, I am not about to suggest that we force our children into self-awareness. It is just something that seems to emerge around this age.)Children at this age and stage, are also more aware of the power of their words and are usually able to speak competently. Their world is naturally expanding. If they have had opportunities to explore playgrounds at their own pace when younger, for example, they are able to competently use them without assistance (appropriate playgrounds) by three or so. With a bigger world, they also are desperate to find the edges (like a baby being held – they feel safe when they know where the boundaries of their world lie).

Where all these things meet we have our next stage of parenting. There seem to be a few common situations which arise at this time. (I don’t have a child in this stage at the moment, and will re-blog when we are there again – anything I’ve missed will come flooding back, I’m sure!)

The first is hurtful words. Children between the ages of three and six-ish are often hurtful with their words. They are exploring the emotional power of them and will continue to say nasty things if we are not Mindful with our Disconnections. In other words, if we react or reason with them we are reinforcing the behaviour. Children at this age will often try out comments like:

1. You’re not coming to my birthday party, Mum.

2. You’re the meanest Daddy in the world.

3. You don’t love me.

4. I won’t love you, if you don’t do X for me.

5. I don’t care.

They are trying out their new skills in speech and the beginnings of the knowledge that they can get a reaction from us. Mindful Disconnection in this situation (and can be used at any age) is the calm, no eye-contact, non-emotive phrase, “That’s a shame.” Diane Levy, NZ Family Therapist, is the one who put us on to this little phrase and it works wonders at diffusing the situation. This is not the time to reason or explain about hurtful words – that kind of thing at the time they make the hurtful comment, gives them a tool of manipulation. (If I say something mean then Mum/Dad will stop what they are doing and talk to me.)  Rather, you can talk about mean words and what effect they have on others at a later time.

If you have explained this to them several times – they KNOW. They need no more reasoning or explaining, ‘That’s a shame’  – is enough. You have permission to stop working so hard!

Getting dressed seems to be a big issue in many households for three to six year-olds. This is where their emerging sense of self can be supported and simultaneously their need to find the edge of their world helped. The first issue here is what to wear and how to wear it. The way of Mindful Disconnection would be to accept any clothing in any order on any way – except when it is inappropriate for the weather or special occasions. (Special clothes for weddings etc might need to be put away.) I have lost count of the number of parents of three to six year-olds who have said to me, “Oh s/he just won’t wear warm clothes.”  Newsflash: it’s your job to ensure your child is adequately dressed for the weather. Some people at this time go with the: you can wear your red sweatshirt or your blue sweatshirt, type of approach. I have found, after discussing this with many, many parents and from our own experience, that this can lead to more power-type tantrums. (The child will often not be able to chose between them. Even this can be overwhelming – another situation of too many options for many children.) So the hand the sweatshirt to them, tell them to put it on and Mindfully Disconnect by turning your body away from them and either walking off, or pretending to be very interested in something else, has the quickest and least fuss result.

The second issue with clothing at this age and stage (three to six) is who is going to do the dressing of the child. Now, it is possible for most children – certainly by the age of four to be able to dress themselves. However, when they ask to be dressed or want help getting dressed they are asking an emotional question – not a physical question. They are asking us if we are as there for them as we say we are. Yes, they probably can dress themselves. But even this can seem overwhelming to children at times. At times when a child is feeling a little disconnected (Where was your focus this morning? Did you connect before you got busy?) or tired/ill these are not battles to be fought and won. These are the kinds of times where helping is doing more for our child than trying to force the point. By giving them the support to get dressed, you will often find that they will happily complete other tasks. If you make it an issue, then other things will become issues too – because you’re not dealing with the underlying need for support. On other days they’ll happily dress themselves and will be proud to do so.

General non-compliance seems to peak in [well parented] children during these three years. They have their own agendas and they have the ability to move competently. Well nurtured children are sure of their place in the world. They know they are loved even if not all of their behaviours are not lovable. Under-nurtured children are lost and desperately need to learn how to behave in acceptable ways. (The empathy bits of their brain aren’t properly developed.) So at this point there develops the: ‘not doing as told issue’ and ‘the doing something unwanted issue’. These I am going to write about in the next post. There’s much to say and this is already long enough.

(Should you find this article useful, Koha is accepted and  $1 is fine. The button is under my blog-roll. )

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