Free to See: Curious Parents Know their Kids

Free to See: Curious Parents Know their Kids.

I will never forget the first season of “Toddlers and Tiaras.” I was pregnant and my brain was mush. The only shows I could follow were reality shows, and I just had to check out this crazy new pageant show. I watched episode after episode with my mouth open in horror. Yes, I know, a lot of people felt that way. But my dismay was for an unusual reason. It wasn’t the fake tans or the long hours or the Mountain Dew the girls were given to drink so they’d have energy on stage. That was icky. But what really bothered me was this:

In every single episode in the first season a mother said the same thing into the camera, “She loves it! She just loves pageants! I know people say she’s too young, but the moment she says she doesn’t like them we will stop. She just loves them!” And each time behind the mother in the frame was a young child screaming or crying. They were all saying the same thing, “I hate this Mommy! I hate the pageant so much! I don’t want to do this anymore!” I recall one mother even absently patting the crying child on the head and saying into the camera, “She really loves them.”

These mothers were not able to see or hear their children. It’s easy to criticize people on reality shows, but I asked myself why these moms behaved this way. Was it because of selfish motives? A lot of those mothers had explained their belief that pageants were teaching their kids useful skills. Or were they overwhelmed and distracted mothers? I think it was more likely the second reason. They were on a TV show while getting their kids ready to go on for a pageant in a time pressured situation. They were preoccupied by busy and worry.

Busy and worry. Sounds about right. I can relate to that. Those two show up in my life everyday.

Have you ever had a time when you had no idea what was up with your child?

One time I was trying to get my son to get dressed for bed. I was setting the timer and listing the positive and negative consequences. The tension is escalating. Then my husband pointed out that he looked scared. I was thinking he was being stubborn, but when I looked at him, he did look scared. Turns out he’d had a nightmare about a vampire lurking in his bedroom and that’s why he wouldn’t go in there. What he needed was comfort, not consequences.

When we have a sense for what is really going on with our kid, we do better.

THE 4S’s: When you feel a SHOULD, STOP, SIGH and SEE. Then do SOMETHING.

When you feel a SHOULD coming on, STOP. Just pause. Don’t act instantly.

SIGH. Take a deep breath. A long slow one. Imagine it’s a sigh of relief, as if everything is OK. And if you can, remember that you are enough. You are what your child needs.

SEE. Look at your child. Ask yourself what your child needs right now. Do they need you to do something, or do they need to figure it out for themselves?

Then (and only then) do SOMETHING. Even if that something is nothing.

I don’t care what you do next. It really doesn’t matter. It does not matter if you get it wrong. Because if you STOP, SIGH & SEE before you do SOMETHING, you will build skills quickly. You will get to know your child. ©Alison Escalante MD/The Primary Carer

In the past two posts we have focused on the STOP and SIGH steps. In the sigh step you checked in with yourself and noticed your own feelings and needs. This was very important because 1. Your needs matter, and 2. It untangles what you need from what your kids need. A great deal of the time when my kids are acting in a challenging way, what I need is for them to just quit it. But what they need may be something different.

The SEE step is about just looking at your kid. SEE is about He or She, not Me.

It’s about getting curious. It’s about dropping whatever story you have told yourself about your child. It’s about ignoring whatever your parenting system says you should do at this point.

Try to put yourself in your kids shoes. Or just wonder about your child. What is going on with her. What might he need?

The problem with so much of the parenting advice is that it has a way of taking our attention off our kids and our families, and putting it on implementing the parenting advice. That’s why SEE is about He or She. It gets our attention back where it should be, our kids.

It’s gathering your information with an open fresh mind, so that when you get to the do something step you can do it based on good knowledge. (Insider tip: this is mindfulness, but without an hour of meditation first.)

So what might our kids need? Usually it’s one of three things: for us to set a limit, for us to help them with their big feelings, or for them to deal with it themselves.

Sometimes what you SEE will make you feel like:

Do you remember saying to your parents, “But if you would only just listen?”

“Parents just don’t understand.” —Will Smith.

Those of us who are parents today often heard things like this when we were growing up. Parents were the ones that set the rules but they weren't really expected to understand us. They were expected to us teach us how to be good people. But we grew up with a longing to be understood. We wanted to understand ourselves and to understand each other.

Now that we are parents we are trying harder than any generation in human history to understand our children. We are also expected to really understand our children and are shamed as failures if we don’t. And yet we don't understand our children a lot of the time.

Here’s what’s happening: we may not be simply enforcing rules and ignoring feelings; but now we're so worried about their feelings we are confused and not actually paying real attention a lot of the time. In other words, we are so busy trying to make them feel better, we are not actually noticing their feelings at the time.

We are trying so hard to give our kids that sense of comfort and understanding we longed for, and practicing the 4S’s can help us to do it. When we stop, sigh and see we are able to pull out of the the automatic reactions to busy and worry. We will know our children more and more.

Everybody wants to be understood. To be seen for who they are (and loved in that seeing). To be heard, really heard. In such a simple way, the 4S’s take us to a place where we really can begin to understand our kids in the way they hope we will. And they will notice.

The next post will focus on the last step of the 4S's: do SOMETHING. Click to learn more about STOP and SIGH. Enjoying these posts? Click to Subscribe.

Disclaimer: This article represents general education and does not constitute medical advice. My ideas are mine alone.