The Fussy Baby Book: Parenting your high-need child from birth to five. Martha Sears

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СКАЧАТЬ Any time we operated solely from our point of view, discipline was a dismal failure.

      Hayden as a toddler was a determined explorer, and many times we would have to match her persistence with our own calm determination to stay in charge. When she reached for the knobs on the stereo, for example, we would matter-of-factly remove her to another place in the room and distract her with another activity. We had to repeat this redirection at least fifty times before she got the point. But even when she was only one year old, we felt it was important for us to command her respect.

      Hayden’s impulsiveness, we feared, would get her into trouble. She climbed up on furniture or counters only to realize she couldn’t get down. Our knee-jerk reaction, rushing in to interrupt her climbing, only fed her determination, and hovering over her anxiously in these predicaments was enough to make her worry and be less surefooted. So, instead of letting our faces reflect our anxiety, we showed confidence in her ability to climb. Hayden picked up on our confidence in her; she realized that we, too, felt that she could handle the situation. We structured the environment so it was safe to climb, and then assumed the role of spotters, being on standby to catch her if needed. The rest was up to her.

      Sometimes it seemed wiser to under-react when Hayden was frustrated. As the first daughter, she was often being aggravated by her three older brothers. Yet we couldn’t be rescuing her each time, nor would we have wanted to, since a certain amount of frustration is necessary for healthy development. So she developed “spunk” very early. If Hayden came running to her in distress, Martha would calmly say to her, “Do you need my help?” Usually Hayden managed on her own, knowing Martha would intervene if the aggravation developed into teasing or harassment.

      The older Hayden got and the more experienced we became, the more confident we were in saying no to her. We believed that because she was a solid and secure child she could handle being thwarted at times and not having her needs instantly gratified. After all, the persistent personality of a high-need child sets her up for frustration, so she’d better learn how to handle setbacks.

      lesson

       Our job was not to prevent frustrations in Hayden’s life, but rather to help her learn how to manage them.

      Continuing to command Hayden’s respect was one of our most difficult challenges at every stage of her development, and especially important when it came to the issue of talking back. When she became disrespectful toward Martha, I would quickly intervene, “Hayden, I will not tolerate you talking like that, especially to someone I love.”

      It’s easy for a child with a dominating personality to overpower the parents. Out of sheer exhaustion you give up, give in, and take the path of least resistance. Early on, we feared that because of her persistent personality Hayden would have difficulty accepting authority figures. (Our fears were later confirmed.) Dealing with Hayden was a constant contest of wits and wills. Sometimes we simply had to put on our parent-in-charge hat and say, “I’m the parent, you’re the child, that’s that!” Other times we had to walk with her for a while on her path before gradually rerouting her onto ours. This forced us to divide our conflicts into “biggies” (non-negotiable situations that required her compliance) and “smallies” (trivial, yet annoying, situations that threatened neither Hayden’s respect for us nor her emerging self-image).

      Early on we realized that learning to live with Hayden meant channelling her unique personality traits to work not only to her advantage but also to our advantage. Her keen awareness made her more sensitive to our moods, so we learned that when Hayden was being childish we had to be “adultish”. Hayden taught us the concept of mirroring: children, especially hypersensitive ones, easily pick up their parents’ moods. If a tantrum was about to erupt and we reflected an “it’s okay, no problem” attitude, she would often mirror our peace and settle down. If we let ourselves get angry or worried about the tantrum, our anxiety just added fuel to her fire. When Hayden protested our instructions and flew into a rage, we needed to stay calm. When she lost her self-control, we had to hang on to ours. If we lost our composure – and many times we did – it took twice as long for her to settle down. Acting like the adult in charge set a calmer mood that helped put a crumbling child back together.

      lesson

       As difficult as it was to do when Hayden became irritable to irritating, we had to maintain a peaceful presence.

      We learned that with Hayden there were certain places that were not suitable for confrontations. (The problem with this insight was that we were often not disciplined enough ourselves to wait for a better time and place.) One of these times, as every parent knows, was mealtime. One of these places was the car. If Hayden felt pushed into a corner, she would typically lash out physically and hit or kick something. One memorable occasion was when she was in the front passenger seat. She was reacting strongly to something I was telling her. Knowing she tended to get physical, I should have backed off until we were in a less confined space, but I didn’t. We still have the broken door on the glove compartment to remind us of that mistake.

      Because Hayden was a challenge to our discipline skills, we were forced to get to know her in a way we had not experienced with our sons. The endless hours spent parenting Hayden produced a deep knowledge of who she was as a person, and this in turn helped her understand herself as a person. Rather than muzzling her, by responding to Hayden we rewarded her for being an expressive person. She became a master at expressing her needs and engaging the resources of adult caregivers at a very early age. She was a very resourceful three-year-old. The ability to express herself is an asset that will serve Hayden well as an adult.

      As we watched Hayden dominate her peers in playgroups, we saw why she had earned the label “bossy”. Like a quarterback addressing a huddle, she commanded all the kids’ attention, and they lined up to listen as she told them how they were going to play the game. Now, we watch her dominate student council meetings in our living room, and we marvel at how she works on the members until they agree with her point of view.

      Hayden early on caused us to re-evaluate the issue of control. We gradually figured out that the child shouldn’t control the parents, or the parents control the child. Yet parents must control situations; when there is no limit-setting, family life is a disaster. We needed to be in charge of Hayden, to give her “house rules” and then control her environment so that it was not difficult for her to comply with these rules.

      We were unprepared for the strong-mindedness we encountered in Hayden as a toddler. The older children had responded well to verbal cues. Hayden seemed not to hear us. So, rather than be constantly yelling “no, don’t touch” (which was futile), we taught her that throughout the house there were “yes-touches” and “no-touches”. Our job included making the “yes-touches” more accessible to her than the forbidden things. Hayden could operate from her own inner controls in a setting that communicated order and structure of some sort. (Every family will do this differently.) When she had the opportunity to behave properly, independent of endless no’s from us, she would start to get a sense of her own inner controls. When she’s older and on her own, this set of inner rules will help her operate responsibly and confidently on her own. She’ll feel right when she follows the rules and won’t feel right when she doesn’t. And we learned that in order to set limits and model desirable behaviour, we ourselves had to be disciplined.

      lesson

       Everything we did with and for Hayden from day one was discipline. We were teaching her the tools to succeed in life.

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