Cup Filling

From Playful Parenting, by Lawrence J. Cohen:

About times with kids when "He's just looking for attention" is uttered or thought:

For years, the standard advice has been to ignore such behavior. I don't get that. We don't say, "He keeps asking for food, but I just ignore him; he's only saying that because he's hungry." We don't say, "Your cup is empty, so I'll make sure you don't get a refill." If someone is looking for attention that bad, I figure they must need some attention! If we give them enough of the good kind, they won't be so desperate that they'll settle for the bad kind.

The Value of a Dimmer Switch

I really like the book Playful Parenting.

The author's got a great sense of humor. For example, when one child comes to him to complain about the other....:

"Hmmmmm, this sounds like a bad case of it all started when she hit me back."

But he's also quite wise. About the importance of identifying the reason for a child's misbehavior - and why it is important to not go on auto-pilot:

"It doesn't make much sense to say: You are feeling bad, so I'm going to yell at you. You are lonely, so I am going to send you to your room. You are feeling disconnected from other people, so I am going to hit you. You're hungry, but I"m going to take your toys away instead of feeding you. Absurd! Punishment enters into the scene because of our own feelings: I am mad, so I'm going to yell at you. I am frustrated, so I am going to have a temper tantrum. I am scared, so I am going to scare you. I've had a hard day, so I'm going to take it out on you."

Along the same lines,

"Emotional competence means that we have a dimmer switch, instead of just an on-off button, on our feelings. We want children to be able to express strong feelings in a modulated way, safely and respectfully, but directly. We don't want them to have a switch that is stuck on off, or that can't be shut off at all."

Don't you love the way he writes - and his ideas?

Are You Listening?

These last few weeks I've been able to spend more one-on-one time with my youngest son. With none of the rest of the family around, we spend the time doing whatever we want to do - so far, it's been trips to the library and long walks geocaching (oops, this week he played his favorite game on the computer without brothers helping and I finally tried the creme brulee recipe I'd been meaning to attempt - while checking in with him periodically), but I'm sure it will expand to other activities as time goes on. It is fun to have him alone and listen to him talk. And talk. And talk.

Reminded me of a terrific book called "Playful Parenting," by Lawrence Cohen. I read it a few years ago, while more of my kids were little, and a lot he said made great sense. I wish I had heard his ideas years before...

From the book:

Tuning in does not mean questioning our children about every little detail of their lives. Instead, tell an interesting story from your day; they might respond with one of their own. Another mistake we make is cutting them off when they are talking about "unimportant" things, or when they are chattering away about nothing, or when they are repeating themselves. Then, later, we expect them to tell us what we want to hear. That's not fair. We have to listen patiently to their way of telling things, even when it is excruciatingly dull to us, if we want them to get around to telling us the good stuff. Understandably, they want to know that we are really listening and aren't going to interrupt them or scold them, before they are going to share anything important with us.

Now that I'm listening more...yes, he's sharing more.

Stay tuned these next few posts for more from this terrific book. Your kids and grandkids will benefit. (If you don't have kids now, file this info away for when you do...please.)