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1Oct

Allowing our children to take risks (as scary as that may seem)

Posted by: Suzy Burger Categories: Behavior Positive Parenting
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hiking snow

Once our babies are born, we don’t dare to think of all the things that could happen to them.  We have dreams and nightmares at night of these fears of them getting hurt.  We try to protect them any way we can.

But that in itself, harms the child.

Humans need to push themselves, we need to take risks.

For a couple of years, I worked at a school in rural Costa Rica where 90% of the children were local Ticos and the other 10% were from other parts of the world.   In those two years, there were five accidents (broken bones, nothing too serious) and four of those accidents were from foreign children.

Why is it that 10% of the population had 80% of the accidents?  The answer is that the local children had been taking risks since they were very young.  The children there are allowed to play in the forest, climb trees, dig huge holes, play with big sticks, etc, while children here are gently reminded that they can’t do that because it isn’t safe.

But as children grow, the risks get bigger, and they often don’t know how to manage them, because they have never been given the chance.

Another important aspect to risk taking is allowing the child to find their limit.  This means that the child is more than welcome to climb something if they can do it all by themselves.  That also means that they can get out of the situation by themselves as well.  My boys will climb up on a rock and then ask me to help them down and my response is usually, “If you can get up, you can get down.”  It takes them a little bit to figure out how to extract themselves from the pickle they got themselves into, but they do it, and feel great afterwards.

Since they are young, I am there spotting them, but since there are two of them, I’m not always able to be within inches of them.  Because of this, they have learned that I won’t always be able to catch them.  They have actually learned to fall somewhat gracefully.

Studies have shown that children who take physical risks are more likely to take cognitive (academic) risks as well.  So this little change of allowing your children to take risks will have long term positive outcomes. 

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25Sep

Second guessing ourselves as parents

Posted by: Suzy Burger Categories: Behavior Positive Parenting
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second guessing

There are so many ways to parent out there- attachment parenting, cry-it-out, organic versus non-organic, that it can make your head spin.  Not one of these ways is the absolute best or worst way to parent (although you may hear differently from fanatics).   

But one thing that any parent can avoid is second guessing their decision.  It is not good for children to have their parents backtrack after a decision is made.

I often hear, “I’ve tried everything and nothing works!”  Those words themselves tell me exactly what the problem is.  If you are trying everything, then you aren’t sticking with one thing until you see a change in behavior.  Consistency is what helps a child through a tough time because it builds stability.  

One issue that most parents deal with is helping their child sleep through the night.  Again, there are as many philosophies as there are book deals available, and no one philosophy is correct.  They all have good parts and bad parts.  But once you choose the philosophy, stick with it.  When your child is crying at 3 am, remember the words of your chosen philosopher and don’t go back on your decision.  It will be hard because if you chose a form of cry-it-out and you start to doubt yourself in the middle of the night, then you are just prolonging the process and confusing your child.  If you choose a form of co-sleeping and after a week decide that you can’t have them in the bed any longer, then you are just dragging it out.  

Same thing with disciplining.  There are many ways to discipline.  Choose one with your husband, and then stick with it.  Your children will thank you. 

I’ve been in situations where either me or my husband makes a disciplining decision off the cuff and we both immediately regret it.  But we look at each other and with a split second decision of solidarity, and we carry on through the bad parenting decision.

Why? Because it is important for the children to see us working as team (even with questionable parenting decisions) and it is important to be consistent.  Children feel safer with consistency and you build trust by following through with what you say you are going to do.

 

 

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20Aug

Have you ever tricked your child?

Posted by: Suzy Burger Categories: Behavior Positive Parenting
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A common trap that parents fall into is “tricking” the child to get through a difficult situation. 

It is so easy to say, “we can do that when we get home” just to get a child to make a transition, knowing full well that the child will forget on the way home and you won’t have to follow through.

But this is the first step in building a child’s trust, teaching them about being trustworthy and helping their behavior.

All you have to do when you get home is what you told them you were going to do, even if (and especially if) they forgot.

Almost immediately, you will see a behavior change in your child when you say, “remember how I told you I would read that book after nap?  Well, now your nap is over, so let’s read the book!”  If your child no longer wants to read the book, then that’s perfectly ok.  But you remembered which will help your child build memory skills and will show him or her that your word is worth something.

Once you do this a couple of times, all you have to say in the future is, “we can’t go to the park now because we have errands to run, but we can go this weekend.”  Your child will know that you mean it, they will trust you, and they won’t throw a fit.

When I was five or six years old, I incessantly asked my mother for a kitten.  In order to get me to stop, she said, “when you are eight, you can get a kitten.”  She had no idea how important that kitten was to me (or park, or story, or treat to your child).  I never brought up a kitten again until the day of my eighth birthday.   I did get a kitten a couple of months later but I never forgot what my mother said.

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