A reader recently wrote, "I totally agree with your approach to dealing with big emotions outlined in your tantrum post and did most of what you are saying when my older son was an only child... The difficulty that I am having is finding ways to do this for my older son in the moment while he is having big emotions, while also taking care of the newborn, especially when I’m the only adult in the room. I find that the big emotions happen most often when the newborn is needing my attention. And, no surprise, the big emotions are bigger and more frequent now that the newborn is here! Please let me know (and I’m sure many other parents out there!) when / if you find good resources for this issue that fits in to your objectivist parenting philosophy."
First, for those of you that haven't already had the newborn, please consider waiting. All of my research has led me to conclude that children (and parents) do much better when children are spaced five or more years apart.
Next I would recommend reading, in order of importance, 1,2,3... The Toddler Years, How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, Dear Parents: Caring for Infants with Respect, and Tears and Tantrums: What to Do When Babies and Children Cry.
And in the mean time, here are some ideas:
Prepare the three-year-old. Talk to him about what is going on, about all the things he might be feeling. Talk to him about how when the baby cries, he will feel a great deal of stress in his body, and that the stress will make him want to freak out about something too. Tell him you feel the same way. Nature has programmed us to freak out when babies cry so that we deal with it. (Babies who cry in such a way as to destroy all those around them until they are no longer crying were, surprise, more likely to survive and pass on their genes. So the theory goes.) Tell him that it is normal to want to run, jump, scream, yell, hit, throw, or even cry himself when he hears the baby cry.
Tell the three-year-old that this will be an uncomfortable experience, but you want to teach him how to deal with a crying baby, so that he can be an amazing dad one day. Tell him that crying babies are okay, that we must take deep breaths and move slowly and just be with them. Tell him the next time the baby cries, you want him to run straight to you so that you can teach him about crying babies. Then, when it happens, pick him up and take him to the baby. Invite him to put his hand on the baby's chest. Speak softly. "She's sad. It's okay to feel sad."
Practice with the three-year-old. Tell him to pretend the baby is crying. Make eye contact. Show him how to move slowly and softly. Show him how to go to the baby and just watch. "The baby can't tell us what is wrong, so we have to figure it out." Is it the diaper? (Maybe it can be his job to check.) Is it gas? (Teach him how to rub her belly.) Is it the light shining in her eyes? Is she hungry? Make this a game and practice it as many times as you can before a real episode happens.
Tell him that as he gets more used to the baby, he will able to take action when the baby cries, trying to help the baby instead of focusing on his own inner stress. But tell him that for now, when he is just getting used to his inner stress, if he needs to run to you for a hug the minute the baby is crying, that could help both him and you. Look in his eyes. "THIS FEELS SO UNCOMFORTABLE!!!!!" You can yell to him! Try to connect with him about the sheer discomfort of the sound of a crying baby.
But tell him if he can't handle it, if he is feeling something too big, he needs to tell you. Because often, the baby can wait. Tell him you won't want the baby to wait, because the baby's cries are soooooo stressful to you, and it will be hard for you to focus on his issue while the baby is crying, but that if he really, really needs you to, you will tell the baby to wait. He will test you on this, and in that case, you put your hand on the baby's chest and you say, "I hear you and I will be with you when I can." And then you focus on the older child. Perhaps you take the older child into a different room so you can really focus on his issue. Let him know that his needs matter. As soon that is dealt with, tend to the baby. He will feel much more secure knowing that if he ever has an emergency, you will be there for him. The goal is to help him feel so secure, that he does not need to use this and weaponize it against the baby. (This is also a good gage of how well you are doing at giving him enough attention. When he is not feeling like he is getting enough, he will want to punish the baby.)
And the of course always newscast. "Erin is crying. She needs me to find out what is wrong. Oh no. The crying is making Erik crazy too! Erik is only three! He needs help dealing with his big feelings! I want to be there to help him. I want to be there to help the baby too!"
And of course later, when everyone is feeling good, talk to the older child about how it feels for you, about how sad you are that he is not your only child anymore, about how hard it is to have two children that need you, about how much you want to do right by him and take care of him and give him all that he needs, about your fears that you won't be able to. I have always found children to be much more empathetic and less self-centered when they know I am having a hard time too. In this way I disagree with pretty much every parenting expert out there. They think children need Mountain Mom who is always calm and never has issues. I think that is presenting a false reality to children that they see through anyway. I think children do better with Real Moms who talk and express what is going on with them, who model how to deal with big, stressful feelings, and who let the kids know that all humans, no matter their age, are dealing with big, stressful feelings and we do better if we support one another during those times. This shouldn't be abused, of course as it is in alcoholic households, but three year olds love feeling competent enough to support their parents when they are having a tough time. I don't think it "stresses children out" if they are generally well cared for and have a secure attachment. On the contrary, I think it raises their self-esteem and makes them feel competent at life.
Showing posts with label l) Behavioral Issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label l) Behavioral Issues. Show all posts
Friday, July 28, 2017
Unlimited Television? And Crack? Why I Am Not a "Radical Unschooler" When It Comes to Television and Other Drugs
A reader called me recently to discuss my approach to screen time. She found it fascinating that I am so strongly pro freedom, and yet strongly against unlimited screen time for my son.
How we do screen time: We don't own a television, but we do own computers, iphones, and an ipad. Occasionally, maybe once a week, we watch documentaries on our computers or the ipad. On the full moons we watch a fiction movie. We have educational games on the ipad that are played sporadically, maybe once a month.
This arrangement, for my family at this time, is quite simply not a problem. It's not a problem for me; it's not a problem for Tom, and it's not a problem for Anders. So first, I never really thought very much about the unlimited television question because there was just no problem that needed to be solved.
But my reader asked me to consider: Should Anders be watching more television? Is he being deprived of valuable life experiences? Have I poisoned him against television by reading to him chapters from Remotely Controlled and Living Outside the Box and explaining to him that television is a drug to be used with care? Have I deprived him of making his own conclusions about television by helping him draw the connection between his ability to pay attention to his math and the amount of television he watches? Isn't it controlling and therefore against my philosophy to say to Anders, "I notice you have been watching television for over an hour now, and I am wondering if you want to do something else?"
Great questions!
My first response is that I don't believe in biting my tongue and taking a deep breath when my son is doing something that makes me uncomfortable. Because my needs matter too. When Anders was two he liked to climb very high and, though he never fell or even seemed unsafe, I would sometimes get uncomfortable and ask him to come down. "Anders, I am sure you are safe up there, but the stress in my body is so intense right now, I can hardly handle it. I feel so much fear I might start crying. I am wondering if you would be willing to come down?" He always came down – because my needs matter to him. I think that's wonderful. I think this negotiation of needs is the dance of healthy human relationships.
Because here's the thing: Bite your tongue all you want, if your veins are coursing with stress hormones, those are going to affect the people around you. Idealize that away all you want, it's a fact of human nature. (Presented compellingly in the book Connected by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler.) The fact that anxiety felt by one family member will eventually most likely be felt by all family members for one reason or another is also written about in Bowen's work on family systems theory. These facts should never be used as control mechanisms, but between respectful people who have a healthy relationship – I need to know when what I am doing is stressing you out because your stress is going to get passed around to every member of our household.
I love NVC, but I don't buy into the idea that, "We are not responsible for other people's feeling's at all." There's just no common sense there. It may be a good approach to offenses caused by strangers or to unhealthy relationships, but in close, healthy relationship, I think it is more true and more helpful to believe that, "It takes two to tango." In our family, we consider all problems we have relationship problems for both of us to solve together. You're insecure? Yes, you need to take responsibility and do what you can do to solve that problem, but because we are married, it's my problem too. You're wanting to numb out into a drug? That's definitely a problem you need to look into, but because I am your mother, that's a problem I will look into too. You needs matter to me; let's solve this together.
This was one of the most interesting things I learned in marriage. Before I met Tom I lived by myself and I had no problems with myself so ... there just wasn't a lot of drama there. Then Tom moved in and suddenly I close all the cupboards too loudly and my desk is too messy. Suddenly, I had problems. Or rather we had problems. It wasn't my job to placate Tom by training myself to be quieter and neater, and it wasn't Tom's job to accept me for who I am and deal with his feelings on his own; it was our job to be sensitive to one another, accept one another, and give each other gifts.
When I peruse the unlimited screen time approach to television and video games, I find a lot of it disrespectful to parents, to their needs and discomforts. I find that the abstract ideal of freedom is presented as more important than creating a relationship between the parent and child that works for both of them. There is no right answer here. There is no "should" when it comes to how I keep my desk. There is only what works for me and what doesn't and what works for other members of my household and what doesn't. In a household focused on healthy relationships, everyones needs matter, even their irrational ones.
But I don't think my discomfort around television and video games is irrational. There is a reason parents feel instinctively worried when they see their child watching television or playing video games, because no matter how hard you try to tell yourself it's okay, deep down, you know your kid is on drugs. Meth to be specific. Television and video games are in the same addictive category as meth.
"There are few things ever dreamed of, smoked, or injected that have as addictive an effect on our brains as technology. This is how our devices keep us captive and always coming back for more. The definitive Internet act of our times is a perfect metaphor for the promise of reward: We search. And we search. And we search some more, clicking that mouse like – well, like a rat in a cage seeking another "hit," looking for that elusive reward that will finally feel like enough.... Computer and video game designers intentionally manipulate the reward system to keep players hooked. The promise that the next level or big win could happen at any time is what makes a game so compelling. It's also what makes a game so hard to quit. One study found that playing a video game led to dopamine increases equivalent to amphetamine use – and it's this dopamine rush that makes both so addictive. (Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. in The Willpower Instinct: How Self Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It.)
"Television is unique, the perfect medium to produce strong rewards for paying attention to something. So what is so powerful about this reward? Compared to the pace with which real life unfolds and is experienced by young children, television portrays life with the fast-forward button fully pressed. Rapidly changing images, scenery and events, and high-fidelity sounds are overly stimulating and, of course, extremely interesting. Once you are used to food with monosodium glutamate flavour enhancer, real food doesn't taste as interesting. Television is the flavour enhancer of the audiovisual world. Nothing in real life is comparable to this. Television overpays the young child to pay attention to it, and in so doing it seems to physically spoil and damage his attention circuits. In effect, television corrupts the reward system that enables us to pay attention to other things in life." (Dr. Aric Sigman, Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives).
Our ability to pay attention is our life. Our ability to focus and control what we pay attention to is consciousness. To do a drug that damages your ability to pay attention is risking your ability to be consciously alive. That is why there is a direct correlation between how much television children watch and ADHD, among other things.
"Children who watch television at ages one and three have a significantly increased risk of developing such attentional problems by the time they are seven. For every hour of television a child watches per day, there is a nine per cent increase in attentional damage. The scientists suggest that their findings may actually be an understatement of the risks to children. They speculate that even if there is some educational benefit to be had from the actual programmes watched, this benefit may have covered up the even greater damage to the child's attentional systems that would occur if they watched programmes that had little educational benefit for them." (Sigman)
"A 26 year study of the 'Association Between Child and Adolescent Television Viewing and Adult Health' was recently published in the medical journal The Lancet, involving 1,000 children born in 1972-73. It found that children who watched more than two hours of television a day between the ages of five and fifteen suffered serious health risks many years later, at the age of 26. The study concluded that 15 per cent of cases of raised blood cholesterol, 17 per cent of obesity, 17 per cent of smoking and 15 per cent of bad cardiovascular fitness were linked to the television viewing that took place years before when the adults were children. This link remained, irresponsive of other factors such as social background, body mass index at age five, parents' BMI, parental smoking and how physically active the children were by the age of 15." (Sigman)
"Within 30 seconds of turning on the television, our brain becomes neurologically less able to make judgements about what we see and hear on screen. Our brain treats incoming information uncritically ... Our brain's left hemisphere, which processes information logically and analytically tunes out while we are watching television." (Sigman)
"Television provides the best means of persuading you to buy into the right values... Nowadays television executives talk of 'raising public awareness of...' This used to be simply called propaganda... Long after people forget what they hear, they remember how they feel. So Bonneville creates those unforgettable feelings..." (Sigman)
"And a study of 22,079 American adults for the pharmaceutical industry quantified the link between television viewing and rates of depression, concluding, 'The incidence of depression is a monotonic increasing function of television viewing' It seems that a television nation becomes a Prozac nation." (Sigman)
So television and video games are dangerous drugs. But, the argument goes, happy people don't get hooked on drugs. Happy mice can have access to heroin water and will choose to not drink it.
Of course, but first of all, those were adult mice not baby mice choosing not to drink the heroin water, and second of all, allowing my child the freedom to do heroin is entirely different from allowing my child to do heroin after I have told him about the dangers and risks involved.
I read these posts by these moms who advocate unlimited screen time, and I just can't imagine that it is possible for a mom to watch her kid do heroin and think, "He'll decide for himself what he thinks of it. Maybe he'll love it all his life long, and that'll be great! So important for them to find their One True Passion!"
So I have to assume that these moms either have never done any research on this particular drug or are television or gaming addicts themselves and therefore comfortable with passing on the addiction. The old, "I'm an addict, and I turned out fine," argument is reprehensible to some, but I am actually okay with it, because evolutionarily speaking, they're right. Likewise, the Christians that beat their children for the last thousand years had six times the birth rate of the modern day Swedes who don't. Not saying we should beat our children, just saying that we shouldn't immediately knock what has clearly worked (evolutionarily speaking).
Like moderation. Moderation served our ancestors well. Drugs are a part of life. Teaching our kids to use responsibly is an important part of parenting. I tell Anders that we must make sure we use the dangerous drugs like spices, to spice up our lives. If occasionally we want to use them as medicines, to change our mood, that's okay. But when we want to use them as drugs, to numb out, we need to find someone we love to talk to about it, because those feelings and choices can lead to very risky places.
Note that I have read some evidence to suggest that anyone allowed to do a drug as much as they want will, after a certain amount of time (almost never more than ten years), give the drug up voluntarily. There is possibly a "life cycle" to most addictions, an eventual end to the desire to numb out. But again these studies were done on adults, not children. In children, if I recall correctly, studies generally show that their brains alter to accommodate their addictions, making them likely candidates for lifelong abusers of that drug. I have, however, read anecdotes from parents that refute this.
Some moms who write in support of unlimited screen time say that it is not the abuse of screen time that is the issue – the issue is why the child wants to numb out. To this, I can only say, "Exactly! But then why are you handing him heroin instead of figuring out what is going on in his life that is causing him to want to not exist?!"
In my experience children, even the very young, are fully capable of having these discussions and of judging and moderating their use of dangerous substances provided they are given the information they need to make wise choices and a relationship they value. I have never had to force Anders to stop watching something. I have only ever reminded him that we don't want to overdo it.
For the record, Anders has overdone it a few times. I remember once he watched five or so hours of television in one day. The next day when he sat down to do his math it took him eight times longer than it had the day before. It took him a week to get his ability to focus back. The experience was very educational.
But back to my house where we don't usually overly indulge in screen time. It's interesting to me that none of us care very much about television. It's not like we have to exert great amounts of self-control to abstain from something truly glorious. A documentary is a welcome addition to an afternoon for Anders when he is curious and wants to know more about something. Both he and I appreciate what my ipad has to offer when I want to socialize at a friend's house, and he has to wait for me. He enjoys full moons when he watches movies that he has heard other kids talking about. But otherwise, television doesn't really occur to him as something to do with his time. He plays and when he is bored with playing he comes to see what I am doing and joins me. It's the same with me. I cook, clean, do errands, and write and when I need a break, I read or exercise or join him. Television isn't really on my radar. I love that.
I was raised without television. Of all the parenting choices my parents made, that was the single most wonderful gift they gave me – the gift of time, the gift of reading, the gift of not knowing what giant corporations wanted me to think.
When I was in elementary school my friends were obsessed with Full House. They learned that they were supposed to be obnoxious to adults and hate their siblings. During those years I read the Little House Books and thought families were supposed to be kind to one another and sisters were supposed to be good friends.
When I was in junior high school my friends were obsessed with Saved By the Bell. They thought school was lame and people who liked school were nerds, and the most important thing was to be popular. I read the Anne of Green Gables series and thought being the smartest girl in school was the best thing to be. I had no idea what popularity was, or that I was supposed to desire it.
When I was in high school my friends were obsessed with Buffy. They continued to hate school and began to obsess over boys and sex. I loved everything I got to learn in school. I thought every subject was fascinating and couldn't understand why they hated it so much. I was into Jane Adams at the time and though I did care a great deal about boys, I was just not as obsessed as my friends.
When I was in college my friends watched Sex and the City and were obsessed with sex and expensive shoes. And I ... was obsessed with James Joyce and couldn't care less about shoes.
The unlimited screen time moms shake their heads at me, "Do you really think reading is a more important activity than watching television? That reading is a more valid life experience in some way? How dare you claim that you might know what is better for me!" They're right. I don't know what is better for you and your family. But I do know that television is a dangerous drug that makes humans numb, unable to focus, passive, mainstream, unsatisfied with their real lives, poor, obese, and divorced.
I also know that while reading, our critical mind is active. A book is generally one person sharing his worldview. It's like a conversation. With television, you are hypnotized while exposing yourself to someone who will do anything to get your attention and keep it. When you watch television, you are the product. Your attention is what is for sale. Companies are not interested in providing quality entertainment, so much as they are interested in getting your attention and keeping it by whatever means necessary. Then they sell your attention to their advertisers. That is the nature of the business.
A writer has to sell his books. The reader is the customer. If the books are not good, the writer will not have customers. Not so with television. You are not the customer. You are the product. His customer is the advertisers. And the television writer will write accordingly. The more product they can deliver, the higher their ad revenue. (The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu)
This is why, if you are going to watch something, movies are much preferable to television. With movies, the viewer is the customer. (Though product placement often fudges that line a little.)
I also know that reading is directly related to our ability to think at abstract levels. According to the research of Leda Cosmides our brains cannot abstract verbally past more than five levels of abstraction. To think more abstractly than that requires writing our thoughts down in order to follow them. Reading is directly related to our ability to think complexly.
We ignore and override so much valuable information our subconscious brains feed us. There is a reason we smile and feel warm and fuzzy when we see a child curled up with a book and a reason why we feel disgusted and turned off when we see a child all zombied out in front of a screen.
"Most of the stories are told to most of the children not by their parents, their school, or their church, but by a group of distant corporations that have something to sell." (Sigman)
There are 150 different products linked to Dora the Explorer. The average American child watches 40,000 commercials each year. When the parents of TV free households are surveyed and asked how often their children pressure them to buy brand-name or otherwise popular toys, games, or foods, 97% of them answered never, rarely, or not very much. (Sigman)
"If you think about it in imperialistic terms, cultures and minds can now be colonised remotely.... Formerly known as propaganda, soft power lies in the abiity to attract and persuade other cultures of the validity and desirability of your own.... CNN, HBO and Disney have succeeded where napalm failed. Perhaps Apocalypse Now – The Sequel is playing out on the streets of Hanoi as young Communists can be seen eating M&Ms while watching Eminem." (Sigman)
"'The difference between children who can picture a story or scene in their mind's eye and those who were raised in front of a TV screen are obvious and very profound," wrote Sue, a TV-free mother who is also a kindergarten teacher. "This difference is evident in their play, their artwork, their writing, the foods packed in their lunch boxes, their show-and-tell, and their conversation. TV permeates every facet of thier being. I think children raised with screen shave never experienced what it's like to dream, create, and imagine inside their own heads–independent of externally supplied (usually corporate) vision.'" (Living Outside the Box)
"In 1990, the American Family Research Council reported that the average American parent spent 38.5 minutes in meaningful conversation with his or her children each week. That's less than six minutes a day. Given that our TV viewing has spiraled steadily upward since then, chances are the situation today is no better... For children raised without television, however, circumstances are different. The parents who participated in my survey of TV-free families reported spending an average of 55 minutes per day in meaningful conversation with their children. That's 385 minutes per week...." (Living Outside the Box)
Another interesting thing I remember reading about television is that our brains cannot tell the difference between our television show "friends" and our real life friends. Because our brains are wired to pay more attention to higher status people than lower status people, we will feel a greater need to check in with our television show friends of high status than our real life friends of lower status.
I know that many parents rely on the television to be their babysitter and the thought of going without it is horrifying. It is for that reason that I began Anders's YouTube channel when he was young. I didn't want him to watch cartoons, but I did need some time off, so I created an hour long playlist of home videos on YouTube for him to watch. This worked like a charm, and I highly recommend it as a strategy for parents who want to avoid television. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD5CYaUtWd6SjTovWryZtPz7pSTwdMj5K
I was not homeschooled or unschooled, but I was raised without television. Yet I am far less mainstream than the homeschooled and unschooled kids I knew growing up who were raised with television. Contrary to the stories some Unlimited TV Moms spread, I didn't pine away wishing I had television in my life or wishing I were more "normal," and I didn't turn into an adult who became a television addict, neither did my siblings. None of us actually watch a lot of television still today and all of us are happy about it. I am not advocating being TV free here – I don't know what would work in your family. But I would encourage parents to think twice about their choice to welcome screens, and especially unlimited screen time into their homes. Television is not in the same addiction category as sugar, it's more similar to METH, and should be treated as such. My research and life experience has led me to conclude that heavy television exposure is more damaging than sending children to school.
How we do screen time: We don't own a television, but we do own computers, iphones, and an ipad. Occasionally, maybe once a week, we watch documentaries on our computers or the ipad. On the full moons we watch a fiction movie. We have educational games on the ipad that are played sporadically, maybe once a month.
This arrangement, for my family at this time, is quite simply not a problem. It's not a problem for me; it's not a problem for Tom, and it's not a problem for Anders. So first, I never really thought very much about the unlimited television question because there was just no problem that needed to be solved.
But my reader asked me to consider: Should Anders be watching more television? Is he being deprived of valuable life experiences? Have I poisoned him against television by reading to him chapters from Remotely Controlled and Living Outside the Box and explaining to him that television is a drug to be used with care? Have I deprived him of making his own conclusions about television by helping him draw the connection between his ability to pay attention to his math and the amount of television he watches? Isn't it controlling and therefore against my philosophy to say to Anders, "I notice you have been watching television for over an hour now, and I am wondering if you want to do something else?"
Great questions!
My first response is that I don't believe in biting my tongue and taking a deep breath when my son is doing something that makes me uncomfortable. Because my needs matter too. When Anders was two he liked to climb very high and, though he never fell or even seemed unsafe, I would sometimes get uncomfortable and ask him to come down. "Anders, I am sure you are safe up there, but the stress in my body is so intense right now, I can hardly handle it. I feel so much fear I might start crying. I am wondering if you would be willing to come down?" He always came down – because my needs matter to him. I think that's wonderful. I think this negotiation of needs is the dance of healthy human relationships.
Because here's the thing: Bite your tongue all you want, if your veins are coursing with stress hormones, those are going to affect the people around you. Idealize that away all you want, it's a fact of human nature. (Presented compellingly in the book Connected by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler.) The fact that anxiety felt by one family member will eventually most likely be felt by all family members for one reason or another is also written about in Bowen's work on family systems theory. These facts should never be used as control mechanisms, but between respectful people who have a healthy relationship – I need to know when what I am doing is stressing you out because your stress is going to get passed around to every member of our household.
I love NVC, but I don't buy into the idea that, "We are not responsible for other people's feeling's at all." There's just no common sense there. It may be a good approach to offenses caused by strangers or to unhealthy relationships, but in close, healthy relationship, I think it is more true and more helpful to believe that, "It takes two to tango." In our family, we consider all problems we have relationship problems for both of us to solve together. You're insecure? Yes, you need to take responsibility and do what you can do to solve that problem, but because we are married, it's my problem too. You're wanting to numb out into a drug? That's definitely a problem you need to look into, but because I am your mother, that's a problem I will look into too. You needs matter to me; let's solve this together.
This was one of the most interesting things I learned in marriage. Before I met Tom I lived by myself and I had no problems with myself so ... there just wasn't a lot of drama there. Then Tom moved in and suddenly I close all the cupboards too loudly and my desk is too messy. Suddenly, I had problems. Or rather we had problems. It wasn't my job to placate Tom by training myself to be quieter and neater, and it wasn't Tom's job to accept me for who I am and deal with his feelings on his own; it was our job to be sensitive to one another, accept one another, and give each other gifts.
When I peruse the unlimited screen time approach to television and video games, I find a lot of it disrespectful to parents, to their needs and discomforts. I find that the abstract ideal of freedom is presented as more important than creating a relationship between the parent and child that works for both of them. There is no right answer here. There is no "should" when it comes to how I keep my desk. There is only what works for me and what doesn't and what works for other members of my household and what doesn't. In a household focused on healthy relationships, everyones needs matter, even their irrational ones.
But I don't think my discomfort around television and video games is irrational. There is a reason parents feel instinctively worried when they see their child watching television or playing video games, because no matter how hard you try to tell yourself it's okay, deep down, you know your kid is on drugs. Meth to be specific. Television and video games are in the same addictive category as meth.
"There are few things ever dreamed of, smoked, or injected that have as addictive an effect on our brains as technology. This is how our devices keep us captive and always coming back for more. The definitive Internet act of our times is a perfect metaphor for the promise of reward: We search. And we search. And we search some more, clicking that mouse like – well, like a rat in a cage seeking another "hit," looking for that elusive reward that will finally feel like enough.... Computer and video game designers intentionally manipulate the reward system to keep players hooked. The promise that the next level or big win could happen at any time is what makes a game so compelling. It's also what makes a game so hard to quit. One study found that playing a video game led to dopamine increases equivalent to amphetamine use – and it's this dopamine rush that makes both so addictive. (Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. in The Willpower Instinct: How Self Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It.)
"Television is unique, the perfect medium to produce strong rewards for paying attention to something. So what is so powerful about this reward? Compared to the pace with which real life unfolds and is experienced by young children, television portrays life with the fast-forward button fully pressed. Rapidly changing images, scenery and events, and high-fidelity sounds are overly stimulating and, of course, extremely interesting. Once you are used to food with monosodium glutamate flavour enhancer, real food doesn't taste as interesting. Television is the flavour enhancer of the audiovisual world. Nothing in real life is comparable to this. Television overpays the young child to pay attention to it, and in so doing it seems to physically spoil and damage his attention circuits. In effect, television corrupts the reward system that enables us to pay attention to other things in life." (Dr. Aric Sigman, Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives).
Our ability to pay attention is our life. Our ability to focus and control what we pay attention to is consciousness. To do a drug that damages your ability to pay attention is risking your ability to be consciously alive. That is why there is a direct correlation between how much television children watch and ADHD, among other things.
"Children who watch television at ages one and three have a significantly increased risk of developing such attentional problems by the time they are seven. For every hour of television a child watches per day, there is a nine per cent increase in attentional damage. The scientists suggest that their findings may actually be an understatement of the risks to children. They speculate that even if there is some educational benefit to be had from the actual programmes watched, this benefit may have covered up the even greater damage to the child's attentional systems that would occur if they watched programmes that had little educational benefit for them." (Sigman)
"A 26 year study of the 'Association Between Child and Adolescent Television Viewing and Adult Health' was recently published in the medical journal The Lancet, involving 1,000 children born in 1972-73. It found that children who watched more than two hours of television a day between the ages of five and fifteen suffered serious health risks many years later, at the age of 26. The study concluded that 15 per cent of cases of raised blood cholesterol, 17 per cent of obesity, 17 per cent of smoking and 15 per cent of bad cardiovascular fitness were linked to the television viewing that took place years before when the adults were children. This link remained, irresponsive of other factors such as social background, body mass index at age five, parents' BMI, parental smoking and how physically active the children were by the age of 15." (Sigman)
"Within 30 seconds of turning on the television, our brain becomes neurologically less able to make judgements about what we see and hear on screen. Our brain treats incoming information uncritically ... Our brain's left hemisphere, which processes information logically and analytically tunes out while we are watching television." (Sigman)
"Television provides the best means of persuading you to buy into the right values... Nowadays television executives talk of 'raising public awareness of...' This used to be simply called propaganda... Long after people forget what they hear, they remember how they feel. So Bonneville creates those unforgettable feelings..." (Sigman)
"And a study of 22,079 American adults for the pharmaceutical industry quantified the link between television viewing and rates of depression, concluding, 'The incidence of depression is a monotonic increasing function of television viewing' It seems that a television nation becomes a Prozac nation." (Sigman)
So television and video games are dangerous drugs. But, the argument goes, happy people don't get hooked on drugs. Happy mice can have access to heroin water and will choose to not drink it.
Of course, but first of all, those were adult mice not baby mice choosing not to drink the heroin water, and second of all, allowing my child the freedom to do heroin is entirely different from allowing my child to do heroin after I have told him about the dangers and risks involved.
I read these posts by these moms who advocate unlimited screen time, and I just can't imagine that it is possible for a mom to watch her kid do heroin and think, "He'll decide for himself what he thinks of it. Maybe he'll love it all his life long, and that'll be great! So important for them to find their One True Passion!"
So I have to assume that these moms either have never done any research on this particular drug or are television or gaming addicts themselves and therefore comfortable with passing on the addiction. The old, "I'm an addict, and I turned out fine," argument is reprehensible to some, but I am actually okay with it, because evolutionarily speaking, they're right. Likewise, the Christians that beat their children for the last thousand years had six times the birth rate of the modern day Swedes who don't. Not saying we should beat our children, just saying that we shouldn't immediately knock what has clearly worked (evolutionarily speaking).
Like moderation. Moderation served our ancestors well. Drugs are a part of life. Teaching our kids to use responsibly is an important part of parenting. I tell Anders that we must make sure we use the dangerous drugs like spices, to spice up our lives. If occasionally we want to use them as medicines, to change our mood, that's okay. But when we want to use them as drugs, to numb out, we need to find someone we love to talk to about it, because those feelings and choices can lead to very risky places.
Note that I have read some evidence to suggest that anyone allowed to do a drug as much as they want will, after a certain amount of time (almost never more than ten years), give the drug up voluntarily. There is possibly a "life cycle" to most addictions, an eventual end to the desire to numb out. But again these studies were done on adults, not children. In children, if I recall correctly, studies generally show that their brains alter to accommodate their addictions, making them likely candidates for lifelong abusers of that drug. I have, however, read anecdotes from parents that refute this.
Some moms who write in support of unlimited screen time say that it is not the abuse of screen time that is the issue – the issue is why the child wants to numb out. To this, I can only say, "Exactly! But then why are you handing him heroin instead of figuring out what is going on in his life that is causing him to want to not exist?!"
In my experience children, even the very young, are fully capable of having these discussions and of judging and moderating their use of dangerous substances provided they are given the information they need to make wise choices and a relationship they value. I have never had to force Anders to stop watching something. I have only ever reminded him that we don't want to overdo it.
For the record, Anders has overdone it a few times. I remember once he watched five or so hours of television in one day. The next day when he sat down to do his math it took him eight times longer than it had the day before. It took him a week to get his ability to focus back. The experience was very educational.
But back to my house where we don't usually overly indulge in screen time. It's interesting to me that none of us care very much about television. It's not like we have to exert great amounts of self-control to abstain from something truly glorious. A documentary is a welcome addition to an afternoon for Anders when he is curious and wants to know more about something. Both he and I appreciate what my ipad has to offer when I want to socialize at a friend's house, and he has to wait for me. He enjoys full moons when he watches movies that he has heard other kids talking about. But otherwise, television doesn't really occur to him as something to do with his time. He plays and when he is bored with playing he comes to see what I am doing and joins me. It's the same with me. I cook, clean, do errands, and write and when I need a break, I read or exercise or join him. Television isn't really on my radar. I love that.
I was raised without television. Of all the parenting choices my parents made, that was the single most wonderful gift they gave me – the gift of time, the gift of reading, the gift of not knowing what giant corporations wanted me to think.
When I was in elementary school my friends were obsessed with Full House. They learned that they were supposed to be obnoxious to adults and hate their siblings. During those years I read the Little House Books and thought families were supposed to be kind to one another and sisters were supposed to be good friends.
When I was in junior high school my friends were obsessed with Saved By the Bell. They thought school was lame and people who liked school were nerds, and the most important thing was to be popular. I read the Anne of Green Gables series and thought being the smartest girl in school was the best thing to be. I had no idea what popularity was, or that I was supposed to desire it.
When I was in high school my friends were obsessed with Buffy. They continued to hate school and began to obsess over boys and sex. I loved everything I got to learn in school. I thought every subject was fascinating and couldn't understand why they hated it so much. I was into Jane Adams at the time and though I did care a great deal about boys, I was just not as obsessed as my friends.
When I was in college my friends watched Sex and the City and were obsessed with sex and expensive shoes. And I ... was obsessed with James Joyce and couldn't care less about shoes.
The unlimited screen time moms shake their heads at me, "Do you really think reading is a more important activity than watching television? That reading is a more valid life experience in some way? How dare you claim that you might know what is better for me!" They're right. I don't know what is better for you and your family. But I do know that television is a dangerous drug that makes humans numb, unable to focus, passive, mainstream, unsatisfied with their real lives, poor, obese, and divorced.
I also know that while reading, our critical mind is active. A book is generally one person sharing his worldview. It's like a conversation. With television, you are hypnotized while exposing yourself to someone who will do anything to get your attention and keep it. When you watch television, you are the product. Your attention is what is for sale. Companies are not interested in providing quality entertainment, so much as they are interested in getting your attention and keeping it by whatever means necessary. Then they sell your attention to their advertisers. That is the nature of the business.
A writer has to sell his books. The reader is the customer. If the books are not good, the writer will not have customers. Not so with television. You are not the customer. You are the product. His customer is the advertisers. And the television writer will write accordingly. The more product they can deliver, the higher their ad revenue. (The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu)
This is why, if you are going to watch something, movies are much preferable to television. With movies, the viewer is the customer. (Though product placement often fudges that line a little.)
I also know that reading is directly related to our ability to think at abstract levels. According to the research of Leda Cosmides our brains cannot abstract verbally past more than five levels of abstraction. To think more abstractly than that requires writing our thoughts down in order to follow them. Reading is directly related to our ability to think complexly.
We ignore and override so much valuable information our subconscious brains feed us. There is a reason we smile and feel warm and fuzzy when we see a child curled up with a book and a reason why we feel disgusted and turned off when we see a child all zombied out in front of a screen.
"Most of the stories are told to most of the children not by their parents, their school, or their church, but by a group of distant corporations that have something to sell." (Sigman)
There are 150 different products linked to Dora the Explorer. The average American child watches 40,000 commercials each year. When the parents of TV free households are surveyed and asked how often their children pressure them to buy brand-name or otherwise popular toys, games, or foods, 97% of them answered never, rarely, or not very much. (Sigman)
"If you think about it in imperialistic terms, cultures and minds can now be colonised remotely.... Formerly known as propaganda, soft power lies in the abiity to attract and persuade other cultures of the validity and desirability of your own.... CNN, HBO and Disney have succeeded where napalm failed. Perhaps Apocalypse Now – The Sequel is playing out on the streets of Hanoi as young Communists can be seen eating M&Ms while watching Eminem." (Sigman)
"'The difference between children who can picture a story or scene in their mind's eye and those who were raised in front of a TV screen are obvious and very profound," wrote Sue, a TV-free mother who is also a kindergarten teacher. "This difference is evident in their play, their artwork, their writing, the foods packed in their lunch boxes, their show-and-tell, and their conversation. TV permeates every facet of thier being. I think children raised with screen shave never experienced what it's like to dream, create, and imagine inside their own heads–independent of externally supplied (usually corporate) vision.'" (Living Outside the Box)
"In 1990, the American Family Research Council reported that the average American parent spent 38.5 minutes in meaningful conversation with his or her children each week. That's less than six minutes a day. Given that our TV viewing has spiraled steadily upward since then, chances are the situation today is no better... For children raised without television, however, circumstances are different. The parents who participated in my survey of TV-free families reported spending an average of 55 minutes per day in meaningful conversation with their children. That's 385 minutes per week...." (Living Outside the Box)
Another interesting thing I remember reading about television is that our brains cannot tell the difference between our television show "friends" and our real life friends. Because our brains are wired to pay more attention to higher status people than lower status people, we will feel a greater need to check in with our television show friends of high status than our real life friends of lower status.
I know that many parents rely on the television to be their babysitter and the thought of going without it is horrifying. It is for that reason that I began Anders's YouTube channel when he was young. I didn't want him to watch cartoons, but I did need some time off, so I created an hour long playlist of home videos on YouTube for him to watch. This worked like a charm, and I highly recommend it as a strategy for parents who want to avoid television. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD5CYaUtWd6SjTovWryZtPz7pSTwdMj5K
I was not homeschooled or unschooled, but I was raised without television. Yet I am far less mainstream than the homeschooled and unschooled kids I knew growing up who were raised with television. Contrary to the stories some Unlimited TV Moms spread, I didn't pine away wishing I had television in my life or wishing I were more "normal," and I didn't turn into an adult who became a television addict, neither did my siblings. None of us actually watch a lot of television still today and all of us are happy about it. I am not advocating being TV free here – I don't know what would work in your family. But I would encourage parents to think twice about their choice to welcome screens, and especially unlimited screen time into their homes. Television is not in the same addiction category as sugar, it's more similar to METH, and should be treated as such. My research and life experience has led me to conclude that heavy television exposure is more damaging than sending children to school.
Friday, December 16, 2016
Where RIE and I Part Ways: Magda Gerber's Ideas Are Excellent But Include Some Bad Victorian Ideas
A friend of mine was reading a Janet Lansbury's book and wanted my opinion on the following three paragraphs (which I have divided into chunks according to my responses):
"A child should have a child's life and not be an appendage of an adult's life. Children should have their own age-appropriate experiences.""
I have seen many children treated as if they were pets or trophies of their parents. To the extent that Lansbury means children should own their lives, I agree. But I think she doesn't mean what I want her to mean. I think she is a benevolent dictator. What is "a child's life?" Sounds like something an adult invented that he is forcing upon the child to me. The child should not "be an appendage" of the adult, but neither should he be a prisoner to the Victorian and Waldorf ideals of what "childhood" should consist of.
To the extent that she wants children to be excluded from the real world "for their own good," I completely disagree.
"Few adults adapt to a child's life--her size, temperament, and timing. Many expect children to adapt to adult life. This is very difficult for children to do. Children can adapt to anything, but it isn't in their best interest."
These statements I agree with. It is very hard to communicate effectively with a baby or toddler if the adult does not adapt to the child's timing. Notice when you talk to your baby, you have to count to four before you can see her reaction or comprehension.
Here is a great video of Anders to illustrate that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg4Jm4FEPhM&list=PLD5CYaUtWd6SjTovWryZtPz7pSTwdMj5K&index=205
At the end of the video he finally accomplishes his goal and smiles. But that smile takes a few seconds to appear. When Anders was able to lift his legs for me at diaper time he did, but I had to say, "I am ready for you to lift your legs," and then count to four, before those little legs lifted.
This is why I so heartily recommend going to RIE classes and watching them with babies--how slow they are, and how effective their communication is. (But of course it doesn't mean I agree with all of their ideas.)
But I think it may be important again to say: balance. Sometimes the child adapts. Sometimes the adult adapts. As long as the focus is on everyone getting their needs met, as long as everyone's needs matter, I don't see this being a real issue.
"Sadly, children hang on to their parents' lifestyles. The mother needs to shop, so the baby shops. The mother needs to run errands, so the baby runs errands. Everybody survives this, though it's not ideal for your child."
It is one thing to take a child shopping, rush him, and ignore his needs. It is quite another thing to take a child shopping, be present, and enjoy it as a way for the two of you to spend time together.
I remember wonderful times with Anders in the grocery stores. I always asked him if he wanted to go beforehand. He was generally excited to go and loved running errands with me. Every store was an adventure for him, and it was fun for me to share that with him. Trips to the store were very slow with him along, of course. He often needed to check something out for so long that I was done with a few emails on my phone before he was ready for me to keep pushing the cart. There were days when we were in a hurry, but on those days he would hurry with me--we were a hurry-ing team. And if hurrying wasn't working out we would make a choice to skip something. If Anders ever didn't want to on an errand, I would put my errands off until later when he was happy to go, or I would negotiate with him and make some sort of trade so that we could both get our needs met.
In relationships there are always conflicting needs. In the parent-child relationship, parents are too often given the choice between bulldozing their child or sacrificing themselves. Lansbury seems to be advocating for the parents to sacrifice themselves. But she is also advocating for separation--daycare and nannies. There is an implied threat here: If you can't sacrifice your own needs to give your child a "child's life" then you should hand him to a daycare where he can have a proper "child's life."
It's this false dilemma that has led to the destruction of our families.
In all of our relationships we have a similar dilemma whenever there are conflicting needs: Should one person's needs get sacrificed? Should one person's needs get bulldozed? Of course not. We compromise. We trade. We look for the win-win. We find a way for both parties to get their needs met. It is no different with children.
Why would we skip teaching our children this valuable life skill and instead teach them that when people have conflicting needs, they should split up and go their separate ways? Not saying there isn't a time and a place for people to go their separate ways, just saying that in the daily life of a baby, daycare isn't more ideal than being with mom, being home isn't more ideal than being out--as long as everyone's needs are being respected.
I see the parent-child relationship as a fantastic place to practice "Both our needs matter! Let's find a way to get both our needs met!" Lansbury's "sacrifice or separate!" doesn't work for me at all.
"A child's life should be boringly the same--boring for the adult rather than for the child. In this way she develops an inner rhythm. Children aren't happy spending hours in car seats or shopping. Malls are not for children. They are overstimulating. Children need a life of their own."
This first sentence is very sad. Time for parents to sacrifice in the name of this ideal of their child developing an "inner rhythm." Whatever that means.
I totally disagree that a child's life needs to be boringly the same. It will be, even if the parents don't sacrifice themselves. The average adult only goes to seven places on regular basis. I think that qualifies as "boringly the same." Should the child join the adult in his/her life, the child will learn how to be in those seven places and that is great. The child will feel competent at life in the world and be competent at life in those places and have a life beyond his house, relationships beyond his parents.
Children, in my experience, love the world and want to know about the world. They also love their houses and want to stay home. Same as grownups--we want to go out sometimes; we want to stay in other times. There is no One Rule like "children need a boring schedule that is always the same." This is hogwash. I am a big advocate of striving for authenticity rather than consistency. The whole idea behind being consistent with children is that it makes it easier to control them. I have found that even the very youngest children are capable of complexity (e.g. inconsistency).
Children are not happy to spend hours in carseats and neither are adults happy to spend hours in the car. When Anders was a baby he would strongly object to being in his carseat after two hours. So when we had a drive longer than that I plan the trip so every two hours we could stop somewhere for at least an hour. Usually we would stop for lunch at a park, other times we would check out a random store (like a book store) to give us a break. Other times we would rethink the trip. There is nothing we truly have to do. Everything is a choice.
As long as I approached every situation with the belief that Anders's needs mattered too, there always seemed to be a way for us to both be content.
"Allowing your child a child's life means letting her play peacefully at home, indoors and out, with her play interrupted only by daily caregiving necessities and occasional errands. In earlier times children had more of a chance to do this. In modern culture, life is more urban and less rural, and it takes effort to provide a child with this kind of environment."
For Lansbury, "allowing" her child to "have a child'd life" means imprisoning him in the Victorian childhood.
For me, I "allow" my child to own his body and be in charge of his property. His needs and opinions matter; he is invited to help plan his own schedule and have input on family decisions. He is encouraged to decide what is best for him--staying home or going out and then negotiate accordingly. He is not shut out of aspects of my life in the name of "childhood."
My distaste for Lansbury's wording aside, it's important to note that Anders largely lived her ideal childhood. He spent a great deal of time at home when he was a baby. I tried to never interrupt what he was working on. He played peacefully, indoors and out. He had a chance to really explore the world around him--the very safe and contained little world in our Oxnard house and then our LA house. As soon as he could scoot, he generally scooted to wherever I was and sought a way to join in with what I was doing. The series of videos on my Anders playlist on YouTube illustrates his early life pretty thoroughly. I didn't overstimulate him. I let him be in charge of what he was interested in. I did my own thing (cooking, cleaning, reading, writing) and he found ways to join or not. Sometimes I stopped what I was doing and just watched what he was doing or interacted with him if he wanted to interact.
What I see is that children want to play versions of or explore whatever adults are doing. But how can they do this if they are deprived of adults? To me, respecting a child means inviting him into my world and then letting him be free to explore it how he wishes (as long as it is respectful to me).
Also, I think Anders had a fine baby-hood, the best I could do--but it's not the ideal childhood I envision. It was much too much work for me (and Tom) and far too lonely.
When Anders was an eighteen-month-old we attended a family wedding at a campground resort. Each family had a little cabin and outside our cabins was a grassy area with picnic tables, trees and a creek. That's where all the action was. There were always kids and adults out on that grassy area doing something.
During that long weekend Anders would wake up in the morning, get dressed, and rush outside to the grassy area. He felt totally comfortable saying, "Bye!" to me and heading there all by himself. He played with his cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and family friends, and explored the creek, plants, and trees. He would come back to the room looking for me every few hours for a diaper change, food, or cuddles (though I was often outside and then he would find me there). It was really beautiful and effortless. In our regular life he could only join in on whatever I was doing. There he could choose from among what twenty or thirty different people were doing. He could choose which activity was the most interesting to him, or what person he wanted to get to know better. That is what I envision as the ideal childhood.
The nice thing about what I envision is that if the child wants to stay in the house and not be with people or be out in the world, he totally can. But there is a world out there for him to be a part of if he chooses.
"A child should have a child's life and not be an appendage of an adult's life. Children should have their own age-appropriate experiences.""
I have seen many children treated as if they were pets or trophies of their parents. To the extent that Lansbury means children should own their lives, I agree. But I think she doesn't mean what I want her to mean. I think she is a benevolent dictator. What is "a child's life?" Sounds like something an adult invented that he is forcing upon the child to me. The child should not "be an appendage" of the adult, but neither should he be a prisoner to the Victorian and Waldorf ideals of what "childhood" should consist of.
To the extent that she wants children to be excluded from the real world "for their own good," I completely disagree.
"Few adults adapt to a child's life--her size, temperament, and timing. Many expect children to adapt to adult life. This is very difficult for children to do. Children can adapt to anything, but it isn't in their best interest."
These statements I agree with. It is very hard to communicate effectively with a baby or toddler if the adult does not adapt to the child's timing. Notice when you talk to your baby, you have to count to four before you can see her reaction or comprehension.
Here is a great video of Anders to illustrate that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg4Jm4FEPhM&list=PLD5CYaUtWd6SjTovWryZtPz7pSTwdMj5K&index=205
At the end of the video he finally accomplishes his goal and smiles. But that smile takes a few seconds to appear. When Anders was able to lift his legs for me at diaper time he did, but I had to say, "I am ready for you to lift your legs," and then count to four, before those little legs lifted.
This is why I so heartily recommend going to RIE classes and watching them with babies--how slow they are, and how effective their communication is. (But of course it doesn't mean I agree with all of their ideas.)
But I think it may be important again to say: balance. Sometimes the child adapts. Sometimes the adult adapts. As long as the focus is on everyone getting their needs met, as long as everyone's needs matter, I don't see this being a real issue.
"Sadly, children hang on to their parents' lifestyles. The mother needs to shop, so the baby shops. The mother needs to run errands, so the baby runs errands. Everybody survives this, though it's not ideal for your child."
It is one thing to take a child shopping, rush him, and ignore his needs. It is quite another thing to take a child shopping, be present, and enjoy it as a way for the two of you to spend time together.
I remember wonderful times with Anders in the grocery stores. I always asked him if he wanted to go beforehand. He was generally excited to go and loved running errands with me. Every store was an adventure for him, and it was fun for me to share that with him. Trips to the store were very slow with him along, of course. He often needed to check something out for so long that I was done with a few emails on my phone before he was ready for me to keep pushing the cart. There were days when we were in a hurry, but on those days he would hurry with me--we were a hurry-ing team. And if hurrying wasn't working out we would make a choice to skip something. If Anders ever didn't want to on an errand, I would put my errands off until later when he was happy to go, or I would negotiate with him and make some sort of trade so that we could both get our needs met.
In relationships there are always conflicting needs. In the parent-child relationship, parents are too often given the choice between bulldozing their child or sacrificing themselves. Lansbury seems to be advocating for the parents to sacrifice themselves. But she is also advocating for separation--daycare and nannies. There is an implied threat here: If you can't sacrifice your own needs to give your child a "child's life" then you should hand him to a daycare where he can have a proper "child's life."
It's this false dilemma that has led to the destruction of our families.
In all of our relationships we have a similar dilemma whenever there are conflicting needs: Should one person's needs get sacrificed? Should one person's needs get bulldozed? Of course not. We compromise. We trade. We look for the win-win. We find a way for both parties to get their needs met. It is no different with children.
Why would we skip teaching our children this valuable life skill and instead teach them that when people have conflicting needs, they should split up and go their separate ways? Not saying there isn't a time and a place for people to go their separate ways, just saying that in the daily life of a baby, daycare isn't more ideal than being with mom, being home isn't more ideal than being out--as long as everyone's needs are being respected.
I see the parent-child relationship as a fantastic place to practice "Both our needs matter! Let's find a way to get both our needs met!" Lansbury's "sacrifice or separate!" doesn't work for me at all.
"A child's life should be boringly the same--boring for the adult rather than for the child. In this way she develops an inner rhythm. Children aren't happy spending hours in car seats or shopping. Malls are not for children. They are overstimulating. Children need a life of their own."
This first sentence is very sad. Time for parents to sacrifice in the name of this ideal of their child developing an "inner rhythm." Whatever that means.
I totally disagree that a child's life needs to be boringly the same. It will be, even if the parents don't sacrifice themselves. The average adult only goes to seven places on regular basis. I think that qualifies as "boringly the same." Should the child join the adult in his/her life, the child will learn how to be in those seven places and that is great. The child will feel competent at life in the world and be competent at life in those places and have a life beyond his house, relationships beyond his parents.
Children, in my experience, love the world and want to know about the world. They also love their houses and want to stay home. Same as grownups--we want to go out sometimes; we want to stay in other times. There is no One Rule like "children need a boring schedule that is always the same." This is hogwash. I am a big advocate of striving for authenticity rather than consistency. The whole idea behind being consistent with children is that it makes it easier to control them. I have found that even the very youngest children are capable of complexity (e.g. inconsistency).
Children are not happy to spend hours in carseats and neither are adults happy to spend hours in the car. When Anders was a baby he would strongly object to being in his carseat after two hours. So when we had a drive longer than that I plan the trip so every two hours we could stop somewhere for at least an hour. Usually we would stop for lunch at a park, other times we would check out a random store (like a book store) to give us a break. Other times we would rethink the trip. There is nothing we truly have to do. Everything is a choice.
As long as I approached every situation with the belief that Anders's needs mattered too, there always seemed to be a way for us to both be content.
"Allowing your child a child's life means letting her play peacefully at home, indoors and out, with her play interrupted only by daily caregiving necessities and occasional errands. In earlier times children had more of a chance to do this. In modern culture, life is more urban and less rural, and it takes effort to provide a child with this kind of environment."
For Lansbury, "allowing" her child to "have a child'd life" means imprisoning him in the Victorian childhood.
For me, I "allow" my child to own his body and be in charge of his property. His needs and opinions matter; he is invited to help plan his own schedule and have input on family decisions. He is encouraged to decide what is best for him--staying home or going out and then negotiate accordingly. He is not shut out of aspects of my life in the name of "childhood."
My distaste for Lansbury's wording aside, it's important to note that Anders largely lived her ideal childhood. He spent a great deal of time at home when he was a baby. I tried to never interrupt what he was working on. He played peacefully, indoors and out. He had a chance to really explore the world around him--the very safe and contained little world in our Oxnard house and then our LA house. As soon as he could scoot, he generally scooted to wherever I was and sought a way to join in with what I was doing. The series of videos on my Anders playlist on YouTube illustrates his early life pretty thoroughly. I didn't overstimulate him. I let him be in charge of what he was interested in. I did my own thing (cooking, cleaning, reading, writing) and he found ways to join or not. Sometimes I stopped what I was doing and just watched what he was doing or interacted with him if he wanted to interact.
What I see is that children want to play versions of or explore whatever adults are doing. But how can they do this if they are deprived of adults? To me, respecting a child means inviting him into my world and then letting him be free to explore it how he wishes (as long as it is respectful to me).
Also, I think Anders had a fine baby-hood, the best I could do--but it's not the ideal childhood I envision. It was much too much work for me (and Tom) and far too lonely.
When Anders was an eighteen-month-old we attended a family wedding at a campground resort. Each family had a little cabin and outside our cabins was a grassy area with picnic tables, trees and a creek. That's where all the action was. There were always kids and adults out on that grassy area doing something.
During that long weekend Anders would wake up in the morning, get dressed, and rush outside to the grassy area. He felt totally comfortable saying, "Bye!" to me and heading there all by himself. He played with his cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and family friends, and explored the creek, plants, and trees. He would come back to the room looking for me every few hours for a diaper change, food, or cuddles (though I was often outside and then he would find me there). It was really beautiful and effortless. In our regular life he could only join in on whatever I was doing. There he could choose from among what twenty or thirty different people were doing. He could choose which activity was the most interesting to him, or what person he wanted to get to know better. That is what I envision as the ideal childhood.
The nice thing about what I envision is that if the child wants to stay in the house and not be with people or be out in the world, he totally can. But there is a world out there for him to be a part of if he chooses.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Things I Got Right and Wrong: The First Five Years
Before I had Anders, I had worked with kids for over a decade and had read hundreds of books on raising children. I had developed many hypotheses that I didn't get to fully put into practice until I had my own family. (And perhaps, if you have read the same books I have read, you have similar expectations.)
Here are the things I got wrong and right in my little n=1 study.
As Henrik grows I will update this list. If it says x2 it means I had the same results the second time around as well.
PREGNANCY
-By eating a high fat, med protein, low sugar diet I won't get morning sickness: RIGHT x3. (But pregnancy was still horrible.)
-By having my baby at home, where my subconscious brain feels safe, I will have a complication-free birth: RIGHT x3
-By having my baby at home, I will have a peaceful birth: WRONG. Birth is horrific (in my opinion). It doesn't matter where you do it.
-A water birth will make birth suck a little less: WRONG. Birth is horrific on land or in water.
-By having my baby at home, and by studying birth psychology (hynobirthing, reading Baby Catcher), I will have a fast birth: RIGHT (3.5 hours for Anders, 6 hours for Henrik (water slowed it down), 30 minutes from start to finish for Soren (walking sped it up)
BABY
-By not using artificial light in the first two weeks, I will have a newborn that effortlessly learns night and day. RIGHT x3
-By eating a WAPF + bland/nursing friendly diet I will have a baby that does not spit up. RIGHTx3
-By eating a WAPF diet and breastfeeding for two years, I will have a baby that never gets cradle cap, eye infections, or other illnesses. RIGHTx3
-I don't need to hire a lactation consultant as breast feeding is natural and easy. WRONG (I had actually always planned on having a lactation consultant as everything I had read told me that if I wanted to be successful at breastfeeding, that was the way to go, but then my mother put in her two cents and, well, I took her advice. Terrible mistake. Anders didn't get enough food for his first week. With Henrik I had a lactation consultant come to make sure we were doing it right. We weren't. I was trying to do lay-down nursing before Henrik was developmentally ready. With Soren I did not need one.)
-By following Dr. Mendelsohn's advice in How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor, I will avoid needless (all) trips to the doctor and the emergency room. RIGHT (after his well-baby, Anders went to the doctor only twice before he was five, once to retrieve something he put up his nose and once for diagnosis of impetigo rash. Henrik went to the doctor once for a bad cold he had at nine months. Soren has never been.)
-By following Baby-Led Weaning I will have a baby that does not choke on food. RIGHTx3 (Though ... most babies don't choke on food so....)
-By putting my baby in cloth diapers, I will have a baby that never gets diaper rash. RIGHT, however, I used disposable diapers for Henrik and Soren. Henrik got a diaper rash once while we were traveling and I used an unnatural brand. Soren never had diaper rash.
-By following RIE techniques I will have a self-confident baby. RIGHTx3
-By following RIE techniques my baby will develop good communication and cooperation skills at a very young age. RIGHTx3
-By not buying entertaining toys (only passive toys) my baby will be able to entertain himself for long periods of time. RIGHTx3
-I don't need to be "consistent;" babies are smart enough to understand that we do things this way one time and that way the next time. Explaining these things to babies makes them better decision makers. RIGHTx3 *Now that I have three kids, I find routines and consistency to be life-savers in terms of the chaos of parenting.
TODDLER
-By feeding my child whatever I am eating, I will have a child with an expansive palate, who enjoys flavorful food, including fish, sushi, and spicy foods. INCONCLUSIVE All three of my kids are annoyingly picky. But all three also love things other kids don't. Anders and Henrik love liver. Soren won't eat it. Henrik and Soren love caviar. Anders doesn't. All three eat fish. Only Anders eats shellfish. All three love sushi. Anders loves spicy food. All three hate (most) Nicaraguan food.
-By never having an opinion about whether or what my son eats when meals are presented to him, I will raise a "good eater." WRONG (Soren is a good eater. The other two don't eat enough in my opinion.)
-By raising my son with RIE techniques he will be a safe climber and never get a hard hit to his head or break a bone. RIGHTx3 (Due to failing to follow RIE techniques for a while when Henrik was young, he actually became super dangerous from 10-12 months before I realized what we were doing wrong.)
-By raising my child in reality--and therefore never giving him floaties or help that will give him an artificial relationship with the water--he will teach himself to swim at a young age, and be safe around pools and other bodies of water RIGHTx2 (this means I sat in a chair near the pool while he crawled over and explored the water, not that I let him play near the pool while I went and made dinner. I spent a lot of time on the steps with my toddlers. They did get overexcited and throw themselves into the water once or twice, but I let them go under for just a second before fishing them out and they don't do that again. By 18 months they have been safe around pools. Both Anders and Henrik taught themselves to swim at 3.
-By inviting my son into the bathroom with me, discussing what is interesting about poop and pee, and allowing my son to spend time naked, I will have a child that is a) not afraid of toilets b) not afraid of pooping c) potty trains himself with ease. RIGHTx3 (At the age of 18 months Henrik started showing interest in using the toilet. I bought him a little toddler potty and five minutes after I set it down in the bathroom and took off his clothes he pooped in it. However, a child cannot be potty independent until they can pull their own pants down and back up. This happens around 2 1/2 to 3, so I make zero effort to do any real potty training before then, as in, it's all just for fun until then. But once they are ready, I have been blown away three times by how easy and relaxed it has been.)
-There is no super-defiant "no" phase for respectfully raise children. RIGHTx3
-Because I don't chase after him or control him, because it is "our" goal to not lose one another, I will have a toddler that never runs away in stores or parks or other places. RIGHTx3
-By giving him information about safety around cars but not being controlling about it, my toddler will make safe choices in parking lots and around cars. RIGHTx3
-If I use NVC, the woods good and bad will never be necessary. WRONG (concepts exist because we experience them, not because the words create them. It's important to be cognizant of what we are trying to express, but good and bad are fine, useful concepts.)
-If I create a respectful relationship with my son, he will give to me when I ask, for example, we will not struggle over him getting into his carseat. RIGHTx3 (Anders was forced into his carseat against his will only once in his life. Neither Henrik nor Soren have ever been forced into their carseats. *I think another key to my success in this area is giving the kids ample time to play in the car.
-By raising my child respectfully, he will not throw tantrums. RIGHTx3
-By never hitting my son, I will have a child that never hits. WRONG
-By focusing on creating a secure attachment and respecting his needs, I will have a child who never protests when I drop him off somewhere or have a sitter come. RIGHTx3 (I never once dropped either of my babies off and let them cry, or hired a baby sitter and let him cry. It it always their choice ... and yet they always choose to give me time off if I ask for it.)
-By inviting my son to life with me, I will have a child quite advanced for his age in the study of real life. RIGHTx3 (Note this is where RIE and I part ways. RIE does not invite children to life with their parent, but rather puts them into daycare.) Note what Anders could do when he was two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uenJsBFd5wU.
PRESCHOOL
-By eating a WAPF diet, we won't get colds. WRONG. (Though none of them have been serious. None my kids have ever been on antibiotics.)
-By eating gourmet, adult food from a young age, I will have a child that does not like the classic kid foods like pasta, pizza, hot dogs, and french fries. WRONG
-By eating adult food from a young age and having absolute authority about what goes in and what does not go in to his mouth, I will have a child who is an "adventurous eater," willing to try new things. RIGHT MOSTLY (If Soren is full he will not taste the desert.)
Here are the things I got wrong and right in my little n=1 study.
As Henrik grows I will update this list. If it says x2 it means I had the same results the second time around as well.
PREGNANCY
-By eating a high fat, med protein, low sugar diet I won't get morning sickness: RIGHT x3. (But pregnancy was still horrible.)
-By having my baby at home, where my subconscious brain feels safe, I will have a complication-free birth: RIGHT x3
-By having my baby at home, I will have a peaceful birth: WRONG. Birth is horrific (in my opinion). It doesn't matter where you do it.
-A water birth will make birth suck a little less: WRONG. Birth is horrific on land or in water.
-By having my baby at home, and by studying birth psychology (hynobirthing, reading Baby Catcher), I will have a fast birth: RIGHT (3.5 hours for Anders, 6 hours for Henrik (water slowed it down), 30 minutes from start to finish for Soren (walking sped it up)
BABY
-By not using artificial light in the first two weeks, I will have a newborn that effortlessly learns night and day. RIGHT x3
-By eating a WAPF + bland/nursing friendly diet I will have a baby that does not spit up. RIGHTx3
-By eating a WAPF diet and breastfeeding for two years, I will have a baby that never gets cradle cap, eye infections, or other illnesses. RIGHTx3
-I don't need to hire a lactation consultant as breast feeding is natural and easy. WRONG (I had actually always planned on having a lactation consultant as everything I had read told me that if I wanted to be successful at breastfeeding, that was the way to go, but then my mother put in her two cents and, well, I took her advice. Terrible mistake. Anders didn't get enough food for his first week. With Henrik I had a lactation consultant come to make sure we were doing it right. We weren't. I was trying to do lay-down nursing before Henrik was developmentally ready. With Soren I did not need one.)
-By following Dr. Mendelsohn's advice in How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor, I will avoid needless (all) trips to the doctor and the emergency room. RIGHT (after his well-baby, Anders went to the doctor only twice before he was five, once to retrieve something he put up his nose and once for diagnosis of impetigo rash. Henrik went to the doctor once for a bad cold he had at nine months. Soren has never been.)
-By following Baby-Led Weaning I will have a baby that does not choke on food. RIGHTx3 (Though ... most babies don't choke on food so....)
-By putting my baby in cloth diapers, I will have a baby that never gets diaper rash. RIGHT, however, I used disposable diapers for Henrik and Soren. Henrik got a diaper rash once while we were traveling and I used an unnatural brand. Soren never had diaper rash.
-By following RIE techniques I will have a self-confident baby. RIGHTx3
-By following RIE techniques my baby will develop good communication and cooperation skills at a very young age. RIGHTx3
-By not buying entertaining toys (only passive toys) my baby will be able to entertain himself for long periods of time. RIGHTx3
-I don't need to be "consistent;" babies are smart enough to understand that we do things this way one time and that way the next time. Explaining these things to babies makes them better decision makers. RIGHTx3 *Now that I have three kids, I find routines and consistency to be life-savers in terms of the chaos of parenting.
TODDLER
-By feeding my child whatever I am eating, I will have a child with an expansive palate, who enjoys flavorful food, including fish, sushi, and spicy foods. INCONCLUSIVE All three of my kids are annoyingly picky. But all three also love things other kids don't. Anders and Henrik love liver. Soren won't eat it. Henrik and Soren love caviar. Anders doesn't. All three eat fish. Only Anders eats shellfish. All three love sushi. Anders loves spicy food. All three hate (most) Nicaraguan food.
-By never having an opinion about whether or what my son eats when meals are presented to him, I will raise a "good eater." WRONG (Soren is a good eater. The other two don't eat enough in my opinion.)
-By raising my son with RIE techniques he will be a safe climber and never get a hard hit to his head or break a bone. RIGHTx3 (Due to failing to follow RIE techniques for a while when Henrik was young, he actually became super dangerous from 10-12 months before I realized what we were doing wrong.)
-By raising my child in reality--and therefore never giving him floaties or help that will give him an artificial relationship with the water--he will teach himself to swim at a young age, and be safe around pools and other bodies of water RIGHTx2 (this means I sat in a chair near the pool while he crawled over and explored the water, not that I let him play near the pool while I went and made dinner. I spent a lot of time on the steps with my toddlers. They did get overexcited and throw themselves into the water once or twice, but I let them go under for just a second before fishing them out and they don't do that again. By 18 months they have been safe around pools. Both Anders and Henrik taught themselves to swim at 3.
-By inviting my son into the bathroom with me, discussing what is interesting about poop and pee, and allowing my son to spend time naked, I will have a child that is a) not afraid of toilets b) not afraid of pooping c) potty trains himself with ease. RIGHTx3 (At the age of 18 months Henrik started showing interest in using the toilet. I bought him a little toddler potty and five minutes after I set it down in the bathroom and took off his clothes he pooped in it. However, a child cannot be potty independent until they can pull their own pants down and back up. This happens around 2 1/2 to 3, so I make zero effort to do any real potty training before then, as in, it's all just for fun until then. But once they are ready, I have been blown away three times by how easy and relaxed it has been.)
-There is no super-defiant "no" phase for respectfully raise children. RIGHTx3
-Because I don't chase after him or control him, because it is "our" goal to not lose one another, I will have a toddler that never runs away in stores or parks or other places. RIGHTx3
-By giving him information about safety around cars but not being controlling about it, my toddler will make safe choices in parking lots and around cars. RIGHTx3
-If I use NVC, the woods good and bad will never be necessary. WRONG (concepts exist because we experience them, not because the words create them. It's important to be cognizant of what we are trying to express, but good and bad are fine, useful concepts.)
-If I create a respectful relationship with my son, he will give to me when I ask, for example, we will not struggle over him getting into his carseat. RIGHTx3 (Anders was forced into his carseat against his will only once in his life. Neither Henrik nor Soren have ever been forced into their carseats. *I think another key to my success in this area is giving the kids ample time to play in the car.
-By raising my child respectfully, he will not throw tantrums. RIGHTx3
-By never hitting my son, I will have a child that never hits. WRONG
-By focusing on creating a secure attachment and respecting his needs, I will have a child who never protests when I drop him off somewhere or have a sitter come. RIGHTx3 (I never once dropped either of my babies off and let them cry, or hired a baby sitter and let him cry. It it always their choice ... and yet they always choose to give me time off if I ask for it.)
-By inviting my son to life with me, I will have a child quite advanced for his age in the study of real life. RIGHTx3 (Note this is where RIE and I part ways. RIE does not invite children to life with their parent, but rather puts them into daycare.) Note what Anders could do when he was two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uenJsBFd5wU.
PRESCHOOL
-By eating a WAPF diet, we won't get colds. WRONG. (Though none of them have been serious. None my kids have ever been on antibiotics.)
-By eating gourmet, adult food from a young age, I will have a child that does not like the classic kid foods like pasta, pizza, hot dogs, and french fries. WRONG
-By eating adult food from a young age and having absolute authority about what goes in and what does not go in to his mouth, I will have a child who is an "adventurous eater," willing to try new things. RIGHT MOSTLY (If Soren is full he will not taste the desert.)
-Children allowed to freely choose will choose to wipe their noses. WRONG I am fully onboard with coercive nose-wiping now.
-Children allowed to freely choose, will choose to bathe. MOSTLY RIGHT x3 (I do suggest they bathe. The idea doesn't occur to them on their own.)
-Children allowed to freely choose, will choose to wash their hair with shampoo. WRONG I still don't know how I feel about shampoo.
-Children allowed to freely choose will choose to clothe themselves around the age of 5. RIGHT x3
-By making him largely responsible for his own safe choices, my son will make safe choices. RIGHT x3
-If I use NVC with my son, his pretend games will have NVC. WRONG (Ish, he uses more non-NVC communication in his games than he does NVC, but he does use a little NVC.)
-If I am not violent and threatening, my son won't play games in which he uses threats and pretend violence. WRONG
-By focusing on creating a secure attachment, my child will not exhibit the nervousness, eye-twitches, and stuttering that are common at this age. RIGHT x3
-By teaching my son that his needs matter, and taking them seriously, I will have a child that does not whine--not because he is told not to whine, but because it would never occur to him to whine. RIGHT x3
-By treating my son with respect and empowering him to make his own choices, I will raise a child who is not obsessed with power (like dinosaurs, police, anything that represents being big and powerful to a child). WRONG (My conclusion here is that small, powerless people know they are small and powerless, even if you treat them otherwise.)
-If I raise my child in reality, my child will not get nightmares. INCONCLUSIVE Anders and Soren never got nightmares. Henrik is a sleep walker plagued by nightmares. Henrik has also gravitated towards fiction in a way that Anders and Soren never did.
-If I raise my child in reality (no night lights) and spend time with him looking at the stars, my child will not be afraid of the dark. RIGHT x3
-Because we don't watch other types of television, my son will enjoy documentaries. RIGHT x3
-If I homeschool my child, he will confidently converse with and make friends with people older and younger than he is, including teenagers and adults as well. RIGHT x3
-If I homeschool my child and we are television free, he will happily play with girls in addition to boys. RIGHT x3
-If I homeschool my child and we are television free, he will not care about the current popular toys or clothes. RIGHT x3
-By opting out of preschool and bringing my son to life with me, I will get along with him better, have more in common with him, and like him more than other parents with children the same age. RIGHT x3 (This is completely subjective of course.)
-By not entertaining Anders from the beginning, I will have a child that is able to entertain himself. RIGHT x3
-By never dropping Anders off anywhere against his will or hiring a babysitter and leaving him against his will, I will have a child who is not clingy, happy to go to camps and have babysitters, and who is an excellent judge of those caring for him. RIGHT x3
OVERALL
-It is not necessary to read to a child before he is three years old in order to have a child who loves to read and can read at a young age. RIGHT x2
-Raised with information and freedom, young children will choose to eat healthy foods in addition to unhealthy foods. RIGHT x3
-Raised to see their bodies as their responsibility young children will take good care of their bodies. WRONG Teeth-brushing and health eating must be strongly encouraged or required.
-Children can be exposed to reality (including death and violence shown documentaries) and it will not make them anxious if they have competent parents and a secure attachment. RIGHT x2
-Children raised in reality are focused on their futures from a young age. RIGHT x2
-If brought to life with their parents rather than put in a room with other people their age, young children will act more mature than their peers. RIGHT (Though the most noticeable difference is in how they speak.)
-By doing the above, parenting will be easier, less stressful, and more fun. WRONG. Despite the success of most of my hypotheses, parenting in this way is not easy and is completely exhausting. And being so different from the mainstream is stressful.
-By doing the above, parenting will be easier, less stressful, and more fun if I live on a farm. RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT SOOOOOOO RIGHT
-By doing the above, parenting will be easier, less stressful, and more fun if I live in an office complex like the one I describe here: http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-ideal-unschool-community-here-and-now.html I WAS NOT ABLE TO TEST THIS ONE
OTHER THINGS I LEARNED
-Diet makes a big difference. When Anders has a lot of junk food, he can become quite emotional and obnoxious.
-Cavities that don't hurt don't (usually) don't need to be filled. Honest dentists do exist.
-Topical medications can cure impetigo if you are dedicated; internal antibiotics are not necessary despite the doctor dramatically insisting.
-Despite efforts to not prop Anders and other efforts to encourage core development, he still did not retain his ability to squat nor does he bend from the hips. I am currently unclear on why this is.
-Four-year-olds are competent to follow a complicated route to a store a mile away from home without help (if they have traveled it before).
-Four-year-olds are competent to purchase items on their own.
-Even the youngest of children are competent with sharp knives, provided they are supervised (at first) and taught proper chopping techniques.
-Homeschooled children can be quite advanced academically compared to their pre-schooled peers, despite spending very little time each day doing school work.
-I am also surprised by just how influential I am, how many instances Anders simply defers to whatever I think is best. It's hard to explain because Anders is a very opinionated and strong willed little guy, yet ... he's also very compromising and reasonable and easy to get along with.
THINGS I DON'T KNOW YET
-By eating a WAPF diet and having him take cod liver oil every day, I will have a child who has a broader palate than he would have had otherwise i.e. a child who does not need braces despite the fact that both his parents wore them. (This wont be entirely conclusive with Anders as I did not start eating the WAPF diet until right after he was born. WAPF says you have to eat their diet for two years prior to conceiving to have a child who does not need braces.)
*I am sure there will be a lot more surprises! I just don't know what they are yet...
-Children allowed to freely choose, will choose to bathe. MOSTLY RIGHT x3 (I do suggest they bathe. The idea doesn't occur to them on their own.)
-Children allowed to freely choose, will choose to wash their hair with shampoo. WRONG I still don't know how I feel about shampoo.
-Children allowed to freely choose will choose to clothe themselves around the age of 5. RIGHT x3
-By making him largely responsible for his own safe choices, my son will make safe choices. RIGHT x3
-If I use NVC with my son, his pretend games will have NVC. WRONG (Ish, he uses more non-NVC communication in his games than he does NVC, but he does use a little NVC.)
-If I am not violent and threatening, my son won't play games in which he uses threats and pretend violence. WRONG
-By focusing on creating a secure attachment, my child will not exhibit the nervousness, eye-twitches, and stuttering that are common at this age. RIGHT x3
-By teaching my son that his needs matter, and taking them seriously, I will have a child that does not whine--not because he is told not to whine, but because it would never occur to him to whine. RIGHT x3
-By treating my son with respect and empowering him to make his own choices, I will raise a child who is not obsessed with power (like dinosaurs, police, anything that represents being big and powerful to a child). WRONG (My conclusion here is that small, powerless people know they are small and powerless, even if you treat them otherwise.)
-If I raise my child in reality, my child will not get nightmares. INCONCLUSIVE Anders and Soren never got nightmares. Henrik is a sleep walker plagued by nightmares. Henrik has also gravitated towards fiction in a way that Anders and Soren never did.
-If I raise my child in reality (no night lights) and spend time with him looking at the stars, my child will not be afraid of the dark. RIGHT x3
-Because we don't watch other types of television, my son will enjoy documentaries. RIGHT x3
-If I homeschool my child, he will confidently converse with and make friends with people older and younger than he is, including teenagers and adults as well. RIGHT x3
-If I homeschool my child and we are television free, he will happily play with girls in addition to boys. RIGHT x3
-If I homeschool my child and we are television free, he will not care about the current popular toys or clothes. RIGHT x3
-By opting out of preschool and bringing my son to life with me, I will get along with him better, have more in common with him, and like him more than other parents with children the same age. RIGHT x3 (This is completely subjective of course.)
-By not entertaining Anders from the beginning, I will have a child that is able to entertain himself. RIGHT x3
-By never dropping Anders off anywhere against his will or hiring a babysitter and leaving him against his will, I will have a child who is not clingy, happy to go to camps and have babysitters, and who is an excellent judge of those caring for him. RIGHT x3
OVERALL
-It is not necessary to read to a child before he is three years old in order to have a child who loves to read and can read at a young age. RIGHT x2
-Raised with information and freedom, young children will choose to eat healthy foods in addition to unhealthy foods. RIGHT x3
-Raised to see their bodies as their responsibility young children will take good care of their bodies. WRONG Teeth-brushing and health eating must be strongly encouraged or required.
-Children can be exposed to reality (including death and violence shown documentaries) and it will not make them anxious if they have competent parents and a secure attachment. RIGHT x2
-Children raised in reality are focused on their futures from a young age. RIGHT x2
-If brought to life with their parents rather than put in a room with other people their age, young children will act more mature than their peers. RIGHT (Though the most noticeable difference is in how they speak.)
-By doing the above, parenting will be easier, less stressful, and more fun. WRONG. Despite the success of most of my hypotheses, parenting in this way is not easy and is completely exhausting. And being so different from the mainstream is stressful.
-By doing the above, parenting will be easier, less stressful, and more fun if I live on a farm. RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT SOOOOOOO RIGHT
-By doing the above, parenting will be easier, less stressful, and more fun if I live in an office complex like the one I describe here: http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-ideal-unschool-community-here-and-now.html I WAS NOT ABLE TO TEST THIS ONE
OTHER THINGS I LEARNED
-Diet makes a big difference. When Anders has a lot of junk food, he can become quite emotional and obnoxious.
-Cavities that don't hurt don't (usually) don't need to be filled. Honest dentists do exist.
-Topical medications can cure impetigo if you are dedicated; internal antibiotics are not necessary despite the doctor dramatically insisting.
-Despite efforts to not prop Anders and other efforts to encourage core development, he still did not retain his ability to squat nor does he bend from the hips. I am currently unclear on why this is.
-Four-year-olds are competent to follow a complicated route to a store a mile away from home without help (if they have traveled it before).
-Four-year-olds are competent to purchase items on their own.
-Even the youngest of children are competent with sharp knives, provided they are supervised (at first) and taught proper chopping techniques.
-Homeschooled children can be quite advanced academically compared to their pre-schooled peers, despite spending very little time each day doing school work.
-I am also surprised by just how influential I am, how many instances Anders simply defers to whatever I think is best. It's hard to explain because Anders is a very opinionated and strong willed little guy, yet ... he's also very compromising and reasonable and easy to get along with.
THINGS I DON'T KNOW YET
-By eating a WAPF diet and having him take cod liver oil every day, I will have a child who has a broader palate than he would have had otherwise i.e. a child who does not need braces despite the fact that both his parents wore them. (This wont be entirely conclusive with Anders as I did not start eating the WAPF diet until right after he was born. WAPF says you have to eat their diet for two years prior to conceiving to have a child who does not need braces.)
*I am sure there will be a lot more surprises! I just don't know what they are yet...
Thursday, July 7, 2016
How Often Did You Touch Your Son's Body / Invade His Sovereignty Without His Permission?
A reader emailed me this question, here is my answer, done in a hurry, but still possibly useful to those of you with young children!
I rarely had to move or touch my son's body without his permission. I would always request first that he be in control of his body. "That's my necklace, and I need you to give it back. Can you put it in my hand?" usually worked. If not, "That's mine, so if you can't put it in my hand, I am going to help you... Oh I see, you can do on your own!" My son always chose to do it on his own rather than be "helped." (And when I say always here I mean it--every single time he chose to give me back whatever object it was.) It should also be noted that he was proud of himself when he was able to do this, like it was hard to let it go but he DID IT and would say, "See! I did it!"
Another example would be, "I need you to get out of the street. I realize there are no cars right now, you know it, and I know it, but it's just stressing me out. Can you come back onto the sidewalk? ... Thank you." Again, he always complied, if not the first time, then the second or third time I asked. I would just keep asking in different ways, assuming that he wanted to meet my needs but didn't understand what I needed or why. So maybe if he didn't get out of the street the first time I would say, "Anders, the stress in my body is so intense. My heart is beating so fast, and I am just freaking out, like I want to cry. I really need you to help me by getting out of the street." (Note he was in the gutter, and not technically the street during these conversations, but he learned at about 11 months old that he needed to stay on the sidewalk--and he always did. I always made him in charge of moving his body onto the sidewalk, not me.)
For asking him not to play with something or even not allowing it, I would get between my son and say, the printer. And I would just repeat, "I'm not going to let you touch this... yes, you want to touch it and learn about it, but I won't let you... when you are 4, I will show you how it works, but not right now...." I would not let his hands touch the printer, but otherwise I would not touch his body, I would just keep moving his hands away and then let him be in control of his hands again. He would start crying and then I would just be with him while he experienced his disappointment. He would cry and I would say, "You feel disappointed. Can I hold you while you are sad?" At the younger ages offering something else was generally helpful as well, "I won't let you touch the printer, but you may type on my computer for a little bit if you're gentle."
There were times of course when I was upset or needed something to happen quickly and at those times I got-er-done, and if that meant moving Anders's body without checking first I did. This got harder as he got older--he would get very offended and then I would have to apologize. Sometimes he would bring it up at night or the next day. "I didn't like it when you did that!" he would tell me. And I would model how one owns up to her poor behavior and how to apologize and make amends. This didn't happen often, but it did happen, I don't want to pretend like it didn't!
There were times of course when I was upset or needed something to happen quickly and at those times I got-er-done, and if that meant moving Anders's body without checking first I did. This got harder as he got older--he would get very offended and then I would have to apologize. Sometimes he would bring it up at night or the next day. "I didn't like it when you did that!" he would tell me. And I would model how one owns up to her poor behavior and how to apologize and make amends. This didn't happen often, but it did happen, I don't want to pretend like it didn't!
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
What I Do About Tantrums and Hitting
I was recently asked what I do when Anders throws tantrums. The short answer is: Anders doesn't throw tantrums. Or maybe he does and I just don't call it tantrums as that feels disrespectful? Because he does get upset! He doesn't throw himself on the floor, but he does throw himself into my arms.
Anyway, what I would do if Anders or any other child--or adult--were to feel something so intensely that all he could do was lay on the floor and cry is: I would kneel down by him, if he let me I would put my hand on his stomach for comfort, and I would just be there with him while he was sad.
Sometimes I am helpless to fix someone else's pain. Perhaps my husband really wants me to go out with him, but I am too tired, and I just don't have it in me to do that for him, and it makes him super sad. I can't fix it, but I can be very compassionate and kind about the suffering he is experiencing. The same with Anders, sometimes he really wants something that I am simply not willing to buy for him, and it makes him sad. I can't fix it. But I can offer to hold him while he is sad or simply be there with him.
This is a learned skill. Ten years ago I would have thought, "What a spoiled brat!!!" and that judgement would have blocked me from feeling compassion for my son, and I would have tried to "get him" to feel better or to repress or something. Today, I simply come into my perceptual brain and perceive. I literally focus my brain on the person suffering: his face, his pain, his tears, the tightness in his body--my mirror neurons understand how he is feeling and empathy pours out naturally.
As long as I can stay in my perceptual brain there is no guilt, no anger, no embarrassment, no judgement. There is just being with a fellow human while they are sad. It's amazing how if I don't make it about me... it really isn't about me!
Remember that it takes two people for one person to "throw a tantrum." Let's say my husband tells me that he wants to get Chinese food for dinner and I say I want Mexican. And he says that he really needs Chinese and he is not willing to go to two different restaurants so we can both get our needs met. Now I'm a little peeved. Why don't my needs matter?! So I'm like, "Ummmm, don't I matter?" If he responds compassionately everything will be fine. But if he responds with, "Now you're going to throw a fit because you're not getting your way!" or "Go to your room until you can be grateful you get any dinner at all!" or whatever other rude thing he could say, I will get Very Peeved and possibly "throw a tantrum." But if my husband had said, "I really really want Chinese and I just don't have it in me to stop at two restaurants. Would you be able to give me the gift of meeting my needs tonight?" I might very well say that I can give him that gift and the problem is solved. It takes two people for one person to "throw a fit." The person throwing the fit is usually doing so because he wasn't heard.
Moreover, when it's a kid--you are the adult in the situation so: if your kid is throwing a fit, guess whose fault it is? That's how I think about tantrums.
So it could be answered that Anders never threw tantrums because I never gave him the opportunity.
Until 2015. Man that year was so rough! In January our housemate burnt down our kitchen. We camped in that house in Los Angeles with no kitchen and throughout the construction until JULY. It was horribly stressful. And as soon as the kitchen was done, we moved to Nicaragua. More insane stress. So what happened? For the first time in Anders's life he started having some pretty terrible emotional outbursts.
He was around 3 1/2 and one day on a playdate his friend got upset and bit him and hit him and after that whenever Anders got upset for about four months he would try to hit or bite anyone near him who upset him.
During those moments I would say, "I'm not going to let you hit me. Can I hold your arms?" 80% of the time simply saying that would stop the hitting. 10% of the time he would say, "Yes! Hold my arms!" and I would. I would hug him, bear style, and hold his arms. Sometimes I had to hold his head to to prevent him from biting. He would generally cry and scream and when he was quiet enough I would tell him something like, "You were feeling sooooo angry! Thank you for letting me hold your arms so no one got hurt! I love you soooo much." And then we would talk about what happened. Around 10% of the time, he ask me to not hold his arms but he would continue to try to hit and bite--so I would hold his arms anyway. He would usually calm down rather quickly, but this felt too much like a punishment for me to feel very good about it.
This hasn't happened in quite some time. I was actually not expecting it to happen at all with Anders. I do blame myself for it. I have compassion for myself as well because I know how hard the year was but like I said above: a person doesn't randomly go nuts. In every circumstance where Anders became a little nuts, it was easily my fault for not paying attention soon enough to what was going on.
After a time Anders told me that he didn't like it when I held his arms, and so we agreed that I would not hold his arms if he would not hit me. For a few months when he got upset (maybe once every two weeks or so) I would see him hold back his arm like he wanted to hit me and then change his mind. It was quite incredible. Since moving to the farm our life has calmed down quite a bit and it has been a long time since Anders tried to hurt me, so long I can't even remember the last time.
He is 4 1/2 now. The current thing we are working on with him is his attacking other people, people who don't know his boundaries--his body and his things. He gets super pissed when adults pick him up and move him places without his permission. He believes his body is his and people don't have a right to touch it without his permission. Ditto with his property. We are working on that, on how to communicate our needs in an assertive way to people of various ages, and especially adults and younger children who have a tendency to not listen.
He is 4 1/2 now. The current thing we are working on with him is his attacking other people, people who don't know his boundaries--his body and his things. He gets super pissed when adults pick him up and move him places without his permission. He believes his body is his and people don't have a right to touch it without his permission. Ditto with his property. We are working on that, on how to communicate our needs in an assertive way to people of various ages, and especially adults and younger children who have a tendency to not listen.
I want to do a skit about this for YouTube, what my Hero would do in the adult world too. Say a guy in a bar punches John Galt. Does John Galt punch him back? It is his right to punch him back, after all. That's what John Wayne would have done! Or would John Galt call the bouncer and get the guy tossed from the bar and then follow that up with a law suit? That is also his right. That's what Ayn Rand would have done! Or does John Galt turn the other cheek like Jesus would have done?
My hero, let's call him Tom Garrett instead of John Galt since Galt is Rand's. Tom Garrett swiftly gets the guy into a krav maga hold and says, "What's going on man?" and lets the guy spew out his anger which would inevitably lead to him feeling his pain which would lead to crying which would end up with Tom letting the guy out of the hold while the guy finished expressing his feelings and then after the guy was done and feeling very grateful to Tom and feeling better for having released his feelings he would look at Tom and say, "Thanks man. I'm so sorry for hitting you. That was a real dick move. What can I do to make it up to you?"
My hero, let's call him Tom Garrett instead of John Galt since Galt is Rand's. Tom Garrett swiftly gets the guy into a krav maga hold and says, "What's going on man?" and lets the guy spew out his anger which would inevitably lead to him feeling his pain which would lead to crying which would end up with Tom letting the guy out of the hold while the guy finished expressing his feelings and then after the guy was done and feeling very grateful to Tom and feeling better for having released his feelings he would look at Tom and say, "Thanks man. I'm so sorry for hitting you. That was a real dick move. What can I do to make it up to you?"
If you want to make this skit with me let me know. :)
It is only the compassionate move that leads to a healthy community and a healed relationship. So: there is no contradiction here. How I respond to an emotional Anders is how I would like to respond to an emotional adult. If I can. I don't think there is any shame in the other responses available to me. If I can be heroic in that moment, I am, and if I can't (because I have had a very bad day myself) I punch the guy back or have him thrown out of the bar and later we make up and I talk about how I wish I would have responded and the guy talks about how he wishes he hadn't have lost it in the first place.
There is no contradiction here when it comes to parents. Let's be heroes when we can. When we can't our relationship will be damaged--but it can also be healed. Attempting to cooly control children with punishment and rewards, manipulating them, lying to them--these things will destroy a relationship. An authentic emotional outburst won't. (Unless of course it happens all the time.)
*Note that when a child is 2 and under and hits the proper thing to do is to help him find something he can hit, not to stop him from hitting. Somewhere around 2 1/2 he desire to "hit SOMETHING" turns into the desire to "hit YOU" and that is when the strategy changes.
Saturday, February 27, 2016
I Think I May Be Pro Yelling
I have a good friend with two kids under the age of five and a husband who is away a lot for work. She reads a parenting blog that I also enjoy, but unfortunately the woman who writes the blog has led her to conclude that if she ever "loses it" in front of her kids, she is "abusing them" and "ruining them for life." Good parents don't "lose it."
By "losing it" she means yelling. I keep seeing this on Facebook as well, "Yelling is abuse," people write. Never yell at your kids or you are the cause of murder and war.
I don't have the answer yet (more reading/thinking to do) but here is what I know so far and can share with you that gives me the inkling that this cannot be true.
Humans don't usually yell with intent to abuse, but rather because they don't feel heard.
When yelling-humans are listened to and feel heard, they generally stop yelling. And they feel grateful and connected to the person who listened to them.
When triggered-humans don't feel heard, they are capable of doing dangerous things in order to be heard. Their yelling is a wonderful and helpful social signal for us to stop and listen.
When a human doesn't feel heard, but has been raised not to yell, he doesn't not "lose it." He just loses it in a non-yelling way, often by calmly and vindictively engaging in various manipulative or passive aggressive behaviors.
Or he loses it by causing violence to himself, the violence of stuffing down his feelings and needs with ice cream, television, video games, sex, workaholism, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, etc.
In many ways, yelling is actually more honest than not yelling. This reminds me of Foucault's Discipline and Punish. The physical punishments of history were--in many ways--simply more honest and open than the sneaky ways we punish/express power now.
For parents, yelling is not nearly as damaging to children as serenely and kindly rewarding and punishing them--controlling them. I wrote an entire book about this, so I wont go into it here, but using force against anyone is The Most Harmful Thing. Force can be done with violence, manipulation, or a quiet and serene expressions of power.
On that note: Maybe it all depends on intent and interpretation. The facial expression of disgust is supposedly the most disconnecting/destructive for relationships. I had a very loud yelling-mother who none-the-less made me feel very loved. I had a father who never yelled, but who I always felt despised me--I can still vividly remember the look of pure disgust on his face when he caught me doing something that displeased him. But I imagine there are people who could say the opposite.
Are we serving our children when we teach them that yelling-people are bad-people "abusing" them?
Most children yell. What do children decide about themselves by hearing that yelling is abusive and people who yell are bad?
Oh wait--is yelling only abusive when an adult does it?
That doesn't work for me. Non-contradiction axiom.
And people who teach their children to that yelling-adults are bad--but yelling-children are okay--are saying, "I am better than you. I am in control. You are not. You will be as good as me one day. But right now you are Bad." I don't think it's possible to excuse a child's yelling, but not an adult's, without implying the child is bad.
What if children were taught that yelling-people are just people with overwhelming unmet needs and need to be heard?
(With the caveat to know the difference between a yeller who needs to be heard and a yeller who has crossed the threshold of safety and may harm you and therefore you should get away.)
On that note: People who have lost their shit can be very dangerous. I do not think that the "benevolent authority" parents do their children a service by falsely giving them the message that they are powerless and incapable of making someone lose their shit.
Children can make people lose their shit. It may be a good thing for children to experience this at home where it's safe, so they know not to push strangers--or Grandpa--too far.
I have read, like these people crying abuse, the literature that states that those who have bosses who yell are much more likely to have high blood pressure and therefore (if high blood pressure is an actual cause and not just correlated) suffer from heart attacks.
So yelling raises blood pressure, but does it raise blood pressure because of how you were raised--to believe that yelling is abuse, and you are being abused, and this person is bad?
If you were raised to believe that a yelling person needs your compassion and listening and mirroring, if you felt like yelling-people weren't actually that scary because you had the skills to connect with them and help them through... would yelling still raise your blood pressure? Or would you feel like a competent person? There is a good chance my son will have a friend or a relative or a wife who one day yells at him--and I want him to feel competent at staying connected to that person and helping them through. This is what NVC teaches.
Another interesting thing I know is that the "not yelling" rule is an upperclass rule. Upperclass folks do not yell. They are in power and to yell--to imply people aren't hearing them--would lower their status, so they are taught as children to never ever ever ever yell. (This is conjecture. We don't actually know why upper class people tend to teach their children to not yell, but we do know that trend-wise, teaching children not to yell is an upper class thing.)
Middle class parents tend to follow this dictate as they are always interested in doing whatever upper class people do.
Lower class people yell. They also (often) beat their kids. And for those who consider this normal, it is not damaging. Studies have been done on this. I am not advocating beating children, but it is important to know that abuse is a judgement word, an interpretation. Many people believe they have been abused when people yell at them, other people just think this is normal human behavior and really don't worry about it so much. Same with hitting.
The never-yelling families tend to be not only upper and middle class, but also from WASP backgrounds. WASPs were the original never-yellers, and considered themselves superior to the nasty ethnic folks who yelled all the time.
To be anti-yelling is to be racist! Just kidding.
I took care of a lot of upper class children who basically melted down if anyone ever yelled, who literally couldn't handle someone yelling, who had no idea what to do if a fight broke out, etc. I don't think it is helpful for children to be raised to be this helpless. But then, I was raised lower class and that is a rather lower class position. (Lower class parents want their children to be "tough." Though I am not raising Anders to be "tough" around yelling-people, but rather, to feel competent at connecting with them.)
As adults, I see the children from the yelling-is-bad families blanketly write people off for the rest of time if they ever have an emotional outburst. These adults don't realize that this may be class prejudice and/or racism. That person who yells may have no idea that yelling is as inappropriate as you think it is.
Yelling is just one form of "losing it". Everyone "loses it" at some point in their lives, and most will "lose it" fairly often. The experience of being overcome with unmet needs--this is a common human experience. I watch newborn babies get overwhelmed and lose it. Young children do the same. Adults are no different. As adults, we might know how to "put off" our emotional release until we are home alone, but we all "lose it." It is not weird. It is not something that only happens to bad people. It is not even a rare occurrence. I do not think parents do their children a service by failing to introduce them to and teach them about this aspect of reality.
"Losing it" will never be socialized away. So what is a good way to lose it?
I would rather Anders yell, so that I can know there is a problem, listen, and help, than secretly stuff his face with a pint of ice cream.
As a parent, what if losing it in front of your kids is... wonderful? They are going to lose their shit. They probably do often. How you respond to them when they lose it, is exactly how you should teach them to respond to you when you lose it.
How you lose it is the model for how they will lose it when they get older. If you "lose it" into a bottle of wine or a video game ... that is actually more disconnecting than yelling. At least the yeller wants to talk to you.
In my personal experience, the NVC (listening to the yeller) response is actually far more effective than shaming them. It is the proper response to children who are flipping out ... and adults. No contradiction.
I have read that anger is a mask for tears. People yelling actually need to cry. But they don't want to appear weak or admit their powerlessness or they "don't cry" so they yell instead. Maybe if crying were more socially acceptable, there would be less yelling?
I remember in Marshall Rosenberg's book Non Violent Communication, he yelled at his kids about his needs, "I am feeling overwhelmed! I see mess and I want to see clean! I am so tired I can barely deal!" or something along those lines. I remember thinking, "If one is going to yell, that is how to do it properly."
So... I am leaning on the side of being yelling-accepting. But more research is required.
And to be clear: I don't think parents should start yelling at their kids all the time; I just don't think it's abuse. I don't think it's a tragedy. I don't think it damages children for life. I think the parent who yelled should tell her child she was feeling overwhelmed and could really use a hug.
But, many people wrote to me after I published this piece, there are yellers who seem to be yelling for power and control of the other person rather than from emotional upset. There are people who seem to be yelling to harm others! What about them?
That's exactly what NVC teaches – boundaries. We can listen to and empathize with a yeller without being controlled by him/her. When someone is yelling, it is never about you. It is always about them, etc. Yelling has no power over you, if you don't give it power over you.
I think that most of the time, the person who sees the yeller as wanting to control them is misreading the situation. If Anders wants me to buy him a toy, and I say, "No," he may be upset and yell. If I listen, empathize, mirror, and hug him, he usually is totally fine with not having the toy. It may have appeared as if he was yelling to manipulate me into buying him the toy, but what he was really needing was empathy.
Really.
I have seen this work with myself as well. I can be very upset about something that my husband did or didn't do, and after he listens to me and empathizes with me, he doesn't need to DO anything else. The empathy, the listening, that was what I needed. It's quite incredible to experience and quite beautiful. I absolutely love what NVC has taught us!
When you condemn something, when you hate it with all of your being, when people who do X are categorically super-bad, it's because you have used force against yourself to not engage in this behavior that you have desperately wanted to engage in. This was one of my epiphanies. I had already read about this in various psyc books, but I didn't truly understand it until one day I was shopping in Beverly Hills and became obsessed with how terribly everyone else was dressed. I sat down on a bench and people watched and berated everyone who passed in my head. "Schleppers!" I thought. "You should all be ashamed! You disgust me, look at yourselves!" Then I became fascinated with my own hatred of everyone, and it hit me: I forced myself to "look presentable" at all times, even when I was tired, even when I didn't feel like. I loathed spending an hour getting ready, resented it, but felt I had to look nice. I thought good people look presentable. I had even started to hate going to parties because it required an hour in front of the mirror! In that moment (about 5 years ago) I gave myself permission to be a total schlepper if I didn't feel like dressing up. I became a classic Californian, wearing my yoga pants and flip flops--in Beverly Hills even! After about two years of basically looking terrible all the time, I started to enjoy dressing up again. But now it's different. Now I dress up sometimes, when I want to, and it's fun. I actually love a chance to get dressed up and go to an event! The rest of the time I don't dress up. And that's okay.
My point is: The people condemning yelling ... really really really want to yell. And they can't. Because that would make them bad. And that kills them. If they can't, you should't be allowed to either! And if you do, you are bad!
As much as I think yelling is not a tragedy and should not be treated as such, as much as I think losing it with people is better than losing it into ice cream, it should also be noted that the idealization of the never-yeller is also based in reality, but we have confused the cause with the effect!
In our brains we categorize, look for patterns and trends. Then we generalize. Successful people and good self-care and communication skills are correlated. People with good self-care and communication skills tend to not resort to yelling very often. Perhaps they appear to us as wealthier or perhaps just happier. Either way, our brains are always seeking to learn from those who have what we want e.g. I want to be more like that person! He seems so happy and successful! I want to follow the example of those successful people! (This is probably the same reason why I was interested in dressing "presentably." I had noted the difference between how my lower class people presented themselves and how the upper classes presented themselves and decided to adopt the behavior of the class I wanted to join.)
Not-yelling (often) is the result of having good self-care and communication skills, not the cause.
Which means if you find yourself yelling often, most likely there are some things you want to look into. Either better self-care is required so more you have more of your needs met or better communication or emotional skills are required. People successful at getting their needs met won't "lose it" often.
I think people who have learned the beautiful and valuable art of communicating in peaceful and empathetic ways to get their needs met are admirable. They are heroes. But heroes are the exception, not the rule. And it is important not to mix the cause with the effect.
There are many horrible communicators out there who do not yell. There are people who say all the right things with derision and scorn in their voices. People who remain calm at all times – except for that facial tick. People who stonewall and think they are superior for it.
Many people who don't yell are not yelling because they have fantastic communication skills. They are not yelling because to yell would make them "bad." They don't yell and write the person who upset them off. They don't yell and play video games for five hours straight until they forget about what happened.
It's important, when communicating our ideals to the people around us, that we communicate causes not effect. We must admire the hard work and fortitude of those who earn great wealth – not the wealth itself as it could have been gotten in less-than-ideal ways. We must admire people with great communication skills, not people who "don't yell" as if that is the single thing required for being a good communicator.
Great communication skills + the self-esteem to assert ones needs + good boundaries and self-awareness + a strong connection with loved ones = people who rarely find the need to yell for all the right reasons.
These heroic and admirable people are easy to recognize because they don't have a problem with people who yell – they have empathy for them. Other people's emotions don't "control" them, so they don't fear them. They are comfortable with themselves, so they don't need other people to be like them.
Naturally anyone ranting about people who yell being abusive ... is not a good communicator, not empathetic, not in touch with his own emotions, and is not yelling for all the wrong reasons.
By "losing it" she means yelling. I keep seeing this on Facebook as well, "Yelling is abuse," people write. Never yell at your kids or you are the cause of murder and war.
I don't have the answer yet (more reading/thinking to do) but here is what I know so far and can share with you that gives me the inkling that this cannot be true.
Humans don't usually yell with intent to abuse, but rather because they don't feel heard.
When yelling-humans are listened to and feel heard, they generally stop yelling. And they feel grateful and connected to the person who listened to them.
When triggered-humans don't feel heard, they are capable of doing dangerous things in order to be heard. Their yelling is a wonderful and helpful social signal for us to stop and listen.
When a human doesn't feel heard, but has been raised not to yell, he doesn't not "lose it." He just loses it in a non-yelling way, often by calmly and vindictively engaging in various manipulative or passive aggressive behaviors.
Or he loses it by causing violence to himself, the violence of stuffing down his feelings and needs with ice cream, television, video games, sex, workaholism, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, etc.
In many ways, yelling is actually more honest than not yelling. This reminds me of Foucault's Discipline and Punish. The physical punishments of history were--in many ways--simply more honest and open than the sneaky ways we punish/express power now.
For parents, yelling is not nearly as damaging to children as serenely and kindly rewarding and punishing them--controlling them. I wrote an entire book about this, so I wont go into it here, but using force against anyone is The Most Harmful Thing. Force can be done with violence, manipulation, or a quiet and serene expressions of power.
On that note: Maybe it all depends on intent and interpretation. The facial expression of disgust is supposedly the most disconnecting/destructive for relationships. I had a very loud yelling-mother who none-the-less made me feel very loved. I had a father who never yelled, but who I always felt despised me--I can still vividly remember the look of pure disgust on his face when he caught me doing something that displeased him. But I imagine there are people who could say the opposite.
Are we serving our children when we teach them that yelling-people are bad-people "abusing" them?
Most children yell. What do children decide about themselves by hearing that yelling is abusive and people who yell are bad?
Oh wait--is yelling only abusive when an adult does it?
That doesn't work for me. Non-contradiction axiom.
And people who teach their children to that yelling-adults are bad--but yelling-children are okay--are saying, "I am better than you. I am in control. You are not. You will be as good as me one day. But right now you are Bad." I don't think it's possible to excuse a child's yelling, but not an adult's, without implying the child is bad.
What if children were taught that yelling-people are just people with overwhelming unmet needs and need to be heard?
(With the caveat to know the difference between a yeller who needs to be heard and a yeller who has crossed the threshold of safety and may harm you and therefore you should get away.)
On that note: People who have lost their shit can be very dangerous. I do not think that the "benevolent authority" parents do their children a service by falsely giving them the message that they are powerless and incapable of making someone lose their shit.
Children can make people lose their shit. It may be a good thing for children to experience this at home where it's safe, so they know not to push strangers--or Grandpa--too far.
I have read, like these people crying abuse, the literature that states that those who have bosses who yell are much more likely to have high blood pressure and therefore (if high blood pressure is an actual cause and not just correlated) suffer from heart attacks.
So yelling raises blood pressure, but does it raise blood pressure because of how you were raised--to believe that yelling is abuse, and you are being abused, and this person is bad?
If you were raised to believe that a yelling person needs your compassion and listening and mirroring, if you felt like yelling-people weren't actually that scary because you had the skills to connect with them and help them through... would yelling still raise your blood pressure? Or would you feel like a competent person? There is a good chance my son will have a friend or a relative or a wife who one day yells at him--and I want him to feel competent at staying connected to that person and helping them through. This is what NVC teaches.
Another interesting thing I know is that the "not yelling" rule is an upperclass rule. Upperclass folks do not yell. They are in power and to yell--to imply people aren't hearing them--would lower their status, so they are taught as children to never ever ever ever yell. (This is conjecture. We don't actually know why upper class people tend to teach their children to not yell, but we do know that trend-wise, teaching children not to yell is an upper class thing.)
Middle class parents tend to follow this dictate as they are always interested in doing whatever upper class people do.
Lower class people yell. They also (often) beat their kids. And for those who consider this normal, it is not damaging. Studies have been done on this. I am not advocating beating children, but it is important to know that abuse is a judgement word, an interpretation. Many people believe they have been abused when people yell at them, other people just think this is normal human behavior and really don't worry about it so much. Same with hitting.
The never-yelling families tend to be not only upper and middle class, but also from WASP backgrounds. WASPs were the original never-yellers, and considered themselves superior to the nasty ethnic folks who yelled all the time.
To be anti-yelling is to be racist! Just kidding.
I took care of a lot of upper class children who basically melted down if anyone ever yelled, who literally couldn't handle someone yelling, who had no idea what to do if a fight broke out, etc. I don't think it is helpful for children to be raised to be this helpless. But then, I was raised lower class and that is a rather lower class position. (Lower class parents want their children to be "tough." Though I am not raising Anders to be "tough" around yelling-people, but rather, to feel competent at connecting with them.)
As adults, I see the children from the yelling-is-bad families blanketly write people off for the rest of time if they ever have an emotional outburst. These adults don't realize that this may be class prejudice and/or racism. That person who yells may have no idea that yelling is as inappropriate as you think it is.
Yelling is just one form of "losing it". Everyone "loses it" at some point in their lives, and most will "lose it" fairly often. The experience of being overcome with unmet needs--this is a common human experience. I watch newborn babies get overwhelmed and lose it. Young children do the same. Adults are no different. As adults, we might know how to "put off" our emotional release until we are home alone, but we all "lose it." It is not weird. It is not something that only happens to bad people. It is not even a rare occurrence. I do not think parents do their children a service by failing to introduce them to and teach them about this aspect of reality.
"Losing it" will never be socialized away. So what is a good way to lose it?
I would rather Anders yell, so that I can know there is a problem, listen, and help, than secretly stuff his face with a pint of ice cream.
As a parent, what if losing it in front of your kids is... wonderful? They are going to lose their shit. They probably do often. How you respond to them when they lose it, is exactly how you should teach them to respond to you when you lose it.
How you lose it is the model for how they will lose it when they get older. If you "lose it" into a bottle of wine or a video game ... that is actually more disconnecting than yelling. At least the yeller wants to talk to you.
In my personal experience, the NVC (listening to the yeller) response is actually far more effective than shaming them. It is the proper response to children who are flipping out ... and adults. No contradiction.
I have read that anger is a mask for tears. People yelling actually need to cry. But they don't want to appear weak or admit their powerlessness or they "don't cry" so they yell instead. Maybe if crying were more socially acceptable, there would be less yelling?
I remember in Marshall Rosenberg's book Non Violent Communication, he yelled at his kids about his needs, "I am feeling overwhelmed! I see mess and I want to see clean! I am so tired I can barely deal!" or something along those lines. I remember thinking, "If one is going to yell, that is how to do it properly."
So... I am leaning on the side of being yelling-accepting. But more research is required.
And to be clear: I don't think parents should start yelling at their kids all the time; I just don't think it's abuse. I don't think it's a tragedy. I don't think it damages children for life. I think the parent who yelled should tell her child she was feeling overwhelmed and could really use a hug.
But, many people wrote to me after I published this piece, there are yellers who seem to be yelling for power and control of the other person rather than from emotional upset. There are people who seem to be yelling to harm others! What about them?
That's exactly what NVC teaches – boundaries. We can listen to and empathize with a yeller without being controlled by him/her. When someone is yelling, it is never about you. It is always about them, etc. Yelling has no power over you, if you don't give it power over you.
I think that most of the time, the person who sees the yeller as wanting to control them is misreading the situation. If Anders wants me to buy him a toy, and I say, "No," he may be upset and yell. If I listen, empathize, mirror, and hug him, he usually is totally fine with not having the toy. It may have appeared as if he was yelling to manipulate me into buying him the toy, but what he was really needing was empathy.
Really.
I have seen this work with myself as well. I can be very upset about something that my husband did or didn't do, and after he listens to me and empathizes with me, he doesn't need to DO anything else. The empathy, the listening, that was what I needed. It's quite incredible to experience and quite beautiful. I absolutely love what NVC has taught us!
When you condemn something, when you hate it with all of your being, when people who do X are categorically super-bad, it's because you have used force against yourself to not engage in this behavior that you have desperately wanted to engage in. This was one of my epiphanies. I had already read about this in various psyc books, but I didn't truly understand it until one day I was shopping in Beverly Hills and became obsessed with how terribly everyone else was dressed. I sat down on a bench and people watched and berated everyone who passed in my head. "Schleppers!" I thought. "You should all be ashamed! You disgust me, look at yourselves!" Then I became fascinated with my own hatred of everyone, and it hit me: I forced myself to "look presentable" at all times, even when I was tired, even when I didn't feel like. I loathed spending an hour getting ready, resented it, but felt I had to look nice. I thought good people look presentable. I had even started to hate going to parties because it required an hour in front of the mirror! In that moment (about 5 years ago) I gave myself permission to be a total schlepper if I didn't feel like dressing up. I became a classic Californian, wearing my yoga pants and flip flops--in Beverly Hills even! After about two years of basically looking terrible all the time, I started to enjoy dressing up again. But now it's different. Now I dress up sometimes, when I want to, and it's fun. I actually love a chance to get dressed up and go to an event! The rest of the time I don't dress up. And that's okay.
My point is: The people condemning yelling ... really really really want to yell. And they can't. Because that would make them bad. And that kills them. If they can't, you should't be allowed to either! And if you do, you are bad!
As much as I think yelling is not a tragedy and should not be treated as such, as much as I think losing it with people is better than losing it into ice cream, it should also be noted that the idealization of the never-yeller is also based in reality, but we have confused the cause with the effect!
In our brains we categorize, look for patterns and trends. Then we generalize. Successful people and good self-care and communication skills are correlated. People with good self-care and communication skills tend to not resort to yelling very often. Perhaps they appear to us as wealthier or perhaps just happier. Either way, our brains are always seeking to learn from those who have what we want e.g. I want to be more like that person! He seems so happy and successful! I want to follow the example of those successful people! (This is probably the same reason why I was interested in dressing "presentably." I had noted the difference between how my lower class people presented themselves and how the upper classes presented themselves and decided to adopt the behavior of the class I wanted to join.)
Not-yelling (often) is the result of having good self-care and communication skills, not the cause.
Which means if you find yourself yelling often, most likely there are some things you want to look into. Either better self-care is required so more you have more of your needs met or better communication or emotional skills are required. People successful at getting their needs met won't "lose it" often.
I think people who have learned the beautiful and valuable art of communicating in peaceful and empathetic ways to get their needs met are admirable. They are heroes. But heroes are the exception, not the rule. And it is important not to mix the cause with the effect.
There are many horrible communicators out there who do not yell. There are people who say all the right things with derision and scorn in their voices. People who remain calm at all times – except for that facial tick. People who stonewall and think they are superior for it.
Many people who don't yell are not yelling because they have fantastic communication skills. They are not yelling because to yell would make them "bad." They don't yell and write the person who upset them off. They don't yell and play video games for five hours straight until they forget about what happened.
It's important, when communicating our ideals to the people around us, that we communicate causes not effect. We must admire the hard work and fortitude of those who earn great wealth – not the wealth itself as it could have been gotten in less-than-ideal ways. We must admire people with great communication skills, not people who "don't yell" as if that is the single thing required for being a good communicator.
Great communication skills + the self-esteem to assert ones needs + good boundaries and self-awareness + a strong connection with loved ones = people who rarely find the need to yell for all the right reasons.
These heroic and admirable people are easy to recognize because they don't have a problem with people who yell – they have empathy for them. Other people's emotions don't "control" them, so they don't fear them. They are comfortable with themselves, so they don't need other people to be like them.
Naturally anyone ranting about people who yell being abusive ... is not a good communicator, not empathetic, not in touch with his own emotions, and is not yelling for all the wrong reasons.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
My Non-Coercive "Potty Training" Story
The Short Version:
One day when Anders was a little over two-years-old, I noticed that he could take his pants down all by himself. So I asked him if he wanted to use the toilet instead of peeing and pooping in his diaper. He said, "No." I said, "Okay." (And I meant it.)
Three months later I noticed that he could take his pants down and pull them back up, so I asked again and this time he said, "Yes!" And I said, "Cool! Let's do it!"
The next day, I stopped putting diapers on him. He successfully climbed onto and pooped and peed into the (adult) toilet in the bathroom from that moment on. He had pee accidents maybe 3 to 5 times a day for the first three days. And that was it. Potty training was done.
It was surreal. I could not believe it was that easy.
The Long Version:
It was that easy for four months, and then Anders and I traveled to five different locations over the course of the three months before he turned three, and he had so many accidents while traveling that I put him back in diapers.
When he was three and life settled down again, I asked him if he wanted to use the toilet again, and again he said, "Yes!" and again there were only a few accidents for three days and then none. Still no poop accident ever. Again it was that easy.
But, as books about potty training will tell you, the "potty trained" child has a lot of accidents.
As a three-year-old Anders used the toilet most of the time, even while we were traveling he was able to maintain his skill of using the toilet well enough for me to leave him out of diapers and just always have a change of clothes with me. But I learned that there would be accidents at airports, on planes, on long car rides where he fell asleep, at very stimulating places like the mall, etc. Also, as a three-year-old, Anders always climbed onto and squatted on the toilet seat rather than sit on it. But he preferred to go to the bathroom outside--which makes perfect sense as it is a lot easier.
As a four-year-old Anders sits on the toilet, which saddens me a little--though the toilet seat is a lot cleaner now that his feet aren't always on it. But he still has accidents if he gets too engrossed in whatever he is doing to stop. He no longer needs diapers for long car rides or airport days.
He did end up having two poop accidents--those are The Worst. Pretty sure I cried both times. (And told him repeatedly that it wasn't his fault and accidents happen, but that I just really wasn't having an easy time.)
Before We "Potty Trained":
I talked to Anders about pee and poop from the time he was born, saying "You're peeing!" when he was peeing and and "You're pooping!" when he was pooping. I showed him dirty wipes and dirty diapers. I also put him in cloth diapers, so he would make the connection between what was happening in his body and feeling wet. (I used plastic diapers for traveling though.)
From the age of eighteen-months on, he had plenty of naked time outside. At first it was hard/weird for him to go pee or poop without having his diaper on. There was a week or so of pee all over his legs and poop just falling out of his butt while he learned to stop and squat, but he caught on pretty fast and soon enjoyed his naked time. This definitely contributed to how easy his "potty training" was. Wasn't I grossed out to let him poop in the back yard? Not really. Cleaning up toddler poop in the back yard with a little doggie bag is no different from cleaning up after a dog. Way better (to me) than dumping out and then cleaning those kid toilets.
I read two books about elimination communication with infants and decided it was not for me. Partly because I was not interested in baby-wearing, but mostly because I had no desire for Anders to pee and poop all over me until I learned his signals. And I didn't want to be with him every minute of the day. I did the RIE thing where we talk during diaper changes and he would raise his butt for me and straighten his legs to help me change his diaper--and I enjoyed our time together. He breastfed (and was uninterested in any food at all) until he was ten or eleven months old--so his poops were not smelly or even that gross.
I did play around with early potty training. I bought him an infant toilet and at around ten months he would crawl to his little toilet when he had to poop, and I would take his diaper off, and he would poop in his little toilet and I would clean it up. This went on for about about a month, then we went traveling for three months... and we were back to diapers--and I was much happier. It was more work for me to stop what I was doing, take off his diaper, wait while he got himself situated on the toilet, wait while he pooped, clean up his poopy butt, and then clean up his poopy toilet than it was for me to just change a poopy diaper. Cloth diaper poopy butts are a breeze, moist and easy to clean, not sticky like plastic-diaper poopy butts. So after that experience I got rid of the infant toilet and decided to wait to potty train until he was able to walk to the bathroom on his own and take his pants down and up on his own!
Here is a story from a reader about her experience--even more successful than mine!
"Eldon always wanted to be naked and we just didn't really care if he peed on the laminate or hardwood floors. He'll be two next week and hasn't had a wet diaper in weeks. We even flew for a long weekend and he had one wet diaper - he took his diaper off and peed onto it instead of peeing on the carpet haha. That also includes overnight - he's been dry overnight for at least 6 weeks and now happily sleeps naked. I actually was opposed to EC at first because I didn't want to "sit him" on the toilet because that was disrespectful of his body. But he chose nudity and we just always talked about peeing or pooping. I've cleaned up my share of messes, but with zero prodding or pushing my not-quite 2 year-old has (I can't even say this without cringing) "potty trained" himself."
One day when Anders was a little over two-years-old, I noticed that he could take his pants down all by himself. So I asked him if he wanted to use the toilet instead of peeing and pooping in his diaper. He said, "No." I said, "Okay." (And I meant it.)
Three months later I noticed that he could take his pants down and pull them back up, so I asked again and this time he said, "Yes!" And I said, "Cool! Let's do it!"
The next day, I stopped putting diapers on him. He successfully climbed onto and pooped and peed into the (adult) toilet in the bathroom from that moment on. He had pee accidents maybe 3 to 5 times a day for the first three days. And that was it. Potty training was done.
It was surreal. I could not believe it was that easy.
The Long Version:
It was that easy for four months, and then Anders and I traveled to five different locations over the course of the three months before he turned three, and he had so many accidents while traveling that I put him back in diapers.
When he was three and life settled down again, I asked him if he wanted to use the toilet again, and again he said, "Yes!" and again there were only a few accidents for three days and then none. Still no poop accident ever. Again it was that easy.
But, as books about potty training will tell you, the "potty trained" child has a lot of accidents.
As a three-year-old Anders used the toilet most of the time, even while we were traveling he was able to maintain his skill of using the toilet well enough for me to leave him out of diapers and just always have a change of clothes with me. But I learned that there would be accidents at airports, on planes, on long car rides where he fell asleep, at very stimulating places like the mall, etc. Also, as a three-year-old, Anders always climbed onto and squatted on the toilet seat rather than sit on it. But he preferred to go to the bathroom outside--which makes perfect sense as it is a lot easier.
As a four-year-old Anders sits on the toilet, which saddens me a little--though the toilet seat is a lot cleaner now that his feet aren't always on it. But he still has accidents if he gets too engrossed in whatever he is doing to stop. He no longer needs diapers for long car rides or airport days.
He did end up having two poop accidents--those are The Worst. Pretty sure I cried both times. (And told him repeatedly that it wasn't his fault and accidents happen, but that I just really wasn't having an easy time.)
Before We "Potty Trained":
I talked to Anders about pee and poop from the time he was born, saying "You're peeing!" when he was peeing and and "You're pooping!" when he was pooping. I showed him dirty wipes and dirty diapers. I also put him in cloth diapers, so he would make the connection between what was happening in his body and feeling wet. (I used plastic diapers for traveling though.)
From the age of eighteen-months on, he had plenty of naked time outside. At first it was hard/weird for him to go pee or poop without having his diaper on. There was a week or so of pee all over his legs and poop just falling out of his butt while he learned to stop and squat, but he caught on pretty fast and soon enjoyed his naked time. This definitely contributed to how easy his "potty training" was. Wasn't I grossed out to let him poop in the back yard? Not really. Cleaning up toddler poop in the back yard with a little doggie bag is no different from cleaning up after a dog. Way better (to me) than dumping out and then cleaning those kid toilets.
I read two books about elimination communication with infants and decided it was not for me. Partly because I was not interested in baby-wearing, but mostly because I had no desire for Anders to pee and poop all over me until I learned his signals. And I didn't want to be with him every minute of the day. I did the RIE thing where we talk during diaper changes and he would raise his butt for me and straighten his legs to help me change his diaper--and I enjoyed our time together. He breastfed (and was uninterested in any food at all) until he was ten or eleven months old--so his poops were not smelly or even that gross.
I did play around with early potty training. I bought him an infant toilet and at around ten months he would crawl to his little toilet when he had to poop, and I would take his diaper off, and he would poop in his little toilet and I would clean it up. This went on for about about a month, then we went traveling for three months... and we were back to diapers--and I was much happier. It was more work for me to stop what I was doing, take off his diaper, wait while he got himself situated on the toilet, wait while he pooped, clean up his poopy butt, and then clean up his poopy toilet than it was for me to just change a poopy diaper. Cloth diaper poopy butts are a breeze, moist and easy to clean, not sticky like plastic-diaper poopy butts. So after that experience I got rid of the infant toilet and decided to wait to potty train until he was able to walk to the bathroom on his own and take his pants down and up on his own!
Here is a story from a reader about her experience--even more successful than mine!
"Eldon always wanted to be naked and we just didn't really care if he peed on the laminate or hardwood floors. He'll be two next week and hasn't had a wet diaper in weeks. We even flew for a long weekend and he had one wet diaper - he took his diaper off and peed onto it instead of peeing on the carpet haha. That also includes overnight - he's been dry overnight for at least 6 weeks and now happily sleeps naked. I actually was opposed to EC at first because I didn't want to "sit him" on the toilet because that was disrespectful of his body. But he chose nudity and we just always talked about peeing or pooping. I've cleaned up my share of messes, but with zero prodding or pushing my not-quite 2 year-old has (I can't even say this without cringing) "potty trained" himself."
Friday, July 17, 2015
Positive Psychology, Stoicism, and the Fruitless Pursuit of Happiness
Recently my husband asked me to explain to him why I am not a stoic. This post is my answer. Though I am excited to do this post (because I love organizing my thoughts), I think it's only fair to warn my reader that I do not consider myself an expert in either positive psychology or stoicism. I do know enough about them, however, to know that they contradict my understanding of epistemology and neuroscience.
Both positive psychology and stoicism I summarize thus: Repress your negative emotions! Repress them I say! But I don't mean repress. Repression is bad. But seriously, repress. I'm not advocating denial here but... look for the good and don't examine the bad!
Both of these psychological systems begin with the premise: The Point of Life is To Be Happy.
There is a major problem with this premise. If happiness is my highest value, if I decide that today my goal is just to feel happy, the quickest and surest way to achieve that goal is drugs. If this is the path I take, then my life will be: Moments of "happiness" while I do my drugs followed by days of drudgery while I do what it takes (for my physical survival) to get to my next day off in which I can do drugs. My life is: drudgery and drugs.
But let's say I chose no drugs. I try to pursue "healthy" happiness. It still doesn't work. How often does one pursue an evening of happiness only to find that it doesn't actually make one happy? How often does one find happiness while doing some random task that one thought would suck? Now my life is: Happiness is so frustrating! So elusive! Such a hard master! I need more control! More control over this elusive god! If I can just get enough control, then I will win! (This is the conclusions reached by the positive psych folk and the stoics.)
The problem is the premise. The pursuit of an emotion as the goal of life. To quote myself (from my book): "Most people begin with the assumption that emotions are primary, they seek ways to control and influence their emotional states. But our emotions let us know how we are doing; they help point us in the right direction; they let us know what is working and what needs our attention. Our strong emotions tell us: Pay attention to this! If we listen, our emotions can be great aids in the pursuit of our values. But attempting to manipulate them, like attempting to command what we see or hear, is just refusing to acknowledge reality. It doesn’t change reality and does not serve us." Emotions give us information and energy. They are tools for us to use. They are not neither good nor bad. They are not punishments and rewards for our behavior.
I do not pursue happiness. Happiness is what happens when I am busy pursing my values successfully. But I will only experience happiness if I check-in, if I come into the present and perceive. My consciousness has two primary modes: abstracting and perceiving. When I am abstracting successfully, I may experience flow. I sit down to write and eight hours disappear. I have no idea where they went, but I think I was happy. Perhaps if I had paused for a moment and checked-in with myself (perceived) I would have noticed that I felt happy, but I didn't. Any feeling can only be experienced when you pause and check-in (perceive). Most psychologies and religions attempt to teach this one very valuable skill: stop abstracting and start perceiving. Come into the present. Check-in with yourself.
When I pause at this exact moment I note: I feel very happy. I am full, rested, my body feels good, I hear my son chatting away cutely in the background, my home is tidy and beautiful, and the view outside my window is delightful. Hmmm... I also notice the sounds of traffic which I don't like, and I notice that I am thirsty. I will go back to ignoring the world around me and disappear into my writing again, my abstract brain, but I should really get a drink of water because that little ping, that little unmet need, is going to decrease my overall happiness.
Though the background emotion going on right now for me is happiness, I do not claim to feel it unless I focus on it. As soon as I get back to work, the truth is, I am not feeling anything. My subconscious is storing emotional information for sure, but since I am not focusing on it, it stays subconscious--it is just information. I would argue that I spend most of my life not actually feeling anything. And that's okay. I'm busy doing. For me, feelings are tools, information, they help me direct my actions to meeting my needs and values. But the emotion itself is not the need or the value.
There are times when I seem to pursue emotions. I find that I am drawn to sad music or a sad movie. Why? Why would I seek sadness? Because my subconscious is trying to get my attention, and I am ignoring it. Because that is the background emotion going on for me whether I have come into the present to realize it or not. Because there has been a build up of information now that needs to be felt/perceived. By feeling the sadness that I have been ignoring, I can release it. If I focus on it and figure out why I was sad, then I can understand it and make different choices.
Our strong emotions give us information and energy. That is their purpose. Emotions are not causeless. They evolved to be part of us because the SERVE us. No one is arguing that positive emotions don't serve us--they're fun. But if negative emotions didn't serve us, they wouldn't exist.
Negative emotions provide us with a great deal of energy to change our lives. Repression, numbing, and drugs enable us to live lives we couldn't otherwise live. Most of us have been repressing since childhood. We have never lived a life we wanted to live. We have never lived sustainably with ourselves. We have been taught to put off resting, to put off perception, to put off processing, to put off fun. We have been trained to stay in our abstract brains. Usually, by adulthood, there is so much sadness and anger that has been repressed that coming into the present is quite unpleasant. So we don't. We work (in our abstract brains) and then come home and numb. This is the life I described above in which people "pursue happiness": drudgery--or at best nonexistence--at work, while we await our next drug binge at home--which is more nonexistence. If this is your life--why live? You just want to not exist, so what are you doing?!
Those who advocate positive psychology and stoicism have a tendency to write about human emotions as the behaviorists do: we are dogs or rats and can be trained to be some way or another. "You can train your brain to be happier! Happiness is just a habit!" They say. Emotions are only habits to the extent that we are not being conscious or present. People who focus on consciousness, presence, and perception don't need to "program habits" or worry about "habits" much at all. (For more on this read Nathaniel Branden's The Art of Living Consciously.)
"What you focus on expands! Never focus on anything negative!" They say. But you have to focus on your negative feelings in order to bring them into your conscious awareness, so you can gather the information you need to make different choices. Once you are done gathering the information, the emotion disappears. Unless the problem you need to solve is a major one, then the emotion will expand exponentially--propelling you to change your life. Pain will give you the energy you need to change your life.
But what about depression? That keeps people in bed! Exactly. Depressing your emotions--refusing to feel your pain--will be so exhausting that you have to stay in bed. Stop de-pressing whatever it is you need to feel, start writhing in pain or anger or sadness, and pretty soon you will be up and about fixing the problem. (And by pretty soon I mean quite possibly two to five years depending on how long you have been repressing.)
That's what our intense negative emotions are for: they make us make better choices for our lives. If we don't feel them, if we numb out, repress, or drug out, we won't change our lives. Part of me is like: cool. I like the Matrix. Drudgery and drugs has worked for this long. Why change now? But the other part of me knows that's just fear. And I used to be really afraid of pain. But now, eh, it's just pain.
I am so sorry to be the bearer of bad news, for those of you who got very excited by the promises of positive psychology and stoicism, but all you can do is train your brain to repress a ton of information that would have served you. Negative emotions are not bad! And neither are negative dispositions.
Many psychologists want us to make sure our kids are Happy All The Time because that way their Happiness Set Point will be set to Very Happy. This is crap. An optimistic disposition is genetic and, though it is a fine disposition, it is no better than having a pessimistic disposition. Common sense: If pessimistic dispositions were bad for our survival, they would not exist. There is a great lecture available on iTunes University called "In Defense of Pessimism" which explains that pessimistic people are just as happy, just as successful, and just was healthy as optimistic people. They just have different strengths. In An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth Chris Hadfield says that extreme pessimists are the only kind of people who should be astronauts--because the skill of ruminating on every little thing that may go wrong is a GREAT skill. Pessimistic ruminators are the safest, most detail-oriented people. There are many other professions in which the skill of being able to think of everything that may go wrong is of the utmost importance.
A few hundred years ago Big Religion switched its stance from saying that unhappiness (suffering) was a sign of piousness to saying that happiness was a sign of piousness (a reward from God for being Good). Unhappiness became a stigma, something that only happens to sinners. Pessimistic people became social pariahs and everyone quickly learned to have a "public persona." From the 1800's on all Americans had to exude absolute cheerfulness at all times to prove to their neighbors that they were good Christians. And… nothing has changed. Except that today we defend this fake cheerfulness using pseudoscience. Anyone who looks into the research will find decades of psychologists attempting to change pessimistic people into optimistic people and finding that it cannot actually be done. Pessimistic people cannot be saved--though they can learn to be fake. Sadly, the very thing that would have been their super power is the thing they were taught to be ashamed of and keep hidden.
One last note: we live a in a society in which happiness is a major aspect of relationship control. No one will follow your advice unless you are Perfectly Happy. No one wants to be your friend unless you seem happy and successful. (Lol, I mean people won't befriend you to use you unless you have what they want….) It's horrifying for people to research the lives of their heroes--Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden--and find that they are taking advice from people who claimed they were The Happiest People on Earth but… the proof isn't there. Alcoholism, fear of driving, loneliness and alienation, disappointment, inflexibility, angry demeanors, meanness, infidelity, repeated divorce--these are not signs of happiness!
Today the people who sell happiness to us are careful to have perfect public personas. But I worked for a lot of them. People who, to the outside world, seem perfect, happy, wealthy, and wise. It was my job to make their children as good at faking it as the parents were. One set of parents were so anxious about whether or not I would succeed, they bought drugs for a particularly important social engagement. If I failed to make the kids act like perfect, happy, angels the plan was to drug them! Almost everyone I worked for was on drugs--drugs to sleep, drugs to wake up, drugs to get through the day, drugs to deal with particularly stressful days. I came away from a decade working for the top .001% thinking: How horrible to be them!
I don't tend to believe anyone who claims to be happy (outside of a moment). They are either trying to sell me something or they are in total denial. And I know all about that because I've been there and done that. If you follow this blog you know I spent a great deal of my life being fake-happy because Good Girls are happy. At the time I had no idea that I was being fake. I thought I was disciplined, and I also thought I was happy. But the happiness was very tied to goodness, to better-than-other-people-ness. A major clue that we are repressing a part of ourselves is when we passionately hate something in other people. I look back, and I see so clearly how I hated and stayed far away from (or tried to fix) anyone remotely negative or unhappy. If you are truly happy, you let other people be.
And more importantly, people who are honestly happy and not repression-happy know it and are honest about it. They are clear that it is momentary. They admit freely that they don't always feel that way because to be honestly happy means that they feel. Which means feeling the entire spectrum of emotions.
Happiness--all feelings--can only be felt when we are in our perceptual brain. If we want to feel more happiness, we must come into the present more often. But there's a catch: coming into the present more often means we will feel more things, not just happiness. Which is why anyone--or any psychology book--that tries to promise you more pleasure without more pain… is just snake oil.
Happiness is great, I love feeling happy, but at the same time, it's not that important to me. I am far more interested in difficult intellectual problems, in creating beauty, and in people I love. These things matter to me. My feelings are just information and sources of energy that help me with the pursuit of my goals in regards to what actually matters to me.
For those of you who know more about positive psychology and stoicism than I do--have I misunderstood these ideas? Do I need to do more research?
A final note: What I have written here is what I understand based on Objectivist epistemology in which information (consciousness of reality) is valued above all. I love this epistemology, and it is the only epistemology I have encountered that makes sense without contradictions. But I think it is important to note (as I mentioned above) I do not believe the champions of this system of thought--Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden--were particularly happy people. Brilliant, yes. Happy… no. But nothing in my research has led me to conclude that those who search for truth will find happiness (I am thinking of Joseph Cambell's stuff here. Jesus and Buddha found enlightenment not happiness). According to Darrin McMahon, author of Happiness: A History, consciousness and acceptance of our emotions is one way humans at different times and in different places have dealt with "the more-happiness problem". Drugs are another way--and a valid way. Drugs as the only form of true happiness available to human beings has been supported as an idea by more than one great philosopher--Schopenhaur being one of them. Many philosophers throughout the ages have also decided that repression and rejection of all emotion is the best way to go. So, as much as I am content with my own relationship to happiness, with Objectivism, I am not claiming that it is The Happiness Maximizing Route.
Ugh, one more note: I have a hunch that positive psychology and stoicism as psychological ideals, arrive in cultures where people feel powerless over their external world. For example, the best defense of positive psychology I have read (which still didn't convert me) was Victor Frakyl's book about surviving in a concentration camp. In such a place there is no other power except over yourself, no other goal you can accomplish except the goal of controlling your emotions, no other way to experience joy. If happiness is found in our perceptual reality there is none in an ugly, miserable world. If happiness is found abstractly from accomplishing an intrinsically motivated goal, there are none one can accomplish as a slave. Which leaves abstract escape as the only way. Repression of perceptual reality, and making the goal one can accomplish controlling the abstract self.
Both positive psychology and stoicism I summarize thus: Repress your negative emotions! Repress them I say! But I don't mean repress. Repression is bad. But seriously, repress. I'm not advocating denial here but... look for the good and don't examine the bad!
Both of these psychological systems begin with the premise: The Point of Life is To Be Happy.
There is a major problem with this premise. If happiness is my highest value, if I decide that today my goal is just to feel happy, the quickest and surest way to achieve that goal is drugs. If this is the path I take, then my life will be: Moments of "happiness" while I do my drugs followed by days of drudgery while I do what it takes (for my physical survival) to get to my next day off in which I can do drugs. My life is: drudgery and drugs.
But let's say I chose no drugs. I try to pursue "healthy" happiness. It still doesn't work. How often does one pursue an evening of happiness only to find that it doesn't actually make one happy? How often does one find happiness while doing some random task that one thought would suck? Now my life is: Happiness is so frustrating! So elusive! Such a hard master! I need more control! More control over this elusive god! If I can just get enough control, then I will win! (This is the conclusions reached by the positive psych folk and the stoics.)
The problem is the premise. The pursuit of an emotion as the goal of life. To quote myself (from my book): "Most people begin with the assumption that emotions are primary, they seek ways to control and influence their emotional states. But our emotions let us know how we are doing; they help point us in the right direction; they let us know what is working and what needs our attention. Our strong emotions tell us: Pay attention to this! If we listen, our emotions can be great aids in the pursuit of our values. But attempting to manipulate them, like attempting to command what we see or hear, is just refusing to acknowledge reality. It doesn’t change reality and does not serve us." Emotions give us information and energy. They are tools for us to use. They are not neither good nor bad. They are not punishments and rewards for our behavior.
I do not pursue happiness. Happiness is what happens when I am busy pursing my values successfully. But I will only experience happiness if I check-in, if I come into the present and perceive. My consciousness has two primary modes: abstracting and perceiving. When I am abstracting successfully, I may experience flow. I sit down to write and eight hours disappear. I have no idea where they went, but I think I was happy. Perhaps if I had paused for a moment and checked-in with myself (perceived) I would have noticed that I felt happy, but I didn't. Any feeling can only be experienced when you pause and check-in (perceive). Most psychologies and religions attempt to teach this one very valuable skill: stop abstracting and start perceiving. Come into the present. Check-in with yourself.
When I pause at this exact moment I note: I feel very happy. I am full, rested, my body feels good, I hear my son chatting away cutely in the background, my home is tidy and beautiful, and the view outside my window is delightful. Hmmm... I also notice the sounds of traffic which I don't like, and I notice that I am thirsty. I will go back to ignoring the world around me and disappear into my writing again, my abstract brain, but I should really get a drink of water because that little ping, that little unmet need, is going to decrease my overall happiness.
Though the background emotion going on right now for me is happiness, I do not claim to feel it unless I focus on it. As soon as I get back to work, the truth is, I am not feeling anything. My subconscious is storing emotional information for sure, but since I am not focusing on it, it stays subconscious--it is just information. I would argue that I spend most of my life not actually feeling anything. And that's okay. I'm busy doing. For me, feelings are tools, information, they help me direct my actions to meeting my needs and values. But the emotion itself is not the need or the value.
There are times when I seem to pursue emotions. I find that I am drawn to sad music or a sad movie. Why? Why would I seek sadness? Because my subconscious is trying to get my attention, and I am ignoring it. Because that is the background emotion going on for me whether I have come into the present to realize it or not. Because there has been a build up of information now that needs to be felt/perceived. By feeling the sadness that I have been ignoring, I can release it. If I focus on it and figure out why I was sad, then I can understand it and make different choices.
Our strong emotions give us information and energy. That is their purpose. Emotions are not causeless. They evolved to be part of us because the SERVE us. No one is arguing that positive emotions don't serve us--they're fun. But if negative emotions didn't serve us, they wouldn't exist.
Negative emotions provide us with a great deal of energy to change our lives. Repression, numbing, and drugs enable us to live lives we couldn't otherwise live. Most of us have been repressing since childhood. We have never lived a life we wanted to live. We have never lived sustainably with ourselves. We have been taught to put off resting, to put off perception, to put off processing, to put off fun. We have been trained to stay in our abstract brains. Usually, by adulthood, there is so much sadness and anger that has been repressed that coming into the present is quite unpleasant. So we don't. We work (in our abstract brains) and then come home and numb. This is the life I described above in which people "pursue happiness": drudgery--or at best nonexistence--at work, while we await our next drug binge at home--which is more nonexistence. If this is your life--why live? You just want to not exist, so what are you doing?!
Those who advocate positive psychology and stoicism have a tendency to write about human emotions as the behaviorists do: we are dogs or rats and can be trained to be some way or another. "You can train your brain to be happier! Happiness is just a habit!" They say. Emotions are only habits to the extent that we are not being conscious or present. People who focus on consciousness, presence, and perception don't need to "program habits" or worry about "habits" much at all. (For more on this read Nathaniel Branden's The Art of Living Consciously.)
"What you focus on expands! Never focus on anything negative!" They say. But you have to focus on your negative feelings in order to bring them into your conscious awareness, so you can gather the information you need to make different choices. Once you are done gathering the information, the emotion disappears. Unless the problem you need to solve is a major one, then the emotion will expand exponentially--propelling you to change your life. Pain will give you the energy you need to change your life.
But what about depression? That keeps people in bed! Exactly. Depressing your emotions--refusing to feel your pain--will be so exhausting that you have to stay in bed. Stop de-pressing whatever it is you need to feel, start writhing in pain or anger or sadness, and pretty soon you will be up and about fixing the problem. (And by pretty soon I mean quite possibly two to five years depending on how long you have been repressing.)
That's what our intense negative emotions are for: they make us make better choices for our lives. If we don't feel them, if we numb out, repress, or drug out, we won't change our lives. Part of me is like: cool. I like the Matrix. Drudgery and drugs has worked for this long. Why change now? But the other part of me knows that's just fear. And I used to be really afraid of pain. But now, eh, it's just pain.
I am so sorry to be the bearer of bad news, for those of you who got very excited by the promises of positive psychology and stoicism, but all you can do is train your brain to repress a ton of information that would have served you. Negative emotions are not bad! And neither are negative dispositions.
Many psychologists want us to make sure our kids are Happy All The Time because that way their Happiness Set Point will be set to Very Happy. This is crap. An optimistic disposition is genetic and, though it is a fine disposition, it is no better than having a pessimistic disposition. Common sense: If pessimistic dispositions were bad for our survival, they would not exist. There is a great lecture available on iTunes University called "In Defense of Pessimism" which explains that pessimistic people are just as happy, just as successful, and just was healthy as optimistic people. They just have different strengths. In An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth Chris Hadfield says that extreme pessimists are the only kind of people who should be astronauts--because the skill of ruminating on every little thing that may go wrong is a GREAT skill. Pessimistic ruminators are the safest, most detail-oriented people. There are many other professions in which the skill of being able to think of everything that may go wrong is of the utmost importance.
A few hundred years ago Big Religion switched its stance from saying that unhappiness (suffering) was a sign of piousness to saying that happiness was a sign of piousness (a reward from God for being Good). Unhappiness became a stigma, something that only happens to sinners. Pessimistic people became social pariahs and everyone quickly learned to have a "public persona." From the 1800's on all Americans had to exude absolute cheerfulness at all times to prove to their neighbors that they were good Christians. And… nothing has changed. Except that today we defend this fake cheerfulness using pseudoscience. Anyone who looks into the research will find decades of psychologists attempting to change pessimistic people into optimistic people and finding that it cannot actually be done. Pessimistic people cannot be saved--though they can learn to be fake. Sadly, the very thing that would have been their super power is the thing they were taught to be ashamed of and keep hidden.
One last note: we live a in a society in which happiness is a major aspect of relationship control. No one will follow your advice unless you are Perfectly Happy. No one wants to be your friend unless you seem happy and successful. (Lol, I mean people won't befriend you to use you unless you have what they want….) It's horrifying for people to research the lives of their heroes--Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden--and find that they are taking advice from people who claimed they were The Happiest People on Earth but… the proof isn't there. Alcoholism, fear of driving, loneliness and alienation, disappointment, inflexibility, angry demeanors, meanness, infidelity, repeated divorce--these are not signs of happiness!
Today the people who sell happiness to us are careful to have perfect public personas. But I worked for a lot of them. People who, to the outside world, seem perfect, happy, wealthy, and wise. It was my job to make their children as good at faking it as the parents were. One set of parents were so anxious about whether or not I would succeed, they bought drugs for a particularly important social engagement. If I failed to make the kids act like perfect, happy, angels the plan was to drug them! Almost everyone I worked for was on drugs--drugs to sleep, drugs to wake up, drugs to get through the day, drugs to deal with particularly stressful days. I came away from a decade working for the top .001% thinking: How horrible to be them!
I don't tend to believe anyone who claims to be happy (outside of a moment). They are either trying to sell me something or they are in total denial. And I know all about that because I've been there and done that. If you follow this blog you know I spent a great deal of my life being fake-happy because Good Girls are happy. At the time I had no idea that I was being fake. I thought I was disciplined, and I also thought I was happy. But the happiness was very tied to goodness, to better-than-other-people-ness. A major clue that we are repressing a part of ourselves is when we passionately hate something in other people. I look back, and I see so clearly how I hated and stayed far away from (or tried to fix) anyone remotely negative or unhappy. If you are truly happy, you let other people be.
And more importantly, people who are honestly happy and not repression-happy know it and are honest about it. They are clear that it is momentary. They admit freely that they don't always feel that way because to be honestly happy means that they feel. Which means feeling the entire spectrum of emotions.
Happiness--all feelings--can only be felt when we are in our perceptual brain. If we want to feel more happiness, we must come into the present more often. But there's a catch: coming into the present more often means we will feel more things, not just happiness. Which is why anyone--or any psychology book--that tries to promise you more pleasure without more pain… is just snake oil.
Happiness is great, I love feeling happy, but at the same time, it's not that important to me. I am far more interested in difficult intellectual problems, in creating beauty, and in people I love. These things matter to me. My feelings are just information and sources of energy that help me with the pursuit of my goals in regards to what actually matters to me.
For those of you who know more about positive psychology and stoicism than I do--have I misunderstood these ideas? Do I need to do more research?
A final note: What I have written here is what I understand based on Objectivist epistemology in which information (consciousness of reality) is valued above all. I love this epistemology, and it is the only epistemology I have encountered that makes sense without contradictions. But I think it is important to note (as I mentioned above) I do not believe the champions of this system of thought--Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden--were particularly happy people. Brilliant, yes. Happy… no. But nothing in my research has led me to conclude that those who search for truth will find happiness (I am thinking of Joseph Cambell's stuff here. Jesus and Buddha found enlightenment not happiness). According to Darrin McMahon, author of Happiness: A History, consciousness and acceptance of our emotions is one way humans at different times and in different places have dealt with "the more-happiness problem". Drugs are another way--and a valid way. Drugs as the only form of true happiness available to human beings has been supported as an idea by more than one great philosopher--Schopenhaur being one of them. Many philosophers throughout the ages have also decided that repression and rejection of all emotion is the best way to go. So, as much as I am content with my own relationship to happiness, with Objectivism, I am not claiming that it is The Happiness Maximizing Route.
Ugh, one more note: I have a hunch that positive psychology and stoicism as psychological ideals, arrive in cultures where people feel powerless over their external world. For example, the best defense of positive psychology I have read (which still didn't convert me) was Victor Frakyl's book about surviving in a concentration camp. In such a place there is no other power except over yourself, no other goal you can accomplish except the goal of controlling your emotions, no other way to experience joy. If happiness is found in our perceptual reality there is none in an ugly, miserable world. If happiness is found abstractly from accomplishing an intrinsically motivated goal, there are none one can accomplish as a slave. Which leaves abstract escape as the only way. Repression of perceptual reality, and making the goal one can accomplish controlling the abstract self.
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