Raise Your Parenting AQ
Chapter 3
Back At Base Camp
Children need help making sense of things (before the cognitive concrete dries).
Tess’ ability to be open and direct with people and to not settle for relationships that are not satisfying was learned within the family. This ability was not something she just grew into. The following is a critical moment when openness was missing, for an important reason.
Fortunately for Tess, Ann and Greg do not let their kids fly below the radar. Early in their lives, Ann and Greg established a bedtime ritual¹ with the kids that continued into adolescence. When they were young, the kids were encouraged to get ready for bed so they could have time for stories. Since stories ended at the designated time each night, the kids knew that the quicker they took care of the business of getting ready for bed, the more time there would be for stories. Ann and Greg much preferred this method because it put the responsibility in the kid to decide whether it was more important to them to spend some extra time playing in the bathtub or getting some extra story time. There was less nagging in this house because the kids usually knew what was expected and that outcomes were what the kids were choosing for themselves. Occasionally, when they dawdled and did not get the story time they anticipated, they would blame their parents for cheating them or not really wanting to read stories. Tess could easily construe the lack of stories as the fault of the parent rather than taking responsibility for her slow preparation. Having time with parents feel conditional is not healthy. Ann and Greg counter that perception by waiting for the child in his or her room, showing a readiness to begin the stories. They also express out loud their eagerness to resume the book they have been reading. Greg was notorious for getting to the book early so he could read ahead and taking the book to bed with him later in the evening.
As the kids got old enough, story time also evolved into a chance to talk about the day and to check in with them about what sense they had made of events. Kids are not developmentally capable of reasoning about events and integrating all the factors. Just like Ann debriefed Tim about falling off the backstop, leading him to realize that his coach was not mad at him but rather worried about him, they often stumbled upon events that could be examined and reformed before the cement dried.
“Bedtime Stories”
One night Ann found Tess to be unusually quiet and uninterested in talking;
“What’s going on, honey? You don’t seem to be yourself tonight.”
“Nothing is going on, Mom. I’m just tired. Let’s just skip the bedtime stuff tonight.”
“That’s not like you. You’ve always been the one who has ‘just one more thing’ at the last minute (before bedtime),” recalls her mom.
“Well, not tonight, Mom.”
“You’ve been really worried about the puppy (you brought home from the vet).”
“Yeah.” answers Tess with her eyes looking down at the bed covers.
“How is the puppy doing? I didn’t see you with him tonight.”
Tess turns her head away and stares at the wall.
Ann puts her arm around Tess and asks, “What’s the matter honey?”
Tess bursts into tears. In a sobbing voice she blurts, “He’s dead. I let him die. It’s all my fault.”
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry,” wrapping her arms around her.
“I didn’t do enough to save him Mom. I should have stayed home from school and watched him.”
“That’s really sad. You really worked hard to take care of him.”
“I should have been able to able to do more. I shouldn’t have let him die. Dr. Ventor is going to be mad at me.”
“Dr. Ventor said the puppies would have a hard time surviving without their mother,” Ann reminds her.
“But I should have been his mother. I should have fed him more and kept him warm like his mother would have.”
“What more do you think you could have done?”
“I don’t know, but I shouldn’t have let him die.” At which point Tess sobs uncontrollably and Ann just holds on to her.
Tess has some grieving to do. She takes losses very hard and she feels personally responsible for many things her brother Tim might just let slide. Fortunately the loss is out in the open and her parents know that she is grieving. Tess now knows that she can talk to them about losing the puppy. Ann will not be able to convince her at this moment that she was not to blame, but the more she asks her to talk, the more Tess will figure that out for herself. Ann knows Dr. Ventor, the veterinarian who Tess helps on the weekend. Dr. Ventor was pessimistic about the puppy’s potential for survival. Tess wanted to bring home the whole litter after the mother died in labor. Dr. Ventor finally relented to letting her bring home just one. Ann and Tess will soon find out that not even Dr. Ventor could keep the other puppies alive. Eventually Tess will get some perspective on her role thanks to what she will learn from Dr. Ventor and talking about it with her Mom. Fortunately for Tess, Ann was at the right place at the right time. In part that was the result of a great bedtime ritual that allows for keeping up with their kids. It was also the result of Ann knowing that Tess had taken on this task of nursing the puppy, so she was not completely in the dark about what might become of Tess’ undertaking.
It is unlikely that the death of the puppy would escape Ann. Although Tess was caring for the puppy, Ann knew what was going on and kept watch. She was going to check on the little guy before she went to bed. It was good that Tess could tell her. Some children might have tried to hide the whole affair once the puppy died, wanting to escape feeling sad and guilty. Others may have hidden the affair from their parents because they felt ashamed. Fortunately, Tess had a process in place and a safe relationship developed, where she could talk to her mom. It is also fortunate that Ann was monitoring an event so important to her daughter. Tess was starting high school and sometimes felt too old for any bedtime ritual. Her parents respected that change, but still made themselves available at the end of the evening.
Parental attunement allows us to notice what is missing, as well as what is obviously different, in our children.
Attunement
Communication
Logical Thinking
Empathy
This was a painful loss for Tess. However, handled sensitively, it may be an important piece of growth for her as well. With Ann’s urging, Tess eventually got a little more perspective on her ability to save the puppy by comparing notes with Dr. Ventor about what happened with the other puppies. That also led her to spend some time investigating on line why her puppy was so fragile and why the puppies’ mother plays such an essential role in their survival. Ann and Greg allow their kids opportunities like these where they have to struggle, feel the need to investigate and learn more because they are needed, and analyze why they may have failed. They recognize that their kids need attunement and empathic understanding, but they also need enough space in which they have to struggle on their own (but not beyond their parents’ watchful awareness).
Empathy
Internal Discipline
Emotional Competence
But this loss of Tess’, at another time in another family, could have had a far different and tragic outcome:
“It’s All My Fault”
Tess volunteered at a veterinary clinic three days a week after school. It was better than going home to an empty house, and besides, she loved animals. One day, a dog died of complications while giving birth to her puppies. Tess asked the vet if she could take the puppies home and nurse them. The vet agreed that she could take one of the puppies home. She stayed up all night bottle-feeding the puppy, keeping it warm and stroking it. After a couple of days, however, the puppy died and Tess was beside herself with grief. She blamed herself for the puppy’s death and kept looking back at all the things she should have done.
Tess continued to feel guilty about the death of the puppy. She had trouble sleeping, lost her appetite, quit doing much of her homework, and started cutting on herself. She never went back to the vet clinic, didn’t tell anyone about the puppy, and spent most of the remainder of her senior year in her room either asleep or listening to music and crying. Fortunately, her English teacher finally noticed the scratches on her arms, despite the long sleeves in May. The pale skin and circles under her eyes were hardly the way her teacher remembered her from sophomore year, when she played soccer and was always talking in class. The teacher’s call to the counselor came just in time.
No one had been there to ask Tess about her day, or what happened with the vet job, or what happened to the puppy she brought home, or why she stayed in her room all the time. Alone in her room, Tess spun a deeper and darker picture of herself as an irresponsible, untrustworthy, worthless human being. Only sleep and loud music drowned out the awful messages going around and around in her head.
Bedtime talks work great with young children. Adolescents, however, are likely to prefer contact with parents on their own time—which means that parents of adolescents need to be available and accessible. Although teens may no longer find bedtime to be an easy time to be asked about their day, if the openness and safety of talking is long established, it will be easier for them to knock on your bedroom door at midnight and say, “We need to talk.”
In this example, Tess’ parents were unavailable, perhaps for reasons such as divorce, working long hours, or managing their own stresses. They were not tuned into what was going on in her life, such as Tess’ attempt to rescue the puppy. Consequently, they did not know to ask. Another problem was the assumption her parents made. If nothing bad was happening, everything must be okay. Tess’ long hours alone in her room were just excused as typical teenage behavior and not worth questioning. The parents, in this situation, assumed “no news was good news”. Unfortunately, their depressed daughter was giving them no news because she assumed that she was not worth being heard.
These parents love their children and are well meaning. They grew up in families where love was “just understood”. Their families were not openly expressive about struggles or feelings, but they always knew that their parents loved them. For the most part, neither of them struggled much. They both have been very focused on achievement ever since high school and both have been very successful in their careers. They are loving, but clueless. Nothing has rocked their worlds and they have been rolling along with a great deal riding on assumptions. It has not occurred to them that Tess may be reluctant to come to them with proof of what a great disappointment she has turned out to be. In this version, Greg and Ann are clueless that they convey a message to their children of “don’t disappoint us” and “handle things on your own like we do”.
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Creating a bedtime ritual for talking about the day is an essential part of parental attunement. It allows the parent to keep up with the child’s activities, interests, and interactions. Kids make interpretations based on incomplete information, the input of other kids, or simple lack of understanding. This is a good time to help the child sort out these interpretations. Creating a safe unconditional opportunity early in life to talk about things helps sustain that process into adolescence.
The bedtime ritual was everyone’s favorite because it was one-to-one, intimate time. That is a far cry from many families where bedtime is a battle zone for some, or a “don’t ask, don’t tell” process for others. It is intimate time, yet it has its foundation in healthy limits and responsibilities. The children learn that the bedtime limit is firm, but the time leading up to that limit is totally under their control. If they want more story time, then they need to take care of their responsibilities. From an early age, this becomes an internal process and less of one directed and controlled by parents every step of the way.
Limits Are For Pushing Against
Moving from external control, (parents set limits) to internal control (child controls his or her behavior) is what growing up is all about.
Greg and Ann recognize that setting developmentally appropriate limits is important not only for their children’s safety, but because limits stimulate growth as well. They encourage a healthy process of pushing against the limits because they know that limits are controls from the outside that need to be replaced by controls from the inside (of the kid). With the limits, their kids are motivated to assume that control for themselves and Greg and Ann stick with their mantra of freedoms are earned (by taking on responsibility) not granted.
Internal Discipline
Genuine Self-Esteem
Communication
Relatedness
Being attuned to developmental progress and readiness is important background information for responding to kids’ behavior or requests to roll back limits:
“I’m Old Enough”
“I should get to stay up later,” demands Tess.
“You mean you want a later bedtime?” asks Ann.
“Yeah. All my friends get to stay up later than I do.”
“That doesn’t seem fair does it?”
“Don’t talk like that. You know it’s not fair.”
“What is it you want?”
“I want to stay up ‘til nine, like Suzanne gets to.”
“But you are not Suzanne.”
“I’m exactly the same age as she is.”
“So we should follow the same rules they follow at Suzanne’s house?”
“Mom, I’m serious. Why can’t I stay up ‘til 9:00?
“Kids need lots of sleep. In fact they need more sleep than adults.”
“Says who?”
“Says my medical journals.”
“Well, I get plenty of sleep.”
“What makes you think you need less sleep?”
“Mom, you always twist things around. I’m old enough to have a later bedtime.”
“If you are old enough for a later bedtime, then show us.”
“What do you mean?’
‘Well, I have to wake you up in the morning, that tells me that your body wants more sleep.”
“If I get up on my own can I stay up later?”
“That’s an interesting idea. How are you going to do that?”
“I’ll set an alarm, just like Dad does.”
“But that doesn’t take care of the need for more sleep.”
“Mom, you know I don’t go to sleep just because you turn the lights out at 8:30.”
“Do you mean do I know about the scheme you and grandma cooked up with the secret reading light?”
“Did grandma tell you?”
“No, but she is my mother, you know.”
“So how about it? If I get myself up, then you push back the bedtime half an hour.”
“Okay. But you need to do it successfully for two weeks. If I don’t have to get you up in the morning, then we’ll move the bedtime. If I do, then the clock starts over and you have to do two weeks straight.”
“Deal. But weekends don’t count.”
“Okay. Weekends are not included in the deal. But if you spend the weekends catching up on lost sleep, your body is telling you that you cheated it out of sleep.”
“Did you read that in one of your journals?”
“No. That comes courtesy of Ann’s logic factory.”
“Okay, Mom, put it on the calendar. The deal starts tomorrow.”
Ann and Greg operate on developmental time, not chronological-age-time when they make decisions concerning privileges. Tess argues that because of her age she is entitled to more freedom. Ann and Greg hold to the idea that freedom is earned by virtue of taking responsibility. In this case, Ann is telling Tess that if she wants the grown-up privilege of a later bedtime, then she needs to take the grown-up responsibility of getting herself up in the morning. Ann suspects that if she has to wake Tess in the morning, she needs the sleep. She is letting Tess’ body tell them the amount of sleep that is needed. Tess is tuned into what her friends think, do and say. She wants to be grown-up and the ambition to have adult privileges is a good thing. It helps simulate growth.
Ann and Greg support this ambition. They trust that ambition can be a source of motivation for their kids. Instead of blocking the ambition when the kids get ahead of themselves in terms of what they expect, Ann and Greg try to keep the process within the child. Unless there are safety issues involved, then the basic formula holds: “you get the freedoms you earn”.
Tess’ older brother, Seth, didn’t care that his bedtime was earlier than other kids. He was less tuned into that. He kind of liked being awakened by Ann every morning. Eventually, Ann and Greg realized that it wasn’t Seth who needed the bedtime; it was his computer. After they moved his computer to the study, he was getting noticeably more sleep at night. As Seth jokingly said, “It (the computer) just called to me.” They also decided that the computer needed to be in a more public space since Seth could easily isolate himself for hours and he needed the physical prompt to remind him that Ann and Greg monitored their kids computer travels.
Ann and Greg appreciate that Tess pushes against their limits. Tess has always been a strong willed kid and she is very concerned about fairness. In this case, for her it is only fair that if her friends have later bedtimes, then she should as well. Ann and Greg recognize that Tess is Tess. They listen to her concerns about fairness, but they try to move the process of how to make things fair back into her, rather than leaving it as something being done to her. Instead of having a battle about bedtime, which would have happened with a kid like Tess, Ann acknowledged Tess’ wish and showed her exactly how it could be achieved. She gave Tess the message that limits are not arbitrary and out of her control. If she wants something changed, then she can do something about it.
Ann and Greg welcome her push against their limits. Greg says that dealing with Tess is like using judo. He takes her energy or momentum and puts it to use. If Tess wants more freedom, then they let her know how she can earn it. Their assumption is that this process will pay off for Tess in the long run in her dealings with the outside world. However, a common theme Tess brings to them is how unfair others are (outside of the family) because they don’t listen or let her show them she is entitled to some privilege. Greg jokes with Ann, “look out world, here comes Tess.”
Communication
Empathy
Logical Thinking
“Listen To Me!”
When Tess was in high school, she was indignant with an English teacher who would never return work so that Tess could figure out why she got the grades she did. After encouraging her to go in and talk with the teacher, only to hear that she was repeatedly rebuffed, Greg called the teacher to schedule a conference. Tess accompanied him to the parent-teacher conference, which noticeably surprised the teacher. After the greetings were complete, Greg said, “I think you and Tess have some things to talk about” at which point he sat back and let his daughter do the talking. He had to hide a rather satisfied smirk when he realized that the cross-examinations he had suffered at the hands of Tess over the years were now being put to use with someone else.
Ann and Greg trust that the family process is the basis for how their kids will handle relationships outside the family. They try to honor the need to grow into a unique individual by trying to be curious and lending support. They remain close to their kids by virtue of this attunement. Their kids learn that it is possible to pursue genuine, unique interests and still feel close to the ones they love. Ann and Greg give them a healthy example that it is possible to pursue self-development and relatedness at the same time. This is a crucial foundation for kids successfully handling peer relationships where they can feel the need to conform to fit in and feel valued.
Children need to know that freedoms are earned, not granted. If they do not like something, they are entitled to explanations and when appropriate, to do something about it.
If kids grow up in families where they feel entitled to both a unique self and being valued and connected, then they are better prepared to face challenges in adolescence that create binds that force kids to choose between the two goals – self development and connection.
Communication
Empathy
Logical Thinking
Self-Development vs. Relatedness
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¹ Link to: Bedtime Ritual in the Parental Toolkit section.
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Link to: Raise Your Parenting IQ – Chapter 4.