Change Your Default Setting From "No" to "Maybe"

I have had many conversations about parenting in the past eight months since I started this blog. The absolute most frustrating type of conversation goes something like this:

Me: I like to help my kids get what they want.
Other Person: That's impossible! What if they want to go to the moon in a spaceship? I can't get my kids what they want every time they ask! I'd be broke.

Here's why I have a problem with this kind of thinking: It's focused on the impossibilities, the exceptions, the singularities. It's focused on what we can't do. How often do our children want things that are truly impossible to get? More importantly, how often do our children want things that are possible, and we brush them off because we have to teach them they can't always get what they want.

A parent who thinks this way has the default setting of No. She's at the grocery store with her kids, and they ask for a piece of  candy or a small toy at the checkout counter.

She thinks: We can't buy something for you every time we go to the store.

She responds: No, put it down. 

She's satisfied with the lesson: You can't always get what you want .

I guess the idea here is that the parent is afraid that if she "gives in" this time, the child will come to expect it every time.

Ten Steps To Kinder, Gentler Parenting

It seems many parents know exactly the "Mean Voice" I wrote about in Did You Kiss Your Baby With That Mouth? Now some people want to know: How do you stop yourself from being mean? What do you say instead?

So here are some suggestions for adjustments that might help you move toward kindness.

Did You Kiss Your Baby With That Mouth?

That mouth on your face... Is that the mouth you used to smile and softly kiss your baby's head the moment you first held him your arms? Is it the same mouth you used to whisper gently into your precious new baby's ear how much you loved him and wanted him and promised to take care of him?

How is that mouth now? Does it still feel gentle and soft and sweet? Or has it become rough and harsh and sour?

Do you have a special tone of voice reserved for talking to your child, now that he's not a baby anymore? One that you would never use with anyone else but your own child? You  probably know the tone I'm talking about. It might be the one your parents used on you.

Is Your Home a War Zone?

1. Is your child the enemy, or a terrorist?
2. Do you refuse to negotiate with your child?
3. Do you create a united front with your spouse, against your child? 
4. Do your children combine forces, against you?
5. Do you have battles with your child?
   

Words Matter: Sometimes...

Some of my Geometry tests in high school featured questions that looked kind of like True or False questions, but with a twist. There would be a list of statements, and we would have to decide whether each statement was Always true, Sometimes true, or Never true. I found these questions more difficult than regular True or False questions, because of that middle option, the sometimes.

The deal with the sometimes option is that if you can think of ONE example of when something is not true, then it's not always true. It's only sometimes true. One counterexample is all it takes.

In life, it's easy to lose sight of the sometimes option in the middle, and default to always or never. You might hear parents say things like these about their kids: