When childhood choices meet natural consequences wonderful lessons can be taught with no parental imposition.  The only requirement is that parents allow for those consequences to take place; The kindergartner who refuses the sweater must be allowed to be cold at school, the 4^th grader who skips practice all week isn’t allowed to play in Saturday’s game, the high–schooler who chronically “forgets” homework, receives a lesser grade.

The challenge with young children is the need for more immediate consequences so they are capable of making the connection between cause and effect.  Magic phone call to the rescue. 

Let’s assume your little one is hitting at preschool (this must have happened to someone out there) and the natural consequence, to stay home from preschool, is not an option.  There is an upcoming birthday party, but it is too many days away to serve as a viable teaching tool.  If only a friend would call, right now, and invite your child to play.

Use your cell phone to dial your home phone or employ a friend to give you a call and create a fictitious invitation.  Remember, I said fictitious – do not involve another child who will be disappointed by this proposition.  Respond to the caller: “I am so sorry.  Ava is having a little bit of trouble with hitting, so I don’t think it is a good time for a play date.  Please ask, again, as I am sure she will learn to control herself better, soon.” 

Your child will likely react with tears and promises to keep her hands to herself.  You will calmly respond, “oh, honey, it would not be responsible for me to take you out when I know there is a risk that you might hit someone.  I will help you practice your self-control, and when you are managing at preschool, we will schedule a play date.”

Nothing in this response should be punitive.  The message is simply that your child is not ready for the responsibilities that come with socializing.  The expectation is that the child will soon be ready to play safely and that you will support gaining that readiness.  Everyone is on the same team, but the ball is in the child’s court.

I am a believer in the teaching power of natural consequences.  I know that after an evening spent shivering at a ballgame, I take a sweater to the next event .  If I forget something I need at work and suffer the frustration of being ill prepared, I take immediate steps to improve my organizational skills.   And yet, when children make the same kind of errors, parents often rescue instead of letting the circumstances provide the discipline. 

I think the reasons for parental rescuing are fear based.  We (the current generation of parents) are terrified for our kids to “fail,” and worry that a zero on an assignment, a poor grade, or a missed opportunity will doom our child’s academic or social future. Additionally, let’s face it, parenting in public is difficult, and if lunch is left behind (again) and you allow junior to go hungry, or you send your kid to school in a dirty shirt, because he constantly leaves his clothes on the floor  instead of putting them in the hamper, someone is going to judge you.  I sympathize, but, you’ve gotta buck up!

Experience is the best teacher and robbing children of the consequences of their own actions is equivalent to denying them the opportunity to learn to read – eventually their ability to function will be compromised.  Not to mention, that you will run yourself ragged tying up all of their loose ends, all the while building resentment towards your skill-less, ungrateful child, who never had the opportunity to learn from natural consequences.

So, this week, I challenge you to leave the homework on the counter and the laundry on the floor.  I suggest that you don’t backtrack to preschool to get the treasure left in the cubby, or deliver the jacket your child refused to take even though rain was clearly imminent.  You need not offer the rescue.  You need only anticipate the frustration, and provide a sincere and sympathetic acknowledgment, “oh honey, that must have been hard for you.” 

Everyone with children knows, kids cry.  A lot.  It can’t be avoided.  It’s developmental.  Before they can talk they cry, and after they have words they cry.  They cry when they are sad, frustrated, angry, and tired.  Sometimes their crying escalates to full-blown, lay on the floor, red-in-the-face tantrums.  Kids are rarely inhibited by onlookers or venue, so meltdowns can happen at home, at school, and the grocery store. 

Mostly parents just want to make the crying stop, so they often resort to diverting and distracting - “if you stop I’ll buy you an ice cream,” or they discipline or dismiss – “go to your room so I don’t have to listen to you” or  (the more old-school) “I’ll give you something to cry about.”  Although bribing and banishing sometimes offer quick relief, they don’t teach any coping skills or provide kids any insight into acceptable expression.

Parents want children to use words, but all to often they do not provide the child with words to use.  Acknowledge and label your child’s feelings.  Let him know he has conveyed his message.  Say out loud, “I can see that you are sad because dad left.  Sometimes it is hard to say good-bye.  Can I help?”  

Frustration is a close companion of the growing child.   Children are learning so quickly and their frustration level can be so high, especially during times of disequilibrium.  Acknowledge and relate - “You seem frustrated.  You have been working hard to build that tower and it keeps falling over.  Sometimes when I am frustrated, I take a break until I feel calmer and am ready to try, again.”

Anger can be trickier because so many adults have negative associations with that emotion.  Label it, even if your experience has left you uncomfortable with the feeling.  Your child can learn to express anger in a way that is acceptable in your family.  Try an acknowledgement and a direction like; “I know you are angry that your brother took your toy, but you may not hit him.  You may say, ‘I am angry with you, ‘ and you can even use a loud voice.  Or you can say I am not going to play with you today because I am angry that you took my toy.” 

Provide a word that identifies your child’s expressed emotion.  Provide an acceptable response or reaction.  Your acknowledgment reflects care and understanding, let’s children know there is nothing wrong with their feelings, allows for appropriate expression, and builds a foundation of empathy for others. 

Ultimately, much more effective than divert, distract, discipline or dismiss, don’t you think?

If you have a child of at least three, you have likely experienced a morning when you greeted a little one, once smiling and serene, who had suddenly become whiny and willful.  You likely checked for fever, or budding teeth, and then after several days of challenging behavior, decided that something had gone terribly wrong with your child or with your parenting.

Thankfully, this was not the case.  Your little one had just moved from a predictable stage of equilibrium to disequilibrium – smooth, steady development, followed by a growth period of unpredictable emotions and high levels of frustration.  This transition happens naturally about every six months from approximately 1 ½ through age nine.

For some children the transition from one stage to another is a mere undulation.  For others it is a full-blown rollercoaster ride.  As a parent, you need to be prepared, tighten your safety belt and remember that those sudden drops, sideways turns, and rapid speeds actually indicate your child is growing, and that is a GOOD thing.

Disequilibrium occurs as babies reach for more.  Crawling moves to toddling and vocabularies grow. Suddenly, not content with a few words, your little one has something big to say and demands to be understood.  No longer satisfied with walking, baby wants to run.  Their lack of expertise leaves them frustrated, and sometimes, down right angry. 

To help you relate, consider disequilibrium in adults.  It occurs in times of change, when we have mastered a particular challenge or task, and are ready to move forward.  Suddenly, the new job, the new class, the new expectation overwhelms us.  In response we might be more intense, more easily frustrated, and generally more unpleasant.  We might want to scream, throw ourselves on the floor, or quit, but (hopefully) we have enough emotional maturity and experience with social norms to resist such behavior.  Your child, on the other hand lacks experience, is emotionally raw, and unfiltered; hence, screaming, tantruming, and quitting.

In response to these behaviors, you can provide the same considerations that might benefit you; understanding, support, guidance, routine, and rest. 

Don’t worry; it gets better from here… at least for six months.

For more information and traits reflected at each age, check-out these books: Your Two-Year-Old; Your Three-Year-Old; Your Four-Year-Old; etc., by Frances Ilg and Louise Bates Ames.

If you have already read “Know Your Because,” you may benefit further from some real life examples of how to put it into practice.

When addressing differences with adults consider this:

• Imagine a grandparent’s questioning of your decision to breastfeed.  Explain by calmly stating, “I have decided to breastfeed because my research and my pediatrician feel it is best for the baby.”

 When addressing your child about issues of health, safety, and the law, be firm and unwavering in your tone:

• “You must ride in your car seat because it keeps you safe and it is the law, this is a “no-choice.” Do you want to get in by yourself or do you need me to help you?”

•  “You need to brush your teeth because it keeps them health, this is a no-choice.  Why don’t you get them started and then I will finish them up?”

Some of your “because’s” will have more to do with your specific family value system.  These reasons sometimes require more examination, and often differ from family-to-family.

•  “I know you do not want to go to practice, today, but you need to because in our family it is important that we keep our commitments.”

• “I know that your friends get to go to movies on school nights, but you cannot go because we feel it interferes with your focus, your studies, and your rest, and school is a priority in our family.”

Some of your “because’s” might be based on things that are ultimately insignificant:

•            “You cannot wear the pink shoes to school because they do not match your dress.”

Knowing your because provides a platform for your decision-making.  It provides clarity for you and your child.  It allows you to abandon battles you need not fight and helps you identify and hold firm on issues of the utmost important. 

Stay tuned for posts on “frontloading” and “natural consequences,” where  I will expound on these examples.  We all know that most kids won’t just hear your “because” and roll over without a fight.

It will be only moments into parenthood or pregnancy, for that matter, when you will be faced with an interminable string of questions from friends and family (and sometimes even strangers) about your earliest parenting decisions; birthing, naming, feeding, sleeping.  Just when you think you’ve answered them all a whole new crop will come along.  Even your little one will descend on you with an endless list of “whys” about everything from the nonsensical to the profound.

Wise parents make it a mission to know their because.  In other words, they make active choices with intent.  They are prepared to answer the question, however it might be phrased, “why do you do it that way?”

Ultimately, you will come to realize that parenting is a series of choices; some will be well thought out; some, a reaction to events as they occur, (but choices non-the-less).  Some approaches will work for one family and not for another.  There is no one right path, but every path is fraught with the judgment of others.  Create your map or you will lose your way.

Begin by invoking health, safety, and the law as non-negotiable; they are the no-brainers of parenting. Riding in car seats, washing hands after toileting, running into the street, are never up for debate.  Most other things are subjective - I can show you a book that says you should never have a family bed, and I can show you a book that says you should only have a family bed.

To aid in the determination of your because, integrate some information from the “experts,” along with your gut, your experience, your lifestyle, and your beliefs.  Consider the age, stage and personality of your child.  Facilitate your thinking by saying “I am making this decision because…” Be alerted if your response has anything to do with not wanting to rock-the-boat, or how you will appear to others.  If that proves to be your underlying motivation (congrats to you for your honesty), you are on a slippery slope and you are unlikely to confidently sustain your path.  Parse your own values further.

Learn your because, know your because, and honor the because of others.   When disagreements arise or concession is warranted you can always simply and confidently state, “isn’t it interesting how different families do things differently?”

I am a woman who makes good on her commitments to others.  I keep my appointments.  I am timely.  I reliably write a weekly blog post for www.happyhourmom.com.  However, when it comes to keeping commitments to myself, I cannot be counted on.  That is why my eating habits are poor, my exercise regime is non-existent, and my blog - which has been “active” for almost two years - has had sporadic entries.  (Of course, if you view my blog now, you will find the ­­­slate blog is wiped clean, along with all my previous vows to write regularly.)

Today, I am once, again, promising to post.  I am abandoning my fear of punctuation errors and grammatical mistakes.  I am facing the fact that I use dashes incorrectly, and overdo parentheses (I excuse it as stylistic).  I know I sometimes end my sentences in prepositions.  Reading Eats Shoots and Leaves has not corrected the problem. I surrender.  I will no longer be afraid.

Interestingly enough, I do not fear your criticism or challenge of my opinions.  I will muse about kids, and families, and schools and discipline.  Sometimes you will think I am wrong.  I welcome your debate.  I encourage your questions.  I think healthy (and sometimes, heated) exchange makes for thoughtful parenting, and I believe that thoughtful parenting is (usually) better parenting.  Sometimes you will change my mind.  I hope I will also change yours.  At least, let’s add to each others thinking.  

So please, log-on, consider, participate and engage.  I am eager to meet you.