One of the biggest struggles parents have, is seeing events through their children’s eyes or experiences. Parents will expect their child to respond to something as they would. Then they, the parent, become stressed, angry, upset, etc. when the child does not respond how they expected. STOP DOING THIS!!
Here’s an example. A big struggle is when the parent, or anyone else, is trying to get the child to lay down for a nap. First, most parents think naps are a great idea (which they are) but that’s because we 1) We are old and 2) we’re always exhausted running around after our kids. Our kids are not old or tired. We need to remember that when we struggle to understand why they won’t go down for a nap.
Parents then run into a problem when they try to “tire out” their kid so they can then take a nap. The parent thinks of an activity that will tire themselves out, then they have the child do it and expect the child to respond to it the same way they would. But then when the child doesn’t, the parent gets stressed because the child isn’t acting the way they expected so they have their own adult meltdown.
An adult jumping on a bed or running around the room for 5 minutes would probably be exhausted and ready to lay down. But this just gets a kid’s cardiovascular system primed for more activity. Instead of their body wanting to wind down we’ve done the exact opposite and gotten them primed to expend more energy. The parent meant well and had a good idea but because they looked at “getting the wiggles out” through their experience they created a giant problem for themselves. 5 minutes is good to tire out an adult. But the child would need 30.
When we don’t take our child’s experiences into account most of the time nothing good is going to happen and we are the ones who will end up paying the price. Next time think about how you, at your child’s age, would handle or deal with whatever you want your child to do. And if you wouldn’t respond how you want them to…. DON”T DO IT!
