The Confab: Beyond Time-Out (Part 2)

In part one of The Confab, we talked with child psychologist Dr. Beth Grosshans about the imbalance of family power and the unruly kids and unhappy families that result from it. Grosshans (with my mother-in-law, Jan!) wrote the book Beyond Time-Out: From Chaos to Calm, which offers parents an action plan to take back the power and get their house back in order.

Today, in part two,  Grosshans gets into that action plan for parents, called The Ladder to Effectiveness. It’s basically the five steps “in the discipline sequence.” And each step on the ladder represents the level of parental response to a child’s lack of cooperation, Grosshans says.

Although it may sound easy — oh, just five steps? – it’s not. Like most things around raising children, it’s nuanced and totally dependent on who you are and the choices you make as parents. There’s never a blanket solution. As Grosshans rightly says, “There are no short answers or quick fixes when it comes to parent-child relationships.  This is complex and ever challenging business.”

Image from www.sheknows.com

Q: How important is tone when climbing “The Ladder”? 

Beth Grosshans: Maintaining a tone free from irritability and anger is critical when implementing the Ladder. Children become more agitated and out of control if you treat them harshly and disrespectfully. If you are tentative and have little confidence in your authority, your child will know it in a minute and will quickly take the power you cede.

You want to create an environment where cooperation is most likely to thrive. Your children will want to please you the most when they respect and admire you. If you are competent and strong and also loving and respectful, then your child’s motivation to cooperate and work with you will be at it’s highest.

Many parents, because they do not move quickly enough into action, become fed up with repeating themselves over and over and not getting cooperation. This leads to parent’s using time-out as a threat. Through clenched teeth they say: “If you don’t stop it and start listening right now, you are going to get a time-out.” Or they may wait until they blow up, and then yell, “That’s it! You have pushed me too far.  Now, you have to have a time-out!” This is not the emotional stance you want when redirecting and correcting your young children.

Q: In the book you often talk about being “matter-of-fact” even in the face of a child trying to push your buttons and their limits. How do we keep our tone in check when frustration levels start to rise yet let them know that we (the parent) mean business?

BG: Communicating in a serious, respectful, matter-of-fact tone is best.  You want to convey clearly and in a good–natured way that you are your child’s biggest supporter, but that you are also comfortably in charge: you are the leader and he is the one who needs to follow without exception.

The Ladder will help you exercise parental control and remain calm, so that you do not need to resort to a bullying style. The steps of the Ladder always keep you in the lead, effectively responding to your child’s challenges. They leave little room for your child to doubt whether you are up to the job of parenting him.  You want your child to learn to be confident of your authority, not feel threatened, shamed, or harshly criticized by it.

Q: What are some of the easiest ways to tripped up (“parent traps”) when attempting to climb The Ladder? 

BG: Parents usually have more than just one or two behaviors in their repertoire that fuel opposition and defiance with their kids, and they tend to make these missteps at different times as they scramble to be effective and have an impact on their children. The message here is not that missteps cause outright damage, but that when they are relied on too heavily as a means to gain their children’s cooperation, they wind up fueling the very behavior parents are trying to stop. Here is a list of the top ten parental missteps that encourage acting out rather than extinguish it:

1. Over explaining, reasoning, and negotiating.
2. Apologizing too often.
3. Seeking a child’s permission and approval.
4. Not owning parental decisions and directions.
5. Being overly focused on parent’s needs and feelings.
6. Manipulating with too many bribes and threats.
7. Repeating the same direction over and over.
8. Blaming the child and looking to him for answers.
9. A dismissive and disrespectful manner.
10. Being too heavy-handed and using corporal punishment.

Following the structure and the script of the Ladder corrects all of these missteps.  The Ladder is a very effective tool when the structure and script are adhered to, it is only when parents use it half way, or half-heartedly that children can find holes to slip through.

Q: What’s the most common misstep of all of these?

BG: I would say it’s over-talking. While most parenting advice is centered around trying to offer parents new ways to “say” things, I am convinced the core lessons of self control, respect and cooperation are learned through action based lessons, not through talking based ones. Never repeat yourself or provide explanations once you have started on the Ladder. With every repetition or delay, you underscore your impotence. Instead, your child should be offered one “I mean business reminder,” and that is all.  This is a key sequence in the Ladder: say it once, give a reminder, and then act.  One, two, ACT.

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Giveaway time! Leave a comment below about the challenge of raising strong, well-adjusted kids and you could win a copy of Beyond Time-Out.

The Confab: Beyond Time-Out (Part 1)

You’ve seen them. In restaurants, public parks, waiting rooms, malls, parking lots, you’ve definitely seen them. Hell, maybe they’re even yours, sitting  – or rather jumping, climbing, screaming — right next to you, causing you headache, frustration and shame. Talking about them misbehavin’ babies.

Maybe you’ve watched hours of Supernanny on TV or scoured the internet for the latest parenting trend to help restore sanity in your home. (Attachment, Free-range, Helicopter, Tiger … Lordy! Sounds like an updated version of the Five Animals of Kung-fu. Wait, parenting as self-defense. Am I onto something here??)

Put all of that stuff away. There’s something, a book, that’s offering sound advice on how to get your family power dynamic in check and take you from “chaos to calm.” Enter Beyond Time-Out. Written by clinical child psychologist Beth A. Grosshans and (my mother-in-law!) Janet Burton, the book delves into what’s behind  the current epidemic of unruly, unhappy kids and gives parents an effective action plan for getting the runaway train back on track.

We’re pleased to have Beth joining us in The Confab — in the first of a two-parter — about going beyond time-out.

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Photo by Beth Grosshans

Q: What pushed you to write this book?

Beth Grosshan: The families in need. Parents are so invested in being good parents. But the truth is, it’s not translating into to the outcomes parents are looking for. Family life is filled with headaches and difficulties; kids seem to have more and more tantrums, protests and unhappiness.

There are a lot of things that are weighing families down: they’re not finding the cooperation, the self-control and the sense of  getting along that everyone is looking for. I discovered that the answer lies in power dynamics. It’s really the heart of the matter. I wrote this book because I wanted to educate parents about this whole issue of power dynamics, and help them to see that when kids have more power than parents — both behaviorally and emotionally — it doesn’t go well. The kids’ behavior deteriorates terribly and there is going to be a lot of disruption and disturbance in the parent-child relationship.

When parents have the power and are in the lead, this is the foundation for the kind of harmony that they’re looking for. Their kids can acquire self-control, respect and cooperation.

Q: How does a parent go about establishing a balance of power in the family? 

BG: Parents need to understand what we mean when we talk about power. It has to do with who sets the agenda. It must be the parents. But the reality is, it’s often the children’s agenda.

Children are hardwired to test for power. They want to know what is it that gets them their way.  I refer to it as a power drive, and every child is born with one. Like many things in the behavioral and the emotional realm, it occurs on a continuum. Some kids have a very strong power drive. These are the “you give them an inch and they’re going to take a yard” kind of kids. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the softer temperament kids.

From the time babies are five or six months old, developmentally they begin to have deliberate behavior. For example, rather than crying just because they have a need, babies cry because they want to achieve an affect. There are two verbalizations that children learn quickly in order to get parents to accommodate them: one is making distress noises like a weeping “eh eh eh” type of cry and the other is a protest verbalization where they sound more angry and frustrated. Those two noises are pre-verbal, and  are very powerful in getting parents to respond and do something for the infant. That’s when power dynamics start to get established.

Q: How can a parent make that call — that this cry is a need versus a want? 

BG: If parents start to have that active framework in their minds, it will make a really big difference in terms of how their responding to their kids. Sometimes kids can fuss and it doesn’t need immediate response. Parents tend to over-respond to children’s verbalizations of stress. They over-respond in terms of the frequency in which they are responding, and also the extent of response that they give. It gives kids the message that whenever they make a peep, their parents are going to jump.

Q: That’s an important point to make because there is so much anxiety around not wanting your child to be upset and many parents do fall into that trap of over-response.  We need remind ourselves that crying is just babies doing what babies do, right?

BG: Exactly. Those are just the sounds the babies make. Granted that parents are very attuned to those sounds, and it’s very much in us to want to turn them off. Parents must have this framework of power dynamics to help the temper frequency and the intensity with which they are responding to those noises, and to understand that they’re very natural.

If kids fuss a little bit, this is hardly a problem for them. As you said, they’re doing what kids do. Parents need to be reassured that sometimes a low key response is not only fine, but it’s also the best response.

Q: What do you say to the parent who feels like the low key response is akin to not being a present parent?

BG: It’s a different framework. I know that my contribution to parenting advice goes against the grain. The current parenting culture is saturated with the notion of overdoing and over-attending. We have basically told parents that they need to be exquisitely sensitive to the needs of their infants and toddlers.

I think it all needs to be turned down significantly. We have a culture that is increasing anxiety in parents, and I’m saying we need to change the way we’re looking at it. This over-parenting style is fraught with difficulty. It is not going to lead parents down the path that they ultimately want. At some point, parents get sick of it because it’s not a path that is sustainable. Parenting becomes such a burden: the kids are not happy, the family unit is struggling, the kids become bratty, and the parents become bitter. They feel frustrated and are desperately looking for the answer to, “What do we do now?”

Imbalanced family power is not just an issue of a family living with headache; this is about a very compromised pathway for development in children. They struggle enormously with their personal selves and in their relational lives as a result of having had too much power. It’s a trajectory of all types of problems.

Q: When parents realize there’s an imbalance in the house, are there steps they can take to change the family dynamic?

BG: Absolutely. The thing that has been so gratifying and fun about working with this perspective with families through the years is watching how they transform. If parents learn how to utilize their natural power in service of their children’s well-being, things change and they change fast. This not a long drawn-out process, within a week you will see improvements. In two weeks you will see a lot of improvements and within a month things will be transformed.

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Check back with us tomorrow for Part 2 of The Confab, where Dr. Grosshans will get into how to effectively regain the balance of power at home. Plus, we’ll be giving away a copy of the book!

Hey, Sleepy Parent! Come on, Get Happy!

Quit it! Yeah, I said it. Quit your belly-achin’ about the lack of sleep, or the fact that you haven’t seen a current movie — in the cinema — in over six years. Enough about the no-time-or-energy for mattress dancing. (Oh, please. You know exactly what that means.) And not another word about the number of times you’ve stepped on LEGO on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Nobody wants to heat it. Because guess what? You’re not miserable after all, Parent. You’re happy! You’re even happier than your No-Kids-Havin’ mates. Uh-hunh. There are even studies and research and science that prove this to be true, true, tue. In fact, it is “undeniable that parents have become relatively happier than non-parents over the past few decades.”

Un-de-neye-able.

Uh, what’s that? Let’s talk about the “relatively happy” part, you say? Nah. Why ruin this with semantics and details and context.

I’m just glad there’s finally a study or news report where someone isn’t talking about how much they hate parenting. Or how modern motherhood is somewhat like a prison. Or  how American parents are losing at the Best Parents of All the Land games.

We’re happy, y’all. We’re happy. Let’s feel good about that.

(But for real, this parenting thing is pretty damn good. There are ups and bumps and dips, but I definitely wouldn’t trade it for anything. OK. Maybe for more sleep. Kidding! Happy people do that, you know? They kid.)

Guest Post: A Down-to-Earth Look at Feminism and Motherhood

Man, mothers can’t catch a break. There was the “attachment parenting is a prison” thing. Then the “Tiger-Mom up if you want to raise winners” bit. And then more recently “the French do it better” discussion. Oh, and the so-called Mommy Wars are back in the flames (with the interesting new piece: the rise of the Dad Wars). So when a new book dropped called The Conflict with a subtitle that basically says, motherhood is the new ambition-killer for women (taking over from marriage, of course), I posted this Slate article about it on the MMM FB page, and Amy Webb’s blood started boiling.

Here’s what Amy, a wife, mom and Ph.D. who blogs about child development and parenting, had to say about her conflict with The Conflict.

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Who knew that a book by a French philosopher and feminist could raise such a stir among parents of all varieties in America? Although Elisabeth Badinter’s book, The Conflict : How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women, was released in France several years ago, it just hit American shelves this week and the reaction has been immediate. Parents, be they the stay-at-home, employed, conservative, or liberal variety, have had strong reactions to her argument. In a nutshell, Badinter contends that modern motherhood, particularly certain time-intensive “trends” such extended breastfeeding and attachment parenting, are antithetical to feminism. She argues that these practices are, in a sense, setting women back to the type of oppression and inequality that they experienced generations ago.

This subject made me reflect on these parenting trends, as well as the nature of motherhood in general. First, what type of parenting methods are not time-intensive or do not require a great deal of self-sacrifice? (I think that is called “neglect.”) Any parent, female or male, who is worthy of the title “parent” is going to invest a lot of time and energy in their child. By their nature, children require a sacrifice of self. They are, after all, born thinking they are the center of the universe and do not figure out that they are not for several years.

Second, the idea that children have replaced men as the “oppressors” of women is outlandish. Yes, there are undoubtedly circles of mothers who are competitive, and some may feel pressured to follow certain parenting practices (i.e., extended breastfeeding, attachment parenting). I think these pressures generally come from a certain segment of the society and if one does not want to follow these practices, you can surround yourself with other people who support your choices.

In the early months of motherhood, I felt some of these pressures after attending a mothers’ group where extended breastfeeding, baby wearing, and co-sleeping were the norm. Although I actually practiced all of these things to one extent or another, I knew I did not adhere to them as fiercely as this particular group, so I sought out another “tribe” in which to surround myself. I soon found another group of mothers who, like me, did not adhere to one “trend” or style of parenting but rather made our parenting choices based on what we felt was right for ourselves, our children, and our families as a whole.

That’s the beauty of modern motherhood that Badinter is missing: Mothers today have the freedom to create this role in any way we wish. This is the true gift that the feminist movement has given us. As women and mothers we have the freedom to configure our lives in ways that are meaningful to us. Mothers of my generation, on average, waited longer to have children, are more highly educated, and I feel are more prepared to enter motherhood with our eyes wide open to the choices, opportunities, and yes, sacrifice that comes with this life path.

Badinter’s argument also sparked, for me, a larger issue about the role of self-sacrifice. There does seem to be an idea out there that anything that requires sacrificing your own desires for the sake of another is somehow anti-feminist or at least not progressive. I find this problematic. Generations ago women were required to sacrifice many of their ambitions/desires to care for children and husbands. This sacrifice was oppressive in the sense that women had few other options. If this lifestyle was not fulfilling to a woman, there was not much else she could do.

The difference today is that while this level of sacrifice is still present, women may choose how their life is configured. Many women find staying at home to raise children a meaningful and fulfilling lifestyle, even with the sacrifice that is involved in that choice. Similarly, women who work outside the home also face sacrifice and find meaning in that lifestyle as well.

The point is, women now have more choices. To my mind, opening up more choices to women is the primary goal of feminism. Almost any life choice is going to require some sort of self-sacrifice unless you want to live a life in which you have no relationships or commitments to anyone other than yourself. If that’s what it means to be a feminist, then I’ll pass.

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Amy Webb is a wife, mom, and blogger who translates academic child development research into parent-friendly articles at The Thoughtful Parent.