“It’s not working”

Have you had this thought before? “I’ve tried everything and it’s still not working. Nothing works.” etc.. What are you referring to exactly when you say that? You’re probably talking about some sort of behavior that you want your kid to change and after all the techniques you’ve tried, kid is still doing (or not doing) the same thing. It is very very hard to control another human. Like we discussed yesterday, agency is the real deal. No one wants to feel like their agency is being taken away. So we can instead focus on respecting their agency.

We need to really take a deep dive into our thoughts and beliefs about what our job description even is as a parent. Cause i think we tend to think on default that we are supposed to control our kids. If not consciously, at least unconsciously we think that. And it’s really frustrating to try to do. So what is our job if it’s not to control? I think that it is to teach. I can try and try and try to teach my kid and when my only object is to teach, then it’s not as frustrating if they still use their agency to do the opposite of what i’m trying to teach. And then, i wouldn’t tell my self that it’s not working cause the goal was not to get them to do any particular thing but just to teach them what I think they should do and then let them govern themselves. Of course the younger they are the more control we may need to exercise to keep them safe etc but we tend to take that overboard and want to control them in way too many ways.

So if you feel like everything you’ve tried isn’t working, try this instead. If your son insists on throwing blocks and you’re driving yourself crazy trying to get him to stop, think about where he is coming from. Why is throwing blocks so alluring for a toddler? What is he getting out of it? And by all means, keep trying to teach him that we don’t throw blocks, but if you don’t want to be frustrated about it, just drop the expectation that he’ll actually obey that rule. Expect that he’ll do it again and then continue to teach him from peace.

And in relation to dropping the mom guilt? Some of our guilt may be coming from judging ourselves according to our child’s behavior. This will always lead to unnecessary guilt and shame. Our kids have their own agency and their own agendas and it doesn’t reflect on us as parents if we know we tried to teach them and left the rest up to them. As always, it really comes down to defining for ourselves the kind of mom we want to be. What is your job exactly? And are you doing it? if so, no need for the guilt.