Reframing your child’s behaviours
All people who work with children judge their parents on three things. Do they, provide to the best of their ability with the resources they have the best possible care for each child? If your answer to that question as a parent is yes, congratulations you’ve passed the test you probably didn’t know you where taking. The point is that children’s behaviours and preferences are unpredictable but often representative of their parents ability to pass our big question. Let me explain but first a warning, this post talks about abuse and child safety issues.
The number of parents that I have come though asking about and feeling guilty over a child’s behaviour is more than you would think when in reality the behaviour is not only age appropriate, but a good sign regarding a parents ability to parent. I’ve spoken before on here about how you can be a parent without parenting a child, and a child’s behaviour will reflect to what extent a parent is parenting. A 18 month old saying ‘no’ to care tasks out of a need for independence is normal and demonstrates to me that the child feels comfortable enough in their environment that they can air their preferences over the situation. That’s not a red flag, its a green flag thus, reframing that behaviour as positive and normal. A concerning behaviour is a child who refuses not out of a need for independence but out of fear is a red flag and should be recorded as such. Did you see how the behaviour changed, one is trust and comfort that other is a sign of abuse and really, that’s all we are looking for.
Lets take a better look at the question, do they, provide to the best of their ability with the resources they have the best possible care for each child? What that question really means is are you abusing your child? Abuse is a combination of things, that’s why there three parts to it. If a family is poor, they aren’t going to have as many resources to care for a child as a wealthy family would. That’s not abuse that’s environmental factors that are out of a parents control, equally, if a child born to wealthy parents is not provided for accordantly that’s neglect, there’s a difference. It’s taught to all professionals that work with children that there are five types of child abuse, neglect, physical, emotional, sexual and domestic violence. If any part of our question is untrue, it indicates that one or more of these types of abuse are occurring.
As a child of a emotionally abusive mother the associated behaviours are obvious when you know what to look for and I think that that’s where the system fails out children. You’re trained on types of abuse but not what the behaviours they course. The other point of failure is that modern parents are given a lot of utterly uncalled for crap over their child’s normal, age appropriate behaviours that where seen as ‘disrespectful’ in time gone by. This isn’t the 50’s and the social norms of the era where ‘children are to be seen and not heard’ should be long since abandoned.
So let me ask you the question, allow yourself a honest answer and don’t put your energy into caring about the rest of the comments. To a professional your parenting choices simply don’t matter unless they harm your child and they shouldn’t in your community either. Instead put you mind toward reframing a normal, experience in social and physical development into a positive thing. If you have a concern, or a question about what is normal speak to your doctor and don’t let others sway your view. You know your child best, you are they primary care giver, remember that.
Activity of the week,
Chalk paint is an alternative to traditional paint thats cheap, cost effective and easy to make. It allowes children to explore their creative side but will wash off with water easily.
You will need;
Chalk
Water
Bi-carb soda
Paint brushes
Bowls
Rolling pin
Place the chalk sticks into bowls and cover in water, allow this to sit for a few minuets before chushing the chalk into a smooth paste. Using the paint brushes mix the bi-carb into the chalk and water mix, This should react with the acid in the chalk to create a nuteral base that will be easier to clean.