‘Go and get your hoody’ asks Andy in no uncertain terms, for the Nth time (where N is a large number). Nibbles had already refused several times.

Where We Went Wrong #1 – asking more than once

Nibbles heard. Nibbles understood the request. Nibbles is not about to suddenly change his mind however many times we ask him to do it. We’re all ready to go out to a spring fair at a local village and the temperature of our family has started to heat up. Nibbles is cross and stubborn. By asking lots of times and getting the same response, Andy is now … cross and stubborn (snap).

Where We Went Wrong #2 – not focusing on our own emotional regulation/ staying calm

I then join in the unTherapeutic Parenting (unTP) by getting annoyed that Andy is not being very therapeutic.

Ah! Sweet, sweet irony.

Which Basket Is This In?

Having read Sarah Fisher’s book on Connective Parenting, we are trying to focus on the few things that truly matter. Trouble is Andy and I haven’t actually decided which TWO things to concentrate our efforts on, or shared our ideas to be certain we are both focusing on the same things. So whilst we both agree that there are certain things we need to care less about (like the way the kids eat their meals, nose picking, nail biting etc), we are far from a united front.

Where We Went Wrong #3 – not being certain what matters and what doesn’t matter. Is defiance in the small basket or not?

I get fed up with the fact that things are clearly starting to escalate, so go up to Nibbles’ bedroom to get his stupid hoody.  Andy sees it, glares at me, is incensed and throws it back upstairs because he is Not. Backing. Down.

He raises his voice and demands Nibbles get his frogging hoody because whilst it hasn’t worked for N times, it is going to work on the N+1 time. *facepalm*

Stress Accentuates The Senses

When we are in fight, flight, freeze, flop, fandango mode, the adrenalin creates lots of changes in our body, including heightening all our senses – our bodies tingle, our sense of taste and smell are keener and our hearing is more sensitive to every little crackle of the tiger in the forest. An already loud (raised) voice becomes louder still, overwhelmingly so.

‘STOP SHOUTING AT ME’ yells Nibbles, and then promptly bursts into tears.

I roll my eyes and say something to Andy in an exasperated tone about him not being very calm or therapeutic, again not exactly pouring oil on troubled waters.

By now everyone, except Bubbles who is dealing with this rather well, is huffing and sulking and not in a good mood. I dry Nibbles’ eyes, give him his darn hoody (how can an item of clothing cause so much strife?) and shuffle him off into the car before the day is laid waste in a volcanic explosion.

Repair

Once we’re all strapped in our separate seats, with zero eye contact, the danger is over and emotions start to dissipate. I apologise to Andy for talking to him in that manner. He grumpily accepts. I also apologise to Nibbles.

As we drive off, I suggest to Andy that telling Nibbles he wasn’t shouting is arguing aka escalation. He huffily replies that he was just stating a fact and then I suggest that if Nibbles thinks Andy is shouting, then Andy is shouting. Andy is not about to concede and I suggest that splitting hairs on a technicality with a six year old is Missing. The. Point.

Letting It Go

I turn on the radio in the hope that some music will release the static tension in the air. I stare out the window and wonder why we (I) keep getting it wrong.

• ‘It feels like losing’ says Andy when we are half way to the fair.
• ‘I know it does, but it’s not’
• ‘It feels like it’

(repeat the above several times)

And by the time we get to the fair, it’s all over and we have a pretty good day out, with the kids laughing their socks off at a Punch and Judy show, hot dogs in the sunshine, the kids spend pocket money on slime, Bubbles gets some clip-on earrings to her pure delight, and we all come home happy.

Therapeutic Parenting is not like parenting. It involves a whole new mindset, a whole new approach, we have to let go of everything we experienced in our childhoods and try something that at times feels radically different. We both had parents with strict rules and boundaries and loosening those for our children goes against decades of conditioning.

Sometimes being TP is about letting go, letting go of our own need to be in control, letting go of our need for our children to behave a certain way, letting go of predictability, letting go of our own ego. It’s not easy, but the evidence so far is that it is worth it.

Next Time?

At the end of the day, here I am, the kids upstairs on their tablets, looking at how we might handle it differently in the future. Because this is one of Nibbles’ challenges to us at the moment, can we learn to deal (therapeutically) with his oppositional behaviour and defiance?

There is not clear answer to that yet, but here are a few thoughts we had when our brains were calm.

• 1: HELPING HIM. ‘Let’s do it together’ The simplest, easiest solution. Nibbles hates being on his own, or doing things on his own. If one of us had just offered to go with him, this whole thing could have been over with in seconds. Stubborn? Us? *whistles and looks at the floor*
• 2: WAITING. We could have decided to do something else (e.g. reading a story book, which both the kids love) until he was calm and ready to fetch the hoody. The fair wasn’t going anywhere, so did it really matter that we left at that precise moment?
• 3: NATURAL CONSEQUENCES. We could have just got in the car without his hoody. I think our reluctance to follow that through is fear of him being cold (and then unbelievably whiney). The thing is, we had a fleece for him in the car, so he wouldn’t have frozen (and it was a balmy 18 deg C anyway).
• 4: EMPATHY. We could have used sharp, staccato phrasing at a similar volume to empathise “It’s rubbish. Getting Things. Hoodies. That sucks.”

Ah hindsight. Funny how all these much better solutions arise when you are sat down at a computer not being shouted at. Which is why being CALM is the most important thing of all.

Sarah Naish in her fabulous A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting states that being calm is the biggest challenge of all. It is for us – do you agree?  Please comment below and share your thoughts.