Calm and Confident

In other words, because a toddler wants to learn what his people do, he expects to be able to center his attention on an adult who is centered on her own business. An adult who stops whatever she is doing and tries to ascertain what her child wants her to do is short-circuiting this expectation. Just as significantly, she appears to the tot not to know how to behave, to be lacking in confidence and, even more alarmingly, looking for guidance from him, a two or three year old who is relying on her to be calm, competent, and sure of herself.

-Jean Leidoff author of The Continuum Concept

Jean Leidoff studied two tribes in South America who were very happy and peaceful. Their children never fought, never had tantrums. She identified certain aspects of their child rearing practices that she thought helped to account for the difference. Babies were carried constantly while their mothers and mothers' helpers worked, played, etc. When the baby could crawl away, they were permitted to without constant warnings and rescuings. They were breastfed immediately whenever they wanted it.

There are key concepts that these tribes grasped about children that we have completely lost in our culture. One of these is that children want to get along. They want to fit into the culture around them. They are watching their parents to learn how to act. If I, as a parent, continually look back at my son to figure out what to do, that frustrates him, because it's backwards. And it scares him. Go on, live your life, and your children will follow you. Do what you enjoy doing. Sometimes he will want to join in, and other times he'll want to play. Leidoff calls this not being child-centered.

This is where your parent's generation goes, "I told you to stop being so child-centered years ago." And they have a point. In their day, children were better behaved and more competent, because their parents had higher expectations for them. But the way that they went about getting that compliance left their children stuck dealing with the consequences the rest of their lives. The difference here is that these tribes really believed in the innate sociability of the child. Children (and adults) were never forced to do anything. They were never made to feel unworthy if they didn't meet expectations. And the parents didn't cajole them. They simply went about their tasks, and the children learned how to behave in that culture. With force removed from the equation, you never have to worry about whether it is developmentally appropriate for the child to be doing or not doing something. The child is free to progress at his or her own pace. From climbing up and down the steps, to food preparation, to leaving the mother's bed, to weaning. There is no element of force.

Crucial to being a calm and confident parent is the belief that children have an instinct for self preservation. A friend of mine (quoting someone else) said that having a toddler was like being on suicide watch. I couldn't disagree more. It is that attitude by a parent that drives the child to behave more and more unreasonably (either acting dangerously or fearfully). "Part of the trouble is the way we keep suggesting to children that they're going to hurt themselves. We don't seem to have even a faint notion of how powerful our authority is in their eyes. We put gates at the tops of stairs, and then we accidentally leave it open one day and down they plunge because the suggestion was so strong that, if the gate isn't locked, then they are going to fall. But if there were no gate they wouldn't fall."

Our attitude of fearfulness (of our children being hurt, lost, of our own incompetence, of our own ineffectiveness, etc) is not lost on our children. If you tell your friend over and over that you just don't know what to do with your toddler, that he's just impossible, then he will be impossible. Positive expectations lead to positive results. Stop labeling your child. I hear people branding their babies as problem children for life. Um, what?

The point here is not tell you exactly what to do. The point is whatever you do relax! Instill confidence in your child that you've got it together. I know it's hard, but please try to find something else to talk about with your friends besides how difficult your children are (at least when they are in earshot--and you never know when they'll be listening). Practice framing your child in a positive light to other people. It's completely counter cultural, but just try it.

You are the ultimate authority in your child's eyes. Be calm and confident, and your child can relax and go about his business of being a child.