7 Reasons to Eat Family Dinner Together
How to Discipline Your Child’s Imaginary Friend
Shift vs. Compromise
This mom was relieved and energized by the shift that occurred when she connected deeply with her son’s needs. One night I was tucking my ten-year-old son into bed. I was really exhausted. He asked me if I would stay and talk with him the way I often do. The first thing I said was No. I told him I was really tired and needed to get some rest. To my surprise he didn’t object. I went to my room to get ready for bed, but I was telling myself how selfish I was being, and I was beating myself up for not being a good mom. I was telling myself I should stay with my son when he asks me to and that I shouldn’t put my needs before his. I was thinking entirely in terms of obligation, should, right, wrong, and duty. I don’t know what happened, but suddenly my attention shifted to thinking about my son’s needs for warmth, closeness, and connection with me, and I didn’t feel tired anymore. All I wanted to do was go sit with him. I went back to his room; he was surprised and happy to see me. I was surprised that I felt fresh and was able to give him my full attention, something I’m usually unable to do because I’m preoccupied with one concern or another. That night I think we had the best and longest talk we’ve ever had.
Seeing Both Sides
This story demonstrates the power of honesty to create connection. One morning when my son Peter was four years old I was making breakfast, cooking pancakes on the griddle. He called out to me from another room, Mommy? and I said, WHAT! He responded to the tone of my voice by coming into the kitchen. He looked at me with his huge blue eyes and he said, why do you get so impatient? I’m just asking you a question. I said, In that moment when you called to me, I thought breakfast was more important than answering your question. So what’s more important: responding to you, or making sure that the pancakes are not too brown? He said, Well I do want the pancakes to be okay.
Finding Solutions Together
Surprising and creative solutions often come when parents strategize with their kids. When my son Douglas was four and a half, he liked to get out of bed at five in the morning to play and eat. He woke me up and wanted me to play with him and make breakfast for him. I felt irritable because I wanted the extra sleep.
One day when we were both feeling calm, we discussed the early morning situation, and we made a problem-solving book for which Douglas drew a picture and I wrote a list. In the picture that Douglas drew of me, I had flames coming out of my head. I wrote down the needs that we each had in the situation. My need was for peaceful sleeping. His needs were for playing, eating, and warmth.
Together we brainstormed strategies for meeting our needs:
(1) He plays with trains quietly in the next room while I continue sleeping.
(2) I put cereal and milk in a place where he can reach it and he eats when he wants to. I don’t know how he met his need for warmth, but perhaps the other two needs were more important to him and he found that he could meet his need for warmth later, when I get up feeling more rested and happier.
First Light-Hearted Moment in a Long Time
This story shows how important it is to notice small yet significant moments of connection. My seventeen-year-old son is an only child. For years now both my wife and I looked to him to affirm our value as parents. Meanwhile, he has gone out of his way to resist what my wife and I want from him and for him.
The three of us went to an NVC counselor who asked us for a recent example of a situation where my wife and I thought our son had resisted and was not acting “responsively” or “responsibly.” I told about asking our son to spend some time fixing a space heater for our home, and how when I came home and found that the heater wasn’t repaired and asked about it, he had said that he couldn’t find any instruction manual and he didn’t know how to perform the task. I told the counselor that I was frustrated, irritated, and disappointed in him for not showing more resourcefulness and at least making an attempt at fixing the heater. My son said that my report sounded like the fault-finding he was so used to at home.
At that moment I had a breakthrough and I was able to make an observation of the situation, and then identify my feelings and needs. I cleared my mind as best I could, sat up straight, and delivered what I thought was a nonjudgmental observation along with my feelings and needs. Then I stalled and could not think of a request to make to my son. The counselor suggested that I could simply request my son’s feedback about my statement, so that’s what I did. What are you hearing me say? I asked. However, I was very disheartened when my son said that what he heard coming through my attempt at nonjudgmental communication was still blame and fault-finding. I threw up my hands. I said, Whoa this is really hard! Maybe I can’t do this. I gave it my absolute best shot at communicating without judgment or evaluation and my son still heard judgment and blame.
The counselor suggested that I ask my son whether he also heard my intention to use no-fault communication, so I did; and to my surprise he said that he did register my intention to change my old habits. Then he said that although he still heard blame in my communication, he also noted that the way I had just spoken to him was WAY different than usual, and he and I laughed at his observation. Well, that is one of the first light-hearted and simply good-hearted moments we have shared in a long time. So even though he and I did not achieve the kind of dramatic connection I was hoping for, we did connect for a moment and that connection was pretty dramatic in its own way.
The “Whining” Kids
This mom’s insight about why her kids whine could help other parents who are perplexed by and don’t enjoy this behavior. A huge issue around my house has always been “whining.” At the time that I experienced a shift in my perception, my children were ages four, seven, and ten years old. It seemed to me that they whined all the time. It drove me crazy. Whenever I heard that whiny sound in their voices I immediately wanted to stop whatever I was doing. Then I went to a parenting workshop away from my home where I learned that all people are ever doing is expressing their needs.
After I returned home, the first time that my daughter “whined” to me was when she was requesting something from me. I suddenly realized that she whined when she was expecting me to reject or deny her request. I also realized that she was used to having to ask for things, and she was used to me saying No to her requests. It became obvious to me that in our interactions my daughter was often powerless to get something that she wanted.
I immediately felt a huge wave of compassion for my daughter. I also saw how my parenting had not expressed respect for the autonomy needs of any of my children. What I earlier thought of as whining was their way of trying to be fully heard and to rebel against my lack of respect for their autonomy. When I fully realized all of this I felt regret and sadness that my relations with my children had so little trust and respect.
I talked with my children about my thoughts and realizations and let them know that I very much wanted to listen to them better and to work on growing more trust between us. When I finished, my kids looked at me as though I had come from an alien planet. My four-year-old began to cry. However, within just three weeks after my talk with them, the whining behavior had dramatically decreased, and my children and I are very much enjoying each other’s company.
Chaos to Calm
Here’s another example of how one person can make a shift that results in mutual satisfaction. We had friends staying with us. It was a very chaotic situation, and I was the hostess: cooking for the umpteenth time (breakfast for fifteen people), cleaning up after that, and then preparing lunch. There was plenty of help but a lot of ongoing kitchen stress standing and cooking for long periods of time. Kimmy was age two and still nursing. In the midst of all that was going on in the kitchen, he wanted to nurse. It was really bad timing for me. I said, Kimmy, not now. I’ve got things on the burner. Later. He stood there with big eyes looking at me, not saying anything. In that moment, looking into his eyes, I experienced a shift in my needs. Before that moment it was important to me to keep everything running in the kitchen. I sat down and nursed him, and we were both content.
Helping by Choice
This mother’s understanding of the difference between making demands and requests has made all the difference in how things go in her household.
I had been feeling frustrated and angry because my sixteen-year-old son was home a lot those days, but he didn’t help out around the house. We had gotten into a painful routine of my asking him if he’d help with something, like vacuuming or taking out the garbage. He would either respond by making a face and saying he was busy, or he would do it begrudgingly. Neither response was satisfying nor was I going around with resentment most of the time.
One day I realized that I was the one making me miserable, not him. I had an expectation that he should help out; that should word always gets me into trouble. Then, when he didn’t help I would feel angry, and it would eat away at me for days. I realized, also, that when he heard a demand for his help, his immediate reaction was to resist or to do it with obvious resentment, which was worse for me than when he resisted.
That same day I decided to let the expectation go and see what would happen. Immediately I felt a relief. I wasn’t expecting, I wasn’t demanding, and all the resentment started to drop away. My chest relaxed. I got in touch with sadness because I still wanted not only the help he could give me, but also his companionship that I enjoyed so much. I didn’t stop wanting the help, but I started feeling better immediately, just doing things myself. A few days later I had a really tight schedule and I asked if that afternoon he would be willing to pick up the dogs from the groomers. He said he had some plans and I said, Okay, I’ll do it. An hour later he called me to say, Mom, I can pick up the dogs. I just said Great that will be a big help. That was the first time, in I can’t remember how long, that he offered to help, and I know it’s because I had in various ways stopped demanding and punishing him to make him feel guilty. I see that he wants to help because he enjoys it, not because I demand it. I sense he’ll be helping around the house much more from now on, because he wants to.
