I don’t like the term ‘discipline,’ to describe helping my young daughter to moderate her behaviour and in truth I didn’t expect to be even thinking about the idea until she was a few years older. But, having discovered that toddlers are a lot smarter than I realised, I suddenly had to work out a consistent strategy for reacting to behaviours I didn’t want to see continue. I recognise I have an existing bias against punitive parenting strategies, but am pretty comfortable saying there is little to be gained by making a two year old scared of me. However I also didn’t think it was too soon for her to see that I react very predictably (but also very calmly) to particular behaviours.
As a teacher, one of the mantras I repeat to myself regularly is that children are not just smaller version of adults who (sometimes) know a little bit less. Their ability to regulate their emotions and think calmly when under stress is not the same (again, sometimes- I have met a number of adults who make a lie of this). So it becomes important to understand what level of processing an individual is capable of and not hold expectations that set them up to fail. But equally, I think it is really important to have high expectations of children, whether they be my students or my daughter. So once I discovered that my daughter could already recognise patterns of behaviour and draw causal links, it was important I didn’t inadvertently create patterns of behaviour I didn’t want to see continue. Conversely, I wanted to help her understand that certain behaviours, especially confected tantrums, will not be effective in achieving what she wants.
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So it turns out infants are smarter than I realised. Way smarter.
As my daughter approached the age of two, the vocabulary her and her friends could use and understand was literally growing on a daily basis. This came as a bit of a surprise, as I had kind of expected it all to take a bit longer. But as much as the growth of their language skills blew me away, what I was even more surprised by was the awareness and strategic thinking skills the kids had already developed. I knew my daughter understood a lot of what was happening around her, because we would have conversations about whatever was happening all the time, but I didn’t realise how well she could identify behaviour patterns in the world around her and make predictions until she started recognising when I was going for a run based on what clothes I was wearing. And she didn’t just use the understanding of causation to predict- she used it to attempt to become more effective in getting what she wanted. I had gotten used to being able to proactively shape a situation to make it easier to get her to do the things she didn’t like doing, but soon she could see through that. Life quickly became a constant game of chess, with my daughter thinking a few moves ahead and me trying to catch up. It was a challenge I wasn’t expecting, but not one that I resent. I certainly have no intention of raising a meek or submissive daughter (I like to blame my wife’s genes, as she is also a very determined person), so I just embrace it. It is also really exciting to be able to have interesting conversations with her and part of what makes parenting so endlessly entertaining. Sometimes I can only try to stifle a helpless laugh when she sees me coming and shuts it down early. It will no doubt get even tougher as she gets older and smarter. At least it will keep my mind active for years to come. Isn’t that meant to help fight dementia? So one of my early observations after becoming a father was that it was even harder than I expected. However I never got around to writing the accompanying piece that it is also even more moving and joyful than I had ever believed possible.
I am a fairly unemotional person and my life had already included its share of pretty big moments up until I became a parent; so I thought I had some idea of my emotional range at this point. Turns out I was wrong- by a fair margin too. I had no idea of the joy that my daughter’s smiles and laughter would elicit in me. This obviously has the potential to be double-edged, as the sick feeling I get when I see her sick or injured is pretty tough to handle too. So I have already written several posts in which I have spoken about or alluded to my determination that fatherhood was not going to be an excuse for me to lessen my expectations for what I wanted to achieve with my own life. Whilst I especially wasn’t ready to give up on my goals to push myself further with endurance racing and accept the ‘Dadbod’ I’d been gleefully warned about, this belief also applied to every other aspect of life.
In essence, I really didn’t want to accept any kind of reality that validated the premise that I had to give up something to be a father. Aside from the fact that this felt like a cop-out, I never wanted to my daughter to feel like she was responsible for any of my unfulfilled ambitions. With the benefit of hindsight, this was hopelessly naïve, if conceived of the best intentions. I have heard about the “Terrible twos,” but was finding it hard to imagine with my daughter at one point. She was such an affable child that she really only cried if she was hurt, hungry or scared, so the idea of a tantrum seemed strange.
Then they started. My previously resilient little girl could go from happy to wailing at the drop of a hat (sometimes literally). And it didn’t happen when she was two either, but at around 18 months (I know some parents take great pride in their child reaching milestones early, but this was not a cause of celebration in our house). I should add that these events are still pretty rare and for the most part my daughter is a strong and happy child. But we did notice that it suddenly wasn’t taking much to make her cry- or for her to stop and laugh again. So as joyous as it has been, I have been pretty open with how challenging I found parenting, especially at the start. But I have to admit it has progressively got easier as both my daughter and I have grown a lot in the past year (I think she more than me, but that is probably debatable).
But this actually tricked me into a false assumption, which took a bit of time to get my head around. I wish I had known just how amazing the childcare industry was before my daughter was born.
Like most families we spoke with, my wife and I agonised a lot over decisions around childcare. While I don’t think we were particularly over-protective, the idea of leaving our little girl with strangers (or anyone) other than us before she was six months old was pretty frightening. Even knowing that my wife had to return to work, there was still much handwringing wondering about how our daughter would cope. But it had to happen, so the best we could do was try to put those fears aside for the moment- as there was plenty more to stress about and other questions to answer first. How many days of childcare would we start with? Which centre did we like the best and would anywhere even have room? I rarely object when others tell my daughter how cute or pretty or beautiful she is; but I try to resist the urge to do the same. Don’t get me wrong. I suspect she will always be perfect to me and just looking at her makes me happy, but I have learnt to control my instinctive reaction to speak fondly about her appearance.
I've written earlier that one of the things that makes parenting so hard is the myriad of seemingly little decisions that feel like they can have big consequences. With this in mind, its important to emphasise the need to respect individual parents' decisions about what is best for their children- unless it is blatantly harmful (hello anti-vaccers and Pete Evans). This post is in no way a criticism of those who don't share my view and continue this very common practice. Maybe no one has raised the possible consequences with them or maybe you have considered possible implications and didn't find them compelling. But they seemed compelling to me. I’m not the first to make this observation, but I think it is important so I’ll repeat it. Telling young kids they are pretty or handsome has implications we don’t think of. Because soon, when they are only a little older, people naturally start to tell them they are pretty less often, until it almost stops altogether. Adults just don’t react the same way to older children. We know there are a range of reasons for this, but do the children at the time? “Why don’t people think I’m pretty anymore?” they could be excused for thinking. It may only be a small voice in their head saying this, but in an era where childhood eating disorders are a real risk, do we want to give it any voice at all? It’s hard not to be a proud parent. Children have that effect on us.
I think it is important to make the point that I don’t think being a parent in itself is something I should be proud of. Whilst I would shy away from judging others’ parenting I don’t hold that all parents are ‘good parents’ and above reproach. I think it is more accurate to break down the role of parenting and assume that we do some things we might be proud of and others we wish we had done differently. But few parents I know actually feel much pride in their own parenting. It is our children themselves that make us proud. It is not dissimilar to how I feel proud of my friends and family when they achieve things, even when I have not really contributed to them. Just heaps more intense. Who knew staying fit would be so difficult as a dad? Apparently everyone, based on the predictions many people made about my dad-bod.
As I wrote earlier, I was determined to prove them wrong and to never use my daughter as an excuse for not achieving anything. It was hard work, but I managed to squeeze time to train into most days. Many times I didn’t ant to do it and no doubt it added to my overall sense of fatigue, but I knew it wouldn’t be forever. As my little girl became a less-little girl, she would sleep more and presumably so would I. |
Dad thoughtsI haven’t had much chance to write much over the last couple of weeks. This has largely been to do with the birth of my daughter, which has had a profound impact on my life. As a corollary of this, a fair amount of my thoughts and observations may shift to the new topic of parenthood. I’m not planning on stealing from Sonia Kruger’s playbook and use the phrase, “as a parent,’ to make claims with no factual basis, but parenthood is a complex and fascinating area so I will be making a few comments about my experience of it. Archives
October 2020
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