Communicating with My Three Year Old

Some of the things L says and especially how she says them, really grate on me.  It's not her fault though- she is communicating the only way a three year old knows how.  I need to work on my issues (again!) so I'm not so irritated with her.  She's so sweet, and when I snap at her it breaks her little heart.

When she says, "MOM, I'm WAITING for you to play with me," I feel irritated, because I perceive that she is accusing me of being too slow or intentionally putting her off, and I need her to know that I do want to spend time with her.  

When she says "You FORGOT....." I feel irritated, because I perceive that she is accusing me of forgetting something that I am actually working towards and I need her to understand that I am in the process of getting to her request.

When she asks me the same thing five times in rapid succession, I feel irritated because I perceive that she is accusing me of not listening or not paying attention and I need her to know that I do want to respond, but I need a moment to think.

Writing that made a few things clear to me:

-My subconscious, underlying perceptions of the intentions and unspoken implications of a three year old need a serious reality check.

-She is probably feeling frustrated and sad, because she perceives that I am forgetting her, ignoring her, or not listening to her.

Unfortunately, that is sometimes true.  She is the quiet middle child, and it's far too easy to pass over her when things are hectic or when I am lost in my own thoughts.  

Everything I need her to know- that I want to spend time with her, that I am getting to her request, that I want to respond, but need a moment to think- she needs to know too!

So I need to work on better communication with her:

When she is waiting for me to do something, I need to tell her specifically when I will be able to do it and then follow through.  If anything changes during that time, I need to tell her clearly.  "I will play Monopoly with you.  First I'm going to clean off the table, then I'm going to get the dog her food, then we will play."  And when that changes, "Oh, I just realized the baby needs a diaper change.  I'm still going to play with you, but first I need to change the baby's diaper."

When she asks me something, I need to answer her right away.  If I need a minute to think, I need to say so. 


Someone out there is thinking, "What about her behavior!  You're just going to let your child be rude and snotty and not do anything about it?!"

Well, I can tell you that what I have been resorting to has been both ineffective and damaging. 

This morning when she said "MOM, I'm WAITING for you to play with me," complete with the raised eyebrows and hands on her hips, I said, "Stop being rude!  You can say 'Mom, I'm frustrated that you aren't playing with me yet' or...." and I didn't finish my sentence, because it was lame. 

I don't think there is anything wrong with giving a kid a script of a more polite, more effective or more thoughtful way of expressing themselves.  But it has to be in the context of partnering with them to be the effective communicators they want to be.  I knew as soon as the words were out of my mouth, that all I was doing was being rude and critical myself.  I could see on her face that as soon as I snapped at her about being rude, she was hurt and embarrassed and she shut down.

To some people, it would look like "it worked."  Her attitude disappeared immediately and she looked contrite.  If I would have finished my script, she would have repeated it after me, and it would have looked like I had succeeded in correcting the behavior. 

Correcting the behavior is not my goal, however.  I want to know WHY she is acting that way.  The truth is that you cannot change someone else, only yourself, so I'm starting with me.  What I can do for her is figure out some things about her personality, and help her to grow into them in a healthy way.

I think that her Love Language is Acts of Service, which means that she best receives expressions of love when people do things for her.  It might also be Words of Affirmation, which would mean that she feels especially loved when people say kind, uplifting and positive things to her and she is especially sensitive to critical or negative words.

I think her Energy Type is either a Type 2 or a Type 4, which are both introverted energies.  If she is a Type 2, she is especially sensitive and has a strong desire to please.  So when she gets frustrated, she might be trying to mimic the bold or blunt expression that myself or her Type 3 sister would use or just trying out the power of her words as a typical three year old developmental stage.  Because of her sensitivity and need to keep the peace, she immediately recoils at any hint of rebuke.  If she is a Type 4, she has the tendency to be bold and direct, and she immediately sees the flaws and imperfections in a situation and has a strong desire to perfect them.  Because she is only three, she doesn't know how to express these direct thoughts in a tactful way.   

These are things I'll be watching and helping her grow into as she gets older.   

 


The scripts "When_____I feel_____because I need______" are based on the book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life.  The author does not include the part about perception in the script, but he does talk about the difference between feelings and perceptions.   I add it into my self-talk to help myself differentiate between the two, and between my perceptions and the more objective reality in the situation. 

Can Radical Unschoolers Have a Schedule? Part 2

How does my schedule work with radical unschooling?

I'm organizing MY day, not theirs.  If they are happy playing with each other, it is irrelevant to them whether I do dishes first or make phone calls first, whether I play on the computer or get something accomplished.  We are in a stage right now where my activities and my children's activities are often separate, but side by side.  We frequently intersect with each other, but I don't need to revolve all of my activities around them and I don't need to control their activities in order to get mine accomplished.  I am honestly surprised to be in this place with my children still so young, and it feels almost taboo to say such a thing in some attachment parenting circles, but truly my day does not revolve around my kids, nor does their day revolve around me.

I'm flexible.  Here is how today worked out.  After my little morning routine, I wanted to get the house straightened up since I don't do any cleaning on Shabbot it was messy from yesterday.  I started on dishes, but then E was asking about hearts and wanted to look up some videos.  So I stopped cleaning and we watched an open heart surgery.  Then I found the girls some vidoes with songs about the skeletal system and while they watched, I went back to cleaning.  My plan was to work on my business plan next, but D put a movie on the computer for them so I couldn't use it.  So I basically just flip flopped my morning plan with my afternoon plan and worked on organizing their games and making some phone calls.  Then my afternoon was thrown off because someone came to look at a trailer we are selling and that took an hour.  It was good though, because the girls and I needed the fresh air and that got us outside.  Then my mom took the girls on a date to a movie and D and I decided to take advantage of it and watch our own movie at home, which I usually never do during the day.  I didn't start working on my business plan until after five o'clock, but I managed to get in more than the 2 hours I was originally planning while D made dinner and put a movie on for the girls before bed.

Usually my days go closer to the plan than today did, but my goal is not for my day to fit my perfect plan.  My goal is to 1) move through my day with purpose, getting *something* accomplished and 2) keeping my kids my priority and being available for them as much as they need me.  No mater what I am doing or have planned, if the baby needs to nurse, I nurse her.  If the kids are hungry for lunch, I make lunch.  If the kids need me, I drop what I am doing, whether it's to help them resolve a conflict or because one wants to snuggle or if a interest comes up that we can explore further.  I have noticed that because I do have a plan in place that includes time for the kids and is flexible, I don't get stressed out that I won't get things accomplished when I stop to spend time with them.

Maybe that does sound like it revolves around them, but what I mean is that *right now* I do not have the often bemoaned stay-at-home mom dilemma of feeling like I need to entertain my kids all day long.  E and L spend large chunks of the day playing together, and Z either follows them around or hangs out in the carrier on my back while I work.  Throughout the day I will check on how they are doing, or they will come show me something and we'll talk for a minute, or they will help me with something and then run off to play again, or we will read a book or snuggle with a movie.  But I am not moving them through *their* days.  It feels very The Continuum Concept-ish and it is really nice.   


I have actually discovered that I feel more relaxed and I have less anxiety since I have embraced living like a type 4.  I also noticed (and this will be a shock to my family of origin) that I don't like messes.  Really.  They set me on edge.  I always had a messy room as a kid, and I have never been the greatest housekeeper and I never realized how much it bugged me.  I was too overwhelmed and I didn't have the skills to keep up on it, so I was simultaneously used to living that way and irritated by it.  I'm still far from a neat freak, mostly because I have little kids and I have to set priorities with my time, and following my kids around and cleaning all day is not one of them.  BUT I have also made it a priority to own less clutter, to set aside daily cleaning times, and to have things picked up at least 5 nights a week and do a more thorough cleaning job once a week.  Also, if I noticed that I am feeling irritable for no apparent reason,  I can now pinpoint when I am feeling that way because of the clutter around me, and instead of taking it out on my family, I can channel it into doing a quick 10 minute clean up time.  

   

 

My Schedule: Moving through my Days With Purpose Part One

For years I have avoided using any kind of schedule.  As a teenager, I managed to go to high school, take college classes and work by flying by the seat of my pants.  I procrastinated, crammed, stayed up late, went to school in my pajamas, got detention for being late to first period almost daily, usually missed breakfast, and spent lunch breaks doing homework for the class immediately after.  I also graduated high school, got an associates degree, and was promoted at work (and never late there) before I turned 18.  The teacher who frequently gave me detention for being late, also gave me a B in that AP English class.  So.... it worked.

Since I have had kids, I have been a "loose routine" sort of mom.  We sleep when we are tired and eat when we are hungry, but have had a loose routine based on time-oriented things that are a part of our lives.  When I was managing apartments, there was certain work that had to be done on certain days.  I had to be up and dressed, ready to be in the office by a reasonable time in the morning.  Loose weekly routines have revolved around dance or yoga classes, library story times and home school play days.

I have slowly gotten more structured over the last few years.  A few years ago, I started making 5 year plans that detail the things I want to learn/accomplish/do in the next 5 years in my personal development, finances, spirituality, business, and health..  I update it every year.  Then I review it monthly and determine what I can do *this* month to work on those goals.  Then I plan my week every Saturday night and add in the smaller steps that will help me accomplish that month's goals.

Each individual day, however, has looked different from every other day and as long as I was getting my "to do" list done, I thought I was happy with that (but often I would get a LOT done one day and be cranky about it, and nothing done the next day and be cranky about that).  For the kids, I have on occasion used a magnetic picture calendar just so they can see what is coming next.  I used it in such a way that they have input on what we were doing that day and it could change if their wishes changed, but it would give them a visual of what the day would look like.  I have not used it for the last year, however, and they don't seem to miss it.  We talk about our plans for the day and have a loose routine and that seems to be sufficient.  I have noticed that they like to have at least one "set-in-stone" preferably out of the house, thing to do each day- park, library, shopping, friend's house.

So, why have I embraced more structure recently?  I read a book called It's Just My Nature!, which is an energy profiling system, similar to a personality typing system, but oh so much more!  At first I thought I was a type 3, but I soon started waffling between thinking I was a type 3 and a type 4.  I have finally decided that I am a type 4, with a strong secondary type 3, and I have lived as a type 3 for most of my life.  The more I embraced the calm, still qualities of being a type 4, the more I realized that I feel better when I am moving in a linear direction, with a plan.

I hit upon a phrase that really struck a chord with what I was desiring- Moving through my days with purpose.  I have finally found a system that works *for me* and true to my type 4 nature, it could not be a system that anyone else designed.  I have a big 18 month binder style calendar.  I put my to-do list on the spaces for each day.  Every morning I get a fresh piece of notebook paper and make my schedule for the day.  Every day starts out the same with breakfast, taking my calcium magnesium, planning my day and spending some time alone in prayer and reading my Bible.  Beyond that, each day still looks different from the next and I like that variety, but I have some direction, written down for what I want to accomplish before lunch and then what I want to accomplish before dinner.  I don't schedule it down to the hour, but depending on the day in 2-4 hour chunks.  I throw the paper away at the end of the day, so all that is left on the semi-permanent record of my calendar is my crossed off to-do list.  This works much better for me than writing down every detail on the calendar (a bit of perfectionism in me would cause me to develop a nervous twitch if I wrote down "laundry" on every day and missed it twice a week) and it works better than grabbing a random piece of paper to write down today's to-do list, but not having anywhere set and permanent to write down what I need to do next week and thus forget and/or procrastinate.