MY CHILD IS BEING UNREASONABLE
By Frances Harris
The story often goes with: my
child is two years old and I know she doesn’t have insight, but her
unreasonable behaviour is almost making me tear my hair out. Dinner time is one
of the worst. If she sees anything green in her bowl, she has to pick it out,
one speck at a time, and sometimes refuses to touch it afterwards.
It is well known toddlers have a short attention span, so if one of
them is matched up with a set of parents who have a pressing lifestyle and a
short fuse, then the words describing their child will be like: impossible, uncontrollable, difficult and tiring
in their conversations. In a relaxed environment the outcome can sometimes be noticeably
different. Unfortunately natural selection has little to do with order. Then, if you take another child who depends on
routine for security and he is matched with parents who have a very layback, unpredictable
lifestyle, they could find their normally sweet little toddler turns into an
anxious little tyrant. A good indicator of how this is going is when the child
goes to stay with grandma and grandpa who have very tight routines and plenty
of time to nurture. The parents see on their return to pick him up their little
tyrant has return to his reasonable adorable little self. Unfortunately it can
cause conflict in families when the parents are not in a position to pay as
much attention to their toddler as the grandparents. It’s easy to blame the
child for his unreasonable behaviour, but sometimes we have to cast the net
wider to find the cause.
The bottom line is - the first priority is to take care of the
parents, because if they are not coping with family life, what chance does the
innocent child have? One of the best tools in the arsenal is good company and
someone the share stories with. There’s no point trying to talk about the lists
of bad habits of your child with a childless couple or a neighbour who spends
her life in the French Alps as far away from children as possible. It’s
important to seek out like minded parents, so that way it is possible to gain new
insights and solutions and friendships listening to the experience of others. Sometimes
being part of a group can bring solace to a lonely exhausted parent. That way
the tired mind can regain its balance, and adjust unreasonable expectations and
ideas. There are lots of parent groups
that can be found by tapping into child care networks and local councils. Even
if it requires getting help to finish the chores at home so parents can spend
and hour or two in good company, would be a good idea. Such connections could
significantly reduce tension in the family and especially with the child.
Children are like little hair trigger sonar systems. They can locate a change
in mood of anyone in the family at a moment’s notice and immediately adjust
their insecurity levels up or down to match.
Nobody has the magic wand to solve all of the childhood problems,
and some take more intense motivation than others to reach an expected standard
of development. For the parents who expect all milestones to be met within the
expected times, I have to tell you disappointment will most likely be your
closest friend. For those who are thinking of embarking on parenthood, it is
important to accept that no matter what your best efforts may be, parenting is on
a level with skating on thin ice. What
you do, contributes somewhat to the eventual outcome of your child’s life, but
much of it depends on who they choose to influence them, how they interpret large
and small life events and the reliability of the body that can send all your
good plans spiralling downwards at a moment’s notice. Essential is one or more
sound role models, especially of the same gender. I have watched many parents
raise their children and been surprised by the variations of success when I
thought it was certain for most.
But I have noticed one enduring theme that can do a lot to pull a
bad situation out of a ditch. It is the ability of the parent’s to laugh when
others might cry. They laugh at the situation they have landed in, laugh at
themselves and most of all teach their child to laugh with them. It can be the
tonic that stops the dark clouds from spreading further and gives everyone the
little pause to build up the will to go on. What if everyone could do this,
wouldn’t the world be a better place?
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