In the aftermarth of a parenting crisis

Wow! We are having such an amazingly wonderful week here in my household (touch wood - a lot of wood) Hubby and I were sitting down watching a movie this evening marvelling at our two gorgeous kiddies playing together on the floor, showing such compassion and consideration for each other, sharing, negotiating. And and we looked at each other smiling I know we were both thinking the same thing - PHEW!

Parenting is by far the hardest, most time consuming, energy absorbing, thought contemplating, gut retching thing I have ever attempted! It feels like I am constantly evaluating and second guessing every choice and decision I make. It's exhausting - and that's just the part after the kids have gone to bed :-)

Recently we came to a crisis point in our parenting journey where it really felt like the wheels had fallen off our wagon. Our darling miss 3, who, far from perfect, has always been a delightful girl. Yes we have had a LOT of Moments when things were not so rosey but in that midnight hour when your drifting off to sleep overall she was delightful. However for the last 6 mths things have been strained to say the least. Words that pop to mind disagreeable, irritable, moody, stubborn, tantrum queen... banshee???

I think the worst point was when the director of the kindy pulled me aside one day to 'have a chat' about Miss A. I was lost for words. I had nothing. I felt like a parenting failure! Worse than that I felt like an attachment parenting failure. I left the kindy that day head hanging low having apologised to the teachers involved with my little miss' 35min scream fest admitting that something wasn't working and hadn't been working for a little while now. Quite honestly even my assurances that it was simply the upheaval of moving and changing family circumstances were sounding feeble to me. I set the target at June and assured the kindy director if there had been no improvements by then we would look into something... what I didn't know.

At home with hubby we discussed our little princess and her behaviours at home and at kindy and he immediately jumped to the "this attachment thing isn't working". And it was those words that had my head reeling - because I had heard them before! I cast my mind back to a similar age when my son was three or four and we had exactly the same war conference.

Then, same as now his thoughts turned to a more authoritarian and corporal punishment plan of attack. We as a parenting couple have always struggled with this. As much as he supports and will sing the praises of natural and attachment parenting; he was raised in a different environment to myself, works in a different environment to myself and he often falls back on that, as we all do. The one issue that always has us at our battle stations is smacking: he believes in it, I don't.

Smacking; or rather not smacking is something that I am vehemently opposed to and although as a parenting team we agree not to interfere when one of us is disciplining an incident we both know smacking gets my mother bear genes out and it aint going to be pretty. The war council continued between hubby and I and I would be lying if I said we were in agreeance. One of the many good things to come out if it was the deep discussions we had about how we perceive parenting, our role in it and how it makes us feel; in particular hubby's POV that he often felt useless and out of control when our babies were younger! (explains so much - must blog about it another time!) But at the end of our many late night discussions we came to a truce.

I read my favourite books, searching blogs and online articles looking for what we had done wrong or missed! In amongst the angst I felt over being held responsible for "spoiling" my child - insert visions overwhelming me of what a bratty little demanding child she was going to grow into unless I toughened up on her. I couldn't fight my instincts which were screaming at me. Deep inside all I could feel was that I had to do more, love her more, be there more, make her feel more secure and at peace rather giving her ultimatums and more opportunities to fail.

I looked at her and I could see a little girl coming into her new independence and being both frustrated and scared by it. I could see in her what I see in so many of my students. That thought process that any attention is good attention. Daily as a teacher I am faced with children who have been brought up in households where attention deficient has a whole new meaning. Where they will do just about anything to receive some form of attention from an adult whether it be a time out, a stern talking to or a detention. I was determined not to go down that road.

So I decided to double my efforts at this attachment parenting thing. We started baby wearing again (or rather toddler wearing) around the house. Going about chores, shopping etc. It gave us lots of time to talk without me feeling like I was either constantly walking away from her or sitting with her frustrated that I couldn't get anything done. We coslept more often so she was getting a sounder sleep and wasn't as tired from waking in the night looking for us. But my secret weapon! The one I have always stood by in parenting and teaching is to give them many opportunities to succeed and few to fail. We made sure we kept the boundaries and rules enforced and had reasonable consequences and we spoke about how it made us sad or happy when she did things. But we kept the boundaries simple so we weren't constantly saying "no" or giving her opportunities to defy or rebel. We praised her when she played well, helped out, did things herself. We did a lot with her, guiding her so she has the opportunity to get praise. Simple things like helping her get dressed (when I knew she was capable of it) and praising her while we did it; building her confidence and lathering the attention while reinforcing the good things we wanted her to do.

I also wrote a long heartfelt letter to the kindy director and the staff and explained our parenting ideals and how important they were to us. It was extremely difficult to lay our parenting on the table like that, knowing that from their point of view it wasn't working but I really felt that they needed to know how we did things and how I would like it continued at kindy so that Miss A was receiving the same message thoughout her day. I nervously popped it in her lunch box one morning as I was too chicken to give it to them directly and waited nervously for the reply. Nothing! It was a day or two later that one of the carers approached me and thanked me for the letter. She was in 100% agreement with our ideas and offered to work with us.

The transformation was a slow one. One in fact I didn't see until just recently. June came and went without anymore "chats" with the director. My darling Miss A received the "star of the day" award 3 times! She is helping more, being more independent and generally delightful again. The greatest joy by far was her report card from her dance teacher at kindy who stated that she was "the most genuinely happy child she had ever met." And now hubby and I are sitting on lounge watching our happy contented children feeling a little chuffed that the those terrible tantrums are behind us - no doubt luring us into a false sense of security before the next parenting crisis hits.

Big Steps!

I'm the proudest mother this week. My little girl is learning to go to sleep all by herself. How old is she? She's three and a half. And no by learning I don't mean we are locking her in her room each night and letting her sob herself to sleep like so many littlies do each night. I was planning on stating something like "not that there is anything wrong with that" to try and keep the peace, but I couldn't do it... because in my heart there is something wrong with that, very wrong.

Now I know each parent is different and each circumstance unique, and yes I have heard some families state it was the only way their child would sleep. But I'm sorry, I still don't get it and I can't condone it. But I'm not going to go into the statistics and the research that supports gentle sleeping methods. I wanted to share my joy of my darling making this choice to want to try and go to sleep by herself. A decision she came to by herself and is ready to attempt.

I know most people in our circle of real life family and friends (as opposed to my online friends who share similar thoughts and ideals) have often thought we were a little weird. The comments that we would spoil our children seemed to stop after our son was 2-3 ish? Maybe they realised we didn't really care about their opinion, or maybe they could see the beautiful, confident and gentle child he was growing into. We lived through the many rolled eyes when we had friends over or were visiting relatives when either my husband or I would excuse ourselves to go and spend 20-30 min reading and then sitting quietly beside our child's bed while they chatted and then slowly drifted off to sleep. But honestly it never bothered me. I knew in my heart that these days were numbered and one day they would be grown up and they wouldn't want us there anymore.

That doesn't mean there wasn't times when I would sit there willing them to go to sleep just a little faster. Or wish desperately that they would go to sleep on their own because I had a million things to do; assignments due in, work to do, friends laughing and chatting without me. But at times like this when I felt the most irritated and impatient I also discovered that not only was I wasting this special time but my pent up frustration wasn't helping anyone to find a restful sleep. It was only when I calmed down and took some deep restful breaths myself that both of us could find some peace!

My son is 7 now and is reading massive chapter books by himself before turning off the lights and heading to sleep. Sometimes, only sometimes he might allow me to read to him or he'll clamber in with his sister for a shared story... but he tells me reading is much faster when you do it yourself and you get to the exciting bits faster :-) So my daughter and I (and my husband when it's his turn) have come to enjoy this quiet family time after dinner and baths when everyone is snuggling up and ready for bed and now our youngest has decided she too is ready to go to sleep by herself.

We've read her the books, snuggled and hugged goodnight, switched of the light and told her we'll be back to check on her. I hover by the door ready to go in a a moments notice, humming quietly so she knows I'm nearby. And sometimes she'll call out and ask if I'll sit with her for just a little while, telling me the whole time what a big girl she is and that she doesn't need us anymore. And I know she is learning to go to sleep by herself. What wonderful healthy loving sleep habits to develop. Knowing someone who loves you is always right there and feeling so confident in herself that she doesn't need us anymore. I can only hope that this beautiful self-confidence continues to grow and guide her in her other choices in life.

And as we farewell another step in parenthood, I'm a little sad; well OK a lot. To say goodbye to those precious bedtime moments but I know there are plenty more special moments we'll have as both our children grow and learn and at least I feel in my heart that we have done the "right thing", whatever that is. We have done our best to raise our children up the way it feels right inside, listening to our intuition and our hearts and loving every minute of it.

Powered up

As some of you know our family recently bought a house and are in the process of renovating. The great thing about it is all the opportunities we have to go green along the way. However as we have discovered going green is not always the easiest and cheapest option when it comes to renovations and buildings.

One thing my economical husband has always approved of is energy saving. More for the money aspect than the environment but he is committed which keeps me in line. This house however seems to be as energy conscious as my partner and has a tendency to throw the towel in if we turn on more than 4 appliances at once. Although frustrating for the first few weeks it has now become such an ingrained part of our life that I’m almost pleased. It has raised our families’ awareness of how much power we truly use each and every day.

Recently I was discussing my power issues with my 7th grade class as part of our sustainability unit and I posed the question to them of how many electrical appliances were turned on in their home in the afternoon. The number had my jaw dropping! Some students reported over 30 things being switched on or on stand-by in one hour long session in the afternoon. This discussion was pre-empted by my statement that electricity usage in our city is three times what it was ten years ago. So many things we consider (or rather don’t consider) important in our lives today are powered by electricity: cordless phones, computers, tv, gaming systems, mobile phones, ipods, CD players, DVD players, stoves, microwaves and dishwashers. The list is endless.

It was great to hear the students discussing their power usage and some even discussing the results of having an power monitor provided by the governments Climate Smart Home’s initiative.

So our energy issues prompted some action, obviously we were going to need an electrician! But at the same time it got us thinking solar. We have dabbled in solar power before; installing a solar hot water system in a previous house and at a recent home show we discussed the possibility of going all solar with this place however the dollar signs put the brakes on that one pretty fast. However with energy prices set to rise over the next five years we figured why not get the whole lot done now.

So over the coming few weeks we are having first the hot water and then the electricity panels installed and we’ll be powered up again. And the more we researched the more it seems like the country is abuzz with renewable energy ideas. With both state and federal governments offering incentives to homes, schools and businesses to install solar panels to feed into the power grid my mind was filled with images of energy self-sufficient towns and cities. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it became standard for all homes to supply some if not all of their power through solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. If every city was a solar city, not just a chosen few.

Already you can see examples of homes and businesses embracing the solar concept such as this house.


And this amazing building; the Sanyo Solar Ark, built out of reject solar pannels destined for the rubbish dump



And although our place is never going to be an architextual marvel nor 100% self-sufficient, the most exciting part is yet to come as we explore options for passive heating and cooling and continue to try and reshape our house into an eco friendly, sustainable home. My brain is just exploding with ideas regarding skylights, use of vegetation to direct airflow and sunlight and using simple things like windows, louvers and insulation to cool and warm our house - maybe even a green wall or green roof? The options are endless!

Be part of the revolution!

I love being right. Don’t you? And I’m sure in the past few years since my passion for natural parenting and chemical free living has grown there have been many times when my husband has shaken his head, convinced the woman he married has run off and instead he is living with some hippie woman who ultimately want to live in far off woop woop without electricity and running water. But recently it seems the rest of the world is catching up with what a lot of us have known for a long time; many of the things in our everyday lives are not good for us. The most recently publicised the steps taken by the FDA in Australia to encourage major retailers to phase out baby bottles containing BPA or bisphenol A.

I said to my husband just over 12 months ago – that’s it we are getting rid of all this plastic stuff. I banned plastic water bottles, unless they were BPA free and got the kids stainless steel bottles instead. I’m sure he thought I was off my rocker when I ditched a lot of our “microwave safe” stuff and headed for glass. Probably the last straw was when I started sending his lunch in cloth wrappers. But being the patient and cautious man he is. He put up with my notions and I was proud to be able to stand up and say – I told you so now that acknowledgement has been made about concerns over the dangers of BPA and phalates in plastic products.
What a great time to be part of the revolution when it seems finally science is backing up what many have thought for a very long time. Just looking around the supermarket shelves you can see what a difference knowledge and the power of the consumer dollar can have as more and more people are searching for chemical free living products.

More and more food without artificial colours, flavours and preservative (yes I know scoring the trifecta is still difficult but compared to five years ago – wow what a difference.) You can even purchase cleaning products and personal care products like toothpaste and shampoo in the mainstream supermarkets that are petrochemical free. You may have been one of the people who saw an ecstatic woman jumping around excitedly in the cleaning isle last week when I found 3 – yes 3 different brands of dishwasher tablets that were plant based and eco-friendly – not just with low potassium and sodium.

I often used to sit morosely wondering what the world would be like in 50 years time but it small steps like this that have me picturing perhaps a better future than I would have thought. One where our scientific advances have worked to create a truly better world, not just for us, but for the world itself. Where maybe my dream of living in Woop-Woop completely self sustained will be the norm rather than the exception.