It’s infuriating isn’t it?
You read a million articles about how to be a better parent and study a million new techniques to master this discipline thingie, and still your kids are masters of misbehavior and will tear each other apart at the slightest provocation.
What gives?
I am a committed skeptic when it comes to parenting know how. But I recently discovered something that helped our family resolve sibling rivalry, discipline issues and more, and changed our family forever.
Mindfulness.
When I started, I had no idea that it had a new-agey name or that it was being hailed as some new fangled parenting mantra. I stumbled upon in by accident – and all the hype and hope aside – it really worked for us.
What it boils down to is this; mindfulness is simply taking a moment to notice what’s happening in your family and accepting it.
It’s noticing your own thoughts, noticing your child’s behavior and choosing how to react without letting your emotional baggage and your bad temper stomp all over your life.
It all started like this.
On a couple of well-slept days I realized that when I could focus enough to see what was going on with my kids and then took a breath before I reacted, their behavior got better.
So did mine.
On one occasion, when my girls were going at each other’s throat for the fifteenth time during a game of bake the brownie, I just observed.
Normally, I would have flown off the handle and someone would have been wailing in the time out corner, but instead I just observed and listened, and hugged.
I wish I could say that it stopped the crying completely. No, it didn’t.
What happened was significantly more profound though. My eldest daughter calmed down much quicker than usual and then she leaned over, gave me a big kiss on the lips and said with the all the wisdom of a 4 year old –
“Thank you for listening to me, Mommy. I find Sophia hard sometimes”
And things just sort of settled down after that.
My heart felt like it was going to burst, partly because she had taken charge of her own emotions instead of going after her sister, but more so because I had taken charge of myself instead of going after my kids!
One breakthrough moment though does not a habit make and so I made a promise to myself I’d give this mindful thing a proper shot (when I could remember and when I was well slept)
At first, I likened it to being a bit like the ghost of Xmas past, hovering calmly above the scene of a family fistfight when you’re stressed and sleep deprived.
And then serenely intervening like I imagine Mother Teresa would if she’d witnessed two kids pummeling one another in the street.
Your job is to be the passive observer with a tantrum proof exterior and a heart full of loveliness.
Say what now?
Yep, there was pretty much zero chance that was going to work in our house in the long-term either.
But I was intrigued to see if being just a tiny bit more mindful could really make a difference to the overall atmosphere in our house.
Yes, it has.
Here are five things I did to make a more sustained shift towards mindful parenting without feeling stressed out about mastering yet another parenting fad.
#1 Know Why Making Like Mother Teresa Matters
First you need to know why being mindful matters.
And it’s not because your kids will suffer if you don’t get the hang of it.
This mindfulness stuff isn’t about them. It’s about you.
It’s about allowing yourself to capture all of those wondrous life moments by simply deciding to pay attention to the stuff that matters.
We know kids thrive when they are witnessed but what about us?
How can we thrive in the beautiful bedlam of family life if we’re so busy looking ahead and multi-tasking that we can’t savour it?
And by that I mean all of it.
The first step in becoming mindful is accepting that life with kids is maddening, exhausting and meaningful.
Being right there in the moment whether you’re at work, or with your kids, brings a feeling of total satisfaction.
Just like finishing a session in the gym or a big project, you feel sated when it’s done.
Being mindful is simply saying to the universe, I mean it and I am paying attention.
Give it a try and your life will feel full of stuff that matters, so you can dump the stuff that doesn’t.
#2 Get Your Kids to Meditate
I know this sounds crazy, how do you get a 4 year old to meditate and why would you bother when they can barely sit still?
Because children need to be able to understand what happens when they freak out and you need to show them how to switch off.
A great book The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind
Kids brains are not yet fully wired. You wouldn’t expect a partially wired car to drive smoothly and yet we seem to think a kid’s default position is to be able to control their emotions.
They can’t, not until they get a bit older and until you explain to them what that jelly inside their skull is all about.
For some reason, we don’t talk to our children about what happens when they feel or think something or that they even have the choice over which thoughts to indulge and which to ignore.
So I started including my girls when I meditated (I’m a beginner so this is just trying to be still for me) – just 5 minutes of sitting quietly once a day.
Okay, I bribe them with Oreos and it doesn’t come off every time but they listened intently to my made up story about Jumbly, a little girl with a crazy ball of wool for a brain.
I told them that Jumbly thought and felt loads of stuff everyday and that made her brain tired.
Sometimes Jumbly even felt sad because she had so many thoughts and worries.
I explained it was just her fuzzy brain growing and that if they copied her and took a big breath when they felt upset, angry, sad or whatever, they would help their brain to work better.
So, I now say let’s copy Jumbly and give our brains a rest and we slump down for five minutes of nothingness.
Some days we only get to 30 seconds before they’re fiddling with something or pulling each other’s hair.
But other days, I have seen a massive improvement in managing meltdowns just by saying, ‘Take a Breath like Jumbly’!
This is just one way to plant seeds for your kids to help them understand why we feel things and that we can learn to tame them.
And of course, you get 5 minutes to attempt to be mindful.
Just deciding to make the change will make you feel calmer.
#3 Toilet Breaks and Mindfulness
That said, I’m a hard-core realist.
You already have a to do list longer than Obama’s, in fact he’s probably dealing with some dictators that are easier than most kids, so yeah, you’re dealing with a massive pile of stress daily.
You are not alone.
Making big changes amongst family pandemonium is tougher than getting a Hollywood star to eat carbs, so I suggest you aim to make the tiniest commitment to being mindful.
If you attach your new habit to something you do already, like going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, etc., you have a much bigger chance of success.
Without going into too much detail about my bathroom habits, I now sit and try to be mindful for 2 minutes every time I finish going to the loo.
Some days that’s a full 10 minutes of mindfulness that I’d find impossible to squeeze in, in one go.
The Stanford Director that came up with the tiny habits method has seen it transform numerous lives.
And it’s a brilliant way for time poor parents to make big changes by taking baby steps.
Could it help you to take a stand against your unruly brianwaves?
#4 Put Down Your Fork
This is a mindfulness mantra that a good friend of mine taught me – it basically means that most people don’t notice how tasty their food is because they’re too busy shoveling in monstrous mouthfuls to even chew it properly.
The idea is that you simply put your fork down between each mouthful so you can focus on just chewing and savouring your food.
I recognize that my own speed-eating problem has become even worse since the arrival of kids because I’m so used to getting interrupted (sit down, don’t hit your sister with that, stop throwing peas etc) that I eat as if being chased by a wild beast.
In fact, my life is one giant melting pot of multi-tasking, isn’t every parent’s life?
But here’s the thing, if we can’t even eat one mouth full properly because we’ve already got our fork poised for the next gob full, what chance do we have of truly experiencing our lives?
No matter what I’m doing at work or with my girls, I’m always having a mini-scheduling session in my brain thinking about the next thing.
It’s like having a constant, things to do ticker tape in my head.
Most parents are juggling so much they might as well be carrying a giant metaphorical fork around with them.
Try to put it down at least some of the time and just be in the moment.
How?
Three simple things have worked for me –
– I empty my brain as often as possible onto paper. It works especially well if I do it right before hanging out with the kids.
– I leave my cell phone in a completely different part of the house and I’ve started leaving it at home as much as I dare.
– The last thing is just notice how much your crazy brain jumps forward and to bring your attention back to the tiny things.
The sound of the wind, your footsteps on the sidewalk, the glint of the sun on puddles.
You’ll suddenly find yourself tuning into life’s loveliest soundtrack and in those tiny moments you’ll feel truly alive.
#5 Accept Yourself and Your Imperfect Family
If becoming mindful means accepting your family and it’s glorious flaws then it also means accepting yourself, warts and all.
There are no Saints among us — only parents.
So, on the days where you have feel bone crushingly tired and that horrible feeling of not being a good enough parent gnaws away inside you, just notice it and forgive yourself.
You are already doing a great job.
The fact that you are even reading this means you are ‘mindful’ of how powerful your role as a parent is.
Of course you want to do the best you can, but sometimes that means slowing down and just being present.
If you can manage this just a few minutes a month you’ll notice all the tiny triumphs there are hidden in every single day.
On the days you can’t, feel free to stomp and shout and throw a tantrum.
You can always try again tomorrow, where your crazy, beautiful life awaits you.
2-Minute Action Plan for Fine Parents
Ok, it’s time for our quick 2-Minute exercise. Let’s take stock of where we’re at –
- Is your family always on the run, hopping from one thing to another (like the metaphorical fork poised for the next gob full) or do you take time to enjoy whatever it is you are doing at the moment?
- On a scale of 1 – 5 (1 being impossible, 5 being super easy), how easy do you find it to hold your tongue, and your temper, when your kids act out? What is the one thing you can do to move that scale towards 5?
- On a scale of 1 – 5 (1 being always, 5 being super never), how often do you wish that your family would be different, your kids would behave better, you would behave better, your spouse would pitch in more etc.? What is the one thing you can do to move that scale towards 5?
Those questions should give you an idea of where you stand with practicing mindfulness in your life at this moment. Stick with us through the end of the month, and I promise you, if you come back and look at these questions again, you’ll be impressed with how much your answers have changed. (To receive the article directly in your mailbox, sign up here if you haven’t already done so.)
Ongoing Action Plan for Fine Parents
Just spend the next week watching yourself, your spouse, your kids, your general schedule and take note of how often you lose your temper with your kids, how often they bicker, how often you are unhappy with a situation, how often you set each other off and so on. This in itself is a little exercise in mindfulness and will make it easier and easier for you to embrace mindful parenting more fully as we go through the month.
Nice post! I think we do a different sort of version of this in our home.
I’ve always felt that part of the success we’ve had with our own children being able to get along (aside from sheer luck of their personalities and the oldest being such a kind influence) has been the fact that we try to really listen to them and acknowledge their feelings. We make sure we always seem available to them, and because they know they can have access at any time and be heard, there is not any real competition for our attention. That solves a lot of problems between siblings before they can even start.
There are probably a lot of adult behaviors that could be improved if more people simply felt heard.
With your kids being older and getting along well, it is no nice to hear that this has been put to the test and verified in your household, Korinthia 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
The thing I am struggling with at the moment is maintaining the balance between “being available” and “getting things done”. Take today for instance – my daughter is at home because of the labor day holiday. We had breakfast and hung around for a bit. And then I told her that I need to work for an hour and after that we can play together again. She understands the concept and is usually cooperative. However, today she is building a Lego set, and got stuck in one stage. She knows she needs to wait for me, and I will be available in a bit but she is getting impatient. I don’t want to tell her to go away, but I don’t want to be interrupted often either.
*sigh*.
For those of us that have been impatient snappers and yellers all our lives, making the transition to gentle, mindful parenting with a highly spirited, persistent child is full of these small little challenges 🙂
Hi Korinthia and Sumitha,
So happy you liked the post! I agree that being available versus getting stuff done is an everday challenge for us too! I have found it really invaluable to say to my eldest daughter – “You have 20 minutes to play any game you like and I will do nothing but play with you”. ( If i am tired I ask to play the ‘Put Mommy to bed game – it just involves pretending to sleep!)That works a treat and she usually lets me get on with things afterwards. Not always though – that’s the thing children are wonderfully inconsistent!
Best, julie
Sumitha, if it’s of any interest, my husband and I tag team a lot, which means one of us is usually available to drop what we’re doing and answer a question or lend a hand if the kids need it. When Ian has a lot of Army work and can’t be disturbed the kids know to come to me. My work I try to do outside of the house whenever possible so I can’t be interrupted. When Ian was deployed both times and there was no one to share the responsibilities with, I shifted to doing as much of my work at night as I could. But for the most part, when we’re both home, we have always worked our schedules around just being available. The interesting part, though, is that my kids are fairly independent, and don’t seek us out that often. I’ve always gotten the feeling that just knowing they can come to us satisfies a need by itself. I think sometimes kids get demanding and clingy to test the limits. If there’s nothing to test, they lose interest.
Korinthia, that’s AWESOME that you and your husband can tag team so much! My husband and I do that when it comes to the work/chores that needs to be done. But with being available, he mostly works outside the house and I work at home. So, during summer and after school, my daughter and I are usually by ourselves, until my husband gets home.
Quick question if you have another minute to spare (thank you for sharing so generously so far!): When your husband was deployed didn’t you find that it drained you by the end of the day being available to your kids, and handling all the other responsibilities, all day long? How on earth did you find the energy to work in the night after they slept!!!??? That’s really quite amazing!!!
Well, the first deployment was hellish, so I don’t know how much can be learned from it. It was 15 months long, my kids were 4 and 2 and I was 2 months pregnant when Ian left, and I literally only averaged maybe 3 hours of sleep at a stretch so I’m not sure why I’m not dead. I did build myself a viola and a violin on commission mostly between midnight and 2 in the morning during that period, but it was the only thing I was doing for myself and I was willing to sacrifice sleep time for it. (I also let the person violin pay for part of that with babysitting time which helped.) The thing about my work is I deal with sharp tools, so I have to keep it separate from small hands. (Although my kids are good about not touching things, really. We never childproofed anything they just learned what not to mess with.) For teaching, I moved that into the house instead of going to the conservatory, and only kept the students who had parents willing to keep an eye on my own kids while I taught theirs (which most were happy to do).
The second deployment I had to work outside the home because we had our own business by then. The girls were at least in school, but my son came with me to the store. He had his own desk there, and lots of supplies. But for that year my hours were posted as “By Appointment or Chance” so if Quinn was making it impossible to work I could just stop. I simply didn’t do jobs on a deadline. Most people were willing to work with me that way. I was also a paid blogger for Babble then, and I often wrote whenever the kids were eating or in the bathtub together, or after they went to sleep. But I think my kids may be unusual, because if I ask them to give me some time alone they comply. (I don’t do that often, though, because it alarms them.)
There was lots of yelling and snapping at my kids unfairly during deployments because the stress was unreal. I always apologized and they were always very forgiving. But the lower I could set my expectations (about the cleanliness of the house, of the nutritiousness of the meals….) the easier it was to survive most days.
Life is better now. Nothing makes me more patient with my kids than having a break from them (or even just the option of a break from them) and getting to do something for myself.
Wow, that’s crazy, Korinthia! Thank you so much for sharing this — it’s inspiring, even though it made me shudder a bit. I was reading through some of your older posts of deployment some time back (I think it was the first deployment) and I couldn’t even imagine how you did it! As for your kids behaving, I’m beginning to realize that you get back what you put in a relationship — be it with kids or adults — and I think your kids are just giving back, to you and to each other, what they’ve received!
Thanks so much for getting back to me, Julie! I’ve never been able to pull of the “I will play anything you want” (or special time as some of the books call it)! Lord knows I’ve tried…. I just find it very hard to give full attention if I’m not interested in the game as well.
We’ve now identified a bunch of things that both of us don’t mind doing together (board games, puzzles, Lego, play-doh, crafts, go to the park etc.) and when we’re both home, I do one of these with her at least once in the morning and once in the evening. Most of the time, she is fine to be by herself after that (or before that since we set the timer for when I’m supposed to be done with my work), but on days like today when she is in the middle of something and just can’t wait, we end up with a “situation”. On the one hand, I want to teach her limits. On the other, I want to be kind, gentle and be there for her.
Anyway, today, it just sort of sorted out. She interrupted me back-to-back 3-4 times, and I told her, I was not able to focus on my work because of it, and she would need to move the timer forward by 5 minutes. She gets the concept of “finish work before play”. So she promptly moved the timer forward by 5 minutes and left me to finish up my work. I love days like today when things eventually sort themselves out 🙂
PS: I used to LOVE the put mommy to sleep game too 🙂 Or the one where she was the teacher and I was the student and I just had sit and watch a replay of what happens in her school. My little baby has outgrown those and is a ‘big girl’ now!!! *sniffle*
This is so helpful! When I think about all the time and attention I WASTE daily on my iPhone and Facebook instead of being truly mindful and attentive to my 3yr old, 2 yr old and 9 month old….I shudder! Just the simple suggestion of leaving my phone in another room will enable me to focus on what really matters. We already incorporate EFT into our lives to help with emotions but I definitely think the meditation will help too. Thank you!!
Hi Jacquie, it sounds like you have your hands full! It’s tough isn’t it, because being present all the time with kids is really hard. I think Facebook etc is just a way of feeling connected, particularly since we need that adult conversation! I don’t get it right every time- but just banning the phone has helped me a lot. Good Luck. Julie
Hi Jacquie, we’ve all been there and done that! With 3 under 3, I can only imagine how stressful things must be!
In addition to the tip to keep the phone in another room as Julie suggested, you may also want to try the app self control when you can’t part with the phone. The goal of the app is to help you block certain apps during certain times of day. I personally haven’t used it… it is a suggestion by one of the experts I interviewed for the productivity apps article. I do however use something similar on my laptop browser to kick me off the Internet at night when it’s time to go to bed. 🙂
Great post! We’ve been exploring mindfulness, somewhat unsuccessfully, for a year now. We struggle but I, like you, have noticed the huge difference in all of us when we remember to slow down and be present in the moment. Being mindful really is a helpful tantrum solution!
Tricia, my experience with practicing mindfulness is kind of similar — I fail more than I succeed. That said, just trying to be present/mindful has made quite a bit of difference in our lives. One place it has been particularly helpful to me is in recognizing that I am getting agitated or upset with a situation and catch myself *before* I snap/yell and just let my anger flow instead of venting it out on my daughter. Another place I’m finding that it helps is when I’m playing with her, I can catch myself drifting off and gently rope myself in and just enjoy the simplicity of the moment – be it making a rainbow loom bracelet or a playdoh candy 🙂
Hi Tricia,Jacquie, and Sumitha,
Apologies for taking so long to reply! In fact I’ve had a week that was so mad I have not been mindful in the slightest!! Trying to do too much resulted in losing my car keys, not having my phone charged to book a cab to come and rescue me when I was locked out, missing an important appointment,and all of the above making my husband grumpier than hell! As a result the kids have been playing up to. So I forgave myself and today I tried to return to ‘normal’ – I turned my phone off and left it at home
( this was fun when I couldn’t stop the car alarm going off with the temporary key in a jam packed car park – so had to borrow a lady’s phone at the park and get afore mentioned mad husband to cycle over. Cue – ‘Why in god’s name have you not got your phone?’ – Me in reply – ‘Becuase I am trying to just focus on being here with the kids’. So yes, I got in about 3 minutes of mindfulness before the universe kicked in and reminded me that I am doing too much. I’ve loved reading all of your comments and hearing that we are all in the same overloaded boat called ‘too much to do’! thanks ladies
OMG Julie, that sounds like a really rough week! So sorry.
Do you follow Zenhabits by Leo Babauta? A while back he had an article about letting yourself experience frustration/anger and in the process practicing mindfulness right in the middle of a stressful situation (The article isn’t handy now, so not able to link. I’ll look for it and update the comment with the link later if possible).
Anyway, the past few days, my husband’s been out of town and I feel like we’ve been running late and I’ve been rushing my daughter out the door every single time (sometime with a lot snapping to go with it)… to counter the stress of it, I’ve been trying your Jumblee trick in the car as we drive by asking my daughter to take 5 deep breaths with me. I don’t know if it is mindfulness, or just simple distraction, but it really helps us both calm down and feel less antsy with each other. Thank you! 🙂