I was at the pool not long ago when I overheard this conversation:

Parent: How much longer are we staying?

Kid: An hour

Parent:    An hour? You’re not ready now?

Kid: No. An hour

Parent: Oh, well ok. 

See anything off in this conversation? And no, I didn’t wrongly attribute the dialogue.

The thing that surprised me was not that the family was going to stay an extra hour at the pool. That part was awesome.

The part that surprised me was that the parent was acting like they had no control over the situation, while also acting like the child was making the ‘wrong’ decision. Here’s why that matters:

Kids are sensitive to subtext without knowing that they are. So, even if they are acting on what they want in the moment, they are also experiencing nonverbal messaging from the parent which conflicts with the words being spoken. (For more on alignment, see THIS BLOG POST)

Here’s the conversation with the nonverbals added in:

Parent: How much longer are we staying? (I’m ready to go.)

Kid: An hour (I guess I get to decide how long we stay- yippee!)

Parent:    An hour? You’re not ready now? (An hour is too long; I really want to leave now and I really want you to want to leave also)

Kid: No. An hour (I want to stay no matter what Dad says)

Parent: Oh, well ok. (you’ve disappointed me by not wanting to leave when I want to leave)

Basically what happened here is that Parent put Kiddo in charge of Parent’s well-being and then blamed Kiddo for not making the “right” choice. EEK!

I’m exaggerating only slightly here.

Putting a child in a position where they can either please themselves OR you is an impossible choice. This is too hard for a child's mind. Neurologically, they’re not ready for that kind of cognitive dissonance. 

And if we keep reinforcing the pattern, it turns into a nagging, underlying belief that “my decisions make other people unhappy”, which can lead to indecision, people-pleasing, and poor self-esteem. (Which is, of course, the opposite of what we want for our kids.)

It seems like such a silly example. Such a small thing.  But the small moments add up.

So, how could this have gone? 

Lots of different ways, but here are a couple of options that have some more aligned communication patterns:

OPTION ONE:

Parent: I’m ready to go pretty soon, how about you? 

Child: NO - I want to stay another hour. 

Parent: That sounds reasonable, let’s do that OR actually, we need to leave sooner than that, so let’s split the difference and leave in 30 minutes.

Child: Oh man! That stinks!

Parent:    Yep, but it’s the best I can do today.

OPTION TWO (my choice):

Parent: At the next adult swim whistle, we’re gonna pack it up.

Child: NO I don’t want to

Parent: Yeah, I know. It’s no fun to leave the pool. Go swim now while you have the chance.

Child: Harrumph

For those of you who are saying, “my kid wouldn’t give in so easily”, I’ve got you too.

OPTION THREE:

Parent: At the next adult swim/at 5pm, we’re gonna leave the pool

Child: NOOOOOOOOOOO (has meltdown)

Parent: (calmly!) We can leave now or we can leave at 5. It’s up to you.

Then, if kiddo continues to have their meltdown, you leave. Calmly. Neutrally. And if they pull it together, then you make damn sure to leave when you said you were going to leave. Because they will try and negotiate for more time. That’s their job. 

And yours is to hold the boundary.

If holding boundaries and communicating in a constructive, aligned way feels hard with your kiddo, we’ve got you! Our free Raising Orchid Kids Facebook group is a great place to ask questions and let us know what you’re struggling with.

xo G