God help me, I'm one of THEM

No Boom....you should let me train Mo to become a super-child-warrior. <imagining training montage>

uhh..drifted off into fantasy there.

I'm not gonna say nothin' right now, but I am eagerly awaiting nimh's response.

Slightly tangentially, I'll say this was a fast flying thread, mostly. One has reactions to things.

I don't get the implication of your preference, nimh, that some of us not pipe up with a comment on what someone else was saying, some nuance about it, in support or in clarification, our thoughts on their thoughts..
I know you don't want to limit a conversation to only the principal posters at any given time period... and I doubt you want to limit the content.

Sometimes the rest of us are quiet and hang and watch. I manage not to post a lot of the times I feel like it, waiting for the natural conversation to evolve. Not always of course. And sometimes I don't couch my comments well - for example, I like everyone posting on this thread and could be taken to have been throwing darts at Chai.

I don't think we want to get into limiting people responding - this conversation has gotten thicker, denser, richer, for all the responses.
Your analysis is fine, sharp, insightful. I'm a little put back by the scolding.

It has been a quickie, yep. In spurts, especially.

Boomer got at one of the main things I was going to say, namely, does an expression of disappointment have to contain the word "disappointment"?

To me, expressing disappointment is just that, expressing it, in some way, using whatever combination of facial expressions and body language and words.

Example: today, I left on the counter a bag that contains Halloween candy (we still have some!) and dried fruit bars -- I'd grabbed the fruit bars on the way to picking her up at preschool as a snack for the pack of kids who tend to stay after and play in the playground on nice days. Then forgot about it.

I was typing something here when guilty girl slunk by, eyeing me and trying to hide something. I said "What's up?" and she said "Nothing!," too fast. I did the mom look and she said, "OK OK I got some candy..." and showed me a measly two pieces of small candy -- a Tootsie roll and a Smartie, or something. I said -- with disappointment -- "why didn't you just ask if you wanted some candy?" She hung her head and said "sorry," then asked nicely, and I smiled and said sure, and she brightened up.

End of story.

A few elements there. One is that "discipline" might not mean the same thing to everyone. Sears' definition, which I like:



http://www.askdrsears.com/html/6/T060200.asp

(The whole thing is good for a more complete idea.)

"Discipline" doesn't necessarily mean "punish", at all.

Another element is that the disappointment can be relatively mild -- it's just not human to shield every emotion from a child, and not really healthy for anyone. It's not necessarily any huge deal to express some disappointment. Which is not to say it CAN'T be a huge deal -- it certainly can, especially within a pattern of doing so regularly and without enough of a positive/ supportive balance. If I only expressed disappointment about the sneaking candy thing and then didn't give her positive reinforcment for going ahead and asking, that would be more problematic. But as part of that balance, it can be instructive and positive overall.

A distinction that FreeDuck has been making is a subtle and important one, and one that I agree with -- that while it's not terrible to express disappointment in and of itself (though of course that should be handled carefully), it should ideally be about some behavior that actually needs to change. Like, sneaking candy, not good. Wanting to be a girly-girl? Hmmm. (As most here know, I have definitely struggled with that exact issue myself -- I don't mind if sozlet is a girly-girl, I just don't want her to default to that mode because of the gender role messages she's getting from all sides. If I need to insert a non-girly message to counteract, I will. But that's all very tricky.)

Sorry I missed all the recent posts -- I was so busy forcing my kids to eat dinner and go to bed that I missed them. <joking>

There isn't much for me to add to what's already been said, but I wanted to address nimh's comment about circled wagons. I can easily see how one could see it that way. I admit to starting this thread somewhat masochisticly -- wording it strongly and inviting just such a reaction because I honestly felt horrible about the push/pull dynamic that was happening with my daughter. So the fact that I got a backlash wasn't entirely unexpected. Still, as the interpretations of the problem got farther and farther afield, I felt like I had to clarify. Each clarification suddenly became a "defense" of things I'd already confessed to. So some of that is of my own making.

Parents on this board who know me were more likely to see through my harsh language because they already know me. Those who don't know me as well can only read what was actually written. My fellow wagoneers piped up for clarification and possibly defense precisely because they understood the issue better. Hence the circled wagons. Still, I'm glad to have all of the input.

But I like where we are now, which is really the heart of the matter. Expressing disappointment, discipline and guidance in general, the whole push/pull dynamic that osso alludes to, those are really what this is all about. Should I have expressed that more clearly in the initial post? Yes, if I had had a strong enough handle on the problem to know that. But that's why I started this thread, so you guys could help me work it out. And all of you, parents or not, have been helpful.

No hard feelings?

And Chai, regarding the refusing to answer, you realize I prefaced that with "I'm going to show you where my daughter gets it". Lest you think she's a pushover being forced into things by a controlling mommy, she has many tools in her resistance toolbox. And that's something I'm proud of, even when they are turned on me.

FD-
i have taken many snippets from your posts about parenting and the problems you have had and applied them to how I work with Jillian.

I think you sound like a rockin mamma who has some really great kids





even if you do string them from the ceiling when they wont sleep

You dont see the difference between expressing a rule - "you cant do this, if you do this then we cant do that" - and putting in your personal disappointment as a tool to make him feel bad about it - "I'm disappointed in you that you did this"?

Well, I mean ... I dont really know what to say to that!

Do others really not see the whole horrid "Mommy isnt angry, she's just sad/disappointed" cliche (as a) pitfall here?


Huh?

I think this is still the straw man I pointed out earlier ...

There are / must be better ways to make clear that a certain behaviour is out of bounds than taking the "I'm disappointed in how you just did that" tack.

So no (just to avoid this response from coming up a third time) - I'm, obviously, not saying that one should just let one's kid do whatever he damn well pleases... and in further news, I also don't beat my wife... ;-)

Hey, do speak up by all means ... <grins at spiky reference to the meta-tack of the conversation>

Seriously, I still have to read Soz's response which is bound to be wise (cause they most always are) ... but I for one dont seem to be expressing myself effectively, so ... yeah (considering it's apparently the thing to do ;-)), do chip in...

Thanks for the compliment. The same is true for you. I sometimes forget the lessons I learned from when they were babies (learning to let go of them) and it helps to be reminded by someone who still has a little one.

Okay then. I'm waiting for someone to tell me what the better way is.

We spend a lot of time around here talking about not being a bully and how to not be a bully. So yes, I am disappointed when Mo can't keep his temper in check.

I'm not angry and I'm not sad - for me to be either of those things takes the responsiblity for the behavior away from Mo and makes it my problem. There is no way he can fix it or change it or whatever if I make it my problem.

If I say "I'm disappointed that we can't play with Shep anymore today because you couldn't control your temper" what is so wrong with that?

And why is this a "straw man"?

Aside from making rules with consequences, we also have to convey to our children that they are expected to follow the rules. So it's perfectly fair to not only provide a consequence, but also let them know that you expected them to follow the rules.

Not all desired behavior can be prescribed by rules and consequences. I expect my kids to share without fighting. But there's no rule saying, you must share with your sister or <insert consequence here>. I express disappointment if, for instance, my son continually prevents his sister from playing a video game that she enjoys by hogging it for the full hour that I had allotted to them for playing. That shows a lack of consideration, and he is old enough to understand that we value consideration, and that it is disappointing when he is inconsiderate.

Parents have to be able to convey expectations and values to their kids so that they will behave well even if there are no immediate consequences, because we won't always be around to enforce the rules.

I think this is important. Before responding, I had a gut reaction to the back-and-forth about discipline boom:nimh. I right away felt like I got what nimh was saying. I am not a big fan of using disappointment with kids. I try not to do it, in general.

But my experience with disappointment from parents was not like Boom's. Disappointment was NOT a positive learning experience for me. It was something I dreaded, a form of punishment and to enforce rules, and something that felt bad and was used (perhaps) inappropriately. There was no positive back-up. I knew THEY were disapppointed AS PEOPLE; and it happened a lot. It seriously cut into me. And I don't believe my parents were bad people, or that they intended to do this. They loved me fiercely - but, sometimes, I felt there were conditions to being loved. Be a good girl; and I won't be disappointed, and I'll do something nice for you.

That is the danger, and why it such a tricky issue. Parents rarely REALIZE when they influence their kids this way. You love your kids - you're intentions are good and you are doing what you feel is right/best. My parents thought they were building me up to be a huge sucess in this way. Guess what? I DID excell. Excellent grades, top in anything I set myself to do. But I also became afraid to fail. I HAD to suceed.

In general, I have found it is difficult to speak to parents about kids. Well, Their kids in particular and their parenting style/technique. It almost always gets an instant "I am a good parent. Are you doubting that? How dare you!" unless it is perfectly, loving stated and deflected away from the parent as a person. There IS a cliche amongst parents in general. I won't understand it completely unless/until I become a parent.
There are these parental layers of not always wanting to see when this is happening. Because who likes admitting they may have made a mistake and hurt their kid in some way?!

Soz's last post was great. I like everything that was said there. It is tricky, though. You so have to make sure your kids are getting it the way it was intentioned - and they rarely do. Oftentimes it builds up and is silently there.

I'm sure there are times when a sign of disappointment is necessary or simply unavoidable, but I really do feel like it should be limited. We naturally disappoint our parents enough - is it actually a good learning tool, as a technique?

Freeduck's situation that she posted brought up a lot of parent stuff. I don't question that we are talking to good parents. Freeduck did say that she didn't let her disappointment show. And that's a biggie. She realized that she was reacting to something else, and came here to figure it out. I think that's awesome.

Kids feel so much pressure to please their parents. My main point is that extra disappointment can really contribute to that. What the parent intends to get across is not always what the child experiences. They are their own little people. Extra pressure on kids is never good.

Holy crap, I sure do. My mommy's special word was "discouraged." I got so that I was ready to kill myself if I heard the word discouraged.

I do think that parents might not always realize how strong a kid's reaction can be to even small expressions of disappointment. My mom would tell you to this day that she was never anything but supportive; the stuff that made me feel crappy was so subtle that I can hardly even pick out incidents to point to. Point being, it doesn't take much to make a kid feel like you are VERY disappointed in them, and they can also cover up feeling that way very well, like I did.

Freeduck, you know how you said your daughter is really strong about not minding your disappointment, that she has plenty of tools to handle resisting people? Well, my mom used to tell me what a strong girl I was too, and how I was so forceful I was like a steamroller. She could tell me that bluntly because I was so impervious to what people thought of me. What she never knew (because I was too "strong" to tell anyone) was that when I knew she was upset with me, the only way I could handle how overwhelmed I felt was to go wedge myself in the furthest corner under my bed and clutch my head in my hands as tight as I could to try to block out feeling inadequate. Sometimes kids look a lot stronger than they are.

I'd also like to add (since we like to back people up ) a quick "me, too", to Chai, Nimh, and Flushd's comments on being a little shut out by the parenting crowd. I've only tried to comment on parenting issues a couple of times, but I read the parenting threads a lot, and I feel like there is a noticeable shutting-out of people who differ on these things. But as I said when the "a2k stars" thing came up, I do also see why that happens in a group of people who've talked to each other for years.

Oh, p.s., I'm not saying that, you know, oh my god alarm bells went off in my head because freeduck is doing to her daughter what mommy did to me kind of thing. It probably comes across as bad-childhood-girl-attacking-phantoms-of-her-past....

I just wanted to give a case-in-point that little expressions of disappointment can be magnified in a kid's head, and that it can be hard to tell if that's happening.

<nodding to cyphercat> exactly.

<sigh of relief squeaks out>

OK so i really was not crazy, there ... i swear, for a moment i started doubting myself there, with all the wise people telling me i was simply off-base.

Also <nodding> to what cypher said about seemingly being strong and impervious to parental pressure vs. not at all actually being invulnerable, to the onslaught on your sense of self that even a succession of expressions of only slight disappointment can bring..

Man, i could not be made to do things when i was a kid; would just not have it. That was subject of much anecdote later too, of course: how, if little nimh got it in his head he didnt want to do something, there was no way on earth (without, like, physical disciplining, which my parents rejected outright as a possibility - quite progressive at the time) to make me.

I guess that must have evoked the impression that little nimh, oh he dont care! Like the nerdy version of a mini-punk. But oh were they wrong. I admit that the actual "wedging myself in the furthest corner under my bed and clutching my head in my hands as tight as I could to try to block out feeling inadequate" came only much later - like, eh, four years ago, when that whole feeling was revived in much sharpened form in my relationship - but sure, the source of that origined in back-then stuff.

(Like Cypher I'll add that it's of course easy to react to Chai's and hers and Flush's and my stories like - well, you're talking about phantom traumas of your own youth, thats irrelevant to what we are talking about here, y'all just be projecting - but you know - apparently the stuff you're talking about here is the kind to trigger or evoke such memories, so I'd say apparently there's some kind of thorns in it, no harm in being pointed out to be careful with 'em.)

I hear you both, or all three (including nimh). It is very tricky to communicate with children. And, whether we know it or not, we are constantly communicating things to them even if we aren't saying anything. And even though I say my daughter doesn't react to my disappointment, that doesn't mean that I think it's ok to show it. I just don't know enough about what's going on in her little head yet. It could be that her obstinance is a reaction to some subtle signal that I'm sending. But she knows I love her, of that I'm sure.

A while back my son started showing some perfectionist tendencies. It bothered me a lot so I started thinking about the messages I was sending him. Here's a scenario that I observed. Duckie comes to me to show me a sentence he's written. It is barely comprehensible, of course, because he's only in kindergarten. I notice that one word is very close to correct. I tell him, hey, this word is almost right, good job, you just forgot the e. To my surprise, he starts to cry. I'm at a loss -- what's wrong, what's the big deal, I thought I was encouraging him. No, I was just telling him that his best effort wasn't good enough. Once I started paying attention, I noticed that he was getting a signal that I didn't intend. I had a talk with him and told him that it's ok to make mistakes, that it's part of the learning process, and that I was sorry I didn't realize the message I was sending. I changed my responses to nothing but encouragement, no corrections at all, and he's had a much healthier attitude towards making mistakes since. I even started pointing out my own mistakes so he could see that it's ok to make them.

My point to that story is, I definitely see what damage can be done. But that, unfortunately, is just the nature of parenting. My parents were never disappointed in me because, guess what, they didn't expect much from me. The message I got? They didn't expect much because I wasn't capable of much. And I was/am an underachiever. I was almost completely unguided and wholly unprepared for adulthood. My goal with my own kids is to do a little better than that, without erring too far in the other direction. Thankfully, I have this place and you guys to keep me on track.

Thanks all three of you for sharing your personal experiences with me. Cyphercat, your post didn't come off like an attack, so no worries. And flushd, I understand why it is tough to talk to parents about their kids. Nobody wants to have their parenting mistakes pointed out to them, and we all want to believe that we are great parents. And of course, there is no shortage of strangers willing to pipe up after observing all of 5 minutes of your interactions with your children. That's not you, or anyone on this thread, but enough people do it to make us a little sensitive.

I have come to an understanding that my childhood was a big ole' loafathon and perhaps bohemian to the point of not being relevant in regular society.

My parents expected a miracle from me: to grow up and lead a happy and productive life within the limits of the law.

I can see that the wagons have circled to exclude those of us who march under the banner that a lot can be learned from disappointed parents.

<That's a joke okay?>

And on that note, I will quietly bow out.

I've learned a lot from this thread. Thanks for hearing me out, eh.

It's interesting to see how different backgrounds has somewhat formed how people's attitudes develop.

Freeduck, I really do understand how guards can sorta go up with parents. You're so right - there are seemingly an endless supply of folks to pipe up in any which situation; believing they know best. I'm really happy I haven't come across that way to you.

This is just the hardest thread to parse. Nimh's latest post seems to be indicating that something he accused me of he then doubted, and now thinks he was right to accuse me of it after all... is that right? (I'm not sure if it'd be me or someone else or a few of us at once or...) If so, what is the accusation?

I really think the thing about non-parents being shut out is misguided. I think there are three elements:

1.) Circling wagons. Parenting is highly personal; it's not like discussing recipes or gardening or something. I think the wagon-circling happens in various situations here at A2K (i.e. not just on the Parenting forum) where something highly personal is being discussed, and someone comes in and criticizes in a way that strikes participants as being unfair. One thing that comes to mind is flushd's thread about her upcoming surgery, when that one guy came in and criticized her decision to have it. A whole lot of us were up in arms about it, and told him so. Was it piling on? Yes, probably. Was it circling wagons? Almost certainly. Was it a bad thing...?

2.) Experience/ knowledge. This is a knowledge exchange forum. As with any other area, having some firsthand or educational (as in studying the subject) knowledge makes a difference. Isn't that just kind of obvious? If I'm going to ask about a finer point of parenting, it makes sense that Noddy or J_B or FreeDuck or one of the people who have a lot more experience than me would answer it, and that I'd appreciate their input. The thing is -- there are also a lot of people who are not parents themselves who have a lot of valuable knowledge to share through experience (being around kids a lot) or education. EhBeth and dlowan come to mind there as being especially insightful contributors. Parenthood itself is not the deciding factor.

3.) All of us were kids, once. That's what makes this especially tricky, in a lot of ways. I was very aware, as a kid, of various elements of parenting and education that I thought were unfair (there I go again... yeah, I've always been that way). I kept a journal from very early on, and it's something I've referred back to a lot, as part of a deal I made with my future self. I often think from the perspective of a kid. One of the main principles I try to keep in mind is that kids are almost always smarter and more capable than adults give them credit for.

At the same time, from my master's degree in early childhood education through to my thus far five years' experience in child-raising, there is a very different parental/ adult perspective at work, too. Part of that perspective is that while children usually think they are always being reasonable, they're not. They are often completely unreasonable.

So, those two things come into conflict, especially when we, as adults, remember our childhoods. We think we were being reasonable. And I'm sure we were a lot of the time, and probably way more than our parents gave us credit for.

But as an adult, I will listen to my daughter when she says she wants to change into different underwear the first time... and the second time... and the third time, even, if it's a good day... but by the fourth time that she's both changed her mind (too sparkly, not sparkly enough, too blue) and demanded that I go get her a new pair (refusing to do it herself), I'll go ahead and tell her that she can either go get her own underwear or else accept the next pair I select for her no matter what it is. When I do that, she thinks I'm being terribly unreasonable and unfair.

There are things that kids do that don't deserve endless patience or respect. Again, acknowledging all of that has to be within a framework that is loving, supportive, and respectful. But sometimes, yeah, they mess up, and part of parenting is to let them know that... and help them do the right thing.

For example, one parenting/ educational concept I love is "catch them being good" -- to provide positive reinforcement (praise, hugs, kisses, etc.) when they happen to do something great.

Re: disappointment, I'm still curious about what those of you who are uncomfortable with the concept of disappointment being expressed think should be happening instead. Do you think children never do anything wrong? If you accept that they do (and really, they do), how can it be handled without any expression of disappointment at all (including implicitly, mind you, not just avoiding the use of the word "disappointment"), and why is that way better?

Again, I do completely agree that the disappointment thing is tricky and needs to be carefully handled and CAN, when handled wrong, have scary-bad consequences. I just don't think it's realistic to never, ever express any degree of disappointment at all.

(Osso too on the insightful non-parent -- and others, don't want to keep adding, but wanted to get at least her in there.)