God help me, I'm one of THEM

Oh my! Parenting Forum is a scary place!

Who knew....

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sozobe wrote:

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 dont understand this...

Are you referring to my sigh of relief and "so i was not crazy, after all"?

That relief referred to - my attitude and apprehension about the use of expression of disappointment as a tool of discipline (as suggested by DrewDad and then, in various ways/extents, described as only natural by the other parents here).

I was asking, does really noone have this apprehension at the "mommy's not angry, she's just sad/disappointed" risk-thing? But nobody seemed to see what my point on that could possibly be.

Then Flushd and Cyphercat chimed in and expressed how they knew exactly the kind of thing I was getting at -- which made me go, phew, ok, good; i was starting to think i was crazy, already.

Was that the bit that had you confused..?

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FreeDuck wrote:

Thanks for that, DrewDad. I hate being angry about it too. That's why I'm debating whether to continue taking her to the games just to watch or to just bag it all together. She has said that she likes soccer but she doesn't like to play in front of "all the people" -- basically the other parents. I can understand that. I know that if we continue the way we've been going she will not develop a healthy attitude towards sports, and that's not what I want.

FD...I am wading through this difficult thread....and I haven't got all the way there yet...but, I thought that the intent (or at least AN intent) was for us to help you figure out why you are angry?

Am I right?

I haven't read far enough to know if you ever got help with that, because it seems to me an absolutely wonderful thing to want help with. Figuring out why we have strong feelings where they do not seem to make real sense is one of the best things we can do as parents, I believe.

This thread has perfectly exemplified, in some cases at least, I think, what happens when we DON'T do that...ie people have been prevented by emotional triggers from reading what you actually said and what you were asking, and have instead gone off on tangents based on issues from their pasts. These can be, for parents, what Alicia Lieberman called, in a wonderful phrase "Ghosts in the Nursery"...ie areas of undealt with trauma which can become toxic if we are unable to reflect on them, and deal with them consciously.

We all have the smeggers......and. from what I can see, here you were, consciously recognizing a possible one, and trying to make sense of it.

(IF I have interpreted you correctly, and not reacting to one of mine!)

If I am correct, and if your request for some assistance in working this one out has not already been met, and you still want to try...(looks like the thread became a bit hot (as such things do) so I can see you might just want to leave it for a bit).....I am really happy to join in trying to do as you have asked.

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Its amazing that the FD is using a forum to justify her personal choices for her kid. Either she is being a comedian, or else shes a "Smother".

Remember FD, your kids will pick out your old age homeand they will remembre the little incidents that have traumatized them.

"NO WIRE HANGERS"!!

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FreeDuck wrote:

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.

<nodding>

Yes... that's it! The kinda thing I meant, I mean...

And yeah, I can see that having your parents never being disappointed beause (you feel) they never expected anything from you in the first place would be equally damaging .. yes. <nods>

Just, that's not what I have experience with ... ;-) and I guess we were all kinda pointing at the risk at the opposite end.

But yes, this story is ... nice. Wise. <smiles>

sozobe wrote:

There are things that kids do that don't deserve endless patience or respect.

There seems to keep on being this misunderstanding about the point that expressing disappointment, specifically, is a very tricky thing, being taken to mean that, you know, you should just let the kid do whatever (s)he wants.

I'm not quite sure where that misunderstanding comes from, I thought I'd been pretty clear that this was not what I was saying from the start, anyway. I mean, in this post, for one. But it's obviously something that's having difficulty getting across.

On that line of thought:

sozobe wrote:

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.

Well, the way I was thinking about it was kinda formulated in the same post.

I see a big difference between my paraphrasing of DD's sentence, and the one of Boom's sentence. Point is a bit awkward because Boom herself said she didnt see a difference. But I see one - so I think that's where my answer is.

Like - when you tell the Sozlet, "we have a lot of things to do today! We dont have time for four underwear-changings"; there's no expression of you being disappointed in what she did in there, is there, or doesnt need to be? No necessity to get "why are you doing this to me?" across?

sozobe wrote:

I just don't think it's realistic to never, ever express any degree of disappointment at all.

Sure! But there's a difference between accepting that you're only human and will thus slip up and show your kid(s) you're disappointed - and defending that as a good or normal tool in a parent's repertoire, that will actually teach the kids useful things - as I took DD and Boom to be saying - no?

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cyphercat wrote:

nimh wrote:
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.

ooooo....me too! I would NEVER show what was going on bothered me.
I learned to be stonefaced, and then was critizied for that too. Couldn't win for losing.....oh, I used to hide UNDER the bed, so I couldn't be found. I was amazed no one ever thought to look under there.

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farmerman wrote:

Remember FD, your kids will pick out your old age homeand they will remembre the little incidents that have traumatized them.

"NO WIRE HANGERS"!!

BIG nod to that.

Everyone's chickens eventually come home to roost.

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That's what had me confused, yes, thanks for clarifying, nimh.

Did you read my long post yet, the one that a while back you said you hadn't read yet*? That really gets into the disappointment thing in most detail.

*This one:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1928526#1928526

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Yes, I did. But what you were talking about doesn't strike me as the same thing as what was in the posts I was responding to. (And yeah, the things you were describing strike me as mostly harmless, yeah)

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It does seem to respond to this, though:

nimh wrote:

Sure! But there's a difference between accepting that you're only human and will thus slip up and show your kid(s) you're disappointed - and defending that as a good or normal tool in a parent's repertoire, that will actually teach the kids useful things - as I took DD and Boom to be saying - no?

This part, particularly:

sozobe wrote:

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.

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Well, thats a very tricky balance <shrugs>.

As kinda illustrated in FD's anecdote; there, you had an instance of what in all reasonableness seemed like a fair enough balance between positive reinforcement and pointing out possible improvement, and yet even that had a bad effect nevertheless.

And that wasnt even outright disappointment (I mean, FD wasnt disappointed about the missing e).

So yeah, tricky. Seems like an obvious thing to say its tricky.

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Oh, of course it's tricky. Has anyone been saying anything else? That's pretty much the raison d'etre of this thread -- very tricky!

At the same time, the actual point I was responding to is whether it is something to be unilaterally avoided -- whether it is allowable only as an accidental slip-up, or as one (tricky and sticky and carefully managed) tool in the large parenting toolbox.

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sozobe wrote:

Oh, of course it's tricky. Has anyone been saying anything else?

Uhm, this and this were my original posts - you can check back what exactly was responded to in them. There's also this post where "expressing sadness, disappointment" is pretty unconditionally defined as a prescribed discipline tool re: behaviors, at least, so I reacted to that too. Basically, the stuff that was reacted to, specifically, didnt include much about "tricky and sticky and carefully managed".

But we're now just regurgitating stuff, arent we? You obviously didnt read, in some of DD's, Boom's and/or FD's posts, what Chai, Flushd, Cypher and I read in them, or disagree that it was really in them. Diff in perspective, I guess. Water under the bridge now, anyway.

But in re: to your point about when/how to avoid/carefully manage it, did you read this answer to you? Its not very eloquent, granted, but then I'm just a dilettant in this anyway so I guess its all I can come up with.

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Yep, read it and, I thought, responded to it. Maybe restate what you want me to respond to if you think I didn't.

The central thing seems to be, can expressing disappointment be OK as a purposely used disciplinary tool? (In the Sears' sense of "discipline," without scary spanky sort of connotations.)

You seem to be saying no. (?) (Your position seems to be, as an accidental slip-up, sure, everyone's human, but as a purposeful action, no.)

I'm saying yes. With lots of qualifications, because it can be misused, sure, but yes.

In the thing with sozlet sneaking candy for no reason, my expression of disappointment was purposeful and modulated, and had the desired effect. I took a lot of things into account, such as her general maturity level (I wouldn't have done that when she was 2), whether she knew the rules (yes), how thoroughly she knew the rules (very), and whether it was important enough to call her on (borderline, but yes). Then I went ahead and purposely let my disappointment show... and followed up quick with the positivity.

By the way, I didn't say yet that I thought dlowan's post was great. I hope that all parents here feel comfortable posting about our less-than-perfect moments so that we can get feedback on how to work through them... as FreeDuck has. I think she's shown a lot of insight on the whole subject.

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Quote:

In the thing with sozlet sneaking candy for no reason, my expression of disappointment was purposeful and modulated, and had the desired effect. I took a lot of things into account, such as her general maturity level (I wouldn't have done that when she was 2), whether she knew the rules (yes), how thoroughly she knew the rules (very), and whether it was important enough to call her on (borderline, but yes). Then I went ahead and purposely let my disappointment show... and followed up quick with the positivity

And I'm thinking that all of this, and this is a lot, happened in .... what?..... two seconds?

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'bout that.

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My times with my niece have been circumstancially spaced. I am in awe re dealing with these matters with your own child all the time, not to mention more than one.

This will likely seem obnoxious, does to me too, but I'll post, since it fits, in a weird sort of way to be explained in a minute, in just this thread. My ex called yesterday, does once in a while, and we talked a long time. He mentioned he had been in our old neighborhood, also the neighborhood where his bro and my niece live, and called, stopped by; she was the only one home, and agreed to his visit. My niece and ex have been on the outs over umpteen matters for a few years.. and this day they talked for hours; I see it as their first adult conversation (she is eighteen now). He told me, somewhat far into the phone call and in a quiet voice with a slice of amazement, that she said I am the best person she has ever known.

That is momentarily a sweet thing to hear......and I did bathe in the comment.

OK, we all know I am almost totally f/ked. But she does too, at this point, after some not all that long ago talks, and still says that. I realize easily that the admiration is unleashed and expressed freely partly as a directive to him, take that, but also since she hasn't had memorable conflicts with me, not since she was two, heh. (I remember getting enraged and stifling it. Good grief.) The parental role is one humongous stretch.
And the power dynamics are huge, as all of us discussers know.
I don't know what to say except to express real delight when you feel it, and show it, and keep that channel open and not on automatic.

Re my niece, I expect we will have ups and downs and will with fortune stick in each others' corners.

On disappointment as a word, I am thinking of it as somewhat of a red herring. Disappointment in the child as a person is a virtually violent assault, in its way. Disappointment (irritation about? whatever word?) in a behavior at that place in time should be a clear matter, and not one for obliteration of self esteem. I know those two can get mixed up and that it is all tricky.

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dlowan, yes, you read me absolutely correctly. Please come back. While I'm in a place where the course of action is pretty clear. I'm not sure I'm any closer to understanding what it was about her reaction that so stirred me up. I'm very interested in your take on it.

Farmerman, thanks, that was almost as helpful as say, a box of rocks.

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Have you said before that gender roles were an issue for you when you were a kid? Made to wear dresses when you didn't want to, that kind of thing? (I don't remember.)

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ossobuco wrote:

On disappointment as a word, I am thinking of it as somewhat of a red herring. Disappointment in the child as a person is a virtually violent assault, in its way. Disappointment (irritation about? whatever word?) in a behavior at that place in time should be a clear matter, and not one for obliteration of self esteem. I know those two can get mixed up and that it is all tricky.

I pretty much agree with this and I think you've stated it very well.

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God help me, I'm one of THEM

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