Skip to main content

When my kids won't cooperate

My kids are generally very cooperative. I've written before about how I really try to reserve "no" for occasions where it's really needed; and how I welcome questions about why I'm asking whatever it is from them. I always try to help them understand why I'm asking something of them - and normally, even if they're less than enthusiastic about it, they'll do it because they understand why.

If looks could kill... He didn't want to
he lifted on there


But they do occasionally draw lines. And when I don't understand why they don't want to do a particular thing, I'm sometimes slow to pick up on their refusal and work through it... we name feelings, try to ease whatever is causing the discomfort - but sometimes, working through it means that I stop asking them to do it.

This doesn't mean they rule the roost: it simply means that where they truly feel unhappy about doing something that isn't essential to health and safety, I won't make them. Sounds basic, doesn't it? But how often do we force our kids to do things they really don't want to do?

I have done it so many times. Because I know the experience is good for them, or I'm certain they'll enjoy it if they only give it a try... and every time I've forced them, every single time to date, both they and me have ended up frustrated and at loggerheads. More importantly, forcing them puts us into a me-against-them situation; I'm stronger so I can force my will on them, but do I want to? No! I want them to know I'm on their team, not someone they need to defend themselves against!

There are many instances where it's taken me way too long to stop pushing and accept no as the answer. When neither of them wanted to go cycling, I made them - and we all had a terrible time. Last Christmas, we decided that taking part in a Nativity play would be fun; the kids said no thanks, we insisted, and they spent the entire time with on stage with the kids glued onto us and refusing to do anything.


Earlier this week, again, we thought it would be fun to make a video production - acting out a story, dressing up, all the fun stuff other kids seem to enjoy doing. I enthusiastically explained what we were going to do, they listened, and N(5) immediately said no thanks. D(4) was hesitant, so I tried to sweep him along... but as things progressed, he became more and more unhappy about the entire idea. Somehow I still thought it was a good idea to carry on. I put his shoes on him; he took them off, crying they were uncomfortable. He took his dress-up gear off and sat unhappily on the floor... and I finally got it. 

My kids don't have to enjoy what other kids enjoy. They are individuals. And if performing isn't something they feel comfortable with - even though I don't understand because they do role play together all the time and D loves to dress up - then it's my job to respect their no. Just as I expect them to respect mine.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Unknown8 May 2020 at 13:57

    Well done Susanne, It's not easy to let go and give our children opportunities to express these kind of emotions. We often forget that they are little people with the same emotions as us and are also struggling with expressing how they feel. As a parent it is sometimes necessary to say "ok we'll park that idea for now and maybe comeback to it another time." Another time may however be a long time later or even never.

    Having children and getting trying to get them to do what i deemed as right, taught me how to look at myself as God sees me and how he deals with me and my tears, tantrums and stubbornness. He sees the little girl inside who is scared, unsure and afraid and gently leads me along life's path. He often has to bring me back to situations again and again so that I can learn in my own time and way, how to deal with them.
    Don't give up on the idea of N and D ever acting but for now "park the idea."
    One day I'll tell you the story of a young boy who hid under the chairs of the church during Nativity rehearsals - he's gone on to study film and music production at A level.
    Sandra

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Back to meat after 20 years vegan - 4 years on

Back in 2020, I briefly mentioned in another blog post that we were no longer vegan. I said that shift deserved its own blog post, but here we are at the end of 2024 and I never wrote that. Not that I intended to leave it this long, but it really did take me this long to truly digest the change (pardon the pun) and get enough distance from my previous world view that I could write about it. Paradigm shifts like that don't come quickly, or easily. I've had a few major paradigm shifts in my life - from atheist to Christian , and later to Catholicism - and it's a disorienting thing every time. It starts with the proverbial 'pebble in the shoe' (something niggling that gets harder and harder to ignore) and takes time to even go from subconscious to conscious mind, to a time of discovery and 'why didn't I see this before??', and finally a bewildering sense how I could possibly have thought the old way because I'm now wearing all-new lenses on life. The ...
1 comment
Read more

Thrown into to a new reality, then back to the old

Towards the end of August this year, Mr. and I suddenly faced a very different future to the one we had envisioned: at 42 years old - and he's 55 - I found myself pregnant again. Camping after our summer trip - and I've just found out I'm pregnant As it's been seven years since D(7) was born, we really didn't expect that. We would have loved more kids soon after D, but I just never got pregnant. Seven years on, we were pretty convinced that this was our lot. Two beautiful children, we really can't complain! So we needed a bit of time to digest that. A new baby, with siblings 8 and nearly 10 years older! And Mr. would be 75 when that child was 20... the maths was mind boggling. But hey - if that was our new reality, we were going to run with it! The kids certainly were excited about it, they're old enough to understand and yes, we told them; this is a family matter. I knew there was a chance this pregnancy wouldn't work out, but we felt they had a right t...
2 comments
Read more

Home Ed Questions: what about socialisation?

Last week, a reporter and cameraman from the BBC visited our house to do a feature about home education. It was great fun, a real adventure for the kids to be interviewed! The team spent 90 minutes at our house, but of course they had to condense that down to a couple of minutes for the feature, and sadly the kids' interviews didn't make the cut. (A transcript article of the feature is here ) I had put my hand up for doing this because the reporter had every intention to make this a positive piece on home education, and so it was; the premise was to try and answer why there had been such an uptick in home education in the past few years. They interviewed two mothers, probably strategically chosen: me as the one who always wanted to home educate, and the other mum as someone who felt she had to due to her son's needs.  They interviewed me at length, and of course only a few seconds of that made it to the screen, but inevitably it was the part to do with social skills that th...
Post a Comment
Read more