Taking action without insult
A simple trick that can help you stay calm
For a long time, our markers (we call them textas in Australia, but I think markers might be the more commonly used term) were kept up high out of reach, because none of my children could be trusted with them. However, the markers recently found a new home in the craft area. In large part, it’s because my older two kids now know that markers are for paper, and don’t seem to have the urge to draw on every other surface in the house. But it’s also because my 3 year old loves to colour. She will fill pages of colouring books, and every time she sees me about to print something she asks if I can print her a Bluey colouring page. Occasionally she does get a bit extra creative and would colour herself in too. In general, I don’t mind this. If she wants to walk around with blue arms, green legs, and a purple tummy that’s fine with me. It washes off after a shower or soak in the tub.
So it made sense for the markers to be more accessible.
And for a long time, that was ok. The older boys drew on paper, and the 3 year old limited her creative expression to her own body and colouring in pages.
But 2 weeks ago, we found marker all over the desk, and the culprit was obvious.
Let’s pause for a minute in the story and play a game. You remember those choose your own adventure books? Let’s do one of those.
On with the story. Ahem….
You walk over to the desk, and you find purple marker all over the top and sides. A marker is lying on the floor with its cap off, and you turn around to find your 3 year old with purple fingers and arms. Do you:
1. Take it personally, feel anger, and take away the markers (keep reading)
Or
2. Remind yourself that it’s not personal, stay calm, and take away the markers (skip to page 43)
You feel your anger bubbling under the surface. You can’t believe that your child has done this to you. You trusted them, and they have betrayed that trust. On top of that they’re also cutting into your time, as you must clean up the desk in the short time before you were planning on heading out. They have ruined your whole day. You snatch away the markers, put them back up high, and ignore your child’s cries and whines while you scrub down the desk.
You leave the interaction feeling upset, your child is upset too, and there is a spirit of disconnect and frustration in your house. Because of that disconnection, your child is resistant to your demands to put on her shoes and hurry into the car, and so you end up arriving at your planned destination much later than you wanted to. That has just worsened your mood even further. It’s going to take a lot of work and effort to get things back on track for the day.
Fictional p.43
You remind yourself that your child wasn’t trying to annoy you or anger you. In fact, they probably weren’t thinking about you at all (kids that age are highly egocentric). They were just experimenting with markers, and even if they knew that the desk isn’t for drawing on, they didn’t do it maliciously.
You firmly but kindly tell your child that markers are just for paper. You take away the markers and put them back up high, letting them know that they can have the markers back later. Then you pass them a cloth and some window cleaner and show them how to scrub the desk clean. It takes longer than doing it yourself, but you know that they will learn better what areas they can draw on if they’re responsible for cleaning up their own messes.
You leave the interaction feeling proud of yourself for staying calm. Your child feels proud of themselves for fixing their own mistake. And there is a spirit of connection and respect in your home. Your child happily follows your request to put on their shoes and hop into the car, and while you’re a bit late to get to your planned destination, it’s not too bad. You’re in the right mindset to tackle any other challenge today.
There’s a big difference between those two fictional outcomes!
Yet while we may be aspiring for the kind but firm discipline method, we’ll struggle to get there consistently if we’re focused on the middle step – emotional regulation. Yes, it’s great to be calm instead of angry. But calming down once we are already angry takes a lot of work, and it’s not a sure thing.
However, if we can just focus on changing our mindset around misbehaviour, we can save ourselves a whole lot of emotional regulation work further down the track. Dr Laura Markham calls it “taking action without insult”. That is, knowing that our child is misbehaving (either intentionally or not) and taking steps to limit their behaviour or make amends for it, without taking it as a personal insult. Along the same vein, Dr Becky Kennedy reminds us that “my child isn’t giving me a bad day, they’re having a bad day”.
I want to clarify here that anger is a valid feeling. It signals to us that an injustice has been done and spurs us to action. Yet most of the ‘injustices’ that our kids do daily are along the lines of ‘didn’t put their shoes back on the shoe rack and now they can’t find them’ level. The injustice isn’t aimed at us, but we often take these things personally. On top of that, we often don’t need a rush of anger to spur us on to action in these cases. We already know that things need to be cleaned up, children that are hitting each other need to be separated, and that shoes need to be found before we leave the house. Additionally, anger can even prevent us from taking effective action in these cases, as in the choose your own adventure example. It can lead us to enact harsh and ineffective punishments or use an angry and demanding tone of voice which often leads to resistance.
We do better when we remind ourselves not to take things personally. When we don’t give our children power to dictate our emotions. When we choose our own adventure rather than letting our 3 year olds choose for us.
I'd love to hear your thoughts! When have you managed to stay calm lately? What chaos was your child getting into at the time?
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