Hands Full of Rocks

New signs of being older

Mr B last night calmly opted to take a loss of TV privileges rather than take a bath. Okay, not entirely calmly, but with distinct preference for that, and no screaming or crying - just grumbling.

Hum.

I let him, because in the end the intention is to have him bathed, and he's taking the bath this morning, before school. What I wanted was for him to just comply with my schedule, because baths in the morning are a pain in the rear. He opted not to, recognized that opting out was a problem for me but decided that opting out was still that important to him. So he took the hit.

Okay, then. Now what?

It used to be that the sign that I was parenting a child who was no longer there (that is, that they'd outgrown my techniques) was that I was getting all the way to yelling and still not getting a response in the direction I wanted. Now, it is that I'm getting to negotiated consequences that don't entirely make sense.

Really, if he was a grownup and preferred a morning shower to an evening one, it would be a minor annoyance at worst. I would certainly be able to find a way to accommodate. He has done the morning bath once before, on time and properly with only a little 'please stay upstairs while I bathe' annoyance. I'm skeptical that one success means always success, but I don't have reason to think it will be terrible... so two days of no TV for an inconvenience? Bzzt. Methinks that's the wrong answer.

But it is a nice signpost. Pointing right at 'hello, he's older than your parenting.' Now I get to learn how to parent this new age for him. It won't be the same as parenting his brother at this age - so very different in needs, style, personality, direction... but there are some places I understand, number one being the need to sit down and get to the heart of a matter together and listening to what he wants first, rather than just choosing for him and trying to convince him I know better. Not that this isn't true for younger ages, too, but it becomes THE method, instead of being situational.

Granted, some days he isn't older than the 'mommy knows best' parenting (yes, you WILL get in trouble going to school looking like that). He's in that range of disregulation where he's swinging wildly back and forth between years younger than he 'is' and much older. Needy and emotionally hungry and fragile one moment, mature and self-contained another. One minute he's figuring out a solution with his brother, the next he's making faces at him and poking him with a toy.

Nine is coming up soon. NINE, how did he get to be 'going on nine'? But nine is a good year, so far as I know. I only have the one experience with nine, but I liked it rather a lot. I've never been much of one for nostalgia about my kids when they were younger, fortunately. I think I'm just surprised that they aren't always the same age, whatever age that is now.

Or rather, whatever age it is that I already know how to parent.

Research that rocks: Two different kinds of parents = good

This research is biased toward 'male/female' traditional parenting, but supports other research I've read showing that having two parents who function somewhat differently is ideal for development. (Or at least 'two types of parenting' - single parents play both roles, and often have other caregivers doing both as well.)

Other research has found that the most emotional resilience comes from having parents that are:

a) both warm

b) have different degrees of 'in there' responses to stressful or challenging experiences

Having two parents who leap to help/comfort/encourage/rescue/etc. ends up creating emotionally fragile children - the 'attachment' orientation at that level should be tilted more strongly toward one parent. Kids need both to know they have someone who will back them up promptly, and someone who trusts them to figure it out and carry on. The 'oh-you-poor-thing/let-me-help!' and the 'shake-it-off/you-can-do-it' are both part of what we need.

Just like modern attachment research is showing that the strongest attachment function doesn't have to be the mom - or even female - (can be a sibling, dad, grandparent, other caregiver), I suspect that this 'dad/male=gives space to explore' thing will eventually be shown to not be dad/male dependent. Certainly ep and I trade back and forth on who is in there and who is 'buck-up' on any situation, and for the different kids.

For example, Miss R is a daddy's girl. She usually doesn't even want me to be the in-there parent, comforting and fixing boo-boos. She wants daddy to do that. Which daddy does. So, for her, I'm more the 'rah-rah/good job/try again/you can do it!' parent. But if daddy is not around, then I take both roles.

I wonder also how the Montessori process feeds into this, as it encourages warm and affectionate interactions, but leaves plenty of space for the kids to explore on their own in a way that feeds into both accepting challenges, and understanding the process of overstepping one's skills and reassessing/trying again (American Montessori allows kids to take out work out of sequence, so they discover the concept of assessing where their skill boundaries are, and pushing those appropriately rather than jumping too far ahead - the sequences are built very carefully to support that process). 

I like the balance in the theories. We don't just need one thing. We evolved with different kinds of relationships with different kinds of people caring for us.

Interestingly, in different cultures, the same concepts apply differently - both parents start out much more 'in there' in many Asian cultures, but with age they both step back a little more and then a little more - but also expect to function differently in adulthood, as well, so the pattern 'fits' with the larger relationship pattern over time as well. Where the resilience may be technically lower on the individual scale (by having had two very 'in there' parents), the long-term impact is not necessarily negative, because there is the expectation that of course you don't have to handle life's challenges on your own, that's what family is for! So while this research is valid for American culture, it is likely to not be applicable 'directly' across cultures. Extrapolation, yes, direct application, no.