“Consent-based parenting or peaceful parenting, which is characterized by reciprocity and collaboration.”
Because I wanted to ask - what about when a parent is doing their best to bring reciprocity and collaboration, and for whatever reason, a child cannot often engage in that way? When they are developmentally mostly existing in a unilateral phase, of this is the way things have to be?
We’ve talked about it a bit and I imagine you’ll say it’s an ongoing and unfolding process. Ross Greene’s Plan C is helpful for thinking about these kids.
And you do allude to the messiness and often not-peaceful feeling nature of collaborative parenting! Low demand can be high demand for us as parents.
this makes me think about periods of time where i’ve had a young person be “inactive” in our partnership -i’m recalling a time when words just weren’t coming to them, no matter how i asked questions or positioned my willingness to hear what they wanted or needed. this is where the nuances of relationship and connection come in to tell us things words cannot. and, sometimes they don’t have anything to say because they literally don’t know themselves. this could turn into a potential high stress/tension situation, but it can also be an opportunity to not know together and lean into not knowing… waiting… feeling… observing.
Hi Marni, thank you! And yes, low demand can be high demand for us.. and I feel all sorts of ways about it. On the one hand, we've certainly had periods where the priority wasn't mutuality because my child simply couldn't do it - they were overwhelmed, their nervous system just wasn't able to even be calm enough to begin to have a conversation about working together, or about mutual needs. But I don't give up on trying, because I've found that as my child gets older and more able to regulate, they recognise that working together matters, that they are a part of a community, etc. Ontop of that, the mutuality piece just has to be there with siblings because I'm not okay with one sibling regularly having to put their needs to the side. But yes. We definitely have days when one of my kids just won't collaborate, and I have to let it go, or I need to find a way that makes it easier for them to meet the others - we've found that making things playful helps collaboration way more than me lecturing people about how we need to work together! And sometimes nothing works and it's just me doing the thing, and we're the adults after all and we need to be okay with that at times. It is messy. It's not even incrementally better with time because there are always ups and downs. I'd love to hear how you deal with this sort of thing - the dance between taking on the high demands when needed, and also expecting a degree of reciprocity at times.
Not okay to pay kids to read. Yes, okay to ban kids’s phones bell to bell, if they are in school, that is
Such good work Fran.
I highlighted this:
“Consent-based parenting or peaceful parenting, which is characterized by reciprocity and collaboration.”
Because I wanted to ask - what about when a parent is doing their best to bring reciprocity and collaboration, and for whatever reason, a child cannot often engage in that way? When they are developmentally mostly existing in a unilateral phase, of this is the way things have to be?
We’ve talked about it a bit and I imagine you’ll say it’s an ongoing and unfolding process. Ross Greene’s Plan C is helpful for thinking about these kids.
And you do allude to the messiness and often not-peaceful feeling nature of collaborative parenting! Low demand can be high demand for us as parents.
this makes me think about periods of time where i’ve had a young person be “inactive” in our partnership -i’m recalling a time when words just weren’t coming to them, no matter how i asked questions or positioned my willingness to hear what they wanted or needed. this is where the nuances of relationship and connection come in to tell us things words cannot. and, sometimes they don’t have anything to say because they literally don’t know themselves. this could turn into a potential high stress/tension situation, but it can also be an opportunity to not know together and lean into not knowing… waiting… feeling… observing.
Hi Marni, thank you! And yes, low demand can be high demand for us.. and I feel all sorts of ways about it. On the one hand, we've certainly had periods where the priority wasn't mutuality because my child simply couldn't do it - they were overwhelmed, their nervous system just wasn't able to even be calm enough to begin to have a conversation about working together, or about mutual needs. But I don't give up on trying, because I've found that as my child gets older and more able to regulate, they recognise that working together matters, that they are a part of a community, etc. Ontop of that, the mutuality piece just has to be there with siblings because I'm not okay with one sibling regularly having to put their needs to the side. But yes. We definitely have days when one of my kids just won't collaborate, and I have to let it go, or I need to find a way that makes it easier for them to meet the others - we've found that making things playful helps collaboration way more than me lecturing people about how we need to work together! And sometimes nothing works and it's just me doing the thing, and we're the adults after all and we need to be okay with that at times. It is messy. It's not even incrementally better with time because there are always ups and downs. I'd love to hear how you deal with this sort of thing - the dance between taking on the high demands when needed, and also expecting a degree of reciprocity at times.