Oh my god I have just seen my comment so sorry for the essay

I am the person who wrote to Janet above…..

I am literally crying as I write this, Janet….. I can’t believe you took the time to write to me like this. To be honest I didnt even think you would have time to read my email let alone respond, and had just fired if off in a moment of desperation.

I felt so much better after writing it that I didn’t even check your blog to see whether you had mentioned it, until now! I am so honoured and just amazed that you have done this, Janet….. thank you so so much.

I am also very guilty of only checking your blog when I am in a crisis. I know that really I need it everyday.

Like many of us, I didn’t have particularly great examples of parenting in my upbringing and I need the input of someone like you regularly just to keep me on the straight and narrow because those instincts just are not there, or if they are I certainly have not discovered them yet. My inner parenting monologue is my mother’s voice of exasperation, exhaustion, confusion and victimhood and it’s incredibly difficult to drown that out. Although I love my mum I don’t really want to feel like her. I want to feel like Janet or Magda! But I know that Janet wasn’t born this way, she learned it and maybe I can too, but I think at a rather slower pace as I have been here for 8 years now and still can’t seem to master the basics…..

One of your commenters above was wondering about my children’s ages. The youngest two (the culprits) are 5 and nearly 3.

The older two wouldn’t dream of swearing at me or speaking disrespectfully. And I do sometimes tell myself to get over it and and not freak out so much because my older son was also a handful at age 5, no swearing but very shouty and aggressive towards his younger brother. He is now literally an angel dream child from Valhalla and I thank my lucky stars every day that he is my son. But at 5….. my god, he had me in tears very often and I was glued to Janet for any grain of inspiration I could get to deal with him. Someone once told me that age 5 is tough for boys as they experience an overwhelming flood of testosterone. May explain a lot.

Rachael’s experiences sound similar to mine. Admittedly a little worse perhaps as normally the swearing in our household occurs between siblings and not directly at me although lots of the other verbal “sass” as Sabrina mentions, is aimed at me. Sometimes if I set a boundary I do get called a “f ing idiot” but it’s rare, the actual swearing is usually reserved for his brother.

It’s so tough, I think Janet has hit the nail on the head when really what she is suggesting is we don’t let ourselves be directed by this behaviour but similarly we don’t allow ourselves to be triggered.

If we don’t get triggered we can act from a place of understanding and love instead of a place of fear.

I think the problem is that we don’t want to create a microcosm of tolerance inside the family, for something that in wider society is deemed intolerable.

Swearing and cussing at people because we don’t get our own way is not acceptable in wider society. Nobody is going to listen to us with empathy or acknowledgement. Chances are they will just leave, if they have healthy boundaries.

Even worse, the fear is that if I model this acceptance and tolerance for their expressions of disgust now, will they seek out a partner to abuse. Will they become adults who seek out an emotional punch bag as my ex did with me? He needed an emotional punch bag because that’s what he was brought up with, that was what he was given by his mother in his childhood and he couldn’t live without that.

So all this is spinning through my mind when my children are being verbally abusive. I am sure others in the same boat perhaps have similar fears. And I know we need to not be triggered by all this yet at the same time remain aware.

So this is so much easier said than done. For a start most of us are exhausted af. All of the time. And many of us have had our boundaries seriously eroded by partners, parents or maybe even childhood trauma.

It’s so hard to be continually conscious of your baggage and how that can affect your parenting. I was lucky enough to see a counsellor after leaving the abusive dh. It helped immensely. But it doesn’t make it all go away. I still, instinctively have zero personal boundaries. It’s so unbelievably instinctive to say yes to literally everything….. I hardly ever question whether it’s right or even sensible. I hear a request and I just drop everything and do it like a robot. I am doing my best to find some boundaries and of course my kids aren’t dealing with this very well as they have never experienced it before. They also act very shocked when they see another adult expressing boundaries!

I had a hellish day with the five year old today which was why I came back to Janet. Totally not expecting to see my own words on her blog which I have been pouring over for years!!!

Floods of tears……

Thanks so much Janet, you don’t know what it means to me to go to sleep with your wise words ringing in my ears.

I also think sometimes we just have to keep on banging our heads on the wall and maybe accept that life is too complicated for there to be clear solutions to every problem. And let’s not look at our child as a bundle of problems to be fixed.

I know that my five year old is really in quite a bit of trouble emotionally and rushing through our days we tend to be able to gloss over it. But it’s the holidays here at the moment and it all tends to come into focus.

I have realised that I am going to have to seriously edit my life in order to be able to be peaceful, unbusy and centred enough to give him enough of my time to allow him to process everything that has happened.

We just haven’t done that. Setting up home again, doing all the “things” that need to be done and keeping the show on the road I think has allowed us all to stuff our feelings away. I, for one, love to stuff my feelings and sweep dirt under rugs. I love to keep busy in order to avoid dwelling on unpleasant thoughts or on the past. And I think this has rubbed off on my kids. But it’s all come to a head, today was not an easy one and some of us have gone to bed upset. It’s time we slowed down and spent more time actually communicating than merely coexisting.

Easier said than done of course. You should see my laundry pile.

Sorry to rant on, but I am trying to shed light on an issue that clearly doesn’t just affect our family but is a problem that others on this forum are also experiencing.

Thank you Janet.

This post is exactly what I was looking for. I was babysitting the girl I nannied from age three months through over two years and with whom I have continued to have a really sweet, close relationship. Of course my role is quite different from someone who sees to her upbringing daily. (I discovered RIE within a few months of my time with her, so your blog has provided clarity in my interactions with her since respect and treating children as human is my goal.)

Anyway, while babysitting the other night I noticed she began to react to me not knowing something (about her favorite tv show, the exact order of her bedtime routine etc) with might be called a disrespectful tone. Her mother calls it her getting “sassy.” I let it go without comment other than admitting I did not know these things the first few times. Then, when it kept coming more and more, in a very calm but serious voice I said, “Please stop speaking to me like I am stupid.” (I wasn’t sure if she knew the word condescending and wanted to be understood.) “I would like you to please find another way to talk to me.” I know her talking in this manner probably comes from an emotional place, such as the frustration that our playtime was over – perhaps I should have acknowledged that. But, for all I know not to take this kind of thing personally, her tone obviously triggered something in me for me to word it this way. I don’t feel my self esteem shattered in the least, but wanted her to know I would not accept this treatment, which I feel is hurtful in the same way we would block arms from hitting or legs from kicking (“i won’t let you hit/kick me”) even if we are not seriously threatened by a young child’s physical lashing out.

She did indeed stop and really think about what I said. It’s likely she had never heard her words framed like that. She is a very kind girl.

I’ve been tossing this interaction around in my head ever since, wondering if I asked her for something that was developmentally emotionally appropriate – she is certainly has a good deal more control than a toddler, but also easy to see as more mature than her age due to her precocious verbal and intellectual abilities. I would love some feedback on how much of what I said was my own baggage unfairly dumped on her, and how much was I guided by my feelings to set an appropriate boundary. Was it any better than a sharp “Watch your tone, young lady!” Or a self-righteous demand for respect and quiet obedience? How much “sass” should go without comment for the sake letting feelings be expressed, and at what age might it change? Is it different for someone who is not in a parent/daily nanny role? This would definitely help me with other kiddos I help care for…

I would also be very grateful for more specific responses to being given orders by kids of various ages. It’s one thing to, at an unrushed regular pace, provide care-related actions no matter the tone of the request. Also, unreasonable demands I know to acknowledge that they want this, maybe reallllly want it, then tell them that’s not what’s happening (dealing with whatever emotional fallout of the boundary with emotional validation.) But what about a totally optional random request for making her a bed on the floor (when she can move blankets if she wants to) given in the form of a command, or ordering me to fetch something across the room that rolled away from him, a perfectly mobile two year old, that my desire to help evaporated with the command? It seems petty to say “no” when I had been prepared to help or play that way. What words would you use for something like that?

Regardless of you replying to me personally, thank you for taking on the topic of this post and so many others.

I also don’t know how I would/will deal with this from older children. I am starting to feel lack of patience already and he is only about to be two. It’s a real struggle to NOT go down the familiar path parenting.

Thanks so much for replying Janet. Hope I can give you the info you need so you can please provide some suggestions as I’m desperately wanting to restore our home to one we all enjoy being in.

We generally have a very good dynamic, she is a strong willed, energetic, intelligent girl who does push boundaries but also has a very caring nature. I grew up with authoritarian parents who smacked so I knew I didn’t want to parent like this, so have always tried to bring my daughter up with RIE principles since I first learned about them when my daughter was around 6 mths old. I have tried to give her as much freedom as possible & make her own choices to build her independence & she certainly is a very independent child who freely speaks her mind to us. If anything I’m probably guilty of not providing enough boundaries in response to trying to never be the authoritarian parent.

The swearing has been slowly building over 8 mths or so; first just the odd word, to just when she was really angry, to now every single day we get a string of swear words multiple times a day often shouted at us whenever she doesn’t like a request to do something, or a small comment we make or just general conversation. It seems to have become the way she now addresses us, it almost feels like a challenge from her “What are you going to do about it? You don’t do anything & I can do & say whatever I like!” & she now does it frequently in front of her friends that she has over for play-dates. Often a while later she will be a calm, loving girl again, then at the drop of a hat she’ll swear & yell at us again. Which is why I feel I should have nipped this in the bud earlier as she may be looking to us to provide the guidelines (which we don’t seem to have done, other than modeling the way we want her to speak but we’re far from perfect!) . Also after reading your multiple articles & listening to some of the podcasts I’ve been under the understanding that she should be allowed to freely express herself & swearing is not a big deal although I also am confused & question does this fall under our ‘personal feelings matter too’ & so we should take steps to stop this behavior as it is something both me & her Dad find very hard to live with.

Her Dad has always just let me lead with the parenting style & although not really on-board with using RIE, has followed along although seems to be blaming it as not having worked & is getting more frustrated with the behavior now it is at this level & has started shouting at her as well in attempts to get her to ‘behave better’. I don’t want their relationship to break down so really need to find some way through.

Thanks, Rachael. This is tough for me to unravel without knowing more about your dynamic and how/when she started using this language, etc.