Janet,
I fully appreciate your work. I think it is necessary work and I know it’s helped so many parents.
My struggle is “preventing” behavior. I’m not speaking of basic needs, but seeing that one chile is reaching for or about to do something they shouldn’t. With three kids, I’m overwhelmed with housework, it feels, and am rarely within arm’s reach of all my children. Or maybe I am but I’m nursing a baby. Or maybe I’m changing a diaper and seeing my 5 year old reaching to shove my 2 year old, or my 2 year old reaching for something he isn’t supposed to have.
It seems as though many of your posts assume the parent is standing next to the child most of the day, ready to gently stop impulsive behavior and hold a limit. Maybe some parents are. I am not and wonder if gentle discipline is impossible for me since I can’t spend my day following my children as they move from one thing to another, being kids.
I have been doing my best to follow gentle parenting practices for over 5 years, and it has actually been more difficult in many ways, not easier. My 5 year old balks when I ask for cooperation much of the time. He picks on his brother, and I repeat the same limits over and over, because again, I am not physically able to always stand next to him or follow him as he plays and stop him before he impulsively pushes past a limit. Is the only way to enforce limits gently by physically intervening? What happens when you can’t?

One thing: instead of saying ‘when the puzzle is finished’, go for something like ‘hey honeybunch 5 minutes, then it’s time to ________’. It doesn’t matter at all that the child can’t read a clock yet. They will learn what five minutes feels like. It’s important to know in advance how you’re going to respond in case of no cooperation, e.g. going to nursery in socks, possibly carrying on loudly. Ear plugs can come in handy sometimes in confined spaces, and can make things satisfyingly baffling to the child if they don’t know you’ve put them in “why my horrible noise weapon not working??”). If you can manage to stay calm, not be drawn into pointless discussions, beyond a kindly “yes i can see you don’t want to go to nursery” (“mmm” can be a handy non-response), and not give in to the ‘horrible noise’ factor 🙂 the battles will fade, and your genuine team spirit, friendship and love can continue to blossom. Unless your partner is not on the same page. In which case the battles will continue forever, so sorry.

Boy can i relate to the struggling to explain in words! I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. The whole chess game becomes second nature eventually, thank goodness 🙂

The not getting ready and running from me even if it was somewhere he wanted to go, and battling bed time routines started very early, 3yo ish. Hes now 9 and has only changed in fhe last year. Obviously i didnt get a handle on this. What i can say tho in hindsight is my child is super super sensitive and struggles emotionally with ttansitions and never never wants to go home once hes out, to this day fibbing about needing the loo so we have to stop somewhere, anywhere. Endings. Yes it turns out he has anxiety and possibly is ADD. Hes not hyper but can be crazy silly when not sure how to act. He gets socially overwhelmed very easily, but is very social. We discovered giving concequences and rewards made things worse, choice was paramount if possible, and no amount of pre warning was a good idea. My daughters different and melts down when not forewarned. Whereas he had time for the anxiety to build….reflections. hope this helps in some way

Hi Kym – can you tell me exactly how you respond to him in these moments? I think you may be misunderstanding some of my recommendations. The goal should not be to avoid meltdowns, but to actually encourage him to express these feelings so that he doesn’t act them out through his behavior.

I have a similar issue with my Nearly three year old. I spend all my time with him but as soon as baby wakes and needs to feed the jealousy kicks in and he starts putting water everywhere while I can’t get up (sneaky ;)) the only thing I can do when I can’t follow through physically due to small baby crying or needing to feed is by making consequences like I’m going to take your bottle away and put it in the bin if you don’t stop and you won’t have it back. Just taking it doesn’t work as he knows he will get back (“so you’ll take my bottle and then Give it back to me later?”) I found that being a bit harsher seems to work for him. I’ve been overly permissive I think in the past as I didn’t want to get angry. When I use the lighthearted tone, (I don’t want you to do that) and just clear it up myself he just goes off and finds something else to trash (he doesn’t act like this often, hes either like a much older child or has a crazy day where it’s one thing after the other) . The crazy days seem to be when I don’t feel well and want to lie down on the sofa and NOT play which doesn’t go down well with him. I then feel controlled into playing with him cause I don’t want so many messes to clean up or just put the tv on but I don’t feel I can have a boundary of I just want to lie down and rest. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong!

We had a very similar routine tomthe one you mentioned up until June of this year, and it work without issue. And then it stopped working. My daughter would pick out her clothes the night before but refuse to wear them the next day, she would rip through 4-5 outifits and ultimately decide she didn’t want to get dressed.

I’ve tried giving her a few choices, I’ve tried taking away her access to her own clothing, I’ve tried not getting involved and letting her manage dressing herself. It’s all a battle bc, in the end, she knows I want her to do something (get dressed) and I am met with reactive, instant pushback, regardless of how calm or polite I am.
If it wasn’t her idea, she’s makes it a fight.
As I mentioned above, the only thing that works for me is respectfully letting her have the independence she demands, not tell her to do anything, but rather tell her what I’m doing and what she needs to do to be ready. And then be totally prepared to follow through.

My daughter does this; she insistats on getting herself dressed, but doesn’t and runs around the house naked and laughing, and for me to dress her myself requires an extremely physical and rather violent wrestling match. I’ll tell you what works for me:
I tell her she has x time to get dressed and I set a timer. I tell her that when the timer goes off, we are leaving, whether or not she is dressed. I’m pretty straight with her and I tell her she’ll go to prek in her underwear…not as a threat but calmly and matter of factly. I typically set the timer for 15 before we have to leave but I get myself and everyone else absolutely ready to go before he timer goes off. If she isn’t ready to go when the timer buzzes but suddenly decides she is going to get dressed, then we wait at the open front door, coats in hand and she dresses like the house is on fire. She often cries, and I comfort her and tell her we’d never leave without her, but I don’t do much to help her unless she asks.
A few times the timer buzzes and she still refused to get dressed, so I gather up her brother and my bag (which has her clothes) and I calmly say “ok! Time to go, let’s head out!” And we leave. I am not angry, I am calm and I proceed a usual, fully expecting her to follow as she typically does. she freaks out but I stay calm. She alternates between thinking I’m leaving her and refusing to go out undressed, but I stay calm and tell her that we are not leaving her, but it’s time to go, dressed or not. I have forced her to walk to the car in her underwear once because her brother was asleep in my arms and I couldn’t put him down, but I dressed her immediately in the car.

I guess I call her bluff with calm respect; she can choose not to get dressed and I’ll accept that, but we are leaving and she is responsible for her choices, which might mean heading to the car in her pajamas or underwear, though I remain empathetic and loving.

I don’t threaten, it’s not punishment, I’m simply letting her deal with limited consequences of her choices.