Brain-based parenting

Have you found yourself using Santa as a threat lately? “Your are going on the naughty list”, “What is Santa going to think about your behaviour…”

It’s hard not to fall into this trap, as Santa is an omniscient being who takes the responsibility off of us for managing behaviour. But the truth is, an all-knowing, all-seeing Santa, whose presence is only felt once a year, is a terrible way to teach children how to manage their emotions (usually the underlying cause of “bad” behaviour). Imagine if your boss could monitor you all the time- would you be on the naughty list? For one, you don’t really know what gets you on there- will they put you on the bad list for that extra long break you took while scrolling social media? And what gets you on the nice list? Is it just not being “bad”, or are there things you are supposed to do. The rules don’t seem very clear, and that doesn’t seem very fair.

Who really teaches you to be naughty or nice?

For the other 11 months of the year, it’s our behaviour that acts as the measure of whether our children are naughty or nice. Like it or not, our behaviour is one of the main sources of reference for their behaviour. So unless you are “good” or “nice” all the time, you can’t expect your kids to be either (and what does that even look like?).

Because children do not yet have the vocabulary to articulate their feelings or the emotional maturity to understand their feelings (even adults lack this!), their behaviour is their primary form of communication. They did this as babies, and it continues well into adulthood. Your job is to try to understand their behaviour and give them better tools to communicate.

In the animated movie “That Christmas” that just came out on Netflix (and is already being played on repeat in our house), we see not only the cost to a child’s self-esteem of being labelled as the bad child, but also the good that we miss out on in our children by just focussing on the negative and not delving into what their behaviour is trying to communicate.

What does this mean for my parenting?

🗣️ Behind behaviour, is emotion. When you comfort eat (a behaviour), reach for the wine or beer after a stressful day, or have an argument with your partner - underlying those behaviours are emotions. Often negative emotions, but they don’t make you a bad person. In fact, making yourself feel bad for those behaviours, only makes you seek those behaviours more.

💞 Compassion is key. The research shows us that a lack of self compassion prevents people from ditching bad behaviours (it’s a big predictor of relapse in addicts, the lack of self-compassion leads to shame, which leads to seeking bad behaviours again). Where do we learn self-compassion? From compassion demonstrated to us by our parents. If we are constantly shamed, we internalise that shame.

😭 Thats why negative reinforcement doesn’t work. We have talked before about how children seek attention, even if it is negative. The outcome of negative reinforcement (shouting and punishment) is simply to 1) reinforce a negative behaviour that gets them attention from you or 2) scare them into compliance and teach them nothing about managing their emotions (behind behaviours are emotions). It is completely ineffective for you and for them.

As part of next years community launch we will run an expert-led positive parenting session to introduce you to all the skills you need to parent without shame.

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