I am doing some work this year on loving my children better.
Those that know me well know that this is going to be a challenge. I have been known to frequently say “I don’t like children”. And that has been true for a very long time. But it has been bought to my attention several times recently that it is perhaps unhelpful for me to keep speaking this truth over my life. After all – I would actually prefer to like my children, and perhaps all children (I know this is a dream right?!).
So, obviously, it is not helpful for my child to hear that I don’t like them (even though often they are not very likeable), and it is also a self-fulfilling prophecy I speak over myself when I say “I do not like children”. I will never like them if I keep saying that. Don’t get me wrong: I love my children very much and tell them that every day.
But I just don’t have a natural affinity to enjoying children. I enjoy teenagers. I always have. Sometimes the especially difficult ones too (hence my background in youth work with homeless and at risk teens in the 12-21 year old bracket). I have learned to love and enjoy the freedom, simplicity and spontaneity (and perhaps absurdity!) of pre-schoolers. Do not hear me wrong: I did not previously like toddlers either. I think I just got better at liking them and interacting with them after 10 years of practice.
So. I am going to practice getting better at ‘kids’. 5-12 year olds. And I hope in the process – learn to enjoy them. For me, enjoying people is deeply rooted in understanding them.
But I have never really understood children.
Reinforcing their inability to be understood was a formational comment I heard in the mid 2010’s by New Zealand child psychologist Nigel Latta - “Kids just aren’t right in the head”.
Of course he’s talking about brain development and how without a fully developed brain, we will perhaps never be able to understand why kids do what they do and kids themselves certainly can’t tell us. They don’t have a language for it and usually don’t know why they are doing anything!
This is the point where my self-improvement needs enter. I’ve been reading some Dr Dan Siegel, recommended to me by my colleague in family reunification counselling at Uniting Communities. Dan is a brilliant man making psychology and brain science accessible for the common parent.
(Despite being highly educated I still consider myself quite an average parent. Seriously – who even knows what they’re doing?! We’re all making it up!)
When I read the first of his metaphors for the role of parent in the book “The Whole Brain Child” – the penny dropped in so many areas of my life.
Dr Dan says we are helping our children navigate their canoe (themselves) down the river of wellbeing. In the middle of the river the flow is easy and moving forward. But the 2 banks of the river represent areas we often get stuck in – chaos or rigidity. When our child moves toward the bank of chaos, everything is…. well…. chaotic! There is no rhyme or reason, everything is going everywhere and when we ask what’s going on they don’t know. The answer to this is often to swing too far back toward the other bank of rigidity – rules, structure and control. But on the bank of rigidity the waters are stagnant. Nothing is moving anywhere and we are trapped by the reeds. Teenagers complain of not being trusted to do anything or go anywhere. Rules, control and rigidity leaves little room for creativity and negotiation and trying new things.
Our job as parents of children, he says, is to move our kids canoes back into the middle of the river of wellbeing – a place where the left and right hemispheres (or logical and emotional sides) of the brain are integrated.
(The rest of the excellent book tells you how to try to do that! A handy refrigerator sheet of overview is found here if you’re not an avid reader.)
How true this is of so much of my helping work - that my core work is helping steer canoes. We all cope like this river/canoe/riverbanks metaphor in many ways – personally or corporately. When we are rolling down the centre of the river of wellbeing we can cope with changes, obstacles up ahead and maybe even a few rapids. But if we get too close to the bank of chaos – things get swirly, messy, and hard to cope with. We will likely crash! Likewise, if we’re stuck insisting on the same old way of doing things, rules without any reason or purpose, obsessive tight fisted control of every little detail, we will find ourselves in stinky stagnant water going no where on the bank of rigidity.
Community workers like me – and aspiring parents! – are all about helping people identify when they have perhaps got their canoe stuck too close to one bank or the other.
It’s a beautiful ride down the river when we can manage to keep our canoes flowing in the middle of the river of wellbeing. Perhaps you can even identify habits in yourself, thoughts or actions, that lead you frequently too close to one bank or the other. The beauty of always learning something new, or understanding our children or other people better, is that it always always always helps us understand ourselves better too.
Enjoy the ride down the river.
Don’t forget to ask for help if you’re stuck in chaos or rigidity.
If you lead an organisation – don’t forget to look for signs that your organisation is sitting in the middle of the river too. A good question to ask is “What does our organisation look like when we are sitting in the centre of the river of wellbeing?”.
It is all too easy to swing one way or the other: a good leader sees when the tip of the canoe points at either bank and gently turns the bow before a collision or stagnation causes a long term hiatus from the free flowing waters of wellbeing.
I’m hoping that understanding my kids' brains better, and my role as a parent of children without fully formed brains, will help me enjoy my children more. Surely rivers and canoes and free flowing waters sounds more fun than times tables and ipads and sports practices and meltdowns.
And hopefully with a few more skills in my kitbag I will be able to enjoy seeing my kids living fully in the centre of their river of wellbeing. As my ability to be compassionate toward my child, husband or self improves, when we find ourselves on either unhelpful river bank, and as we all learn to help steer each other’s canoes back towards the centre of the river, our family will become a more enjoyable place too, I am sure.
One day (maybe a decade from now if experience is anything to go by!) I may even be able to say I like children. And that will be a great day!