Choices, choices, choices!

As it turns out I don't have as much time for a blog as I thought I did, but I'm still going to attempt to stick with it.  Right now Garrett's napping and Matt's watching Notre Dame v. Stanford so its a good idea to just retreat from that scene and do a little blogging!

Anyway, this post will focus on the Chapter 1 experiment, which was to give lots of choices (deposits) and then once in a while make a withdrawal (give no choice, explaining that "I've given you lots of choices, now its my turn to decide....")  I tried to focus on giving lots of choices, but there were days when it didn't seem possible or I'd forget.  But from time to time I made some mental notes of how this were going.  Here's what I found.

My first reactions:

• Coming up with appropriate choices for a 16 month old is HARD!
• Giving kids choices requires a lot of flexibility and time.
• Giving choices requires some preparations sometimes.
• What if he doesn't understand what I'm asking or doesn't respond?
• Seems like giving choices at this age are more for me to get in the habit of doing it.  
• Sometimes the choices I give don't really seem like they should be choices at all, like when I ask him if he wants blueberries or strawberries.  It would be fine with me if he wanted both.

My thoughts about my first reactions (in the same order as above):

• Appropriate choices for a 16 month old or for Garrett in particular require some creativity because his preferences are still developing and I don't want to hinder his exploration of the world.  I ended up modifying some of the choices I originally thought would be good.  For example, instead of asking him which snack he wanted, I asked him if he wanted his snack in the bowl or on the tray, with a spoon or fork or fingers, or which snack he was going to eat first (without taking any snack away).  Because he doesn't seem to have much preference about clothing (he'd rather be naked anyway) I'd ask him if he wanted to choose or if he wanted me to choose.  Sometimes he'd go to his room (I took this as a sign he wanted to choose) and sometimes he'd run away (I took this as a sign that he'd rather be naked and I'd better choose his clothes and prepare for battle!)  One choice that I had quite a lot of success with was: Would you like to walk or for me to carry you?  I asked this when I wanted him to come upstairs with me because he frequently gets distracted by the things under the open spiral staircase that is fenced usually.  When I open the gate he usually wants to go under the stairs and explore and play with the off limit things so I'd ask him just before I opened the gate and he'd usually respond with a rhythmic bouncing and "wa wa wa" which means "walk, walk, walk" and he'd climb the stairs with me right behind him.  If he got distracted I'd remind him that he choose to walk up the stairs and if he couldn't do that I'd have to carry him.  Another choice that worked well some of the time was: "Where do you want me to change your diaper?  On the floor or on the bed/couch?  (The bed and the couch are fun to climb onto so that was usually his choice, he'd signal this by running over to them but once on them he wasn't always cooperative with the diaper change, so I'd remind him, "you chose the couch/bed" so I need you not to wiggle or we'll go on the floor.)  Also, even though my first reaction to most of my choices was that he didn't really understand, I think he does understand more than I thought, but we're still working on this.
• It requires a lot of flexibility and time when giving choices.  If you're in a rush its easy to just grab your kid and go.  I'd find that on mornings when I wasn't on the ball it was hard to remember to give choices or think of good ones on the fly.  But in reality it doesn't really require much more time to give choices.  The "rules" clearly state if they don't respond in 10 seconds then you make the choice for them.  Still it felt harder when you're running behind schedule because if he chooses to pick his own clothes or walk the stairs himself then that'll always take a little more time. 
• When it came to giving Garrett choices between food items I had some more trouble.  Sometimes I didn't have more than 1 choice.  That's when I came up the questions like "do you want to eat it in a bowl or on your tray?"  "...with a spoon or your fingers?"  I don't really like giving choices between two foods because if there are 2 food choices I've usually gone to the trouble to prepare those 2 foods and I'd really prefer that he eat both anyway.  I think that an older child could answer this question before the food was prepared and understand that the result of his choice was coming in a little bit after the food was prepared.  Initially I also thought that I'd have to prepare 2 activities for Garrett, but realized the choice between activities could be as simple as, "Are you going to throw the ball now or play with your stove?" or "Do you want to draw with the red crayon or blue crayon first?"  (That way he could always choose the other one after he was done with the first, but usually he just ended up trying to eat the crayons and I had to take them away.)
• What if he doesn't understand?  Use this as time to practice making choices.  If Garrett didn't seem to understand or ignored my questioning, sometimes I'd ask him again with some hand signals and then I'd just say, "Okay, I'll make the choice for you, I choose..."  I tried to remember to give 10 seconds, sometimes I gave less (if I was feeling impatient, and sometimes I gave WAY more if I was trying to get him to understand.)
• Initially I thought that giving choices at 16 months was more for me to practice giving choices than for Garrett to practice making them, but I realized he understands a lot more than I gave him credit for and even when he may not have really understood he still sometimes made a "choice".  So I suppose he's learning that he has some power in his life!  He frequently responded more positively to me making the choice for him after I gave him the choice rather than just doing sometime for him like picking his clothes and dressing him.
• I frequently felt like some choices limited Garrett's ability to explore his world more fully.  So I tried (and am still trying) to come up with more ideas for choices that didn't do this, sometimes it just required rewording a question.  Once at a parenting class I was at we were talking about positive parenting and choices came up.  The leader, who has a background in early childhood education and Montessori training, mentioned that sometimes choices can be overwhelming for a child.  Her example was a child trying to decide whether to stay home with one parent or go to the store with another, seemingly an easy choice, but trying to remember what happened last time he went to the store or stayed home is difficult and could even be stressful since the child might perceive the decision as being one that determines his happiness (at home with mom, store with dad).  So she suggests instead giving choices that not only don't hurt anyone else in the world (like Love and Logic rules) but also don't limit the child too much.  So if you give the child 2 candies ask, "Are you going to eat the red one or the blue one first?"  You're not going to take either one away, they still get to eat both of them but they also get to make a choice.  

Final thoughs:
Choices must be given with the child in mind and with the adults preferences in mind.  Since Garrett doesn't seem to care much about what clothes he wears, I realized that maybe this doesn't have to be one of our choices or maybe he'll get more interested later.  Our choices will develop and we'll start to understand his preferences better and we'll be better able to form our questions so that we get the best behavior results.  I learned that when he was tired or upset and was requesting to nurse it was a bad time to ask him if he wanted milk (cows milk in a sippy cup) or water, because he didn't want either!
I learned in this experiment that even though some choices may seem silly they give the child an awareness that he/she has the power to make choices and that those choices have consequences.  Right now those consequences are purposefully small, but later they could be big deal choices that do determine happiness, success, or health in life.  So practice now!
Other things I tried this week (I know its been more than a week, but humor me here) were "bedroom time" when he was throwing a tantrum.  At first it took him a while to calm down, but very quickly he learned to calm down quickly and he usually knew that when he came out of his room he should show me how his behavior had changed.  Like he'd hug and kiss me or stroke my cheek if he'd hit be before.  Sometimes he went right back to doing what he had been doing and I'd put him right back in his room.  Usually that meant we just needed a change of scenery and I'd wait for him to calm down, remove the offending temptation, and try to get us out of the house for a while or put him down for a nap.  I was happy that bedroom time usually didn't last long.  I know the rule of 1 minute for each year of age for a "time out" and agree that the association to the offensive action is lost after too long in time out.  Mostly its not a time to "think about what you've done" just a time to cool off.  I also tried using empathetic words when delivering a consequence, but that was hard.  It all sounds sarcastic an insincere to me.  I'll have to work on that.  There is still a lot to work on!

Please post comments about ideas for choices if you have them!

Chapter 1: Basic Ingredients of Love and Logic Magic

"With Love and Logic, your children will learn how to live with the consequences of their actions, avoid blaming others for their problems, and make wise decisions."  (Fay & Fay, Pg. 3)  Sounds good to me!
The first chapter explains the four principles of Love and Logic but before that it gives several examples of children and their parents using Love and Logic.  One example is of a 2 year old boy who knows that the stairs are off limits but goes to them anyway while guests are over for dinner, Mom tells him she'll take him upstairs after dinner and when he goes to the stairs anyway she "sings" the phrase, "Uh-oh" and lovingly brings him to sit under her chair while she finishes her dinner, when he complains she tells him he can come up when he's acting sweet.  He calms down, she invites him back up and he goes immediately to the stairs.  She sings "Uh-oh" again and he stops in his tracks and sits on the first stair smiling sweetly.
Okay, this sounds a little too good to be true and also a little weird, but the authors go on to say that this is a true story.  Still I wonder why they don't just have a gate on the stairs and why they put the boy under her chair and not just in his room.  The chapter goes on and continues to sound quite cheesy actually but I'm just getting started so I'm going to stick with it and give it the benefit of the doubt.
Here are the four principles of Love and Logic:

1. Build the Self-Concept - The way I see this is that the more you give kids opportunities to think for themselves, solve their own problems, the more they will see themselves as capable problem solvers and they will build a healthy self concept.  As parents we can do this by offering empathy when our child encounters a problem or makes a mistake, by asking them questions to help them identify the problem and find a solution.  We must try not to treat our children in ways that make them feel that they are less than capable.  This is what Love and Logic call "The Gift of Personal Success"  "A goal of Love and Logic is to make the home as similar as possible to the real world.  Our children must know how to handle situations that appear without warning - that require them to think for themselves.  When we give our children this gift, they begin to believe: 'I've got what it takes!'" (Pg. 8)  This all makes sense, but my first reaction is that it seems like Garrett is too young to solve many of his own problems.  Then I remembered some interactions Garrett had with some other kiddos at a birthday party the other day.  The all wanted the same deflated squishy balloon.  We blew up some more balloons in the same deflated squishy manner and offered them to the other kids.  Throughout the party as they continued to try and take the squishy balloons from each other, we were able to suggest that they play with a different squishy balloon.  The same scenario has played out in many a play group with Garrett you frequently tries to take toys from other kids and I have to redirect him to other toys.  I suppose this is a form of helping him solve the problem of wanting something he can't have immediately.  I also try to give choices in these circumstances.  I'll say something like, "So and so is playing with that right now, you can play with this or that?  Which do you want?"
2. Share the Control - "Control is a basic human emotional need.  Its something we crave so strongly that sometimes people will even hurt others - or themselves - to regain it. (Pg. 10)  Many parents tend to take on more control than they need to, children need to assume some control over their lives as well.  This principle is about giving control away to your children when you don't really need it.  For example, giving your children choices that don't cause a problem for anyone else in the world.  This is the experiment for the week so I made a list of choices I can give to Garrett, but I'm not sure he'll get them all.  We'll see, here's my list.  Any more suggestions?
• Do you want grapes or strawberries for snack?
• Do you want this book or that book before bed?
3. Offer Empathy, then Consequences - This is a biggie!  And it seems like its going to be really hard because sometimes I do not feel empathic, I feel rage and frustration that Garrett is throwing his food or hitting me or biting me or generally being a pill all day long and wearing me out.  But anyway, that is beside the point right now, and this is the reason I'm reading this book, I need a more positive way to deliver consequences and deal with Garrett's difficult behaviors without getting so frustrated.  This is exactly what this principle is about.  When your child makes a mistake, show genuine empathy for their situation and then follow up with a logical consequence. Children can learn from their mistakes better this way.  When parents give consequences angrily learning is "short-circuited" because of the "fight of flight" response.  From other books I've read, I understand that very young children don't understand adult anger or frustration.  "Every time we use empathy, our kids' reasoning brains turn on.  Every time we deliver threats or anger, their reasoning brains turn off.  Empathy opens the mind to learning."  (Pg. 18)  I love this quote!  By the way, this principle is where the idea of creating a empathic phrase such as, "Uh-oh, this is so sad for you..." or "What a bummer..."  There is a chapter and an experiment coming up that deals with coming up with a sincerely empathic phrase you can use, so I'll be thinking of what I can use best with Garrett.  I know I try to do this now, but I know sometimes I sound pretty sarcastic.  I need to work on that!
4. Share the Thinking - Again, I immediately thought this must be something for later on down the road, but on closer inspection and with some thought, I think Garrett can think and I think I can encourage him to do so.  In fact just this morning he came close to me and put his hand in the air and brought it down to smack me, he missed and I said, "hands are not for hitting Garrett."  He slowly lifted his hand again and looked at me very carefully.  He chose to hit me in the end, but he did think about what he was doing, or at least what my reaction was going to be.  By the way, my reaction was to say, "Uh oh, looks like you need some bedroom time" (which he's had a lot of recently and he's getting really good at calming down quickly in his bedroom, which doesn't always mean he's calm when he comes out of his bedroom.  Obviously I have more questions that hopefully the book will address.  But I digress.)  "Shared thinking means using lots of love and empathy and guiding a child toward solutions rather than either rescuing or automatically doling out punishment.  Shared thinking starts when we ask questions."  (Pg. 22)  So maybe I should have asked Garrett, "What can you do when you're frustrated instead of hit Mom?"  Not sure he'd be able to answer that just yet, but I'll try.  

So there you go, the four principles of Love and Logic.  Now on to the experiment, which is about sharing the control by giving choices.  My job is to make a list of choices to give Garrett this week.  There are some guidelines for these choices:  

• You should give most choices while your child is calm and things are going smoothly.  
• Only give choices that aren't dangerous and don't hurt anyone else in the world.  
• Always offer two choices, each a choice that makes you (the parent) happy.  
• If your child can't decide in ten seconds choose for them.  

I started a list back while I was writing about principle #2, here is a complete list of the choices I came up with for Garrett (I'd love some more suggestions though!):

• Do you want blueberries or strawberries for snack?  (Really there are a lot of food choices that would work.)
• Do you want this book or that book for your bedtime story?
• Do you want your boat or your rubber duckie in the bath with you?  (This may not be a good choice, because I usually just let him have any of his toys in the bath.)
• Do you want the red shirt or the blue shirt today?
• Do you want to hold my hand down the stairs or for me to carry you?
• Do you want to use the red crayon or the green crayon first?
• Are you going to go to the slide or the swings first?
• We have to go soon, do you want to stay at the park for one more minute or two more minutes?
• Do you want to drink milk or water with your meal?
• Which quiet toy do you want to take to church? (Hold out two toys)
• Which ball do you want to take to the park? (Hold out two balls)
• Do you want me to change your diaper on the bed or on the floor?
• Do you want to stand up or lie down while I change your diaper?

Many of these choices he can give me an answer to by pointing, taking the item from my hand, signing or telling me, but some of them I don't think he gets.  I've been using many of these choices for a while actually so I know that some of them he still doesn't understand, but we'll keep using them and eventually he might.  He generally hates getting his diaper changed and getting dressed so when I ask him where he wants to get his diaper changed or what color shirt he wants, he usually just runs away.  So maybe this doesn't follow the guideline of using choices when things are going smoothly.
The next part of the experiment is to see how many choices you can make each day and then make a withdrawal of a choice.  This means when you need to make a decision about something just do it without giving a choice, if there is a complaint about it remind the child that you've let them make many choices already and this time its your turn.  The idea is that the more "deposits" of choices you give them, the better able they will deal with your "withdrawals"

Please send suggestions for choices!

A little background, my motivation, and my plan

My son Garrett is 16 months old.  I love him with all my heart.  Each day I look at him and marvel at how amazing he is and my love for him grows daily.  I owe it to him to be the best mom that I can be.  I know that I'm already a pretty good mom, but there's always room for improvement.  

The first year of Garrett's life has quickly blown by and as he started a new year he also started developing quite an independent personality.  All of a sudden I realized I didn't know what my limits were.  Garrett continued to show me what they were by testing them.  At first I just struggled through the tough days of biting and hitting and screaming and tried to find the motivation to get out of the house.  I felt tense and negative, telling my son "NO!" over and over (and now, of course that is his new favorite word!)  I felt pressure from books and parenting classes and groups to be positive, but I didn't know how to muster up the positive energy when the little monster came out instead of the little angel.  I needed to form a parenting philosophy of sorts, something I could believe in.  One that I could remind myself of during my struggles in parenting, one that could guide me in my day to day interactions and activities with my son and one that would help him learn about limits, choices, and consequences, so that we could start enjoying each other more.  I knew that the first step for me needed to be dealing with his difficult behaviors.  Contrary to some of the reading I'd done on disciplining young children, I believe that it is important to teach kids that there are consequences for their choices and I certainly think Garrett is smart enough to understand those consequences.  (For example, he hits the dog with the spatula, I take the spatula and the dog goes upstairs.  If every time he hits the dog with the spatula I take it away from him and he can't play with the dog anymore then he'll learn pretty quickly that he shouldn't hit the dog and hopefully that behavior will stop.  It will stop won't it?)  I believe you can deliver consequences in a loving and respectful way without using threats, physical discipline, or anger.  BUT, I didn't really know how to do it and what I was doing still felt negative.  I was telling Garrett "NO" a lot, even though I'd been told to try to limit that, I was giving him short "time outs" in his crib even though I knew I didn't want to give him a negative association with his crib.  I was getting tense and frustrated and I even yelled at him a few times, once swatted his bottom, and once flicked his cheek after he bit me.  I didn't like the mom I was becoming.

SO... I bought a book: Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood, Practical Parenting from Birth to Six Years, by Jim Fay and Charles Fay, Ph.D.  Here's a little background on the book and the authors.  Actually I'm just going to let you read about it on the website yourselves, because it turns out the whole Love and Logic thing is a big deal, its an institute!  The Love and Logic Institute, Inc. website is: http://www.loveandlogic.com/  These guys have a lot of different books for parents and teachers that follow the same principles.  Uh oh, sounds like a gimic, but I'm going to give it a chance because I really like what they have to say.
So here's the plan:
I'm going to read the book (Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood) chapter by chapter.  After each chapter they suggests "experiments" you can do to practice the techniques they've gone over in the chapter.  I'll blog about my thoughts on the chapter and then do the experiment and blog about the results.  I think this project will keep me accountable and consistent and is more for me than anyone else, however, I'd really love if other parents wanted to read along with me and do the experiments too so we could share reactions, results, and ideas.  I'll start sometime this week.