Reflections on Parenting from the Inside Out

I’m currently listening through the Empowered to Connect track of this year’s Summit.  The first presentation is Michael and Amy Monroe’s Parenting from the Inside Out.

I’ll be honest.  I’ve heard it before.   A couple times actually.  It convicts me each time.  Then I ignore it.

Let me back up.  I’ve alluded to their premise before but basically they challenge parents to recognize how our junk effects how we parent.  If we do not deal with our past, we may never be able to fully parent our children from hard places to a place of healing.  In other words, our undealt-with past drives a chasm into our connection with our kids.  And if you are familiar with Dr. Karyn Purvis’ research,* you know that this will make everyone (parents and child) feel unsuccessful.

*If you’re not, I highly recommend you dig in.  Warning: You’re life will be changed forever.

Quick example that Amy Monroe shares.  She was raised that you have to look your best before stepping out of the house.  Now that she has kids, she’s obsessed with having everyone matched and ironed before heading out.  Since she has 4 children (all from hard places), you can imagine how traumatic their mornings might be.  Her need to iron every piece of clothing often stands in the way of her ability to be present in the moment with her kids should they need her in the morning.  When a child might need her to calm an anxiety or give a reassuring hug, she’s busy yelling at him not to dawdle and get his clothes to the ironing board.

If you know me or have met my self-dressed children, you would know that particular scenario is not a problem at our house.  However as I listening to Michael and Amy talk, my mind was replaying situation after situation in my head when I was clearly more the problem than my kids.  I’m hoping bearing them for the world to read will keep me more accountable than the last few times for the sake of our kids (and me).

High Level Discipline
This could also be called cause/effect.  If you do x, then y happens.  Y is supposed to be miserable enough to prevent x.  Having been raised this way and being a pretty logical person, this was our go-to parenting technique.  It worked pretty effectively on our first 2 kids to train them to make wise decisions (at least most of the time).  With our child from a hard place, imagine our surprise when consequences for unacceptable actions had no positive effect and actually produced more negative behavior.  Of course, that second round of negative behavior couldn’t go unpunished…see the downward spiral?  Does. Not. Compute.  Does not compute for me who is so logical and can’t figure out why one would continue to throw food when it results in the end of the meal EVERY TIME.  Does not compute for a child whose brain was never trained for cause/effect logic and has no problem hating us.

Pefectionism/People Pleasing
I’m a people pleaser which plays into my need for perfection.  I hated being in trouble as a kid.  I usually learned my lessons the first time.  It irks me to no end when it takes multiple times (especially right in a row) before they “get it.”  For Ty, it takes endless times.  Yea, bad combo.  Yes, I realize they’re just kids.  Yes, I realize I really don’t learn most lessons right away.  But knowing is only half the battle…or so said GI Joe.

Independence
I’m a pretty independent person and strive to raise independent kids.  Having a four-year-old who still can’t be trusted to eat or do simple tasks without supervision is a continual challenge.  Every time I try to trust him and he shows he hasn’t learned the “only put one bite of food in your mouth at a time lesson,” I want to create a consequence to solve it.  But maybe I should have more compassion on our son who clearly wasn’t trained at table dining for the first 2 1/2 years of his life.  Even more, maybe I should consider meals a privilege to spend time with him and not see it as an annoying task for which my other two didn’t need me.

Respect
My husband and I were raised in households where disrespect was not tolerated.  In turn, we do not tolerate it in our household.  We see repeated disobedience as disrespect.  In Ty’s case, it’s not always.  It’s beyond my comprehension but his brain is so impulsive he does a lot of things he’s been told at least a couple hundred times not too do all day long (and sometimes less than one minute after he’s been punished for it) and it’s not in disrespect…just in the name of compulsion. My never-tolerate-disrespect paradigm demands a cause/effect consequence when we ask Ty not to bang on the table and 30 seconds later he’s banging on the table.  After this happens up to a dozen times or more during one mealtime, I am so not in “connecting” mode.  Another downward spiral.

Spoiling
Years of in home daycare and student ministries have put in contact with lots of parenting techniques I vowed to never let be reality in my life.  Parents who spoil their kids (and let their kids run their lives) is a pet peeve of mine because I’ve seen the types of teenager they produce.  Just to make myself feel safe, this makes me a “no” parent.
“Mom, can we have candy.”
“No.”
“Mom, can we have a toy at the grocery store.”
“No.”
“Mom, can we stay up late?”
“No.”
While there are surely legitimate reasons for saying no to each of the above requests, sometimes my motivation is because of scared to death of the slippery slope of spoiling.  Ever read the The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies?  I’m also into making sure my kids understand need vs. want.  I want to make it clear that no one “needs” more toys, screen time, or treats.  However, I’m the parent of a kid who never had his infancy with me where I could give him hundreds of thousands of “yeses” so he could learn to trust me.  Within the first week of being home, his “no” bank far outweighed his “yes” bank and he was not about to trust me.  If I ever expect to parent him to a place of success, I have to balance out his yes/no ratio.

I could go on but this post is probably already making your retinas bleed and I’m sure you get the picture.  It’s really the real life application of the parable about the guy with the plank in his eye as it applies to judging your kids.

A couple notes:

1. Children from hard places are those who were products of an unwanted/stressful pregnancy, a traumatic birth, or who have been neglected and/or abused.
2. My junk certainly affects how I parent my bio children but our child from a hard place seems to magnify my deficits as a parent.