There is No "Throwaway" Behavior

One way of framing our Parenting by Connection approach is to say confidently that all of children’s behavior has value. Everything a child does either helps him learn and grow, helps him recover from hurt, or serves as a Help Needed signal to those nearby.

The cultures we grownups have been steeped in are many and varied, but almost every culture is strongly biased toward seeing children’s Help Needed signals as a nuisance, and children’s recovery process—laughter, crying, and tantrums—as worthless, or worse. Parenting by Connection sorts children’s behavior into three important categories. The first is how a child behaves when she feels close to those around her. She can think. She is flexible. She can learn. For example, at the playground, she enjoys herself as she climbs to the top of the slide, and waits for another child to take his turn first. She learns, she grows stronger, and she connects with others.

A child who climbs the slide tentatively, is rushed at the top by another child, and cries, is a child whose behavior is also useful. Her sense of safety, shaky at first, was broken. To heal, she cries hard. With a parent or teacher there to hold her hand, listen and care, her mind will clear when she is finished, and her confidence at the top of the slide will have increased, rather than decreasing because of the challenging moment. Crying and the connection the adult offered will heal the hurt, and drain some of the fear she carried up the slide with her.

The child who climbs up the slide and roughly pushes a child who sits at the top of it, elbowing her way to be the first one down, is sending signals loud and clear that she doesn’t feel connected to anyone, doesn’t feel safe, and needs a helping hand. Her behavior, usually labeled as “bad,” is actually a highly useful window into her state of mind. Her behavior says to anyone who will read it: “I’m feeling off-kilter. I can’t think well! Help me with the upset I’m carrying!”

All three kinds of behavior can come from the same good child. All three kinds of behavior are important. Only a child’s thoughtful, engaged behavior feels good to most parents. But how would we know when our children need our help, if their behavior didn’t signal us vividly and immediately?

We can be proud of our children, whatever state they are in at the moment. We may feel tired. We may feel upset. Our children may be signaling for help persistently with behavior that obscures their sweetness. But they are good children, and we are their good parents. Like them, we’re good when we’ve got things well in hand, and we’re still good when we are baffled and struggling. We feel better when we’re not struggling, but we’re also good people when things are tough.

Here is a story that’s a great example of reading a child’s signals that it’s time for some healing to take place, and being bold about meeting that need.

This child was doing what many would see as throwaway behavior. The mother's intervention led to her child claiming his very own way of saying when he needs help to heal from hurt, and to a pact between them about how to deal with that need.

The “car seat sessions”

I am happy to share the following success story that is now referred to in our family as the “Car Seat Sessions."

My son screamed whenever we put him in the car seat during the first four months of his life. Once he was old enough that I could seat him face forward, I thought that we had put it all behind us. But the issue began to surface again shortly after his second birthday.

It started when my son refused to go out to the park with the babysitter. Then he only wanted to go out in mommy's car. Finally his need to work out issues reached its peak. It would take longer and longer to get him in the car seat. When I finally got him in it was an endless deafening scream with, “I'm stuck!” Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, my son turned into Houdini and escaped from his car seat. It was now taking an average of two hours just to get a few miles.

One day, he was escaping while I drove, and I had no choice but to pull into a shopping center and park in a loading zone. I took him out of the car and held him while he kicked and screamed. I told him I was there for him, I loved him, that he didn't like to feel stuck and I heard his frustration. A man approached and told me to move but I was dedicated to listening to my son. Soon a crowd of people began to stare. They tried to offer advice, all of which I rejected. Forty minutes later he calmed down and said, “Thank you, Mommy.”

We had had several more of these "sessions" before he could climb into his car seat and ask me to buckle him in safely. It has been about a month now and when he needs to have a cry about something he simply asks to go to Mommy's car. Not to go bye-bye, but to express his feelings where he knows he can have uninterrupted listening time.

I am quite proud of his ability to make me listen. More than ever I am grateful for having learned how to listen to children!

—a mother in Los Angeles, California