I noticed in conversation with siblings in my care that I had a tendency to make more eye contact with the youngest sibling. It makes sense why that would happen. Younger children typically need more frequent attention to feel secure. They need more help at the table. There's also a desire to make sure they're given space to communicate if it takes them a little longer to get their words out.
In Positive Discipline, a facilitator might call for three or more volunteers for a role play activity in which all of the action happens around just one parent and one child. The extra volunteers sit there, awkwardly not doing anything, until at the end they're asked to describe what they're thinking and feeling. I've been one of these volunteers, and I'll admit, as I sat there pretending to be a sibling at the dinner table, I wanted to be included in the praise my "sibling" received. I would've taken a scolding or punishment just to be included. The lesson I took away was that it's impossible to be in a scene and not be in a scene. Eventually, I can see how a kid might check out and give up on belonging. Or, fortunately, I can see how a little engagement can go a long way.
Having noticed my eye contact disparity while nannying, I started soaking up extra moments of eye gazing with older siblings in any distraction-free (or, let's be real, minimally distracted moments). What if I'm not the first person to look away when our eyes meet? How long will the gaze hold? It's a lovely social experiment, really.
I've held loving gazes with babies and seen how they light up. I stared into my now-partner’s, then-date's eyes for four minutes as part of that 36 Questions to Fall in Love experiment. Extended eye contact was the part I was most nervous about, but I can't say it didn't work!
Why had I overlooked eye gazing as a connection tool for school-aged children and teens?
It feels vulnerable to really look at someone and let them really look at you. I want to show the children in my care that they're inherently worthy of love. I can't communicate that I love them in all of their vulnerability without offering some of my own.
An art lesson from fourth grade sticks with me as one of my clearest memories of that year. The teacher asked us to point out all the lines in a painting. We saw the strokes that marked the limits of the tree trunks and branches, the veins on the leaves, feathers on the birds, a cloud, a flower, we were really nailing it. (And when I say "we," I don't mean me because I was very shy, but I observed.) Just when we were confident we had identified all the lines, the teacher explained that we missed the most important one. There was an invisible line in the painting, a line painted without paint.
The space between two faces looking at each other creates a line connecting both subjects.
The painting would still be pleasant to look at if the birds were looking elsewhere but at each other, but it wouldn't be the same painting. The perceived geometry, the way the shapes are interpreted, comes through their connection.
This is my gentle reminder to look deeply into your child's eyes, whatever their age. Paint lines without using any paint, and fall in love.
Updated: Oct 1, 2020
Book Author: Laura Markham
Full Title: Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life
Page Count: 352
I often pick up parenting books because they seem useful generally. I admit I sought this one out to address real time challenges. Sibling rivalry can be a special brand of challenge for those of us looking to respond to them as teaching moments, and avoid shaming anyone or adding fuel to their fires.
I found this book so helpful. I enjoyed the process of trying out strategies from this book. That’s right-- enjoyed! Maybe that proves I’m in the right line of work, but I also think, with the right tools, conflict isn’t so scary.
Going into Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings, I had an awareness that sibling fights happen in part for grown-up attention. I trusted the children in my care had the ability to resolve their conflict and wanted more tools to help them feel secure and connected as they explored these essential social skills.
I practice minimal intervention when possible because I'm aware that in an adult-child power dynamic, it's up to me to make space for the child to grow into. I pictured myself as the coach of our little team. I appreciated that this book helped me get down to the children's level and explore social skills with them using empathy and play. I was able to offer some strategy to help them help themselves more later.
A little disclaimer here that the author’s ideas are mixing with my own in the following list.
How to Help Warring Siblings
Tools in the Moment of Conflict
“I hear frustrated noises. Do you need some help?” I love this script for establishing consent to intervene and subtly sending the message that they are responsible for their own relationships. My help is optional.
Listening to and empathizing with one child at a time. Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings offers scripts to help facilitate dialogue in which no child is blamed and there’s still room to assert that certain behaviors are not allowed. I appreciate the step in communication of confirming each child heard and understood the other, so they know that step is essential when it comes time for them to try these conversations out without a facilitator.
Opportunities for the children to be strategic. “What’s your plan?” Often their solutions are more creative and fun than mine would’ve been.
Physically blocking an attack, with optional language, “I will not let you hit.” Safety first.
Tools Outside of the Moment of Conflict
Encouraging “breakdowns.” It’s stressful being a little person in a big world. Tears come with wonderful relief. If a child in my care has a big reaction to a reasonable boundary I’ve set, I assume they really needed to express some frustration and I keep them company in that space.
Encouraging belly laughs. On those days when it seems like every moment is tense and dramatic, that might mean it’s time for a silly break. This was the most helpful tip for me, because I was at times too zoomed in on the moment of fighting and it helped me see how the overall flow of our day could reduce tension. Instead of putting out emotional fires all day, I could meet a broader emotional need for joy and connection that prevented fights from breaking out in the first place.
This is a topic for another post, but I want to open up to you here that learning the value of laughter for a child’s brain has helped me appreciate the need for more play for myself. Laughter is a powerful mental health tool. I know it’s not always easy or accessible. It's nice when it works.
Encouraging teamwork. Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings recommends, of all things, finding opportunities for children to band together...against their grown-up. You may have experienced this if you’ve ever been assigned to play monster in a game. My favorite activity the author suggested for this (I think she borrowed it from the book Playful Parenting, which is on my To Read list now) is a Kids Vs. Grown-up pillow fight.
Many in the respectful parenting community believe it’s not appropriate for adults to roughhouse with children because children cannot fully offer consent or communicate when something doesn’t feel good. I’m open to these arguments, as consent is vital. In my practice so far, a little bit of roughhousing, especially when the kids outnumber me, or are using me as a prop to climb on, can offer opportunities to model consent. The benefits of encouraging teamwork and eliciting belly laughs are worth it to me in times when children are struggling to get along.
When they’re playing well together, they create their own teamwork and laughs and I would typically not interrupt that to insert myself.
Inviting a game specifically when there’s been a lingering tension. A lot of times, initiating play is a tool I go to when I'm having an off day, maybe I didn't sleep well, and I can tell it's effecting the children (because they're so amazingly in tune with their grown-ups). I want to show them we're still attached. If other relationships in the household are strained, frustrations might come out on a sibling. It helps to look at the whole picture.
Exploring social skills with books, puppets, songs, shows, and through their own imaginative play with friends, each other, or alone. I thought it would be helpful to include a reminder on the topic of sibling rivalry that there are lots of ways children learn social skills and that this is a process. It’s not all about the adult saying the right things in the right moments.
Mealtime conversations or non-mealtime family meetings. For the under-4 crowd, meal and snack times are a great time to check in, and that’s when I might ask about feelings or set expectations for the rest of the day or an event coming up. For 4 and up, we can write problems on an agenda and address them during (whatever we want to call it) family meetings, household meetings, problem-solving time. Family meetings aren’t part of the book I’m reviewing here but I think they pair very well! I teach family meetings in my Positive Discipline Parent Coaching Series.
Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings was engaging to read, offered clear scripts to try out (which I gravitate toward as a lover of the power of language), and its strategies genuinely helped me help young, warring siblings. Later, I would hear them use the same language with each other that their parents and I facilitated regularly with them when conflict was at a peak and their peaceful negotiations warmed my heart. That doesn't mean I didn't also see the occasional biting injury or tears over toys yanked from hands. Emphasis on "it's a process."
I can’t get rid of conflict. I don’t want to. Conflict helps us address our needs. My adult brothers and I still get upset with each other sometimes, and children that have been coached will still need coaching sometimes, but if you can get to a place where it no longer feels like you're stuck in a culture of fighting, it's such a relief. Most of the day you hear laughter, and it’s the best.
Updated: Aug 28, 2020
Full Title: Oh Crap Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right
Book Author: Jamie Glowacki, The Pied Piper of Poop
Page Count: 288
Does it stand to reason that the Oh Crap approach is worth a try if it’s worked for so many families? Yes. Was I inspired to use it personally? Not so far.
I would recommend the Oh Crap approach to households that are motivated to get potty training done quickly and have some time to dedicate to a sort of boot camp. Whether the motivation is the cost of diapers, the labor of cleaning up diapers, wanting to simplify errands, outings, and travel, or wanting to help your child graduate with this life skill promptly. Those are all legitimate reasons to try this, but you didn’t need me to start that list, because really, the benefits of a potty-friendly child are obvious. Later in this review, I’m going to talk about why I didn’t choose to integrate Glowacki’s method into my childcare practice. However, I can imagine many scenarios in which the pros outweigh the cons, so I support you if you want to give it a try.
Content warning for the book: There is overt sexism in the way she addresses fathers that could be harmful to readers of any gender identity.
Her Method:
It happens in “blocks,” so you can focus on one set of skills before moving on to the next block. For example, in the first block you encourage the child to be naked, give them plenty to drink, and offer verbal prompts for when it’s time to go sit on the potty. Once they master naked toileting, you know they understand their body’s cues and the general idea enough to move on to the next phase of potty training with loose clothes and no undies. It builds in that way, with night training in the final blocks. There is a summary page in the back of the book that lists all the steps in one place.
What I appreciate about the book:
I would like the blocks reframed as “competencies” to reference as a casual gauge for a child’s progress. The author’s expertise on the practical skills needed for toileting is undeniable and a list of competencies would be a great resource.
The thing I took away from this book and use all the time is her firm language about going to the potty. I used to throw around a lot of, “Do you need to go potty?” (And still do sometimes.) But with a toddler who doesn’t know what that feels like yet, it’s not a very helpful question. It could be a nice prompt to get them to think about what “needing to go potty” means. It’s not wrong to ask. It’s just not super effective if the idea is to get pee to go into a toilet instead of on the rug in that exact moment. I like her script to say, “It’s time to go to the potty now.” It’s nice to have a script to communicate to the child what’s the next thing we’re going to do.
I like that Glowacki normalizes poop and pee. It’s something that’s okay to talk to toddlers about and give them words for. I also like that she leaves it open to families to choose what words work for their household. I’m all for celebrating a diversity of family cultures. I like to teach anatomical language, imagining the child as a future adult that needs to do productive google searches and communicate with doctors when their bodies do weird things, but then I also use pee and poop, because urine and bowel movement can cross the line into too clinical. There’s a balance.
Probably not the last thing, but the last thing I wrote down as an appreciation, is Glowacki’s empathy for the child being potty trained. I had not thought about that fact having poop smooshed in a container attached to their butt could be a pleasant sensation to someone who’s never known otherwise. There’s a security that is lost with any change, and if the goal is to connect with the child and help them with that change, having compassion for their loss is essential.
Questions I asked as I read this, AKA what I’d like to see more of:
Does this approach integrate into our routine? I’m skeptical of any practice for educating toddlers that asks me to deviate from our daily routine. To me, that feels dismissive of a really great toddler care tool. Routine has so many benefits for child-parent and child-caregiver relationships. It helps build security and trust within the relationship, but also in the child’s world broadly. They know that needs will be met. They know the who, what, where, when, how, and sometimes why of those needs being met. The world feels like a manageable size instead of the massive ball of chaos it actually is. When appropriate, I construct routines with the children’s input to support social skills and respect their individuality. Our routines are co-created and each moment is co-created. That’s not to say that breaks from routine are harmful, or anyone should be expected to stick to a set schedule strictly, every day, no matter what. Of course, I shuffle care tasks and events around as needed, am generally human, and apologize for none of that. However, I wouldn’t want to throw out the whole for one part. The Oh Crap method invites you to spend a lot of time in the bathroom. To be fair, that’s going to happen no matter what method you use, but with this it happens in a concentrated chunk of time. I have worked with a potty training child that was in danger of not being totally out of diapers in time for preschool, so I can empathize with the pressure that adds and why parents would want to offer more learning opportunities to the child to speed things up. Like many things, though, parents and caregivers make their jobs harder than they need to be. Little trips to the bathroom over time will accomplish the same thing this boot camp approach accomplishes in most cases.
Is it child led? It could be...maybe? If a child really wanted to be done with diapers they might opt in. You could explain to them how it works and what you’re excited about and they might be excited too. I could see it working well in the summer, maybe, when little kids want to be naked in the backyard (if you have one) anyway, and you’re bringing out lots of drinks for them. “Summer” is kind of my potty training strategy anyway. [Insert chortle.] I appreciate the desire for an action plan and that there are a lot of challenges that come up around toileting. It might not sound very actionable, but my recommendation is to remember the powers of modeling, opportunities, and choices. If the parents are cool with it, the child can hang out with me when I go to the bathroom and ask questions. Eventually their interest lines up with their biology and they try the potty with increasing frequency. They get excited about undies. We have a conversation about when the diapers will be all done so that the child can see the event for the milestone that it is, maybe a birthday. Remember, also, that children learn in so many ways. You can bring in books, songs, videos (if the household is screens-friendly), puppets, and play. My approach is to let it start out “that simple” (as if modeling, consent conversations, play, and patience are simple) and most of the time, that’s enough, though the unpredictable timeline can be unsettling, and certainly, if you’re concerned your child may be experiencing developmental delays, please talk to a doctor or advocate.
Is it respectful? Oh Crap Potty Training could do more to emphasize body autonomy or consent. I want lots of that, for everyone. I wouldn’t want someone to make me hang out naked, push me to drink more than normal, and make me focus on toileting when I’d rather be doing other things. I recognize that the author has children’s and families’ best interests at heart and has helped so many people overcome challenges. I’m not trying to take down some big evil (or take anyone down, at all here, I promise). If practiced in an overall respectful environment, I don’t think a child’s going to be scarred by these practices. As caregivers, we take some of the responsibility for another person’s person away from them sometimes to otherwise support them with boundaries, naps when needed, not letting them run into a busy street, blocking their hand from hitting a sibling, etc. This book considers the child’s perspective. I want a version of this book that focuses on that more.