Yesterday, we talked about the necessity of establishing vision in keeping our cool when parenting our children. Today, as promised, I would like to offer you a practical tool to go along with your vision. This idea is not my own. Rather, the phrase was coined by our friend, Tim, a wonderful dad of 4 (almost 5) children.
A few years ago, Tim shared with us that he wanted to write an article entitled ‘Get Off Your Butt Parenting’. He went on to describe what this meant; however, I was hooked right away on the title alone.
I notice that when I am at home with my children and there is a situation that is starting to make my blood heat up, the majority of the time I can turn the situation around and completely avoid yelling by practicing ‘Get Off Your Butt Parenting’. The opposite, sitting on my butt, generally leads to an escalation of the situation which then leads to yelling.
Let’s look at an example from my home that is sure to take place today. Several times a day, before meals and before bedtime, our children are required to tidy the main floor and the little girls’ bedroom. Amazingly, no one has ever personally made the mess, so there is always complaining. There are also always accusations that certain people are not doing their share. If the mess is particularly bad, there are usually tears as the children state they can’t do it all.
If I choose to stay on my butt, I can try offering suggestions from afar, but this will usually involve yelling in order to be heard. When I am not in the room, I cannot tell if anyone is taking my suggestions. I cannot see if someone needs help knowing what to do. I can’t see if someone is not pulling their weight or is being unkind to a sibling. I also can’t tell if the kids are scamming and stuffing things where they don’t belong to expedite the clean-up. The room will probably not get cleaned up properly, the children will probably not learn to communicate better with each other or to co-operate to accomplish a team goal. I will probably become very frustrated at the constant tattling and the length of time it is taking to finish a simple task. However, remembering that our children are immature, inexperienced and still learning, it is no wonder this is the situation. What do people like this need? They need someone to come alongside them to teach and to guide.
Getting off my butt will yield a very different outcome. By getting off my butt, the frustrating situation above is turned into an opportunity for me to teach our children to learn to put things away properly and to learn communication skills and diffuse fighting by my helping them re-word things they say to their siblings. I can help good cleaners avoid resentment of their siblings who don’t naturally contribute as well.
Let’s look at another situation that just happened this morning.
Our little children are not allowed to go upstairs for just any old reason. Their bedroom is on the main floor, so all that happens if they go upstairs is trouble-making — mostly involving make-up and/or bandaids. This morning, one child went upstairs to use the bathroom, offering some lame excuse why she could not use the downstairs one. I let that go. However, then a second child went ‘to look for’ the other child. I called her to come back. She did not. I raised my voice slightly and repeated myself. Nope. I was happily knitting some very cool socks that I have almost finished. I had a choice to make and I made the wrong one. At this point, I should have set aside my knitting, stood up and gone upstairs to physically guide the child back downstairs, showing her that I was serious about my request. Instead, I needed to raise my voice further and speak very sternly. Three times a charm. She came down.
The cost for that 30 seconds of knitting time? I didn’t get to the stage of yelling, but I did teach my daughter that when I say something, the first two times, she can feel free to ignore me and wait until my voice reaches a certain level. Getting off my butt parenting applied in this situation would have shown her that when I say something, I mean it and therefore, she should obey. No guilt, however. This is a good learning situation for me.
Get off your butt parenting, I think, is the most effective parenting concept I know of. In recent years, Clay Clarkson wrote a book entitled Heartfelt Discipline which, I believe, does a great job of describing this type of parenting. They use the term ‘Hands Around Parenting’, which I also love. I think both terms speak to me in different situations.
So, I am both pleased to share this concept with you and sorry (in a not-really-sorry kind of way). If you are like me, you will no longer be able to let a situation escalate without thinking about how you could diffuse it and teach at the same time if you are willing to go the extra mile. I promise, it will be wonderfully rewarding to both you and your children.
This is so true!
Thanks for sharing
Nabi
Guess what my new mantra is going to be!
Thanks, Christine.
Jennifer
I love reading your blog, always such good advice. Even though my children are older now this still is an effective way to parent, only these days it involves turning around and giving full undivided attention or doing some extra driving or having a fridge ready for guests, or sitting down for 5 extra minutes before bed; just to talk about the day, rather than, in a minute which leads to many missed opportunities and or hurt feelings/attitude also many questionable situations are safely avoided, simply by being there. Physically being present, is such a powerfully consistent method, actions always speak louder than word, so “getting off your butt” is such a worth while parenting method.
Thank you for your gentle nudge to not be a bystander and miss the simple opportunities to guide, and instruct my kids without the stress of escalation.
Yes, yes, yes! I see this as one of the biggest problems in parenting these days. Parents (not excluding myself) can be down-right lazy. It is so much easier to just raise the voice or worse, threaten, instead of getting up, putting our own things aside, and addressing a problem before it escalates. It is easy to see this in other parents, and yet totally miss the fact that I do the same thing sometimes! Thanks for the great reminder.
Ladies,
I think we can all use the reminder, right? I know we will never be perfect, but hopefully, we will remember more often than not to put our extra best efforts into parenting in the beginning so that later on, when the stakes are higher, our children will be well grounded.
Christine
in reading this seris all in one go, i’m feeling very “convicted” (trying hard not to say guilty.. but i just snapped sharply at my son while reading this very article, bah!!)…. i’ve heard and embraced the phrase “off your butt” parenting (esp in terms of AP)…. and i’ve given lip service to that’s the kind of parent i want to be or expect others to be. you see, my sister kind of pokes fun at me, calling me the Hover Craft mom when we go to the mall or playplace with our kids… i get easily irriated that i percieve other moms go to these places just to hang out and talk w/ one another, often neglecting to watch for their own kids, and since mine are often the youngest there, there have been some booboos and leaving early….. However, when i am at home, i’m not quite the hovering mom… i’m more the i’d-rather-sit-on-my-duff mom. sure, i have plenty of “excuses” (i’m almost 9 mo pregnant, it’s hot as Hades outside, and with a traveling husband, i’m just exhausted many days)…. BUT…. what if i applied the mentality that i need to be up and about watching my kids not just proactively but physically present like i do when in a public arena? how different would my days look?
i also love your post on vision first, practical 2nd, b/cs it’s so true: i’ve read all the magazines, talked to other wise women and gotten great advice on how to make parenting in the here and now be “better” and yet it’s still easy to lose sight in the moment (and unfortunately especially in those ugly heated moments) that we are, as my college pastor used to say: living for the line, not for the dot. so, am i parenting for the dot (moment) or for the line (eternity)? good stuff!!
I love the idea of parenting for the line, not for the dot. For the dot would involve a lot more butt-sitting, wouldn’t it? Getting off our butts is a lot more work in the short-term, but seeing as it will save us lots of heartache and also a lot of harder work in the long-term it is definitely worth it.
I love the Hover-Craft Mom picture!! I’m thinking you might find me one of those inattentive moms (well, at least in places where our children are relatively safe – ie. at a friend’s place, but not at the mall). I tend to be a more hands-off parent in a lot of ways when we are in a group, but I do try to deal with character issues more carefully.
[...] Get Off Your Butt Parenting (unfortunately, the most effective type of parenting there is) [...]
I love this post- nodding head in energetic agreement!
Do you know about http://www.goybparenting.com
Well, what do you know!?!?! No, I did not know about that! I haven’t looked around their site, yet, but I like it already, just by the title.