THE SCENARIO: My 14 yo son started to complain about 'all the things he has to do tomorrow.' He stated that he hated being busy and just wanted a free weekend.
This rubbed me the wrong way because, from my perspective, it seemed our son had it easy compared to what my husband and I had on our plates. Plus, he could have gotten what he needed to do done on Saturday, but he chose to play video games instead.
Then (pre-peaceful parenting):
There would have been scoffing on my part about all the things he needed to do because he really only had one thing (a speech) that had a hard deadline.
I would have proceeded with a lecture tinged with shaming -
he had two weeks to work on his speech (he enjoys speeches and volunteered to do this one for a club he belongs to),
he procrastinated,
he had all week to work on the speech but did other things instead,
and I had offered to help him Saturday, but he chose to play video games.
He, in turn, would have shirked responsibility and blamed everyone else.
This would have caused me to get more frustrated with him because I have a hard time when people don't take responsibility for their actions.
This would have led to another lecture on taking responsibility and the consequences of our actions, etc.
My son would have gotten defensive and the blaming would have expanded.
So, I would have gotten angry,
and I would have upped the shaming,
and he would have felt worse and worse about himself,
and then maybe he would have thrown in the towel on the speech,
or maybe he would have stomped off,
or maybe he would have 'talked back' to me which would have led to some sort of punishment/consequences.
But that didn't happen, thankfully.
Instead...
Now (5 years into our peaceful parenting journey):
I'd like to say peaceful parenting mode was my go-to response, but it wasn't.
Initially I did scoff at 'all the things he had to do.'
And I did start with a mini-lecture about how he could have gotten his speech done Saturday, and then he would have had a free day on Sunday.
He huffed off out of the room we were in…
but then he returned a few seconds later saying, "let's do this here,"
meaning "let's sit on the couch and talk through this."
This got me back on my peaceful parenting track.
I started by stating what I thought I was hearing him say.
He corrected me and expanded on hating to be busy and having so much to do.
I empathized and actively listened and reflected back what I was hearing several times.
I was still off the mark (even though I felt like I was saying what he said).
Since that kept happening,
I wondered if maybe it wasn't about the speech at all.
Our family is going through a really rough time right now,
so I thought maybe this was bringing up past hurts,
reminiscent of another hard time we'd gone through when he was younger.
We explored that a little, but my son didn't think that was it.
So, we revisited the current situation of the speech and other things he felt he needed to do.
I encourage my son to just sit with the feelings he was having about this.
Then I re-stated the dilemma (you have so much to do but really want a free day) and asked what he thought we could do about it.
He still couldn't come up with anything,
so I offered a couple of solutions (which I had offered earlier, during mini-lecture phase, and he had rejected them).
He ended up deciding one those solutions would work,
and he came up with a game plan for finishing the speech.
He then said, "I feel better now."
The peaceful parenting groundwork I had been laying over the previous 5 years paved the way for my 14 yo to be self-aware enough and to trust our relationship enough to turn around and come back in to talk to me rather than shutting himself in his room.
That groundwork also gave me a bit of wiggle room when I slipped and wasn't heart-focused initially.
The way things worked out with my teenage boy told me that all that hard work I put in - those long nights of staying with him when he was nine and offloaded HUGE feelings that were so intense that they frightened him and me, the work I've done on my own triggers, and the focus on his heart and not his behavior - was worth it.
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2024 Reflection…
One thing to note is that when it seemed that the technique of active listening ‘wasn’t working’ (eg my boy was stuck and couldn’t get to the problem solving stage), that was a clue to slow down and get curious. Sometimes there is more there. Sometimes it just takes some time for the feelings to be processed in order for the thinking brain to kick back in. Sometimes there needs to be silence and we just need to be lovingly present. And sometimes things don’t get resolved in one sitting.
Hindsight tells me that we ought to have prayed before chatting. Asking the Lord to guide our discussion would have helped us stay on track.
But, by God’s grace, my teen initiated the conversation, which was him asking for help because he was having a hard time.
Having a teen who could come to me when having a hard time rather than shutting himself in his room or burying his feelings in something destructive has been one of life’s greatest blessings.
I’m not sure it is something that would have happened had I not changed my parenting style.
It is absolutely by the grace of God that I shifted my parenting style.
By the grace of God,
I accepted His invitation to read about peaceful parenting.
By the grace of God,
I trusted Him when I began implementing active listening/listening in earnest. In the above scenario, my son was not able to listen to me and heed my advice until he had felt heard by me.
By the grace of God,
I trusted Him when I began to seek the why behind the behavior and began to see behavior as communication. In the above scenario, if I had taken my son’s behavior at face value and not tried to help him with the underlying why, things would have escalated.
By the grace of God,
I trusted Him when I began connecting before everything - before correcting, before transitioning activities, before requesting, etc. If I had not connected through empathy, my son would not have felt like I was trying to help him, and he would have likely continued to push back.
By the grace of God,
I trusted Him as I began to take a look at my own behaviors. In the above scenario, I was not immediately able to see how my behavior was escalating the situation, but when my son returned, wanting to talk, I realized how my behavior was making the situation worse, not better; and it was not helpful.
By the grace of God,
I trusted Him as I began to examine my triggers and to heal from past hurts. If I had not taken the time to tame my triggers, I would not have been able to dial things back in the moment.
By the grace of God,
the teenage years with my sons have been marked by connection, respect, cooperation, and trust.
And that is a huge blessing.
May Christ’s Peace be with you.
💕🙏💕
[I came to peaceful parenting a bit later in my parenting journey (when my boys were about 9 and 5), so I sometimes like to share scenarios and compare how I used to handle things to how I handle things now that I’ve discovered peaceful parenting. The scenario referenced was from 2017, about 5 years or so into our peaceful parenting journey.]
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