While our 3-year-old Muawiyah was playing with his toy cars and monster trucks, narrating his imaginary stories, I decided to sit down with him and play with him. I held one of his monster trucks and started moving it along as he played.
Suddenly, he screamed and yelled at me, "Abah tak boleh main Muawiyah punya car!" and immediately burst out crying.
I froze in disbelief. What just happened?
In that moment, his response left me shocked and annoyed at the seemingly "ungrateful" response of his father genuinely attempting to spend quality time with him.
But Alhamdulillah, before my fight-or-flight defensive mechanism kicks in, the voice in my head again reminded me:
"Stay calm. Remember your training".
This was it. Another defining parenting moment. What do you want from this situation? What do we want our child to learn? What kind of father do you want to be?
My response: Apologize and hug.
"I am sorry, Muawiyah. Abah didn't know that abah cannot play with that car".
He continued crying for a while, then I stretched out my arms to offer a consoling hug.
He eventually hugged me, cried it out, and calmed down.
After those turbulent few minutes (that felt like hours!), we then resumed playing and having fun.
Here are five major lessons I learnt from this one, seemingly simple day-to-day parenting struggle:
1. Respecting their boundaries, so they can learn to respect ours
2. Pick your battles: you don't have to win all of them
3. Apologizing: modelling behavior
4. It's okay for children to cry
5. Demonstrate Unconditional love through your actions
1. Respect their boundaries, so they can learn to respect ours
In his world and perception, Muawiyah has defined his own set of rules. When I touched his monster truck, it upset the storyline and pre-defined rules of his game. (In my defence, I wasn’t aware of the rules… but really, this wasn’t the time and place to bring that up 🤣)
Letting them win arguments - giving them the freedom to say "no" - instills them with self-confidence, and builds trust knowing that their opinions matter to us.
In the book "Raising Good Humans", author Hunter Clarke-Fields writes:
"Because your child will learn that she can trust you to treat her with respect and consideration, so she will authentically want to cooperate with you.
From infancy, we are teaching our children how to treat others by the way we treat them. How we respond to our children on a moment-to-moment basis creates a pattern that our children may follow for a lifetime. Therefore, the onus is on us to behave the way we want our children to behave.
You may have seen a parent yelling at a child to be quiet (or you may have had such a moment yourself). Our kids see right through this hypocrisy. If we want our children to learn to be kind and respectful to others (including us), then we must demonstrate kindness and respect. If we want our kids to consider others’ needs, then we must show them that we truly consider their needs. If we want them to be polite, then we have to consider our own use of courteous words with our children. We must treat our children how we ourselves want to be treated. We should behave as we want them to behave.
It’s so simple — and NOT easy at all!"
2. Pick your battles: you don't have to win all of them!
I realized that by describing this, I may come off to some parents as "weak" and to allow him to "get away with disrespect".
Empathizing with the child's perspective, he didn't mean to disrespect me. Just upset because my actions didn't follow his "rules".
There is a difference in apologizing or turning away because we "surrender", and apologizing with the conscious intention to achieve a greater good.
One thing I have learnt, is that parenting is like a long negotiation process. The key to effective parenting that invites genuine cooperation - without resorting to punishment, bribes, or forcing them down their throat by flexing your muscles of authority - is INFLUENCE. And sometimes, to create a perception of fairness, this means allowing them to “win” every once in a while.
In the long journey of parenting, there are two categories of disagreements: trivial battles which we don't have to win, or the non-negotiable ones which we cannot compromise.
So which category does "his world of toys" falls in?
Let them have it!
Let the child win the battles that don't matter, so they are more willing to cooperate in the battles that do matter most.
3. Apologizing: modelling positive behavior
Ever come across those co-workers or bosses who refuse to apologize, even when there are actions which are clearly flat-out mistakes?
Among the clear parenting decisions that we made raising Muawiyah is that we would like to model the habit of owning up and taking responsibilities for our mistakes. And that would include mindfully saying "sorry" and making amends.
What we also want to lead by example is that as parents is a key component of the Growth Mindset: we are not perfect or infallible. We are also trying to figure it out. We make mistakes, just as they do. And we want to improve, just as we want them too!
Here is an interesting excerpt from the book "Positive Discipline" by Jane Nelsen:
"Have you ever noticed how forgiving children are when we are willing to apologize? Have you ever said you were sorry to a child? If so, how did that child respond? I ask this question during lectures all over the world, and the response is universal. When adults sincerely apologize, children almost always say, “That’s okay, Mom” (or Dad, or Teacher). Children can be feeling angry and resentful in response to disrespectful behavior one minute (and adults probably deserve it) and switch to total forgiveness as soon as the adult says, “I am sorry.”
When adults take responsibility for what they did to create a conflict (and any conflict takes at least two), children are usually willing to follow this modeling and take responsibility for their part. Children learn accountability when they have models of accountability."
4. It's okay for children to cry
The first few years of a child's life are the most crucial phase of emotional growth. To allow them to have an emotionally healthy childhood and upbringing, we need to allow them the room to express themselves - and that includes bearing some uncomfortably loud outbursts from time to time.
As a rule, I never tell Muawiyah to stop crying. At best, I would force myself to bear patiently with the noise; at worst, I would peacefully walk away so I don't explode.
I'm not going to sugar coat here - Muawiyah cries a lot, as I expect toddlers would. But as parents, we have the emotional upper hand. We can shape ourselves to be the source of their comfort in their times of need, instead of someone else (remember this as they become teenagers!)
"As parents we need to expect and accept children’s difficult emotions. Just like adults, when kids block and repress emotions, those feelings pop out in potentially destructive ways.
Don’t tell children not to cry. Crying is a cathartic release for all children, and when they are done, they feel better. Phrases aimed toward boys like “Don’t be a mama’s boy” or “Be a man” may seem relatively harmless, but such words tell boys that they can’t show their feelings." ("Raising Good Humans")
5. Demonstrate Unconditional love through your actions
When I stretched out my arms to offer him a hug, I realize I was taking a vulnerable, emotional risk: I wasn't sure that he would embrace, reject, or outright hit me in the face!
At the moment he screamed at me, I realized that I could have just walked away peacefully. And that probably wouldn't have harmed his childhood because I would do so out of the sincere intention to teach him that his father has a sense of self-respect and that he needs to learn to self-regulate - to "cool it off" - if he wants his father's affection again.
But I thought about how this emotionally immature 3-year old would have processed and misinterpreted that reaction.. Had I left him alone in this moment of intense expression, he might feel abandoned and alone. He might subconsciously learn that he isn't worth his father's patience.
What if I took an even higher ground: to display unconditional love? What if, I could, through my actions, demonstrate that he can always count on someone - at least, his father - to be his emotional pillar of support to openly express his emotions and provide him with compassion in his moments of need, even if his father was the victim of his outburst?
What if I could lead by example and model forgiveness?
It was a risk worth taking.. and it paid off!
6. Patience & Emotional Resilience
Prophet Muhammad ï·º said, "The strong person is not the one who overcomes others with his physical strength; rather, the truly strong person is the one who controls himself when he is angry" (Al-Bukhari)
The entire process can break down the moment we lose our cool and become emotionally compromised.
From an emotional regulation standpoint as parents, in situations like these, the "easy" path would have been to shout back and flex our muscles of authority (e.g. "because I am your mother", or "look, I am your father! #StarWarsReference"). But doing so would turn the situation into a power struggle and teach the child that "your voice does not matter".
Imagine the impact of doing so repeatedly throughout their childhood. How will that impact their self-esteem to make a positive difference to the world?
It would have been easy to dismiss their feelings or laugh at them for being upset at (what appears to us to be) such a trivial matter.
But any of these would, by our actions, model disrespect.
As parents, we have the emotional high ground to decide how we want to shape our children’s thoughts and behaviors.
So, what are you modelling with your little ones when confronting their difficult behavior?
Share your thoughts!
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