Parenting Rage - Leashing the BEAST Within
Jeanette Kasper © 2002
Ever gotten to the point, as a parent, where you just don't know what
to do? The kids are constantly squabbling and arguing. They won't do
ANYTHING they' re told. They won't get up, go to bed, pick up after
themselves, or eat what you put in front of them. You're at your wits
end. Time outs don't work. Separating them doesn't help. Grounding them
is useless. What do we do when we snap? We unleash the beast within.
When the beast within takes over, how far have you gone? Have you slapped
your child? Grabbed him? Shaken her? Pushed him? Have you spanked her?
Our parents did. When their beast within took over, they spanked us.
But that's no longer allowed. That's Child Abuse. Even our children
know it. How many of our children have said to us I'm going to report
you for child abuse because we yelled at them or smacked them? They
learn it in school and use it against us. Today, when we parents are
pushed past our breaking point, what happens?
Each day in North America, 3 children die from child abuse. Every day
in North America, 13,700 children are abused and neglected, according
to the Children's Defense Fund. Our parents used spanking as their safety
valve. We have NO safety valve, and the results are devastating.
Jeanette Kasper, Canadian author of Anger Is NOT an Emotion, says,
"It's not that spanking is right. But, now that spanking has been
made socially (and almost legally) unacceptable, it hasn't been replaced
by anything." Think of this like a big area of rotten floorboards
in the kitchen (or inside you). You pull up the rotten floorboards and
push them off to the side, but you don't buy new ones. At dinnertime,
you can't get to the stove to make dinner because the hole is too big
(and NO! we aren't ordering out tonight!). The only way get across the
hole is to stack the old floorboards back in place. But the danger of
getting hurt on the rotten floorboards is much greater than before,
because they don't quite fit, and they're unstable.
The danger in not planning a replacement behavior is much like trying
to reuse the rotten floorboards. If we try to just stop a behavior without
replacing it, we leave a gaping hole inside us. When the old situation
and emotions reoccur, we will always resort to the old behavior with
much bigger, and far more destructive, results. Everyone has done it.
Many parents have decided to stop yelling at the kids, and for the next
two weeks yelled more than ever! We didn't replace yelling with a new
behavior, so the old behavior got worse.
Spanking isn't allowed. But parents still snap. The replacement for
spanking, with children over two years old, is to make a list of the
top five things your child enjoys. The lists will be different for each
of your children, and they change as the kids grow. These become their
punishments. Friends, freedom, TV, computer, telephone, allowance, reading
(if they love it), gameboy/Nintendo/Playstation, crafts, and toys are
a few. You can take away one, two, or all depending upon the severity
of their misbehavior. And you can take these privileges away for a maximum
of one week at a time. Post the lists on the fridge. When they misbehave,
or you feel the anger bubbling, go look at the lists and pick your punishment.
You'll remain calmer because the punishments are set. The kids will
be more cooperative because they'll know what to expect, and they hate
losing their favorites. You won't snap, and if you do, you'll have your
pick of punishments to use instead of physical violence.
With children under two years, punishment doesn't work, not even time-outs.
They can't understand. The issue becomes our mental health. Our ability
to cope is leached out of us through sleep deprivation and being on
duty 24/7. The answer is to take sanity time. Ensure that you get three
hours per week, at the very least, away from the house and the kids.
More is better. Trade time with a friend or your partner, if necessary.
Create your own replacement safety valve. Leash the beast within. Help
your parenting friends do the same. It's better to build children, than
to repair adults. Let's do it together, starting now.
