How Compassionate Parenting Makes Life Much Smoother
This is part of my blog series Practical Self-Help for Introspective People.
Hey, friends!
As a parent, I want to limit tantrums and meltdowns. It’s embarrassing when my kid throws a screaming fit in the check-out aisle because I said no to a “Birthday Cake Kit Kat” bar. (Who dreams up these flavors?) And while I want to avoid all forms of embarrassment, I also want my tiny humans to feel good and be happy. I want them to grow into well-adapted adults who make the world better.
So I practice something I call “compassionate parenting.”
Here’s how it works: When my kiddos act up, I try to see beyond the behavior, beyond tears and tempers, and see their unmet needs. I’ve come to realize that small children have numerous unmet needs. Even the kids of the most well-intentioned parents will spend part of their day feeling dissatisfied and disgruntled. And much of this discontent is preventable.
Let’s briefly walk through three groups of needs:
One: Need for sleep and food. Kids morph into grumpy goblins when they’re tired and hungry—as do adults! So my wife and I eat on a regular schedule and enforce regular bedtimes. (My son calls me the “bedtime boss.”)
Two: Need for fairness. Children are keenly attuned to what is fair. So my wife and I strive to treat our two kids equally. This is difficult because our son is three years older and has more freedom (and responsibility) than his sister. But we make things as equitable as we can.
Three: Need for autonomy. Kids want complete control over their decision-making. Left to their own devices, they would stay up all night playing Minecraft, gobble jelly donuts for every meal, and adopt a dozen stray dogs. None of this is reasonable, of course. We have to have bedtimes, eat the occasional vegetable, and we can’t have a dog.
This is extremely disappointing to my kids, but we try to let them control as much of their life as is reasonable. Every day they have unstructured playtime, and we regularly take them to the public library and pick out books. When we grocery-shop, they get to choose a treat. And at bedtime, my daughter decides what order to do things like getting a drink, going to the bathroom, and getting hugs.
Acknowledging that my kiddos have numerous needs made me far more compassionate. It’s helped me avoid many negativity spirals. Better yet, it’s helped me see—and actually solve!—many of their unmet needs.
(Confession: I still fail at this a lot. But when I succeed, life is so much smoother!)
So try it out! The next time your tiny humans have a meltdown, consider their unmet needs. Are they tired or hungry? Do they lack autonomy?
Compassionate parenting doesn’t mean saying yes to everything; kids still need boundaries. But it does mean that many tantrums can be diffused (and possibly avoided) by reflecting on what little ones need. And doing this will make life much smoother.
I'm loth to apply labels on things, but this is what i aim for with my kid, and what we've been doing basically since birth. Just thinking the child knows what she wants even if she gets the details a bit wrong due to inexperience. It's made life a lot easier tbh. Of course, some folks tell us we're basically getting yanked around and "manipulated" by a child, but we don't listen to those people.
i can't believe i used to think things like "oh kids wont remember anything in the first couple of years of their life" because kids are much smarter and observant than we give them credit for very young, and respecting that leads to much better results so far.
As we enter the terrible twos, this becomes even more important to follow, though way harder. Especially since those who are more authoritarian have an easier time short term. But I've seen the results and it gives me strength to keep going.