Letting Go of Punishing

I have been studying and practicing positive parenting for at least 13 years. I struggled to find effective parenting 30 years ago with my oldest. I felt like if he was struggling it meant I had to do something, anything, more. I took his struggles personally. I felt like a bad mom. When we got help with what turned out to be a serious neurobiological illness I was off the hook. This wasn’t me, it was him and he was doing the best that he could. If I had been a more punitive parent, I wonder how much more damage I could have done- breaking him, fighting with him, punishing him.

I started over with Joey and Zach, with more personal certainty and a lot of research. Deciding to raise the boys without punishment was made with great discussion and thought and it kind of felt like a rash science experiment. What if we were messing them up? Is it really enough to work with them and model and be patient?

Most of us had our hands slapped or our butts swatted when we made little kid mistakes. Later we got sent to our room or grounded or lost privileges for bigger kid mistakes. Maybe we learned our lesson and maybe we just grew up to do better. The problem is that we also learned that when people make mistakes we get to do something to them.

There are days when I am still tempted to punish. I am frustrated or worried about them or they do the same stupid thing AGAIN. If my feelings get hurt or I am having a rough day or it is past my bedtime my imagination starts creating punishments that seem very necessary…except we don’t do that here. I find my urge to punish occasionally shows up with people other than my kids as well. And the dogs! Oh so often the dogs- but even the dog trainers say no punishment.  If anyone hurts my feelings or pisses me off or gets in my way or lets me down…BAMM! Those are still my Darth Vader moments where it feels reasonable to blow up someone’s planet to get my way.  Noticing this  actually helps because if I don’t get to punish my husband or my friends or my sisters or those irritating people at Target, why should I get to punish my kids?

I believe that my kids mostly learn by example. I believe that parenting is lot of love and a few firm limits. I believe that my kids want to do their best and mostly get better when I help them do their best. I believe that it takes a really long time to raise grown ups to be who are meant to be. I believe that nothing I do to them out of anger or frustration is going to be very helpful.

And so I put aside my ability to blow things up and resist the urge to BAMM and feel like maybe this positive parenting thing is working- I am growing up to be a much nicer more patient person.