Not everyone is ready for everything in every blog post, and this can be a challenging one. RAD parenting is a journey, and we’re all in different places. That's ok. Just keep growing.
When you read a post and think, “I can’t do that! That’s not me...”
1. Recognize the good things that strategy is trying to accomplish.
2. Evaluate the potential losses for not doing it.
3. Adapt it! Find a way to accomplish those good things in a style that suits you and a pace that challenges you to keep growing, not just your child.
This post may be a time where you practice just that.
It’s usually easy to like people who like you, but living love to someone who reviles you – or at the very least periodically lashes out at you from a saddening depth of anger – is tough.
Intentionally extending your heart and energy to bond with that person is even tougher.
When you decided to have another child, perhaps you envisioned playing silly games like tea parties with stuffed animals or championship soccer matches in the backyard. Since your child doesn’t leave much room for such frivolity, you have to make room.
Instead of imaginative play and silliness originating from the child,
allow it to originate from the parent.
You ask (perhaps with some indignation), “Why should I bother?!” Because that’s the relationship you want to have. And even if you don’t get any smiles and laughter out of it, the look of sheer bewilderment on your child’s face might be satisfying in its own way.
So here’s how it looks.
Your daughter needs her nails cut again.
Inside you start begrudging the fact that the child still can’t be trusted to cut her own nails, let alone not stab you with them during a hug or a rage. And then you remember this post. So you pull up a seat next to your seething, wound-up-tight little girl, out comes your best beauty parlor monologue, perhaps in a poorly done New Yorker accent:
“Oh, Sheri, did you see our special on nail cutting today? (In a whisper) Don’t tell Matilda, but your nails aren’t nearly as bad as hers!” (You look at your daughter, pretending she is Sheri, that she knows who the fictional Matilda is, and also that she is playing along.)
“You didn’t? Well, I’ll tell you we’re offering ‘get 9 nails cut and the 10th one is free’. Not bad, eh? I mean, if teachers would just let students claw on trees like bears, then we wouldn’t need nail cutting services, now would we, eh? But no, something about splinters and ‘hug the trees, don’t scratch the trees’ and some other nonsense.”
By this time you may even be done cutting her nails. There, you did it. You cut the nails, you were silly and fun, and you got to basically completely disregard your child’s state of mind as you pretended to be in another world in a way that oddly enough is bonding because it’s funny and engaging. (I do the beauty parlor routine even with boys.)
Mom's Beauty Parlor
Where Mom Is the One with Sass
Do you need to do this EVERY TIME you cut her nails? NO. But periodically, slip it in.
It will lighten your own spirit.
Notice that the dialogue was all POSITIVE, and the one comparative comment favored your daughter against the fictional Matilda. (Good for you in sneaking in a small, fictional compliment.)
Your 9-year-old son is mopping the floor in his usual slow, somber way. Instead of taking the opportunity to get irritated (which really isn’t worth your time and energy), you decide to take the opportunity to be the fun person/parent you want to be. In your best (though hardly recognizable) racetrack commentator voice, you begin:
“Number 42 is moving down the lane at a steady speed. Will he make the curve, ladies and gentlemen? Oh, the excitement! As expected, he’s leaving a streak of water in his path, but have no fear, ladies and gentlemen, that’s to be expected here at the Mopping Race Track. Ooh, he did make the corner and now he’s going back down the lane toward the Grand Stands. This may be some of the steadiest mopping we’ve ever seen ladies and gentlemen.”
Similar to the Beauty Parlor Monologue, notice that I didn’t unrealistically praise his work. The best compliment he received was “steady”, plus the praise of simply getting positive attention.
If your son says, “Mom/Dad!” and grumpily waves you off, then change your dialogue to signal your exit (“Sorry, folks, today’s race is canceled due to thunder.”) and walk away.
Ways This Can Go Wrong
If you are using this technique to try to passive-aggressively critique your child or motivate them to work faster, better, harder, then you are MIS-using this technique. This is NOT about correcting or improving your child. This is about finding a moment of humor and fun in a day otherwise full of drudgery.
This tool will also go wrong if you are being sarcastic. If you can't do a silly monologue without being or sounding sarcastic, then don't use this tool. Instead focus on ways to help your heart recover from its injuries.
Nevertheless...
Key Point:
You aren’t doing this because you feel so happy and playful.
You are doing this because it’s who you want to be
and how you want to be seen and known as a parent.
I’ve heard so many moms complain that raising a child with RAD has made them a b****.
Yes, it does that. The pain we suffer and carry is UNBELIEVABLE.
Nonetheless, we as parents have to take ourselves by our lapels and be the parent we want to be.
And, gosh darn it, we’re pretty cool.