The Kingers & I

Kids are funny creatures of habits. They thrive on routine and structure. My kids are no exception. We’ve always been keen to instil good boundaries and routines at bed time so that that have an understanding and anticipation of the ‘now and next’ of when it’s time for bed.
I don’t know about you but my kids latch onto really random things with these things being suddenly introduced as routine. For example; when Oscar was little he always had a ‘last play’ before bed. We obviously introduced the phrase ‘last play’ at some point by saying something like ‘Oscar now it’s the last play before bedtime. So this part of the routine was named as the ‘last play’. It wasn’t acceptable to Oscar that he played before bedtime and then it would be teeth and then bed – we had to announce the ‘last play’! So we’d have to say ‘Oscar it’s last playtime’. If we didn’t announce it in this way then as far as Oscar was concerned, the last play had not taken place!

Another little routine that came into being emerged through Oscar having a bad dream one night.  Oscar woke early one night upset because he’d had a bad dream.  James went into him and said to him thathe would whisper a good dream into his ear to make the bad dream go away.  James is very creative and has a wild imagination just like the kids and so he came up with the mystical and wonderful ‘dream’ to replace the bad dream that Oscar had had and Oscar went back to sleep without a problem.  This is where the ‘dream’ came about!  Every night after his bad dream, Oscar would ask James to give him a dream.  James even took to thinking up these ‘dreams’ throughout the day so that he would have some ‘material’ for that night time!

When Mabel was about 2 years old we used to have major trouble trying to settle her to bed.  She was a pickle.  Getting upset about random things, you know how it is?!  So in order to distract her James invented characters to make her laugh.  At this time Oscar and Mabel shared a room so of course Oscar lapped it up too.  So James would go out of their room and return with his top over his head and his glasses on a wonk and would put on a funny voice with a story to go with it.  I can’t remember what the first character was called now be over time we have had; Nanny Brenda, Uncle Roy and many many more.  These have had us in fits of laughter and have diverted lots of tantrums.  I won’t put any photos of James in character on here as I think he would divorce me if I did!

Mabel’s current bedtime routine at the moment is ‘one more minute’.  Just as we say goodnight Mabel will ask ‘can I have one more minute Mummy’.  By this she means that she would like us to  sit in her room for just a short time while she settles into bed.  Bless her!

One birthday James decided that he would make the kids American style pancakes.  This has now become another routine.  Any birthday, be it mine, James’ the kids, Christmas, Easter etc. We now HAVE to have pancakes for breakfast on all of these occasions!  Oscar doesn’t actually like the pancakes any more but still, it has to be done – thats just the King thing!

A few years ago, before I became a health visitor I didn’t really understand the reason for these routines that crept into a our lives.  However, since becoming a health visitor I now see the importance of these strange aspects of a family life.  Children crave routine and boundaries as these help to make them feel safe and ‘contained’.  The feeling of being ‘contained’ is described as that of feeling as though others can hold their emotions with them in mind.  We as parents (or other signifcant people in children’s lives) need to be able to respond to children’s feelings so that the children feel safe with those feelings.  This is the idea of containment. 

They know what is coming now and next and this predictibilty helps to keep their emotions in check.  I see many families in my role as health visitor where for whatever reason life is chaotic.  It might be due to the fact that there is parental ill health in the household or substance misuse or domestic abuse.  It can even be as the result of the children’s parents not having had structure and routine in their lives when they were children and so are unaware of how to create that in their own parenting.

So you see those weird little routines that you have are all good for those little monkeys in helping them feel contained. That’s not to say that they don’t push against the boundaries or routines that we, as parents put in place but that’s their job & our job is to be consistent.

Emma

As I’ve said in my intro, I’m a Mum of 3 and also a Health Visitor (I know, I know-we have a bad rep!).  This parenting lark is a jungle some times.  I think that we spent a fair amount of Oscar’s baby/toddlerhood parenting how we thought we should parent and thought about what other people might think about our parenting decisions.  As we become more confident and more assured about how we wanted to parent we started to care less about needing other people’s approval.

Oscar has always been a pretty low-key child.  He’s very thoughtful and by that I mean that he is a thinker.  He’s never been a rough and tumble/in your fact type boy.  He’s the type of child who likes to abide by the ‘rules’.  For instance, he was at an after school sports club and left his school shoes at school by accident.  The next day, I told him to wear his PE trainers to school and we’d find his shoes when he got there.  Oscar was adamant that he couldn’t do that as they’re not allowed to wear to school.  It took a lot of convincing for him to wear his trainers just until we found his shoes.  Oscar is a keen learner, he takes in things he’s read or seen almost immediately and so he has always flown through school because he grasps things so quickly.

Mabel is head strong (that may be an understatement!).  Since she was a toddler Mabel has been ‘spirited’.  The ‘terrible-two’s’ started at about 18 months with Mabel, something Oscar never seemed to go through meaning that we were ill prepared for this delightful stage!  The tantrums Mabel had between 18 months and around 3 years were spectacular.  We had so many stand offs, and so many times we’d be utterly frustrated, we just had no idea how to parent Mabel.  At around 2 years old, we started to learn more about different parenting strategies.  Meal times were a particular ‘danger zone’.  We had many a stand off about what Mabel needed to eat.  She took (and still does) an age to eat her meals and I’m not sure what it is about children and food, it seems to spark a primative repsonse of the need to feed our off spring.  I started to look for advice of strategies to help meal times go more smoothly.  The key to our meal times becoming less of a battle zone was to take the pressure off.  To not focus and what Mabel wasnt doing and concentrate on the good things.  This was the key to less trantums with Mabel.  As she got closer to school age she was less ‘spirited’.  Mabel is a comedian, she loves to pull silly faces and put on funny voices.  She also acts like a little Mum towards Albie.  She helps him to get dressed sometimes and she speaks to him with kindness.  She has the patience of a saint with him too!

Albie, well Albie has always been…well…how do I describe him?!  Parenting Albie has challenged our parenting strategies.  Albie’s ‘babyhood’ was really difficult.  He was a very unsettled baby.  We went back and forth to the GP.  As a paediatric nurse, I knew he was suffering with reflux and it took until he was 6 weeks old, and a favour with one of the consultants I worked with, to get him on the appropriate medication.  He seemed a little better after that but things gradually became incredibly difficult.  At 3 months of age,  Albie became quite unwell.  I knew he was very poorly and so one Sunday at dinner time we took him to the children’s emergency department.  The nurse we saw there initially barely looked at Albie and was more focused on her computer.  Her opinion was that it might be colic -I knew otherwise.  After about an hour, we were seen by a paediatrician and within 10 minutes we were whisked off to the paediatric ward.  Practically as soon as we arrived, he had lots of tests – including a lumbar puncture.  We spent 5 days in hospital with him.  He had stong IV antibiotics and a further 5 days at home.  He had a sepsis with a very strange bug causing it.  He was still a very unsettled baby and eventually at 4 and a half months he was diagnosed as having cow’s milk protein intolerance (CMPI).  Albie was started on a special prescription milk and within 2 weeks he was a completely different baby. Albie follows in his brother and sister’s footsteps, he is the eternal comedian.  He is so loving, he says ‘I love you Mama’ without prompting.  He also follows in Mabel’s ‘spirited’ ways!

I think Albie has been the turning point for our parenting style.  I read an amazing book titled ‘Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids’ by Laura Markham.  It was a game changer.  Things suddenly fell into place.  The book talks about how children do not have the words to describe the big feeling that they have and the only way to demonstrate this are through tantrums or acting out.  This was the key to understanding our children better.  By naming the feelings so that as they grow older they are better able to identify those feelings without going into a melt down means that they can use words instead of actions.  We also learnt that a reassuring cuddle went a very long was to calming them down.  They’re reassured and feel safe with their feelings.  That being said, it doesn’t mean that the frustration doesn’t rear its head.  But during moments of calm we are able to regroup and be proactive rather than reactive parents.

The key messages to parenting I believe jare;

-don’t sweat the small stuff

-choose your battles -take the coat with you when they refuse point-blank to put it on despite it feeling sub-zero outside.

-decide on you parenting strategies during times af calm, it’ll help during those challenging moments and save you from reacting to a situation in a way that it isn’t helpful

-Lead with love – a reassuring cuddle goes a long way

-Regulating our own feelings and emotions means that we provide a positive role model for our children.  I don’t mean that we don’t show emotion because it so important to show children that us grown ups feel cross, grumpy, tired, scared and all the other emotions in between.  But we are not explosive and reactive

-We only need to be a good enough parent, there isn’t a single perfect parent out there

-apologising and admitting that we got things wrong.  We are fallible, just like them and that’s ok

-ALWAYS have wine or gin on standby!

Cheers!

Emma

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