Parenting and Covid-19: Throw the Ball

Parenting and Covid-19: Throw the Ball

CO-PARENTING IN LOCKDOWN AND WORKING FROM HOME = DOUBLE STRESS

While many families have settled into a happy groove with the lockdown, others are experiencing increasing stress with trying to work from home and co-parent in a confined situation. Furthermore it is likely that our immediate and ongoing future will see more parents continuing to work from home, or being at home unemployed, after the lockdown eases.

KIDS ARE DISTRACTED AND UNPREDICTABLE

Children, no matter how old, can easily revert to unconscious impulsive behaviour at the best of times. They don’t yet have the overview or Big Picture, and without that objective viewpoint they cannot easily ‘read’ what is going on in others. The brain in childhood is learning and growing through immersion in whatever is catching their focus at that moment, so children easily forget requests or agreements and fail to notice when a response is expected.

On top of that, children of all ages are supposed to play! Play is the way the brain explores and experiments to create a rich and diverse capacity (plasticity) for the future. But of course when they are playing they are distracted from paying attention to their parents and tend to ignore them. All this immersion and distraction means that children are fickle and unpredictable. Their attention and responsiveness to their parents is intermittent.

WORDS DON’T WORK

The parent is the touch stone, the anchor, the rock. The child swims out into the moments of the day and back to the parent for interaction, support and security. As they swim out and back they are laying down neural pathways of EXPERIENCE in their brains. Whatever they may be thinking or feeling, it is the experiential ‘body’ brain that ‘writes the story’…it learns by doing and just like the animal world it tags things as ‘safe or ‘unsafe’, trustworthy or not. This body brain is NON-VERBAL: it is in a constant non-verbal ‘conversation’ with the physical world, logging what works and what doesn’t. Verbal reasoning and emotional persuasion don’t work on this brain! It notices only signals and ACTION. Therefore the question parents need to ask themselves is: what is the message I am sending to my child’s brain via my signals and actions?

KIDS DON’T GET IT

When a parent is trying to work from home it is common for the children to not understand what that parent needs and whether that parent is available or not. They expect their parents to be ‘on tap’.

Consider this typical scenario: You are working from home. This includes phone and video calls, emails and computer work, as well as non-screen tasks. You may have a home office or separate room to work in or you might be trying to work in the space shared with the kids. 

As the children roll through the day there are many moments when they need you to engage. Classically, just when you think they might self-manage or self-occupy and you could get a stretch of work done, they interrupt and demand your attention. You keep trying to sort it and get back to your work. It is enormously frustrating!

Now let’s look at it through the children’s eyes, ears and bodies. Their parent is unpredictable: only partly present, hasn’t anticipated this moment, is not fully focused, does not properly respond, and can suddenly become impatient, irritable or angry. The children don’t see it coming because they don’t yet have the Big Picture.

KIDS IMITATE THEIR PARENTS

When parents are on a call or screen, or immersed in a project, they are not actually present to anything else. The children are learning through imitation of the adult behaviour and repetition of experience. When they are repeatedly met by a parent who is not fully present they learn to not be fully present themselves. They copy what their parents do.

A classic example of this is at breakfast time. Parents often report that trouble starts right then. The children keep running off to play. They demand toys, books, screens, audio stories or stories read to them or else they won’t eat. They refuse food they don’t like, fight with each other, rile up the cat or dog and ignore any parental pleading or threats. Sound familiar? 

I then ask the parents: what are you doing at this time? Well… they are making lunches, drinking coffee, possibly taking the odd bite of something or not eating, making alternate breakfasts, dealing with dishes, popping out to the laundry, checking texts and emails, fielding calls from work, discussing or arguing with the other parent, reminding or shouting at the kids…and all this still in their pyjamas! 

So what is being modelled here? The reason why the children have not learned to sit and focus and cope with sharing a meal with the rest of the family is because the parents themselves are doing none of that. The parents are modelling distraction, poor attention when they do interact, negative response and even total ignoring. And if that is not enough they then get mad at the children and blame them for the bad behaviour at breakfast. Alternatively they disengage from the negative behaviour and the children go on into the day poorly grounded and without adequate food. This sets the child and the day up for failure.

This same negative outcome can arise when parents try to work from home. If they are randomly moving in and out of the children’s zone, sometimes attentive, sometimes not, or suddenly disappearing without warning, then they are modelling distraction and unpredictability. Repetition of poor quality interaction might upset the children at first, but even more dangerous than that is when the the children’s brains resign to the parent behaviour and hardwire poor relationship as ‘normal’, becoming more disconnected, unresponsive and resentful of the parent.

KIDS HARDWIRE WHAT THEY EXPERIENCE AS ‘NORMAL’

The experiential body brain of the child is always asking the question: ‘what is the world?' Whatever they are exposed to they will log as ‘normal’. Children growing up in war zones log war as normal. Children growing up in a home life that is distracted, reactive and chaotic are logging that as normal. And when a particular pocket of the day is repeatedly stressful, the children’s brains will tag it as unsafe and be ‘on guard’ and reactive right from the start. The vicious cycle is established.

Neither the children’s needs nor the parent’s work are getting the full attention they need. The poor stressed parent is unable to do a good job with either. Up goes the cry: ’I can talk (or shout) till I’m blue in the face, but they just don’t listen. They argue or ignore me. Then the day is off on the wrong foot and I can’t get any work done’.

THE SOLO PARENT CHALLENGE

If you are a solo parent needing to work from home, being highly organised is your greatest tool. Create set times of the day to do shorter periods of work when the children’s needs are already met and they are set up with something to immerse in. Put a timer on. End your pocket of work BEFORE they run out of being able to self-occupy. Do not stretch them out till all tempers are frayed. Because you do not have another parent to ‘throw the ball to’ it is critical that you set your expectation bar low! When the children need attention be ready to drop the work and manage the situation with warmth, patience, calm and full presence. Believe me, if you meet their needs without a fight and before they have ‘lost the plot’ you actually stand a chance to get more work done. Unfortunately most of your work will need to be done when they are asleep. This is an incredible demand on the solo parent but strong organisation and calm response are the only way.

And now some tips for all scenarios:

GET IT CLEAR AND SIMPLE

How do you SIGNAL the children? They are learning via the experience of their environment, so instead of trying to verbally direct them, which usually does not go so well, we can shape the environment to signal what they should expect. I call this ‘creating the riverbed for their river to flow in’. 

THE PHYSICAL LAYOUT FOR WORK

Designate a set work zone for the working parent. If you have no choice but to do some work in the children’s zone, brainstorm a signal: e.g. sticking a picture to your chair, a funny hat on your head, a soft toy in a special spot that all signal ‘parent working time, children playing time’. If there is more than one adult available it is better to have the work space with the door shut and as far away from the zone of the children as possible.

‘Out of sight, out of mind’ works best for their brains. In the work room set up everything the working parent might need for a stretch of time. Snack food, drinks, a kettle, perhaps a toaster…or even a mini fridge if that is possible! It is critical that you avoid going in and out of the bubble where the children are with their other parent or caregiver. 

THE POCKETS OF THE DAY

Create a strong rhythm to the day with pockets signalling what activities are happening when. This immediately meets so many needs that the children become more settled, and therefore more responsive. (see my earlier article ‘At Home with the Kids’). 

WHO’S ON KIDS? 

If you are ‘at work’ stay in the work zone!  Make it crystal clear when the working parent is ‘on the kids’ or ‘off the kids’ and not available. Do not ‘swan’ in and out! Invite the children to help make a sign for the workplace door that signals ‘parent working’. This engages the children in the set-up. You could also use objects, pictures or signs in the children’s zone that indicate which parent is ‘on duty’.

‘THROW THE BALL’: make set time periods for the working parent to be ‘at work’. Use timers if necessary to signal the start and end of a period. Honour the timers. If you know that work might drag on and you might be late to return to the children’s zone then don’t make promises. Simply extend the period that you are always at work. Children do best when the rhythm holds.

ONLY ONE CAPTAIN

One of the greatest risks of working from home is when the working parent (B) comes into the children’s zone and interferes with the parenting of the other parent (A) who ‘is on the kids’. This is infuriating for parent A at least and disastrous at most. The parents then clash over management. Alternatively parent A may be often calling to parent B to come to the rescue. The children will play all these scenarios to their advantage. They soon record that if they resist parent A long or loud enough then parent B will come back in. In all cases the children’s behaviour is not positively met and worked through by parent A. Parent A is likely to become disempowered in the eyes of the children and the negative behaviour will escalate. Parent B should be right ‘off the scene’ and not available unless it is a true emergency. This clarity settles the children and helps them to relax into the care of parent A.

This same rule of thumb applies when 2 parents are together in the children’s zone at non-work times. Try to be clear which of you is the Captain at any given time. Let that Captain call the shots and run the show. When trouble erupts between parent A and the children, then parent B needs to support parent A or walk. The children’s ‘doggies’ cannot handle 2 masters. Children thrive and blossom on the calm, clear signals of their environment and the people in it.

Mary Willow, April 2020