Hey there,
Just want to let you know about a little market day that I’m involved with to raise money for the Cancer Council. There’s going to be lots of beautiful jewellery, clothes, decorations, bags and books for sale. I’ll be down there selling my books and a selection of other titles from Wombat Books.
Entry is $5 and includes a scrumptious morning tea.
All the details and lovely photos are on the facebook page.
Would love to see you there.
I’ve spent the summer researching a feature article on Starting School with Allergies, so I thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned here.
Anyone who has a child with allergies probably heard about the recent inquest into the death of 16-year-old Sydney student Raymond Cho, who died after eating a biscuit containing nuts at school. The biscuit was given to Raymond by other students who had baked it in a school cooking class. Hearing about this incident was a huge wake-up call to me, but it also demonstrates the huge responsibility teachers now face looking after children at risk of anaphylaxis. Thankfully deaths of school students with allergies are extremely rare, but they do happen every few years, so everybody who is part of a school community needs to be aware of allergies and the challenge they present to parents, teachers and students.
So what needs to happen when a child with allergies is starting school for the first time?
Since the death of Raymond Cho, the Department of Education and Communities has released some updated Procedures for public schools. They’re very new, but there are now some clear things that must happen if a school has a child enrolled with severe allergies. They must train their staff in anaphylaxis and emergency care, they must keep a spare EpiPen in their first aid kit that can be given to any child, even one who has not been previously diagnosed with an allergy, and they can and should use another child’s EpiPen if they think a child is having a life-threatening allergic reaction. So check that your school has implemented those things so you can be confident that your child will receive proper emergency care if the worst happens. You should also check with school staff that your child will be given a second EpiPen if needed.
Secondly, every parent should get a face-to-face meeting with a school representative to work out a unique health care plan for their child. This is now mandatory. When my daughter enrolled, we just handed in the paperwork and that was that. What should happen is that you should sit down with the school and together work out some strategies that will reduce the risk of your child having an allergic reaction at school. Those strategies will be different depending on the child and the specific allergy. So that might mean sending a note home to the other class parents to tell them about your child’s allergy. You might need to request that they don’t send certain foods to school, like peanut butter sandwiches. Don’t just assume the school will be nut-free or peanut-free, many schools aren’t. You might want to speak to the class, and show them a video or read them a book to teach them about allergies. You might instigate something like making sure the children wash their hands before and after eating, or that they eat lunch supervised in the classroom for ten minutes before heading out to play. Or you could get a sticker made up for the children’s lunchboxes that says, “Please don’t share food.” My experience is that even though kids know they’re not supposed to share food, they still do it all the time, so you need to keep pushing that message. Whatever strategies you decide on, the parents and the school should work it out together to make sure the solutions are workable, both for the child with allergies and for the rest of the school community.
What about the school canteen – is it safe to use?
Parents of children with allergies have to just work out for themselves whether or not they think the canteen is okay for their child. Personally I’ve decided not to let my daughter use the canteen, because our school uses a huge roster of volunteers, some of whom help out as little as once a month. With so many people on the roster, it’s inevitable that some of them won’t be clued up on allergies and that mistakes could be made. Caillie has already been sold products containing traces of nuts from the canteen because the packaging wasn’t checked thoroughly enough. So again, don’t just assume the canteen will be safe because they say it’s a nut-free canteen. Find out how it actually operates and then decide if it’s safe. It only takes one time that they run out of tomato sauce, somebody runs across to Woolies and buys a different brand than usual and suddenly the sauce has traces of peanuts or dairy.
What do parents need to teach the child with allergies so that they can keep themselves safe?
According to Dr Elizabeth Pickford from RPAH Allergy Clinic there are four main things children need to know before starting school
1) You need to make sure the child knows what they are allergic to and what foods are likely to contain that allergen. That sounds obvious, but as I go around pre-schools a lot of kids don’t know their own allergies.
2) They need to know to always ask a trusted adult if foods contain their allergen and that if there is any doubt they should just say ‘no’. As they get older they should be taught how to read the ingredients themselves.
3) They and all their friends need to be continually reminded not to share food with other children
4) If they feel sick, they need to tell the teacher immediately because the teacher can help them.
I also think kids need to know that they shouldn’t be ashamed of their allergies. Kids who feel different or ashamed are much less likely to speak up when they need to and for children with allergies speaking up is a survival skill.
In all of this, the main thing is ongoing communication, so keep talking to your teacher, the other parents and your child. And if you have an instinct that things aren’t quite right, then make sure you speak up. You can’t be shy if your child has a serious allergy.
Useful resources:
You can read the new Anaphylaxis Procedures for NSW Schools here
Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (including free online training)
Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia
My children’s book Marty’s Nut-Free Party is a great resource for the classroom
Trigger Food Allergy Awareness Video, also a great resource for teachers.
I’ve mentioned before that my eldest daughter Birdy has a fairly rare brain condition, so we spend quite a bit of time at Westmead Children’s Hospital. Recently she had to have an MRI. For those who haven’t had one, you lie inside a tube and you have to be perfectly still while an incredibly noisy machine takes photos of your brain. Some adults find it a bit claustrophobic, but it’s especially hard for kids so they usually do it under anaesthetic. But Birdy’s done it before without anaesthetic, so when they sent me the forms to consent to the anaesthetic I called the hospital and said we wouldn’t be needing it. Everybody I spoke to seemed very dubious that a 5 year old would be able to do it without anaesthetic. Even on the day, every time I’d say “We’re not having anaesthetic” we would get these knowing looks and raised eyebrows from the staff. But my husband and I both had complete faith in Birdy… and she was perfect. They got every photo first go with no fuss. That’s just a small example of how we can all do better than we might imagine when somebody has faith in us.
Children are born with an innate belief in their own abilities, but the messages that they get, initially from their parents, but also from their peers, can either build on that self-belief or chip away at it. Then those beliefs can become self-fulfilling. When I was at Uni I used to write and sing with a friend of mine. This friend, Andrew, would bring me a song he had written, and more than once I said to him, “There’s no way I can sing that!” But he would say, “Of course you can sing it! I can already hear it!” And after a bit of practice I would be able to do it! (I don’t think it’s any co-incidence that his wife is now a successful author! I bet he said to her, “Of course you’ll get published!” like my husband did to me.) When people believe in us, we can do more than even we imagine.
Of course there will always be some kids (and adults) who struggle to find their niche.
It’s that time of year where schools are handing out the end of year awards – and some kids always miss out. So what do you do for the child who doesn’t seem to be able to find their special talent?
Mud Run!
I don’t think you need to be especially good at something to be able to feel a sense of achievement. I recently did the Mud Run, which is a fun-run through mud and over all sorts of obstacles. I’m not a very fit person, and I’m not a good runner, but I happened to be running with a friend, Natalie, who really spurred me on. She continually set small achievable challenges along the way – she’d say “Let’s take the blue guys” or “Let’s jog to the next drink station to beat the queue”, so with her help I was able to run a lot more of it than I would have otherwise. And I felt proud of myself just for finishing (especially in the 42 degree heat!).
This friend of mine is a teacher and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that her students have achieved exceptional HSC results. I think the approach she used in the Mud Run is a good model for what we should be doing for our kids. Child psychologist, Louise Porter says, “Children need a coach, not a cheerleader”. We don’t need to be always telling our kids how wonderful and talented they are, but we do need to get alongside them, encourage them, spur them on and recognise what they are capable of! Then hopefully they’ll go on to bigger and better things. Things they didn’t think they would be capable of.
To me, Christmas is all about having faith in the impossible!
We celebrate the idea that God came down to earth in the form of a baby. We celebrate the idea of a God who is powerful enough to make the world yet personal enough to care about each one of us. Since this blog is all about celebrating our own babies I thought it might be good to finish the year with some words about the baby Jesus. This is from the Jesus Storybook bible by Sally-Lloyd Jones. (From Luke)
“The God who flung planets into space and kept them whirling around and around, the God who made the universe with just a word, the one who could do anything at all – was making himself small. And coming down… as a baby. Wait. God was sending a baby to rescue the world? “But it’s too wonderful!” Mary said and felt her heart beating hard, “How can it be true?” “Is anything too wonderful for God?” Gabriel said.
So Merry Christmas! Believe for the impossible. Nothing is too wonderful for God!
Molly dressing up as the Virgin Mary
For my Sydney readers, just want to let you know about a little Christmas event I am involved with. I am getting together with some other wonderful Christian authors to have a little Christmas book market in Sydney. We’ll be down at Ryde Presbyterian Church from 4 pm – 6.30 pm, this Wednesday December 12. (I’m sure some of us will be happy to stay a little longer if we have customers!) You will find books for kids and adults, fiction and non-fiction. I”ll be selling my first children’s book, Marty’s Nut-Free Party and two anthologies I contributed to, All Creation Sings: Psalms of Everyday Christians and In God’s Hands: Overcoming Miscarriage in a Broken World.
If you would like to find out more about the other authors joining me, here are the links to their websites:
We also have a facebook page for the event, where you can post comments or questions, or invite your friends. Log into facebook to view and share with your friends, or share the link to this post.
We’ll have refreshments available. Please bring cash as most authors will not have eftpos facilities. Hope to see you there!
This is not a topic that I really want to write about, but I feel compelled to given some recent events that have happened in the inner west and north west of Sydney.
We need to have a conversation about ‘stranger danger’.
It’s particularly important to discuss this because there have been a number of incidents in Strathfield, Drummoyne and Hunter’s Hill over the past week that are quite alarming. This follows a spate of attempted abductions in Hornsby, Thornleigh, Westleigh, Turramurra, Wahroonga, Pymble, St Ives, Coogee, Cambridge Park and Colyton earlier in the year.
For my Sydney readers, here are a few of the awful details.
On Monday, at 8.35 am, a ten year old girl and her brother were riding their scooters to school, when a man driving a white van approached the girl. He offered to drive her to school if she got inside the van. She made her way to a friend’s house and the man drove away. The police describe the man as being of Caucasian appearance, aged in his forties, with a medium build. He was unshaven with a long pony tail. The white van had some minor damage and had black and yellow rego plates.
I think it’s important to discuss this not just because of these incidents in Sydney, but also because school holidays can be a time when kids are home alone. Up to one in five kids under 15 will be left alone at home during the school holidays. So if you were thinking of leaving your children unattended for the school holidays, consider whether you could make alternative arrangements.
Unfortunately, predators aren’t just driving the streets in vans, they’re also at the other end of the your child’s computer.
We were always taught about ‘stranger danger’ when we were kids. At that time,the safety house program was in operation. We were told to go to a safety house if we were ever approached by a stranger.
I have a very strong childhood memory of getting a car with a stranger, even though I knew it was the wrong thing to do.
I had tripped over and was crying, when a car stopped and a lady offered me a lift home. I said ‘no’ two or three times, but she insisted. She even said, ‘I know where you live. You live in that white house next to the café, don’t you?” She persuaded me to get in the car, even though I knew it was the wrong thing to do.
I cried the whole way home and I can’t tell you how relieved I was to get safely out of the car.
So even if your children know that they shouldn’t get in a car with a stranger, adults can be very persuasive and children may not have the confidence to keep say ‘no’. That’s exactly what the research shows – that children know the safety messages, but when placed in the situation, they are still more likely to give in.
So what do parents need to discuss with their children to make sure they know what is or isn’t safe?
Fortunately I was able to hear my daughter’s principal talk about this with the children last week. The main message to give kids is that they should never go anywhere with an adult that they don’t know. He may say something like, ‘Mum’s been taken sick and she said I should pick you up today.’ Or ‘I’ve lost my dog, I think he went that way, can you help me look for him?’
Tell your children that you will never send a stranger to collect them.
Also tell your kids, ‘When you are on your own don’t talk to people you don’t know. Don’t get in a car with someone you don’t know. And if a car stops and you don’t know the person inside, keep walking.’
This may sound obvious, but it’s also important to make sure you know where you child is at all times. Make sure your child doesn’t walk the streets alone. At least get them to walk to and from school in a group of children. It’s also a good idea to have a designated route that they have to stick to. That way you know where to look for them. You can make sure they take busier streets and that they know where there are safe places to stop along the way if they need to, like at shops, service stations, a police station, the library.
It’s obviously important to talk about these things, but you also don’t want to alarm them, or make them think that adults can’t be trusted.
My daughter’s school principal told the kids that they should tell their parents if an adult makes them feel uncomfortable or ‘yucky’ and that they should also learn to trust their instincts. If something doesn’t feel right, then it’s probably not. At the same time, they also need to know that most adults are good, and that there are lots of people who can help them if they need help. So talk with your children about who they know that they can trust. It’s good for children to know that there are lots of people looking out for them, not just you.
How do you discuss stranger danger with your kids? Do you let them walk to school alone? Do recent events in Sydney concern you?
Illustrator Leigh Hedstrom and I at the launch.
Photo by A. Morris
Well I’ve reached the end of my first week as a real published author!
If you somehow missed the news, my first picture book launched exactly a week ago.
The illustrator, Leigh Hedstrom and I had a little party at the NSW Writer’s Centre (I love that eclectic old place!) with about 60 adults and 40 kids. We had a ball!
The kids did a colouring competition, which was judged by our MC – the illustrator’s hubby, 2012 Archibald finalist, Ben Hedstrom. For those who saw the exhibition earlier in the year, Ben did the painting of Sydney band Boy and Bear titled ‘Annandale Band Meeting’. I noted with amusement that the little girl who won the colouring-in competition was the daughter of Thirsty Merc drummer, Karl Robertson, whose wife Diana was performing at the launch. I was glad their daughter won the colouring competition because both she and her sister have food allergies. I must admit I’m secretly hoping this connection might precipitate a painting of Thirsty Merc in the next Archibald’s… We’ll have to wait and see!
The kids had lots of fun decorating some monkey cookies and enjoyed the beautiful cupcakes by Bee Allergy Friendly, who make egg-free, nut-free and dairy-free cupcakes and biscuits. Baking genius Mel Ross, shared with us that she started her business because her first child is allergic to seven of the eight most common allergens. “It was impossible to find any treats they could eat,” she said, “So I decided to make them myself. It wasn’t long before I was taking orders from other parents.”
Dr Elizabeth Pickford from RPA Allergy Clinic addressed the crowd on the importance of making sure children with food allergies are not left out of social occasions.
She said the best part of her job is working with families to find solutions that work for them. “We don’t want to use a cookie-cutter approach to managing allergies,” she said. I was thrilled that Dr Pickford was able to be there on the night because I think the work she does is so vital.
But now that the party is packed up, and the champagne has stopped flowing, the hard grind of promoting the book and getting the food allergy message out to the community has begun. (Many authors had warned me that getting the book published is the easy bit – the hard bit is getting it to its readers!)
This morning I read in the Sydney Morning Herald that Australian children have one of the highest rates of food allergies in the world.
Speaking at the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy Conference in New Zealand this week, Professor Johan Garssen admitted that scientists really have no idea why allergies are becoming more common, getting worse and lasting longer into adulthood. He said, “If I could answer why this is happening, I would win a Nobel prize.”
What I do know is that Aussie Mums, Dads and teachers are on the front line, trying to negotiate the mindfield that is living with a food allergy.
There are no simple answers and like Dr Pickford said at the launch, there is no ‘cookie-cutter’ approach that will work for everyone. What I tried to show in the book is that Marty, his Mum and his friends have to work together to keep Marty safe.
With a growing number of allergic children in our community, the burden of care can’t fall onto the parents alone. We all have to come to the party to keep our kids safe.
The crater left behind in the backyard after the Hills Hoist came out. (Top right)
I mentioned a few weeks ago that our kids recently demolished our Hills Hoist. Now, where that piece of iconic Australian yard furniture once stood, there’s just a big patch of brown dirt. Whenever I look at it I feel tempted to host a bonfire. Or to quote from The Castle, “I dug another hole. It’s filling up with water.” Both of these images fill me with a uniquely Australian nostalgia for an era that is fading away. I wonder if a backyard will be as much a feature of Australian life for the next generation of children as it was for us.
Apartments can’t be all bad. People in cities all over the world live in them, right? But they need to be accompanied by communal outdoor spaces. I imagine that not having your own garden could be good for fostering community if it forces people out of their own secluded yards into more common spaces, such as parks, gardens, bushland and beaches. Or even just out onto the street for a breath of fresh air. Even so, our cities are changing and I don’t think there has been enough public discussion on whether this is how Australians want to live. In my suburb there is a busy six-lane road that leads into the city. All along this road new mid-rise developments are popping up. In the majority of these developments, there is no land allocated for green space. This has to be fundamentally changing our lifestyle and the way our children will be brought up.
Dick Smith has been vocal on this issue. Last year he was quoted in the Manly Daily as saying, “At the moment in Terrey Hills we have free-range kids that live in houses with backyards. Now what they are going to force on us is battery kids living in high-rises.” According to Tony Hall, author of The Life and Death of the Australian Backyard, the Australian backyard is disappearing faster in the outer suburbs where huge homes take up a larger proportion of their land blocks. In inner suburbs, new prestige developments are often incorporating green spaces or waterfront areas into their designs.
But regardless of how much green space is allocated in a development, living in apartments must still limit the access a kid has to the outdoors. Mum still has to get stuff done, so the family can’t spend their entire day roaming the streets or picnicking in communal gardens. And when Mum is busy washing up or cooking or folding laundry, an enclosed, safe yard, in view of the house allows children to play outside or to move between inside and outside spaces while the mundane stuff of life goes on. Outdoor activities aren’t restricted to special supervised trips or limited by how much free-time the parent has available.
I love my backyard. It’s not landscaped, manicured or even very well-maintained but I am hopelessly attached to it. I remember planting every plant in it. I remember all the fun times we’ve had – the barbeques, bonfires and outdoor movie nights. All of my daughter’s five birthdays have been celebrated in that backyard. If we ever get kicked out of our house (we’re only renting) I am going to grieve losing my backyard. We probably should have bought an apartment or town house by now but I can’t imagine my kids growing up without a backyard. I love that when the cousins are over and they’re all getting ratty I can just send them outside and they soon settle down.
In the past few years, I’ve made a real effort to make the backyard a fun and interesting place. Yes there’s all the usual paraphenalia like a swingset, sandpit, fort and trampoline (all picked up second hand!) but I’ve also tried to involve the kids in growing and picking vegetables, tending to plants and enjoying the wildlife like the tawny frogmouth who often sits in the tree outside our kitchen window. I love the way that it’s constantly growing and changing to reflect the changing state of our family. And in a week of rain, a backyard allows you to just pop outside if the sun briefly pokes it’s head out from behind a cloud. Lately with the sunny Sydney days, I’ve enjoyed just peacefully pottering around in the garden while my baby gurgles in the baby swing. For adults, a backyard is a refuge from the madness and pace of our busy lives, a place to be still. For children it’s a safe, contained space where they can climb, play, have adventures and enjoy a little bit of freedom without an adult being always on their heels. Maybe it’s a pipe dream, but I hope that my grandchildren and great grandchildren will be able to enjoy the same indoor/outdoor Aussie lifestyle we had as kids.
Did you grow up with a backyard? How much did it meant to you? Do your kids have a backyard? Have you ever lived in a city where apartments are the norm? How is the lifestyle different? What are some of the positives of apartment living?
We all have those moments when we feel like a crap parent. For me, the moment was about a week ago. OK, it was technically an Aunty moment, but the point is the same.
My little sister and I were shopping at Birkenhead Point with our combined four children. (Aged 5, 4, 2 and my baby in the pram.) There aren’t too many lifts at Birkenhead Point and one of them is tiny. When it arrived, there were already a couple of prams inside. So I jumped in the lift with the kids, and my sister took the escalator to meet us up at the next level.
When we got out of the lift, my sister said, “Where’s Henry?” Suddenly my brain goes into over drive: “Did I have Henry? Didn’t you have Henry?” “Crap! Where was Henry?”
I rewound the last 30 seconds in my brain and realised what had happened. The lift had gone down before going up. At the bottom level, one of the Mums with a pram was getting out, so everybody shuffled out to make way. Henry must have gotten out of the lift at the bottom floor.
My sister charged down to the bottom level and found the aforementioned mother-with-pram waiting with Henry. No harm was done. But I must say it was one of the real low-points in my five years of parenting that I lost my sister’s kid, especially as I was only in charge of him for about 10 seconds in total. Wow, maybe I’ve set a new record for fastest person to lose a kid! We all have those moments in our parenting journey – the things we’re really proud of and the things we’re not so proud of. So here’s my list so far.
My Top Ten parenting low-points – here are the things I’m most ashamed of: (But don’t worry, I’m not actually beating myself up about them…)
My Top Ten parenting high points – here are the things I’m most proud of: (even though they are mostly the result of good fortune, circumstances and very little credit to me)
Don’t freak out. I’ve got another 20 years to come up with four more high points. A lot can happen in 20 years. Watch this space.
What have been your parenting high and low points, or strengths and weaknesses? (Mia Freedman calls it a smug list and a crap list.) Have you ever lost a kid? What are you most proud of as a parent?
So what does a ‘traditionally built’ female detective have to do with discipline? Heaps actually!
Yesterday I was part of a panel chat about discipline on Erica Davis’ morning show on Sydney radio station Hope 103.2. I talked about the idea of restorative justice versus punitive justice. It probably sounds like an odd way of approaching behaviour management but for me the philosophy behind what you do is just as important as what you do. Especially when it comes to discipline. What we are doing needs to make sense with what we are actually trying to teach our children.
I first started thinking about these ideas when I was studying international relations and the use of state force. You see, the use of force is limited under international law. One of the new doctrines that was attracting a lot of attention at this time was the ‘responsibility to protect’. The generally accepted idea is that it’s not OK for a nation state to use military force against another country unless it is in self-defence. (Stay with me). But then what about when something like the Rwanda massacre occurs? This new doctrine says that the international community has a responsibility to protect a state’s citizens. If people are being butchered by their own state, the use of ‘protective’ force is acceptable to safeguard the innocent.
So I took these ideas home and started applying them to my then one-year-old. I decided to try not using ‘punitive force’, like smacking, but using protective force instead. That means if my kid hits another kid in a George W. Bush style ‘pre-emptive strike’, (ie. aggression dressed up in the language of self-defence, “But she was going to hit me, I just know it!), then rather than smacking my kid I would intervene to protect the other child. That could mean separating them (putting in a new border), making the ‘hitter’ play elsewhere (extradition), or physically staying present to make sure no more hitting occurs (peacekeeping troops). Hopefully this also sends a clearer message to the child. Rather than saying, “You’re not allowed to hit your cousin but I am allowed to hit you,” (like bombing Iraq) my actions will say, “Hitting is not acceptable, and I am here to protect you both.” (The UN).
Enter Mma Ramotswe, fictional proprieter of The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency and enforcer of common sense justice. Mma Ramotswe is a self-taught private detective (self-taught from the esteemed Clovis Anderson’s seminal instruction book, Principles of Private Detection) who goes about setting right the wrongs in her beautiful home country of Botswana. Mma Ramotswe solves mysteries and rights wrongs but she almost never involves the law or shames the wrong doer. Instead she finds ways to ‘restore justice’, to set right what was wrong without punishment. This doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for the criminals, but the answer usually involves them taking responsibility for their actions in some way. Having read about 10 books in the series, I’ve found my thinking constantly being shaped by the idea of ‘restorative justice’, as opposed to ‘punitive justice’ which is designed to hurt the wrong doer and make them regret their action. Unfortunately, punitive justice tends to create bitterness and resentment between people whereas restorative justice is about restoring trust in the relationship. I didn’t even realise this concept had found its way into mainstream ideas about discipline until I saw it on the cover of Sydney’s Child last week. Apparently restorative justice is now being applied among at-risk kids in high schools with massive success. It’s harder work than just dishing up a punishment, and many of the kids would rather just take the wrap than face up to those they have wronged. But the long-term results are impressive.
If you’re not convinced, just think about how you feel when you have stuffed up in some way or have let someone down. What would your prefer? To be punished, or offered forgiveness? Adults are not immune from punishing each other. We do it by withholding affection or intimacy, by avoiding those who we perceive have wronged us, or by giving someone the silent treatment. (Is this really so different from isolating a child by sending them to their room or putting them on the naughty chair?) If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment then you’ll know it hurts like hell. Especially if you don’t know what you’ve done to deserve the snub. Different people will respond to that kind of treatment in different ways. Either they will detach from the relationship so they don’t continue to be hurt, they will confront the person and demand an explanation, or they will try even harder to please the person who is punishing them. If on the other hand, you already know and have acknowledged what you’ve done wrong, then why do you need to be punished? What you need at that point is to be restored to the other person, which only comes about through the process of seeking forgiveness and extending grace. It’s as simple as saying, ‘That’s OK’, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ ‘Thanks for your apology’, ‘I appreciate that.’ I’m not saying that there’s never a time to send a child to their room or put them on the naughty step, but you need to be clear on why you are doing it and be sure that it makes sense in the context of what you’re trying to teach them.
At this point, the advocates of the punitive model usually say, ‘Ah but it’s different, because with children you have to teach them right from wrong by punishing them.’ But is that really so different to adult relationships? When adults hurt each other, we don’t usually do it deliberately. We usually hurt each other, or behave badly because we don’t yet know better. We didn’t realise that thing we did or said or failed to do would be hurtful to that person. We didn’t understand the way they think or feel, what they expected of us, or what their particular sensitivities were. Once we have learned and communicated without blaming then we can improve that relationship. Children usually also stuff-up because they didn’t quite realise what was expected of them, or they didn’t know how to deal with their feelings. Children, like adults, need to experience the consequences of their mistakes, but we don’t have to make those consequences disproportionate to the original problem.
It is self-evident that you don’t get punished for doing the wrong thing, you get punished for getting caught. (If you do the wrong thing, but don’t get caught, there’s no punishment. Also if you are punished unfairly for something you haven’t done, it creates resentment.) This can lead to deceptive behaviour, lying or far worse a child (and later an adult) who only behaves well when people are watching. Punishment says, “If you do that behaviour, you will be punished, so don’t do that behaviour again.” It’s a model based on obedience and good behaviour as the goal. What I want my children to learn, more than obedience or how to behave, is empathy. Punishment does not easily model empathy. When we punish, we switch off our own empathy temporarily. We leave our child crying on the naughty chair or in their room instead of comforting them, or we smack them with the deliberate intention of hurting them, even though we ourselves would not like to be treated that way. So the child in response has several choices; to also switch off emotionally and accept the punishment, to rebel against the punishment or to try harder to please us in the future. Learning to please others is not the same as developing empathy or consideration for others. Clinical psychologist Lyn Worsely talks about how even babies as young as six weeks who have experienced trauma will look to their caregiver for cues and create fixed expressions that aim to please their parents. It may be compliant but it’s not necessarily healthy. And it can lead to anxiety down the track.
So now when I’m faced with a conundrum, rudeness, an injustice or a behaviour I don’t like, I ask myself “What would Mma Ramotswe do?” (WWMRD?) How can this problem be solved in a way that respects everybody’s autonomy, encourages each person to take responsibility for their own actions and treats the child as a person in their own right, rather than a puppet, expected to dance when we pull their strings (which, by the way is the American approach to international diplomacy!)
Mma Ramtoswe isn’t perfect. She isn’t even real. She doesn’t have all the answers. She makes mistakes. But she’s prepared to admit it as the following passage demonstrates:
Mr J.L.B Matekoni looked suprised.
‘I can’t imagine you making any mistakes,’ he said. ’You’re too clever for that. You would look at all the possibilities and then choose the right one. Every time.’
Mma Ramotswe snorted.
We all make mistakes. We don’t usually need to punish each other. We just have to admit when we’re wrong.
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