Reset day or hours or minutes does wonderful things to your mind. Things are no longer racing past you, you slow down and start to observe minor details. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you slow down enough to match your child’s pace.
That is exactly what happened after the reset day.
The next morning, I was relaxed and kiddo was too. We woke up, we were going through our morning routine and errands – all of which is crunched into the morning 1 or 1.5 hours before we had out the door. I was cooking lunch and it was time for kiddo’s breakfast, I put the breakfast in the plate and there was a tiny, low volume voice that came our from my kiddo that said ‘no water’ – it was very low volume – probably due to relaxed evening the day before. I barely heard it.
Now I am going to pause the scene here – kiddo on the table and me getting ready to give food in plate while stirring stuff in the stove to avoid burning of lunch – freeze that scene in your mind – let us talk about our mind voice.
I don’t know how many of us are acutely aware of this, but we all have a mind voice that is talking to us constantly. Like Vivek and Thanush comment in VIP – ‘sir you are talking loudly thinking it is mind voice’. Like Phoebe calls out in Friends ‘I can hear my voices again :D’, we all have that mind voice that is constantly providing feedback, sharing information, providing impromptu responses – sometimes based on past experiences, sometimes heavily biased – quite unknown to ourselves.
As parents, this voice is quite strong, since our need to protect our kids are strong and hence this mind voice constantly keeps throwing responses at us
Time to unfreeze, and continue playing the scene. Click that play button now 🙂
When my kiddo said ‘no water’, my mind voice immediately went – of-course quietly in my head – ‘that is silly, kiddo needs water (in case food gets sticky or stuck in mouth or food is spicy or various other scenarios that needs water to go with food)’.
and quite instinctively, between monitoring food in stove, picked up a kiddos water bottle and kept it right next to breakfast plate and rushed back to stove – all of this happens very quickly and almost no time transpired in between the time my kiddo said ‘no water’ and me putting that exact water next to kiddo.
And the water bottle flew down with another reminder from kiddo saying ‘no water’.
and my mind voice went ‘AHA, I found it!!!’
Another pause in the scene here – Toddlers go through a stage where they need certain things to go with certain things. and some things placed in certain spots etc. It could be tied to the schema that they are in or tied to the age related milestone. e.g. some toddlers refusing mixed food and preferring food separately in their plate – rice separated from sambhar or veggies etc..
Now going back to scene but going 1 day back, the previous day – when things like this happened, my reaction was usual reaction which we do in the morning rush, confusion and frustration and setting limit with kiddo – which would cause a chain reaction of meltdowns.
In fact, time out method and other such methods recommend this – if kids misbehave, give them time to think about it and fix their mistakes.
Here although – at the outset, it looks like kiddo is misbehaving by throwing the bottle down, kiddo actually gave me plenty of advanced information – said ‘no water’ consistently. When I did not listen, kiddo reaction was to remove the water by pushing it away – which eventually fell down. Why push the bottle? Because kiddo is brand new toddler, and at that age, has not learnt verbal or other communication skills to let me know that I was not listening. And doesn’t know there are other ways like putting the water back on kitchen counter, or asking me to take it back and so on.
Two outcomes from this:
- I had to really listen to what kiddo is saying and stop listening to my mind voice – however considerate my mind voice was, how much ever caring and out of love, my mind voice was dictating the response.
- I need to help kiddo learn that throwing bottle is not right response when they feel they are not being heard, and show others ways to respond.
With all of this realization – I picked up bottle and said “oh if you don’t want, let me know I will take it back, bottle is not for throwing only ball is for throwing”
Day2:
- I did not give the water bottle – instead said ‘hey if you want water, let me know i will give you’
- Also right after kiddo drank took the bottle back with same message ‘if you want water, let me know’.
Day3:
Now the routine was set, if kiddo needed water, I would give, but take it right back
Day4:
Kiddo was okay with water next to the table and took it. And when not needed, asked me to take it back or gave it back to me. Within two days, we both started really listening to each other and being respectful of each other and the items.
Within two days we found the root cause of what started the avalanche of meltdowns and we fixed it, listened to each other and continued to listen.
We found the reset button. And that happened simply because we took a pause from constant rushing that our fast-paced life demands from us.
A reset can do wonders! And of-course, paying attention to your mind voice and balancing it with kids voice can really start a magic!!! Try it!