Curiosity Helped the Parent

“Socrates told us, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.”
― Roger Ebert

In my last post I talked about “Middle Ground Parenting” (I may need to come up with a better name, I don’t mean to indicate mediocrity or settling in any way) by which I mean the ways in which we get to our desired parenting outcome: to help our children grow into responsible, mature, capable, happy adults.   The main principles are listening empathetically, setting appropriate limits and boundaries, using positive discipline, and spending quality time with our children.

So how do we actualize middle ground parenting? I started in my last entry with the parents need to exercise self-compassion.  The most important factor in child behavior is modeling.  Children end up acting the way they see us behave.  If we set a tone of self-compassion they are learning that one need not be perfect, everyone makes mistakes; that everyone deserves to be treated in a kind way, and that they are loved just as they are.

The next important concepts I want to emphasize are listening and curiosity. When our children are babies we learn to discern and attend to their needs by listening to their cries.  Over time we begin to notice how the cries sound when they are indicating hunger, sleepiness, boredom, and loneliness.  We learn to comfort and care for the child based on those signals.  The baby steadily comes to see the parents and caregivers in their lives as interested in them, and making every effort to try and meet their needs.  Developmental psychologists refer to this dynamic as “attunement”.  We can’t always be correct when we are discerning a baby’s communication, and we can’t always succeed in soothing them, but as Donald W. Winnicott writes in The Child, the Family, and the Outside World (Middlesex 1973): we can do “good enough” at it.  I will return to the concept of “good enough” parenting-it is important and comforting!

These same listening skills-as well as noticing and curiosity about what the child is communicating- can guide us as parents all through their childhood and teens. When a one to two year old child is just starting to put together sounds, then words, then short phrases, we can listen to what they are trying to communicate and approach it with interest and curiosity.  Why is she repeating the sound gah so often? Is that her newfound way of communicating to us that she wants to be held?  How excited does she get when she says gah, and you give her a squeeze!

Children are always growing and changing.  When a toddler is repeatedly falling asleep while trying to eat her lunch, we can be curious and notice that she is now more active, doesn’t always take a morning nap and gets tired earlier.  We can adjust her meals and snacks accordingly to meet her new needs.  And she will feel better if she is able to eat enough to fuel all that activity.

When a preschooler is always falling down, bumping into things, and crying at a certain time in the evening, we can notice, be curious about that, and try adjusting her bedtime accordingly.  She will have a more pleasant experience of bedtime, as tears don’t always precede it.

When our school age child seems like they are always being unduly mean to their siblings, and having frequent meltdowns, it can drive us crazy.  We often jump to the step of punishment, and often the punishment does not turn out to be effective.  I am not at all suggesting that parents tolerate that behavior, but as we set appropriate limits we can take a step back and notice the patterns of behavior.  When is this behavior happening? What is going on before and after it?  We can acknowledge our own anger and frustration with the behavior and also apply curiosity.  This may lead us to a larger picture of what is behind the behavior in order to come up with effective strategies to deal with it.  I will address this approach more fully in later postings.

Parents aren’t magicians or mind readers.  We can’t know all our child’s needs and even always understand the sounds and words they are using to communicate them.  But we can establish a pattern of being curious about our children, listening carefully to the words they say to us, noticing the behaviors they are exhibiting and then adapting our approach accordingly.  Listening, noticing and being curious will lead towards parents who know how to communicate and children feeling heard.