Ready-Set-Go Gently Parenting

It is a Saturday morning in Sandy Bluff, about a year and a half after we started this story.  During that year and a half, each one of our families confronted some difficult behavior by their children. They all made some changes.

It so happened that when Zylvie Taylor was two, Esther and Alford Martin found themselves with full custody of this small but very lively and challenging grandchild. Fortunately, Esther and Alford have plenty of acquired wisdom and experience, and they also are in good physical health! Even so, they did not have an easy time of it. As they rose to this challenge with grace and love, their many friends and acquaintances noticed. Gradually, in one way or another, all the other parents in our story turned to Esther or Alford for advice.

Esther and Alford represent the best and wisest among us. Let’s listen in!

On this Saturday morning, Kristen, April, Nicole, Rosa, and Esther have all gathered on Esther’s back porch to talk about how things are going.  At this point, they have numerous successes to share! John Martin, Zylvie’s young dad and Esther’s youngest son, drives in from the University while this is going on. He finds himself snacking on their delicious brunch foods and joining the discussion also!

They all agree that at a basic level, doing a GO GENTLY involves separating the child from the problem.This always requires energy on the part of the parent! From the age of 1 until the age of 7 or 8, very often the parent has to get up and GENTLY, but physically, remove the child from a situation. About half the time, it is sufficient to remove an object (or a sibling) from the child, but that may not be easy either.

Kristen relates that she actually got sore muscles when she first started using READY-SET-GO GENTLY. “Makayla simply could not believe that I meant it when I asked her ONCE not to do something! She kept trying me out. So, I kept having to get up. We had a pretty tough first day, but then the second day was way worse! I don’t remember everything that happened, but on the second evening, she started acting out with that poor gerbil. She pretended she just wanted to pet it, but she was squeezing it. So, I said calmly, ‘Makayla, do not squeeze Gerbie.’ She looked me straight in the eye and squeezed him again. The poor little thing yelped! I didn’t say anything else, but I got up and rescued Gerbie, put him back in his cage, and put the cage on top of the refrigerator. She started yelling that Gerbie wanted to play with her. So, I said, ‘No, not tonight. We can try again tomorrow if you will not squeeze him.’ And of course, she started arguing and promising that she wouldn’t squeeze him. In the past, I would have discussed, explained, and argued. Honestly, with that kid, we could have gone on all night about the exact position of gerbil body parts! I would have given in just to end the discussion. But I was starting to realize what was going on. So, I ignored her. Well, she pulled over a chair and started trying to climb up to the top of the frig. I said calmly, ‘Makayla, put that chair back where you got it.’ She kept right on going, of course. I got up and put the chair back. She pulled it back to the frig. I didn’t say anything else, but I put it back again. That happened 5 times in a row. Finally, she ran down the hall to her brother’s room and just started pulling all his toys off his shelf and throwing them on the floor. I said, ‘Makayla, pick up everything you threw and put it back where it belongs.’ Of course, she didn’t. She just stood there with her little hands on her hips and yelled, ‘NO!’ I didn’t say anything else, but I physically picked her up and took her over to the first toy. And she just stood there. So, I wrapped her little hand around the toy, picked her up with my other arm, and I lugged her and the toy back to the shelf; then, I pried the toy out of her fingers and put it back. And she just kept rigid like a statue. There must have been 20 toys, and we did that about 6 times. She was like a lead weight. I was furious and getting exhausted, and I wanted to scream and yell. But I realized she had to be just as upset as I was, and I was the adult. At that point, I picked her up, cuddled her, read her a story, and just rocked her until she fell asleep. I put the rest of the toys away. The next day, I literally hurt in places I didn’t even know existed! Makayla acted like nothing had happened at all. But she never acted that bad again. It was like we were putting each other through some kind of horrible final exam.”

John wanted to know, “What happened to the gerbil?”

“Oh, we still have Gerbie,” sighed Kristen. “It’s really Matthew’s. We figured out Makayla was jealous of it, because Matthew loves it. Poor Gerbie is scared to death of Makayla, but we sometimes let her touch him if we are right there to supervise.”

John said, “Gerbils are rodents.”

Kristen nodded. “I know. But it’s kind of cute.”

Nicole spoke up. “Well, rodents and sore muscles are no fun, but at least with a three-year-old you can still pick her up and move her around if you have to! My two were out of control at age 12 and 14.”

“Did you beat them?” asked John.

Nicole groaned. “I wanted to! I was so mad one time, I tried; I ran around after Christopher with the broom. But I couldn’t even get close enough to land a whack. He ran out the door, and I just stood there all out of breath and feeling like the worst Mom in the world.”

“¡Verdad! So true!” agreed Rosa. “When they get older, it’s like that. What did you do?”

Esther smiled to herself. She remembered. She and Nicole had sat in her very own kitchen and worked out some plans.

Nicole replied, “Well, one day they came home from school and their TVs, Xbox, and iPad were gone!”

“A break in?” gasped Rosa.

“Nope. Or you could say it was a Mom break in!” Nicole explained. “While the kids were at school, I packed up all their electronics, put them in the trunk of my car, and took them somewhere that the kids could not possibly find them.”

Esther laughed. “Sometimes it’s good to have a friend that your children don’t know. All that stuff sat in one of our closets for almost 3 months.”

“Yes, Esther definitely helped me hatch this plan,” agreed Nicole.

“We had done it once before, so I knew it would work,” commented Esther.

“What happened when the kids got home?” demanded April.

“Oh, they were NOT happy,” replied Nicole. “But I just told them, first of all, your stuff is safe, but you won’t find it. I’ll bring it back IF and WHEN I think we are ready as a family. I told them, ‘After you calm down, we will have a family meeting and talk things over.’”

“Did you ever have the meeting?” asked Kristen.

“Yes, but not right then. They argued and rampaged, and Meghynn even “ran away from home” to her girlfriend’s house for one night. It was awful, but I didn’t say another word to them for 2 days. I put a simple meal on the table at each mealtime. I did necessary Mom stuff, like drive them to school, in silence. I put up a little sign. It said they could ask me politely when they were ready to have the family meeting. After about 48 hours, they came to me, and they were ready. It’s been a slow process. We had to all establish respect for each other, because we had lost that somewhere. But now, things are much better!”

John reacted. “WOW! I think it’s good I’m a parent now while I’m young enough to deal with all of this.”

The ladies laughed out loud. “¡Tiene derecho!” said Rosa. “He is right! I had a lot more energy with my first two.”

Esther gave John a look. Esther was the oldest person in the group, yet she had done a tremendous amount of physical work with Zylvie over the past year! Admittedly, this was to some extent Esther’s own choice. John was doing well in engineering at the University. Chantelle was going to nursing school full time at the community college. Esther wanted those things to happen, and she loved Zylvie dearly. However, she wasn’t letting up on preparing John for full parental duties!

“John, sum this up for us. What’s the mainstay of discipline, when you use READY-SET-GO GENTLY?”

John held up a finger while he finished another sausage ball. Then, he nailed it!

“Well, you have to stay READY. You have to watch your kid pretty much all the time, and you have to be ready to jump up and intervene on a second’s notice.

“You have to give them a lot of attention when they’re good, because that incentivizes them to be good. If you just give attention when they’re bad, you incentivize them to be bad! We found that out the hard way. Then you got to uncentivize... you’re always centivizing and uncentivizing and incentivizing and inventivizing...”

Esther rolled her eyes, “John!”

John continued, “But the point is, you might feel like you’re all turned around, but that little one-year kid has it ALL figured out! A kid can know just how to get you going, so you have to be smarter.

“And they ARE going to be ‘bad’ at times! So, when they act up, you give them one ‘SET’ request. You say it calm; you say it once. You say it simple.

“And while your mouth is doing that, and keeping all calm, you’re wrapping the rest of your brain around whatever it is that kid is about to do,because they’re gonna do SOMETHING and you’re gonna have to get up and do a GO GENTLY. So, you’re thinking out your options... FAST.

“Most of the time, it’s easy. You just remove them out of trouble and put them where you want them. Gently. Or sometimes you have to remove something out of their hand and put it where they can’t get it. Gently. Just doing that thought process helps you keep it gentle, and keep it focused. Your response has to match what they did. Like what Ms. Kristen was explaining about putting the toys back. And even if it’s hard, like that, you can’t “lose it.” No matter how bad THEY are, you gotta be the adult. Even if you don’t feel like it, or you think maybe you don’t even want to be an adult yet! Like me. I’m not really even an adult yet, but I’m a parent, so I don’t have a choice!

“I think prying a yelping rodent out of the little hands would just about finish me off,” commented April. “I wouldn’t have been calm.”

John agreed. “I’m not big on rodents either. But here’s the thing... after a while, this starts working! And instead of squeezing the poor rodent or throwing toys, they actually mind you and do what you asked! That’s when you still GO GENTLY. You get up and give them a hug. You tell them ‘Thank You.’ You tell them what a great kid they are.”

John stopped for a minute and looked around. He realized he was explaining all this to a group of Moms, all of whom were older than he was.For a minute, he wanted to just run out of the room and go practice the tuba or something.

But John understood what Esther was doing for him and his daughter, and he had a little bit more to say.

“I tell you; I’ve seen this work with Zylvie. When she was two, she was something else to deal with. I thought she was headed straight for juvie jail, just “pass go,” skip elementary school, and go straight to the lock-up! But she’s starting to turn into that great kid we keep telling her about.It’s because my Mama believed in her. My Mama’s pretty great.”

John ran over and gave Esther a big hug!

He couldn’t say anything more just at that moment.