How I Survived the Terrible Threes (and you can too)

Like most of us breeders, I parent very imperfectly and make a lot of mistakes. But I've also had some successes and want to take a moment to acknowledge them. For instance: I've never forgotten to feed my children. I've never locked them out of the house or thrown them through a window. Every day, they get hugs and kisses and are told they are loved. They may not always (or ever) have matching socks, but most of the time they have CLEAN socks (thanks, in part, to the fact that I was smart enough to marry a man who does laundry.)

Aside from my wise choice of a partner, there's one thing in particular that stands out as my greatest parenting success story. It happened shortly after my son was born, when my daughter was just under three years old. I took a parenting class; not because I thought I needed it, but because a friend of mine was teaching it for free as part of her certification process. I respected this friend and thought it would be fun to learn something new, but my expectations were relatively low.

That class ended up changing my life.

It changed the way I thought about discipline and completely transformed my relationship with my daughter. It seemed to transform her personality, as well. Before the class, I was certain that I had a "difficult" child. I compared her behavior to other children her age and felt like she was more demanding than average, exceedingly stubborn and exceptionally strong willed. But after I started applying the principles from that class, it was like I had a completely different kid on my hands. I remember after she turned three, someone posting "Ten Signs You are Living With a Threenager"... and I seriously did not recognize a single complaint on that list.

It was not a temporary fix either, but quite permanent. Certainly she has her moments-- no child is perfect-- but now, as she is about to turn six, when I compare her behavior to other children her age, I can't help but notice that she is more resilient than average, exceedingly cooperative and exceptionally reasonable. I don't hear a lot of people referring to their kids as reasonable. But mine truly is.

"What is this magical, life-transforming class?" you might be wondering. Well... because I love you, I'm going to share the Cliff notes and explain exactly how it works.

It's called Echo Parenting and was developed around the principles of nonviolent communication. You know, like how Gandhi would talk to a person. The basic premise is that feelings and needs drive behavior. When a child's needs are met, they have positive feelings and the resulting behavior is the kind that we parents want to see. When needs are NOT met, there are negative feelings and the subsequent behavior is the kind that drives us bonkers. And so, to improve behavior, you must address the child's feelings and needs.

Simple, right?

It's simple to understand, but not so simple to execute on a regular basis. Most of us were not raised this way and might have a hard time accepting the fact that our children's needs (and in fact, our OWN needs) are valid. We may be lacking in emotionally literacy and have a hard time identifying feelings in ourselves and others. I mean, there are more than a few...

Even for the emotionally literate, it can be hard to tell the difference between a need and a want. Meeting our children's needs to the best of our abilities is crucial, while catering to their every want would be disastrous. And often times, there is a legitimate need buried beneath an obnoxious and whiney want. For example: your child is screaming because they want the blue cup and not the red cup. You know that having the blue cup is not a need. But having choices and exerting independence ARE needs. In fact, a lack of choices and independence is probably the REAL cause of the screaming in this scenario. It can take some creative thinking to come up with a way of meeting needs while managing wants.

Sometimes you simply cannot meet a child's immediate needs. Then what? Then, there's this handy little acronym: OFNEEDS. It stands for Observe, Feelings, Needs, Engage, Empathize, Develop Solutions.

Before I had this strategy, getting my daughter to leave the park was a nightmare. I would tell her it was time to go, and she would refuse. I would re-state my demand, and she would dig in her heels. I would try reasoning with her and of course that was a total failure. I would try bribing and threatening her, but she would ignore me. Finally, at the end of my rope, I would resort to dragging her, literally kicking and screaming, all the way to the car. Then, while she hollered like a banshee, I would wrestle her into the car seat, hoping onlookers wouldn't think they were witnessing a kidnapping and call 911. Although if they had, I would have happily handed her over to the authorities. It was just so horrible-- emotionally painful for me and physically painful for her. After several episodes like this, I vowed never to go to the playground again.

But we did go again, after I took the class. And here's how it played out with OFNEEDS:

Me: "It's time to go home."

Her: "NO!"

Me: (Observing): (I sit down next to her and look intently at what she is doing.) "I see that you're having fun digging in the sand. It looks like you're making a big hole and using both your hands. I noticed that when I said it's time to go home, you yelled "NO!" and kept digging.

Her: (keeps digging.)

Me: (identifying Feelings): "I wonder if you're feeling sad that we have to go home? Are you feeling mad that you have to stop playing?"

Her: "Yeah."

Me: (identifying Needs): "You love to play and explore. Play is so important; it's how you learn." (Engaging and Empathizing): (I look her in the eye and reflect on a time when there was something that felt ESSENTIAL to my personal wellbeing and someone was trying to take it away from me.) "I bet you wish I would say that we can stay at the park and play all day long."

Her: "Yeah."

Me: (Developing Solutions): "You want to keep playing. And it's time to go home so we can eat dinner. It's important to eat dinner so we can be strong and healthy. I wonder what we could do about this problem? Do you have any ideas?"

Her: "Five more minutes."

Me: "Okay. How about I set the timer for five more minutes. And once the timer goes off, what's going to happen?"

Her: "We go home."

Me: "Okay, sounds good."

I set the timer. I had no idea if she would keep her word. Would she try to exploit my compromise and ask for another five minutes once the timer sounded? She didn't. The alarm went off and she cheerfully hopped up, walked to the car and got into her car seat.

A cannot tell you what a miracle this felt like.

For the next couple of months, we followed the same routine every time we left the park. Sometimes, I would mess up the empathy part, speaking empty words instead of truly feeling for her, and my clever girl would pick up on it and give me some push back. Other times, I wouldn't say anything at all during that step and instead employed what I called "silent empathy"-- just sitting with her, imagining what she was thinking and feeling. She was VERY responsive to this. Eventually, we stopped needing to go through the whole routine and she would just cooperate when I said it was time to leave, with a few exceptions here and there.

Empathy. Who knew it could be like a super power? We went through a similar sequence for other challenging situations. When faced with undesirable behavior, I would try to figure out the underlying need and if I could, meet it. If I couldn't, I would empathize and develop solutions.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that although I've tried to use the same principles with my son, so far, I haven't gotten quite the same results. He recently turned three, so it remains to be seen whether or not I'll get off totally scot-free from Threenagerdom. Every child is different, and the point, anyway, is not to create perfectly obedient children, but rather to create emotionally healthy children. So how well this technique "works" cannot be defined solely by the levels of cooperation it elicits.

But man, the level of cooperation it brought out in my daughter, I will be forever grateful for. Empathy can be that missing element, allowing everything else to fall into place, enabling our children to become the best versions of themselves.

Those empathic moments are the parenting moments I'm most proud of. With one kid at least, it made the threes practically a breeze.

Check out Echo Parenting and Dahlia Greenbaum to learn more or to sign up for a class.